Bachelor Boys Read Free

at the crack of dawn. I was a little hurt that he had not thought of this while congratulating himself over the tickets. When would we have sex again? Never, at this rate.
    â€œHe’s got tickets for The Flying Dutchman tomorrow,” I told Betsy, testing the sound of it.
    â€œHmmm. That’s nice.” Betsy guessed how I felt, but was too kind to challenge me.
    â€œIt’s had stunning reviews—Annabel’s been, and she said it was mind-blowing.”
    â€œWonderful,” Betsy said, exuding benevolent skepticism.
    I was talking myself into the right frame of mind. “I’m so lucky to have a man who actually likes going out and seeing something worthwhile. I can’t stand too many evenings in.”
    â€œAll the same,” Betsy said, “it wouldn’t do young Matthew any harm to slow down a bit. Is this his idea of fun, or is he trying to prove something?”
    â€œSome people actually enjoy opera, Betsy, strange as it may seem.”
    â€œBut how do you know he’s enjoying himself? I mean, a night at the opera isn’t exactly letting your hair down.”
    â€œHe says it relaxes him,” I said.
    â€œFunny notion of relaxation. He’ll never unwind properly until he stops thinking about work all the time.”
    It was never any use trying to make Betsy understand the inner workings of the ambitious male. “He can’t stop thinking about work till he’s a partner.”
    Betsy drained the last of her soup and began a new row of knitting. “Has he said any more about getting engaged?”
    No. He had not. I was not going to admit this to Betsy, when I could hardly admit it to myself. “We talk about it from time to time,” I said. “The time’s not right at the moment. We both have too much to do first.”
    She looked at me solemnly over her glasses. “You know, by the time I was your age, I’d been married for six years and I had three children.”

    â€œYes, I know. But a little thing called feminism came along, just in time to save women like me from the same ghastly fate.”
    â€œCassie, one of the few advantages of being an old bag is that you know what’s really important. I don’t like to see you throwing so much of your energy into your career. What’s the point of being the most successful person in the world if you don’t have a life outside the office?”
    She didn’t expect an answer to this question, but it hung in the air like the aftertaste of cheese. The embarrassing fact was that I longed, longed, longed to marry Matthew. Somewhere inside this single-minded career woman there apparently lurked a frilly creature with no ambition beyond being loved. When my work became too stressful, I often escaped into a furtive little fantasy about jacking it all in, moving to a leafy suburb and raising a family.
    Â 
    I didn’t feel I’d ever had a real family of my own. My childhood had left me with a permanent ache of outrage. On paper, I was fortunate. My parents were both psychiatrists (my father wrote fashionable books, my mother had a reputation for treating the criminally insane) and we lived in a handsome Georgian house in Hampstead.
    But it was a house without warmth. My parents—mainly my father, I think—liked white walls and blond wood, and modernist sculptures that bristled with barbed wire. Nothing in the place acknowledged the existence of a child. My tasteful educational toys were confined to my bare and drafty playroom. My parents worked all hours: my father in a rented office and my mother in her locked wards. The business of bringing me up was left to a series of foreign au pairs.
    My parents were chilly people. I have no memory of caresses or playfulness. I was trained to keep quiet and not bump into the expensive, scary furniture. My father is a dry, unexpressive, critical man. My mother was, at that time, silent and impossibly distant. I grew