‘Olay, olay,’ she yells, bursting through the front door on heels you could spike a salmon on, teamed with a tiny lipstick-pink vest and crisp white cotton shorts. ‘Feelin’ hot hot hot,’ she carries on. ‘Look, check this out.’ She flashes me a lemon-yellow scrap of not very much. ‘My new cozzie. And this silver boob tube. I mean, I may have a mouse in the chimney but I don’t have an arseful of cellulite quite yet so I might as well whore it up one last time before I get great bunches of grapes dangling out of my bum. What do you reckon?’
‘Oh, Janice.’ I shake my head in mock pity.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ I hug her. ‘I just bloody love you to pieces.’
‘You too, hon.’ She hugs me back. ‘So come on. Show us yer cozzie.’
‘Here.’ I hold up a chunky one-piece. Practically polonecked, it’s the only thing I’ll be seen dead on the beach in. Short of full body armour, that is.
‘What the fuck is that?’ she hoots.
‘Everything else made me look like a member of Legs and Co,’ I explain.
‘That’s, like, the point.’ She grins. ‘You nutter. I still think you should have bought that powder-blue jobby with the fluffy bits on the boobs. You looked great in that.’
I shrug. ‘I don’t really see it matters what the hell I look like. I have it on very good authority that my fiancé’s a screaming poof. It’s going to take a lot more than a scrap of lycra and a couple of banana daiquiris to get him to play tame the trouser snake with me.’
She laughs. ‘True.’
‘And believe me,’ I can’t help giggling, ‘I’ve tried.’
Janice throws back her head and roars.
‘It’s not exactly sexy though, is it?’ she protests when she’s recovered from the giggles. ‘Your cozzie, I mean, not your fiancé. Who is, as it happens, very sexy.’
‘Very,’ I agree.
‘It’s the kind of thing you see on middle-aged women in the swimming pool. The ones who wear flowery rubber swimming caps and keep their heads above water so their eyeshadow doesn’t wash off.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Have you got your factor fifty sunblock?’
‘I’ve got factor five.’ I look at the bottle. ‘Will that do?’
‘Katie, you know you can’t tan,’ she admonishes me. ‘And freckles are so last year. I read it in Marie Claire. Do you really want to turn up to your fake wedding with a face you can play join the dots on?’
‘I’ll buy some at the airport.’
‘What about trashy novels for the beach?’ she asks. ‘I’ve got Appassionata by Jilly Cooper and the new Penny Vincenzi.’
‘I’ve got Bugger Me Backwards by Fawn Starr and Fuck Me Pink by Regina De Vine.’
‘Really?’
‘No.’
‘What have you got then?’
‘I’ve got Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Memoirs of a Geisha,’ I say.
‘I said “trashy”,’ she protests. ‘What you need is a good shopping and fucking extravaganza the size of a brick. I’ll lend you one. Now, moving on swiftly. Beach towel?’
I pull out a threadbare orange and purple thing I used to have for swimming at school. My name tag is still sewn along one edge.
‘Er. OK. Insect repellent?’
‘Pleb repellent’s what we need.’ George struts in from the sitting room with three huge glasses of Sex on the Beach and an orange juice for Janice. ‘God, if someone came up with a handy pocket-sized spray that kept white socks and acne at bay, they’d stand to make a fucking fortune.’
We hoover back cocktails to get us in the holiday mood, then hop in a taxi bound for Gatwick. The airport is buzzing with families, all looking forward to taking off for a couple of weeks in the sun. George wrinkles up his nose.
‘Been saving all year, probably, most of these people,’ he says. ‘I mean, I could afford to go and come back then turn round and go again if I wanted.’
‘Snob,’ I tell him.
‘It’s exciting though, isn’t it?’ He rubs his hands together with glee. ‘I keep expecting that nice satsuma-skinned Easyjet lady to come clipping over to ask if we need help with our bags.’
Surprisingly, we manage to find the airline desk without mishap, then George declares he can’t possibly check in until he’s had a fag, so we all obediently trot over to the smoking area and sit there until he’s had his nicotine fix.
‘Where’s Sam?’ I look round, worried. He should be here by now.
‘Dunno.’ George inhales. ‘Tell you what,’ he grins lecherously at David, ‘can’t wait till we get on the plane. I love the bit when the pilot says. “Cabin crew, positions for take-off, please.”’