Famous (5 page)

‘Hell,’ he exclaimed, running back into the kitchen.

‘Hell!’ he said again, closing the freezer door and slapping his forehead. ‘There’s only two packets of mince in the freezer!’

The complete juxtaposition between my father’s life and my own did not escape me.

‘So?’

‘So, they’re frozen!’

‘Well, can’t you just throw them in the microwave or something?’ I suggested.

I had no idea how to defrost red meat, seeing as I didn’t eat it, but I guessed a microwave would be a good starting point. I hadn’t eaten red meat for the past five years. It wasn’t that I was against killing animals, I was simply against polluting my body with substances that took far too long to digest. I was also very receptive to bad press.

‘But it’s just not the same,’ he despaired. ‘I knew I should have gone to the supermarket today. Bugger it all!’

My father was clearly upset. Tuesday was his weekly supermarket shopping day and for some unknown reason he had missed it.

‘Why don’t we pop to the supermarket now then?’ I suggested. ‘We can take my car.’

‘Of course we can’t. Have you seen the time? It’ll be chokka!’

My father was averse to frequenting the supermarket during the after-work rush. He felt much more comfortable going during the day, with the other housewives.

‘How about I go and pick us up some takeaways then?’ I suggested.

He looked at me as though I had just stripped down to my underwear and launched into a rendition of
God Save the Queen.

It was my father’s view that eating takeaways was cheating. They were only allowed on birthdays and in extremely dire circumstances, such as funerals.

‘No,’ he said, putting on his apron. ‘Just give me a minute.’

I poured us both a wine and he set about defrosting the mince in the microwave, boiling spaghetti and expertly whipping up a Bolognese, and a vegetarian version for me.

I offered to help, but the offer was politely rejected.

‘You just sit down and relax there love. You must have had a hard day at the office.’

The truth was my father simply didn’t trust me to help out in the kitchen. Which suited me just fine.

My mother made an appearance for dinner, and then withdrew straight back into her office again. Apparently she was having a little trouble with the newsletter.

I loaded the dishwasher as Dad wiped the kitchen table.

‘Have you tried this stuff, love?’ he asked me, holding up a bottle of cleaning spray. ‘It’s brilliant. Good for the environment too.’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I haven’t.’

In fact I’d never seen it before in my life. My relationship with cleaning products being based entirely on me handing money over to my housekeeper MayBelle to purchase them.

My mother had forbidden my father from using any cleaning products that weren’t biodegradable. He liked to compare cleaning products with anyone who would listen to him long enough without keeling over and dying from boredom. I generally had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Cleaning was something I happily paid someone else to do. I had offered to pay for my parents to have a cleaner come in once a week, but my father was vehemently opposed to the idea. I think he was afraid this would make him obsolete. Plus, the chances of him trusting anyone else to polish the furniture to the same streak-free standards was out of the question.

‘Don’t know what we did before this stuff was invented,’ he said, shaking his head and marveling at the spray bottle in his hand. ‘Refillable too.’

‘Brilliant,’ I replied. Someone had to humour him.

Through no fault of his own, my father had vicariously been forced into the clutches of feminism and the role of a dutiful housewife. Many times I had seen him walk into the kitchen in his boxer shorts and T-shirt with
I am woman, hear me roar
emblazoned in pink lettering across the front.

He’d be shaving his legs and going for a bikini wax next, I’d think to myself.

But he wasn’t the only Manwife around. Over the years he had befriended a selection of other Manwives, who were also married to women’s rights activists and who also spent their days running the household and making banners that read
Raising Children is a Job Too!
and
Breastfeeding for the Public Good!
in their garages.

It was some comfort for him to know he wasn’t alone. Three years ago he and his girlfriends had formed a group called Men 4 Women. Their motto was
men are feminists too
. And this is the motto that was proudly displayed on their T-shirts, caps and bumper stickers. There was no denying the fact they were a minority group. Under pressure from my father I had attempted to secure them sponsorship from FreeAsTheWind, the feminine hygiene manufacturer and also one of my clients. Surprisingly FreeAsTheWind had offered to sponsor the printing of all their advertising material. That was until my mother declared that under no circumstances were they to take sponsorship from an organisation that ‘blatantly poses women as sex symbols who like nothing better than frolicking around on sandy beaches in their skimpy bloody bikinis with their over-sized surfboards’.

My father and his girlfriends were understandably disappointed, but they couldn’t argue with the boss.

‘How do you cope, Dad?’ I asked him once.

‘With what love?’

‘You know…being married to a sexist.’

‘Your mother’s not a sexist.’

‘Yes she is! She thinks men are the scum of the earth!’

‘No she doesn’t, love,’ he replied. ‘She’s just passionate about women and their plight.’

My father simply didn’t realise my mother’s passion against female oppression was also passionately oppressing him.

The following night was the much-anticipated opening of
Salute
, a new bar owned by Samuel Evans and Darcy Simpson, partners in business and pleasure who owned over half of the city’s drinking establishments, the good ones anyway. They were legends in the hospitality world and everything they opened turned to gold. Their bars were the epitome of style and sophistication, each one surpassing the one before, and one always felt comfortable in the knowledge that only the stylish were permitted through the front doors. There was no derogatory battling with riffraff for drinks, service or seats. This, combined with the various strands of eye-candy who were employed to work the bar, made the whole experience an undeniable pleasure.

I decided to wear my new Franka Kuijlichrachova (only her regular customers, myself included, knew how to pronounce her surname) dress that I had bought the previous weekend. It was red silk with a dangerously low neckline and gorgeous pink and emerald green beads sewn in a flower down the front. It was what Mands, Lizzie and I called a KTF6 dress. A Knock Them For Six. And it went perfectly with my hot pink Patrick Cox heels. I would loved to have bought the open-toed version, but this simply wasn’t an option for me, being that the second toe on each of my feet was a good half an inch longer than the big one. In fact, they looked more like fingers than toes. Over the years I had been told this was a sign of everything from intelligence, to wealth, to being extremely good in the sack. I think people were just being kind. What it was really a sign of was ugly toes that for the love of God should not be squashed up in a pair of open-toed heels and put on public display.

I’d met Dan at the national advertising awards a few weeks earlier (where I had won no fewer than two awards). He had phoned me earlier in the week and asked me out for dinner tonight. The advertising awards had clocked an extremely high Knicker Count this year (ie knickers left abandoned in various locations around the venue). Apparently it was several pairs up on last year. However none of them were mine. There was no one there who made me want to sever ties with my underwear, Dan included. Plus, I wasn’t wearing any.

I was not in the habit of going out for dinner with any man until I had spent at least a couple of hours with him in a social context, and could be sure that dining with him in solitude for two to three hours would not bore me to tears. This was a rule which had served me well, and one I was not about to break for anyone. Instead I suggested Dan come with me to the bar opening — at least there would be plenty of other people I knew there, should he prove to be a chore. Plus, I thought to myself, being thrown into tonight’s environment would be a good test of his character. I agreed to let him pick me up from my apartment and drive us to the bar.

He was a lot better-looking than I remembered. Nice and tall with well-cut wavy dark brown hair, and tanned olive skin.

We arrived at
Salute
and the décor was unbelievably fabulous, as expected. The bar area was hidden behind plush red velvet drapes, and gold gilded mirrors covered the chocolate brown walls. A row of beautiful chandeliers adorned the ornate ceiling. It was truly gorgeous. I glanced admiringly across the beautiful mahogany bar top, only to reel back in sheer horror. There, on the opposite side of the room, was a woman with long blonde hair, standing in animated conversation with a glass of champagne. Wearing none other than My Dress!

I promptly leaped behind the large free-standing ice bucket before she, or anyone else with twenty-twenty fashion vision, could spot me.

Dear God! I thought in horror. This was a disaster! What was I going to do? Unfortunately, due to the fact it was the middle of summer, I hadn’t brought a jacket with me. I would simply have to throw myself into a cab, rush home and get changed, I decided. That was all there was to it.

Dan approached me as I cowered behind the ice bucket.

‘What are you doing behind there?’ he asked, a quizzical look on his face.

‘Hiding,’ I replied.

‘From what?’

‘There’s a woman standing on the other side of the room with my dress on,’ I replied.

‘So, that’s a good thing right? She’s got good taste too.’

Oh God! What a plonker! Had he no idea?

‘No. That is a very, very bad thing,’ I replied, explaining it to him like the confused child he obviously was. ‘The worse thing that could possibly happen.’

‘Right,’ said Dan, although I could tell from his face he didn’t agree with me.

‘Well, what are you going to do? Hide behind the ice bucket all night?’

‘No,’ I replied sternly, ‘I am going to leave.’

‘Leave?’ He sounded shocked.

‘Yes. Leave. Go home.’

‘And get changed?’

‘Yes.’

Unless, I thought, having a sudden brainwave, the shops in the city were still open. I looked at my watch. It was eight o’clock.

‘What time do you think High Street closes?’ I asked.

‘Don’t know,’ replied Dan, clearly not appreciating the predicament I was in.

‘Give me your jacket,’ I demanded.

He stared at me like a dumb monkey.

‘The jacket,’ I repeated, holding out my hand.

He took it off and handed it over. I put it on, wrapping it firmly round my dress.

‘I’ll see you in half an hour,’ I said, whizzing past him and bolting for the door, before the woman wearing My Dress had time to bat an eyelid.

Thirty-five minutes later I sailed back through the front doors wearing a gorgeous, fine-knit, sleeveless, very safe, plain-black Karen Millen cocktail frock to the knee, with French embroidered stitching. My taxi had made it to the shop as the assistant was closing the doors. She had looked up at me in my desperate state, as I said, ‘There’s someone wearing my dress,’ and the next thing I knew she was firing me into a dressing room, a look of utter empathy plastered across her face, as the other assistant promptly gathered every black dress she could find on the racks and held them in front of my eyes, one by one, for just the right length of time. The service was impeccable. Ten minutes later I was standing in my new black dress, assistant number one was passing me my lipstick, assistant number two was calling me a taxi and my old dress was packaged neatly behind the counter, ready to be couriered to me on Monday. I had tipped heavily and walked out the door into the taxi, feeling profoundly grateful I lived in a metropolitan city.

I looked across the bar and quickly spotted Dan. He was standing on the other side of the room talking to the woman in My Dress.

The bastard! I bet he’s told her all about my dilemma, I seethed.

I decided it was best to avoid him from hereon in. This wasn’t going to be too much of a problem as I immediately spotted Mands standing beside the bar, talking to some gorgeous dark-haired specimen of a man.

‘Dolls!’ cried Mands, embracing me in an air-hug, lest we bump and displace hair.

‘Sweets,’ I replied, kissing the vicinity of her cheek.

‘Where have you been hiding?’ she demanded.

‘DC,’ I replied, rolling my eyes for emphasis. Code for Dress Catastrophe.

‘Oh dear,’ said Mands, giving me a real hug. ‘I think we should go and talk this over,’ she cooed, dragging me away by my arm.

‘Scuze us,’ she smiled at the dark-haired fox.

‘Rundown,’ she demanded, when we reached the other end of the bar.

I gave her the rundown and she showered me with just the right proportion of ‘Oh nos!’ and ‘Ohmygods!’ before praising me on my shop-dashing initiative.