My Fake Wedding(40)
And that’s not all, I think to myself, wearily dusting down my collection of recipe clippings. What’s going to happen in ten years’ time, when her carefully maintained home starts to stink of old people? All wee and boil-in-the-bag cod. I don’t think she’ll like that very much. She won’t be able to redecorate in case the paintwork clashes with the stairlift.
Sometimes, I doubt whether she’s actually thought about the future at all. To her, the wedding ceremony is the future. And after that—nothing! Janice is so wrapped up in her fantasy, she’s yet to realise that marriage is, in all probability, very much like the female condom. Vastly overrated. If she actually stops to think further than the honeymoon, she’ll realise that a girl who, until very recently, didn’t even bother swapping first names before happily exchanging humungous quantities of bodily fluids, will probably find the challenge of coping with incontinence pants so early in life pretty hard to take.
On Friday, I stubbornly wait until Trisha’s finished, then strop round the supermarket in five minutes flat, grazing happily on Skips as I go. When I’ve bought everything I need, I waddle home to feed Graham and Shish Kebab. Graham winds himself around my legs, purring like a motorbike as I squidge a sachet of duck-flavoured slop into his bowl. Until recently, they’ve eaten out of tins, like every other moggy, but these sachet things are so convenient. The feline equivalent of an M&S lasagne for one.
When I’ve watched both furry bundles poke the lot down their greedy fat faces, I lug the shopping round to Janice’s flat and unlock the door, catching a waft of her smell as I do so. It’s weird. When we shared a flat together, I never noticed her ‘other person’ smell. But now I’m a visitor, I can’t miss it. And 152 Calbourne Road smells of a mixture of CK One, Dettox, Elnett hairspray and fresh paint. It’s so damn clean it screams ‘One Careful Owner’. You see, whereas my rented hovel hasn’t seen so much as a lick of paint since I’ve been there, Janice is constantly in decorating mode. In fact, when it comes to her flat, she’s so anally retentive, she could probably do without a Hoover. She could trot round the place sucking up crumbs through her bum instead. In the last six months, she’s gone interior design mad. She’s Anna Ryder Wotsit the second. Except she’s a blonde version, with much bigger tits. She’s forever painting this and varnishing that. Everything has to coordinate. She’s been known to march into Homebase brandishing a violet resin ashtray someone at work bought her and demanding an entire colour scheme based on the bloody thing. The only item I’ve ever bought for my flat is my lovely squishy sofa. And that’s only because Jake sprayed the last one with sperm as I gave him a post-prandial hand job—his last, as it turned out—and I couldn’t so much as glance at the stain without getting rushes of nostalgia. Otherwise, I prefer to leave major purchases like that for when I grow up. Or when I actually manage to buy my own place. When that’ll be, precisely, as I keep telling my mum, I’m not entirely sure. When a mortgage lands in my lap, I expect. I’m a Property Virgin, for God’s sake. I don’t have a clue how it all works. And don’t get me wrong. I have tried. I asked George a few months back if he knew about mortgages. But he looked utterly horrified. ‘Mortgage?’ he screeched. ‘What mortgage? Jesus Harriet Christ, sweetie, just what do you think I am? I live in Islington, I’ll have you know. That’s N bloody One, darling, not Albert flipping Square. I own that house outright.’
I dump the bags of shopping on Janice’s kitchen table and have a quick snoop round. As usual, everything is cool, calm and elegant. Shortly after moving in, she had an attack of open plan-itis, knocking down certain walls and making egg-shaped holes in others. The floor is now an ice rink of highly polished beech and the whole place looks as though it has jumped straight from the pages of some glossy interiors magazine. I suppress a sigh of envy and tell myself she deserves to live somewhere beautiful, bless her nylon pop socks. She’s worked bloody hard to escape the council estate in Walthamstow where she grew up, sitting in front of a one-bar fire with a packet of Garibaldi for her tea and an Asda ski-panted mother for company.
Wandering into the bathroom, with its fresh lilac walls, seamless stainless steel bath and pale mosaic floor, I pick up several clean outfits, unable to keep from smiling, as I envisage my best friend in the world trying them all on for a night out with Filthy Rich. I can see her in my mind’s eye, twirling briefly in the full-length mirror by the door then casting each garment aside with mounting exasperation as she deems it highly unsuitable. I count four black tops, two white tops, an inviting little number in apricot lace and a slinky purple and pink spotted dress with a tantalisingly low back. Three bras, two thongs, four pairs of slingbacks and a pair of killer stilettos litter the floor by the mirror and I grab the whole jumble and shove it into her wardrobe, rescuing other assorted scraps of clothing, which are scattered across the landing like tickertape, as I go.