‘Melanie, given that you’re probably the only person who’s ever gone to bed with him, I wouldn’t worry too much.’
The brief tension gone, I told her about how awful the party had been, which I knew would please her. She was particularly interested in Angus.
‘Sounds intriguing. Was he handsome?’
On the sniff, as usual.
‘Ehm, I don’t know. Have you seen that film Babe?’
‘He looks like a pig?’
‘Hear me out …’
‘Farmer Hoggett?’
‘No! You know the dog in it who goes bad and bites people …?’
‘He looks like a dog?’
‘Well, he has an air of wounded nobility.’
‘In dog form.’
‘Ehm …’
We both sighed.
‘God, there really are no men left,’ exclaimed Fran for like the billionth time.
I couldn’t help it, but I must have involuntarily made an Amanda-type look, because she pretended to knee me in the tits. She didn’t quite pretend properly and unfortunately did hit me in the tits. Fran’s always played rough.
Linda came back eventually, on her own. We both stiffened. As usual she headed straight past the sitting room for her bedroom. I held my breath, terrified she was going to find something out of place. Maybe she had a hair taped over the doorframe and some talc or something, and now she was going to kill us …
Fran gave me a meaningful look, so I heaved myself up again.
‘Erm, Linda, do you want a cup of coffee?’
There was silence from beyond. No doubt this was a terrifying and unprecedented advance on my part. I felt horribly embarrassed and ashamed. Finally:
‘No, thanks.’
‘I think you’ve only got half a pound of sugar left anyway,’ whispered Fran meanly.
‘OK!’ I shouted. ‘We’re off to the pub. Do you want to come?’
Linda came out of her room and looked at me, her pale eyes suspicious.
‘Why?’
‘Ehm, no reason … you know, Monday night …’ I trailed off weakly.
‘No, thanks. I’m going to clean my wardrobe out.’
‘Ohhh – I mean: Oh, right, have fun!’
Then Fran and I fled to the pub to meet Alex and Charlie. ‘Amanda & Fraser Ltd’ had generously deigned to join us: the presence of two good-looking West London boys had obviously upped our social desirability somewhat.
Walking into the pub, I shot a sidelong glance at Fran. It was not looking good. Amanda was sitting in the middle of the three men, showing off in her pertiest manner. Fraser was watching her dutifully – or staring at her adoringly, I couldn’t make out what was true and what was bitchiness on my behalf – and Alex and Charlie were sniggering and nudging each other.
Alex gave me a kiss, and I went to get some beers, while Amanda said something and everybody laughed. I looked at the beautifully cut profile of the man I loved and suddenly felt empty, even when he yelled, ‘Mel, gorgeous gorgeous thing, get over here and sit on my knee immediately.’
How could he be so sweet and still want to move to Fulham with Charlie? I sat on his knee and tried not to mope, but it wasn’t easy.
‘So, anyway,’ Amanda was squawking, ‘I spoke to the designer and she says she’s never seen such a tiny waist! They’re going to have to do it all by hand specially, and it’s going to cost an extra two thousand pounds! Can you imagine!’
‘Bloody hell!’ said Alex dutifully.
The other boys nodded blankly. That infuriated me: they listened to her because she was pretty, but they wouldn’t know what a wedding dress cost at gunpoint.
Then she gave Fraser a look and snapped her fingers. He immediately got up and fetched her another drink. Fran and I looked at each other in amazement.
Anyway, to make myself sound at least vaguely interesting, I spilled the beans about Linda. Fran looked disapproving, but only because she didn’t think to tell it herself. Everyone was enthralled, so I tried not to embellish too much. Well, everyone except Fran, who was being disapproving, and Charlie, who was staring at Fran’s breasts. And Amanda, who was attempting to tell a rival story about her suspected anorexia, which she was trying to make sound like a pretty cool disease.
Suddenly, Angus walked in, and it was like a chill hit the air. Fraser smiled anxiously in welcome, while Amanda gave him a very tight look out of the corner of her beautifully made-up eyes and deliberately smiled without smiling.
‘Oh, hello, Angus,’ she said. ‘So glad you could make it.’
‘Aye.’
Good God, what was he, an extra from Cold Comfort Farm? Angus sat down stolidly.
Fraser looked around. ‘Does everyone know Angus?’ Everyone hummed and pretended to – even if (like Fran) they’d never clapped eyes on him before – so we didn’t all have to go round and introduce ourselves.
I’d gotten to that delicate part of sitting on somebody’s knee when I’d forgotten to balance my toes on the floor and they now had an extremely dead leg which they were being too polite to tell me about.
‘Hey, elephant baby, darling, obviously I adore you, but if you don’t get off my knee now I’m going to collapse and die,’ my beloved announced loudly.
Amanda brayed with laughter, as she was the dictionary antonym of an elephant, whereas clearly, I was the synonym.
There was nowhere to sit, so I edged to the end of the group, red-faced but pretending to take it as a joke, next to the naturally red-faced Angus who was staring surlily at a pint of English bitter. This was a bad ploy, because by the time I re-emerged from my mild and unnoticed strop to re-enter the conversation, the conversation was away from my nutsoid flatmate altogether and back on to bloody weddings again.
‘So,’ Amanda was saying, ‘we’re going to hire out the entire castle and have heather and haggis and tartan swathing and pipers …’
‘… parading out of my arse,’ a voice said quietly in my ear, in a not bad approximation of Amanda’s posh squawk. I giggled before coming to my senses that it had in fact been uttered by Angus the Sulky. No one else had noticed.
‘Hello there,’ I said, warmer than I had intended.
‘Hullo.’
‘Good time on Saturday?’
‘Hmm,’ he said, with a pointed look at the intended duo.
Our fast becoming habitual embarrassed silence stole over us.
‘So, are you older or younger than Frase …’ As soon as I asked the question I remembered I already knew. God, my small-talk radar was getting worse all the time.
‘Still younger.’ He almost half smiled. I briefly wondered what he’d look like if he really did smile.
Someone set another drink in front of me, and I smelled Alex’s aftershave and closed my eyes.
‘Oh, have you two met?’
Alex and Angus shook hands in that wary fashion blokes do when the girl they’re going out with introduces them to another bloke.
‘Hi. Err, you’re Fraser’s little brother?’
Well, of course he was. D’oh!
‘Yes.