Read Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend Online
Authors: Jenny Colgan
Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend (12 page)
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The toilet bowl was even worse. There was no way around this. Here I was. Not so long ago I’d been striding up the red carpet to the Fashion Rocks summer party, just behind Tamara Mellon and within spitting distance of Mischa Barton. What were Tamara and Mischa doing right now? E.g. did they have their head stuck down a stranger’s toilet bowl whilst scratching off poo with a toilet brush bought from the ninety-nine-pence shop? Perhaps they did. But somehow, I doubted it.
Crouching, I overheard Eck and Cal in the hall. They seemed to be having quite an intense conversation.
‘Just ask her,’ Cal was saying. ‘What can possibly go wrong?’
‘Well, she says no and we all have to live here for the next five years,’ said Eck. ‘Neh. Don’t think I will.’
‘Where are your balls, man?’ said Cal.
‘Where’s your brain?’ retorted Eck rudely. ‘This could be a very bad idea.’
There was a pause.
‘She’s pretty hot though,’ said Cal.
My heart started to pound. Could it be . . . could they be talking about me? They obviously didn’t know I was in here. Did Cal think I was hot? I squatted by the toilet bowl. God, my hair needed washing.
‘Try her room,’ said Cal.
It was me! Ooh! Oh my God! I couldn’t help feeling excited. But what was Eck going to do? Someone was going to ask me out! See, Rufus the Rat! I wasn’t just someone else’s old sewage . . . ugh, never think about old sewage whilst crouching by some stranger’s toilet bowl.
‘No,’ said Eck.
Oh, so, maybe not then.
‘Come on, don’t be a coward.’
‘It’s OK for you, you distract women by pointing to something and whipping her knickers off with the other hand,’ said Eck. Ooh, that sounded like fun. ‘I just like to think I’m a bit more—’
‘Of a coward?’ said Cal.
‘No!’
‘Chook . . . chook. Choook, chook, chook . . .’
‘Stop making chicken noises, it’s stupid.’
‘Bork . . . bork, bork, bork, bork.’
‘What’s that, a chicken being sick?’
‘It’s a party, Eck, not a marriage proposal.’
Eck sighed. This was wildly exciting - being talked about in a way that, for once, didn’t include the phrase, ‘
Such
a shame’.
Such
a shame’.
Then he took a deep breath and I heard his tread down the corridor. Oh my God! He was going towards my room! I heard a knock, then there was a long pause.
‘Not in!’ he said finally. ‘Great! Fancy going out and getting a bacon sandwich?’
‘All right, Casanova,’ said Cal.
‘I’ll just have a slash,’ said Eck.
I stiffened. Oh God! A quick glance around confirmed that there was nowhere to hide, unless the shower curtain was loamy enough to disguise me completely. I could shout out that I was in here, but then they’d assume I’d been ensconced having a poo for about an hour, which wasn’t really the image I was seeking to convey. Maybe I’d just have to pretend I was so caught up in my life’s work - cleaning their shit off a toilet, obviously - that I couldn’t possibly have heard a word.
The door creaked open. Eck entered, flies already down, one hand fishing in his trousers. He couldn’t have been more surprised to see me if I’d been a dog doing a handstand.
‘Urgg,’ he said, snatching his hands away from his fly. I averted my eyes, but it was plain he didn’t know whether to zip it up - thus drawing further attention to the area - or just leave it alone, with possible visible consequences. I studied my mop bucket as hard as I could.
‘Uh, hello!’ I said, in a voice that came out in a much higher pitch than I’d intended. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘Didn’t you?’ said Eck, in a voice that betrayed so much relief I wouldn’t have been surprised if pee had started gushing out right then. ‘Oh, good.’
He stood there for another second. I could hear a giggle behind the door. Obviously Cal had figured out where I was.
‘Bacon sandwich, Eck?’ he shouted. ‘Or do you want to go dancing?’
Eck’s face burned a bright red.
‘Was that someone shouting?’ I said helpfully. ‘I couldn’t really hear.’
Eck still seemed frozen to the spot.
‘Do you want me to get out while you have a pee?’ I said kindly. He nodded, looking in some pain. I smiled sympathetically and headed outside, still wearing my rubber gloves.
Cal was leaning against the kitchen doorframe, looking louche and superior. What is it about unbelievably confident men? Even ugly ones (which Cal definitely wasn’t) just exude a sense of sexiness, just by giving off the impression they know what they’re doing. I suppose there’s something quite primitive about it - the idea that when they finally got you into bed, nobody at any point would be saying, ‘Gosh, sorry - this bit goes where again?’ Anyway, it definitely works.
‘Ooh,’ he said. ‘Like the rubber gloves. Planning a special evening?’
‘Just trying not to get boy germs,’ I said. ‘Difficult round here.’
The toilet flushed, loudly.
‘So how are you getting on with our Eck then?’ said Cal, an amused look on his face. ‘Nice guy, don’t you think? Are nice guys your cup of tea, princess? Not by looking at you.’
‘You can’t tell anything by looking at me,’ I said.
‘Really? Not that you went to private school, wore a boater, can ride a pony, know your way around a yacht and like dancing in ludicrous shoes? All in Hackney, of course.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ I said, but I felt a chill in my heart. If Cal found out the truth, would they chuck me out? Treble the rent? Go to the papers?
‘Those are dreadful dancing bunions you have,’ said Cal, staring at my feet. From the bathroom came the sound of some fairly frantic hand washing.
‘Listen.’ He lowered his voice. ‘We were thinking of having a bit of a party. I think Eck would quite like you to be there. Fancy it?’
‘Are you going to be there?’ I said, before I could stop myself.
‘Well, you are the naughty thing, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Everyone’s going to be there.’
Suddenly there came a yowl from the bathroom. We both turned round towards the door.
‘
Argh!
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’
Argh!
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’
Cal and I looked at one another.
‘What’s up?’ shouted Cal.
‘It burns! It burns!’
There was the sound of the shower being turned on and someone jumping into it, fully clothed. Shrieking.
‘What have you been doing in there?’ said Cal to me, unfairly I thought seeing as I wasn’t the one who’d just set myself on fire.
‘Nothing!’ I said sulkily, pulling out the strange foreign cleanser I was still clutching in my rubber-gloved hands. ‘Cleaning up for you, remember?’
Cal grabbed the bottle and held it tentatively between two fingers.
‘Shit,’ he said, letting his breath out slowly. ‘Do you know what this is?’
‘Cleaning product?’ I said. ‘They come in bright packaging and smell funny.’
‘This is oven cleaner,’ said Cal. ‘The stuff you leave overnight that you can’t touch with bare flesh. Have you been swilling it down the toilet?’
I shrugged. ‘Seemed to be doing the job.’
‘Splashback,’ said Cal. ‘Oh God.’
‘It burns!’ came weakly through the door.
‘How would you know?’ I said sulkily, feeling cross for being in the wrong. ‘I can’t imagine you’ve ever cleaned anything.’
‘And you have?’ said Cal, looking amused.
‘Yes,’ I said. Well, Esperanza had showed me something. I hadn’t maybe quite matched the brand name.
He handed me back the bottle. ‘Take this away from me, I feel like a cigarette and don’t want to actually explode.’
The noise from the bathroom had degenerated into whimpering.
‘I’m going out,’ said Cal nonchalantly. ‘Only call an ambulance if you have to. Wolverine!’
Wolverine scampered out of the bedroom.
‘Bye then.’
‘Stop, don’t leave me . . .’ I said.
But it was too late.
Twenty minutes later, Eck emerged from the loo, looking rather pale and shaken.
‘Um, are you all right?’ I said tentatively. I didn’t want to rush to admit liability. Plus, I’d made tea. This time I’d left the bags in far too long. The cups were dark brown and it tasted like pure muck.
‘Well, I saved it,’ he said, looking frightened.
‘Well, that’s great news!’ I tried to be cheery. ‘Perhaps . . . I made a
little
mistake with the cleaner . . . but I’m going to fix that right away.’
little
mistake with the cleaner . . . but I’m going to fix that right away.’
‘You probably should,’ said Eck. ‘The toilet’s smoking.’
I waited for him to mention something about a party, but he didn’t. He didn’t drink the tea I’d made him either. Or sit down.
‘Do you want to sit down?’ I said.
‘Not yet,’ he said gingerly.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘You really are from a different planet, aren’t you?’ he said, shaking his head.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ I said. ‘I’m just like anybody else.’
I really was desperate to know if he was going to ask me out or not. My ego really needed this.
‘I mean, I love dancing and things, just like normal people.’
‘I don’t think I’m ever going to dance again,’ said Eck, looking pained. So, I was going to have to take this as a no, then.
‘Like George Michael,’ I said wisely. ‘Until he got his sexuality sorted out, and now he dances all the time.’
I sighed to myself. Maybe they were having a party here but I wasn’t even invited to it. Maybe I’d have to sit in my room all night holding the coats. The idea of an upcoming social event, something to look forward to with a nice-looking boy - either of them, really - had really cheered me up and I’d felt almost happy. Right up to the point where I burned off Eck’s penis.
Eck looked up, a slight sagginess visible under his chocolate brown eyes.
‘Sophie . . .’ he said. ‘Do you think we should have a flat party?’
Ooh! I thought, as I swilled forty-seven litres of water down the cistern. After I’d done that the thing was pristine; it wasn’t actually that bad a way to clean a toilet, as long as you didn’t then use it for a couple of days. A party! Dancing! Booze! The only sticky moment had come when Eck had asked me, with quite a hopeful look in his eye, if I’d like to invite some of my friends. It was hard to explain that, a) I was a bit disappointed as I’d hoped the whole idea of having a party was to sneakily get a chance to ask me out, b) all my friends had inexplicably appeared to side with the woman who stole my boyfriend and didn’t like me any more, c) even if that hadn’t been the case, they wouldn’t come here, and d) if they did, they’d probably be really sneery and unpleasant about everything, as would I have been a few months before.
I moved on to the bath, more carefully this time. Good God, though, who’d been the last person to use it, Fungus the Bogeyman? Should I stick my fingers down the plughole like Esperanza had suggested . . . my eyes crept to the deadly oven poison. No, Sophie. No.
Chapter Nine
Cleaning the flat was obviously brilliant fun and everything - if by brilliant fun you mean horrible boring dirtiness that didn’t pay me any money - but it still didn’t solve my original problem. I needed my job back, and pretty damn fast. I hoped Julius would understand the principle of compassionate leave, but I wasn’t holding out much hope. There were roughly 165,000 girls in London who’d like to work for practically nothing for a famous
avant-garde
photographer who gave amazingly druggy parties in his super-hip loft and only slept with twins.
avant-garde
photographer who gave amazingly druggy parties in his super-hip loft and only slept with twins.
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