Katy Carter Wants a Hero (7 page)

‘Fingers out!’ Ollie raps my knuckles with a wooden spoon. ‘I reckon this’ll take me another hour. Then I can push off and you can pretend that you’ve been slaving all afternoon. ‘

‘I owe you one,’ I say fervently. Bless him, he’s even laid the table and made it look like something out of an interiors magazine.

‘Don’t worry.’ Ollie throws finely sliced fillet steaks into a pan, where they sizzle and spit. ‘I’ll call the favour in sometime. In fact, I’ve a stack of GCSE coursework that needs grading…’

‘Anything!’ I promise. ‘You’ve totally saved my life.’

‘I have,’ Ol agrees, chucking in a handful of peppercorns. ‘But never mind that now. Stop it!’ He slaps my hand away from the pan. ‘You’re distracting me. Why don’t you go into town and buy something to wear? Then when you come back I’ll be out of here and you can pretend that you’ve done all the hard work
and
managed to make yourself look gorgeous.’

It’s worth any amount of GCSE marking if I can make tonight a success, and blowing him a kiss, I’m only too glad to leave the cooking behind.

I spend a happy couple of hours in Ealing Broadway, where I shove a Big Mac down my neck and spend ages in Waterstone’s perusing the romantic fiction and convincing myself there must be a market for Jake and Millandra. Then I embark on the serious task of finding a suitable outfit for tonight. What I ought to do is buy something in Laura Ashley, all flowery print and velvet trimming, but I just can’t face it. Eventually I choose a pair of green velvet flares and a soft grey off-the-shoulder sweater, which I feel is sophisticated but sexy. I then buy about half the bangles and necklaces in Accessorize and treat myself to a shampoo and blow-dry in Toni & Guy. I’m all for saving Pinchy but I don’t really fancy getting in the bath with him. There’s something about the way he looks at people’s limbs that makes me a little nervous. Thank goodness James showers at the golf club. Somehow I think he’d prefer Pinchy in a cheesy sauce rather than floating in the jacuzzi bath.

When I finally get home at just before six o’clock I’m feeling pretty darn good about myself. My hair is all curly and bouncy, my new clothes are deliciously heavy in their carriers and for once the make-up girl at the Clinique counter has done a good job. I pause and examine my reflection in the hall mirror. Perhaps the eyes are a little Lily Savage? I lick my finger and scrub some of the greeny-gold eye shadow away. I may well be putting on a show for Julius Millward and Co. but it doesn’t do to look too theatrical. Besides, I don’t need another lecture from James about how Sophie always looks so natural and fresh. If I had an au pair, a clothing allowance and worked part time in an art gallery, I’d look fresh too. But my classroom is more like Beirut than Bayswater, so I feel I can be forgiven for looking more than a little frayed around the edges. When I try telling this to James, though, I just get sarcastic comments about all my holidays and finishing at three thirty every day. Well, I tell myself, as I hang up my coat and saunter into the kitchen, if bloody Sophie had to battle with apathy and raging hormones on a daily basis, I bet she’d look as knackered as I do. And besides, I’m the fastest texter in west London and know all the latest slang. At least I am in touch with my generation.

OK then. The one beneath it.

The kitchen smells divine, and what’s even better, Ollie has cleared up and every surface sparkles. On the breakfast bar is an A4 piece of paper on which he has scrawled a long list of instructions. I skim-read it quickly and check the pans to make sure I know exactly what I’m dealing with. Sure enough I find fillet steak chasseur, baby corn, mangetout and carrots sitting on the hob and a pan of fragrant rice all drained and ready to be heated. Inside the fridge, the melon and Parma ham is ready plated and a large chocolate mousse shimmers and wobbles in a silver dish. It looks so good it’s all I can do not to dig in straight away.

I pour myself a celebration glass of white burgundy and set to following Ollie’s instructions. Soon pans are bubbling merrily, Norah Jones is crooning softly and the fat white pillar candles in the fireplace are flickering romantically. I give myself a mental pat on the back, knock the wine back and take my new clothes into the bathroom. I feel like I’m wrapped in a warm, cosy bubble. Everything is going to be perfect, I just know it.

‘Now,’ I tell Pinchy, as I heap my jeans and sweater on the floor, ‘make sure you keep really quiet tonight.’

Pinchy regards me beadily. He’s not particularly vocal, which although it doesn’t make for a very rewarding conversation, leaves me pretty confident that he’ll go unnoticed. Instead he wiggles his antennae and does a leisurely lap of the bath.

‘There!’ I smooth down my new trousers and spray some Coco down my cleavage. ‘What do you think? Pretty sexy, huh?’

But Pinchy’s busy swimming and doesn’t so much as even glance my way. Typical, even lobsters ignore me. Still, I decide as I fluff up my hair and pout at myself in the mirror, I look respectable. The hippy chick has been banished and in her place stands a demure-looking merchant banker’s fiancée. Feeling pleased at this transformation, I pull the shower curtain around the bath and leave Pinchy to carry on his aqua-aerobics.

Another glass of wine later and I’m feeling a lovely alcohol-induced warmth and confidence. This is a bit of a balancing act, though. I want to stay at the stage where I feel like the most gorgeous creature on the planet, but I know that too much more will turn me into a burbling wreck. Tonight really isn’t the night to get trolleyed.

‘This smells wonderful.’ James has crept up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. His lips brush against my ear lobe, sending ripples of goose bumps down my arms. I melt against him and feel almost faint with relief. The cold war between us seems to be over, because he’s been disarmed by the mouth-watering aromas of Ollie’s cooking. ‘You are clever, Chubs.’

Actually, I
am
clever. I can read
Beowulf
in the original and know all about trochaic feet, but James doesn’t give a toss about that kind of stuff. What matters to him is having a wife who can cook and keep house.

He should have stuck to the
Beowulf
, because I’m seriously crap at the other things.

Still, I smile brightly and feel relieved I’m forgiven for upsetting Cordelia. ‘It’s nothing,’ I say. ‘It took me no time at all.’ And I’m not exactly lying, am I?

‘I’m sorry that I was so grumpy earlier,’ James says, cupping my breasts in his hands and kissing my neck. I wait to feel a Mexican wave of desire, but it doesn’t come, not even the teeniest tremor. It seems that even if my mind doesn’t want to hold grudges, my body does.

‘It’s just I’m so stressed at the moment,’ he continues, dropping feathery kisses on to my bare shoulder. ‘This wedding is costing a fortune, and if I’m going to go places at Millwards and make serious money, then I really need this evening to go well.’

‘But,’ I venture, because this seems like a valid point to me, ‘shouldn’t they promote you because you’re good at your job rather than because your fiancée can cook a nice meal?’

‘It’s all about image,’ says James, giving up on trying to turn me on and helping himself to wine instead. ‘The partners do an awful lot of networking and their wives have to play a part in that. If Julius is going to promote me, and,’ James has a smug smile on his face, ‘I rather think he will, he’ll need to make sure that he has the entire package. We’ll have to buy a bigger house, obviously, if we’re entertaining, and make sure that you get the hang of what cutlery to use and what wines to serve. Corporate entertaining is a vital part of a wife’s role. And this smells divine. I’m sure you’ll be up to it.’

You know that bit in
Titanic
when the Kate Winslet character sees her life all mapped out for her and tries to fling herself off the back of the ship? Well, that’s how I feel as I tend to the dinner and paste a rigor mortis smile on to my face. Can I really spend the rest of my life pretending to be somebody I’m not? I can’t imagine that Ollie will be on hand to help me for the next forty years.

In spite of all my good intentions I pour another glass of wine. I’m going to have to tell James the truth about tonight or our marriage is going to be totally based on a lie.

‘Darling—’ I begin, but am rudely interrupted by the buzzer.

‘I’ll get it!’ cries James. ‘It’s bound to be Julius; he was just behind me in the clubhouse.’

I give up and let him rush to the door. If he was a dog he’d be barking excitedly and wagging his tail. It looks like I’m going to have to lie through my teeth this evening and fess up later.

Oh what a tangled web…

‘Katy!’ cries James, bursting back into the kitchen. ‘Julius and Helena are here!’

‘How marvellous,’ I trill, like a character from a Noël Coward play. ‘How super to see you both!’ and I air-kiss the twig-like Helena and try to do the same to Julius. Unfortunately Julius Millward is an old lech of the first order and manages to plant his wet rubbery lips on mine and give my bottom a squeeze. It’s all I can do not to puke into the carrots.

‘Something smells divine,’ booms Julius as James pours him a glass of wine.

Helena is peeking into the pans.

‘What’s in this?’ she demands, sniffing suspiciously. ‘Is there cream in it? I can’t eat dairy.’

‘Um,’ I say helplessly. I haven’t a flipping clue what’s in it.

Helena glares at the sauce. ‘It looks like cream to me. And brandy? I can’t drink alcohol, you know. I’m detoxing.’

I want to grab her head and ram it in the saucepan. Why on earth go to a dinner party if she’s on a detox diet?

‘Stick your detox diet up your arse, you raddled old bag,’ I say.

Actually I don’t say that but I’d like to. What I really say is a very apologetic mutter about how there’s only a bit of cream in it, which could be true for all I know. Fortunately Julius saves the moment by booming that it’s about time she had a ‘bloody good feed’ and whisking his wife away from the kitchen and into the sitting room. Then the doorbell shrills again and moments later I hear the haw-haw tones of Ed and Sophie Grenville.

Gritting my teeth so hard that I’m amazed they don’t shatter, I pick up the wine and glasses and force myself to be sociable.

‘Katy!’ Sophie brays, and we do the air-kissing thing. ‘What a sweet little outfit! Where’s it from, Agnès B?’

Something in Sophie, possibly the way she acts as though she’s still head girl and about to banish me on to the lacrosse pitch, brings out the worst in me.

‘Trousers from Topshop, jumper from House of Oxfam,’ I tell her breezily and have the satisfaction of her hand recoiling from my shoulder. ‘They have some real bargains. I’ll have to show you.’

‘Oh! Lovely,’ says Sophie, as enthusiastically as though I’d asked her to eat worms for dinner.

James shoots me a look that I choose to ignore. Three glasses of wine have made me bold. Sod him.

‘I’ll get it!’ I say brightly as the doorbell sounds again. ‘That’ll be Ollie and his dinner date.’

‘No doubt some random tart,’ I hear James say nastily. Sometimes I really don’t like my fiancé very much, and I have a distinct feeling that now is one of those times.

I open the door and in bounds Sasha, all lolling pink tongue, drooling mouth and long ears. Definitely not the dinner date I had in mind.

‘Are you mad?’ I hiss. ‘James hates dogs! He’s allergic.’

Ollie fixes me with a steely gaze. ‘I’m not leaving her on her own all evening, not when I’ve spent all day over here saving your neck. Especially not because of,’ he practically spits the name, ‘James.’

‘Point taken.’ I glance nervously at the sitting room door. ‘Let’s pop her into the office and she can sleep there.’

Ollie looks a bit put out but shoves Sasha into our tiny box-room-cum-office, where James’s Mac beeps and whirs to itself on the desk surrounded by stacks of neat papers and his briefcase stands guard by the door. Apart from this, the room is pretty much bare. Surely a red setter can’t do too much damage in here?

Ollie takes his coat off and puts it under the desk. ‘Sasha! Lie down!’

Sasha obediently folds herself up like David Blaine in his glass box and pants hopefully up at us. I heave a sigh of relief.

‘Good girl.’ Ollie strokes her silky head and then gently shuts the door. For a few moments we stand in the hallway like nervous parents waiting to hear their baby cry. Then the doorbell sounds again and I practically shoot into orbit.

‘Chill out!’ Ollie’s long legs stride to the door. ‘That’ll be my dinner date.’

I lean weakly against the wall. The strain of giving this dinner party must have added years to me, and we haven’t even started eating yet. There’s no way I can do this for the next forty years. I’d rather disembowel myself.

‘Come in,’ I hear Ollie cry. ‘Thank God you could make it.’

In spite of myself, I crane my neck in order to see who has had the misfortune to fall for Ollie this time. Not that I care, obviously! But because I’m madly curious to see who could put up with Ollie’s smelly socks, terrible taste in music and dribbly dog. Normally it’s a willowy surf chick type with big boobs and a vacant gaze. I’d bet my month’s salary that tonight is no different.

It’s just as well I’m not a betting woman.

The creature that explodes into my narrow flat is certainly no surf chick. In fact it’s no chick at all. It’s a man.

Or at least I think it is.

‘Darling,’ trills a vision in flowing purple. ‘I simply
adore
the trousers! Velvet flares! So retro! So Seventies!’

I goggle at him. I’m afraid I simply can’t help it. I’ve never seen a man wearing lilac eye shadow and pink lipstick. Well, not since about 1985 anyway. And I’ve certainly never seen one wearing what looks like a purple cloak. Think Doctor and the Medics meets Michael Praed in his
Robin of Sherwood
days and you kind of get a picture of the vision standing before me looking more like a wacky entrant to the Big Brother house than a guest at a dinner party for stuffy merchant bankers.

It’s Frankie. Ollie’s cousin, lead singer of the Screaming Queens, camper than a Cath Kidston tent and on a mission to shock.