Life Swap Read Free Page A

to come on and be a talking head when the issue of the day was anything vaguely concerning women. The same age as Vicky, Jackie had got married two years previously and had created a bohemian love nest in Islington. No children as yet. Jan had been Vicky’s first features editor. Adecade older than Vicky, she had married young, had two children, then got divorced and rediscovered her career. She now lived with Mike, an editor on The Times.
    Georgia was the only one left who was still in the same boat as Vicky, but Georgia didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, which Vicky never quite understood. Like Vicky she too had a couple of lovers she could call up when necessary, but unlike Vicky she didn’t crave more than the odd night of intimacy.
    Georgia never let her ‘friends’ stay the night. ‘Are you crazy?’ she once said to Vicky, who always insisted Daniel sleep over. ‘I want to stretch out and sleep diagonally on my bed if I feel like it. Plus I’m a horror first thing in the morning and I don’t want to see anyone, never mind let anyone see me.’
    ‘But don’t you miss the cuddling?’ Vicky said.
    ‘Are you kidding? I can’t bear anyone to touch me when I’m sleeping.’ Georgia shuddered. ‘Frankly as soon as they’ve done the dirty deed they can leave.’
    Vicky laughed. ‘I’ll never understand you,’ she said. ‘You make it all sound so clinical.’
    And Georgia shrugged. ‘I guess it is but that suits me. No point confusing sex with anything else. And really, at the end of the day, that’s all it’s about – sex. No strings attached. That’s your problem with that Daniel. You think it’s just about sex but how can it be when you want him to stay the night and wrap you up in those big manly strong arms of his?’
    ‘Oh shut up,’ Vicky said. But she had a point.
    *
    Ah, Daniel. Wouldn’t he be the perfect guest to this dinner party tonight? The dinner party held by Deborah, the final member of the core group who had not only dropped out first but had dropped out quicker and more absolutely than any of the others had dared.
    Deborah and Dick. And their three gorgeous towheaded children. Deborah who had left her staff job on the Daily Mail when her second child came along, and now did the odd freelance job working from home. Deborah who was never happier than when standing outside the school gates of her eldest son’s exclusive Hampstead prep school, chatting to the other mothers about what exactly they would do to solve this bullying problem everyone was talking about.
    Tonight was Deborah’s attempt to blend some of her new friends with some of her old. The friends from school were Lisa and Christopher, Chris and Vanessa – old friends of Dick’s, Jackie and Pete, and Vicky plus one. She did think about trying to find an appropriate single man for Vicky, but really, who has the time?
    As for Vicky, the only reason she had accepted was because Jackie was going, and she never gets to see her socially these days, but why, oh why hadn’t she remembered she was supposed to bring a date?
    Single men are not an easy thing to find when you’re thirty-five years old and you’ve got precisely one hour to catch the tube home, jump into the shower, make yourself presentable then turn up to a dinner party with a gift under one arm, trying not to look utterly frazzled.
    But Daniel would be perfect. Hurrying to the Tube Vicky calls him on her mobile.
    ‘Lo?’
    ‘Daniel? It’s Vicky.’
    ‘Hey, Vicky! How are you?’
    ‘I’m great, Daniel, but listen, I know this is short notice but I’ve got to go to this dinner party tonight and I’ve only just found out I was supposed to bring a date. Please, please tell me you’re free.’
    There’s a pause. ‘Oh Vix, I wish I’d known earlier, but I can’t. I’ve got a dinner myself.’
    ‘Oh please get out of it. Can’t you?’ Vicky lowers her voice seductively. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’
    ‘Vix, I really couldn’t, but