LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

myself that if they’d done sums at school in calories, I might be lecturing at Harvard now, instead of devoting my days to ensuring I look ten years younger than I am.

      I’m so absorbed in the calorie-counting business that I don’t see a burly man in a fluorescent jacket enter the restaurant and indulge in a heated exchange with one of the restaurant’s waiting staff. The waiter walks over to the table, but I’m too busy wondering how much vanilla and caramel custard you’re likely to get with the cinnamon whirl, and thus how many calories it’s likely to be, to hear him ask,

      ‘Does anyone have a four-by-four?’

      Everyone at the table simultaneously says, ‘Yes.’

      ‘Is anyone’s car parked illegally?’ asks the waiter.

      ‘Yes,’ chorus the women.

      He walks away, shaking his head, and tells the man in the fluorescent jacket that it’s impossible to identify the driver.

      ‘You’re quiet,’ Suzzi says to me, her voice full of concern. I’m normally the life and soul of these things.

      ‘Sorry, just a bit tired,’ I reply. ‘Looking forward to the season, though.’ I try, valiantly, to pull myself out of my morbid daydreams where the wrinkles and creases on my forehead are coming alive and starting to eat me up. ‘I’ve got some fabulous new clothes. I went up to Liverpool for the weekend.’

      ‘Ooooooooo,’ they all coo, because they know what ‘going up to Liverpool’ means. All except Helen, our token newcomer—poor girl. She’s sitting over with the Slag Wags, but she’d be better off over here with me so I could have a word with her about her clothing (her skirt’s so long it’s covering her knickers!!).

      ‘What’s in Liverpool?’ she asks, her big blue line-free nineteen-year-old eyes twinkling like crazy.

      ‘Cricket,’ says Mich, leaning in to join the conversation.

       She’s two years younger than I am, but everyone thinks she’s four years older because she’s been honest about her age. It’s a shame because she could get away with saying she was much younger. She’s got these incredible pale green cat-like eyes. She’s not as skinny as the rest of us (she’s a size 8-10), but still manages to look great because she’s very curvy and has these full, sensual lips that men seem to adore.

      Helen is looking at Mich with such confusion on her face, you’d think Mich had just announced that she was planning a sex change.

      ‘What—like bowling and batting and that?’

      ‘Cricket’s the ultimate Wag’s shop,’ Mich explains, delighting in the ignorance of a Slag Wag. It’s clear that Helen is providing us with an open goal, and I can see Mich preparing for the kick. ‘Fab clothes there. Have you really never heard of it?’

      ‘No,’ says Helen. ‘To be honest, I really don’t know anything much about this whole Wag thing.’

      Not only does that make it 2-2, but the happy turn in the subject of the conversation means that I find myself on comfortable ground now and so I feel myself relax. There is nothing—NOTHING—that I don’t know about being a Wag. It’s my thing. I threw myself into the world as soon as I met Dean. When he played for Arsenal there was no one watching who was more tanned or more blonde.

      ‘Yes, I got loads of new clothes at Cricket.’ I’m peacocking now. ‘I even got the Roland Mouret Moon Dress—you know, the limited-edition one that Posh wore when she and David arrived in Los Angeles.’

      ‘No way,’ says Julie, clearly impressed. Julie is wearing a tight leather corset dress in caramel, which is completely wrong for the time of year. As Suzzi said: ‘She must be sweating like a pig.’ She’s wearing quite funky calf-length, shaggy-haired boots with it, and has a tan so orange it would put David Dickinson to shame, so she’s redeemed herself in that department, but the dress itself is not at all Wagalicious. It certainly didn’t come from Cricket, let’s put it like that.

      ‘If you’ve got a Moon Dress, why aren’t you wearing it?’ asks Mindy.

      ‘It’s being delivered,’ I explain.

      ‘Oh,’ says Mindy,‘so you haven’t actually got a Moon Dress then, you’ve just got one on order like everyone else.’

      Bitch.

      ‘And guess what?’ I say quickly, pretending not to notice Mindy’s spiteful comment. ‘I had a red-carpet facial—you know, the one with the six-month waiting list and the oxygen injections.’

      Helen’s mouth has dropped wide open so I can see that she has absolutely no fillings—just beautiful neat pearly-white teeth. She has perfect alabaster skin and a little upturned nose. She looks like a young model, just about to take the world by storm. No surprise there, really, because a young model with the world at her feet is exactly what she is. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone quite as much as I hate her right now.

      ‘I’ve never heard of a red-carpet facial,’ she says. ‘Don’t the injections hurt?’

      Oh dear, I think. You have so much to learn, girl-friend. I want to say, ‘Yes, they hurt. Of course they hurt, but it’s my anniversary tomorrow and I HAVE to be line-free for it. Anyway, the injections don’t hurt half as much as Botox, skin peels, breast lifts, liposuction, eyelid surgery, lip-plumping injections or collagen injections.’ Of course, I don’t say that. She’s such an innocent and I don’t want to scare her. ‘They don’t hurt too much,’ I say. ‘Anyway, the pain’s worth it.’ I think back to the time when I had fat removed from my bottom and injected into my lips. I’d thought it looked great until Dean said, ‘Now you are, quite literally, talking out of your arse.’

      Everyone’s smiling in a half-drunk sort of way, and I can see they’re pleased to have me back—their leader, the Queen Wag, the one who knows more about being a Wag than anyone. Even the Slag Wags look relieved. If there’s one thing Wags don’t like, it’s change. Unless it’s a change of clothes.

      ‘Could you take me to Cricket one day?’ Helen asks.

      ‘One day,’ I say, thinking how much fun it would be to help this poor girl—to take her under my wing and let all her Waggish beauty shine. I think of how lovely she will look once I’ve trowelled on her makeup, shortened her skirts, organised a boob job for her and covered her in jewellery. I order two bottles of champagne from the waiter. I’m in my element now—all thoughts of wrinkles and grey hair banished forever.

      The sound of sobbing is coming from Suzzi’s direction. She’s been so emotional since she got pregnant.

      ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask.

      ‘I still can’t believe Victoria’s gone to LA,’ she says. ‘I’m going to miss her so much.’

      ‘I know, I know,’ I say, trying to comfort my dear friend. ‘We’ll all miss her, but we’ll still have her in Heat and Hello!.’

      Suzzi calms down a bit, then Tammie, one of the Slag Wags, starts to cry. Oh god, what now?

      ‘Her hair. I still can’t bear it,’ says Tammie.

      We were all upset when Victoria went for a short hairstyle, no one more than I, but you have to move on from these things. You have to let the pain go.

      ‘Don’t cry,’ I say patiently. ‘She didn’t have all her hair cut off; she just had the extensions taken out. She can easily have them put in again.’

      There’s an audible sigh of relief from everyone present, and, not for the first time, I wonder whether I’m the only one who thinks these things through logically.

      ‘You’re amazing,’ says Helen encouragingly. She wants to be my friend. I see Mindy sit back in her chair in disgust and I realise that young Helen has scored an own goal. 3-2 to us.

      ‘Wags should have long hair and be done with it. ’Til death us do part.

Скачать книгу