face out of it.’
‘Thanks,’ I replied, deadpan.
She shook her head. ‘No, only because then you can’t be recognized by anyone else.’
I grimaced at the idea of trying to take a photo of my own nipple. And just a nipple on its own, a singular nipple. Was that sexy? Wouldn’t it look like a lone flesh tag? ‘I’m not sure it’s my kind of thing, a nude. But thank you, both, for the advice.’
‘You’re welcome,’ said Ruby, happily, before turning back to Mia. ‘How far away’s the Deliveroo man? I’m hungry.’
Chapter Five
SO I SAID YES to staying with his parents and Rory replied that he was ‘ecstatic!’. He was in Belgium for a few days accompanying the minister on a trip to Brussels, which meant, after sinking two more bottles on the sofa with Mia and Ruby on Friday evening, I spent my weekend with Marmalade. Sitting cross-legged on my bed on Saturday afternoon, I wrote another few pages about Curtis the counting caterpillar until I got bored and my eye fell on my phone.
A nude? I tugged at the neckline of my T-shirt and looked down. Braless, my boobs were resting on the stomach roll underneath them. Would that sight turn anyone on? It seemed unlikely. Best not scare him away, so instead of taking a photo, I picked up my phone and texted him to see if he was free on Thursday evening to watch me interview Fumi.
On Sunday, I did my Fumi homework. Her new anthology was called Bad Fairy and it made me feel like a voyeur, as if I was reading a teenage diary. The poems were sad lamentations about a date not texting her back, about the planet burning up, about Fumi hating her knees. Her knees! I’d never thought about whether I hated my knees or not. They were just my knees.
And yet on Instagram, there was a more confident Fumi beaming at the camera, showing off a new pair of sunglasses, a new haircut, a restaurant in San Francisco where she’d fed Percy the pug prawn dim sum for dinner, and a selfie in her first-class cabin on a flight to Tokyo. Each post had thousands of comments underneath; fans declaring they loved her, that they loved her hair, her jacket, her shoes and her eye make-up, fans declaring that they wanted to marry her, others pleading for her to message them back. Underneath a picture of Fumi with her arms wrapped around Percy, one fan had written, ‘I wish you could hold me like that’ with a sad emoji. It seemed a big world for a 19-year-old to live in. No wonder she took Percy everywhere with her; he was the equivalent of a childhood toy, a comfort blanket.
‘I’m not sure you’d appreciate a first-class seat,’ I said, looking down at Marmalade, who slept almost anywhere – along the back of a radiator, occasionally in my bathroom sink – but mostly on my pillow. ‘Come on, you need to go out,’ I said, scooping him up and heading downstairs to make a cup of tea.
Ruby was still asleep even though it was 2 p.m., and Mia and Hugo were busy putting Le Creuset pots and bath towels on their wedding list at John Lewis. So I sat at the kitchen table with my tea, writing a list of questions. Fumi’s publisher had asked for them in advance so they could be approved. She’d said no questions about her love life, even though dozens of her poems talked of just that, and no questions from the audience. But she was happy to talk about ‘her work, her personal sense of style, her important role as an international influencer, and her beloved writing partner, Percy’.
After I’d read for another hour, Marmalade slunk back through the cat flap and weaved around my legs.
‘It’s impossible to concentrate if you’re doing that,’ I told him, but stood and opened the cupboard for a tin of condensed milk. His weekend treat.
Ruby appeared in the kitchen as I sat back down.
‘Hiya, Flo,’ she said, sleepily. ‘What you doing?’
I stretched in my seat. ‘Just work. We’ve got an event at the shop this week. An Instagram poet doing a reading and I’ve got to interview her.’
‘Cool,’ said Ruby, taking my yoghurt from the fridge. She sat on the kitchen table, feet on a chair, and ate it straight from the pot with a spoon. ‘Who’s the poet?’
I’d have to buy another pot. I hated sharing with anyone, whether yoghurt, water