My Fake Wedding(56)

‘Katie Simpson,’ I say, ‘you’ve only gone and bloody done it.’ I get the train back to London on my own. I’m too excited to stay in Bath for long. I want to plan and think. Decide on a name for my business. Where to advertise, that sort of thing. And pretty soon, I’ll probably need to rent an office. Find a house with a bigger kitchen.

I’m so excited I just can’t wait.

I’m so pleased with myself that I almost fail to notice that the actual train journey is about as much fun in itself as salmonella. Young, sickeningly well-adjusted people who’ve been away for the weekend enjoying themselves fill the carriages with their cappuccinos, their Sunday papers and their irritatingly cheerful chatter. But I don’t care. OK, so I have serious personal space issues with the guy sitting opposite, who seems to think it’s perfectly reasonable to stretch his feet (deck shoe clad, I notice—nasty) out until they are wedged right under my seat. Where, precisely, does he think I’m going to put mine? Glaring at him while baring my teeth like a rabid dog proves totally ineffectual, so in the end I’m forced to twat him extremely hard in the shin with the heel of my Nike, while nonchalantly flipping through a magazine and pretending to be engrossed in an article on breast augmentation. And, when he jerks his feet back with a look of pain and surprise etched on his face, I’m right in there, making my legs as long as possible and stretching them out so quickly I almost get him in the nuts. Then I sit there, emptily triumphant and not daring to move again to so much as nip to the loo to shake a lettuce, in case I have to give up a single inch of my Fair Share Of Room.

Oh, and I keep getting those horrible fizzy pains in my feet every time I shift them. And I’m not exactly comfy because, thanks to the copious quantities of alcohol I consumed to celebrate my success last night, I keep feeling slightly nauseous, but even then I don’t feel as bad as I normally would. I keep telling myself just how far I’ve come in so little time.

I get the tube back to Balham. Changing lines at Stockwell, I’m delighted to notice that, for the first time in about a year in my experience, a train pulls in within a minute. Brilliant. A good omen. Unfortunately, I’m not quite ready for it. Suddenly, I feel so sick I don’t dare get on, in case I park a custard in the crowded carriage.

Which is bloody lucky, as it turns out, because the doors have only just whooshed shut when I get a funny saliva-ey feeling in my cheeks and I suddenly know—just know— I’m going to woof my cookies.

Shit, buggery, shit. What the hell am I going to do? I can hardly chuck up onto the platform in front of a train full of gawping passengers, can I?

Can I?

And then I have a brainwave. Sometimes, I tell myself, I can be a bloody genius. Thinking fast, I surreptitiously open my handbag and chunder straight into that instead. And, because, being mine, it isn’t really a girlie handbag, but more like a capacious black rucksack, I’m completely hidden from view as I boke. And, as I quietly vom over my keys, mobile phone, chocolate stash and Filofax, I look for all the world as though I’m merely rummaging for a stray stick of chewing gum, or a packet of Tooty Frooties.

Of course, as the next train swooshes into the station and I realise I’m going to have to lug the whole stinking lot home so I can get to my keys at the bottom, I do spot a couple of flaws in my plan, but it’s a little bit bastard late by then. Sticking my nose in the air for added confidence (what, puke in my bag? Me?) I gather my belongings and sweep onto the train, pushing two people out of my way in my determination to get to the only available seat and plonking myself firmly into it.

‘Hi,’ says the person sitting next to me. ‘Katie, isn’t it?’

I snap my head round, painfully aware of my sick breath and closing my bag quickly to avoid spattering the passengers opposite with a concoction of red wine sick and soggy chocolate.

Flipping heck.

It’s Max.





Chapter 11


It’s a big surprise to realise that Max seems to blame himself entirely for the sorry way my birthday bonk turned out. And, as we judder through Clapham Common, he confesses that he never actually got to find out why I found it necessary to scream the place down that night. He thought about asking Janice at work, but after she branded him a serial rapist at my party, he hasn’t quite felt comfortable with her.

I giggle nervously.

As the train draws into Balham, there’s an uncomfortable silence as we both realise that this is where I get off. One of us has to make a move now or we’ll probably never see each other again. Which is a shame. Because from where I’m sitting, Max is still looking pretty fanciable. And now I’ve started, I sort of want to finish.