After that he completely ignored me until the cheese, by which time he was pissed enough to try a bit of bored flirting in a lazy, patronizing, off-hand sort of way.
Swine: “I expect with you both being in showbusiness there must be terrible temptations. Do you ever get jealous? Does he?”
I wasn’t having any of it. “What a strange question,” I said, not only hoitily but also fairly toitily and turned back to the bishop, with whom I was getting on like a house on fire. He must have been ninety-three if he was a day and he was telling me about his hobby, which was collecting eighteenth-century Japanese erotic art! Extraordinary! Where does the church get them? What’s more, whilst describing a porcelain figurine of a naked ninja (in rather too much detail), he squeezed my leg under the table! The randy old goat. What is it about men? They’re pathetic. A couple of drinks and they start sniffing about like dogs. Sam was scarcely being any better than the bishop. He was sitting next to this tart with extraordinary knockers (not entirely her own, I fancy) and I could see him just ogling them. I mean at first he’d at least tried to be discreet, although I knew what he was up to, of course, all that reaching for the salt and passing the bread. Sad, really. And after a few glasses of wine he just gave up any pretence at subtlety and started simply staring at them with his tongue hanging out. I mean it couldn’t have been any more obvious if he’d said, “Phwoar! Look at the jugs on that!” I’ve no idea who this overly boobed slapper was, she was only about twenty-three or four and clearly a second wife to someone, but I didn’t find out whose. I looked for a man with a smug smile on his face but there were too many contenders. It may have been the shadow cabinet minister. On the other hand why would a man with a girl like that be flirting with me? I’m not exactly spectacularly blessed in the knocker department.
All in all, what with Sam drooling and the shadow minister sneering and the bishop’s hand beginning to gather a tiny bit too much confidence, it was a great relief when the DG made us all move round for the pudding. I ended up talking to his wife, who seemed very nice. I found myself telling her all about Carl Phipps. Not the hand-holding lunch, obviously, but about being an agent and representing him. I must admit I suddenly heard myself being altogether more enthusiastic about him than I’d intended to be. “He’s so nice,” and “He’s rather dishy,” and “He’s not at all stuck up,” the last of which at least is certainly not true.
I suppose it’s just possible that I sounded rather schoolgirly. Oh well, it doesn’t matter, I suppose. We shan’t be asked again anyway.
On the way home Sam insisted that he wasn’t pissed, but he did his usual pissed thing of worrying about whether he’d put his foot in it to anyone. I said he might as well have put his foot into that woman’s cleavage because he’d done everything else but climb into it (which he denied, pathetically). Sam always comes home from parties worrying that he’s said something wrong or offended someone. It’s incredibly boring and, what’s more, it’s affected me. I never used to be like that at all. “Fuck ’em,” I used to say, but he’s so bad he’s got me doing it as well. Sometimes we come home from going out and spend the whole cab ride asking each other if we were embarrassing and reassuring each other that we weren’t. It’s sad.
Anyway, he’d better not have been too pissed. He knows damn well what he’s got to do tomorrow morning.
Dear etc.
I think it went all right tonight. Bit worried I might have said the wrong thing. I’ve been over it with Lucy and it seems all right. As far as I can recall I only spoke to the Director General twice. I said, “Good evening,” at the beginning and later on I said, “Yes, I think things are fairly healthy in the arena of entertainment and comedy at the moment.” I don’t think either of those comments could be misconstrued. Surely not? Unless he thought I was being sarky? But why would he think that? No, I’m quite sure I didn’t make any faux pas.
Definitely.
What’s more, I certainly didn’t spend the evening staring at that woman’s tits, as I’ve been unfairly accused of. I mean they were there, for God’s sake! In fact they seemed to be everywhere! I simply couldn’t avoid the things. I could hardly sit and look at the ceiling all evening, could I?
Anyway. One thing is for absolutely sure. I am not pissed. I was very careful about that. Because, as I’m well aware, I have to provide a shag in the morning. What is more I intend to make it a cracker, because I really love Lucy. I really really do. Despite her paranoia about other women’s bosoms I absolutely love her. I just told her so and she said I was pissed, but I’m not. I just love her, I really do, I love her, I love her, I love her and tomorrow, before I go to work, I am going to make love to her so passionately and so beautifully that she will remember it always, because I love her.
Dear Penny
This morning I think I had the worst shag I have had in thirteen and a half years of moderately continuous lovemaking. I doubt that I shall ever forget it. Sam reeked of stale booze and fags, plus I was still seething about him spending the whole evening staring down that enormous cleavage, which he continued to deny, of course.
Anyway, we both knew we would have to go through with it. The postcoital examination had been booked for ten and you do not mess with a confirmed appointment on the NHS. I must say that from the moment we woke up it was clear that it was not much of a prospect for me, erotically speaking. Sam staggered back from a rather loud visit to the lavatory announcing that he had a headache but that it couldn’t be a hangover as he hadn’t been drunk. What’s more, we were a bit late already because, although Sam had set the alarm to give us an extra half-hour (it normally only takes us about fifteen minutes), somehow or other he’d managed not to push the button in so it hadn’t gone off.
Anyway, I had just decided to ignore the beery, faggy fug that surrounded him and attempt a bit of foreplay when Sam said, “I’m afraid we’re really going to have to be quick, darling, because I’ve got a meeting.”
Well, I screamed at him! “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I said. “Trying to start a family when you’ve got a meeting! Perhaps if I phoned your secretary we could schedule our sex life into your diary. Just in pencil, of course. Wouldn’t want to be inflexible about it or put you under any pressure!” Sarcastic, I know, but I was furious.
Anyway then, of course, the inevitable happened and he couldn’t do it. His dick just completely disappeared. I told him to think about Ms “look at my gargantuanly fulsome funbags” from the previous night but he got all angry and said that he didn’t wish to think about other women, but that bonking to order was not as bloody easy as it might appear.
Well, to cut a short story even shorter he just about managed it. He wasn’t at all sure that he’d produced enough for the test but Dr Cooper had assured me that it doesn’t take much, so I thought that it would be all right. Actually I felt a bit sorry for him. I could see he felt he’d let me down a bit so I said he wasn’t to worry because it wasn’t his fault that he had a small and unreliable penis.
I really did mean it nicely but it just seemed to put him in an even worse mood.
So, Sam got dressed and went to his meeting, and I went off to the clinic. Obviously worried about all the stuff falling out on the way. Horrible thought. It had been such a gruesome effort mingling our juices in the first place that I didn’t want to have to go through the whole ghastly palaver of a pre-postcoital examination bonk again, if that makes sense.
So there I was, hobbling to the car and trying not to cough. Once in the car it was worse. Driving yourself in these circumstances is a mistake unless you have an automatic. It is simply not possible to change gear with your legs crossed, and trying to do the whole journey in third makes things very juddery when you pull away at the lights, which of course shakes things down even more.
Then when I got to the clinic the road was blocked by a car with its hazard lights on.
I hate hazard lights.
They should be bloody well banned. People think that if they have them on then everything is all right. They can do exactly as they please. Park in the middle of the road, reverse up motorways, drive through crowded supermarkets, invade Poland. “It’s all right,” said Hitler’s panzer commanders, “we’ve got our hazard
