Three a.m., Saturday. Phone rings. Jules withthe broken heart. I did say any time. But why is it always 3 a.m.? I have to be nice to her. She has a beach house.
And she’s off . ‘I’ve spent three days crying like a kitten and screaming like I’m being stabbed. My heart hurts, my head refuses to deal withreality. I miss him. (Loud sobbing between drags on a cigarette and doing shots.) Aren’t I pretty?’
I administered the obligatory you’re too good for him, you’ve got a great personality, it’s not you it’s him, it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, finishing with, ‘If you love something set it free. If it comes back it’s yours, if it doesn’t …’ Jules butted in: ‘Get a gun and kill it.’ Then her voice changed and she got all bunny-boiler. ‘That’s it. I’m going over to his place.’
‘Don’t. The guy’s a rake. He’s probably shagging your sister. It’s like a snakebite. It’s got to work its way through. Alcohol, masturbation and “I Will Survive.” Repeat until you fall asleep. If pain persists, take two Mills and Boon and call me in the morning.’
‘Mills and Boon? Have you ever read one?’
Good point, Jules. Here was I giving love advice without ever having read a Mills and Boon. So I read four. Ruthless Billionaire, Forbidden Baby; Between the Italian’s Sheets; From Friend to Father; and The Playboy Doctor’s Surprise Proposal.
(I used the same technique for selecting the novels as I use for choosing horses in the Melbourne Cup. The science of pretty names.)
After inhaling four romance novels I felt as if I were going to vomit. I’m not sure if it was the sickly, fairytale enema of women only feeling whole after finding that special, misunderstood man who just needed the right woman, or the two packets of Mint Slices it took to get through. ‘It’s OK, Catherine, ten more pages and you can have another biscuit.’
Between the Italian’s Sheets began withthe words ‘Arrogance personified.’ Luca was an Italian millionaire withlooks like Hugh Jackman. His childhood sweetheart died two weeks after they married and he had been afraid to love ever since. Emily had pansy-violet eyes, stormy black hair and was sweet with anunexpected raunchy side. Her mother was killed in a car accident and her father died of a broken heart a year later. She and her (much better-looking) sister had grown up poor and had saved for a dream trip to Italy.
After a chance meeting, followed by opera, romance and a picnic, his height making her feel protected and her ability to love melting his heart, Luca and Emily did the pink thing.
‘Then she felt him. Hard and thick, probing in her wetness. Witha whoosh, the fire inside raged back. Rough moan, arched back, raw bliss.’ One sentence included the words ‘pant,’ ‘squirm’ and ‘quiver.’ Emily ‘drank in the sight of his chest’ and, according to Luca, Emily ‘tasted like sunshine.’ They lived happily ever after. The End.
I was hoping for an ‘it’s so bad, it’s good’ experience. But it was sad and depressing that anyone needs fairytales withshagging as escape hatches when what they really need is escape from unrealistic expectations and passionless relationships. And from thinking a man is the answer to their happiness. Romance novels are the emotional equivalent of Mars Bars.
Like it or not, they’re onto something. I read that every six seconds, someone in the world buys a Mills and Boon novel, and the company celebrated their centenary last year. One hundred years of women withhair the colour of honey and skin like alabaster yearning for love and finding it in the arms of dashing square-jawed pilots, wealthy swarthy sheikhs withchocolate-brown eyes and doctors withrippling abs and hearts of gold who have a secret. And 100 years of woman having a tantrum withreality and self-medicating withcliché, purple prose and Fabio.
No longer does one romance size fit all. Oh no, women have got all picky! Mills and Boon now has genres: Romance (pashing plus sighing); Desire (pashing withmoaning); Modern Romance (pashing Greek billionaires on yachts while texting and moaning); Medical (nurses pashing doctors – sorry, I mean gentleman doctors pashing lady nurses); Blaze (pashing plus sex); Intrigue (pashing Inspector Gadget); and Historical (pashing in the old days). The description of this genre from the website is too funny not to include: ‘Dramatic in scope, enjoy tales from chivalrous knights, roguish cads and rugged cattlemen to impetuous heiresses, unconventional ladies and defiant bluestockings.’
But it hasn’t been all candlelit dinners, nights in front of the fire and damsels in distress being saved by knights on white horses. In 1970 Violet Winspear, one of Mills and Boon’s most popular writers, caused a furore when she declared that her male characters ‘must be the sort of men who are capable of rape.’ A comment made even more unsettling when you discover she was a spinster who lived withher mother and a cat.
Unlike messy real life, every Mills and Boon finishes withHappily Ever After. Guaranteed. While woman escape from whatever trap they are in by curling up withThe Brooding Frenchman’s Proposal, Lord Braybrook’s Penniless Bride or A Night with a Cowboy, their husbands are getting their happy endings from internet sites withnames like Yank My Crank, Hot Asian Beaver and Blind Date Bangers. Ain’t love grand?