losers. Besides, I think we should start accepting the fact that he’s gay. Him and Nigel are probably at it like rabbits.’
‘If he was gay, why wouldn’t he tell us?’ says Alice, flipping the sandwiches out of the machine. ‘It’s not like we’re Texan bible bashers.’
My mind flits momentarily to the sexy but aggravating policeman I promised I’d make the Highway Code my bible. He’d be great eye candy for the party, but I don’t think 999 was invented for quite this kind of emergency.
‘I’ll invite Gareth. His gaydar’s supersonic. I don’t know why MI5 haven’t recruited him yet.’
Gareth is my and Zelda’s dresser: the poshest, gayest man you could ever imagine. If you ask him which knife you should use to eat trout or where best to score GHB in Soho on a Friday night, he’ll answer either enquiry with complete confidence.
‘Maybe because homosexuality’s been legal for more than forty years?’
‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ I say. ‘What about us though? It’s going to be kind of grim if everyone’s completely loved up and we’re like a couple of dried-up old maiden aunts.’
‘Maybe we should invite some of the neighbours for company,’ says Alice, biting into her oozing toastie. ‘Anyway,’ she continues, smiling slyly, ‘it’s not as bleak as all that.’
Has she divined my feelings for Charles? I’m trying so hard to squash them down before shooting starts next Monday and I’m forced to see him again. The fact I haven’t heard from him since Cheese-gate has convinced me that he must be married and I’m nothing but an unhinged fantasist.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask her anxiously.
‘I’ve got a certain sizzle going on in the off-licence,’ says Alice, looking coy.
‘What, that lanky bloke who owns it? That explains why you left me on trauma detail with Jenna all that time.’
He’s certainly not unattractive – youngish and personable, with a real passion for what he does – but Alice’s taste is so uniformly flawed that alarm bells immediately start pealing in my head.
‘He’s really funny, Lulu. There’s a definite zing. He carried a box of wine round for me the other day when you were stuck at work and we were chatting for ages.’
‘Well, if we get the wine from him we’ve got the perfect excuse to invite him,’ I say encouragingly, determined to believe the best until proven otherwise.
‘But if he’s got a girlfriend tucked away in the cellar it could be totally humiliating,’ says Alice, and I think welcome to the next three months of my life. ‘I’d never be able to go in there again.’
Maybe that’s what I should do: throw a sickie for the next three months. Then I remember that Zelda’s genuinely sick and feel instantly guilty. She lives to work, and I know the fact that the job’s kicking off without her will frustrate her beyond measure.
Determined to keep Zelda feeling as involved as possible, I have roped Gareth into a trip round to her house for a pre-shoot debrief. I want her to feel like she’s still at the helm, not least because it might encourage her to come back on board. Besides, if I could hide behind her I could maintain an alluring and mysterious distance from Charles.
‘Why so mute?’ asks Gareth, who’s in charge of driving the van. There’s no way I’m risking anything bigger than a Cinquecento after my brush with the law, particularly on such a foul February day.
‘Oh, nothing… or maybe everything,’ I say, smiling ruefully. I consider telling him about Charles, but I’m stymied by how pathetic it sounds.
‘She will be all right, you know, she’s as tough as old boots. She’s like Granny Gareth.’ Gareth has a bizarre habit of characterizing his multifarious relations as though they’re extensions of himself. ‘She virtually contracted consumption because Mummy Gareth refused to turn on the heating at The Friars. There’d be full-scale fisticuffs over the thermostat. The doctors gave her a matter of weeks, but she was so determined to spite Mummy Gareth that she outlived her by a decade. There she was at the millennium, resplendent in her chair, cackling away.’
Gareth’s stories about his psychotic relatives never fail to entertain. Indeed, the tale of how his father built a palatial kennel complex for his gun dog, Brutus, while the East Wing of The Friars collapsed around the family’s ears keeps me distracted for the rest of the journey. We race from the van, laden with clothes, rain bucketing down. Zelda flings open the door, clad in