I watch the lights on the tree some more and start to send myself into a trance. Before my eyes close completely, I decide to phone Crush again.
It’s late afternoon here which makes it – oh, I don’t know, probably some completely unsociable hour in Crush’s world. It’s virtually impossible to find a time to call him when we’re both supposed to be awake and not at work. Australia, I’m sure, is a great country; I just wish it were a little nearer. Like just beyond Ireland, so that easyJet could get me there for less than the price of this rapidly moulting Christmas tree.
What will we do if Crush does manage to come home over the holidays, I wonder. I can see us taking long walks on Hampstead Heath, both wrapped up in soft, stylish woollies in primary colours – possibly from Gap – against the crisp, white frost. I can see us toasting marshmallows in front of an open fire, even though I don’t actually possess an open fire and generally eschew marshmallows as inferior confectionery due to the absence of chocolate content. I can see us doing all kinds of furtively festive things on the floor beneath my fading fir tree and flashing chilli lights.
I nip into the bathroom to give my hair a quick rake with a brush. Let’s face it, webcams don’t generally show you in the best of lights and I want to give the air of not having tried too hard, but not looking too scruffy either. Casual glamour is a very hard look to achieve. Slicking on some lip gloss, I decide that I’m ready to meet in cyberspace with my loved one.
I log on to my computer and wait to see if my boyfriend is there waiting at the other end. But instead of Crush’s lovely face looming large in front of me on the webcam, there’s suddenly a very pretty woman on the screen.
‘Hi,’ she says at me, rather sleepily.
I can’t speak. I’m too busy staring at the slutty underwear she’s got on. It’s black and very lacy with bright pink embroidery on it. The sort of underwear you wouldn’t want to be caught wearing in the Accident and Emergency Department of your local hospital. The sort of underwear that doesn’t look good on women with cellulite.
She whacks the computer on the top of its head. ‘I can’t hear anything,’ she complains. ‘Hello? Hello?’ Then the woman turns and speaks over her shoulder. ‘Did you leave this thing on? I think someone’s trying to get through.’ Whack. Whack.
Still my voice won’t come.
‘Ugg.’ She purses her lips. ‘All I have is the view of the inside of someone’s nose.’
I back away from the camera.
‘Here,’ she says. ‘See if you can make it work.’ Then she moves her wondrously trim figure out of the way and, frankly, the inside of my nose is nothing compared to the view that I now have.
Lying on the bed behind this . . . this tart . . . is a naked man. A very naked man. Bottom in the air. Not even a sheet covering his modesty. I must at this point mention that Crush and I have never been involved in an intimate situation of this nature, so I don’t instantly recognise the bare bottom. But who else’s bottom could it possibly be? I wonder if I’ve somehow managed to hook up with the wrong computer. Can I possibly have contacted the wrong person in cyberspace and this lovely, if rather underdressed, woman is not really in my boyfriend’s bedroom? Unfortunately, I somehow don’t think so. I’m sure this is Aiden’s computer. And those are definitely his curtains and his wallpaper. Which means they are actually in Crush’s bed. Her with her little matching bra and briefs and him and his buck-naked arse.
It’s a very fine bottom, I have to say. But I don’t really want to make acquaintance with it in this context. I’m blinking rapidly, as if one of the blinks will change the frame and will come up with a different and less disturbing image.
‘Maybe it’s for you,’ Miss Skanky Pants says over her shoulder. ‘Who would be calling at this hour?’
‘Here, let me look.’ The voice doesn’t sound an awful lot like Crush, but then again that could be distortion due to the length of the airwaves or microwaves or something.
It’s definitely an English accent. No doubt about that. The naked man starts to move and I decide that I don’t want to see any more, that I’ve already seen enough. This is such a familiar scenario for me. I’ve been the victim of this kind of betrayal more times than I care to remember. Marcus was the past master at it. Now it seems that Aiden Holby has taken over the baton from him.
I don’t want Crush to see me, mouth gaping open, brain frozen, fatter and more frumpy than the woman he’s with, so I quickly log off. Then I sit staring at the computer, not knowing what to do. My palms are sweaty and my eyes are burning hot with tears. I dig my fingernails into my palms. I will not cry over this. I will not cry over this. I will calmly, and with a supreme degree of control that I never knew possible, carry on with my life as if this had never happened. I will not entertain any further thoughts of a lovely new life in Australia with a hunky man. I will leave him to get on with his new, ridiculously slim girlfriend without me. I will stop phoning or bothering Mr Aiden Holby in any way and he will simply cease to exist in my world. That’s what I’ll do.
Taking a Mars Bar from my emergency stash next to my computer, I sit and stare at it blankly. This is such a shame because Crush was really, really nice and I really, really liked him and I did so hope that things would be different this time. What’s so wrong with me that no one can remain faithful to me for more than ten minutes? Fuck the flipping deep breath. And the poxy counting. I unwrap the Mars Bar and take a big bite from it. A humungously big bite. Then I think, Sod it, and I cry too.
Chapter Three
‘Does this mean that Crush won’t be coming home for Christmas?’ Autumn is wide-eyed with shock. But then Autumn is often wide-eyed with things.
What would we all have to talk about, I wonder, if my love-life wasn’t such a disaster zone? I stare morosely at my cup. ‘I guess not.’
Barely twenty-fours hours have passed since our last meeting and already I’ve had to text my best girls with a CHOCOLATE EMERGENCY. As always, they came running as fast as they could to my aid.
It’s still effectively brunch, so Clive has served us with some warm, homemade pain au chocolat and some necessarily strong coffee. A selection of festive hits are playing on the stereo and, to be honest, I’d like to smash the speakers. Bing and his flipping ‘White Christmas’ is currently doing my head in. I’m not dreaming of a white Christmas, I’m dreaming of a very drunken one. And I’d like it to start as soon as possible.
‘Do you think Crush realised that it was you on the other end of the webcam?’ Nadia wants to know.
‘If he did, then he hasn’t tried to contact me.’ Which is a good job for Aiden ‘Bare-Bum’ Holby. There are approximately seven thousand swear words in the English language and I know virtually all of them. I would have shared that knowledge with him. Very loudly.
‘You’re not going to be alone over the holidays?’ Chantal asks.
‘No. No.’ I shake my head vehemently. ‘No, no, no.’ Actually, I am.
The thing with expecting Aiden Holby to come home and sweep me into his arms beneath the mistletoe is that I’ve turned down all manner of exciting invitations simply to keep my time free to be with him. Well, I turned down an invitation from my dear mother to go to Spain to stay with her and her ageing, balding man, The Millionaire, and watch them cooing over each other like teenagers. Particularly horny teenagers. And one from my dad to go to the South Coast to spend my time watching him and his peroxide paramour, The Hairdresser, press themselves up against each other at inopportune moments. Frankly, with those choices I’d rather it was just me, bad telly and a family-size tin of Cadbury’s Roses. And it looks as if that’s exactly what I’m going to get.
‘Hey, maybe you could come over and have your Christmas lunch with me and Ted?’
‘I’ll be fine. Really.’ Chantal and Ted are still on very shaky ground after their recent acrimonious split. He wants kids – she doesn’t. She wants loads of sex – he doesn’t. Not sure how the possibility of procreation is going to fit in with
that scenario – which is, I guess, the crux of the matter.
Chantal, as a sort of empty revenge for her husband’s lack of libido, has been extensively continuing her sex-life with all comers. It’s led her into some very tricky situations, I can tell you. Frankly, Ted doesn’t know the half of it. He has no idea about Jacob The Male Escort or, even worse, Mr Smith The Gentleman Thief who had a one-night stand with our libidinous friend and then relieved her of thirty grand’s worth of jewellery. Who says that the sex-life of a married woman can’t be exciting, eh? Unfortunately, the only person it seems that Chantal wasn’t sleeping with was her dear husband. But that’s all in the past. Sort of. Now they’re trying to make a go of their relationship, but Ted is blowing very hot and cold. One minute he thinks that they can repair their marriage, the next he’s not answering Chantal’s calls. I’d imagine that when your husband has found out that you’ve been indiscriminately sleeping with all and sundry – including one of my boyfriends – it’s not going to be an easy wound to heal.
Chantal is still living separately from Ted, but they’ve agreed to spend the time together over Christmas. Which has to be good, right? But I so don’t want to be a gooseberry in between those two. No way, Jose. Can you imagine it?
‘Are you going to see Addison over the holidays?’ Nadia asks Autumn.
‘Yes,’ Autumn responds, but she does it in such a distracted way that we decide not to pursue the subject.
Addison is Autumn’s new boyfriend and they’re totally loved-up. Which is good, because Addison has been Autumn’s only boyfriend since time began as she doesn’t have time for men as she’s so busy Doing Good. It’s really great to see that Autumn is actually doing something that she wants to do rather than propping up her lame, drug-dealing brother and her lame, drug-taking clients at the KICK IT! programme she works on.
Her brother, Richard, is currently still in rehab in California or Arizona or Nevada – one of the American states ending in ‘a’ – although he absconded out there to escape a posse of thugs who were after his blood rather than through having seen the error of his druggie ways.
‘How’s Richard doing?’ I ask.
‘He’s okay.’ Autumn shrugs. ‘His emails are very sporadic. Apparently, the clinic limits his time on the computer.’
Very sensible too. Look at all the trouble computers can get you into if you begin to rely on them. I clench my jaw firmly, so that I won’t be tempted to cry again.
‘He’s not coming home?’ I squeak.
‘No,’ she says. ‘Thankfully, my parents have very deep pockets. I’m sure Rich will stay away for as long as they continue to fund him.’
‘I’m dreading it,’ Nadia pipes up. ‘I’m dreading the whole bloody thing. The last thing I need is any more expense.’
Nadia’s a beautiful, British Asian woman and, if I were her, I’d dredge up something from my cultural background – or, frankly, make it up – so that I’d got a perfect excuse for having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas. There’s got to be something, right?
‘I used to love it when I was a kid.’ She shakes her head. ‘Now it’s so horribly commercial. Why on earth do we do it?’
Nadia and her husband, Toby, are also recently estranged. Which, on the positive side, means that it isn’t only my love-life that’s a disaster zone. In present company, we’d still have plenty to talk about.
Toby had become seriously addicted to internet gambling and was on the fast-track to ruining their lives with his expensive obsession. They’re absolutely up to their eyeballs in debt. But he’s supposed to be clean now – if that’s the right term for a reformed gambler? Nadia’s precarious finances mean that the rest of The Chocolate Lovers’ Club bankroll her visits to Chocolate Heaven, but it’s a small price to pay to enable our friend to continue to use her sanctuary. Besides, out of all of us, Nadia eats the least chocolate, so her bills are relatively small.
‘Toby and I are going to spend the day playing happy families for Lewis’s sake,’ Nadia continues. ‘It’s such a farce. I just wish it would all go away.’
Christmas, I suppose, is a great time of year if you’re a happy, shiny person with no troubles in the world. For the rest of us, it’s the time of year that seems to show up your shitty little life in the worst possible light.
‘Blimey,’ I say. ‘We’re all going to be slitting our throats before Christmas Eve. It can’t be that bad.’
Chantal and Nadia glare at me. Even Autumn joins in.
‘Think of all the special edition chocolates,’ I coax them. ‘The selection boxes, the chocolate tree decorations. Chocolate advent calendars. What better way to start a day?’ I’m on a roll. ‘The oversize bars of Galaxy. Whopping great Toblerones.’ Four pairs of eyes widen involuntarily at that. Who could resist those triangles of Swiss milk chocolate laced with honey and almond nougat? Not me, for one. Even though it meant the risk of losing a tooth. I look at my friends. ‘Surely those will see us through the dark times?’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ Autumn says anxiously. She reaches for the last comforting morsel of pain au chocolat. ‘Maybe we’re panicking unnecessarily.’
Then Clive pops up beside us with more choccy supplies and some fresh coffee which he puts down on the table. He’s whistling ‘It’ll Be Lonely This Christmas’ softly to himself. ‘How are my darlings today?’ he asks chirpily. ‘Looking forward to Christmas?’
In unison, we all reach out for a cushion and, with a certain unrestrained venom, throw them at him.
‘I was only asking,’ he mutters at us as he rearranges his soft furnishings in a more orderly fashion.
My friends, arms folded, fear in their eyes, are still looking too unsettled for my liking.
‘We can do it,’ I assure them as I hand round the grand cru truffles Clive brought for us. ‘We can get through this. If we have enough chocolate.’
Chapter Four
This is my cunning diet plan to see me through the Christmas period. I reckon if I work out like a mad thing now, then I can have some extra calories in hand to cope with my annual Christmas greedfest. Like everything in life, it’s all a matter of achieving a balance.
The bad thing is that I’ve left it a little late to start this new regime – like by about six months. So, at the moment, I’m actually ten thousand calories or so down on where I need to be. That’s hardly any Toffee Crisps at all. Maybe less than one Terry’s Chocolate Orange. No wonder I’m in severe panic mode. Christmas will be utterly miserable if I’m both alone and can’t gorge myself on chocolate. That is more than one person should be forced to tolerate – although I have vowed not to over-indulge this year. But then I’m working on the premise that I’ve vowed not to over-indulge for approximately the last fifteen years and I always have.
To combat my current calorie deficit, I’m leaping around my lounge like a woman possessed by something entirely demonic and shaking the floor of my flat. I have Nell McAndrew’s Ultimate Challenge, Ultimate Results on fast forward and, ultimately, I’m struggling to keep up with it. Oh, to have such toned thighs and such a ping-pong-ball-sized bottom. How does she do it? I bet not so much as a morsel of Twix ever passes her pouting lips. Am I permanently destined to look like the ‘before’ picture on a ‘before and after’ comparison? I huff and puff a bit more. I’m going to do this DVD three times more and then I’m going to have a Bounty Bar as a reward – which I will, of course, deduct from the chocolate I’m planning to eat over the next few days.
Christmas Eve is tomorrow and still no call from Crush. To say that I’m devastated is an understatement. I’m well and truly ‘crushed’. Maybe a little tear mingles with some sweat as I do my leg curls and knee lifts and thigh-ripping lunges and goodness only knows what else. I was looking forward to a very romantic Christmas for once. It only goes to show what can happen when you get too wrapped up in a lovely, unrealistic dream. At the age of thirty-two, you’d think that I’d be able to spot a bastard a mile away, but somehow I still man
age to see the best in everyone – until, inevitably, I’m shown otherwise.
I’m just about to embark on my first coronary, when the phone rings. I can’t stop now, I could give myself a hernia or lock-jaw at the very least. Even if I did pick up, I wouldn’t actually be able to speak. Gasping for breath is not attractive in a woman of my tender years.
The answerphone kicks in and there’s lots of whirring and thunking. There’s also a bit of uneven breathing coming down the phone line and I wonder if I’ve got a pervy phone call until I hear a woefully familiar voice speak out, which stops me dead in mid-lunge.
‘Lucy,’ Marcus says. And then there’s another shuddering breath and a big sigh. ‘It’s me. Marcus.’ As if my ex-fiancé, to whom I dedicated five long and faithful years, needs any introduction. My heart is banging against my chest and not just because I’m terminally unfit.
‘I was just calling to see how you are.’ Lots more uncomfortable pausing. At this rate the tape on the answerphone machine is going to have run out by the time he gets to the point of his call. Strangely, I find myself urging him to continue, whilst having no similar urge to pick up the phone. ‘I feel that we left things on very bad terms last time we met.’
Ah, that’ll be the time that he was bonking busty, bouncing Joanne on his kitchen table, and I walked in on them. I very nearly returned my engagement ring to a place where the sun very definitely doesn’t shine. Marcus clearly hasn’t realised what a narrow escape he had.
‘The thing is,’ he continues, ‘I miss you and I still love you. I’m not with Joanne any more.’ Now there’s a surprise. I suspect that she was just a little bit pissed off with him too when she found out that the supposed ex-girlfriend was now, in fact, his fiancée. ‘I’m having time on my own to reflect on my behaviour. I realise that it’s ridiculous. It’s ruining my life.’
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