Free Chasing Men by Edwina Currie

willing to let a man walk all over her … Hetty sighed. That was hardly a recipe for a contented life. Was she about to admit that her daughter was not a great success emotionally? Was that Hetty’s fault too?
    The doorbell rang to interrupt her reverie. Hetty leaped to switch on the oven and tore off her apron. In the kitchen, like the sprite of the hearth, Doris hovered with a proprietorial air. The turban had been discarded, revealing dangling earrings and a fussy perm, which did little for her appearance, but she had donned a flowered frock, cheerful and brassy.
    ‘Hey! Happy house-warming! Mwah, mwah!’
    Three girls and five men bounced noisily across the threshold, four carrying bottles of wine and one, Christian, a bouquet of flowers, which he thrust into her hands. ‘May you have good fortune in your new home, Hetty.’ He smiled down at her, with the slow bob of the Adam’s apple that made her gulp. Then he busied himself arranging the blooms artistically inthe other gift they had brought, a Finnish blue vase.
    Annabel was still in black, garments too tight for her embonpoint . She resembled an overstuffed sausage, the type that hangs in glistening rolls in French delicatessens. Wholesome and worth eating, but a trifle overpowering. She loomed over Hetty; she must be five feet ten and over fifteen stone.
    Annabel gave her rescuer a bear-hug. ‘Thank you for saving my life! God, was I a pig. Sorry you found me like that. Next time I’ll puke on my own doorstep. Where’s the bottle-opener?’ And she was gone.
    ‘Hi. I’m Shelagh. That’s Flo. Thanks for asking us. Have you got any music? We can bring over some CDs to dance to, if you’d like.’ Shelagh had a mass of extraordinary flame-coloured hair that was confirmed by her pale skin and freckles to be entirely natural. Even in the dimmed light her eyes were a bewitching green. She spoke in a high lilt.
    ‘Maybe later,’ murmured Hetty. Dancing? That was not quite what she had had in mind. ‘Who are the boys?’
    ‘Oh, yes.’ Shelagh did not seem troubled by the lack of introductions. She pointed at the young men who were now casually opening bottles and pouring drinks. ‘Making themselves useful. Richard you’ve met – he was the one Annabel was breaking her heart over, but he’s after Flo.’ Shelagh grinned. ‘For the moment. But I’m working on him. I’ve told him he doesn’t need to kiss the Blarney Stone, but he should see the Wicklow mountains. He says he may come in the summer.’
    ‘You mean, you’re all in love with him? With the same chap?’ Hetty’s eyes rounded.
    ‘Not exactly in lurve ,’ Shelagh drawled scornfully. ‘Annabel’s the one who’s in love with him. It’s a gross turnoff for a fellow like Richard. Commitment isn’t his scene.’
    ‘Isn’t he in love with Flo?’
    ‘Not him. He’s only ever been in love with one person.’
    ‘Who’s that?’
    ‘Richard? Himself, of course.’
    Two glasses of wine were thrust into their hands. Before she could speak to the young man who had produced them, he had vanished back into the throng. The other two remained anonymous.
    ‘So why – forgive me being nosy – are you all three so besotted with Richard?’
    ‘Oh, but he’s a catch, isn’t he? And fabuloso in bed. Or so I’ve been told.
    On the other hand, you’d want to check that out for yourself, wouldn’t you?’
    The doorbell went twice; the nearest person answered it. A timid couple, one of whom Hetty recognised as Mrs McDonald, tiptoed in, jostled from behind by a portly gentleman with a moustache booming greetings, who was completely unfamiliar. Behind him, however, were Hetty’s mother and Sally.
    ‘Darling!’ Peggy was being helped out of her coat by the moustachioed gent. ‘I’ve brought the Colonel. You do remember him, don’t you, darling? He and your father were adjutants together in Egypt.’
    Hetty politely composed her face, but could not recall having seen the mottled jowls and