Alison and Alison are in their usual sun loungers, engaged in a crisis meeting as the woman making Skinny Alison’s wedding dress has had the temerity not to be available at the end of a phone twenty-four/seven, even though Skinny is on holiday herself.
‘I mean, I’m paying her enough,’ she’s fuming. ‘I just want to know that everything’s going according to plan. That’s not really too much to ask, is it? It’s absolutely vital that we get the second fitting done the minute we get back. Oh God, I shouldn’t have come to this bloody island. There’s just too much to do. And I do want everything to be perfect on my big day.’
‘Of course you do, sweetie,’ says Plump Alison, who is awfully wet but the only one showing the self-obsessed hag any kindness, I suppose.
Indeed Andy seems blissfully unaware of his fiancée’s latest gripe as he sits playing chess with Charlie at the circular stone table in the bar. Andy is quite a good-looking man, in a saturnine sort of way. Tall and rangy, with short dark brown hair and rectangular, dark-framed specs, he looks exactly like the hard-hitting investigative reporter (or ‘proper journalist’, as Poppy puts it when she wants to wind Damian up) that he is.
Though you wouldn’t guess it given her asinine wedding obsession, Skinny Alison is a high-flying lawyer. She too is tall and dark, with a severe black bob and droopily melancholy features set in a long face. She looks surprisingly elegant with her clothes on, I have to admit, clad tonight in white linen palazzo pants and navy and white striped boat-necked T-shirt, her lips defined with a slash of scarlet that matches the silk scarf wrapped around her narrow waist. The fact that she isn’t pouring with sweat in such a get-up is testament to her reptilian cold-bloodedness. She and Andy must have awfully grown-up, intellectually superior dinner parties, I reflect, as I eye them over my drink and wonder what on earth they have in common with my darling, laid-back brother. I’ve met Andy on and off over the years and he’s always struck me as nice enough. But still.
‘How’s that?’ asks Ben as he gives my knee one final wipe and sticks a plaster on it.
‘Much better – thanks so much.’ I will him never to stop manhandling my legs. ‘I’ll just have a fag out here, then go back and finish the food.’
‘Great, I’m starving,’ says Charlie from the bar. ‘What’s the ETA?’ So they can hear what’s going on from there, then. Interesting.
‘God, Charlie, do you ever think of anything but your stomach?’ says Skinny Alison. ‘You really should start looking after yourself. You’re not getting any younger, you know.’
‘Well, I love him just the way he is,’ says Plump Alison in a rare moment of defiance. She walks over and gives him a cuddle from behind.
‘Thanks babe,’ says Charlie, kissing her forearm. ‘Does that mean I can have seconds?’ He roars with laughter. He’s a pretty good sort, as Sloaney accountants go.
‘I’ve never had to worry about my weight,’ says Kim smugly. ‘I guess I’m just lucky – good genes? My mom and grandma both had great skin too? And they both look soooo young for their age? My guru says you get the face you deserve, and I’ve been so lucky I always try to give something back.’ She beams around complacently.
‘So, what’s the score tonight then?’ interjects Poppy – who’s never had to worry about her weight either – into the flabbergasted silence. ‘Dinner in – what? – twenty minutes or so, Belles?’ I nod. ‘Cool, then we’ll just chill for a bit, then hit Ibiza Town, then … does anyone have any particular debauchery in mind?’
We ascertain that Mark wants to hit the Rock Bar, as the Brazilian twins said they might be there, Damian needs to score from some bar in the gay quarter and the rest of us are keen to go to Amnesia as it’s Manumission night. I finish my fag and go inside to put the finishing touches to dinner, Poppy hot on my tail.
‘Christ, have you ever met such a self-satisfied, vacuous little tart,’ she rants, opening the fridge in search of another bottle of tequila. ‘OK, tall tart.’
‘Hmmm … let’s think.’ I put my head on one side and pretend to consider it. ‘Nope, can’t say I have. Surely even Ben must be starting to realize that by now?’
‘Well, I don’t think he was ever after her mind.’
‘My dad and Mark slavering over her like a couple of randy old dogs isn’t helping much either,’ I ponder gloomily. ‘God, I’d like to wipe that smug smile off her face.’
‘Oh well, let’s not let the bitch ruin our holiday.’ Poppy brandishes the tequila bottle. ‘How about a couple of mind-sharpening shots?’
‘The shot glasses are in the bar. Can you really be arsed to go through and pour shots for everyone?’
‘Nope. But I’ve found the perfect substitute!’ cries Poppy triumphantly, producing a couple of egg cups from one of the cupboards. Giggling, we find the salt and lemon (right next to the stove as I was about to use them to season the stew) and embark on the ridiculous ritual beloved of party animals the world over.
‘Eurgh,’ I wince, screwing up my eyes and shoving the lemon wedge in my mouth as quickly as I can to get rid of the taste. Once the gagging reflex has stopped, I’m suffused with a warm glow and set about completing the fish stew with renewed vigour.
‘I’ll set the table, shall I?’ offers Poppy, heading back outside.
‘You’re an angel.’ I really mean it. The first stirrings of pissed sentimentality are creeping up on me, and Poppy certainly looks angelic tonight, with her lovely smile, big almond-shaped green eyes and perfect, straight nose, all framed by that silky, golden mane.
When Pops and I were at school, we were inseparable and a trifle eccentric, not part of any of the cool bitchy girl gangs. It was just us against the world – and the world of an all girls’ school can be horribly unkind if you don’t conform. Poppy and I existed in our own little world of make-believe. After our Enid Blyton stage, we became obsessed with the 1920s and 1930s and devoured books by Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford, Agatha Christie and P. G. Wodehouse, dressing in homemade flapper dresses, cloche hats and character shoes. My fourteenth birthday present from my mum was an old gramophone player with a horn and a pile of dusty 78s that we played over and over, dancing the Charleston and giggling till we were breathless. We even spoke like characters from the books. Things were either ‘beastly’ or ‘vile’, ‘divine’ or ‘too, too happy-making’. Our catty, boyband-obsessed classmates had no idea what to make of us, but we were absolutely content in our anachronistic, self-contained bubble. We never felt the need to befriend anybody else in that stuck-up girls’ school.
By the time we’d hit the sixth form and discovered booze and boys, our shared obsession had died down a bit, but we were still both terribly excited at the idea of Poppy going to Oxford, and all the Brideshead-style punting shenanigans that this would entail. But the first time I went to visit her, towards the end of the Michaelmas term, I was in for a shock. Poppy had always had a pretty face, but the mouse-fair shoulder-length bob and old-fashioned clothes that swamped her tiny body meant that up until now her prettiness was very much of the girl-next-door, unthreatening variety.
The stunning undergraduate holding court in the Christ Church bar, surrounded by sycophants seemingly hanging on her every word, was a different proposition altogether. Her recently highlighted hair had grown, and now flowed – silky, blonde and streaky – down her back and over her shoulders. In keeping with the Britpop look of the time, khaki hipster cargo pants and a black crop top showed off her pert tits, flat brown tummy, narrow hips, and … Good God, she’d had her belly button pierced! And she was smoking! I was in such a state of shock at Poppy’s transformation that I just stood there gawping for a bit, until she noticed me and squealed, running over with her arms outstretched for a hug.
Pops did her best to make me feel welcome that weekend, but there was a definite change in her. The way she spoke, the way she lit her fags and tossed her hair – it was as if that first term at Oxford had bestowed