Blushing at Both Ends Read Free Page B

assumed, would tell me how they went.
    â€˜My darling, beloved Paul,’ it began, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this . . .’ and ended three pages later, ‘My sweet darling, please, please forgive me.’
    In between came the dagger stroke. She’d dropped me. To marry – my howl of fury panicked the gulls – Leslie Porchester.
    Leslie Porchester. A fat, balding slob – I speak, of course, quite objectively – with no redeeming features whatsoever. Except that his father, some pompous City pinstripe, was stinking rich.
    The nickname ‘golden girl’ bore an ironic side-meaning. Jennifer had a fatal weakness – for money. She’d been comfortably brought up – ‘spoilt rotten’ was my taunting version – despite her dad’s heroic attempts to pour his wife’s fortune down his throat. She liked to be comfortable, and a bit more than that. And she knew – we both knew – that I’d never be a good steady provider. We’d had plenty of discussions and more than one row about what I called wanderlust and she called irresponsibility. A few settled months, and I got restless. I’d take off, travelling light and sleeping rough, wherever the fancy took me. I wasn’t, as Jenny’s mother would put it (and often did) – ideal husband material.
    So now Jenny – nudged, no doubt, by dear Mummy – had made her choice. And
what
a choice. I aimed a few further curses at the innocent gulls and headed into more raki. Lots more raki. By the time the boat dropped anchor at Amorgos I was stinking stupid drunk. Gathering from my boozy ravings what afflicted me, the Greek crew, with infinite compassion for the lovelorn, carried me ashore and bedded me down in a room above a tiny taverna, where I awoke the next day to a Wagnerian hangover.
    * * *
    When I got home the card was waiting for me – stiff, embossed, gold-edged. Rather like the people it came from, in fact. ‘Mr and Mrs James Cunningham request the pleasure . . .’ The fuck you do, I snarled, hurling it into the wastebin. But later I reconsidered, retrieved it and sent my acceptance. Maybe I can show up pissed, I thought, and puke all over the wedding cake. Childish? Sure. But then, jilted lovers aren’t known for their mature restraint.
    The next few weeks I moped, growling and licking my wounds. There were one or two girls who might have been ready to console me, but I wasn’t ready for consolation. Not just yet.
    On the eve of the wedding I set out on a solitary pub crawl, but my heart wasn’t in it. After a couple of pints I dropped the idea, and started to wander aimlessly. Guess where my feet led me.
    The house stood well back from the street, and as I approached it I could clearly hear Jenny’s dad. Unlike me, he’d evidently had no trouble sinking a few. Then, at an upstairs window I knew well from the inside, a white-clad ethereal figure. My lovely, faithless Jenny – trying on the wedding dress, no less.
    I’m not sure what I planned, or if I had anything as coherent as a plan in mind, but before I knew it I’d circled round to the side door. It was locked, but I’d crept surreptitiously in, and out, too often for that to present any problem. I dug the key out of the geranium tub, let myself in and listened.
    James’s slurred bray and Isobel’s contemptuous contralto echoed faintly from the sitting room. They enjoyed their rows – it was the only activity they’d shared for years – and would be at it for hours yet. I made for the stairs and had just reached the landing when a door opened and a slim teenager came out. She started when she saw me. ‘Paul! What on earth – why are you . . .?’
    Felicity, Jenny’s seventeen-year-old sister, was as dark as her sibling was fair. We’d always got on well – in fact, I think she rather fancied me, as girls often fancy their big