It’s Most Exciting to Have a Romantically Poisoned Friend.

Frances was most dreadfully popular. She always had been. Even as a young child the other children had vied for her affection. They’d offered her the best of their packed lunches, first slice of whatever cake was on the go and always allowed her the much-coveted front seat of the school bus; the only seat which -on account of its proximity to the driver- was not covered in lumps of previously chewed gum. Despite the fact that she couldn’t run the length of herself, Frances was routinely picked first for netball. She was also picked first for hockey and, on those rare occasions when girls were permitted to join the boy’s daily lunchtime fixture, football. Though she enjoyed the attention, Frances was a reluctant participant in team sports and made no particular effort to chase the ball when chasing was required or arrest the ball’s frantic advances when her team were on the back foot.

Frances was easily the most popular girl in the junior school. She moved about the playground surrounded by a harem of other less popular girls who dolled out boiled sweets as if they were compliments and compliments like they might have been boiled sweets. These girls were almost all named Susan for Frances had a great ability to attract girls named Susan, which is to say, girls who were solid and plain and a little bookish. If, as a child, you’d quizzed Frances about her popularity, she’d undoubtedly have shrugged your question off. Frances was not aware of her own good fortune. She sat easily in her own skin and assumed everyone else to be equally at ease in theirs. Frances was equally popular during her seven years at the local grammar and, needless to say, became the life and soul of the university’s social scene. During this period Frances did not seek out friends. Friends sought out Frances. She then decided whether they were worthy of her interest. Those deemed too dull to bother with, she simply ignored. By the time she’d graduated Frances had progressed from Susans, through Jennifers and a short season of Mallories, to befriend boys and boys only, most of whom were named Lord this or Lord that for Frances had grown rather fond of money and the opportunities which it afforded.

Frances could not tell the difference between any of her friends. It was enough to know that they were flush and handsome and possessed of enviable characteristics such as racing green Bentleys and summer homes at the coast. As with her girl friends, she did not set out to attract these young men, they were drawn to her like shipwrecked sailors or honey-crazed bees. Frances was almost twenty three years old before she met a single soul to whom she was herself drawn. As luck would have it, the only person to whom Frances ever found herself attracted was not capable of returning her affections for he was in a comatose state, the victim of a botched murder attempt involving eight grains of morphine and a bottle of locally brewed stout.

His name was Arthur. He was the son of a second generation butcher and destined to go in to butchery himself. He had been murdered, or rather almost murdered, by mistake, bearing as he did, a marked resemblance to a small time drug dealer of some disrepute. This had not put Frances off. She was dreadfully taken with the idea of Arthur. She’d never known anyone who’d been poisoned before and thought the whole scenario, hopelessly romantic. Arthur’s case had been featured on the evening news, sandwiched between a segment on rising interest rates and a feature on the London zoo keeper in charge of two newborn pandas. The second Frances heard Arthur’s story and saw his handsome face profiled against the white, hospital pillow, she’d determined to make him her dear and closest friend.

Frances was not accustomed to being denied anything which she’d set her heart upon. For months, she plagued Arthur with attention, spending hours at his bedside reading excerpts from Wordsworth, Keats and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which was less earnest but far superior in Frances’ opinion. She brought Arthur grapes, Lucozade and every back issue of Butcher Magazine she could get her hands on. Still, he would not return her affections. He would not speak to her or even acknowledge her presence. Frances persisted with flowers, Toblerone and the offer of two weeks in the Maldives if Arthur would only agree to be her friend. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. By this stage he’d been non-responsive and breathing through a ventilator for the better part of a month. Frances, blinkered by her own self-confidence, assumed Arthur was simply playing hard to get. She continued to bombard him with affection, attention and increasingly expensive gifts. And if she occasionally stopped to wonder whether this was how one made friends, her mind would drift back to the schoolyard and she’d recall all the limp-haired Susan’s who’d pursued her with pencil sharpeners and cola cubes. Then, with characteristic confidence, Frances would tell herself she was absolutely nailing this whole friendship thing. 

 Inspired by Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans

Posted in East Belfast on 18th March 2020