‘Well,’ she begins. ‘You know I told you Jasper had that flat in Paris?’
‘Mmmm?’ I pick at my big toenail and inspect it carefully. Perhaps I might manage to cheer up after all. A long weekend away before I have to knuckle down and sort out my finances and really get to work on my new business is just what I need. I haven’t been on holiday for ages. It’d be great just to kick back for a couple of weeks. After all, I won’t be able to go for years once I’m running my own catering conglomerate, will I?
For a second, I allow myself to get excited. Gay Paree with Janice, eh? We’ll have a great laugh. And how lovely of her to think of me like that. She’s been spending so much time with Jasper over the past few weeks that I can’t help feeling a bit bereft. Especially as George and David are so cheesily in love as well. Honestly, it’s enough to make you boke.
And if I’m honest, I have been a bit worried that now she’s in pursuit of a signed and sealed marriage certificate, we’ll drift apart and end up not even knowing where the other lives. But I needn’t have been concerned. Janice is my absolute best mate. I might have known she wouldn’t forget about me.
God. Paris. It’ll be just like the old times. Girlie shopping trips in Galeries Lafayette. Lazy, gossipy afternoons drinking big creamy coffees in pavement cafés. Gorging ourselves silly on huge pains au chocolat and generous slabs of tarte au citron. Glimpsing the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Bohemian Montmartre. Les Tuileries. The Sacré Coeur…
‘And guess what?’
‘What?’ I ask, getting so carried away with my imaginings that I’m hardly bothering to listen to what she’s saying. We might even take a boat trip down the Seine. Have a game of boules. And we’ll get slowly plastered on pastis before noshing on snails and steak frites in a lovely, garlicky little restaurant somewhere.
‘He’s taking me there for a romantic weekend. Isn’t it fantastic?’
I come crashing down to earth with a bump. How stupid. Of course she didn’t mean for me to go with her. And I should know by now that Janice’s mind works in mysterious ways. Quite how the prospect of the weekend of biddy sex she’s letting herself in for is supposed to cheer me up, I’ll never know, but that’s Janice for you.
Self-centred to the core.
‘Of course I’m going to have to shag him again, I expect,’ she bubbles. ‘But he’s bound to propose. Isn’t he? I mean this is Paris we’re talking about, mate. Who wouldn’t want to get engaged in Paris. Sooooo romantic.’
God, she’s cracked.
‘Janice, you practically have to prop up his willy with a lolly stick.’
‘But he’s rich.’
‘And Jake took me to Paris,’ I remind her.
‘He didn’t propose.’ ‘He didn’t take you,’ she points out. ‘He made you pay for yourself.’
That’s true. He did. The disappointment was piercing. I was going through a prolonged period of yearning pathetically after mini breaks at the time. I thought sex would be more exciting somewhere new. And I’d imagined us jetting off from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle, where we’d jump into a limo and head for the Georges V. We’d have an opulent four-poster, where Jake would do unspeakably erotic things to me with chilled champagne bottles. And it’d be the best holiday I’d ever had. Ever.
In reality, of course, we headed for the Eurostar terminal, where he bought his own ticket then waved me forward to pay for my own. He took me to a Travelodge equivalent near the Bois de Boulogne. Full of prozzies and miles from anywhere. Anywhere nice, anyway. I kept expecting Alan Partridge to leap out of the chipboard closet, brandishing his big plate. We got drunk on halves of lager because the hotel bar didn’t serve pints and the sex that followed was so pathetically mediocre that I actually fell asleep, mid thrust. I only know this because, being somewhat pissed, I cannoned off a couple of huge snores that actually woke me up, only to find that my being deep in slumber hadn’t deterred Jake from his single-minded pursuit of orgasm in the least. I left him to it, drifting off into gentle dreams of rushing waterfalls, flowing rivers and tempestous oceans before coming to in the small hours to the realisation that water was actually dripping on to me.
And, calm as you like, Jake was standing over me treating me to a quality golden shower.
Quite frankly, if I’d wanted watersports, I’d have gone to the Algarve.
‘Jake,’ I yelled, scrabbling around to escape.
‘On the toilet,’ he yelled back, clearly fast asleep. ‘Out in a minute.’