A Personal Note from Freya
This novel took me back to my roots in Art History – I worked for a while as an archivist at the National Arts Collection Fund and I based the little room in which Fen hides away on the one I used. She has to choose between two very different men – bizarrely, she ends up with the one I wouldn’t have chosen. But that’s characters for you – the author ultimately has little control. During this time, I fell pregnant with my first child. My hormones were all over the place. My four previous novels had all been pretty raunchy but Fen was (initially) OUTRAGEOUS. For the first time, my editor put thick red lines through many paragraphs and scribbled in the margins such gems as: “Yuck!” or “Tone it down, woman!” Fen had a change of cover design – and the model was none other than Sienna Miller.
What happened next to Fen
Fen and Matt live in East Finchley now, staunchly unmarried but the picture of domesticity none-the-less. Matt is still editing Art Matters and Fen had been very happy working on the Holden collection until a stomach bug that wouldn’t abate was swiftly diagnosed by the doctor as pregnancy. Matt and Jake are still pals though their lives are increasingly divergent; they meet up occasionally and each privately considers how glad they are not to be the other. To Matt, Jake’s commitment to living the life of a cad sounds too much like hard work. To Jake, Matt’s new life of nappies and mortgages seems a little thankless. Abi and Gemma continue to live together, sharing a bed on some occasions and lovers on others. James Caulfield moved from Derbyshire a couple of years ago. He’s gone to Italy where he has olive trees and orange groves and a new dog, Ragu who, it seems, has taught Barry and Beryl to bark in Italian. He sends postcards occasionally to Fen and Matt and they write back. He was touched that their daughter was named Cosima. Fen knew he would be. But of course, she won’t be telling Matt why.