LITMIR.BIZ

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he’d brought so much computer equipment we didn’t have the heart to send him away again. Plus, Kate thought he was cute.’

      ‘He’s better than cute. Oh, did she try and pull him and fail?’ I asked eagerly.

      ‘No, she tried talking to him for ten minutes then ran out of attention span. Plus, also, he didn’t show any of the normal signs of bastardy.’

      ‘Ah, ooh, she is just SUCH a cow!’ I exclaimed again.

      ‘She’s fine. Now, go out and buy the biscuits.’

      ‘What! After all that – you must be joking.’

      ‘Unless you want “all that” every night for the rest of your life, I would go and buy the biscuits.’

      ‘Fine, fine, fine. I will go and buy the biscuits. Then, I will pee on the biscuits.’

      I ended up heading to the gigantic supermarket which is open all night, all the time. I think they keep the staff caged there, like animals. They all have rickets from being out of natural light for so long.

      I hate supermarkets. I can stand for hours in the shampoo section, stymied. Should I be putting fruit in my hair? What will happen if I don’t? What is shampoo, anyway? Are there any more foods just out there waiting to be discovered? Etc, etc. As usual, it took me three hours to collect a more or less random selection of products, plus fourteen packets of Penguins. I’d wanted Josh to come with me or, ideally, volunteer to do it himself, but he’d started to get a bit shifty and got out work files to do stern lawyer stuff with – like, as if.

      Finally I wandered home, feeling a bit mournful and stopping to put my bags down every five minutes.

      When I walked in, the house was very quiet. Josh was locked away in his room – I hoped it was with his Playstation – and Addison had disappeared. I had never even seen him go to the toilet. I liked that. He was too unearthly for bodily functions. Men, or at least the ones I’ve always known, think that it’s endearing to you if they fart a lot. Addison wouldn’t be like that. And then, they’d smell of angel dew.

      Feeling mildly nauseous, I backed my way into the kitchen with my sixteen bags, swung them round to dump them on the table and accidentally clobbered Kate on the side of the head. With the one with the tin cans in.

      ‘Ow!’ she growled at me.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ I cringed, though I wasn’t really. But I didn’t want her to think I’d done it on purpose.

      ‘I didn’t do it on purpose!’

      ‘Oh, forget it,’ she said.

      I did a mental double take. That didn’t sound like Kate. Surely she should be demanding my first-born child and threatening to take me to court.

      ‘Really, I am sorry,’ I said again, putting the rest of the bags down. I saw her properly for the first time. Her eyes were all red, and she was doing the giveaway, back-of-the-mouth sniff. As a world-class crier myself, I knew what had been going on.

      ‘Are you OK?’ I asked, as sincerely as I could, which of course meant it came out sounding like I was a confessional TV host.

      ‘I’m fine, really.’ She sniffed properly, and patted down her immaculately glossy hair. Now, there was someone who knew a bit about shampoo.

      I started to unpack the shopping.

      ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, casually, as if I was a trained counsellor and did this kind of thing all the time.

      ‘Nothing … nothing. Oh GOD.’ Her face completely collapsed into tears. ‘I HATE him. I really, really, really, really HATE him! And he doesn’t even CARE!’

      I put down the tin of Heinz spaghetti (where had that come from? Had I let a four-year-old do the shopping?) and sat down beside her.

      ‘There you go,’ I said, patting her lightly on the arm and saying the things you’re supposed to. ‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Absolutely, he’s a bastard.’

      ‘You don’t even know him!’ she snivelled.

      ‘OK, is he a bastard?’

      ‘YEESSS!’

      I patted her harder. ‘OK. Tell me, what happened?’

      Her sobbing slowed down a little bit.

      ‘I was seeing this guy, and I really liked him and I thought … well, stupid bloody me, eh, how dare I think that I could ever go out with someone who wasn’t MARRIED?’

      ‘Oh no!’ I thought of what Josh had said. ‘I’m really sorry. Didn’t he tell you?’

      ‘He said he thought I knew. I asked him to come out for my birthday and he said he couldn’t, he had to take Saffy to the dentist …’

      ‘Who’s Saffy?’

      ‘That’s what I said. Then he coughed and said, ehm, it was his dog.’

      ‘A dog dentist.’

      ‘Uh huh.’

      ‘So you guessed from that?’

      ‘Ehm, no. I believed him.’

      ‘Ooh, nasty.’

      She hiccuped. ‘Then I went in to give him a surprise birthday present a day early …’

      ‘But it’s your birthday.’

      She ignored me and sniffed even harder. ‘And he’d left his wallet open on the desk … and I saw a picture of Saffy.’

      ‘Not a dog?’

      ‘A five-year-old girl!’

      ‘Well, kind of a bit like a dog then …’

      ‘No!’

      ‘He could be divorced, couldn’t he?’

      ‘He isn’t. I asked him. And now it’s all over.’ She started sobbing again.

      ‘Why did no one else in the office tell you this?’

      ‘I don’t know! I don’t really … talk to the girls in the office.’

      I bet you don’t, I thought. In fact, they probably set you up.

      ‘Would you like some Heinz spaghetti?’

      She thought about it for a moment.

      ‘Yes, please.’

      We sat and ate spaghetti in silence. I wanted to broach the topic of Josh, but I couldn’t bring myself to. Also, whenever I’m in Kate’s presence and trying to think of something to say, I always have a horrible compulsion that I’m about to accidentally mention Pop-Tarts, like Basil Fawlty and the Germans.

      Kate appeared slightly coy and lifted up her fork.

      ‘Ummm … would you like to come out for my birthday?’

      ‘Sure!’ I said. I was so relieved she wasn’t giving me trouble, I’d agreed before I realized what I’d just committed myself to.

      

      Josh wasn’t coming to Kate’s birthday do. He was on parental duty. His parents were officially now genteel poor, living in a huge house they could no longer afford to run. They’d been cleaned out by that, Josh’s education, and the education of his three sisters, who were all beautiful, and all completely stupid. Despite these extremely positive attributes, none of the girls had ever got married, which meant no new influx of old money into the fforbes’ family coffers. The family, though, were holding up very well, marching on with some good stories and a lot of dogs and gin and tonics.

      Which left, as far as I could make out, all of Kate’s City friends and, ahem, me. Actually, I wanted to go. Young, rich, probably good-looking men … I liked the sound of it. Obviously, I was going to marry Addison, but

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