‘Right, dear, any idea where I can get a decent blow job round here?’ Sylvia rinsed her cup in the sink before turning, hands on hips, obviously ready for action.
‘What?’ I looked in horror at my sixty-five year old mother-in-law, two plastic spoons held in mid-air while the twins, momentarily deprived of their mush on a spoon appeared, in their synchronised open mouthed stance, similarly aghast.
‘My hair, Harriet. It needs a good blow job.’
She patted her already perfect blonde bob and sighed. ‘I have the most marvellous little girl down in Surrey who is an absolute poppet. Blow dries my hair just as I like it. I have to say, Harriet, that I never quite managed a decent hairdo the two years I lived up here in Midhope.’
‘Oh, right,’ I said, relief (that Sylvia wasn’t up for a bit of northern extracurricular pensioner sex while her husband-to-be strolled the Epsom golf courses) rendering me somewhat inarticulate. Mind you, since having a pair of unplanned twins at the ripe old age of thirty-eight, being articulate was something that seemed to have deserted me. Big time. Along with the ability to remember who I was. Or who anyone was, come to think about it. Or getting back into the size 8 skinny jeans I used to nick on a regular basis from Libby, my seventeen year old. I sighed, and concentrated on scraping excess mush from around the mouths of Theadora and Fin before popping it back in once more. Fin was obviously at saturation point: he was starting to go cross-eyed, his little mouth pursed in remonstration.
The thought of those skinny jeans was still uppermost in my mind when Sylvia, who is not usually overly aware of what anyone else but she herself might be thinking, said, ‘So, have you thought any more about what you are going to do about this wedding, Harriet? It is only six weeks away, you know, and Colin and I need to know exactly what is happening. Are you bringing the twins as well as the other three down to Surrey?’
The other three were Libby, Kit my almost fifteen year old and India who, at the age of nearly seven, was going to achieve a lifetime ambition when she attended her grandmother as bridesmaid. ‘But no way am I getting dressed up in a poncy peach satin frock,’ Liberty had stated when asked if she too, would be an attendant at the wedding. ‘If you want to buy me a nice little Alice Temperley number, Mum, or even something from D&G, then I don’t mind walking down the aisle behind Granny.’
When, after looking down at my enormous leaking bosom and comfy leggings, I’d snapped (in what I’m ashamed to admit was a rush of jealousy at my gorgeous slinky eldest daughter) ‘Try Primark or Matalan,’ she’d retorted, ‘But Mum, Granny will be Lady Sylvia Fitzgerald by the time she gets married and you know, as well as I do, she’d rather die than have a bridesmaid wearing Primark… although, to be fair, she’s probably never even heard of it.’
And didn’t we all know that Sylvia was about to be promoted? She’d never shut up about it since her fiancé, Judge Colin Fitzgerald, QC, who also happened to be the father of Nick’s ex, Anna, had been given a peerage for his services to law. Which, of course, meant that once Sylvia walked down that aisle, she’d walk back up it as Lady Fitzgerald. It didn’t bear thinking about.
What else didn’t bear thinking about was that, six weeks from now, I’d be meeting for the first time the infamous Anna, from under whose – allegedly – pretty little nose I’d snatched Nick one Saturday night in the university union bar in Birmingham where we were all, Grace included, studying at the time. And there was no way that, six weeks from now, I was going to be able to fit into some amazingly chic little outfit that would convince Nick that he’d made the right decision that fateful evening almost twenty years earlier. Nick had laughed, and he patted my post-pregnancy bottom – rather condescendingly, I thought – and zoomed off once more to attend to his burgeoning business.
I sighed, simultaneously wiped two little faces and tried to concentrate on Sylvia’s question about the twins. My plan had been to leave them at home with my big sister Di while the rest of us headed south for the weekend. Di, happily single with no other commitments than a very demanding job as a social worker and a likewise demanding cat called Eric, had been more than willing to move in for a couple of days when I’d first broached the subject last week, but when I’d told her the actual date of the wedding and she’d checked her diary she realised she couldn’t do it.
‘Sorry, Hat,’ she’d said. ‘Would you believe it? It’s the one weekend I’m away – the conference in Denmark I’ve been telling you about. Can’t you persuade Sylvia to postpone the big do until the weekend after? The sausage rolls and vol-au-vents will keep a week, won’t they? I’m free then.’
I’d looked at her despairingly. ‘Oh, yes, sure she will. She’s planned this wedding with military precision. Every minute is accounted for. I bet she’s even allotted twenty minutes for sex with Judge Colin up in the bridal suite between the after dinner speeches and the first waltz.’ I’d shuddered at the very thought. I’d only met him on two previous occasions, and on each he’d leered suggestively at my pre and post birth bosom. ‘And,’ I’d added, ‘if you think that the future Lady Sylvia would countenance even a whiff of a sausage roll at her wedding breakfast, you’ve obviously not spent enough time with her at the planning stage. Gordon Ramsay has some connection with Judge Colin – don’t ask me what – and he’s in charge of catering.’
‘What? The Gordon Ramsay?’ Di had been impressed.
‘Do you know any other?’ I’d asked, somewhat gloomily, as I’d contemplated who else I could broach re the twins.
‘Do you know any other…?’ Sylvia’s echoing of my question to Di brought me back to the present.
‘Sorry?’
‘Any other? Do you know any other person who might take care of the twins? I suppose Grace is out of the question?’
‘Out of the question and slightly out of her mind as well, I think.’
I was a little concerned about Grace. In typical Grace style she’d given birth quickly and neatly, her birth plan in one hand and Seb’s squeezed fingers in the other her only birthing aids. Jonty David Greenwood-Henderson (Grace had reverted back to her maiden name after Dan, her husband, had left her for Camilla, my half-sister’s daughter) had arrived on the expected date, perfect in every way and, rather disconcertingly, with the same startling navy blue eyes as his paternal grandmother, Amanda. Now, almost two months after the birth, she didn’t seem to be coping in quite the way we all assumed she would.
‘Oh, she’ll soon snap out of that,’ Sylvia chirruped, reaching for her Barbour jacket before heading for the front door and her search for the desired blow job. ‘Healthy young gel like Grace… I bet in six weeks’ time she’ll be more than happy to look after the three of them.’
I bet she won’t, I thought.
And what was it with Sylvia that, now the title was almost within her grasp, she’d started dressing and talking like the Queen? She’d be donning a headscarf next and learning to ride.
‘Right, I’ll leave you to it,’ Sylvia said, taking a blue headscarf from her jacket pocket and tying it deftly around her neck. ‘I may be a while. Colin has suggested I learn to ride in order that I can hack out with him and the Digby-Croslands of a Sunday morning. I thought I might call in at the riding school over Blakely way.’ She giggled girlishly. ‘Never too late to teach an old dog new tricks.’
Old dog… Her parting words took me back to how the hell I was going to compete with the ex-girlfriend in six weeks’ time. At least it would be a November wedding, and I wouldn’t have a sea of skimpy summer frocks to contend with. Maybe I could get away with a layered look; a little Sarah Pacini outfit, perhaps? I took the two dozing babies, still in their bouncy chairs, and carried them up to our bedroom. To give them their due, they were both fairly well behaved little creatures, and I reckoned I had a good two hours’ respite ahead of me. I’d made a huge chilli earlier that morning and all that was needed was a pan of rice and some garlic bread before the other three came home, ravenous as usual, from school.
I went into our en suite bathroom and, checking the twins were sleeping soundly, closed the door on the world. Our bathroom had been transformed from its former avocado-green glory to a heated, tiled, floored haven only a couple of months previously. Gone were the curling daisy strewn wallpaper, the rough, mismatched towels and the mouldering tufted carpet left by the previous owners. With Nick’s new business going from strength to strength, the old seventies bathroom had been first on my list to hit the dust. In its place were the clean lines of a fully functioning wet room, Jack and Jill basins and a tower of fluffy white and navy towels so springy they were in danger of becoming out of control. But at the thought of this damned wedding I was beginning to feel a bit like that myself. I was no longer breastfeeding the twins. Time, I reckoned, to get myself and my poor old body back on track.
Without another thought I stripped off. Everything. Nick’s old school rugby shirt and my overstretched leggings hit the floor, followed by one knackered, greying M&S maternity bra and pants you wouldn’t be seen dead in. Pregnant or breastfeeding, maybe, but dead… definitely not. I tittered as I imagined being found dead in the monstrosities that were now slung around the base of the loo. I gave them a farewell kick for good measure and they rose slightly, before landing in an even more squalid heap than before. OK: truth time. I walked over to the full length mirror that very cleverly gave the impression of a bathroom twice its size in reality and took a good, hard look at what damage being pregnant with twins and three months’ breastfeeding had done to my body.
‘How do you solve a problem like my rear?’ I warbled, turning while trying to get a good look at my bare backside. ‘How do you catch your bum and pin it down…?’
In all honesty, there was limited damage. I really didn’t look too bad at all. All right, my poor old bosom was still a war zone, but with a bit of sucking in of stomach and a decent haircut I would be well on the way to recovery. I searched for stretch marks – and yes, I didn’t have to search too far, but they weren’t horrendous. Quite liveable with, I reckoned.
There are some things I can’t do: there are a hell of a lot of things I can’t do. But, having now had five of them, I can confidently say I can make babies. And recover from the after effects of having said babies pretty damned quickly, too.
Pleased – smug, even – I ran a hot bath, liberally endowed it with some Jo Malone bath oil and, giving myself up dreamily to the prospect of a luxuriant half hour, stepped in. I’d put in too much bath oil. The second my foot made contact with the well oiled bottom of the bath it slid away at high speed, taking its attached leg with it and throwing the rest of me off balance, whereupon I straddled the edge of the bath with my lady bits and, in the ensuing panic, fell heavily against the new tiles, cracking the side of my head and right eye with such a force I saw stars.
My shout of agony as I crashed back into the water was enough to wake Thea, whose cries then woke Fin. Gingerly and in pain, I groped my hand along the floor until I found a towel and managed to haul myself out of the bath. Wrapped in the towel, I made my way back to the bedroom, where both babies were obviously in competition to see who could scream the loudest.
‘Sssh, ssshh, ssshh,’ I pleaded. ‘Don’t do this to your poor old mother.’ As I bent over each bouncy chair my head pounded and, grabbing one baby under each arm, I sank with relief on to the plumped up pillows on the bed. Bloody hell. What a stupid thing to do. I winced as I put a hand up to the side of my face. My eye felt funny – heavy, and not my own. And my hand was sticky. Oh, God… blood. I was bleeding from my eyebrow. I don’t generally do blood, mine or otherwise. I glanced at the clock and saw I only had half an hour before I needed to set off to fetch India from school. Trying to soothe the twins, I realised I needed to ring Sylvia to get her to do the school run for me. I was beginning to feel distinctly nauseous, if not a little tearful. I could feel a rivulet of blood running down my face and watched in fascination as steady but insistent drops seeped on to my towel, my bed and my poor distressed babies. My mobile was downstairs and I had no idea what Sylvia’s number was from memory. My only other port of call was Grace’s mobile phone. I knew that number as well as my own and, wincing again with the effort, reached out to the phone at the side of the bed and punched in the digits. When it went to answerphone I tried again.
‘Come on, Grace, I need your help,’ I muttered. ‘I can’t do this by myself.’ I realised my eye was beginning to close, and I was feeling very dizzy. In desperation, I tried Grace’s number again and again. On the fifth attempt she answered. Thank God. Without giving her a chance to speak, I launched into, ‘It’s me. I’ve bashed my head and my lady bits in the bath. I feel awful. Could you possibly go and pick India up for me from school? I don’t think I’m going anywhere.’
‘Harriet? Is that you?’ Oh, shit. I instantly recognised the cool, measured tones of Amanda Henderson, Sebastian’s mother, and adoring new granny to Jonty.
After all this time I still couldn’t bring myself to call her Mandy. She’d been Amanda when she was head girl at Midhope Grammar, and Amanda when I was convinced she was having an affair with Nick as they sought to pull off deals for Nick’s new business in Italy last year. Oh, bloody hell. One just didn’t mention lady bits in Amanda’s presence.
‘Oh, Amanda? I’m in a bit of trouble. I need to see if Grace can pick up India for me. I’ve had a fall and I’m not feeling too good. Is she there?’
‘No. She’s upstairs, asleep. Sebastian called me over this morning to keep an eye on my gorgeous grandson. I heard Grace’s phone ringing and it sounded a bit urgent, so I answered it. Can I do anything?’
Under normal circumstances Amanda Henderson would be the last person I’d ask for help to do anything. She still had the ability to turn Grace and me back into sniggering adolescents, and I avoided her like the plague whenever she tried to put her very beautiful – but very superior – nose in my direction. But beggars can’t be choosers, I reckoned. I wasn’t going anywhere in this state and I needed help. Thankful that Amanda was, at this moment, literally just down the lane – despite much protestation from both Grace’s mother and Amanda, Grace and Sebastian had moved into the run down neighbouring farmhouse only the week before Jonty’s birth – I agreed to her coming over.
‘If you could just pop over, find my mobile downstairs and bring it up to me, then I can ring Nick’s mother and ask her to pick India up from school.’
‘No probs,’ Amanda’s clipped vowels floated down the line. ‘I’ll just get this gorgeous boy into the baby papoose and I’ll be over in two minutes. Don’t go anywhere.’
Go anywhere? My head was pounding so badly, and my poor bashed in eye hurting so much, I doubted whether I’d ever be able to go anywhere ever again. And as for my nether regions, I reckoned Nick would be looking at celibacy for the rest of his life. I winced as I tentatively probed beneath the towel. Celibacy for both of us definitely loomed. And the niggling feeling that all wasn’t well with Grace wasn’t doing much to make me feel any better. She’d managed Jonty’s birth with her usual aplomb and had been up, lipsticked and back into jeans within a couple of days. But whenever I’d been round during the last week she’d appeared listless; not quite with it. Not like Grace at all to be in bed mid afternoon. She really mustn’t have been feeling too good if she’d allowed Amanda over the doorstep, never mind take charge of her new baby. Mind you, I totally agreed with her mother and Amanda re the new house. It was a building site, and the builders hadn’t even arrived yet. Why she and Sebastian hadn’t stayed in her and Dan’s old house was beyond us all.
The twins, who had at least stopped crying, were restless, and I had a raging thirst. God, I wanted a cup of tea. I contemplated water from the bathroom tap, but when I made a move to put my legs down on the carpet, the floor swam towards me and I gave up. Where was Amanda?
‘Harriet? Are you there?’ Amanda’s perfect pronunciation wafted up the stairs. Lucky I’d left the back door unlocked. I wasn’t sure that I could have made the journey downstairs.
‘Up here, Amanda. In my bedroom.’
She breezed in, perfectly made-up and looking stunning in very simple, but probably extremely expensive, brown suede trousers. Her feet were shod in a pair of classic camel coloured flat leather boots. A mustard – obviously cashmere – polo necked sweater was tucked into the trousers held up by a Louis Vuitton brown leather belt, while a trendy little beret sat at a rakish angle on her long blonde hair. It was disappointing that she hadn’t insisted on colour coordinating the blue baby sling, in which she had Jonty securely nestled, with the cashmere sweater. In hindsight, I was also amazed that I took all this in with my one good eye – but then I’d been a pushover for whatever Amanda was up to since I’d first met her at school at the age of eleven. She was my guilty secret: my own personal Hello magazine, featuring only Amanda, but now also obviously featuring Grace’s new baby, Jonty. It seemed all wrong, somehow.
‘My God, Harriet. Have you seen yourself? What on earth have you been doing?’ Amanda stopped dead in her tracks as she came through my bedroom door.
‘Is it bad? It feels awful. I feel awful. In fact I feel very, very sick.’ The thought that I might vomit all over Amanda’s colour coordinated camel ensemble made me feel even worse.
Thea, obviously sensing my distress at being found virtually naked – and obviously not looking my best – by my old adversary, Amanda, began to whimper. And then to bawl. Fin soon joined in. And then so did I.
With one fluid motion Amanda whipped off the baby sling and its nestled baby, laid Jonty on the floor and came over to help me. She took both twins in turn, gave each a consolatory jiggle before laying them in a line alongside Jonty, and then took charge of me.
‘Goodness, you are in a mess. Right… first job. Let’s get your phone and ring Sylvia. Where’s Nick? Oh, of course, he’s over in Manchester, isn’t he?’
I must have been feeling bad. The usual temper I felt towards Amanda when she knew more about my husband’s whereabouts than I did was not rising.
‘I’ll ring him in a minute,’ she went on. ‘Now where’s your phone?’
Two minutes later she was back by my side, glass of water and painkillers in her hand, and already talking to my mother-in-law.
‘Yes, Sylvia, an accident… In the bath, of all places… Can you pick up India? Brilliant. I’ll hold the fort here until you get back… Mmm? No, don’t like the look of her.’ (Well, she never did.) ‘Think she might need to go to hospital…’
I downed the water and painkillers and immediately felt more sick. I’d never known a pain like it.
‘Amanda, I think I’m going to be sick.’ And I was. Very profusely, into the nearest receptacle to hand which, unfortunately, happened to be Amanda’s perky little beret.
To be fair to Amanda, she didn’t bat an eyelid. Her training as prefect and head girl obviously came to the fore and she simply held my head while I retched up the water and painkillers.
‘This is so good of you, Amanda,’ I sobbed as she wiped my mouth with the bloodstained towel.
‘Nonsense,’ she said briskly. ‘You have to get that eye seen to. I think it needs stitches. Now let’s think. We need to get you cleaned up, dressed and over to A & E. What the hell do we do with all these babies?’ She made it sound as if there were at least twenty, and for the first time since I’d cracked my head I wanted to laugh. ‘What time are Liberty and Kit home?’
‘Well, Kit won’t be home until much later. He has rugby practice on a Monday evening after school.’ I glanced at my trusty old alarm clock that Granny Morgan had given me many years ago. ‘Actually, Libby won’t be long. The school bus should have got into the village ten minutes ago.’
As if on cue, the back door slammed and almost immediately Liberty called up the stairs.
‘Mum, where are you?’
‘Liberty? Could you come up here to Mummy’s bedroom? Mummy isn’t feeling too good at the moment.’ Amanda took control once more as the answer to what to do with three tiny babies came bounding up the stairs.
‘Oh, my God, Mum. Who on earth have you been fighting with? Bloody hell, you look rough.’
And then obviously remembering last year, when everyone, including myself, was convinced that Nick was up to no good with Amanda, Libby turned to her and said, ‘Have you done this to her? Have you thumped her?’
‘Me?’ Amanda was genuinely astonished. ‘Why on earth would I thump your mother? We’ve been friends for years.’
As if, I thought.
Amanda was getting slightly impatient. Having only produced one adoring son herself, she obviously wasn’t used to bolshy teenaged girls.
‘Liberty, I’m going to go fetch my car from down the lane and then I’m taking your mother to A & E. She’s had a bad fall, is possibly concussed and her eye needs a stitch. Now, I need you to stay here and look after Jonty, Theadora and Fin. Grace isn’t feeling too good so I can’t ask her to come round. I’m going to ring Sebastian and ask him to come home early and then that will be one off your hands. Your grandmother should be back soon and then she can, I’m sure, take over. Can you manage, do you think?’
Liberty, who had, I now realised, taken on my own antipathy towards Amanda, gave her such a withering look of disdain I almost felt sorry for her.
‘I am more than capable of looking after my own brother and sister, Amanda. Now, Mum, what are you going to wear? Where are your leggings and rugby shirt?’
It’s almost as bad as being found dead in them, having Amanda see me like this, I thought ruefully, as Liberty resurrected my abandoned clothes and helped me to put them on once more.
‘There are bottles already made up in the fridge,’ I said, wincing as I bent to drag my old pair of Uggs from the bottom of the wardrobe.
‘Fine, Mum. Just go. I know what to do. What about Jonty, Amanda? Will he need feeding?’
‘He should be OK. Grace managed to feed him before I came round here.’
Was I imagining things or were there quotation marks around the word ‘managed’? I glanced at Amanda, but she had her prefect’s head on as she tried to organise me out of the room.
With a Sainsbury’s plastic bag on my knee in case I should throw up again, we made it to A & E in less than half an hour. We sat on the black leatherette seats strewn with out of date Sunday supplements, and Amanda gazed round at the snot green walls decorated with posters for where to find help for STDs and dementia alongside demands to turn off all mobile phones. There were the usual casualties found in any A & E department: a couple of crying babies, adolescents in school games kit nursing temporarily bandaged ankles and wrists and the obligatory rheumy eyed drunk recovering from a lunchtime session. The pain in my head – and the three hour wait until I was seen, stitched and sent on my way home again seemed interminable. Amanda spent most of the wait expressing her concern for Grace and her apparent inability to get to grips with motherhood.
‘After all these years of longing for a baby, she doesn’t seem overly happy now that she’s got one,’ she sniffed, seemingly oblivious to the fact that not only was her verbal concern not helping my aching head but that, after years of Grace and me being united in mutual antipathy towards her, she now appeared to feel that she and I were on the same side for once.
‘Don’t you think it’s for that reason that maybe she’s struggling a bit?’ I asked, rather sharply. ‘I mean, you and I both had our first babies in our early twenties. We just got on with it. Grace has had years to herself and is having to make the adjustment not only to giving up the work that she loved, but also finding herself living in a virtual building site. And, don’t take this the wrong way, Amanda, but also having to get used to the fact that within a few weeks of each other she was dumped by Dan and met and fell in love with a man – boy – not only fifteen years younger than her but who also happens to be your beloved only son.’
Amanda pursed her immaculately made-up lips. ‘Oh, nonsense, Harriet. Grace has always swanned through life without a care in the world. Goodness, remember what she was like at school. When we prefects used to have meetings in the sixth form common room, Grace was always top of the agenda. I bet you didn’t know that, did you?’
‘Well, no. But it doesn’t surprise me.’ With you in charge, I wanted to add. ‘And I think that’s what the problem is – if there is any problem at all. Knowing Grace, we all assumed she’d be up and running and taking having a new baby in her stride as she does everything else. And – if you remember – she was, to begin with: jeans on and out walking with Jonty on her back within a week of giving birth. I think she’s probably just overdone it a bit and is tired. That’s all.’
‘Well, anyway, that’s what grannies are for – to be around when Mummy gets tired and baby needs taking off for a while.’ Amanda smiled. Actually, I think she smirked. ‘And,’ she went on, ‘Jonty is sooo adooorable.’
How did Amanda manage to get so many syllables out of two words?
‘He’s exactly like Sebastian was as a baby. Unbelievably so. Absolute poppet. Good as gold.’
I needed to change the subject. This whole conversation about Grace was making me feel uncomfortable, and I wanted to get home to the twins.
‘God, how much longer?’ I grumbled, looking round while trying to ascertain who was in a worse condition than me. Apart from a couple of children with makeshift slings and the obvious drunk in the corner, the place was now remarkably quiet. One of the waiting boys in the seat across from us started to cry, holding out his fingers for his mother to look at once more. He’d been staring at my swollen face with interest for the past hour or so, but his bleeding fingers were obviously now causing him some gyp and he only had eyes for them. I found a roll of Polos in my bag and offered them across.
‘What’s he done?’ I asked his mother, who didn’t seem overly concerned about his situation.
‘Silly little bugger took his brother’s skateboard without his knowing. Went down the street on it but didn’t know how to stop it when it were going right fast. So what did he use for a brake?’ She held up the unfortunate fingers, which were swollen, bloody and broken skinned. One fingernail was hanging off. ‘Only his bloody fingers, the daft sod.’ She hugged him to her while he sucked loudly on his mint. Looking at his grisly hand, I wished I’d never asked; Amanda obviously felt the same.
‘Good God, this is ridiculous,’ Amanda snapped impatiently, looking at her little gold wristwatch. Like everything else on her person, it was understated and clearly very expensive. She made to move from her seat, but her obvious intention to speed up the NHS was interrupted by my name being called. As I struggled to my feet, the drunk in the corner, obviously aggrieved that my name had been called before his, woke from his stupor, lurched towards me and – in the process – managed to spill the remains of a pint of lager he’d had hidden under his coat down my already grubby rugby shirt and leggings.
Three quarters of a pint of Carlsberg, five stitches and almost sixty minutes later we were on our way home. A car mirror examination revealed that the whole side of my face was bruised and swollen, but it was my left eye that had come off the worst. It was virtually closed and twice its usual size. For some reason even my tongue felt like it didn’t belong to me – as if there wasn’t room enough for it in my mouth. Despite the casualty nurse attempting a clean up job, dried blood was still caked around my ear and in my hair, and five bits of what looked like purple wire were now resting smugly in and above my eyebrow. My legs felt as though they were being operated by someone else, I smelt like a brewery and the headache which had never really gone away was beginning to return with a vengeance.
As I walked through my front door, Amanda hovering at my elbow, I was met by raucous laughter from the sitting room on the right. Laughter? On a Wednesday evening? Who the hell was laughing on a Wednesday evening while I was at death’s door, not to mention looking – and smelling – like the drunken Bride of Frankenstein? Actually, drunken bloody Frankenstein himself. Pulling my rugby shirt down over my grubby leggings, I pushed the slightly ajar door open further.
Three heads turned as one. Three jaws simultaneously dropped and, in perfect unison, three voices said, ‘Bloody hell.’
Nick was the first to recover. Putting down the bottle of wine he was just about to pour, he came over, gingerly led me to a chair and sat me down. The woman standing open mouthed, to my right, I’d never set eyes on before. The dark haired, blue eyed man to my left was the very one who, with wet knickers and squelching shoes, I’d last seen in Manchester’s Harvey Nicks.