her treacherous betrayal, and he instantly saw no trouble at all in inviting us to Fraser’s stag night.
‘Even though I’m not best man, I’m still doing all the organizing. McLachlan can’t sort his way out of a paper bag, as you’ll see when you meet him.’
‘Are there going to be strippers?’
‘Why, do youse two want to do it?’
‘Do you think Fraser would approve?’
‘Och, you know my brother. He’ll be hiding under the table anyway. Yes, there might be a stripper, but nothing, you know …’
‘What?’ I asked innocently. I could sense his pink face getting even pinker over the phone.
‘Now, stop being a naughty girrul. It’ll be fine. Saturday night, starting at the Princess Louise. And tell that skinny pal of yours not to get into any more fights.’
‘Ha! You tell her! Then I can watch her kick your head in.’
Alex was faintly perturbed that he hadn’t been invited to the stag do and we had.
‘You don’t even know him,’ I pointed out. ‘You’ve met him about twice.’
‘I know Amanda and her friends.’
‘Well, go to her hen night then.’
‘No thanks. Bunch of screaming Harpies. Why aren’t you going?’
I rolled my eyes at him.
‘Long story. OK, look, why don’t you tag along with us? No one’s going to mind.’
Except Angus, who inexplicably hates you, I thought. Oh yes, and Fran, who barely tolerates you.
‘Well, OK then,’ he said diffidently, as if we’d all been begging him to come for hours.
He stretched his legs out on the chaise longue. Charlie’s place, while lovely and clearly very expensive, was done up in boy-meets-mother style. Soft furnishings – no doubt spares from the country – shared house room with mountain bikes; expensive and overwrought stereo equipment rested on expensive and overwrought occasional tables. Over it all was a faint aroma de rugby kit. Still, I was making the two-hour trip to West London more and more often, as Alex showed a marked reluctance to cross the river now he didn’t absolutely have to. It was Sunday afternoon.
Charlie walked in and ignored me as usual.
‘Splinters!’ he hollered at Alex.
‘Fishcake!’ returned Alex, and they burst out into hearty guffaws.
‘I’ve got tickets to Twickers on Saturday.’
Alex leapt up. ‘Fantastic! How’d you manage that, you old bastard?’
Charlie tapped his Huguenot nose. ‘It’s who you know, innit?’ he said in fake Cockney.
‘That’s Fraser’s stag night,’ I said.
Charlie’s heavy half-shut eyes lit up. ‘Stag party! Wo ho ho!’
‘And you are NOT invited,’ I added.
‘How do you know? It’s a stag party. Blokes, beer and birds, way hey!’
‘Because I’m going, and Fran’s going and – oh yes, a whole bunch of other people who actually know the groom.’
Charlie was obviously ruffled by the mention of Fran but merely swept through to the kitchen saying, ‘Totty at a stag party? Shouldn’t be allowed. Sounds like absolute crap, if you ask me.’
‘Shall we go out for lunch?’ I asked Alex pointedly.
Alex gave me a hangdog look and trailed out the door after me.
‘Got you by the apron strings there, hasn’t she, matey boy?’ I heard as we left.
‘I don’t think,’ I said, walking down the street, ‘that I could dislike that boy any more than I do. He’s such an … an oaf.’
‘Charlie is not an oaf!’ said Alex, looking cross. ‘And he doesn’t like you either.’
‘Boohoohoo,’ I said. ‘The molester doesn’t like me.’
‘You get more like that friend Fran of yours every day,’ he said.
We ate lunch reading the papers sullenly. Eventually, I kicked him under the table and gave him a grin. He grinned back and raised his eyebrows, and we returned to the papers in relative harmony, reading out our favourite small-time celebrity shagger-of-the-week stories, before Alex had to disappear for a tour in his friend Henry’s new car – a two-seater, natch.
That friend Fran of mine was waiting outside my flat when I got back later that afternoon.
‘I can’t see why you won’t just give me a key,’ she huffed.
‘I can’t see why you think you actually live at my house.’
Fran slouched herself off the wall and deigned to mount the stairs to my flat. She still looked good being pouty, given that most of us had grown out of it at nineteen.
‘Anyway …’ she said, sitting down and lighting a cigarette. This was strictly verboten in Linda’s house, but she didn’t look in the mood to be trifled with. ‘That molesting bastard friend of your very own personal bastard phoned me to ask me out for a drink.’
‘What? Charlie? NO! When?’
‘About two hours ago.’
‘Jesus. So, this time he’s going to buy you dinner before he attempts to rape you.’
‘Looks like it,’ said Fran, narrowing her eyes.
‘God. That really takes the piss. No wonder you got the big flowers. What did you say?’
‘I didn’t say anything: he left a message asking me out. Well, I think he did. You know what posh boys are like. He said, “Maybe a drink sometime, right, yars, OK, right, yars, sorry, right, bye then, yars.” So, statistically, it could have meant anything.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m not sure. I mean, I could tell him to take the phone, stick it up his arse and dial 999 with his prostrate now, or I could do it loudly in front of a lot of other people somewhere public.’
Now I came to think of it, this could be good. This could be very good indeed.
‘Ooh, do the second one. Where’s the most public place you could actually dump him?’
‘Well …’ She exhaled in an actory way and leaned forward. ‘First I thought, what’s the highest-rated
