the very least, some soluble aspirin – ASAP. My head is simply throbbing with all this noise. Darren’s nieces are demanding ‘twiz-zies’, and Darren is obliging them. Sarah is demanding a cup of tea and wants to know if her mother’s baked this morning. Mrs Smith assures her she has, which accounts for the delicious smell that’s wafting through the house. Mrs Smith is balancing the baby on one hip and feeding it with one hand, whilst setting up the ironing board with the other hand to iron dry a skirt for Linda. Shelly and Richard arrive. There is more noise and more kissing. Shelly has brought a chocolate cake, which is cut into immediately – with no regard to whether it is a mealtime or not. Richard wants to know if Darren is ‘up for a kick about’ in the back garden. Shelly shows her nieces-to-be samples of material for their bridesmaid dresses. Delighted, they squeal their approval. Sarah is unpacking groceries, recalling some incident to do with her eldest daughter’s (turns out to be Charlotte) school teacher, and throughout all this everyone is interrogating me about who I am and why I’m here.
Mrs Smith, Sarah and Shelly have jumped to the understandable conclusion that I am Darren’s girlfriend. Understandable that is, if you don’t know me. I’ve never been a girlfriend and I have no desire to be one. And if ever I did have the desire to be one, it wouldn’t be with someone like Darren. He may be good-looking, sexy, funny and intelligent but he’s definitely not my type.
I’m sure he’ll make someone a lovely boyfriend.
The kind of someone who wants a lovely boyfriend.
However, it’s easier to allow the Smiths to think that I’m a girlfriend than explain that actually I want Darren to seduce his ex for the edification and delight of the now astounding 8.9 million viewers. The Smith women take advantage of Darren and Richard’s exit to quell their curiosity.
‘So you and our Darren are friends, then?’ Sarah hovers over the word ‘friends’ for about ten seconds. I concentrate on choosing a biscuit from the heaving plate proffered by Linda. I barely nod my head.
‘Known each other long, have you? It’s just that I don’t recall him mentioning you,’ adds Mrs Smith. I’m glad I’m not into this man – his interfering family would be a nightmare. It’s obvious that they don’t think anyone is good enough for ‘their’ Darren. I imagine that a number of years hence Mrs Smith and Sarah will be checking Darren’s bride’s ability to wash whites whiter than blue white. Awful thought. She’d probably have to sit an exam in pastrymaking before they’d hand him over. Poor Shelly, I imagine that she was subjected to the same hostilities when Richard first brought her home. I look at Shelly, expecting to see the browbeaten shrew of my imaginings. She grins at me cheerfully and confidently kicks a cat off a chair, plonking her own bum in its place.
‘Move it, Tabby.’
Hmmm.
Charlotte’s interrogation lacks subtlety, but then this is forgivable because she’s still wearing Winnie the Pooh matching vest and pant sets. She cuts the preamble. ‘Are you Darren’s girlfriend?’
‘Er, no, I’m not.’ I knew the question was brewing, so why am I blushing?
‘Oh.’ Charlotte is unimpressed. The others are simply perplexed. ‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ she continues.
‘No.’ I would never, ever have come here if I’d realized that I was going to be humiliated in this way.
‘Poor you,’ says Charlotte, ‘I have. His name is Alan Barker and he sings to me.’ I smile at her encouragingly. She persists, ‘I’m six and a half. Lucy is four. Ben isn’t really a baby. He’s nearly two. How old are you?’
‘Don’t be rude, Charlotte. You should never ask a lady her age,’ says Sarah. Yet she pauses expectantly, waiting for me to answer.
‘Thirty-three,’ I oblige.
I notice that Shelly, Sarah and Mrs Smith exchange furtive glances. They think there is something suspect about a single thirty-three-year-old woman. I wish Darren would stop farting around with that football and come and rescue me.
‘Do you have a sister?’ pursues Charlotte. We haven’t lost eye contact since the interrogation began. I wiggle on my seat trying to get a better view of the back of her scalp; I’m looking for a tattoo of 666.
‘No.’
‘A brother, then?’ asks Lucy.
‘I’m afraid not.’ Lucy climbs on to my knee, as if to console me. I’m a bit nervous – I don’t think I’ve ever had anything so young on my knee before, not even a kitten or a puppy. How will she balance? It appears that Lucy has got experience in this sort of thing. She expertly cuddles into me and begins to suck her thumb. I can feel her breath on my neck. I look around for approval. No one else seems to think it is at all unusual that I have a child on my lap. But it is. People don’t touch me. Not unless they are paid to or it’s sexual. An important distinction. I’m touched by my hairdresser, masseur, acupuncturist and personal trainer for hard cash and by men for a more amorphous fee. But this child is sitting on my lap and holding my hand, and doesn’t appear to want anything from me at all. How odd.
‘So what do you do for a living?’ asks Sarah. I am about to offer to fill in a questionnaire but I notice that Darren and Richard have just come back inside. I bite my tongue.
‘She works in TV,’ jumps in Linda. Linda is the only one who is impressed by my career choice.
‘What exactly do you do in television, then, dear?’ asks Mrs Smith. I give my dummied-down job description, which I assume will be adequate. No one ever really understands what someone else does for a living.
‘I think up ideas for programmes.’
‘Ooohhhh,’ the kitchen choruses.
‘Did you think up
‘No, it’s American.’
‘Did you think up
‘No, before my time.’
‘Did you think up that game show with the nice Mr Tyrant? The one that makes people very rich?’ asks Mrs Smith.
‘Or
‘No, not my channel,’ I add apologetically. Clearly I’ve failed to impress anyone.
‘Oh. Well, what did you think of?’ asks Sarah.
Mercifully the doorbell rings and this causes such concern that everyone, other than Darren and Lucy, leaves the kitchen.
‘No one ever rings the door bell,’ he explains. They all come round the back. It must be a delivery.’
I nod as though this outlandish behaviour was second nature to me, rather than the extraordinary adventure it is.
‘Why didn’t you tell them the name of your show?’ he asks.
I stare at him sulkily. ‘I guess I didn’t think it was their cup of tea,’ I mutter.
‘Oh, you took a guess that they weren’t part of your 8.9 million. Very astute.’
I glare at him.
He is so smug. He is so cocksure. He is so sexy.
I think it’s the mouth.
10
I am unsure how I got myself into this predicament. I can’t remember the point when I actually agreed to accompany Darren, Charlotte, Lucy and baby Ben to the swimming baths. The noise and confusion that reign in the Smith household are so extreme that it is possible I didn’t agree at all but simply was unable to resist their collective force.
I don’t do public baths. I do health spas and private gyms. I can feel the foot diseases waiting in the cracks of the tiles and despite the gallons of chlorine that the local council has tipped into the pool, I am sure that I am about to swim in neat child’s wee. To add insult, I catch a glimpse of myself in the steamy mirror. It’s bad. I didn’t bring a costume with me and therefore I’ve been forced into borrowing Sarah’s. Although there is evidence that Sarah has been a very attractive woman in her time, she has had three babies and has let her figure go somewhat. I get the feeling sartorial elegance is not the top of her list of priorities. The bathing suit is high street rather than high fashion. I did explain to Sarah and Shelly that I only ever wear black. They smiled and handed me this monstrosity. I think that initially it was a mass of fluorescent flowers, which thankfully have faded. The cut is all wrong. Damn, why didn’t I bring my Calvin Klein costume? It’s cut to maximize the length of the leg and minimize the waist. It’s
