My Fake Wedding(18)

I stagger towards the tube station, just managing to hail a taxi and telling the driver to take me to Balham.

Once inside, I stare moodily out of the window.

‘Bastard,’ I hiss.

‘Are you referring to me, miss?’ asks the taxi driver.

‘Oh no, sorry,’ I say. ‘I’ve just found out that the bloke I thought I was shagging is gay. I was referring to him. Pretty understandable, don’t you think?’

‘Oh yes, love,’ the taxi driver says. ‘Nothing short of disgusting, what they get up to. Unnatural, I call it. I mean it’s not what the Good Lord intended, is it, at the end of the day?’

Bile rises in my throat. It’s the vodka, I think, though the awful hiccuppy crying hasn’t helped. I swallow hard. I really don’t want to have to park my lunch in a taxi. There’s no handy receptacle. No bin. No scrumpled up Sainsbury’s bag even. I could always use my jacket pocket, but I think that’s going a bit far, even for me.

Luckily, I manage to hold on to my stomach contents until we finally pull up outside my front door, when the taxi driver looks at me so kindly I think I might be going to burst into tears again. ‘Here you go, luvvie.’ He smiles. ‘You let yourself in and have a nice cuppa tea, eh?’



I wake up next morning feeling almost normal. Absolutely hanging, but not too embarrassed, considering. And then I realise two things.

Firstly, once again I’ve attempted to bag and shag yet another screaming great queen. George will have hysterics when he finds out I’ve made eyes at what he—and only he—would fondly term a ‘cock jockey’.

And secondly, it’s half nine. I was due at the office half an hour ago.

I dial my work number. It’s obvious I can’t go in. It’s far too late, for starters, and I’d really rather not have to face up to the fact that I’ve actually made a complete twat of myself, thank you very much. I’ll have to speak to Imogen and make some excuse.

I say I’ve got food poisoning. Not very original, I know, but the roof of my mouth honestly feels like a canary has just shat all over it and I really can’t move without thinking I’m about to barf.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to come in.’ Imogen’s voice seeps down the phone line like hydrochloric acid. ‘We’ve an editorial meeting.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Katie, just make sure you’re here for once, will you?’ she spits, and slams the phone down.

‘She hung up,’ I tell Graham and Shish Kebab in astonishment, before lugging my carcass out of bed and looking for some cleanish clothes to put on.

I hate the whole twatting lot of them.

How on earth am I going to face the world?





Chapter 4


I finally crawl into work at ten thirty-seven.

Marsha looks at me as though she knows something I don’t.

‘Imogen wants to see you immediately.’ She looks pleased as punch. ‘She’s waiting in her office.’

‘Is it about the crème brûlée piece?’

She shrugs. ‘Search me.’

‘Come in,’ barks Imogen as I teeter on the threshold of her football pitch-sized office. I’m so nervous that I temporarily forget the shame of last night, which has been rollicking around in the pit of my stomach all the way here. Instead, I twiddle my fingers in terror. God, I’m hungover. The need to race to the loo for a big alcopoo is almost overwhelming. I feel absolutely rancid.

‘You were late yesterday,’ she snaps, swivelling her powder-blue chair round and narrowing her yellow eyes at me disconcertingly.

‘Sorry.’ I try to make light of it. ‘The train came and I wasn’t there.’

Imogen shoots me a look that leaves me in absolutely no doubt that she finds me about as funny as liver failure, before motioning for me to sit down in one of the bevy of powder-blue suede chairs opposite her kidney-shaped desk. She’s lowered mine, I note, by about four inches so she can enjoy looking down on me and watching me squirm.

‘I won’t bother offering you coffee,’ she spits. ‘I don’t imagine you’ll be staying long.’

‘Die soon,’ I mutter under my breath.

‘Which do you want first?’ she asks. ‘The good news or the bad news?’

‘Er…the good news?’ I stammer. God. I hope she’s going to be quick. I really, really need the loo.

‘OK.’ She pushes the sleeves of her immaculately cut black jacket up to her elbows and looks at me levelly. ‘The good news is that I’ve been promoted. Again. To the board this time.’

‘That’s good,’ I say, nearly adding, ‘So you haven’t worn away your tastebuds with arse-licking for nothing then.’