My Fake Wedding(44)
‘Who are you calling a fucking lady?’ I demand, looking him straight in the eye.
No one laughs. Janice deals me a vicious kick under the table. The only person who flickers so much as a smile is Colin. And in the end, I decide Colin is the only one in the room who seems vaguely human. So I have to talk to him. And to get through it, I drink. And drink. So much so in fact, that by the end of the evening, Colin is looking less and less like a Colin and more like a Paul. Or a Steve even. And by eleven o’clock, when the party blondes and their men have driven home to their various babysitters/baby monitors, the beer goggles are well and truly in place and I’ve forgotten to mind that Colin’s main topic of conversation seems to be Charlie Dimmock’s breasts. I don’t even mind that he looks as though his flat might resemble the inside of a Travelodge. Or that he probably owns a Corby trouser press. I don’t even give a toss about the eye bogie that’s been wobbling away in the corner of his left eye since we finished pudding.
And when it’s time to go home, I invite him to drive me back to mine.
Chapter 9
‘Tell us again.’ George rubs his hands together with glee. ‘Tell us exactly what he was like.’
‘Who?’
‘Your biddy shag.’
Janice, George and I are sitting in Janice’s kitchen, drinking frothy cappuccino from the new powder-blue machine Jasper bought her. It’s the day before Poppy’s wedding. In half an hour, we’ll be legging it to Paddington to catch the train down to Bath. Everything is organised, down to the last silver sugared almond. The cake—a rich chocolate extravaganza the size of a mini roundabout—is baked, iced, and scattered with hundreds of Jelly Tots and parma violets at Poppy’s request. Since Janice’s dinner party, I’ve been working my fingers to the bone. I’ve been on the phone to Perfect Poppy and her mother day in, day out, planning menus, table decorations and suchlike, down to the last, teeniest, minutest detail. Which is great. It’s helped me forget all about the whole Colin fiasco.
Or it would have done if Janice and George hadn’t been in such a complete hilarum over the whole sorry episode. They laughed so much, Janice nearly wet herself. And no matter how many times I’ve told the story of what happened when I took Comedy Colin back to mine, they always make me tell it all over again when a new person comes along.
I hold up my little finger.
‘It was a widger,’ I tell them for the umpteenth time. ‘Called Alfred.’
‘So you didn’t go through with it?’ George prods delightedly. ‘You made your excuses and left.’
I shake my head. ‘Do we have to go through all this again?’
They already know the story inside out. And a sorry one it is too. We went back to mine. I put on a Massive Attack CD and made coffee. We kissed. And I was surprised and somewhat delighted to discover that it was actually a very nice kiss. A kiss that was definitely leading somewhere. And I suddenly realised that I really, really wanted a shag. I didn’t care, I told myself as I slipped my hand into his trousers, about silly, shallow things like the fact that he was shorter than me. Or older than me. I didn’t even care about his greying chest hair. All I could see was the fact that he had sad, lonely eyes. And I wanted to make him feel better. So I didn’t give a hoot that, being older, he probably had saggy bum skin like an elephant’s. I thought I could cheer him up. I’d be a sort of SAGA holiday with a difference.
Oh, sod it. If I’m truly honest, what mattered—what really, really mattered at that blurry, heinously drunken moment in time, was that he had a lovely big…
Oh good giddy God.
‘Acorn’ was a word that immediately sprang to mind when I touched Colin’s little willy.
‘Meet Alfred.’ He smiled, as I gaped in horror. Because, no matter what they say, size matters, doesn’t it?
Of course it bloody well matters.
And I was worried. Poor old Alfred wasn’t even going to touch the sides. It was going to be just like flinging a welly down the Holloway Road. Like waving a chipolata through the Channel Tunnel. Shagging Colin, I decided, as I allowed him to unfasten my bra, was going to be a lot like visiting the dentist. He might as well lay me down and say, ‘Don’t worry, you’re not going to feel a thing.’ God. Was this even going to count as a real shag? Could I justify another notch on the bedpost? Or would I still be Katie Eight and a Half Shags Simpson.
Eight and a half! Not very many really, is it?
So when Colin pulled out a ribbed Durex and announced, ‘I think Alfred needs a hat on,’ I braced myself for a mercy fuck of the first order.