Katy Carter Wants a Hero

by Ruth Saberton

  It’s lucky for Cordelia that I’ve been doing anger management strategies with my tutor group this week, because otherwise she’d be wearing the frying pan. And since it’s a Le Creuset and requires two men to lift it, I don’t think she’d have been a pretty sight. But as she’s going to be my mother-in-law I take a deep breath and count to ten while she continues to huff and puff about my (many) flaws, the main one apparently my being related to my eccentric parents, which seems a tad unfair since I’m hardly wild about this myself. When she finally stops recalling the episode in 1989 when Dad passed out on her doorstep — he’d been a bit confused about where Jewell lived — I seize my chance to speak. After all, who knows when she’ll next let me get a word in?

  ‘I really like that dress,’ I say, through gritted teeth. ‘My dad says he’ll buy it for me too, so you needn’t worry about paying. I was going to go back and put a deposit down.’

  ‘There’s no need for that,’ Cordelia says hastily, no doubt picturing me in some hippy number drifting up the aisle in a cloud of cannabis smoke. ‘I’m more than happy to buy my son’s fiancée a wedding dress. Now tell me, how did today’s fitting go?’

  Have you ever had that horrible feeling when your blood goes all icy cold and seems to drain out of your body, leaving your legs all rubbery and your fingers numb with terror? Well that’s how I feel right now.

  The fitting.

  Oh shit.

  I forgot the fitting.

  My mouth opens but for once I can’t find any words. What can I say? That while I was supposed to be being pinned and prodded and peered at in one of London’s most exclusive boutiques, I was actually out on the piss with my friend? That while I was meant to be choosing colours and silk slippers I was hooning around Sainsbury’s having trolley races with Ollie?

  ‘Um,’ I squeak, HobNobs and wine curdling nastily in my stomach, ‘I didn’t make it to the fitting. Sorry.’

  ‘Didn’t make it to the fitting!’ shrieks Cordelia, sounding just like Lady Bracknell discussing handbags. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That I didn’t get there?’

  At this you’d have thought I’d shot her. Cordelia’s cheeks drain of colour and she practically staggers to the door.

  ‘Have you any idea what you’ve done? I’ve had to pull strings to get them to fit you. I’ve had to use my own good name and pay over the odds. That dress was going to be for a supermodel!’

  Well, no wonder it didn’t fit me then. The only thing that I have in common with Kate Moss is that we both breathe.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ I say.

  ‘Sorry! I don’t care about sorry, you stupid, ungrateful girl!’ Cordelia’s shrieking is now on a par with the noise a 747 makes on take-off. I hear a door open and footsteps echoing on the wooden floor. Fan-bloody-tastic. Here comes James, who’ll be less than delighted that his preparation for the partnership interview has been interrupted. Once he appears, Cordelia will be all sweetness and light and I couldn’t look more like the villain of the piece if I was wearing a black cape and twirling my moustache. How she manages to pull this off I’ll never know; it must be some kind of twisted talent.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this to me! I’ve never been so hurt in all my life!’ Cordelia’s voice rises by several decibels and her eyes flicker in the direction of the hallway. She can hear James drawing closer and is gearing up for an Oscar-winning performance. Her flinty eyes are working overtime to squeeze out tears and her hand flutters to her throat. Even I’m pretty impressed, and I’m a woman who sees kids turn on the tap on a daily basis.

  ‘What on earth’s going on?’ James demands. He’s wearing his glasses and his dark ringlets are tousled from where he’s been running his hands through them while he works. His eyes are red-rimmed and ringed by deep purple shadows and my heart goes out to him. He’s under so much pressure, and now I’ve gone and made things worse.

  ‘If you want to know why I’m so upset, ask Katy!’ wails Cordelia, a Niagara Fall of tears gushing down her face. ‘Ask her to tell you how she deliberately sets out to hurt me and rejects me at every turn. All I’ve ever done is try to befriend her, but she hates me!’

  My mouth hangs open on its hinges at the unfairness of this. ‘I don’t hate you! Of course I don’t!’

  She takes a big shuddering breath and her eyes brim anew. Wow. I’m amazed the RSC don’t burst in and sign her on the spot. ‘ I wish I could believe that, Katy, but whenever I try to do something nice, you fling it back at me.’

  I rack my brains to think of a time when Cordelia has ever done something nice for me, and by nice I mean genuinely nice and without a spiteful subtext, but no. Nada. I cannot think of such an occasion.

  ‘Like the time I paid for you to have a week at that spa,’ she continues, mopping her eyes with the hankie that James hands her, ‘and you refused to go.’

  I’m struck dumb by her utter nerve. It wasn’t a spa, it was a week at an army-style boot camp designed, and I quote my future mother-in-law, ‘to burn off that spare tyre, because nobody wants to look at a fat bride’. Not of course that she’d dared say this until I’d returned; Cordelia’s far too cunning for that. She revealed my ‘treat’ in front of James and off I set to Hampshire, in my naivety all excited about mud wraps and hot tubs, only to discover I was signed up for dawn runs, assault courses and a sadistic trainer who barked orders at me. I’d lasted thirty minutes before sprinting down the drive, scaling the wall and begging Ollie to come and rescue me.

  Looking on the bright side, that was probably the most exercise I’d had in ages, so it wasn’t a total waste…

  ‘That was rather out of order, Chubs,’ sighs James, taking off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘It cost Ma a fortune.’

  ‘It just wasn’t really my thing,’ I try to explain but am drowned out as Cordelia wails even more loudly about my lack of gratitude before burying her face in James’s shoulder and blubbing all over his Paul Smith shirt. James pats her back soothingly and shoots me a black look over the top of her head.

  Great. In the dog house again. Just give me a bone and call me Rover.

  ‘I’m trying to work on the Amos and Amos report, which as you well know is vital for my promotion,’ he says to me, and the note of irritation I’m starting to become familiar with creeps into his voice. ‘So what’s happened now?’

  ‘I missed a dress fitting,’ I tell him. ‘It’s no big deal.’

  ‘No big deal?’ whimpers Cordelia. ‘That fitting was at Pilkington Greens! They asked Vera Wang especially if we could have that dress. I had to…’ she pauses for effect and her voice quavers dramatically, ‘really grovel.’

  ‘You missed the fitting for your own wedding dress?’ James is incredulous.

  ‘Not on purpose! Anyway, I’ve already found a dress.’

  ‘See,’ wails Cordelia. ‘She’s rejecting me in every way. I’ve never been so hurt in all my life!’

  ‘I had to go to Sainsbury’s,’ I explain swiftly, ‘to buy food for your dinner party, James. I forgot I was supposed to be in Kensington.’

  ‘So it’s my son’s fault?’ Cordelia gasps, her hand flying to her throat. ‘You’re blaming poor James?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, but he wants me to cook this dinner. It’s really important, isn’t it, James?’

  ‘Not as important as my mother,’ he snaps.

  ‘I can’t listen to Katy blaming you for a minute longer.’ Cordelia reaches across the cooking island to grab her Louis Vuitton bag. ‘Call me later, darling, I’m too wounded to even look at her. You know how sensitive I am.’

  Sensitive? Bulls in china shops take more care, but of course I can’t argue, I’ll just look even more of a bitch. I shake my head sadly and wonder how she always manages to make me look like the bad guy. James will take her side, he always does, and I’ll have to grovel. Again.

  ‘I feel one of my migraines coming on. Oh!’ Cordelia clutches her forehead and all but falls to the floor. ‘
You’ll have to drive me home, baby angel, I can hardly see straight.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mother,’ says the baby angel soothingly. ‘Of course I’ll take you home.’ But over the top of her head he shoots me another very ugly glare. He will have to drive all the way to Richmond now and sort out returning Cordelia’s car tomorrow, all of which means time away from sucking up to his bosses at the golf course and yet more black marks for me.

  ‘I can call you a cab, Cordelia,’ I say helpfully.

  ‘You will not!’ snaps James. ‘My mother is far too upset, thanks to your insensitivity. I’ll take her home myself. ‘

  They shuffle along the hallway and out down the stairs, Cordelia groaning and James soothing her gently, while I try very hard to think about nice things. Like I said, I’ve been doing anger management at school, which is just as well right now. When I hear the front door slam I scream with all my might, just like the Ed Psych taught me. Thinking of nice things is hard because there’s a total dearth of them in my life at the minute, so I smash three dinner plates instead. A silly move really, as James loves his Crown Derby and will now be even more pissed off with me than he is already.

  Surely being in love isn’t meant to be this stressful?

  Still, at least I now have at least an hour and a half of glorious uninterrupted time to myself. There’s no way Cordelia will allow James to come back home without feeding him one of her gourmet dinners first. She’s under the impression that he’s totally incapable of locating the oven and bunging in a meal and that I’m some bra-burning feminist who makes the poor boy fend for himself.

  As if I’d burn my bra!

  That would be downright silly for somebody with a D cup.

  I pour another enormous glass of wine and retrieve the Domino’s number from the bin. I seriously need some comfort food and I order the biggest, most fattening concoction that I can think of. I’m buggered if I’m going to fit into that dress of Cordelia’s now. And as for sit-ups… well sod ’em!

  As I perch on the stool by the kitchen island, smoking a sneaky fag and counting the minutes until the delivery boy arrives, I catch sight of Wayne Lobb’s exercise book, dog-eared and rained on, sticking out of my rucksack. Instantly my pulse starts to calm a little and my anger begins to lessen. I pull the book out, open it at a fresh page and rummage in the debris at the bottom of my bag for a pen. After uncovering several Tampax, a fluff-coated sweet and some confiscated jewellery, I strike lucky and find a leaky biro. For a moment I chew the end thoughtfully, crunching the plastic the way I’d like to crunch up my prospective mother-in-law.

  I take a big gulp of wine and then begin to write…

  Millandra’s evil stepmother Countess Cordelia was one of the most loathsome women in London…

  Didn’t someone say the pen is mightier than the sword?

  Chapter Four

  I normally love Saturday mornings. James tends to race off to the golf course at some ungodly hour, which leaves me free to loll around in bed until lunchtime eating toast, drinking tea and reading trashy novels.

  Heaven!

  Then I usually potter round the flat and think about doing some housework before venturing into town and letting my credit cards come out to play. I love drifting round Camden Market, rummaging through the second-hand clothes, delving into treasure chests of bric-a-brac and trying on pairs of enormous chunky boots that make me so tall that I practically require oxygen. Then I’ll buy a hummus pita in the covered market and take a wander down to the canal, looking at all the interesting couples in their ethnic sweaters and funky hats, holding hands and looking so happy. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have my own stall. I’d sell second-hand clothes, I think, rich burgundy silks and dark purple velvets, frothing cream lace and busy paisley prints. I’d have long hair and piercings. I’ve always hankered after some piercings. I’d really like a navel ring but James thinks they’re common. He’s also pointed out, rather bluntly I feel, that there’s no point since I don’t have a flat stomach. I know he’s only trying to spur me on to get fit, but I do wish he’d be a bit less blunt sometimes.

  Still, I like the Camden dream. It’s nearly as good as the one when I’m a bestselling writer living in a remote clifftop cottage. In this dream I’m very French Lieutenant’s Woman, all long swirling skirts and windswept locks as I stare moodily out to sea before striding away into the mist.

  The trouble is, James doesn’t really feature in either of my dreams. Not because I don’t want him to, but because he’d absolutely hate either of those lifestyles. He can’t bear Camden because he thinks it’s full of ‘hippy scroungers’, and as for the country, well, he’ll only venture there to shoot hapless pheasants with his work colleagues or to network at country-house parties. If he’s not within two feet of tarmac, he gets twitchy. So I guess that means that we’ll always be city folk, which is such a shame, because I always wanted to live in the country.

  But marriage is all about having to make compromises, right? And James is my romantic hero, my soulmate, so I guess I’d better get used to it.

  Anyway, today is a Saturday unlike normal Saturdays. James didn’t get back from Cordelia’s until midnight and then spent an hour on his laptop, pointedly ignoring me. So I sat in the kitchen with Jake and Millandra, drinking my way through an entire bottle of wine, while James tapped away into the small hours, the set of his shoulders speaking volumes about his disapproval.

  I was seriously in the bad books.

  By the time I’d reached the bottom of the bottle and written a particularly vicious scene where Millandra’s raddled old stepmother is rejected by Jake, I was starting to feel brave and more than a little wronged. I had every right to choose my own wedding dress! If I wanted to eat the entire contents of the McVitie’s factory it was up to me, not her! As I drained my eighth glass, I was fired up with righteous indignation.

  It was time Cordelia butted out of my wedding, and I was going to tell James so!

  You probably won’t be surprised to hear that James didn’t take this very well. In fact we had the most massive row and I ended up sleeping on the sofa.

  I’m not really sure how that came about, to be honest. I’m still pretty certain I was in the right. It didn’t help though when James unearthed Wayne Lobb’s ex-exercise book and read the latest chapter.

  ‘What’s this shit?’ he’d roared, shaking the exercise book in my face. ‘ “Lady Cordelia’s thin lips drew back to reveal her stained teeth. Jake felt himself recoil as a rabbit from a serpent. Those mean dark eyes seemed to devour him as her bony hands took an iron grasp upon his manhood.” Are you fucking insane?’

  ‘That’s mine!’ I’d cried, snatching it back from him. ‘That’s my novel!’

  ‘It’s fucking slanderous, that’s what it is!’

  ‘Any similarity to any person living is entirely coincidental, ’ I said, which was a mistake. Nobody likes a smart-arse, least of all James.

  ‘It’s pathetic drivel!’ He’d slam-dunked the book into the bin. ‘Wake up to yourself, Katy! You are not a writer. You’re a mediocre teacher in a shitty sink school and you ought to be on your knees thanking God my mother’s actually taking the time to bother with you. I don’t see either of your parents rushing over to help out.’

  For a moment I was speechless, stung by his invective. ‘She’s horrible to me,’ I said at last. ‘She tells me what to eat and won’t even let me choose my own wedding dress.’

  ‘She’s doing it for your own good,’ James said patiently, as though talking to the village idiot, a job for which he clearly thinks I’m overqualified. ‘Come on, Chubs, admit it, you don’t exactly have the best taste in the world.’

  I hate it when James calls me Chubs. I know it’s a pet name and everything but it’s hardly one that makes me feel sexy and desirable. I tried to tell him this but he just laughed and said it suited me; after all, I was chubby, wasn’t I, so he could hardly call me Skinny. I suppose he’s right, if size twelve is chubby, and like
he says, if I really don’t like my nickname I can always diet.

  Ollie says he knows an easy way I could lose twelve stone of useless male…

  ‘Admit it,’ pressed James, feeling that he had the advantage, ‘you still dress like a student, and if it wasn’t for me this place would be jam-packed with ethnic shit. To be honest, I was immensely relieved when my mother offered to lend a hand with the wedding. I was dreading that you’d arrange karaoke and turn up looking like a milkmaid, all heaving bosom and flowing ribbons.’ At this he shuddered delicately and I saw my dream dress turn to ashes. ‘So, Chubs, tomorrow you’ll apologise to my mother, and if we’re really lucky she might just agree to help you salvage this wedding, if you still love me and want to get married, that is,’ he added, expertly playing the guilt card. He knows me well enough to be aware that I do a mean line in guilt and could probably keep the Catholic Church going for years. ‘Or did you not make the wedding dress fitting on purpose?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Maybe this is your way of telling me you want to finish it? Even though I still love you in spite of everything, maybe you don’t love me any more?’ His eyes looked dangerously bright and he bit his lip bravely. ‘I’ve tried so hard to help you, Katy. I’ve tried to help you lose weight, I’ve made allowances for all your social cock-ups and I still want to marry you in spite of your family, but maybe that isn’t enough any more?’

  And at this point James proceeded to remind me of all the myriad ways that I’d embarrassed/humiliated/disappointed him. I must admit that they made a pretty scary list. And I’d forgotten at least half, like the time I threw up at Anthea Turner’s Charity Ball (Anthea was lovely about it, in case you’re wondering) or the time I drove his beloved Audi TT through a deep puddle (OK, it was more like a small lake, but how was I to know when it was so dark?) and totally wrote it off. By the time he reached the end of this very long and very depressing list, I was amazed he still wanted to marry me and was crying so hard I looked like a frog.