It Had to Be You (17 page)

‘Five years I’ve worked for the company Binki, what was I supposed to do? There was the promotion staring me in the face. I couldn’t throw the job away.’

I try to take in what Oliver is saying while staring at the diamond solitaire which sits between the condiments on the café table. The waitress looks at it enviously as she places our order in front of us. Perhaps she would like to marry Oliver. God knows I
’m not sure if I want to. I’d made him wait until I finished my shift and agreed to have something to eat with him at the local café. Yes I know, very romantic. But Oliver kind of took all the romance out of it when he proposed during
Debbie Does Dallas
don’t you think?

‘
So you slept with her to keep your job?’ I say stiffly, pushing a bacon sandwich away as visions of Brown Nipples assault my brain.

‘
It was Christmas,’ he says, reaching for the ketchup and dripping it onto the white gold solitaire. ‘I’d drunk too much. She said she wanted to discuss the promotion. The next thing I knew …’

‘
Oh of course, I keep forgetting it’s okay to get your leg over at Christmas. I must be the odd one because I actually didn’t get my leg over at Christmas at all,’ I snap, grabbing the salt pot and knocking the ring towards Oliver’s plate in the process. I swear one of us will end up eating the thing before this sodding lunch is over.

Oliver dips a chip into his
egg yolk.

‘
That’s not what I heard,’ he mumbles.

The waitress seems to spend forever wiping down the table next to ours. She is probably waiting for the wonderful moment when I ecstatically scream
Oh yes, I will
, and obviously doesn’t think it at all odd that Oliver is proposing over egg and chips in a cheap café just around the corner from a sex shop.

‘
What does that mean?’ I snap.

He squeezes tomato
ketchup onto his plate, the bottle making a farting noise as it does so.

‘
Ben Newman,’ he says accusingly with another squirt of ketchup. I snatch the bottle from him, accidentally
spilling a drop on his shirt. He looks down and then back up at me wide-eyed. Blimey, I’ve squirted him with ketchup, not stabbed him in the chest with my cutlery. The waitress wanders over with a teapot.

‘
More tea?’ she asks.

‘
Oh my God,’ she adds when she sees the ketchup stain.

Now,
she thinks I have stabbed him too. I’m not surprised the way he is clutching his chest.

‘
It’s ketchup,’ I say with a sigh.

‘
For Christ’s sake,’ Oliver moans, dabbing at the stain with a serviette. ‘This is a
Viktor and Rolf.’

The waitress rushes over with a wet cloth, smiles, glances at the ring
and
asks if we need anything else.

‘
Is everything okay with your food?’ she asks, looking at my uneaten bacon butty.

‘
Fine,’ I nod.

‘
I expect you’re too excited to eat,’ she smiles.

Well something like that. I smile back.

‘Ben Newman,’ I hiss as soon as she is out of earshot. ‘Are you serious? Have you seen him?’

‘
Well maybe men with warts on their noses turn you on. How do I know? You have been behaving oddly the past few months.’

‘
But bloody Ben Newman,’ I say.

How could Oliver even think I could shag Ben Newman? In fact, how could Oliver think I would shag anyone while I was with him? But Ben Newman, I mean, bloody Ben Newman. I
’ve got to be desperate haven’t I?

‘
I wouldn’t shag Ben Newman if you paid me a million pounds, and besides Oliver, I’ve always been faithful,
which is more than can be said for you.’

He lifts a steaming mug of tea to his lips and lowers his eyes
before saying.

‘
That’s not what Ben Newman says. Apparently you were at it all the time, that’s what Muffy was told. Rumours are you wouldn’t back off and that he finally had to ask you to leave.’

What a lying wanker.

‘So it seems,’ he continues, ‘that we were both shagging the boss, but at least I did it for a promotion. It will make you happy to know that it totally buggered my back.’

I don
’t believe I am hearing this. Am I supposed to sympathise with his bad back now.

‘
So it’s okay to be unfaithful as long as it is with your boss and if you get a promotion out of it?’ I say, biting into my bacon sandwich before the waitress asks again if the food is okay.

‘
Of course not, I never actually said that …’

‘
And I never shagged Ben Newman. I don’t care what he’s telling everyone.’

‘
Well …’

There is silence while Oliver eats his chips and I fiddle with the bacon sandwich to look for bits of bacon that haven
’t congealed into fat. He finally gives a weak smile and says,

‘
Did you have a
nice birthday? Did you like the bracelet? I thought …’

He hesitates as a lad wearing a baseball cap stops at our table.

‘Hi,’ he interrupts. ‘You work in the sex shop don’t you?’ He grins, before spitting out his chewing gum and sticking it on our table.

‘
Actually …’ begins Oliver.

‘
I ordered two movies,
Titty Titty Bang Bang
and
Forest Hump,
are they in yet?’

‘
Jesus Christ,’ groans Oliver.

I could go to the loo I suppose. It
’s as good an idea as any. Maybe they have a window I could climb out of.

‘
I’m not sure,’ I say vaguely.

In fact, I
’m not sure about anything. A month ago I was a normal person. I’m still a normal person but you know what I mean. I had a normal job and a normal boyfriend. Well, he seemed normal, and a normal flat, and yes maybe I had a weird boss but I didn’t know that until Christmas Eve. In fact, come to think of it maybe I don’t have a normal boyfriend either. What kind of normal boyfriend sleeps with his boss to get a promotion? I guess the only thing I had that was normal was my flat. Mind you, all that was much more normal than what I have now wasn’t it? Now I share a house with a man I don’t know and I work in a sleazy sex shop, and live where strange men come up to me in cafés and ask if their porn movies have arrived right in the middle of my boyfriend’s marriage proposal. I have a big bag of chocolate penises in my fridge. Okay on my shelf in a shared fridge, but the point is I have them. How normal is that?

‘
I’ll pop in and check, shall I?’ asks the man.

I nod and look at Oliver. We sit in silence for a time and I nibble at my cold bacon sandwich. The waitress watches us from behind the counter.

‘Well,
what do you say? I love you. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I was foolish. I forgive you for Ben Newman and …’

‘
Forgive me?’ I say stunned. ‘I wouldn’t shag Ben Newman if he was the last man on earth.’

‘
That’s not what …’

‘
I don’t care what Muffy heard. I didn’t shag Ben Newman, but you did shag Amanda Rowland. I saw you remember?’

‘
And I was a fool and I know that, but be fair Binki, I’m putting up with a lot too. How do you think it looks you sharing a house with some guy you hardly know, and working in some sleazy sex shop?’

‘
I don’t care how it looks,’ I say defiantly
.

‘
And you have let yourself go,’ he says looking at the waitress who nods at him supportively.

‘
Let myself go?’ I echo.

I don
’t believe what I’m hearing. He coughs uncomfortably.

‘
Well, your hair looks … well it doesn’t look as nice as it used to.’

God, Wesley said he had taken twenty years off me. I
’ve a good mind to ask for my money back.

‘
And you’ve got a pimple on your chin. You never had pimples before.’

I feel the pimple self-consciously. Yes well, I
’ve never been this stressed before have I?

‘
And I couldn’t help notice …’ he hesitates.

How much more? I
’m beginning to feel like Frankenstein’s sister.

‘
In the sex …’ he glances at the waitress
and lowers his voice. I’m starting to wonder if something is going on between these two. ‘Shop,’ he continues, ‘that you haven’t shaved your legs.’

I don
’t believe this. He pushes the ring towards me.

‘
But for all that, you’re the only woman I want,’ he finishes.

Well that
’s wonderful isn’t it? Oliver loves me despite my scarecrow hair, pimples and hairy legs

‘
Please Binki, let’s start again. There’s no one else for me. We can put all this behind us, please say yes,’ he says, taking my hand.

‘
Oh congratulations,’ squeals the waitress. ‘It’s so romantic. We’ve got fresh custard tarts. I’ll bring two, on the house.’

Well I guess it makes a change from
champagne. The truth is I want to say yes, I really do, but it’s not only the memory of Amanda Rowland that haunts me but I can’t get William Ellis out of my head. It’s not like I fancy him or anything, it’s just I can’t get the memory of that almost kiss out of my head. I know I should, he probably kisses women all the time. You only have to check the contents of the bathroom cabinet to know what he gets up to, but anyway, I’m not his type, isn’t that what he said? But
he has also said he wouldn’t kick me out of his bed. Then there is also the question of
Driftwood.
Kiss or no kiss, I
can’t trust William Ellis. He could be nothing but a con artist for all I know, but more importantly, can I really marry a man who cheated on me? I could try and forget Amanda Rowland, although that is easier said than done especially if Oliver carries on working under her, do you see what I mean? I can’t shake off that vision of her sprawled on top of him. I must try and put it all behind me and get back to my lovely life in Notting Hill, and have my lovely dream wedding and my lovely 2.4 children, whatever 2.4 children means. I always wanted children. At least I’d have big breasts for nine months. Come to think of it I could have big breasts all the time, although of course that would mean having 10.4 children or something like that. On reflection, maybe breast surgery would be easier. And not to mention after having all those kids I’d end up with such a huge vagina that Oliver would disappear inside there and end up finding someone else like Amanda Rowland, not inside my vagina obviously, that would be a bit gross and it would never be big enough for Miss Brown Nipples but you know what I mean, and there we would be, full circle. So how can I possibly agree to marry him? Apart from anything else, how could I possibly marry a man who proposes first in a sex shop and then again in a café over egg and chips? It’s no good. I push the ring back.

‘
I really don’t know,’ I say.

His face drops and he looks so miserable that I have to fight back the urge to say
Oh alright then
. Sometimes I am so stupid. Fortunately the waitress returns with our celebratory custard tarts before I can say anything.

‘
Congratulations,’ she says cheerfully, unaware of the gloomy atmosphere. ‘I’ve brought two orange juices on the house.’

Yes well, custard tarts and orange juice just about sums up Oliver and me doesn
’t it?

‘
But why?’ asks Oliver.

‘
Because you just proposed,’ says the waitress with a big smile on her face.

‘
Why don’t you know?’ he says ignoring her.

I grimace.

‘I said no,’ I whisper to the waitress.

She looks
at the custard tarts as though debating whether to take them back.

‘
Don’t worry we’ll pay for everything,’ I say, wondering why the hell I am discussing custard tarts and orange juice at a time like this.

‘
Because it is so sudden and …’ I continue, talking to Oliver.

‘
Sudden? You were bloody expecting it Muffy said.’

Muffy? Whose bloody side is she on now? Honestly, you can
’t trust anyone.

‘
Yes well, that was before you balanced Amanda Rowland on your balls,’ I say.

He stands up
and snatches the ring from the table.

‘
I’ll let you think things over. I can’t apologise for ever Binki. I said I’m sorry. I’ve got a good job now and we can have a nice life together, have kids and everything.’