The Park Bench Test

To my left – Heather, the religious Medic who wore hand-knitted jumpers with pictures of elephants on them, and who liked to begin each and every day with a solo rendition of ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing.’

And directly opposite, Victoria, the token Goth. Enough said.

We spent the next three years together – two of them in halls, and one in a student house with our goldfish Bob (now sadly in goldfish heaven) – getting pissed, getting as many guys as possible to snog us at the hall balls, and, miraculously, making it to the odd lecture.

Emma and Katie met each other loads of times while I was at uni, but it was at my twenty first that they really hit it off.

It was an elaborate affair – much like Barbie’s wedding – with a big marquee in the garden decorated with embarrassing photographs of me, blown up to humiliating proportions and pinned to every available surface – me in a pram, me sitting on the potty, me on my first day of Brownies, me playing a Christmas tree in my primary school play, me and Emma as Perkin and Pootle from The Flumps for the school carnival (Emma was not pleased with my dad for digging out that one)…

We had a pond back then, which my dad had fenced off with some tent poles and a bit of fluorescent ribbon. Whether it was there to stop people falling, jumping in or throwing things in, I never did establish. But I do recall helping my dad drain the pond the following summer and discovering an item or two that had mysteriously gone missing – coincidentally around the night of that party. Namely, a garden gnome, my mum’s best whisk, and the remote control for the kitchen television. I don’t know where the garden gnome fits in but I do remember Emma and Katie giving the guests an impromptu Karaoke performance of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, both of them hunting frantically for anything that could pass as a microphone.

I also recall, I’m sorry to say, how I went missing just as my dad was about to make a speech in my honour and was spotted through the kitchen window, by absolutely everyone at the party – gathered, as they were, for dad’s speech – sat on the kitchen worktop with my legs wrapped tightly around Alex, snogging the face off him.

I’m a much classier chick these days.

Anyway, despite my own mortification at the whole spectacle, Emma and Katie were united in their approval, shouting frankly unrepeatable encouragement through the fanlight window at us. In between stuffing whole profiteroles in their gobs, that is. And so, another great friendship began.

And the three of us have been best mates ever since.

We know it’s good from the way Pippa theatrically sweeps back the curtain and practically shoves Katie out of the cubicle at us.

“What do you think?” our friend asks. She’s beaming.

And for what must surely be the first time in history, Emma and I are both simultaneously speechless.

Well, almost.

“It’s beautiful,” I whisper, as if I’m afraid to say it out loud in case the spell is broken and she turns into a pumpkin or something.

“That’s the one, Katie,” Emma agrees. “You look stunning.”

“Turn around,” I instruct her. “Let’s see the back.”

It’s an empire line dress. Ivory. Strapless. With tiny little glass beads in the bodice which sparkle in the light. The buttons on the back are similar to the beads – only bigger – and they go virtually all the way to the ground. I make a mental note to allow plenty of time for button-fastening on the day.

“It’s fab, isn’t it?” Katie asks.

She doesn’t need us to tell her.

Standing unobtrusively behind her, Pippa beams too. What a lovely job – witnessing the moment a girl finds the dress that she’ll wear on the biggest day of her life.

She’s soon business as normal though, when Emma lunges forward to hug Katie.

“Don’t touch the fabric,” she urges. “It’s only a sample dress, but we do like to keep them in pristine condition.”

“Oooh,” Emma mumbles, jumping back. “Sorry! I’m just so excited!”

After completing the paperwork and putting a significant dent in Katie’s dad’s bank account, we spend the rest of the day celebrating at a trendy wine bar in Wimbledon called The Hedge. It was only meant to be a pit stop on the way home, but it’s one of those places with comfy sofas that once you have collapsed onto you just can’t seem to drag yourself off, no matter how hard you try. Which we don’t, obviously.

Between us we polish off a couple of bottles of red, two packets of pistachios and a bowl of olives. We then succeed in emptying an entire carriage on the tube – stop by stop – with our rendition of Billy Idol’s White Wedding. And when we finally reach Katie’s flat we all climb into bed with Matt, waking him up and telling him that when he sees Katie in her dress he will think he has died and gone to heaven.

He rubs his eyes, surveys the three of us cuddled up together next to him and calmly informs us: “I already do!”

CHAPTER SEVEN (#u1d9f1cbe-faa7-5737-bbf0-df3cb6fdfa4f)

It’s Monday. Again. Bollocks.

And I’m back at work. Again.

Thirty-eight new emails, twelve new accounts to open, nine credit limits to chase, countless arsey salesmen to get right up my arse. So to speak.

I got the train back from London on Sunday morning. I figured I ought to spend at least a few hours with my boyfriend this year.

We cooked – or should I say Alex cooked – roast chicken, and we watched ‘50 First Dates’ on DVD. I asked Alex if he loved me enough to ask me out on a first date every single day for the rest our lives. He said he did.

Maybe Drew Barrymore’s character had it good. To be able to feel that first longing for someone in the pit of your stomach every day. To never reach that point where they piss you off by leaving toenail clippings on the bathroom floor. To never reach that moment when you need to ask if something is ‘right’. That has to be good, doesn’t it?

We went to bed after that. And had sex for the first time in six weeks.

“The milk’s off,” I tell Fliss and Erin, sniffing the carton I have just pulled out of our illegal fridge. “I’ll nip out and get some fresh. Do you want anything?”

“Get us a packet of Hob Nobs,” Fliss says, handing me a £1 coin. “My treat.”

I’ll start my diet tomorrow.

When I return fifteen minutes later, Fliss and Erin are both on the phone and there’s a Post-It note in the middle of my computer screen, informing me Alex called – at 9.42am. It’s from Fliss. The neat handwriting and the reference to the exact time tell me that. And the Post-It. If Erin had taken the call it would have been a note scribbled on the back of a sweet wrapper saying ‘Al phoned’. Either that or she’d have forgotten to tell me altogether.

I move the Post-It to the side of my screen and dial Alex’s mobile number while I wait for the kettle to boil.

“I can’t talk long, I’m making tea for the girls,” I tell him when he answers. Priorities…

“Are you doing anything tonight after work?” he asks me.

“No,” I say, immediately regretting it. It’s always wise to find out why you are being asked before you give your answer, I find.

“Great. I’ve arranged for us to look at some of those properties we got details for.” He means the ones I hid. On the coffee table. Upside down. Underneath the newspaper.

See what I mean? Clearly what I should have said was “yes, I am going out, and I am going to be out all evening, tonight, tomorrow night and every night from now until next Christmas”.

Bugger.

I quickly consider my options. Option 1 – stay at work and tell him I had an urgent can’t-possibly-get-out-of-it last-minute meeting. Option 2 – tell him the car wouldn’t start and I had to get the AA out, but they got lost on the way. Option 3 – ‘forget’, and drag Fliss and Erin to the pub. Or option 4 – I could just go. Because I can’t put it off forever. Well, I suppose I could, but I suspect that might get a bit tedious before long.

“Great,” I say.

I’ll just have to say I hate them all instead. That I wouldn’t live in those hell holes if you paid me.

Which would have worked like a dream, had they not all been absolutely fabulous. Just what we’ve been looking for, in fact.