My Fake Wedding(43)

‘What the heck do you think you’re doing?’ I hiss, as Janice attempts, not very successfully, to blanch the green beans.

‘I’m doing beans.’ She pokes a fork in.

‘NO,’ I almost shout.

‘What? Bugger. Now look what you’ve made me do. I look as though I’ve pissed myself.’

‘Why the fuck did you have to go and matchmake?’

‘But he’s a really nice chap,’ she insists, going all wide-eyed. ‘Got a lovely personality.’

And we all know what that means.

It means he’s as ugly as sin.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I hiss again. ‘That butter wouldn’t melt in your knickers look might cut the mustard with Medallion Man out there but you don’t fool me. I’m not getting off with him and that’s it.’

‘That’s a shame.’ She shrugs. ‘When he’s got so much lovely dosh. All going to waste. He lives in a tiny flat and he’s got no one to spend it on.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he’s single, stupid. And he’s never been married, so he doesn’t even have to pay alimony. He’s loaded.’

‘What’s wrong with him?’ I ask. ‘Apart from being severely vertically challenged.’

‘Nothing. He just hasn’t met the right woman, I guess.’

That’s utter rubbish, and well she knows it.

But Colin does have two points in his favour.

He’s male.

And he’s here.

His presence has involved no effort on my part whatsoever. He just turned up on the doorstep like a pizza delivery. A takeaway Shag Aloo. A McShag. And seeing as I’m going for a record number of one-night stands this year and—thus far—have managed a crappy total of one and a half (I figure Max only counts as half, seeing as Elvis left the building long before he was finished), I guess it’s only polite to go for it.

After all, he’s gone to the trouble of putting aftershave on and everything. Which is rather sweet really, when you think about it. And he’s a lot more polite than the guys I’m used to; the kind who expect a full-on shag after they’ve coughed up for so much as a pint of lager and lime. So perhaps I can try to be polite too.

I can at least try to keep my hair out of the gravy and not say the ‘C’ word.

The dinner party is interminable. Janice and Jasper canoodle so much they completely put me off my lamb. Jasper blethers on about the new boat he hopes to buy in the summer. And the cinema he’s having installed at the house in Winchester. And how he thinks it might be a good idea for Janice to learn how to ride, so he’s getting another horse. A plodder. One she won’t have any trouble with. Frankly, I find his attitude patronising. I can’t believe Janice is grinning from ear to ear. She actually looks happy.

The rest of the party are so far back it’s difficult to make out what they’re saying. I push my food around my plate as, all around me, people boast about their children’s prowess.

‘We’ve put Liddy in for pre-school French,’ a blonde with teeth like a hare brags. ‘She’s very, VERY advanced for her age.’

‘Oh yars, yars,’ a woman called Clarissa neighs. ‘Felix and Elsie are so grown-up now we’ve left them at home on their own.’

‘How old are they?’ I ask politely, bored out of my mind.

‘Three and a half and one.’

‘But isn’t that illegal?’

‘Oh, don’t worry.’ She laughs. ‘We’ve plugged in the baby monitor and given half to the nice couple over the road.’

‘B-but…’

‘Far cheaper than getting a babysitter, isn’t it, Hugh?’ She pats her husband.

‘Far cheaper,’ he blusters, pouring himself more wine. ‘No harm done, eh?’

‘Unless the house burns down, I guess,’ I say. ‘You can’t really hear smoke, can you?’

But no one seems to care. And Janice shoots me a warning look. These are Jasper’s awful friends. I am supposed to be being nice to them. But I’m fed up. And as the evening drags, I drift asleep and jerk awake again at least twice. I say the ‘C’ word three times before pudding and am even forced to nip to the loo after the starter for a quick relax just to stay sane. And Jasper is getting right on my tits. I’ve lost count of the number of arms he’s ‘brushed against’ or the buttocks he’s patted since he got here. He’s such a sexist pig. If I so much as start speaking to him to be polite, he rests his hand in the small of my back, as if I’ll collapse if I make conversation unsupported. I am, after all, only a girl. And his complexion is more like a Sunmaid raisin than ever. Plus, he seems to think that, because Janice and I are female, we have ears as delicate as spun sugar. Whenever one of the men utters so much as a measly ‘bugger’ or ‘bastard’ (tame by my standards), he instantly apologises, flicking his eyes towards us and saying, ‘Sorry, ladies.’ It really gets my back up. After the third time, I’ve had enough.