by Mina Ford
Hell’s bells.
‘What the heck do you think you’re doing?’ I hiss, as Janice attempts, not very successfully, to blanch the green beans.
‘I’m doing beans.’ She pokes a fork in.
‘NO,’ I almost shout.
‘What? Bugger. Now look what you’ve made me do. I look as though I’ve pissed myself.’
‘Why the fuck did you have to go and matchmake?’
‘But he’s a really nice chap,’ she insists, going all wide-eyed. ‘Got a lovely personality.’
And we all know what that means.
It means he’s as ugly as sin.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I hiss again. ‘That butter wouldn’t melt in your knickers look might cut the mustard with Medallion Man out there but you don’t fool me. I’m not getting off with him and that’s it.’
‘That’s a shame.’ She shrugs. ‘When he’s got so much lovely dosh. All going to waste. He lives in a tiny flat and he’s got no one to spend it on.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s single, stupid. And he’s never been married, so he doesn’t even have to pay alimony. He’s loaded.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’ I ask. ‘Apart from being severely vertically challenged.’
‘Nothing. He just hasn’t met the right woman, I guess.’
That’s utter rubbish, and well she knows it.
But Colin does have two points in his favour.
He’s male.
And he’s here.
His presence has involved no effort on my part whatsoever. He just turned up on the doorstep like a pizza delivery. A takeaway Shag Aloo. A McShag. And seeing as I’m going for a record number of one-night stands this year and—thus far—have managed a crappy total of one and a half (I figure Max only counts as half, seeing as Elvis left the building long before he was finished), I guess it’s only polite to go for it.
After all, he’s gone to the trouble of putting aftershave on and everything. Which is rather sweet really, when you think about it. And he’s a lot more polite than the guys I’m used to; the kind who expect a full-on shag after they’ve coughed up for so much as a pint of lager and lime. So perhaps I can try to be polite too.
I can at least try to keep my hair out of the gravy and not say the ‘C’ word.
The dinner party is interminable. Janice and Jasper canoodle so much they completely put me off my lamb. Jasper blethers on about the new boat he hopes to buy in the summer. And the cinema he’s having installed at the house in Winchester. And how he thinks it might be a good idea for Janice to learn how to ride, so he’s getting another horse. A plodder. One she won’t have any trouble with. Frankly, I find his attitude patronising. I can’t believe Janice is grinning from ear to ear. She actually looks happy.
The rest of the party are so far back it’s difficult to make out what they’re saying. I push my food around my plate as, all around me, people boast about their children’s prowess.
‘We’ve put Liddy in for pre-school French,’ a blonde with teeth like a hare brags. ‘She’s very, VERY advanced for her age.’
‘Oh yars, yars,’ a woman called Clarissa neighs. ‘Felix and Elsie are so grown-up now we’ve left them at home on their own.’
‘How old are they?’ I ask politely, bored out of my mind.
‘Three and a half and one.’
‘But isn’t that illegal?’
‘Oh, don’t worry.’ She laughs. ‘We’ve plugged in the baby monitor and given half to the nice couple over the road.’
‘B-but…’
‘Far cheaper than getting a babysitter, isn’t it, Hugh?’ She pats her husband.
‘Far cheaper,’ he blusters, pouring himself more wine. ‘No harm done, eh?’
‘Unless the house burns down, I guess,’ I say. ‘You can’t really hear smoke, can you?’
But no one seems to care. And Janice shoots me a warning look. These are Jasper’s awful friends. I am supposed to be being nice to them. But I’m fed up. And as the evening drags, I drift asleep and jerk awake again at least twice. I say the ‘C’ word three times before pudding and am even forced to nip to the loo after the starter for a quick relax just to stay sane. And Jasper is getting right on my tits. I’ve lost count of the number of arms he’s ‘brushed against’ or the buttocks he’s patted since he got here. He’s such a sexist pig. If I so much as start speaking to him to be polite, he rests his hand in the small of my back, as if I’ll collapse if I make conversation unsupported. I am, after all, only a girl. And his complexion is more like a Sunmaid raisin than ever. Plus, he seems to think that, because Janice and I are female, we have ears as delicate as spun sugar. Whenever one of the men utters so much as a measly ‘bugger’ or ‘bastard’ (tame by my standards), he instantly apologises, flicking his eyes towards us and saying, ‘Sorry, ladies.’ It really gets my back up. After the third time, I’ve had enough.
‘Who are you calling a fucking lady?’ I demand, looking him straight in the eye.
No one laughs. Janice deals me a vicious kick under the table. The only person who flickers so much as a smile is Colin. And in the end, I decide Colin is the only one in the room who seems vaguely human. So I have to talk to him. And to get through it, I drink. And drink. So much so in fact, that by the end of the evening, Colin is looking less and less like a Colin and more like a Paul. Or a Steve even. And by eleven o’clock, when the party blondes and their men have driven home to their various babysitters/baby monitors, the beer goggles are well and truly in place and I’ve forgotten to mind that Colin’s main topic of conversation seems to be Charlie Dimmock’s breasts. I don’t even mind that he looks as though his flat might resemble the inside of a Travelodge. Or that he probably owns a Corby trouser press. I don’t even give a toss about the eye bogie that’s been wobbling away in the corner of his left eye since we finished pudding.
And when it’s time to go home, I invite him to drive me back to mine.
Chapter 9
‘Tell us again.’ George rubs his hands together with glee. ‘Tell us exactly what he was like.’
‘Who?’
‘Your biddy shag.’
Janice, George and I are sitting in Janice’s kitchen, drinking frothy cappuccino from the new powder-blue machine Jasper bought her. It’s the day before Poppy’s wedding. In half an hour, we’ll be legging it to Paddington to catch the train down to Bath. Everything is organised, down to the last silver sugared almond. The cake—a rich chocolate extravaganza the size of a mini roundabout—is baked, iced, and scattered with hundreds of Jelly Tots and parma violets at Poppy’s request. Since Janice’s dinner party, I’ve been working my fingers to the bone. I’ve been on the phone to Perfect Poppy and her mother day in, day out, planning menus, table decorations and suchlike, down to the last, teeniest, minutest detail. Which is great. It’s helped me forget all about the whole Colin fiasco.
Or it would have done if Janice and George hadn’t been in such a complete hilarum over the whole sorry episode. They laughed so much, Janice nearly wet herself. And no matter how many times I’ve told the story of what happened when I took Comedy Colin back to mine, they always make me tell it all over again when a new person comes along.
I hold up my little finger.
‘It was a widger,’ I tell them for the umpteenth time. ‘Called Alfred.’
‘So you didn’t go through with it?’ George prods delightedly. ‘You made your excuses and left.’
I shake my head. ‘Do we have to go through all this again?’
They already know the story inside out. And a sorry one it is too. We went back to mine. I put on a Massive Attack CD and made coffee. We kissed. And I was surprised and somewhat delighted to discover that it was actually a very nice kiss. A kiss that was definitely leading somewhere. And I suddenly realised that I really, really wanted a shag. I didn’t care, I told myself as I slipped my hand into his trousers, about silly, shallow things like the fact that he was shorter than me. Or older tha
n me. I didn’t even care about his greying chest hair. All I could see was the fact that he had sad, lonely eyes. And I wanted to make him feel better. So I didn’t give a hoot that, being older, he probably had saggy bum skin like an elephant’s. I thought I could cheer him up. I’d be a sort of SAGA holiday with a difference.
Oh, sod it. If I’m truly honest, what mattered—what really, really mattered at that blurry, heinously drunken moment in time, was that he had a lovely big…
Oh good giddy God.
‘Acorn’ was a word that immediately sprang to mind when I touched Colin’s little willy.
‘Meet Alfred.’ He smiled, as I gaped in horror. Because, no matter what they say, size matters, doesn’t it?
Of course it bloody well matters.
And I was worried. Poor old Alfred wasn’t even going to touch the sides. It was going to be just like flinging a welly down the Holloway Road. Like waving a chipolata through the Channel Tunnel. Shagging Colin, I decided, as I allowed him to unfasten my bra, was going to be a lot like visiting the dentist. He might as well lay me down and say, ‘Don’t worry, you’re not going to feel a thing.’ God. Was this even going to count as a real shag? Could I justify another notch on the bedpost? Or would I still be Katie Eight and a Half Shags Simpson.
Eight and a half! Not very many really, is it?
So when Colin pulled out a ribbed Durex and announced, ‘I think Alfred needs a hat on,’ I braced myself for a mercy fuck of the first order.
I wouldn’t have minded but he seemed pretty intent on staying the night. And did he have the decency to creep out while I was asleep like some shitty bastard? Not likely! Oh no, Colin was very much all there when I woke up. And Alfred was raring to go again. Fortunately, as I mentally prepared myself for another Wiener Invasion, the phone shrilled. It was Poppy, in a tremendous panic. She and her mother had had one almighty row over whether or not I should be wrapping bacon round the green beans. They really needed my opinion. So I was able to make my excuses and climb off.
I could’ve hugged Poppy. I’ve never been so pleased to hear from a duty friend in my life.
Now, sitting at Janice’s kitchen table, gritting my teeth as the pair of them giggle at my woeful tale one more time, I run through a mental checklist. I can’t help fussing, even though I know we’ve been through the wedding breakfast menu a dozen times. Everything is ready to go. Rosy slabs of salmon and oysters, glistening with seawater and heaped in crates, were flown in fresh from Dublin this morning. Sam, bless his billabong surf socks, has painstakingly packed them into his dad’s refrigerator van, which he’s driving down in later. But the fact that everything seems to be under control doesn’t stop me from having bouts of nervous diarrhoea every five minutes.
I need something to take my mind off it.
‘Hey, Janice, where’s your bridesmaid’s dress?’ I wipe a blob of cappuccino froth off my nose and look round the kitchen. Janice turns moochy whenever her outfit is mentioned. Which is weird. Normally, she loves dressing up and being the centre of attention. Why isn’t she dying to show me her finery?
‘Upstairs.’
‘Well, come on then. What are we waiting for?’ I put down my cup and stand up. ‘Show and tell.’
Wordlessly, Janice gets up and leads the way upstairs to her bedroom. She’s actually still a bit pissy with me. I expect it’s because I’ve been avoiding all Colin’s postcoital telephone calls, thus depriving her of the cosy foursomes we might have shared. But the thought that she actually expects me to date a man with a baked bean for a penis for her sake is so gobsmackingly astounding that I completely forget to defend myself. There just doesn’t seem to be anything to say.
The moment I enter her bedroom, it becomes obvious to any fool that my failure to appreciate Colin for his ‘finer point’, as it were, isn’t the only reason for her puckered-up dog’s bottom face. Janice’s bridesmaid’s dress is hanging on the back of the door, wrapped like a birthday present under layers of pink tissue and crinkly plastic. ‘Look,’ she says miserably.
‘Ohhh,’ George and I can’t help exclaiming.
‘Exactly.’ Janice looks furious. ‘About as sophisticated as a bottle of flipping Babycham.’
And once she’s peeled off the layers of tissue paper, I have to admit I see her point. I can make ‘It’s a lovely colour, I’m sure it’ll come in useful for something else’ noises until the cows come home, but there’s no disguising the fact that, whichever way you look at it, Janice is going to look like a misguided teenager on Prom night circa 1985.
‘I can’t wear it,’ she whispers. ‘I’m going to look putrid.’
I hate to say it, but putrid’s not the word. A huge, squashy velvet number in deep crimson, the billowing bridesmaid’s frock is as conspicuous among the elegant pale limewashed floorboards, the freshly starched linen sheets and the cool creams, earthy browns and mossy greens of Janice’s calm bedroom as a gaudily decorated Christmas tree in a temple of Jehovah. It has bulbous, puffed out sleeves, a great beachball of a skirt with a hoop the size of the London Eye and a blimming great helicopter propeller of a bow on the bum. In fact, the whole ensemble is so enormous that I doubt very much whether she’ll be able to actually wear it down the aisle tomorrow. She’ll have to bloody well drive the thing. And there simply isn’t time to get her HGV licence.
Now if Janice was still bonking one of her Driver Eating Yorkie types, she could have got them to swipe her a Wide Load sign from the depot. As it is though, she’s going to have to hope that the aisle’ll be relatively traffic-free.
‘What the hell am I going to do?’ she spits. ‘When Jasper sees me in that he’ll be off like shit through a goose. There’ll be no wedding then. Not for me, at any rate.’
Her bottom lip trembles as she sees her gingerbread mansion of the future come crashing to the ground, no more than a few hastily held together crumbs after all.
The three of us gawp at the scarlet monstrosity in stunned silence.
Naturally, George finds his tongue first.
‘Good God,’ he ejaculates. ‘She’s not taking any chances, is she? Wants to make sure you look a complete dog all right. How much does one get paid for this bridesmaid lark? Whatever it is, it isn’t worth it.’
‘George,’ I warn him.
Janice is on the verge of chucking a massive tantrum. Her face is thunderous. Any minute now, she’s going to hurl herself, Scarlett O’Hara style, on the bed and start drumming her heels and howling.
‘Try it on,’ I soothe. ‘Perhaps we can make a nip and a tuck here and there. Trim the bow down a bit.’
‘No point,’ George comments with all the subtlety of the Hammersmith flyover. ‘She’s going to look like Ten Ton Tessie whatever you do to it. Christ Almighty, darling, Kate Moss would look like a block of bloody Trex in that get-up. Janice’ll be able to get a part in the Titanic remake.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I say calmly. ‘I think it’s more nineteen eighty-two than nineteen twelve.’
‘I meant a non-speaking part.’ George can’t help winking at me. ‘As the bloody ship.’
‘Come on,’ I say sharply, before Janice actually bursts a blood vessel. ‘It’s the bride’s prerogative to make the bridesmaids look dreadful. Poppy wouldn’t want you upstaging her on her own wedding day, would she? It wouldn’t be fair.’
‘Darling, she couldn’t upstage a pot-bellied pig in that dress,’ George interjects.
‘Thank you, George, for that,’ I say. ‘Come on, hon. Give it a go. It can’t be that bad, can it? Actually,’ I hold my breath—will she buy it or not?—‘I think the colour really suits you. And it isn’t physically possible for you to look that ugly. Not with your hair. And your gorgeous figure.’
Janice looks a bit happier.
‘I have got better tits than her, haven’t I?’
‘Exactly. And no one can take those away from you. Just try it on,’ I plead.
‘You won’t laugh?’
‘We won’t,’ I say firm
ly. ‘We promise. Don’t we, George?’
‘Yes,’ he says in a small voice that means he’s actually clamping his teeth shut to stop himself guffawing.
Janice steps gingerly into the gaudy creation and allows me to zip her up.
‘OK,’ I say, cringeing as I do so at my stupid children’s TV presenter voice. ‘Gissa twirl then.’
She obeys, for once.
‘Ohmigod,’ shrieks George. ‘You look just like one of those loo roll holders.’
After George has delivered his last blow it takes a lot of coaxing and persuading for Janice even to get off the bed. In the end, we miss our train at Paddington and have to wait an hour for the next one. Janice sits miserably on the bench outside Burger King, reading Brides magazine in preparation for her own imaginary big day, stabbing her finger at pictures of alternately gorgeous, flippy, flirty and sophisticated little numbers at intervals and saying bitterly, ‘She could have let me wear that. I’d look bloody gorgeous in that.’ While she does that, George bemoans the perils of public transport. I feel like a careworn mother dragging two ungrateful teenagers away on a day trip. The way I feel, I’d make a damn good understudy for Pauline Fowler. And I’m a bit blooming pissed off about it. After all, I’m the one who needs pampering. I’m nervous. This is my future career we’re talking about. My reputation is riding on today.
‘My greatest fear, darling, trains,’ George whittles, looking fearfully up at the departures board. ‘Full of cheerful families eating farty egg sandwiches and shouty people wearing baseball caps and Bermuda shorts.’
‘There’s no smoking here,’ a woman opposite, eating a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, points out, as George lights himself a violet-coloured cigarette, crisscrosses his legs and exhales ostentatiously.
George glares at her. ‘I don’t object to your eating convenience food and wearing a purple shell suit, do I?’ he demands. ‘No. And do you see me wearing a “No dodgy home perms” T-shirt? I think not. So I don’t expect you to object to my smoking. I’ll smoke where I bloody well like, thank you. I certainly won’t be dictated to by the likes of you.’
