A Night In With Marilyn Monroe

This isn’t the sort of tap you get water from; it’s the sort of tap that hordes of star-struck eleven-year-old girls do with their feet. After working as Cass’s manager for years (mine too, to be fair; it’s just that my own acting career didn’t provide her with quite as much work as Cass’s did), Mum now owns her own weekend stage-school franchise in Kensal Rise. She’s in Cardiff with a posse of those very star-struck eleven-year-old girls now, at the tap festival, and it’s heart-warming to hear that she’s offered to come back early for Cass’s sake. Though it could also be a sign that the reality of spending all day surrounded by star-struck eleven-year-olds, in tap shoes, is starting to get on her nerves.

‘That’s nice of her.’

‘Yeah, but I told her no. She’s working over there. I thought you’d cheer me up instead. So, Dave’s booked a table for me at Roka tonight, and I’ll need you to come with me. I’m going to wear my new cherry-red hot-pants, and Dave’s going to let the 3AM Girls know where I’ll be … I think they might remember you from that time they wrote about you and Dillon.’ Cass gives me a quick once-over. ‘You’ll have to head back to yours and change, obviously …’

I can’t decide whether to feel truly depressed that Cass is so obviously trying to use me for publicity purposes, to increase the chance of the production company revisiting the idea of her show again, or slightly envious of her ability to pick herself up off the floor and get right back on the horse after a tumble.

Either way, my answer is going to have to be the same.

‘Cass, I can’t come out with you tonight. I’m … busy.’

‘Doing what?’

This is an excellent question.

To which the most accurate answer would be, ‘With any luck, having mind-blowing sex with my new boyfriend until the small hours of the morning.’

Because having mind-blowing sex with Adam was, in fact, my endgame for this evening. It’s an endgame that’s been buggered around slightly by him forgetting about our plans to have a cosy night in at his place, and scheduling in that work dinner of his instead, but it’s an endgame that I still fully intend to pursue.

And if that makes me sound like some sort of nymphomaniac, let me just add that while I was being truthful when I stated earlier that we have a mature, adult relationship, and while I may, let’s face it, have fallen in love with him this morning over the whole espresso and yogurt-covered-raisins thing, in eight weeks of dating we still haven’t progressed any further than a good old snog on the sofa.

Yes. Eight weeks.

Given that neither of us is Amish, or anything, and given that – as far as it’s been possible to tell – we’re both in possession of all the necessary working body parts, I can’t help but wonder if this is some sort of a record.

There are several perfectly decent explanations. We’re both extremely busy. He travels a lot. Fritz needs walking a lot. We have such a good time together that quite often hours of just chatting pass by without either of us noticing that we haven’t jumped on each other and started frantically humping.

But still. Eight weeks of snogging on the sofa has left me, at the very least, feeling pretty frustrated. I mean, I fancy the pants off him, and he claims to fancy the pants off me, so I think it’s about time we acted on those urges and, well, got our actual pants off.

Hence the sex, sex, and more sex plan that I’d formulated in my head for tonight. And which no inconvenient work dinner is going to prevent. It doesn’t need to happen after a candlelit supper of red snapper and super-healthy kale. It just needs to happen.

But I’m not going to tell Cass about the (hopefully) mind-blowing sex thing, because that’s not the sort of relationship we have. (Or, let’s put it this way: if I open the door to frank discussions about sex with Adam, I’m very, very scared that she’ll start telling me about sex with Dave. And I value an undisturbed night’s sleep. Which I don’t think I’d ever have again if I had to think about horrible, cheaty Dave having extramarital relations with my sister.)

So I just say, ‘I’m seeing Adam.’

‘Adam? Who’s Adam?’

‘He’s … well, he’s my new boyfriend.’

Cass stares at me.

‘You have a new boyfriend?’

‘I do. Yes.’

‘And you’re choosing him? This new boyfriend? Over me?’

The nail technician lets out a little wince. It’s eerily reminiscent of me at Dad’s wedding yesterday.

‘No, Cass, I’m not choosing him over you. It’s just that, like I said, I have plans with him tonight, and—’

‘What plans?’ Cass demands, in the tone of voice that implies that any answer other than sitting by his side in the hospital as he recovers from major neurological surgery isn’t going to be anywhere near reason enough.

‘You know … plans. Things people make with their boyfriends.’

‘Right. I get it,’ says Cass, with the sort of swoosh of her blonde hair that would say, Et tu, Brute, if hair-swooshes could actually talk. ‘You’re going to swan off and spend all night shagging this so-called Adam—’

‘He’s not so-called Adam. He’s actually called Adam.’

‘… while your only sister sits at home alone, contemplating the end of her career at the bottom of a brandy bottle.’

‘You don’t drink brandy,’ I point out. ‘And anyway, come to think of it, isn’t Monday usually a Dave night?’

‘Not today,’ Cass scowls. ‘His wife’s kicking up some sort of fuss about him staying home tonight. For her birthday, or something.’

‘How unreasonable of her.’

‘Exactly. But only what I’ve come to expect,’ she sniffs, ‘from yet another of the people I love in my life. That when the crisps are down …’

‘The chips.’

‘… you can’t really rely on anyone.’

‘Cass.’ I allow myself, regretting it the moment I do so, to succumb to the twinge of guilt that’s nibbling away at me. ‘Look. I’ve got some time tomorrow, OK? Well, I haven’t, really, but I’ll make some time tomorrow.’ All that moral support I promised Olly is going to have to take a temporary second place, until the day after. Still, I’ll just redouble my efforts as soon as I can. ‘We’ll … we’ll go out for lunch, and then we can go shopping, and I’ll even treat you to a …’ I’m about to say the word ‘massage’ when I remember that all the places Cass likes to go for a massage charge well over a hundred quid for the privilege. ‘… blow-dry, or something,’ I finish, hating the fact I can’t be more generous. But if no bank is going to lend me a penny, I’m going to have to use more of my own meagre savings to put into the business. I can’t afford to splash out any more than absolutely necessary.

‘I don’t need a blow-dry.’ She muses on my offer for a moment. ‘Though I suppose I could do with some eyebrow threading … oooh, or a nice collagen facial …’

‘Threading it is!’ I say, gaily, trying to inject the task with a lot more merriment than it’s actually going to entail. ‘Come on, Cass. It’ll be lovely. And you can get a nice early night tonight, and don’t even think about any of this production company stuff, and then we can discuss it all in a much more positive frame of mind tomorrow. Over that nice dinner out, if you still want to.’

‘We-e-ell … I suppose so. I mean, just for the record,’ she says, never one to end on a peaceable solution where there is drama to be mined, ‘I’d never leave you alone if you were seriously depressed, Libby. I was There For You right after all that mess with stupid Dillon, wasn’t I?’

It’s true: she was ‘There For Me’ right after all that mess with stupid Dillon. Just in her style, which meant hurrying round with a huge carton of homemade (by Harvey Nichols’ Food Hall) soup, snuggling up with me on my sofa to tell me what a shit she’d always thought he was, and then getting involved in a FaceTime row with vile Dave and sobbing on my shoulder (and guzzling all the soup) until three o’clock in the morning.

‘I brought you,’ she says, meaningfully, ‘homemade soup!’

‘I know, Cass, and it was lovely of you. And I promise I’ll be at your beck and call all day tomorrow, OK?’

‘All right,’ she sniffs. ‘I’ll just call Stella for the evening, then, and get her to come over for a quiet night in instead. My roots could do with a retouch, anyway.’

I can’t fail to feel a fleeting stab of sadness that Cass – partly because she’s always accusing other women of being jealous of her, and partly because of her ridiculous habit of sleeping with married men – doesn’t really have any good female friends to call upon in her time of crisis. Stella, although a lovely girl who’s known Cass ever since they were at stage school together, is less her friend and more her hairdresser.

‘OK, good. You do that, and I’ll give you a call first thing in the morning to arrange where and when to meet.’ I lean across the nail technician, apologizing as I do so, and give Cass a hug. ‘But I really do have to go now.’

‘To see this Adam?’

‘Yes. But I’ve got a meeting with a client in Shepherd’s Bush first.’

‘Oh, right.’ She’s lost interest. ‘See you tomorrow then.’