Where Have All the Boys Gone?(2)

“They go up and down,” said Louise, stirring in three sugars whilst Olivia gave her a disapproving look.

“The way they work is, in Soho, other men have a hole shaped like the lever,” said Olivia. “The two bits fit together.”

Katie took her horrid tea and went back to the sitting-room area of the room.

“Ahh,” she said. “Will we ever get to meet one of these remarkable specimens?”

Louise looked guilty.

“Uh, maybe not this one,” she said.

IN SQUARE ROOT, Terence—that was his name—was explaining how he’d dicked someone over at work in revenge for beating him on a deal. This was the date Katie had been looking forward to for weeks. She’d come to view it as the end of an intolerable dry spell, the way a prisoner views their parole date.

She took another sip of wine, feeling groggy. One shouldn’t really place such high expectations on things. Why was Terence wearing a Burberry cap that also said Von Dutch on the front? And what was underneath it?

“Fing is,” said Terence conclusively, “I’m all for equal opportunities, and I don’t care if it was a bird—she still had it coming to her.”

THEN, ON TUESDAY morning, she’d run into Olivia on the Tube. It was an unseasonably hot day for early in the year, and everyone in the rush hour was miserable in woollies and heavy jackets. Katie was a master of the Tube; avoiding eye contact, walking past buskers and unfolding her Metro with a hearty flourish. She may not like London all the time, she often pondered, but by God, she belonged.

Olivia was Katie’s boss and, behind the scenes, secret friend. It was a bit like having an office romance, with the result that at work she was a lot harder on Katie than she would have been otherwise. At least, that was Katie’s hypothesis.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” said Katie, swinging off the filthy Tube holds and wondering as usual if anyone ever washed them. They were squeezed together in a carriage full of women, jolting their way into Soho where they worked. “But I did see him. He was even worse than he sounded.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “How could he not be? She practically dug a tunnel to get him out of there. Bald fat midget?”

“Fat beardy twat face.”

Katie shook her head. Poor old Louise had never been the same since Max left.

“Well, we were watching EastEnders. A world where people fancy Shane Ritchie is obviously a place where things have gone very very wrong for women.”

They looked around the carriage. The scent of perfume was strong in the air. An elegant woman—one of those types that can pull off casually draped scarves—was skilfully applying lipstick despite the motion of the rickety old train. Three others stood buried in women’s magazines and copies of Metro; a couple were hidden behind novels. On the seats were three men buried in newspapers, ferociously showing how post-feminist they were by not giving up their seats. A mixed group of backpackers stood at the end, but they existed in the parallel universe of travelers; Kiwis and Australians and South Africans and Poles and cheap nights in special bars and internet cafés and their own magazines. But the vast majority of the carriage was female. Dozens of them. Katie squinted. Had it always been like this? Was she only just noticing?

Olivia was rudely reading someone’s paper over their shoulder. She nudged Katie suddenly.

“Look at that.”

“No! It’s rude!”

The woman whose paper it was turned around and Katie got a dirty look. She felt hard done by and narrowed her eyes back. Had she been this aggressive before she moved to London?

“Look,” whispered Olivia this time, scarcely quieter.

Katie didn’t get it, the paper was full of its usual rubbish. Olivia was trying to indicate a corner with her eyes, like someone in a coma. Eventually, with lots of grumpy snuffling from the woman to indicate that, though not the type to instigate physical violence, she certainly did not approve of the practice of newspaper stealing, even a free newspaper, and if she could move in the packed sardine tin she would, thank you, Katie saw it.

“Final census results for London” said the headline. “According to the 2001 census, women outnumber men in the capital by 180,000.”

Olivia was wiggling her eyebrows madly. “See?”

“See what?”

“What the papers are saying is true.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what do we say every time we walk into a bar?”

“It smells bad in here?”

“No.”

“We’re getting too old for this?”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “OK, besides that.”

“Where have all the men gone?”

“Bingo.”

“Well, that—” the woman holding the paper was no longer sniffing, but listening to them intently “—that’s our proof. We’re the L.O.S.T. generation of women.”

“The what?”

“London-On our Own-Single-Twentysomethings.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Olivia.

“It’s bad! It’s bad! It says so in the paper.”

“Stop worrying about it! What kind of a feminist are you?”

“One that wants the right to decide if I want a bloke or not.”

“OK,” said Olivia. “And . . . do you?”