by Mina Ford
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Well, do.’ Sam gives me another bear hug. ‘And so will I. Perhaps I can come up with a few ideas.’
Over the next few weeks I take to unemployment like a duck to water. One Friday, I meet Janice in the Exhibit for a bottle of wine and listen to all her work gossip. And that’s when it strikes me that I have nothing to say in return. I mean, how interesting is the ‘got up, dressed, bought a loaf’ type scenario to your average advertising exec who is so busy from Monday to Friday she barely has time to wipe her own bum.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m bored,’ I whinge. ‘I’ve got nothing to look forward to.’
‘Yes you have, hon.’ She gives me a fag and lights one for herself. ‘You’re having a party.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You are. You’re having a party for your thirtieth because I’ve met someone and I need an excuse to invite him out on a date.’
‘Can’t he invite you?’
‘It’s delicate.’
‘Why? Does he melt if he goes outside?’
‘No.’
‘Where’d you meet him?’
‘At a funeral.’
I immediately feel guilty. ‘Oh God, Janice, I’m sorry. I had no idea someone had died.’
‘They haven’t.’ She looks surprised. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. Well, yes, they have. His wife actually. But I didn’t know her from Adam so I’m hardly grief-stricken.’
‘So what…?’
‘Was I doing at the funeral? Well, I was getting nowhere fast with that bloody marriage agency, as you well know. And the Evergreen Club was a big no no. I mean I want old and rich but I’m not ready for incontinence just yet thanks. I want someone with a bit of get up and go. In case I have to take him anywhere public.’
‘Right.’
‘So I had a quick flick through the funeral notices in the Tory-graph. See if anyone interesting had carked it. Thought there might be a few eligible widowers knocking about. And this one looked promising. So I slipped into a little black suit, shrugged on some designer bins, got myself down to Waterloo and hopped on a train.’
‘I see.’
‘I stood at the back of the cathedral, of course. No point drawing attention to myself. It was easy-peasy. Afterwards, I shook his hand at the graveside. Said I was a friend of the wife. Told him we’d done charity work together.’
‘Oh, right.’
About the nearest Janice has ever got to doing charity work was sucking off a sex-starved American sailor we met in the Mucky Duck pub in Portsmouth.
‘I was glad I hadn’t bothered to bone up beforehand,’ she goes on, ignoring my shocked look. ‘Because the vicar burbled on so much about what a wonderful woman she was, I felt as if I’d known her for years. I half expected him to start going on about what a great lay she was.’
‘But…’
‘Anyway, I went back to the house. Reassuringly large. And the champagne was good quality. None of your M&S cheap shite. And we got on like a house on fire. Afterwards, he kissed my hand and said he hoped I’d stay in touch. So I thought your birthday was the perfect excuse to cheer him up a bit.’
‘And fuck your way to a fortune,’ I say.
‘Quite.’
‘Was the death expected?’ I ask.
‘God, no. Totally out of the blue. Silly bitch skied into a tree. Completely ruined the holiday, as you can imagine. Poor bastard had to cut it short and come home. So selfish.’
‘Janice!’
‘What? What have you got to complain about? You’re getting a birthday party out of this. And I’ll invite lots of G ’n’ T. For you, I mean. I’ll probably have to go without.’
G ’n’ T stand for Gorgeous ’n’ Thick. It’s a phrase reserved for decorative men with shit for brains.
‘You’ll have to,’ I say. ‘I certainly don’t know any.’
‘So that’s a yes then?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Oh, great,’ she enthuses, pouring herself a last glass of wine. ‘Now, which bag do you think I should use for the occasion? The pink Tocca or the black Gucci?’
‘How old is he?’
‘Sixty-nine.’
‘Try the blue and white Tesco then.’ I giggle. ‘No, seriously, the only bag he’ll be familiar with will be attached to his stomach with a plastic tube so he probably won’t give a toss.’
She makes a wry face, downing the last of her wine and standing up to go.
‘He’s not THAT old,’ she protests.
‘He’s Granddad age,’ I point out. That’s old enough for me.
She pulls on a cardigan. ‘I’ll see you on Saturday then?’
‘Will you?’
‘Yes. For your party, duh.’
‘Can’t I have it on Friday? It’s my actual birthday on Friday.’
‘No, you can’t.’ She picks up her fags. ‘He can’t make it on Friday. He’s got a meeting.’
‘Golden oldies again?’
‘Work,’ she huffs. ‘Anyway, you’ll have to make it Saturday. Otherwise he can’t come. And that’s the whole point.’
‘I thought it was my birthday party.’
‘And that, obviously.’
‘What about the invitations?’
‘All taken care of.’ She counts off on her fingers. ‘I’ve invited all our friends. Plus a few of the No Bums from work. Gets me brownie points, you know.’
‘Great.’
‘And Poppy and Seb. Then we won’t have to see them for a bit.’
‘True.’
Poppy is our very worst duty friend. The college buddy we just can’t seem to shake. She’s so bloody nice there’s nothing we can do to get rid of her.
‘And George has invited a load of his friends. Didier’s coming. And Sylvain. Christian. Fran the Tran. Felix and Oliver. Archie and Hugo. Fat Dexter. Colin and Huw. Sheena and Kath. And all of Sam’s mates are coming. Oh, and George has invited his new man.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Dunno. Haven’t met him yet. Anyway. Got to go. Got to ring Jasper.’
‘Who’s Jasper?’
‘Funeral guy, dumbo. I’ve gotta tell him it’s all on. Oh, and by the way, you’ll have to do the catering. I’m tied to the fax machine by my Tampax string at the moment so I won’t be able to help. Sozz.’
Chapter 5
For some reason, I’m so pissed off about having to do the catering for my own party, I almost cancel the whole blimming thing.
Until George offers to help me do all the shopping, that is.
‘And pay for it?’ I ask. ‘I’m unemployed, don’t forget.’
He clops round to my flat at nine o’clock on Saturday morning as arranged, just as I’m feeling weepy over the lovely birthday card Mum has sent me. There’s one from Sam’s dad, Jeff, as well. They’re both so full of optimism for my ‘bright’ future that I just don’t have the heart to tell them I’m a total failure.
I haven’t even told them I’ve been sacked yet.
‘Make me a cup of tea,’ George demands, hurling himself melodramatically onto the sofa and lighting a fag. ‘That’s Earl Grey and not council house tea by the way. I’m not Dot frigging Cotton. Come on. Hurry up. I think I’ve got diphtheria. I’ve been shitting like a witch all morning and I’m severely dehydrated.’
‘You’re just hungover,’ I tell him. ‘And we haven’t got time for tea, council house or otherwise.’
He wants to shop at the Italian deli, where he gleefully squanders a small fortune each week on slivers of Parma ham, fat, glistening green olives, wodges of fruity taleggio and individual portions of panna cotta. I tell him that an out-of-town superstore, where we’ll be able to peruse the on-pack promotions to our hearts’ content, will be far more suitable. At ten o’clock, after Earl Grey and toast, we jump into the Rust-bucket, which is really more of a shed on castors than an actual car, and head for Wandsworth town.
‘What time’s the cling film coming
off?’ he asks as I demonstrate how to put a pound in the slot to release the trolley.
‘You should know,’ I tell him. ‘You organised this farce, not me. And I do hope you and Janice have thought to invite some potential shags for me. Because if I have to spend my party on my own while the two of you drag your arses round the cork flooring like bitches on heat, I’ll quite happily whip out your small intestines with a crochet hook. Got it?’
‘Absobloodylutely.’ George takes the trolley off my hands. ‘Now show me what we do. Can we smoke in here, or should I have brought patches?’
As we shop, I refuse to let him talk about his wonderful new man. Selfish, I may be, but the whole whimsy will only last a matter of weeks. George is as bad as Sam. They both ought to have revolving doors on their bedrooms.
‘I hope people won’t think we’re together together,’ he comments, lobbing a box of breadsticks into the trolley. ‘You look like a right bush faggot since you lost your job and stopped brushing your hair.’
‘Thanks.’
‘People might think I’m responsible.’ He examines a packet of meringue nests and turns his nose up. ‘They’ll think I’ve taken you home and rogered you senseless. And much as I love you, darling, and want you to have my basted baby, the thought of that whole carry-on makes me want to scrunch my bottom up rather.’
As George clacks happily round the store, amusing himself with what he calls his ‘common people impressions’, yelling ‘Winona, Kylie, Mazola. ’Old yer Nan’s ’and while Mummay lights ’er fag’, I escape to the crisps and snacks aisle, filling the trolley with as many cashew nuts, cheesy Wotsits and Twiglets I can get away with. Bowling round into the nappy section, I decide I’d better try and find him again, before he starts clucking over the breast pumps. I don’t want him going on at me about the Womb To Let signs again. Not on my bloody birthday of all days.
As I wheel the wobbly trolley down the aisle, I start as my gaze hits upon someone familiar.
Frighteningly familiar.
Oh my God.
Isn’t that…?
My bowels turn to liquid and my mouth fills with bile. I’m rooted to the spot.
It is.
Jake and Fishpants.
They’re at the end of the aisle, cooing over the Postman Pat bibs. Which strikes me as odd. I’d have thought the Bacardi Breezers were more her style. Until I look down, of course, and realise that Fishpants is looking rather large. Which is putting it mildly. She’s actually more than large. She’s enormously, belly-button poppingly, titanically huge. Unless I’m very much mistaken, she’s about to drop a sprog straight into the crotch of her white ski pants any minute now.
Which, again, is odd.
Seeing as Jake and I only split five months ago.
The bastard.
The packets of Farley’s rusks stacked either side of me merge into a pink and blue blur as the room starts to spin. God. I have to get out of here before they spot me. I feel sick.
Too late. Before I can do a three-point turn and do a bunk, Jake sees me. And because it’s all too obvious that I’ve seen him see me, there’s no way we can avoid an encounter. Not without us both appearing rude. And that’s not very nice, is it? So, despite the fact that we’d probably both rather drink the menstrual blood of a cow, we say hi. There’s an uncomfortable silence as we both recall that the last time we clapped eyes on each other was when I caught him with Fishpants pranged on the end of his penis like a harpooned seal.
‘Are you well?’
‘Couldn’t be better.’ God. I wish I’d bothered to run a comb through my tatty hair. I bet I look as though I’ve really gone to pot. ‘You?’
‘Fine.’ He tries a smile. ‘We, er…’ He pats Fishpant’s tummy protectively and I decide that, yes, I really might be about to puke. Fathers-to-be shouldn’t be allowed to be that damn attractive. He should be out cleaning the car, or mowing the lawn. Not strutting round the supermarket, getting in my face.
‘So I see. Well, I’d better get going…’ I drift uncomfortably. ‘I’ve got a party to cook for.’
‘I’m sure you have. Happy birthday, by the way.’
My stomach flick-flacks like an Olympic gymnast. He’s remembered.
Fishpants looks as though she might be about to slap him.
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Anyway. Better go. Good luck with the…you know. Child.’
‘Thanks.’ He smiles.
As I scuttle away, I tell myself that him remembering my birthday means nothing. I caught him shagging someone else, for fuck’s sake. And he didn’t exactly rush out and send me a card, did he?
I wander round in a daze, picking things up and slamming them into my trolley in arbitrary fashion. I don’t even know what I’m buying. I’m just fingering a carton of orange juice when a sharp little voice behind me yells, ‘Put that back. Immediately.’
I’m so confused I wonder if I might have been caught stealing. Then I spin round to see George hopping up and down like an angry pixie.
‘We need orange juice for the Harvey Wallbangers,’ I protest. ‘Sam’s bringing a load of Galliano.’
‘It’s got economy written all over it,’ he points out. ‘You can’t buy that. Go and get us some of the reassuringly expensive kind.’
‘What’s the magic word?’
‘Immediately.’
As we wait in the queue I tell him what I’ve just seen.
‘They must have been at it for months before I found out,’ I say miserably. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think,’ he says joyfully, ‘that I’d like to see her head on a stick. I hope she gets dental caries and all her teeth fall out. I hope she gets a horrible yeast infection.’
I cheer up slightly.
‘And genital herpes,’ I say happily.
‘And burning wee,’ he adds. ‘For life.’
‘And alopecia.’
‘And I hope the baby has a hare lip,’ George screeches.
‘Oh no,’ I plead. ‘It’s not the baby’s fault if its father thinks with his dick and its mother’s a brazen slag. Can’t we just hope it has a big strawberry birthmark? On its back perhaps, so people only notice when it’s changing for swimming.’
‘If you want.’ He chews his lip. ‘But, God, you’re too nice. That’s why you let him treat you like poo in the first place, darling.’
Then seeing how miserable I am, he gives me a big hug. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘I’ll pay for this lot then we’ll have a lovely, faggotty clack round the shops.’
As we approach the till, the man in front of us hastily neatens his frozen lasagne, Fairy liquid and six-pack of Carlsberg into an anally retentive little pile so there’s no chance of anything of ours getting mixed up with his and infecting it. I lob everything onto the belt. Scarlet cherry tomatoes. Ripe goat’s cheese. Fragrant bunches of herbs. Spicy mango chutney. Bitter chocolate. Double cream. Plump prunes. Gooey Brie. Cheddar. Chicken. Steaks. A pineapple. The peroxide blonde on the till scans through the last of them and, setting her frosted peach lips into a hard line, tells us what we owe.
‘Can we have a couple more bags, do you think?’ I ask politely.
She sullenly slams down two more carriers and George hands over his Amex.
‘Thank you so much, Jean,’ he says, pointing at her badge. ‘Pleasure doing business with you, I don’t think.’
‘I beg your—’
‘I take it you can read?’ he asks sternly. ‘Even though you only work in a shop? So you’ll know what that says.’ He stabs a finger at the sign above her head.
Jean glances at it with a face that has forty Lambert and Butler a day stamped all over it.
‘Says Service Till, does it not?’ he prompts. ‘Not Rudeness Till. And that badge you’re wearing says “Here to help”, not “Here to dish out the large”. Perhaps you’d care to remember that in future.’
And with a final sneer he waltzes off with the trolley, clicking one last ‘sour cow’ in her direction.
I than
k God I don’t normally shop here and mentally cross it off my list for future patronage.
Chapter 6
George and I get a free sauna as I spend the rest of my big day slaving over a hot stove. I steam tiny Chinese pork dumplings over the stove and simmer hot and sour soup. Tumble juicy king prawns into coconut milk for fragrant green curry and sprinkle chunks of tender chicken into chopped fresh tomatoes for spicy balti. I chop mangoes. Simmer sugar. Find prawn crackers, fish sauce and chillies. I mix and mash, stir and steam. Make miniature Yorkshire puddings with cocktail sausages on top. As the room begins to fill with a medley of delicious aromas, I heave a sigh of satisfaction. Jamie and Delia, eat your bloody hearts out.
As I content myself in my kitchen, I suddenly realise I feel more relaxed than I have done for weeks. I’m upset about Jake. And that business with David. And losing my job, come to that. But it doesn’t take much to realise that I’m definitely happiest when I’m cooking for other people. Perhaps I should look into actually using my qualifications instead of just having them.
While I cook, George fills the sitting room with fondant-pink peonies in chunky glass vases and covers the mantelpieces in every room with fat, waxy church candles. He hangs strings of tiny pink fairylights everywhere so they’ll twinkle magically in the dusk. By the time we’ve both finished, the flat is party perfect.
‘And now for the pièce de résistance.’ George, grinning his head off, produces a large, flat box with a flourish.
‘Open it then.’
I do. Inside, nestling among layers of tissue paper, is the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen. The skirt is palest pink and gauzy, the bodice shocking pink, threaded with gold. It must have cost him the best part of five hundred quid.
But then he can afford it.
‘It’s gorgeous.’ I hug him.
‘Go and put it on then.’ He hugs me back. ‘I’ve got to put my slap on too.’
‘Your slap?’
‘Oh yes.’ He nods. ‘I’m coming in full drag.’
At seven o’clock, Janice’s brand new plum-coloured Beetle mounts the kerb and she trips up to the door in a pair of four-inch stack heels and a crotch-skimming halter-necked frock that squashes her boobs together spectacularly.
