Faking It: The most hilarious and laugh out loud page turner you’ll read this year!

by Rebecca Smith

  ‘You’re as young as the man you feel,’ Miss Pritchard tells her. ‘Come on – I want to go to that club you were telling me about. The lovely one with the rainbows and all the men.’

  ‘She thinks she’ll have more fun at a gay club,’ Pru tells me. ‘I’m not entirely sure she understands the current meaning of the word.’

  ‘Is that fair?’ I ask. ‘To the men?’

  Pru grins. ‘They’re big boys. I’m sure they can handle little old Miss Pritchard over here.’

  They link arms and totter out into the night and I send a silent prayer into the sky, advising gay men everywhere to stay at home tonight for their own safety.

  ‘It was a fab evening,’ says Isobel, coming up behind me with Allegra and Lori. ‘Thanks, Hannah.’

  ‘Are you okay getting home?’ I ask.

  Allegra nods. ‘It turns out that Isobel lives in my street so we’ll walk Lori home first and then go back together.’ She peers out through the open front door and sniffs. ‘It’s just as well. You really do live in a dodgy part of town, Hannah.’

  ‘It was lovely to see you all,’ I smile. And it’s even lovelier to see some of you leave.

  Allegra darts forward and pulls me in for a hug. It isn’t comfortable or warm or even particularly friendly – she’s all sharp edges and points – but it’s still more physical contact than we’ve ever had and I appreciate the step forward in our relationship.

  Then she pulls away and smooths down the front of her coat. ‘I meant to tell you, Hannah. You’ve got a green light to go ahead with the Afternoon Tea Party. Let me know if you need any help although I’m sure you’re more than capable of throwing together a few hundred homemade, gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, soy-free scones, scone-free scones.’

  I am pretty sure she did not mean to say that last bit.

  She gives me a tight smile and then turns to the other women.

  ‘Let’s go. I’ve got to be up at six to take Auberon to his street dance competition and it’s a three-hour drive. Lovely gathering, Hannah – thanks ever so!’

  She sails out of the house and after a quick goodbye, Lori and Isobel scurry after her.

  ‘It wasn’t a gathering!’ I call after their retreating figures. ‘It was a sex party, FYI!’

  A man walks past with his dog and shoots me a very dirty look so I hastily close the door and go back into the living room where Cassie is helping Sandra to pack up the last of her stuff.

  ‘Fantastic evening!’ she says as I walk in. ‘I’ve had a quick peek at the order forms and I’ve never made so much money in one night before. One of your friends has spent two hundred and fifty quid on vibrators alone! You’ve got a great discount heading your way, Hannah!’

  I widen my eyes and look at Cassie but she shakes her head. ‘Not me. I reckon it was your crazy friend, Allegra.’

  I laugh and pick up Sandra’s suitcase. ‘No way. My money is on Miss Pritchard! So who was it, Sandra?’

  ‘I’m afraid that I can’t divulge that kind of information,’ Sandra tells us as we head out through the front door and walk towards her car. ‘Client-Party Organiser confidentiality, and all that. Can I offer you a lift home, Cassie? You’re on my way.’

  Cassie nods and then wraps her arms around me.

  ‘Tonight was brilliant!’

  ‘You’re brilliant,’ I tell her. ‘I haven’t laughed so much in ages. And you were right – I did need this.’

  ‘I am always right,’ she says, stepping back and opening the passenger door. ‘And rest assured, I’ll get Sandra to tell me who spent so much money on sex toys.’

  ‘I heard that,’ says Sandra, slamming the boot. ‘And my lips are sealed.’

  I wave them off and then go back into the house, suddenly exhausted. The clearing up can wait until tomorrow. Right now, the only thing I want is my bed and to sink into sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Nick wakes me up on Sunday morning with a cup of tea.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he tells me, his voice serious.

  I sit bolt upright and then regret the rapid movement. ‘What is it?’ I ask. ‘What’s happened? Is it the kids? Is Dylan okay?’

  ‘Hannah.’ He puts his hand on my arm. ‘Calm down, okay. The kids are fine. But I need to tell you something and I need you to listen.’

  I put the tea on my bedside table and twist to look at him. His face is drawn and he looks like he hasn’t slept properly. My stomach churns, which could be due to the appalling amount of alcohol that I drank last night but I’m more inclined to assume it’s abject terror.

  I think he’s leaving me. All this time I thought that I was the one trying to reinvent myself and he’s been quietly discovering his own life, away from me. This is what happens when you spend all your time trying to ‘find’ yourself – you lose the things that are most important. My constant attempts to add some spice to our marriage have pushed him away. I am so utterly stupid.

  ‘I’ve been trying to find an answer but I just don’t think that I can.’ I can feel his hand shaking and I resist the urge to yell at him to just put me out of misery and spit it out.

  Shouting at him is not going to encourage him to rethink divorcing me, though. I’m going to have to be cleverer than that. Unless of course he’s already found someone else in which case, he would be wise to prepare himself to meet the wrath and vengeance of Twinky Malone because my god, she will not go quietly into the dark night. Hell no. She will start by cutting up his clothes and finish by cutting up his heart. Metaphorically speaking, obviously. Twinky or not, I am not a psychopath.

  ‘Hannah? Are you listening to me?’ His voice pulls me reluctantly back to reality. I don’t want to listen. I don’t want to hear the love of my life tell me that he’s had enough of me and is throwing me away like a used dishcloth.

  ‘I’m listening,’ I say, wrenching my arm away from his hand. I can’t stand the feeling of him touching me, not when I know that it’s for the very last time. ‘When are you going then?’

  His face screws up in confusion. ‘Going? Where am I supposed to be going? I said that I didn’t get the forestry contract and I know that it’s going to put us in a really tight spot, financially. I’m so sorry.’

  Oh. Right then. It’s not quite the disaster I was anticipating. Thank god for that – I am not feeling in any way equipped to deal with any drama this morning. I’m also never drinking. Ever again.

  I mentally put my scissors away and lean across to wrap one arm around his shoulders. ‘It’s okay,’ I tell him. ‘Honestly. I thought you were going to say something terrible, from the look on your face.’

  He pulls away and stares at me. ‘It is terrible, Hannah. I was banking on that contract to help us pay off the credit card, for starters. I know that I’m lucky to still have other jobs on the go but they aren’t enough for us to cope with all the emergencies that seem to happen on a semi-regular basis, you know that.’

  He stares down at the bed and a thought hits me.

  ‘When did you find out about this?’ I ask him gently. ‘How long have you known?’

  His eyes flicker towards me. ‘It’s been quite a few weeks,’ he says. ‘I wanted to figure something else out before I told you because you’ve been so focused on your writing. At one point I was sure that you’d guessed what was going on but then you didn’t say anything and I didn’t know if that meant that you were pissed off with me and didn’t want to talk about it and—’

  He stops and gazes at me, clearly out of words.

  ‘When?’ I ask. ‘When did you think I’d guessed?’

  ‘That night when you met me at the wine bar,’ he tells me quietly. ‘You were going on about us getting reconnected and then you were so angry with me for messing up your surprise – but not as angry as I was with myself for doing anything that would ever make you feel like I don’t find you attractive.’

  A few weeks. All that time when I thought he’d gone off me and I couldn’t figure out why things felt te
nse between us and it was because of this. I love my husband very much but quite frankly, he can be a bit of a knob sometimes. Not that I’m any better.

  ‘Look at me.’ I pull myself up onto my knees and put my hands on either side of his face. ‘Everything is okay. It really is. I’m just glad that you finally told me. It explains a lot. Perhaps we both need to be a bit more truthful with each other from now on, yeah?’

  He raises his head and looks me in the eye. ‘It’s been awful.’ His words come out in a big rush. ‘I wanted to tell you but I just couldn’t. Not until I had a solution. Which as of last night, I actually do.’

  I frown. ‘What is it? Have you found another decent contract?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No. But I put an advert in the local paper and last night I got a buyer.’ He pauses, as if the words are hard to say. ‘I’m selling Betty. She’ll clear the credit card and give us a bit left over to help with any future disasters.’

  I don’t even have to think. I’m off the bed in seconds, standing with hands on my hips and my feet planted firmly apart.

  ‘No way. You can’t sell Betty. She’s part of the family now and she makes you happy. So what if we’ve got a bit of debt on the card? We’ll save a bit harder and sort it out. Maybe Miriam will give me some more hours at school or maybe I’ll sell a few more copies of my book. I don’t know. But I do know that we are absolutely not at that stage, so you can phone up your buyer and tell him that you’re very sorry but Betty is not for sale.’

  Maybe he should have told me the truth as soon as he knew about the contract. But maybe I should have been more honest about how I was feeling too. Both of us have been faking our way through the last couple of months and perhaps if we’d talked about it we would have found the answer together. We usually do. We’ve had enough practice.

  Nick gets up and comes across to where I’m standing.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asks, and I can hear the hope in his voice. ‘Because I really will sell her if I have to.’

  It might not make it into the plot of a Hollywood film but quite honestly, I am struggling to think of a single gesture that could be deemed as more romantic than this one. You have truly not been loved until someone offers to sell their precious Land Rover for you.

  ‘I’m sure,’ I assure him. ‘But maybe we should buy a lottery ticket this week.’

  He wraps his arms around me and we hold each other tightly and it feels like it always has done. Safe and warm and solid and loving – like my whole world is right here and there is nowhere else that I would ever want to be. And then my body remembers that it is actually still mostly operating on alcohol fumes and could do with a rest after all the excitement. I stagger back onto the bed and Nick walks across the bedroom to the window.

  ‘I was almost too scared to go downstairs this morning,’ he tells me, opening the curtains before sitting down next to me. ‘Just in case one of those women was lurking somewhere.’

  I wince as the daylight hits my eyes and pick up my cup, sipping gratefully at the tea.

  ‘It did all get a bit out of hand,’ I confess. ‘But it was a total laugh.’

  ‘You were going on about something called Proper Porn when you finally came up to bed.’ He looks at me quizzically. ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘Oh god.’ I shake my head. ‘Cassie had this idea that we should create our own porn production company and make films that show the reality of sex. You know – to combat the unrealistic, misogynistic stuff that kids see nowadays?’

  Nick nods seriously. ‘I can see there being a market for that.’

  I laugh and punch him half-heartedly on the arm. ‘Oh yeah – and what do you know about it?’

  He frowns. ‘I’m not a Neanderthal, Hannah. I read the news. I know how different it is for kids these days and it worries me a lot that they’re getting these awful messages. It’s why I made sure that I spoke to Dylan about it, once he started showing an interest in girls.’

  ‘You spoke to our son about porn?’ I ask, putting down my cup. ‘When?’

  Nick shrugs. ‘I don’t know. In the car or when we were walking Dogger. Whenever. It wasn’t a big deal, Hannah. Just conversations about respect and consent and that if you want to know about real women then porn isn’t the best source of material.’

  ‘But what if it could be?’ I ask, twisting to face him. ‘What if genuine, honest, proper porn could actually exist and then people could satisfy their curiosity without causing damage to women?’

  ‘Do it,’ he says, giving me a grin. ‘You’re a Sex Goddess so you’re qualified for the job! And I definitely won’t ever have to sell Betty if you make your fortune in the X-rated movie industry.’

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ I tell him, getting out of bed. ‘But all this is really going to help with So Much Sex, you know? Bella Rose is already kick-ass and won’t take any shit. Now she just needs to get her own orgasms in hand.’

  ‘Muuuuuum!’ Scarlet’s howl of anguish sends shivers down my spine and I glance at Nick who is already off the bed and heading for the door. ‘Muuuuuuuum! Daaaaaaaaad! Get down here now!’

  I’m two steps behind Nick as he hurtles down the stairs, intent on rescuing our daughter from whatever disaster is currently occurring. She is standing outside the living room, holding onto the door handle for dear life and my heart leaps into my mouth.

  ‘Is there an intruder?’ I ask, as we approach her. ‘What is it?’

  Scarlet shakes her head. ‘I heard a noise,’ she gulps. ‘When I went in there to get my iPad. It sounded like hundreds of angry wasps or bees or something.’

  Nick groans and starts firing questions at her. ‘Did you see anything? Where exactly was the noise coming from? Could it have been outside the window?’

  Scarlet scowls and moves away from the closed door. ‘I don’t know, do I? It sounded like wasps so I ran. I wasn’t going to hang around and locate their specific location – I could have been stung!’

  ‘That was very wise,’ I say, nodding at her. ‘And you were right to call us.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ yawns Benji, stomping down the stairs. ‘Why is everyone shouting? Again.’

  ‘We’ve got a wasp invasion,’ Scarlet tells him. ‘In the living room.’

  ‘Well, we don’t know that for sure, do we?’ I say, smiling reassuringly at my youngest child.

  ‘There’s only one way to find out.’ Nick puts his hand on the doorknob and twists it.

  ‘Do you want me to come with you?’ I ask, hoping that he’ll decline my generous offer.

  He shakes his head. ‘No point in us both putting ourselves at risk. You wait out here with the kids and I’ll call if I need you.’

  And then he opens the door and quickly slips inside and the hallway fills with silence as we all stand very still and wait.

  Thirty seconds pass and then one minute but no sound comes from the other side of the door.

  ‘What if they’re killer wasps and he’s dead?’ murmurs Benji.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ huffs Scarlet. ‘There aren’t killer wasps in this country. But he might have been stung and had an allergic reaction. That could kill him.’

  ‘Nobody is dead,’ I snap, although I do press my ear against the door to listen for any sign of life. There’s no sound though, so as the good wife that I clearly am, I make a decision.

  ‘I’m going in,’ I whisper to the children. ‘If I’m not out in five minutes then do something.’

  ‘Do what?’ Scarlet whispers back. ‘What do you want us to do?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ I hiss, my pulse speeding up as I turn the handle. ‘Just do something, okay?’

  Then I push open the door and slip inside, my eyes searching the room for Nick. And then I notice his socked feet sticking out from behind the sofa and for one moment my heart misses a beat.

  ‘Nick!’ I yell. ‘Are you okay?’

  The door behind me flies open and Scarlet and Benji spill into the room.

  ‘Dad!’
howls Scarlet.

  The feet move and a second later, Nick’s head pops up.

  ‘What are you all yelling about?’ he asks. ‘And can you stop, because I’m trying to locate the source of the noise. There aren’t any wasps in here but I can definitely hear something.’

  We all listen and he’s right. There is a buzzing sound and I can see why Scarlet assumed that it was an insect invasion. It definitely sounds like some kind of animal, that’s for sure.

  ‘Spread out and try to find it,’ instructs Nick and I move forward, tilting my head so that I can pinpoint the exact location of the noise. It seems to be coming from the direction of the armchair but as I start to walk towards it the buzzing suddenly drops in frequency, as if it’s losing energy. Which is odd because animals don’t usually run out of power like that.

  Not unless they’re rabbits.

  Not unless they’re battery-powered rabbits.

  ‘Everybody out of the room!’ I scream, spinning round to look at my family. ‘Get out now!’

  Benji is just reaching the armchair and my shout makes him leap in terror, right on top of the cushions. He scans the floor with wide eyes.

  ‘What happened?’ screeches Scarlet. ‘Why are you shouting?’

  ‘What is it, Hannah?’ shouts Nick, rushing to my side. ‘Have you found something?’

  ‘No, but I-I just think that…maybe there’s a…’

  I do not have the words to explain what is happening right now. There is a very real possibility that the words do not even exist in the English language.

  ‘I’ve found the noise!’ proclaims Benji, bringing his hand out from behind a cushion and waving it in the air.

  Of course he has.

  I close my eyes and pray briefly that I am wrong. But when I open them again, it is all too obvious that I am right.

  Of course I am.

  ‘What is this?’ he asks the silent room, gazing at the item in his hand. ‘And why is it making that buzzing sound?’

  My brain finally shifts into gear and I launch myself towards him, grabbing the offending item from his innocent, childish hands.