My Fake Wedding (Red Dress Ink (Numbered Paperback))

by Mina Ford

  MINA FORD

  studied languages and spent a year living in France, before working for a French media company in London. After several years of tube rage, she decided to escape to the relative peace and quiet of Bath, where she wrote her first novel, My Fake Wedding.

  My Fake Wedding

  MINA FORD

  For my parents

  I would like to thank, in no particular order, my friends and family for their faith in me during the writing of this book: Mum, Dad, Ginny, Reuben, Faith, Rob, Nick, Pat, Basha. Also my editor, Marion Donaldson, at Headline. And last, but by no means least, my brilliant agent and very good friend, Judith Murray, without whom this book would certainly not have seen the light of day.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  ‘I’m getting married.’

  ‘What?’

  Chins bounce off the parquet as my best friends digest my latest announcement. To be perfectly honest, I’m even a bit gobsmacked myself.

  Six months ago, I vowed I’d eat my own hair and choke on a fur ball before I sold out. I’d chew toenail clippings before I bought the big marshmallow frock, squodged my great pork chop feet into a pair of foolish kitten heels and let some pig dog man in a ridiculous brocade jerkin drag me, kicking and screaming, to the altar. Now look at me. Katie Simpson, self-confessed singleton, about to renounce my precious independence and become Mrs…

  Buggeration.

  Mrs what, exactly?

  As it strikes me that, in all the dizzy excitement of the past couple of days, it’s never even occurred to me to ask what the buggery bollocks his surname is, I tell myself it really doesn’t matter in the slightest. It could be Pratt or Shufflebottom for all I care. It could be Clutterbuck or Blenkinsop and I really wouldn’t give a flying fuck through a rolling doughnut.

  It’s not as though I intend actually using it, for Christ’s sake.

  At least, not for very long anyway.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself…

  Chapter 1

  New Year’s Day. Four months, three weeks and two days after I walked into Jake Carpenter’s bathroom to find Fishpants Fraser, the Balham Bike, strapped spread-eagled to the heated towel rail, cheap cerise g-string hooked over one foot and Jake’s moony white bum hammering away like a roadbreaker between her duotanned thighs, I flump onto my squashy caramel suede sofa. Peeling a crust of chipped lime green glitter polish off my big toenail, I glance through the personal ad I scribbled on the back of a fag packet last night, while heavily under the influence of a bag of custard doughnuts and a bottle of cheap vodka.

  ‘Gawky ginger spinster, with lard addiction and weird gay man obsession seeks non-ginger, sport-hating, gay-looking straight male for meaningful relationship. Manic channel flickers, compulsive PlayStation addicts, mother fetishists and those with big boffin hair need not apply.’

  I take a giant slurp of banana milkshake, hoick up my sloppy tartan jimjams to hack at an ingrowing hair on my shin and scan my ad one more time. Then I scrumple it up into a ball, cheerfully chuck it straight at the waste bin.

  And firmly resolve to stay single.

  It’s one-night stands all the way from now on.

  That bit about me being a Ginge isn’t totally accurate. I’ve recently gone Nectarine. That’s what it said on the packet, anyway, although having seen the results, I think Neon Satsuma might be more appropriate.

  The part about me looking for a man isn’t strictly true either. I might be single, but I’m not one of those mimsy whingers you see forever cluttering up the bars in Dean Street, flicking their hair about and blubbing into their Chardonnay because they’ve got fat bums and no bloke.

  Not me.

  I’m not saying I’m perfect. Sometimes, I can be a right cow. I’ve been known to do wees on people’s toothbrushes when they annoy me. I’m morbidly fascinated by news of terrible tragedies in the papers. Quite often, I don’t wash up for a week. Oh, I have my faults all right.

  And crap taste in men is fairly high up on the list.

  I am one tragic cow when it comes to choosing a partner. For a start, I was born with a wonky Gaydar. I’m a serial fancier of gay men. Show me a rampant homosexual male and I’ll try and get off with him. My judgement is famously bad. According to my personal Love File, I’ve met ‘Mr Right’ no less than three times. Oh, the first one reeled me in gently all right. Paid for everything, cooked me sumptous three-course dinners, bought me trinkets when I was depressed and was completely unselfish in bed.

  Or so I thought.

  It was when I opened my twenty-fourth birthday present that I discovered what he was really after. Tearing off the glittery pink paper in excitement, I was utterly gobsmacked to find myself gawping at a studded dog collar with matching lead. And then he hit me with it. Told me he’d always found sex with me a bit tame. Apparently, I could do so much more for his libido if I could only see my way clear to going down on all fours and barking like a dog once in a while.

  It was all I could do to manage a feeble ‘Woof’ before bursting into tears, grabbing my coat and getting the hell out of there.

  I fell in love with Mr Right The Second for a very simple reason. He ate fast. Which made me look positively dainty in restaurants. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before all the chomping and slurping got to me and I started to hanker after a rather more sophisticated line in dinner party conversation.

  Then along came Jake. And I only went and fell for him. Hook, line and crotchless knickers.

  I’ve reeled, dazed with shock, from every relationship I’ve had the misfortune to totter into. Since I hit puberty, the needle of my Bullshit Barometer has wavered permanently on ‘Dangerously High’. I’ve taken so much crap I’m a prime candidate for Toxic Shock.

  After the Fishpants fiasco, I was a walking bloody sewage farm.

  I reckon it’s high time I settled for life in the single groove. OK, so it’s not particularly groovy right now, but things change, don’t they? At least I’m big enough to admit that in the race for romance, I’m a non-runner. On my personal Valentine menu, Bloke is Off.

  I’ve done relationships and I prefer cake. Look at all the misery Jake caused me. And he wasn’t even on a par with Happy Shopper Arctic Roll. Oh no. My mind’s made up. Absolutely the only men I’m having any truck with in future are Ronald McDonald, Mr Kipling and Nick O’Teen.

  You know where you are with them.

  And, while we’re on that subject, just so you know where I stand food-wise, I’ll tell you that I don’t do dieting. I do pork pie sandwiches and black pudding fried in lard instead. I’ll jam down anything, apart from Liquorice Allsorts and the horrid jellery bits you get in fried eggs that look like snot. I gave up calorie counting two years ago, when I was breaking up with Tom. Tom was a poet who worked in Baby Gap to make women think he was sensitive. It was only when I’d finally decided that even if he wasn’t Mr Right, he was Mr Very Bloody Nearly, that I found out he was in possession of one GBH conviction and one
(very current) wife.

  Which made him Mr Not On Your Fucking Life.

  I felt such a tit. I was mainlining strawberry Pop-Tarts and tins of Devon Custard quicker than I could flip the switch on the toaster, and realised I had quite enough on my plate without fretting over whether I’d soon be tucking my stomach into my knicker elastic. I’d have plenty of time to whinge about my weight when I looked as though I had a packet of crumpets tacked to my thighs and my minky had vanished under Michelin Man rolls of lard.

  Then I met Jake.

  And suddenly, the world became a happier, shinier place.

  Jake, Uberbloke, graphic designer and driver of gleaming red Surrogate Penis, smarmed his way into my life just over a year ago at a hair gel launch in Kensington. Obviously, I usually wouldn’t have been seen dead at such arse-kissing events, but this one had been organised by my oldest friend Sam. Sam was blessed at birth with a smile like a synchronised swimmer’s and had a natty, built-in bumlick function that ensured he was well on his way to becoming Top Banana at a PR consultancy in Noho (that’s the top end of Tottenham Court Road to me and you). The launch marked a pivotal point in his career and he begged me to go along to make up the numbers. And despite the fact that I’d rather have knocked back a litre of Toilet Duck in one sitting, I dutifully bigged up my hair, dusted myself in sparkles and poured myself into a spangly acid-green frock, all so I could stand, pigeon-toed with anxiety and feeling as out of place as a foreskin at Hanukkah, while Sam whizzed around proffering trays of angels on horseback to whinnies of marketing girls in Bacofoil dresses. As I expected, it was the very worst sort of party: the champagne and air-kissing kind, where everybody hates everybody else and pretends that they don’t, and people are so obsessed with their image that no one actually gets to have any fun.

  Especially not me.

  I was abandoned in my usual party spot, in pole position for the buffet and shovelling in salmon and cream cheese pinwheels with one hand, while desperately trying to balance a glass of fizz and a Marly light in the other. As usual, I cursed myself for being a jelly-spined wimp who could never refuse an invitation. It was always the way with me. When put on the spot, I fished around for a suitable excuse before giving in, gushing that I’d absolutely lurve to come to Jemima’s Virgin Vie party or Nux Vomica’s Mexican-themed evening, or whatever hellish event I was being invited to. Then, when it got nearer the time, I found myself praying for a contagious dose of ebola and wondering if it even might be worth enduring the humiliation of ringing the hostess and bandying the diarrhoea word about.

  The night I met Jake, I was as sickeningly healthy as ever. I was freezing my tits off in my minuscule frock and spangling hopefully at no one in particular, when there was a tap on my shoulder and I wheeled round to find myself nose to double chin with a seven-bellied monster with big microphone hair. This prime specimen wasted no time in engaging my left breast in lengthy conversation on his favourite subject. Himself. He was a trader, he told me, puffing himself up so he looked bigger than ever. In the City. What he traded, precisely, I didn’t have a bloody clue, but as long as it wasn’t bodily fluids with me I wasn’t complaining.

  In any case, I hoped my boob was listening in case there were questions later, ’cos I sure as hell wasn’t. I was working out how long it would take me to get to the exit. Should I just make a break for it, or should I take off my shoes first in case I fell arse over tit on my way out? When Microphone Hair finally stopped to draw breath, remembering his manners for long enough to inquire of my nipple what it did for a living, I was so shell-shocked that I grabbed the underwire of my Wonderbra, waggled it up and down and shouted, ‘Come on then. Answer the man.’

  It was loud enough for a gaggle of designer girlies next to me to hear. Sucking their heads out of their arses with a collective Phwopp, they stopped bitching for long enough to turn and bog at the fishwife who’d actually had the audacity to pitch up in head-to-toe Topshop. I turned tomato. Fervently, I prayed for the floor to turn into a wobbling mass of pink blancmange so I could gracefully sink through it.

  Miraculously, salvation appeared in the form of a twinklyeyed, curly-haired pixie who flashed me a conspiratorial smile before grabbing my arm and saying, ‘There you are, darling. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’ Then, flashing me a smirk of pure mischief, he stage-whispered, ‘He takes photos of other people’s dangly bits for a living. You don’t want to get yourself mixed up with him. Name’s Jake by the way. How do you do?’

  It was fate. Jake had rescued me from the pages of Readers’ Wives and I was smitten. He whisked me off to Soho for greasy Chinese, then came back to mine for ‘coffee’. From there, I went on to disprove the SOFA (Sex On First Acquaintance) curse, which states quite clearly that if you are one of those trollopy strumpets who shags on a first date, you are unlikely ever to see the other person involved again.

  But Jake was too good to be true. And the sex was bloody marvellous.

  At first.

  We made the Kamasutra look like Topsy & Tim. We bonked everywhere. Under piles of coats at parties, giggling like teenagers. In a plane toilet on the way to Amsterdam. No stone was left unturned in our search for New Places To Shag.

  And Jake taught me a lot. I never realised a Toblerone had so many uses.

  Unfortunately, the excitement wore off pretty quickly. Six months in, I found myself secretly making shadow pictures of butterflies and bunny rabbits on the wall above the silhouette of his humping buttocks, just to pass the time. But I decided to give him and his sloppy technique the benefit of the doubt. After all, it was only natural for things to get samey after a bit, wasn’t it?

  Hell, what did I know? Still, one thing’s for sure. If I’d found out earlier that he was wearing a Jake-flavoured groove in Fishpants Fraser, Gateway To The South herself, I’d have done more than practise a spot of discreet shadow graffiti. I’d have sodding well asked him to pass me an ashtray to prop on his bum.

  Well, I won’t be putting myself through all that bollocks again. Being single, I tell myself firmly, is going to be just great. Think of the advantages! I’ll be able to wear my ripped Levi’s—the ones Jake hated, with the arse hanging out—on a daily basis if I feel like it.

  I’ll be able to grow my pubes down to my knees.

  Watch crap TV without having to pretend I’m being ironic.

  Walk round the flat covered in moustache bleach.

  And leave leg stubble in the bath any time I damn well please.

  Oh, and while I’m at it, I won’t give myself hives every time the phone goes and it turns out to be just one of my friends. Janice, maybe, with news of a lorry driver she’s picked up over the all-day breakfast at South Mimms Services. Or George, calling to report a nasty bout of carpal tunnel syndrome. So all in all, life should be a lot easier.

  My first day of Official Singledom coincides with the first Fag Hags and Slagbags lunch of the year. I’m meeting my three closest friends so we can trough pizza together. And if I don’t hurry up and get ready, I’m going to be late.

  Buggering ballbags.

  I shuffle into the hall, knocking over my milkshake glass and sending a gloopy yellow river oozing across the floorboards. Dashing upstairs, I shake a couple of breakfast Doritos out of my orange corkscrew curls before jumping into the shower and scrubbing myself down with tangy grapefuit shower gel to blitz away the last of my vodka hangover. I wait a couple of minutes for my deep cleansing seaweed mask to take effect, then it’s out again, skidding across the swamp I’ve made of the bathroom floor to wrap myself up in a fluffy white bath sheet and hotfoot it to the bedroom, almost tripping over Graham and Shish Kebab, who are curled on the landing like fat ginger croissants.

  There’s no time to blow dry, which means I’m going to end up with a halo of frizz round my head like an alien from the Planet Pube. I scrub in a mountain of Frizz-Ease to remedy the situation as best I can, and find a lemon-yellow scrunchie to scoop the whole lot up into a jaunty ponytail with. It does make
me look a bit ‘Estate’ but there’s no time to worry about that now. I slap on powder to sort out my skin, which currently resembles the contents of a tin of SPAM, then cake on spidery mascara and a slick of lip gloss where necessary. A rummage through my knicker drawer heralds nothing but period pants, but that doesn’t matter today, seeing as pulling opportunities will be limited. I add faded Levi’s, a chunky black jumper, one pink sock and one nasty peach one, then pull on a pair of stinkycheese trainers and head for the stairs, locating keys, fags, purse and mobile phone on my way out.

  The freezing air hits me straight in the chest. Christ. The streets of Balham are deserted. Everyone else is sensibly tucked up inside; hutched up cosily in front of the telly with their leftover boxes of Black Magic or squabbling over Trivial Pursuit. Shivering, I slip my hands into the pockets of my tatty leather coat and trot onwards past the Dog Shop, thanking my lucky stars that I’ve thought ahead for once, and have a full pack of cigs on me so I won’t have to brave the retch-inducing stench of damp Alsatian today. I trot past the house with the vomit orange paintwork and the swirly green fireplace tiles on the outside windowsills. Along by the deserted school playground and under Pigeonshit Bridge by the tube station. Past various kebab shops and dodgy burger joints until, after a couple of minutes, the neon pink sign of our favourite pizzeria comes into view and, already drooling on the garlicky scent which wafts into the damp, exhaust-filled air of the Balham High Road, I push open the door and glance around for my three best friends in the world.

  Chapter 2

  I’m last to arrive as usual. There they are, already comfortably installed at our favourite corner table. Janice, picking at the olives and filling the ashtray with tab ends coated in her trademark Harlot Scarlet lippy. Janice is absolutely my best girlfriend, because she’s VGV, which in Katie-speak stands for Very Good Value. Almost eight inches shorter than me, she has boobs like beach balls, more curves than spaghetti junction and a mass of bubble curls the colour of lemon drops, which she wears as big as humanly possible in an effort to make her look taller. Janice is brilliant fun, expects little entertainment in return and, despite the fact that she’d probably describe herself, somewhat annoyingly, as having ‘bags of personality’ and can be bloody bossy and a bit muff before mate-ish sometimes, I love her to bits because she’ll do absolutely anything for a laugh.