by Jenny Colgan
‘Now we’re going to be nine,’ I mused. ‘Aren’t these things supposed to be balanced?’
‘You could always invite Charlie …’ she started.
‘No way!’ I said. ‘Not you as well. But you are coming to this on the sole grounds that (1) you talk to Angus, because he thinks I hate him; and (2) you tell me EVERYTHING about Charlie – and I mean everything.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘You can ignore Angus all night while I talk to him, and that will prove you don’t hate him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And I will talk to you about someone I hardly know and rarely see.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Huh. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘What are you up to tonight?’
‘It’s a secret. Bye!’
There was no doubt about it. Alex and I had to go shopping. In our new-found status as full-time couple, shopping was going to be something we were going to be doing a lot of, so we might as well get it off with a test run.
We had to buy dinner and wine for nine, as well as candles and flowers and all that crap – although how that would distract from the fact that all the chairs were of various hues, some from next door, some with floral tie-backs and one nasty seventies high stool which would make whoever ended up with it have to watch over the proceedings like a judge, I didn’t know. All plumped round two tables of different heights put together and covered with an old plastic tablecloth. We also had to get a wedding present for Amanda and Fraser, plus a hat for me, plus a new tie and some new pants for Alex, whose pants had suddenly decided to spontaneously revolt all at once and make a break for freedom. (We never saw them again.)
Neither of us could face the hell that is central London on a Saturday close to Christmas, so we headed to the nearest South London equivalent: the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, a fearsome bright pink monstrosity that looked like a robot vomiting a strawberry milkshake. It sold lots of cheap international phone calls, but very few things that you could truly classify as a wedding present.
We stared dolefully at mops for an hour, avoided the manic Santa Claus, and had a quick look at the everything-for-99-pence shop, all without inspiration. Alex was obviously crazed with boredom but trying his hardest not to show it, even inviting me to try on the kind of hats that give you a start if you see one lying on the ground accidentally, because you think it’s a mutated insect.
By two o’clock (we’d had a long, lazy lie-in, which had been wonderful, but tightened the schedule somewhat, particularly since I was planning on making lasagne), I’d started to panic slightly.
‘If only they had a shop called “Everything You Need for a Run-Down Castle”,’ I lamented, picking up some eight foot imitation sunflowers for the fourth time.
‘Well, what do they need?’
‘Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Amanda has a Dualit toaster, a Philippe Starck lemon squeezer and every other bit of tat that’s ever turned up in a magazine ever, plus an account at Heal’s and an interior designer. And I’ve seen the wedding list and, I’m sorry, but I am just not ready to start selling my internal organs to rich Americans.’
‘OK, pumpkin, calm down. What would Fraser like, then?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Ehm, a Gameboy, probably.’
Alex clapped his hands together. ‘Perfect. We’ll get him one of those.’
‘A Gameboy?’
‘How many Gameboys do you think they’re going to get?’
‘Hmm. Well, none, I suppose.’
‘There you go, then. Perfect.’
Two minutes later in Woolworths, it was done. Carry bag, extra games, the works. I paid, but then they were my friends.
‘Piece of cake,’ said Alex airily. ‘And look –’ he pointed to a shop which on first sight sold lots of different sizes of basins, but on closer inspection also sold CDs, teapots, pants and various other random items.
‘Eight pairs of boxers for a fiver!’ he exclaimed triumphantly.
‘Oh, feel their bristling electrical quality.’
‘I don’t care. Maybe my other pants will get jealous of their new, inferior replacements and come home.’
‘Good point.’
We were two points up now. Plus Alex had decided to wear his old school tie, which pissed me off, but only slightly, and almost put us ahead of the game. I’d given up on the hat.
Tesco’s was a different matter altogether. Alex said the squalor and the crowds reminded him of India, but I ignored him in my search for an unbroken packet of spinach lasagne. Meanwhile, he loaded the trolley up with cheap red wine and a bottle of gin.
‘That’s a lot of wine,’ I pointed out dubiously.
‘There’s a lot of people coming.’
I sighed. ‘We’d better get on. I don’t know how I’m going to cope with nine.’
‘Nine? I thought you said eight.’
‘Yeah, I know. Fran phoned and I felt really guilty, so I invited her too. It won’t matter if it’s uneven.’
Alex looked cross.
‘Yes it will. God, Mel, she’ll ruin it. Can’t you phone her up and tell her not to come?’
‘No! For God’s sake, you two are dreadful. I already had a word with her about not being so rude to you. She’ll be fine. I’ll put her beside Angus or someone.’
‘I still think it’s too many. You could phone her. She’ll understand.’
‘Alex, isn’t this a little early for us to stand about bickering in supermarkets? She’s coming, OK? She’s making up for Linda, who doesn’t have a personality, and Mookie, who only has half of one. And she’ll shut Amanda up if she’s getting too mouthy.’
‘Yeah, right. Only Fran’s allowed to be mouthy. For Britain.’
‘Stop this.’ We were in the queue, finally, but it was a humdinger. A baby in a backpack in front of me hit me on the head with a rattle covered in biscuit and scum.
‘It’s sorted, OK?’
Alex looked a bit sulky for a moment, then wandered off.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you going to help me out with this?’
‘I want to,’ he said, ‘but I’m a bit short … Can you get this one and I’ll get the next one?’
‘But you put a hundred bottles of wine in!’
‘Oh, don’t cause a scene. Do you want me to take some of them back?’
‘No, forget it. Just leave them. We’ll drink them some other time if we don’t drink them tonight.’
‘Right, pumpkin – we’ll never finish them tonight.’
‘Oh God! I wish I’d never volunteered to do this.’
He put his arm round me. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be fine. It’ll be great. You’ll be a sparkling hostess, and everyone will love you, and we’ll all be friends again. Chill out.’
I tried to chill out while signing the enormous Visa bill, but it wasn’t easy. We got all the boxes back home around four and I dumped them on the kitchen table gratefully. Immediately Alex tried to drag me towards the bedroom for a little bit of afternoon messing. This, however, was not the day for it.
‘Alex, I have four hours to cook a bunch of stuff that I don’t know how to. Make yourself useful and chop something.’
‘OK.’ He kissed me playfully on the neck. ‘I’ll just go check out the football results.’
‘You will not!’
‘Ten minutes, pumpkin!’
He vanished, then reappeared two seconds later, confiscating one of the bottles, a glass and a bottle opener.
‘And don’t you dare get pissed!’ I yelled. I followed him in to where he was cosily resting his feet up on the sofa. Linda was mutely removing her tape of The English Patient from the machine. I noticed it had been joined by Titanic. Interesting.
‘I’ll take that,’ I said, smiling, and swiped the bottle of wine back. ‘You know what happened last time.’
‘Actually, I remember very little of it.’ He zapped the remote control to the footie.
‘My point exactly. Linda, do you want
a glass of wine?’
She looked shocked at the hour. ‘No … but perhaps a sherry.’
‘Sherry, huh?’ Linda had a fully stocked drinks cabinet, which was odd, as she scarcely ever drank. Occasionally, I helped her out with it.
‘Go on, be daring.’ I handed it to her. She turned a dull red and rushed back to her bedroom.
To even things up I poured myself a glass before I recorked the bottle. There was a long enough night ahead. I picked up the chopping knife and sighed to myself.
Two hours later, a big pot of mince, which I hadn’t even wanted to touch, stood bubbling on the stove in a faintly impressive way. I was stirring it casually, feeling pretty hot, as it had only taken this long, plus of course the four attempts at a non evil and lumpy white sauce. The kitchen looked like one of those nasty splatter films, all bits of meat and tomato red. When I’d gone in to fetch Alex for chopping the fruit salad, he’d been asleep – extremely asleep, actually, as he didn’t wake up even when I deliberately sat on him. Linda was nowhere to be seen. I guessed she was eating lots of chocolate so she wouldn’t embarrass herself by going completely feral at the meal and ripping into the garlic bread.
At six the doorbell screeched, startling me out of my wits as usual, and I panicked until I remembered that Fran was coming over to help.
She came in, dark eyes sparkling and flushed from the cold – it had finally turned frosty and bitter outside, and was threatening to snow, which I reckoned it would next week, just in time for the big day. Amanda’s dad had probably ordered it wholesale. She was armed with two bottles of wine and a quarter bottle of gin.
‘Why on earth have you brought so much booze?’ I asked in disbelief. The kitchen was turning into a wine cellar, and I’d already poured half a bottle into the lasagne.
She looked at me like I was a moron.
‘Oh, no reason. Can I have a glass, please?’
I poured us both one, reminding myself to pace it. Alex suddenly appeared, looking thoroughly refreshed. He and Fran nodded at each other distantly as I refilled his glass, then he disappeared again, saying something cheery along the lines of ‘too many cooks’.
Fran raised her eyes to heaven, then leaned her long body on the kitchen unit and proceeded to chat to me while I tried to cut equal-sized slices out of a kiwi fruit without meditating too long on the pointlessness of it all.
‘Why don’t you tell me all about Charlie now?’ I interrupted her diatribe against the snotty cow who’d served her in the off-licence, once I’d ascertained that the girl didn’t actually have to attend Casualty.
She sighed. ‘Do I have to?’
‘If you want to eat tonight, you do.’ I removed the expensive pistachio nuts she was working her way through.
She refilled her glass. It was nearly seven.
‘Really, he’s a complete twat.’
‘Really.’
‘Everything went as normal: he was completely miserable and followed me around like a lost dog. So, I kind of … saw him again.’
‘What!? You never do that!’
‘I know. I’ve no idea what was the matter with me.’
‘You LIKE him.’
‘I do not. He’s a loud-mouth piss bism.’
‘You like that kind of thing. Oh my God, Fran’s in love, Fran’s in love!’
‘Can you hand me that chopping knife, please?’
I’d passed it over without thinking before I realized my fatal mistake.
‘OK, OK, I’ll stop!’
‘Sure?’
‘Yes!’
Fran slowly lowered the knife to the table and I risked taking it back to chop up the rest of the kiwi fruit in silence.
Alex wandered into the kitchen in search of the expensive nuts.
‘It’s suspiciously quiet in here … who have you two just been massacring – I mean, talking about?’
‘No one,’ I said stoutly.
‘Ah. So, it was either me or –’ he shot a look at Fran, so he must have known – ‘Charlie.’
‘It was Charlie,’ I said, desperate for him not to think that I was discussing him with my friends all day long.
‘Oh. Shame,’ he said. He tried to pick up the nuts in passing. Fran, without thinking about it, slapped him on the back of the hand, which he ignored, retreating, with nuts, to the TV, which had reached Blind Date stage.
‘How’s Alex?’ asked Fran ruefully. From the sitting room I could hear him howling and whooping like a dog as the less blessed single women came on.
‘Oh, usual responsible grown-up old Alex,’ I said.
‘I’m sorry I was so pissed off.’
‘That’s OK.’
‘Arf arf arf,’ came from next door.
‘Can you give me a hand to put these salmon roulades together?’
Fran looked doubtful, and removed her cardigan. Underneath, she was wearing some beautiful ethereal dark blue thirties-style dress which looked almost see-through but actually wasn’t, if you looked closely.
‘Oh my God! No, don’t worry,’ I said heartily. ‘That’s a gorgeous dress. You look fantastic.’
‘Thanks very much: I half-inched it from Madam Elizabeth.’
‘No!’
Fran had a couple of days’ work as an extra in a high-budget thirties melodrama. No wonder the dress fitted her so well: it’d been made for her. She twirled round slowly. It was slim and diaphanous and beautiful. I wished with all my heart that I could wear a dress like that, in a way that wouldn’t make me look like a chunky five-year-old ballerina, and rolled up the salmon and cream cheese mush in approximately attractive ways.
‘Do you think we’ve got enough food?’ I wondered gloomily.
‘Tons! Amanda and Mookie don’t eat, remember.’
‘Oh, yes.’ I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘It’s just the boys and us then, really, isn’t it?’
Fran indicated Linda’s bedroom.
‘Bugger it. Listen, would you nip across the road and get me another French stick?’
‘But I’ll get mugged and killed,’ she complained.
‘I’ll send Alex with you.’
‘Why don’t you send Alex by himself?’
‘Because he’ll come back in three days with a fish supper and a new fishing rod. Alex!’
He appeared. Even he looked taken aback by the sight of Fran in her beautiful dress.
‘Can you walk Fran across the road to get some bread … coffee – real coffee – and …’ I tried to work out what else I’d forgotten. ‘Oh, and some more candles.’ I was sticking them in old wine bottles, just like real students do.
‘I can go by myself,’ said Fran, disgruntledly.
‘And if you got mugged and killed, I’d hate it. It’d be rubbish,’ I said, pushing both of them out the door. It slammed behind them and I heard them walking off in silence. Oh God, if they’d only get on, everything would be fine. Here I was, part of a couple, hostessing and actually cooking things. I felt uniquely proud of myself. Alex and I would have dinner parties all the time. Hey – we’d get on a dinner party circuit. It would be fantastic. Humming, I went in to lay the tables.
Half an hour later, stepping back to admire my handiwork, I was quite proud of myself. With all the lights out and candles everywhere, the dining room looked less Laura Ashley and more a state of gothic horror – the bows and frills everywhere took on sinister undertones and it looked like a ghostly bride’s boudoir. I artistically placed some bowls of nuts around the place. The kitchen might look like a nuclear explosion, but in here was pretty good, particularly after I’d used some of Linda’s Celine Dion CDs (she didn’t have any books) to prop up the table legs so they almost matched. I toyed with the idea of placecards, then realized two things: (1) I was turning into an idiot, and (2) where the hell were Alex and Fran? The shop was only five minutes up the road. Maybe it hadn’t had any bread and they’d had to go elsewhere.
This practical explanation wasn’t enough for me, however. What if one of them had been run do
wn and had to go to hospital? What if they’d been mugged? I started to panic. What if they’d had another big fight and Fran had given him a kicking and he was in intensive care and she was being held by the police? Oh God, that would be awful. I was so fascinated by this idea that I almost didn’t hear the doorbell ring, despite its closeness to a submarine honk.
Thank God. I dashed to the door to demand where they’d got to. But it wasn’t them. It was Angus, with Nash. We stood on either side of the open door, looking at each other, as I became more and more aware of the fact that not only were they three-quarters of an hour early, but I was still dressed in my cooking gear – which, as I didn’t have any cooking gear, was in fact my pyjamas covered by Linda’s apron, which had some pussy cats on it. And I hadn’t brushed my hair – because I was cooking – and I was covered in gruesome stains. And I hadn’t had a bath. Or cut my toenails, and my feet were bare. Fucking hell. Both of them had suits on, and Nash was even taller than Angus, gangly and handsome, so they just looked far too good to be here.
Nash looked worriedly at Angus.
‘Are you sure it’s tonight?’ he whispered.
With that, I regained my composure.
‘Nash! Angus!’ I yelled, in a carefree manner. ‘You’re VERY, VERY early!’
‘Sorry about that,’ said Angus, ‘we misjudged it. Do you want us to go out to the pub and come back?’
‘Man, it’s freezing out there,’ said Nash. He caught sight of my scary wide-eyed Harpy look. ‘But, you know, no problem …’
‘NO! No, come in, come in. Sorry, you’ve caught me off guard, you know.’
I didn’t know what to do first, particularly when they started taking off their coats and scarves and handing them to me. I held on to them.
‘Come through, come through,’ I said, and led them through to the sitting room, wondering if I’d remembered to put any pants on.
The two tables filled up every square inch of the space, I noticed.
‘Do you want us to sit at the table?’ said Angus.
‘No! No!’ I indicated the sofa, which had been pushed flat up against the variety of chairs.
