‘Don’t make us cancel,’ David begs.
‘No, don’t,’ George pleads. ‘It’s our day, after all.’
I suppose I can’t really disagree with that. I might be the one signing the piece of paper but it’s George and David who are really making the commitment. After all, they love the bones of each other, don’t they?
Don’t they?
Of course they do. Or, at least, I bloody well hope so. Or why am I putting myself through all this?
‘Perhaps you’re running away from something,’ niggles a little voice inside my head.
‘Oh yeah,’ I challenge it. ‘Like what?’
‘Perhaps you’re afraid of getting hurt again?’ it nags.
‘Yeah, right,’ I tell it, more firmly this time. ‘I think I’ve got my own back on Jake Carpenter, thank you. This time, I’m in control. So who’s the daddy now? Eh?’
But something’s still niggling at me. And, as I think about it, a picture of Sam comes into my head.
Isn’t that weird?
Not Jake. Not Nick. Not even Moony Max, total letdown and Mr Mills & Boon in disguise. Sam. Simple as that.
Not that I want him, obviously. I mean I wasn’t interested in him when he was single, was I? When he was running around with every teensy weensy blonde bit of fluff in London? Of course I didn’t. I’d have eaten fibreglass for brekky before I’d have settled for Sam in the old days.
So what’s changed?
‘You do want him,’ a voice in my head informs me.
‘No I bloody don’t,’ I protest.
‘Oh yes you do,’ says the voice.
‘Oh sod off,’ I tell it. ‘This isn’t a bloody pantomime.’
‘You want him,’ insists the voice. ‘Because you can’t have him.’
‘Bollocks,’ I say. But I have to admit, I always have been a bit like that. Always wanting the impossible. Like when I was two and I wanted my bath towel to be dry immediately. A new one just wouldn’t do. It was well before the days of tumble dryers and my parents tried to explain that it just wasn’t on. But I wouldn’t have it. I screamed until I was maroon in the face and had to be pacified with a chocolate Homewheat.
But Sam is different. Of course I don’t want him. Not in that way. But I am supposed to be seeing him soon, so we can take Lucy to the park. And I don’t really want to let him down. We’d already arranged it before we rowed. Now I just don’t know whether I should turn up or not. George is still twittering when I snap out of my reverie. Something about shelling out for the wedding. How much it’s all going to cost and everything.
‘I’ll be an official poor person after I’ve paid for this lot,’ he threatens. ‘I’ll probably have to give up my lovely mews house and go out East. I’ll end up in Stoke Newington. Probably. Or Barking. I might even have to go 0208.’
‘Yeah, right.’ I flinch as Didier, quick as a whippet, stabs a hand down my bra to hoick up one of my nipples. They aren’t on straight apparently, and it’s spoiling the line of the frock.
‘S’true, darling,’ George tells me. ‘We’ll be in market jumpers come winter. We’ll be forced to buy a deep fat fryer and a settop box and live at the top of a tower block. A really rank one that smells of wee. You know, like they have on The Bill. All our neighbours will look like Pauline Quirke in Birds of a Feather, darling, and we’ll be afraid to go out in case we get queer-bashed, so we’ll have to stay in every Saturday night on our orange Dralon sofa watching Wheel of Fortune with the volume up and eating Pot Noodle.’
He’s clearly conveniently forgotten he has a trust fund the size of the Third World debt.
Chapter 20
Sam and Lucy, wearing matching navy baseball caps, are waiting for me by the bridge, just as Sam said they’d be. As I shamble over, Sam grins and Lucy, in glittery jeans and pink trainers that light up when they hit the pavement, runs over to give me a hug.
‘Mum says you’re going to be my Auntie Katie now. Are you and my Uncle Sam getting married?’
I laugh. ‘No. My mum is marrying your granddad. Which sort of makes me your mum and Sam’s new sister.’
‘Oh.’ Lucy looks a bit confused but cheers up almost immediately. ‘I’ve gotta kite. Are you going to help me fly it?’
‘OK.’ I raise my eyebrows at Sam. ‘But only if we can have cake first.’
‘OK.’
We troop to the café. I’m still a bit worried that Sam’ll be off with me after our row so I offer to buy the tea and cake. Normally, I wouldn’t pay under any circumstances but I feel the need. And when Lucy has chomped her way through a hunk of ginger cake and got a sugar rush from a huge glass of Coke, she runs onto the grass to tie herself up in knots with the kite and I tell Sam how sorry I am.