apologized himself for being an arse yet.
‘There’ll be other parties. Tomorrow’s another day and all that.’
That, at least, sounded more like him. More optimistic. More cheerful.
‘We might just need to get you a different pair of shoes,’ he added, with a wry laugh, before brushing his lips against my hair. ‘You did look very beautiful.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You don’t now. You look a wreck.’
‘Oi!’ I sat up and playfully hit his arm.
He smiled. The full Rory smile where dimples carved into his stubble, his eyes softened and my stomach responded with a backflip. And I was about to lean in towards him for a kiss but the cab stopped, making me lurch against the seat like a bag of shopping. We were home.
‘Thank you very much,’ Rory told the driver, retrieving a note from his wallet and passing it forward. I stuffed the shoes into my bag and stepped out barefoot.
Standing behind me as I unlocked the door, he whispered into my ear, ‘I’m very much looking forward to taking this dress off you.’ It made me shiver and smile at the same time, but, seconds later, this giddiness disappeared when I pushed open my bedroom door to a sour stink. I fumbled for the light switch and saw Marmalade stretched out on the carpet, a pool of sick beside him.
‘Oh my God, Marmalade,’ I said, dropping my bag and rushing to him.
‘What is that ghastly smell?’ asked Rory.
Normally when I came home late, Marmalade was asleep on my pillow. It was a reproach. He wasn’t allowed to sleep on my bed when I was there. He had a basket at the foot of it. But if I didn’t return at a time he deemed appropriate, he’d jump up and doze on it until I was back.
He was never on the floor and I’d only once known him to throw up, years ago, after he ate a frog in the garden. But I had a word with him about that and he never did it again. This was different. He didn’t even raise his head as I stroked his stomach.
‘Christ that stinks!’ Rory added.
‘I’ll get some cleaning stuff,’ I said, standing up.
‘Don’t you want to change?’
I looked down at my dress as if surprised to find that I was still wearing it. ‘It’s fine,’ I said, making for the door. ‘Will you watch him?’
Rory nodded as he stood over Marmalade with a wrinkled nose and shrugged off his jacket.
I raced downstairs, the folds of my dress in my fist, and rummaged under the sink for a bottle of bleach and a flannel. As the water ran warm, I squeezed a jet of bleach and Fairy Liquid into the washing-up bowl and filled it, before carrying the bowl upstairs as carefully as a Buckingham Palace footman. Couldn’t trip twice in one night.
Marmalade hadn’t moved. Rory was stretched out on my bed. Using several sheets of loo roll, I scraped the sick off the carpet, trying not to gag, and flushed the paper away.
‘At least I’m not drunk any more,’ I said to my cat, as I lowered him gently into his basket, then scrubbed at the stain with the flannel.
‘Mmm?’ murmured Rory.
As my hand scoured the spot back and forth, the stain disappeared under white suds and the smell of bleach overpowered the bile. I rinsed the flannel in the bathroom and gave the damp patch of carpet a final wipe before tipping the water down the plughole and, lazily, leaving the washing up bowl and flannel outside my bedroom door to carry down in the morning.
The door clicked shut and I turned to look at my bed. Rory was asleep on it, Marmalade was asleep at the end of it and I had a smear of sick on my dress, although at least it wasn’t my own sick.
What a night.
I woke to find Rory’s fingers slowly rubbing my nipple. But the thought of sex disappeared as soon as I remembered the previous night. Marmalade! Erect nipples weren’t appropriate in this situation. I swung my legs to the carpet and squatted by his basket. I scratched his head, along his back and gently twisted his tail between my fingers and, although his ears twitched, his eyes barely opened. This wasn’t like that time with the frog in the garden. I had to ring the vet.
‘Come back to bed,’ mumbled Rory, flapping open the duvet cover.
‘I can’t, Marmalade’s sick,’ I said, reaching for my phone from my bedside table. It was nearly eight, too early