Unsuitable Men by Pippa Wright Page B

– carefully, gently, behind the scenes, without causing
offence. Just because I didn’t get involved in stand-up rows, or insist on doing things my way, it didn’t mean I was a pushover.
    ‘Who’s the photographer?’ she asked, flicking her hair over to one side.
    ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ I asked.
    ‘Who. Is. It?’ said Ticky, a mysterious smile playing on her lips.
    ‘No one we know – some random relative of the duchess.’
    ‘Male or female?’
    ‘Male. What are you getting at?’
    ‘Name?’
    ‘Lance Garcia,’ I said.
    ‘Lance?’
    ‘He’s from San Francisco.’
    Ticky smirked, and flicked her hair once more.
    ‘Roars, oh my Goouurd, unsuitable man alert!’
    ‘What?’ I said. ‘Lance Garcia? This isn’t a date, Ticky, it’s a Monday night in Derbyshire doing a feature.’
    ‘Umm, news flash, Roars. V Day?’
    ‘V Day?’ I echoed.
    ‘Yah, Monday’s Valentine’s Day, Roars, had you really not noticed?’ Ticky shrieked with laughter. ‘And you’re going to be stuck in a romantic country hotel
with a totally, brilliantly unsuitably gay man. It’s too good. I couldn’t make it up. Oh Goouurd, it’s priceless.’
    ‘Wait a second,’ I said. ‘How do you know he’s gay? Do you know him?’
    ‘I don’t know him, Roars,’ Ticky sniggered, ‘but he’s a photographer, he’s from San Francisco and his name is Lance . Sahhriously. Even you should have been able to work that one out.’
    Should I? Why was it that, the moment I split up with Martin, it seemed like the world was operating in a way that everyone understood but me?

6
    Although I supposedly now lived in one of London’s greener areas, it was never more obvious than on leaving the city for the real countryside that Clapham Common was
little more than a glorified urban roundabout. The Common’s muddy, trodden-down expanses of brown grass, dotted with dog mess and greasy fried-chicken containers, were still barren and
wintry, but the windows looking out of the train to Derbyshire showed the first signs of spring. A few stubborn streaks of snow were visible on the tops of the distant hills, but the fields on
either side of the track looked fresh and new in the weak morning sunlight. Tree branches, still bare against the sky, were softened and greened by the buds of new leaves; bright yellow daffodils
shone out from the hedgerows. As the train made its way north, early lambs could be seen in the fields, huddled next to their mothers. I spent far too long staring out of the window daydreaming,
and thinking about last spring when Martin and I had been preparing to move into our new home. It felt like it had been a long, long winter.
    Martha had extravagantly booked herself a seat in first class, and the carriage was almost empty this early in the morning, except for a couple of businessmen tucking into their full English
breakfasts. The restful journey made me even less inclined to get to work, but after I changed trains at Stockport I ordered a cup of Earl Grey to try to wake myself up, and pulled Martha’s
dossier out of my bag.
    Not for our features editor the clinical efficiency of a PowerPoint presentation. It looked as if she had scooped the contents of her recycling bin into a manila envelope: the dossier bulged
with cuttings, Post-it notes and torn-out notebook pages. On top of the bundle of papers, held together by a straining red rubber band, was a memo in which Martha provided a full list of questions
for me to ask, stressed various points of history that I should touch on in the feature, instructed me in how to address a duke and duchess (including her recommendation that one should curtsey,
but she would leave this to my discretion) and, highlighted in bold, the hot tip (as Martha saw it) that the duchess, the former Bibi Wishart of Marin County, California, had been in her previous
life a textile designer, which necessitated as many gushing comments as possible on all fabrics within