CHAPTER 97
CHAPTER 97
When everyone turned to stare, Althea snapped, ‘He’s just expressing himself. Why can’t you give him freedom to be himself too? I’ll pay for the fucking breakages.’
Althea never worries about money. Wolfgang’s dad is a famous keyboard player and earns loads in royalties. Which means Althea earns loads in maintenance.
They have a very open-minded relationship, are still legally married and still sleep together sometimes.
I told Althea about the Jeremy Samuels’s phone call.
She said, ‘Fucking hell. That’s a big deal. Why would Alex Dalton go and do something like that?’
I told her I didn’t know, but that Alex had said something about feeling responsible. Because he’d seen Nick flirting and bar-hopping.
Althea said, ‘Bollocks. It’s because he fancies you.’
I said, ‘Alex Dalton? I don’t think so.’
But then Althea said that Alex was always watching me.
I told her that glaring and watching weren’t the same thing.
Monday October 12th
10am
Supermarket shopping.
Katy hates my cooking these days. She loves ready-made vegetable pouch meals, but I just feel like she should be eating something homemade.
Have found a website showing lots of delicious baby recipes, and am determined to cook something she likes.
11am
Sometimes I miss London.
Bloody village co-op supermarket doesn’t sell anything.
It had sold out of all fresh vegetables (except a few dirty carrots) and didn’t stock tofu or lentils.
It had a massive range of Angel Delight (in flavours I never even heard of. Mint? Treacle?), Dream Topping and basically everything you need to make a trifle. It even sold ready-made trifles in the fridge section. But I didn’t want trifle. I wanted healthy baby food.
I asked Pauline at the checkout when there’d be any fresh veg coming in.
She said, ‘Oh Lord knows. I always shop at Tesco.’
2pm
Went to Tesco.
Got ingredients.
Cooked and pureed Lentil Savoury Bake for Katy’s tea.
I made enough for the whole week and froze it in those little weaning pots.
7pm
Katy wouldn’t eat the Lentil Savoury. She spat it out then made retching noises at the spoon.
Mum tried to feed her too.
She said, ‘Open up, you fussy monkey. Your mum’s spent all day cooking this healthy crap.’
When Katy refused, Mum said, ‘Well I can’t say I blame her. It looks like something you’d find in her nappy. Why don’t you give her one of those pouch meals?’
I finally cracked and gave Katy a pouch of Banana Breakfast.
She ate the whole lot in under a minute, making smacking noises and sucking hopefully at the empty packet.
I don’t want to throw away all my carefully prepared Lentil Savoury. But at the same time, it does look disgusting.
I’ll throw it out tomorrow.
Tuesday October 13th
Mum threw out my Lentil Savoury Bake.
I am absolutely furious!
She’d just come back from Iceland (to buy frozen pizzas, mini kievs and chicken nuggets ‘for Callum’ – but she eats them too) and needed to make room in the freezer.
I need to start thinking about getting my own place. It’s impossible to eat healthily here.
Mum has this special popcorn recipe where she can get a whole pack of butter into the pan.
Thursday October 15th
Got a mega-period today. Ten months without any period at all and then it’s like ten months at once.
Lucky I didn’t throw out those jumbo sanitary towels.
I’d forgotten about periods. That at least was one good thing about being pregnant.
Friday October 16th
Althea phoned today. She’d seen Nick and Sadie shopping in Harrods.
Apparently, they were at the oyster bar drinking champagne.
Sadie looked quite pregnant, but still thin apparently.
I was really pissed off. I’d hoped that Sadie would have puffed up like a sumo wrestler by now. And Nick never took me to fancy places like Harrods.
Apparently, Althea asked Nick (in a big loud voice) if he’d paid any child support yet.
She’s a good friend.
But then Wolfgang got ‘collared’ by a security guard and she had to leave.
The staff at Harrods don’t share Althea’s view about freedom of expression.
Saturday October 17th
Some nights I think I can run forever. And some nights I can barely do ten minutes without hating it and swearing to myself and wishing I’d never promised Katy I’d do the sodding marathon.
Tonight was one of those nights. I only managed one jog around the village, then staggered home.
Sunday October 18th
Brandi cooked the family tea tonight. She’s practising because she has a crush on the man who hosts Master Chef.
She did us nachos with squeezy cheese sauce and salsa – all from jars and packets.
For dessert, she made us a tower of ginger-nut biscuits stuck together with squirty cream and finished with hundreds and thousands.
Mum and Callum loved it. Although Callum was bouncing off the walls by the end. We sent him outside to jump on the trampoline before bed.
Mum asked if I’d heard anything about Nick paying maintenance.
I said I hadn’t, but told her about my new solicitor courtesy of Alex Dalton.
Everyone was impressed.
‘Alex must fancy you,’ Mum decided.
I told her I wasn’t in his league.
Mum hefted her boobs up in her Lycra bodysuit and said, ‘Men don’t care about leagues. They care about sex, beer and sport. In that order.’
Dad frowned and said, ‘What about wildlife? And star constellations? And die-cast models?’
Mum said, ‘All men except your father.’