My Fake Wedding(42)

Compared to Janice’s sleek, elegant figure, I look putrid. I’m sure I’ve got scraps of potato peelings and bits of chopped mint in my hair. My hands absolutely reek of ingrained garlic. And I’ve already snagged my horrid 10 denier businesswoman’s tights. When Janice has finished admiring herself, turning first to one side then the other, then baring her teeth in the mirror to check for stray lipgloss, she turns and looks at me in horror.

‘At least put some lippy on,’ she urges. ‘You’re as white as a blooming sheet.’

I’ve managed some natural gloss and a brushful or two of mascara, when the doorbell rings and Janice opens it to find Jasper hovering on the doorstep, bottle of champagne in one hand, enormous bouquet of rust-coloured roses in the other. She’s not bothered about him, obviously, but she positively wilts with delight when she sees the expensive flowers. And when he picks her up and kisses the top of her forehead. I resign myself to an evening of feeling green and whiskery. Why the buggery fuck is she putting me through this anyway? Doesn’t she want some privacy?

‘I’ll just stick these in a vase,’ she tinkles, whisking her flowers into the kitchen in a sweep of sparkling purple. I hate the way she’s changed her voice especially for him. She’s also cultivated a way of sort of flitting from room to room instead of stomping about like she usually does. It really gets on my tits because I know it isn’t the real her. All this flimflam is pure nonsense. And as she bashes pots and pans around in the kitchen, pretending to be putting last-minute touches to dinner, I’m left alone with the old bid. Embarrassed, I sort of shrug my shoulders and smile halfheartedly as I sit down, checking out his outfit as I do so. Plain blue shirt, open at the neck to reveal a veritable rug of chest hair. Navy chinos have replaced the ridiculous combat pants he wore to my birthday party. Even so, there’s a worryingly large amount of gold jewellery on display. And is that a small medallion lurking in amongst the undergrowth?

Strewth.

This is going to be a bloody nightmare.

Jasper unwraps a Cuban cigar the size of a small gerbil as the doorbell goes again. And for the next twenty minutes, Janice flitter-flutters from kitchen to front door, leading a selection of chocolate-box party blondes and their assorted partners into the living room and handing them large gin and tonics. But when the bell rings for the last time, she’s suddenly too busy to answer it. ‘That’ll be Colin,’ she tinkles from the kitchen. ‘Can you get that, Katie?’

Obediently, I turn to go into the hall, but Jasper jumps up instead. Why don’t I sit down, there’s a good girl? He’ll see to the door. Then, placing both hands round my waist, he commits the cardinal sin. He physically moves me to one side, as though I’m nothing more than a piece of property. A shopping trolley obscuring the Jaffa Cakes in the supermarket! White-hot anger spurts like lava in my chest as he swaggers, puffing away on the gerbil cigar, to the front door. And suddenly, I’m itching to boot him through it and slam it in his face. Why is Janice putting up with such sexist claptrap? She’s the girl who, on discovering an alien hand on her arse on the tube last year, grabbed the offending fingers in a vice-like grip and held them aloft for all to see, yelling, ‘Whose hand is this, groping my bum?’ at the top of her voice so everyone could hear. She’d rather have injected her thighs with pure cellulite than put up with this nonsense a year ago, so why is she indulging it now?

Actually, that’s a stupid question. I know why she’s indulging it now. She can hear the ringing of cash tills big time and nothing, but nothing, is getting in her way.

From the second Colin enters the room, I suspect he may well turn out to have ‘Katie’s Date’ branded across his nether regions. Which is a crying shame, really. I might be trying not to have any morals when it comes to shagging around, but I sure as hell don’t sleep with people called ‘Colin’. It’s such a stupid, slow, cornflakey kind of name. People name their coldsores Colin. If he’d been called anything else, like Luke or Will or even Giles—well, perhaps not Giles actually; it’s a bit of a dopey public schoolboy name— I might have gone after him like shit off a shovel. Even given my track record when it comes to blokes in suits. But Colin?

It’s a bit bloody estate agent, isn’t it?

Did I say that Colin isn’t particularly tall? Sorry. That’s bollocks. Next to me, Colin is positively pygmy-esque. And he’s forty-odd if he’s a day. Which practically makes him Colin the Codger.

Hell’s bells.