My Fake Wedding (Red Dress Ink (Numbered Paperback)) (22 page)

The coast is clear. I can go for a wazz in complete safety. But hang on a mo. This is an old house. The floorboards are pretty creaky up here. One false step and I’m a prime candidate for a bitch slap across the chops and no mistake. And I’m not much of a fighter. In fact, when it comes to violence, I’m a bit of a weed. I make a split second evaluation of the situation. And, in a flash of pure genius, I know exactly what to do.

I roll.

Yep, you got it. I lie down on the floor and I roll like a suet
pudding towards the bathroom. And I’m almost there when my right boob hits something.

A polished court shoe.

And in the court shoe is a foot.

Shit.

Ever so slowly, I roll onto my back, open my eyes and look, cold with dread, into the twinkling eyes of a middle-aged woman, who has just been rummaging in the airing cupboard.

‘Hello, duck.’ She smiles, apparently unfazed by the fact that I’m completely starkers. ‘You must be a bit chilly.’

‘Erm. A bit,’ I admit.

‘Put these on,’ she says helpfully, chucking me a horrid floral blouse and a pair of what can only be described as slacks. And beige slacks to boot. I have no idea who this woman is but, if she lives here, her taste in clothes is nothing like her taste in interior decor. Reluctantly I stand up, pulling on the blouse to cover my boobs and hastily stepping into the nasty slacks. ‘That’s better.’ The woman smiles brightly. ‘And you are?’

‘Katie,’ I say, stupidly holding out my hand in introduction. ‘Katie Simpson.’

‘God, why don’t you give her your full address and phone number as well, you ludicrous bat?’ a voice inside my head mocks, as I take in the full idiocy of the situation.

‘Mrs Black,’ says the woman, shaking my hand in return.

‘Hi.’

Well, I’m still none the bloody wiser, am I? Who is this? The cleaner? And if so, is she a nice cleaner? Is she likely to tell Nick’s girlfriend that her bloke is a lying, cheating, adulterous bastard? Or have we got away with it?

‘I’m Dudley’s mum,’ says the woman helpfully, spotting my confusion.

I gape like a goldfish. His
mum
?

‘Now, duck, you must be hungry. Come downstairs. There’s plenty of fresh coffee and I can put some more bacon under if you’d fancy it.’

And without
another word she bustles me downstairs and into the kitchen where Nick—sorry, Dudley—a little girl of about twelve and a burly middle-aged geezer in overalls are all having breakfast.

I stare at the manky turquoise polish on my tootsies. This is truly excruciating.

‘Well, come in, duck,’ booms the man in the overalls, who is obviously Nick’s dad. ‘Let’s ’ave a look at yer.’

I step inside, feeling ridiculous in my mumsy outfit. The whole ensemble would be bad enough in itself, but unfortunately I’m so damn lanky that the slacks barely reach mid-calf.

‘Well, she’s a girl all right, in’t she, Ma?’ He laughs, scooping up egg yolk and brown sauce with a hunk of white sliced. ‘You know, love, ’e’s ’ad us right worried. Thought ’e was a poofter, we did. ’E’s never ’ad a girl back ’ere as long as we can remember, ’as ’e, Ma?’

‘Nope.’ Nick’s mum shakes her head. ‘Eighteen ’e is now and not a single girlfriend to speak of.’

Pardon me?

Eighteen?

God. That practically makes me a pervert. A flipping kiddie fiddler.

I tussle with my conscience all the way home on the tube. After I’d rammed down my bacon and fled, Nick followed me to the door, an anxious expression on his face. And it was suddenly obvious how much younger he was. God, I can be dappy at times.

‘Can I see you again?’

Oh God. Not the lovesick pup act.

‘Fuck off,’ said my head.

‘OK,’ said my treacherous, humungously large gob. ‘Call me. Anytime.’

Now I’m actually on my way home, I curse myself for my complete inability to pull off a successful one-night stand.

Mind you, just because I’ve
said
he can call me, doesn’t mean he’s actually going to bother, does it? That’s blokes for you.

Completely unreliable.
After all, isn’t that the whole point of my not wanting one?

I’m a bundled up bunch of frustration all the way home. The Croissantus Interruptus I experienced earlier means I feel all unfulfilled and weird. I try leaning against the metal pole in the middle of the carriage, remembering the time Janice gleefully informed me she got a surprise orgasm from the vibrations.

Nothing.

Not a sausage.

And people are staring at me, wondering why the hell I’m standing up when the train is half empty. I shrug and make my way to a seat. Perhaps Janice was on a different line when it happened to her.

Anyway, it’s nothing a couple of Jaffa Cakes and a minute or two with the shower head won’t sort out the minute I get home.

When I eventually shuffle through the front gate, I’m surprised to see a figure hunched on George and David’s front steps. I’m not quite sure who it is, but from the way George is standing at the top window, peering over the scarlet geraniums in their window box and chucking the odd missile, I assume it’s someone who isn’t very popular.

And then I recognise the T-shirt he’s wearing.

It’s one of mine.

Which, I might add, I wouldn’t have minded getting back.

Yep. You’ve guessed it.

It’s only bloody Jake.

‘What do you want?’

My insides are doing back flips faster than an Olympic gymnast and my heart is using my tongue as a trampoline but I dodge the cherry tomato George lobs down at him and manage to appear cool as a cucumber.

Until Jake stands up, that is, and I realise he’s still as tall and handsome as ever. That unruly dark hair is so sexy it takes my breath away and I involuntarily take a step backwards, losing my footing as I do so and ending up straight on my arse.

Nice one,
Katie. Real slick.

‘How did you find me?’

‘Your mum told me where you were.’

‘She did?’

What the bloody hell is
she
playing at? Mind you, she always did have a bit of a thing for Jake. He was such a smarmball whenever she was around, she never could quite understand why I ‘dropped’ him, as she put it. Of course I was too ashamed to fill her in on all the extra details, like my catching him with old Fishpants Fraser, so she didn’t really get the gist of it at all. She’s probably at home right now, gleefully planning all manner of savoury vol-au-vents for our forthcoming nuptials.

George is still at the upstairs window, torn between trying not to piss himself laughing at my slapstick fall and looking absolutely horrified that I might actually be about to let Jake into his house.

Which, of course, I am. I mean I’m not stupid. I know I really shouldn’t forgive him. But I would quite like to hear what he’s got to say. And, I have to admit, there’s a tiny part of me that’s hoping he’s going to admit he made a mistake.

Of course if he does, I have no idea what I’ll do, but let’s just see, shall we?

I smile nervously at him and rummage for my key. As I do so, a sort of whooping scream comes from the upstairs window.

‘What are you doing, you ridiculous hag?’

‘Fuck off, George,’ I tell him shortly. ‘I’ll deal with this.’

And the truth is, I just can’t resist Jake. His twinkling green eyes are as mischievous as ever. To be honest, it would have been quite a coup if he’d lost some of his sparkle. If his emerald eyes had turned sludge green with the stress of losing me and then having to cope with a slutbucket girlfriend and her devil spawn. I mean, there’s nothing nicer than bumping into someone who’s dumped you and realising that you’ve come off better, is there?

I let him in. Smile at him as he smiles at me. Motion for him to take a seat in George’s immaculate white sitting room. Once
he’s sat down, I realise I don’t have a clue what to do next, so I check my reflection in the Venetian glass mirror above the fireplace and am horrified to notice I look like a panda on smack. Great dark circles of eyeliner have slurred their way halfway down my cheeks and I look dreadful. My Damart-type outfit definitely isn’t helping. I might have thought to get my own clothes back before making a beeline for the exit.

Graham, fat ginger traitor that he is, jumps onto Jake’s knee, purring like an engine. Bugger. He shouldn’t be in here either. George will have a pink fit if he sees him.

‘Oh, Katie,’ Jake sighs, stroking between Graham’s ears so gently that I start wishing it was me on his lap and not the cat at all. ‘Isn’t life strange?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I just feel…’

‘Yes?’

‘I mean, don’t get me wrong…’

‘Go on.’ ‘I feel as though I’ve made a terrible mistake,’ he finishes eventually.

‘Oh.’

Is that re shagging Fishpants or losing me? I wonder.

‘I mean having a baby isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,’ he says. George, coming down the stairs, catches the tail end of the conversation.

‘I’ll take it if you like. How much do you want for it?’ he asks bluntly. ‘Unless it has 666 stamped across its forehead, of course.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I can probably take the thing off your hands. Depending on facial features, of course. It’s not a fat one, is it?’

‘She’s fine,’ Jake says. ‘She’s beautiful, in fact. And she’s not that much trouble. I—I mean we certainly don’t want to sell her.’

‘Oh.’ George looks disappointed. ‘OK. Well, if you change your mind, you know where we are. Bye, darling.’ He kisses me on
both cheeks, whispering as he does so, ‘Don’t do anything silly, darling. I don’t want the place reeking of muff when I come back.’

‘Where are you going?’ I run after him in a panic, suddenly not sure that I want to be left on my own with Jake.

‘Dinner with Mother. And get that ball of ginger fluff out of my drawing room before I get back.’

‘Can I come?’

‘No.’ George laughs. ‘You can sodding well stay here and sort out that fucking infidel. Make sure he’s gone by the time I get home. And don’t worry. I won’t forget your toffee.’

I laugh. Good old George’s mum was knocking forty by the time her only son was born. Four years later, George’s dad died. She’s been on her own ever since, as George is always at pains to point out whenever I try to get him to talk to her about his gayness. You see, George, despite the frantic clubbing and cottaging of his Life Before David, has always been a dutiful son, dashing down to visit her in her tiny cottage in Kent whenever he can. Quite often, he’s dragged me down there with him. And his mum, bless her, never lets us leave without some sugary treat. A Penguin biscuit, perhaps, or a Creamline toffee. Personally, I wouldn’t mind betting that she’s perfectly well aware of the situation re his sexuality and just doesn’t give two hoots. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if her questioning about his pseudo single state was merely a wind-up. She’s a wise old bird, is George’s mum. There’s not much she doesn’t know. I’m just hoping one of them decides to get it out into the open before it’s too late. It would be a shame if she never got to know how happy George is with David.

‘Actually,’ Jake says when George has slammed the door behind him, ‘Tallulah’s the reason I’m here.’

‘Tallulah?’ I ask him. ‘Who the hell’s Tallulah?’

‘The baby.’

‘Oh, of course, sorry.’

‘You did the food for the wedding of some friends of mine. In Hampton Court.’

‘The ones
with the swimming pool, where everyone ended up pissed off their tits?’

‘Marina and Giles, yes.’ ‘They can’t be very good friends if they didn’t invite you,’ I crack, quick as a whip.

‘They did actually.’ He smiles. ‘We couldn’t get a babysitter.’ ‘Well, if you’re thinking of asking me, don’t bother,’ I tell him shortly. ‘I really don’t think I owe you any favours. And I don’t do shit-caked nappies.’

‘No, silly.’ He grins, and I’m reminded of how he used to be with me when we met. He used to smile at me indulgently all the time. And even though I knew it was ever so slightly patronising, it made me feel wanted. Janice and Sam used to say he was trying to make me look stupid but I didn’t care.

I was in
love
, for God’s sake.

‘I wondered if you’d do her christening,’ he finishes, smiling as though he’s just done me a great big favour. He’s got a bloody cheek, to be honest. If he really thinks I’m going to run around serving cucumber butties to all his friends (who, incidentally, used to be
our
friends), he’s got another think coming.

But hang on a sec. Jake, after all, is absolutely brilliant at networking. He knows
loads
of cool people.

‘What sort of thing did you have in mind?’ I ask him.

Business is business, after all. And as long as I don’t shag him, what harm can it do?

‘S
o does this
mean we can have casual sex on a regular basis?’ Jake wipes his willy on my duvet cover and shrugs his faded 501s over his neat little bum.

OK, OK, so I should be feeling pretty stupid right now. And soiled. And probably a tiny bit used. And George is due back any minute, and if he catches Jake still here he’s going to go mad.

And I suppose it was a bit cruel, letting Jake go down on me so soon after shagging Nick. But then I didn’t know how things were going to work out, did I? And I was feeling all frustrated.

Of course, you could probably say I’m a bit dim for jumping into bed with Jake, just because he ladled it on thick about how since the baby arrived they haven’t had sex once. Fishpants is too busy calling for posset cloths or doing pelvic floor exercises to pay much attention to him. Apparently, she’s afraid that if she doesn’t keep doing the exercises, her bottom might actually fall out into her leggings as she whips round Somerfield.

The sight of her with her legs in stirrups and her nether regions doing a pretty good impression of a car crash hadn’t done
much for his libido either, he said, stroking my cheek and saying how much he’d missed me. Not as far as she was concerned, anyway.

I lapped it all up like a puppy.

In fact, I was enjoying the attention so much I forgot to be caustic and say I never understood what on earth a sexy, intelligent man like Jake saw in a woman who has the class of your average pound shop. The fact that he’s finally seen sense is enough for me.

I’m delighted.

In fact, I’m more than delighted. Suddenly, I realise that I actually wouldn’t mind having Jake back in my life. Not seriously, of course. I’m not a complete idiot. I know I could never trust him again. But what if I take his offer of frequent casual sex seriously? Would it
really
do any harm?

After all, I won’t be adding any notches to my bedpost. I’ve already been there, seen that, bought the T-shirt. And, in the very unlikely event that I
do
suddenly start to fall in love with him all over again, I won’t be able to do anything about it. I certainly won’t be able to dream of marriage.

Because I’ll already
be
married. To David.

And, of course, there’s the Revenge Factor. While Fishpants is at home, mopping up baby sick and mashing up Weetabix, Jake and I will be having sordid, extramarital sex behind her back. OK, so I can’t avoid a slight twinge of guilt. There’s a baby involved here, after all. And it really isn’t the poor beggar’s fault its parents are so horribly dysfunctional. But then I tell myself I’m not really risking little Tallulah’s happiness in the slightest. After all, I certainly don’t want Jake to leave Fish-pants and take up with me. She need never know that Daddy’s a philanderer.

So I conveniently gloss over the memory of sex with Jake pre-split. I forget that, most of the time, the sex was actually so dull I had to ask to go on my front so I didn’t miss
Holby City
. Because having sex with Jake just now felt so natural, so com
fortably familiar, that I suddenly realise, with a stab of nostalgia, that this is what I want. To be with him again, no matter how infrequently. I want to feel safe.

I’ve missed him.

Over the next few weeks we meet on Saturdays, mainly. George and David usually go clubbing on Saturdays. And it’s easy for Jake to get away. It’s not so easy, however, for me to lie to Nick/Dudley who, against all the odds, has proved himself to be bum-numbingly reliable. Which is a bit of a shame. He really
did
have bastard potential. Finding out someone so utterly unsuitable is completely in love with me is rather like getting a really tasteful Valentine card and then discovering it’s from Mum.

Still, I decide that it’s probably just as well to keep him on side. After all, it’s one in the eye for Jake. It’s nice to feel I’m sort of cheating on him, just as he cheated on me. Even if he doesn’t know about it yet. Janice would understand. Except I can’t talk to her about it because she’s gone off on a Rich Bitch weekend in Ipswich without even telling me. I have to hear all about it from George.

‘
Are
there any rich bitches in Ipswich?’ I ask him doubtfully, as we sit in his kitchen (I still can’t quite think of it as my home too) eating raspberry yoghurt with dollops of honey.

‘Well, that’s what I wondered,’ he says. ‘They must bus them in specially.’

‘And what happens, precisely, on this rich bitch wotsit?’

‘It’s run by vapid, cocksucking whores with gold-digging habits,’ he assures me. ‘They tell you exactly how to dress and behave in order to bag a rich man. They tell you how to get out of cars at premieres without showing your pants. You know the sort of thing. And if you talk like Bianca from
EastEnders
, they teach you to either learn to talk posh or keep your mouth shut. She’s learning to be a proper lady so Jasper will marry her.’

‘Why didn’t she say she was going?’ I whinge.

‘She did.’ George
licks the back of his spoon. ‘She just couldn’t tell you because you’re too busy. And she’s still upset about you making up that story about Jasper and some other woman.’

‘But I
did
see him with another woman,’ I insist.

‘But
I
didn’t,’ he says. ‘And I think it’s better to stay out of it really, darling. Don’t you?’

‘Oh.’

I suppose I
have
been rather busy lately, what with Neat Eats doing so well. Word of mouth, it seems, spreads like wildfire and I’m getting bookings for parties up and down the country now.

Tallulah’s christening, for which I provide a huge T-shaped cake, covered in palest pink icing and tiny fresh blueberries, goes like a dream. Jake and I even manage a guilty bunk up in the bathroom when nobody’s looking. Well,
I
feel guilty. I don’t think he’s even aware that he’s doing anything wrong. And then I can never see my friends on Saturday nights because I’m usually seeing Jake. Apparently, it’s much easier for him to sneak out then because Saturday night is always a good night for engineering an argument. All Fishpants wants to do then is spend quality time together when the baby’s in bed. This evidently involves watching shit TV together and eating takeaways. ‘As if she can afford to eat takeaways,’ he grumbles one night. ‘She’s the size of the bloody Hindenberg as it is.’

Even
I
have to feel a bit sorry for her when I hear poor old Fishpants being denied a decent calorie intake.

Apparently, on a normal Saturday, the eating of the takeaway is followed by the implementation of a cunning device that, Jake assures me, is typical of ‘all blokes’. He lets Fishpants choose the video, then sits down to watch it. And then he waits. And waits. Until she demands the remote control to herself for a change. Or talks over an important bit of the film. And then he storms out and comes round to mine. Where
we
watch shit TV together and eat takeaways. And then have sex.

It’s as easy-peasy as that.

The sly
fox.

Still, Fishpants made her bed (nasty frilly sheets and a horrid valance, no doubt), when the pair of them played hide the salami behind my back, so she can sodding well lie in it as far as I’m concerned. After all, it’s hardly my fault if Jake seems to be labouring under the impression that monogamy is a low-fat spread, is it?

Nick, of course, is a different kettle of fish altogether. And the more I see him, the more I realise we really do have nothing in common at all. He was born in the eighties, for God’s sake. To him, a Snickers has always been a Snickers. A Texan is someone who comes from a particular part of America. ‘Watch Out, There’s a Humphrey About’ means nothing to him at all. He was about four when Culture Club belted out ‘Karma Chameleon’. He never spent his holidays giggling as Irish children made ‘fillums’ on
Why Don’t Yew
? And he’s never eaten Pacers, Spangles or Star Bars in his life.

Still, with no common reference points, I don’t really have to bother talking to him at all. We can get straight down to the sex. Which, I might add, can get pretty exciting. Sex with Nick is very much of the sordid, shag-me-up-a-back-alley variety. He loves doing it outside, which means we spend little time in bed and lots behind skips, on park benches and in other people’s back gardens. Still, it keeps things interesting, or so I tell myself with a sigh one evening, as the back door of a pebbledashed semi opens and a fat woman in a peach candlewick dressing gown screams abuse in our general direction, before hurling a bucket of cold water over us.

Now though, as George tells me bluntly that even Janice, Mrs Muff Before Mates herself, feels I have no time for her any more, I feel suddenly depressed. I remember that I haven’t even bothered to make up with Sam after the row we had about my moving into George’s. And it suddenly becomes clear to me that, whatever might or might not have been said in the heat of the moment, Sam and Janice are my best friends. And I can’t
afford to lose them. Besides, in the back of my mind I’ve known all along that I’ve got something very, very important I need to ask Sam. So, feeling ridiculously nervous, I call him to apologise. And then I ask him if I can take him out for dinner tonight to make up.

‘Course you can, Simpson.’ I can hear Sam’s grin down the phone and I love him for it. ‘Always happy to take your money.’

‘I’ll be round at eight,’ I tell him, feeling relieved.

It’s one of those beautiful, balmy June evenings. The pavements around every pub I walk past on my way to Angel tube are thronging with girls in short, flippy dresses drinking vodka and clean-cut city blokes oozing the scent of lemony aftershave and freshly laundered shirt. The air is thick with the smell of sexual promise and, as I emerge from the tube and wander up to Sam’s house, newly painted and with every windowsill over-spilling with glorious purple and orange pansies, I realise I’m really, really nervous and I don’t know why. Surely it can’t be because I fancy Sam, of all people. Besides, even if I did, I’ve got quite enough on my plate with Jake and Nick. I really haven’t got the time to rack up a third.

Nevertheless, when Pussy answers the door, flicking around a lot of glossy blonde hair and shrugging a delicate lilac cardie over her sticky-outty collarbones, I can’t help feeling more than a tad annoyed.

‘Oh,’ I say involuntarily as she narrows her eyes at me.

‘We’re almost ready,’ she says, with lots of emphasis on the ‘we’. She’s definitely hostile. But the minute she hears Sam’s footsteps behind her, she flips expertly from arch mother cat to fluffy Persian kitten. In fact, she reminds me so much of a cat, I keep expecting her to bend over and start licking her bum.

Sam bounces up behind her, pulling his favourite scruffy tan suede jacket over his shoulders. ‘Simpson, you ol’ slapper.’ He grins, looking really pleased to see me after all this time. ‘It’s great to see you.’

‘You
too.’ I smile back, enjoying the sour look on Pussy’s face as he gives me a huge smacker on either cheek.

‘I’ve got vodka,’ he says. ‘We can make cosmopolitans before we go.’

Pussy and I sit in silence as he lopes into the kitchen to mix the drinks. The moment he’s out of earshot, she turns to me.

‘Are you actually going to
wear
that?’

I look down at my blue shirt dress in surprise.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘What else would I be wearing?’

‘Nothing.’ She looks at me benignly. ‘I just thought…’

‘Thought what?’

‘Well,’ she says, ‘I mean it’s like your mum said, isn’t it?’

‘You’ve met my mother?’ I say in surprise. ‘When?’

‘Lots of times,’ she says, innocently. ‘When we visit Sam’s dad she’s usually there. She despairs of you getting yourself a man, you know. We’ve discussed it in full.’

I suddenly have a vague recollection of Mum mentioning something about lovely manners. I bet the snide little cow’s been stirring all shades of shit round that dinner table.

‘Not that she’d say it to you, of course.’

‘I know.’

I think I know my own mother better than she does actually.

‘But it’s just like she says, isn’t it?’ Pussy picks at a stray bit of fluff on her girlie cardie and looks at me innocently with her big blue eyes. ‘I mean, if you will loaf around wearing baggy clothes and great big clodhopping shoes, no bloke within a mile is going to fancy you. I mean, she was almost in tears because she thought you’d never wear anything feminine or get married. I can tell you, Sam and I had trouble keeping our mouths shut about your wedding. It seems such a shame she won’t be there to see you get married. So selfish of you.’

‘
What?
’

But before the nasty cow can say anything else, Sam breezes back into the room with our cocktails. Pussy’s expression changes, as if at the flick of a switch, from bitch to blameless bimbo as he comes
in, and all I can do is sit there seething. And it’s not only because, even in skintight white trousers, she’s managed to overcome the curse of VPL. It’s because I know what a manipulative little bitch she is. She’s managed to make me feel uncomfortable about my outfit in two seconds flat. And she’s made me worry for my mum. Sam, obviously is none the wiser. He has absolutely no idea. He can’t help it, of course; it’s partly because, being a bloke, he has the handicap of only having a penis to think through. But she’s pulled the wool over his eyes good and proper. She’s all sweetness and light now he’s in the room. Only I, with my feminine intuition, can tell that every time she turns to me, pretending to be interested in what I’m saying, her ‘barely there’ tinted moisturiser is cracking under the strain.

How the hell am I going to ask him what I’ve got to ask him with her in my way?

‘We should go, Sam.’ I look at my watch. ‘The table’s booked for nine and it’s ten to now.’

‘Kay.’ Sam stands up and grabs his jacket.

We both look at Pussy. It’s time for her to do the decent thing and butt out.

‘Great.’ She stands up, pulling her cardigan round her shoulders as if to protect herself from my glare. ‘Where’re we going? Somewhere you can eat your body weight in fattening food, eh, Katie?’ She slaps me on the shoulder a little too hard. ‘Sam’s told me what a great big foodie you are, you fat bloater.’