Wishful Thinking (11 page)

‘I can't. I have the children to think of. Even if I could find a decent nanny, they need me at home.'

‘We'll babysit,' Georgie offered rashly. I mumbled something which might, or might not, have been agreement. Children make me nervous: they're a lot like animals, only not so well-behaved.

‘Thanks, but . . . where would I go? No one asks me to parties any more. I was only invited as a kind of accessory to Garry, or Sean, never just because I was me.'

‘Andy likes you 'cause you're you,' I said.

‘He's getting married,' Lin said abruptly. ‘I forgot to tell you. They're having a big do at the family castle in Scotland. I suppose I could go to that to meet men.'

‘Weddings are great for romantic encounters,' I averred. ‘All the books say so. Who's he marrying?'

‘I'm not sure,' Lin said. ‘I get them all mixed up. There was an environmental campaigner. He rescued her from a tree in the path of a new bypass. Then she went off to the Highlands to save the wildcat. He always goes for the idealistic type. But it might not be her – she was quite a while ago.' She didn't sound jealous, but she clearly wasn't enthusiastic.

What was it about these rampant idealists? I wondered. Andy Pearmain's fiancée, Helen Aucham . . . Nigel. In the twenty-first century principles are obviously sexy – but why do I always resent people who flaunt them in public?

‘Pity it's too late to pair her off with Nigel,' I remarked.

‘And what of Nigel?' asked Georgie. ‘You haven't mentioned him for weeks. Well, days, anyway.'

‘I haven't thought of him for weeks,' I lied. ‘Or days.' But my face must have given me away.

‘What have you done?' Georgie's voice was accusing. ‘You'd better confess. You finished it on a high. Don't tell me you went crawling back.'

‘Okay, I won't tell you,' I said obligingly. ‘Happy now?'

So I told them. I couldn't look at them, even though they were my friends. The humiliation rushed over me tenfold, twentyfold, shrinking me inside myself, turning me to dust. I thought Georgie would rail at me but she didn't. She jumped up and came round the table, knocking over a glass, and hugged me, and Lin came and hugged me too, so we were all tangled up in one big hug, and suddenly I wanted to cry for all the right reasons. ‘We'll get him,' Georgie said. ‘He'll eat his words. We're going to turn you into the hottest sex goddess since Monroe's skirt blew up around her ears. We can do it, I promise.
You
can do it. Let's have some more wine.'

We ordered another bottle, and another, and the evening began to unravel comfortably like a roll of Andrex with a puppy on one end. I offloaded my feelings about Todd Jarman, and Horrible Helen, and designer sofas, and Georgie vowed repeatedly that she was going to drop Cal for an unmarried millionaire, and Lin, who had no head for drink, started rather unexpectedly to bemoan the fact that Andy Pearmain wasn't gay. ‘Wives always get in the way,' she declared. ‘He won't be there for me any more, and he's always been there for me. My best friend.'Xcept you two, but that's different. Andy's a man – solid, strong—'

‘Bearded,' Georgie interjected.

‘Solid, strong, bearded . . .
reliable.
Someone to lean on. Why couldn't he have a boyfriend? He said ages ago he was going to be gay. He's so bad at women. He keeps falling for these earnest types who eat vegan food and spend his money on lost causes and . . . and take advantage of his kindness and solidity.'

‘You mean – they lean on him?' I hazarded.

‘Exactly! But not in a good way. They lean too – too heavily, they put pressure on him, they drain him. He never gets to laugh or make jokes. He needs to be leaned on gently, by someone who makes him feel good about it. These women, they blame him for being a rich capitalist and then when he feels guilty they suck him dry.' (‘Does she mean a blow job?' whispered Georgie, who was becoming confused.) ‘He needs a nice boyfriend who adores him, someone young and shy, with big eyes and long eyelashes.'

‘Sounds like Bambi,' I said.

‘If he had a nice boyfriend, I bet I'd get along with him really well. I shan't get on with his wife, I know it. His girlfriends never like me. They despise my dress sense.'

‘You haven't any,' Georgie said, shocked into bluntness. ‘Not that it matters, of course. You're the only person I know who can make hippy-retro-cum-fashion-accident look like style.'

Fortunately – since that could have been more happily phrased – Lin wasn't attending. She had sunk into a state of rather wistful gloom, contemplating the fun she might have had with Andy and Bambi as they gave guilt-free, non-vegan dinner parties in the ancestral Scottish castle (which had only passed into Andy's family since his uncle bought it from its original set of ancestors). ‘She definitely needs a man,' said Georgie.

‘Food might be good,' I suggested.

‘We'll go and have chips at the Soho House,' Georgie said. ‘They do good chips there. But, mind, tomorrow you start the diet.'

‘You mean the miracle diet that's going to turn me into a size eight sylph?' I said sceptically.

‘No, I mean the realistic diet that's going to convert mere flesh into the voluptuous curves of a sex goddess,' Georgie retorted. ‘Mae West wasn't thin. Monroe wasn't thin. Jean Harlow—'

‘Bette Midler isn't thin,' I said, ‘and guess what? I don't want to look like her.'

‘Shut up,' said Georgie. ‘All you need is a waist. Then we can get you some decent clothes.'

‘I don't have a credit-card debt—'

‘That's nothing to be proud of. It's because of people like you that I'm in my present financial mess.'

‘How do you work that out?'

‘I've got your share.'

At the Soho House they refused to admit us on Cal's membership, pointing out, with some justification, that he wasn't there. We were saved from an ignominious exit by the arrival of a friend from Georgie's pre-Roman era, an elderly producer escorting a Young Thing who looked as dewily untouched as Lin ten years earlier. He agreed to sign us in and Georgie bought a drink for him and the Young Thing (‘Milk?' I suggested) and champagne and chips for us.

‘Are we celebrating?' Lin inquired.

‘Yes,' said Georgie. ‘We're going to make our wishes come true. We're going to have a solemn pact that all of us will do whatever it takes –
whatever
it takes, mind – to realise every single wish
in full
. No excuses, no get-out clauses, no small print. It's all for one, and one for all.' She thumped her fist on the small table we had appropriated, making the glasses rock perilously.

‘The Three Musketeers!' Lin said, brightening at an allusion she recognised. She had been losing track of the conversation for some time. She slapped a wayward hand on top of Georgie's fist.

‘Yup,' said Georgie. ‘I'm obviously Athos, you'd better be Aramis, so Cookie—'

‘Is Porthos.' I kept my hand to myself. ‘Funny how I'm always the fat girl even when it's a guy.'

‘Porthos had a good time,' Georgie protested. ‘He pulled lots of birds.'

‘I don't want to pull birds!'

‘Look, are you going to do this pact or not?'

‘Okay.' I put my hand on top of Lin's. ‘But I refuse to be Porthos. It's against the spirit of the wishes.'

Georgie repeated her vow, added another ‘All for one, and one for all' just for good measure, and we toasted ourselves in champagne. It was that kind of evening. Presently, the chips arrived.

‘We don't have to be the Three Musketeers,' Lin said after deep and alcoholic thought. ‘I've got a better idea. We all begin with C – Cavari, Corrigan, Cook. We're . . . the Three Cs!'

‘That's wet.' Georgie was scornful.

‘We're Charlie's Angels,' I declared. ‘And before anyone says anything,
I'm
Drew Barrymore.'

‘Okay, but why was she the best?' Georgie demanded.

‘Because she
was
. She defeated ten men – or maybe twelve – when she was tied to a chair. Cap that.'

‘I think
I
should be Drew Barrymore. You can be Cameron Diaz.'

‘No way. You're the blonde bimbo – in an older sort of way. I'm Drew Barrymore and that's that. She's sultry. That's what I'm going to be. I'm going to pout, and smoulder.'

‘I'll get a fire extinguisher,' Georgie said tartly. Possibly she didn't like the reminder that she was older.

Lin – who only went to the cinema to see children's films and spent too much time stuck at home with the television – piped up suddenly: ‘Can I be Farrah Fawcett?'

The level in the champagne bottle plummeted, to be followed by the level in another. Georgie turned down a proposition from a youthful would-be actor, Lin had a rather one-sided conversation (though no one knew which side) with a coked-up comic who used to know Garry, and I attempted to kick in the balls a drunken suit who tried to fondle my tits. (I was trying to emulate Drew Barrymore.) I missed, kneecapping him instead, but it made me feel good. We headed home in the small hours, quite how I'm not sure, but I must have been going the right way because when I woke up, much later in the day, I was in my own bed. I had a shattering headache and a vague feeling of a milestone passed, of my feet set upon a new path, though initially I couldn't recall why. I got up, made some coffee, and opened the fridge in search of restorative nourishment. Then the phone rang.

‘Get out of that fridge!' Georgie.

‘I'm hungry.'

‘No, you're not. Famine victims in the Third World are hungry. You're overweight. Your body doesn't require food: it's just your mind leading you on.'

In future, she informed me, I would have to give her and Lin a complete list of everything I ate every day, ‘and no cheating. It won't be for long. We're aiming for sex goddess, not supermodel. You want to do this, don't you?' I grunted, possibly in agreement. ‘Think Nigel. Think stunning clothes. Think
loving
yourself.'

‘Do
you
love yourself?' I inquired curiously.

‘Only when there's no one else around to do it for me.'

That said it all, of course. Did I want to spend the rest of my life having invisible sex with the likes of Hugh Jackman, or did I want a Real Man?

To be honest, I wasn't quite sure.

It is likely that practically everyone reading this book has, at some time or other, been on a diet. According to one theory the entire female sex is always just about to diet, or just starting a diet – on the first day, or the second day, although, mysteriously, you hardly ever meet anybody who tells you they're on the sixth day, or in the third week. The beginning is easy: pounds drop off as your system clears itself, and major starvation pangs take a while to kick in. But by Day Four your weight stops going down – it may even creep up again – and it all seems pointless, and a packet of Hobnobs holds more allure than all the littleness of a little black dress. ‘I diet regularly,' said Georgie surprisingly. ‘It's the only way I can keep down to this size. The knack is to get your weight where you want it and then deal with any increase before it goes off the scale. Or scales. Don't worry, you won't crave chocolate indefinitely. It's like giving up cigarettes: after a bit, the mere taste nauseates you.'

I was silent. I wasn't certain I wanted to find chocolate nauseating. Without serotonin, what was there between me and suicide every month?

Besides, I knew she was talking bullshit.

‘Eat little and often,' Georgie continued sententiously. ‘Lots of fish and veg. And if I were you, I'd avoid all that low-calorie crap. You know: Diet Coke and Slimmachoc and stuff. Artificial sweetener tastes disgusting and anyway, I think it gives you cancer.'

‘
Everything
gives you cancer,' I said. I didn't tell her I'd been on the low-calorie crap for years – on top of the high-calorie crap, of course.

In fact, I decided the best thing to do was to eat once a day, usually in the evening, and feel full. That gave me something to look forward to. Besides, the French only eat one main meal, or so I understand, and Paris is full of svelte, slender women in tiny Chanel suits, so they must be doing something right. I stopped buying tortilla chips and other lazy food and cooked properly: broccoli or cauliflower or courgettes, and portions of fish or steak or chicken (skin on: I like the skin). I bought polyunsaturated margarine, though I rarely ate it: it just made me feel good to have it in the fridge. And I wound up with the low-calorie drinking chocolate by way of dessert, despite the health risks. Georgie said I was doing it all wrong, but Lin said what did it matter as long as it was working, and, to my amazement, it did seem to work. Perhaps the real secret of dieting is to know you
can
lose weight. Deep in my subconscious I'd never really believed I
could
be any thinner. I'd been fat since I was fourteen, and the concept of a slimmer me had always seemed to belong to one of those other universes founded on fairytales – the one with the Tyrannosaurus Rex, for instance, or the one with Helen Aucham's corpse dressed as a nun. I was never going to be skinny, but the day came when I pulled my shirt tight around my body and found that I had a waist.

‘I've got a waist!' I cried, at work the next morning. ‘Look! I really have!'

‘You're wasting away,' Laurence Buckle punned, predictably. He was partial to puns. Rumour had it he was secretly writing a chick lit-style novel for gay men which would out-pun Wendy Holden and even Jilly Cooper. It was variously said to be titled
Sore!
,
Bad Her Day
, and
Captain Corelli's Mannikin
.