Mad Cows (17 page)

‘You mean
trans
vestitured,' added another extraterrestrial. (This one would be described as ‘exuberant', which meant that she'd once earned a living doing photographic shoots wearing nothing but a piece of dental floss, otherwise known as a G string.) ‘I heard, like, on good authority, like, that he's gay . . .'

‘You'd be gay too, if you'd been married to a bu
lim
ic.
Terri
ble breath. From throwin' up all the time.' ‘Stacked' further proved his Mensa potential by miming the Princess of Wales talking to God on the big, white telephone. ‘Ugh. I've no idea how anyone could make love to a bu
lim
ic . . .'

‘Backwards?' Maddy suggested, impishly.

The men who'd foreclosed on the manors to which they weren't born, stopped ant-eatering up the hors-d'oeuvres to spin round. They might have laughed, except for the coveted gold-embossed invitation she was clutching. The women's outlined-in-lip-pencil lips compressed into a jealous moue before they moved
en masse
into the Sewage Garden.

Maddy, feeling more and more like Stanley in search of Livingstone, thrashed her way through the jungle of famous, photogenic foliage looking for Alex. She stumbled upon assorted wildlife on her journey, the most curious of which were the group of genuine Soil
Society
types – obvious by their dung-coloured windcheaters which rendered them indistinguishable from the compost – discussing the most effective lightweight climbers:
clematis viticella
versus
aconitum volubile
.

She macheted a path through the throng into Highgrove House. Her A-list invitation pass earned her the privilege of weaving around the endless antique furniture at shin-whacking level into a library crowded with VIP guests in animated conversation with each other's left breasts – the location of their laminated and invariably hyphenated name tags. Maddy didn't need to read the ‘Lord This' and ‘Baroness That' to know that she was now amongst the cream of English society – rich, thick and prone to whipping. The ‘loo pepper', ‘abite the hice' accents said it all. ‘Awfullys' and ‘frightfullys' exploded around her; consonants crashing down like hail stones.

Maddy ferreted out Alex with her eyes. He was standing by a bookcase, a champagne flute in one hand and a minute square of soggy bread playing host to a piece of fish bait in the other.

‘So this is what you meant about getting back to the “
simple things in life
”,' Maddy whispered mischievously, goosing him and gobbling his canapé in one bite.

Alex, wheeling around, gave a series of anal-examination grimaces. ‘What the hell?' Excusing
himself
– he was mid-chin-wag with the sort of woman who looked as though she'd have a battleship named after her – he steered Maddy towards a remote corner of the room. ‘What the hell are you doing here?' he hissed.

Maddy laughed and pointed to her name tag. ‘I'm your wife, obviously.' She ripped Alex's own label from his lapel and Velcroed it onto her right breast. ‘Not fair if we don't name the other one. It'll get a complex. What are you
wear
ing?' She tugged lightheartedly at his LL Bean casuals and kicked at his Patagonian climbing boots. ‘Where are you off to?
Everest?
'

But Alex had what Maddy called his elevator face on. ‘Madeline, this is not funny. I'm here in a work capacity.'

‘If you're serious about politics, Alex, let me tell you, the only people who'll follow you in those clothes are store detectives.'

‘Well,
you'd
know all about that, wouldn't you?' he grated, glancing nervously over his shoulder.

‘Just living down to the cultural stereotype, I guess,' she wisecracked.

‘You don't seem to be getting this, Madeline.
The long arm of the law is stretching out in your direction
. . .'

‘Relax. It's have to be double-jointed to find me
here
. . . Actually, a prison is excellent training for a social event like this. Gaol is just as hierarchical as any stately home.'

‘Jesus Christ, Maddy!' He agitatedly jingled the loose change in his pockets. ‘Going to work the crowd, are you? Think it's a crowd with a silver lining?'

The female battleship who was now loudly mocking Michael Portillo because his furniture was
bought
rather than in
her
ited, glanced at them suspiciously. Alex burrowed Maddy further into the ‘microscopic soil spore' section of the library. ‘You must leave – and I mean now.'

Maddy leaned up and brushed his mouth with her own. There it was again; the voltage to the groin. ‘I'm starting to wish I were back in prison,' she said, lightheartedly. ‘Flick-knife-wielding, sex-starved, crack-addicted dyke body builders are more fun than
you
. . . Although you
can
be fun' – she laced her fingers through his belt loops and tugged him towards her – ‘when you want to be . . .'

Alex broke free. ‘Look, there's something I need to tell you . . . After Felicity left and you severed all romantic ties, I needed to rediscover my sexuality . . . and what I discovered is . . . celibacy.'

Maddy threw back her head and laughed immoderately. ‘Oh right, Cliff Richard.'

‘I work better, think better and, – he eyed her narrowly – ‘there's no fear of scandals in the paper . . . I'm enriching my inner life.' He readjusted his already perfectly tucked-in shirt into his jeans. ‘Amazingly easy, actually. Like giving up drinking. What a relief not to have to go to the off-licence so often . . .'

‘Really? Gee, carpet-burn, inner-thigh chaffing; I could have
sworn
we enjoyed a little carnal nightcap together . . .'

‘Lust is celibacy's banana skin. You slip, okay?' Alex sulked. ‘But bachelorhood is my natural state, Maddy. Inspector Morse mode – you know, slumped in a favourite armchair listening to a Mozart CD, awash with Chivas Regal . . . collecting model railways and Napoleonic memorabilia . . .'

‘Pull the other one, Alex. It's got a fishnet stocking and a suspender on it,' she said impatiently. ‘How can you talk like this after last night?'

‘Madeline, last night was nothing more than MSB –Maximum Sperm Build-up.'

Maddy felt the bottom fall out of her world. If she'd wanted to be maimed physically as well as emotionally, she'd have gone to Rwanda and made a day of it. ‘What about me and Jack?' Her voice sounded as though she were talking with her head underwater.

‘You two need me like . . . like, I don't know . . . an Eskimo needs a lawnmower. Our society has moved inexorably to a more matriarchal set-up. The woman is the main controller. The man – a non-essential extra.'

So much for the ‘His and Her', this was more of a ‘Me and Me' hand-towels situation. Maddy was just Houdini-ing herself to fit the unexpected twist in their conversation when Petronella de Winter attached herself to Alex's arm and planted a big, wet kiss on his cheek. ‘Hi!' Her vertiginous heels made her nearly as
tall
as Maddy, who was wearing Felicity's flat ‘follow me home and play Scrabble' sandals. Pink-lipsticked and perky, Petronella was so damn cute Disney could make a T-shirt out of her. Her tightly tailored Moschino suit showed off her perfect figure.
Too
perfect. Maddy suspected she was the sort of female you inflate by blowing into her toe. Craning forward, she inspected Petronella's name tag with incredulity.

‘Climatic Forecaster?'

‘Yeah. I had an employment shift. Three weeks ago.'

A demotion, Maddy deduced, after a certain panel discussion. ‘Weather girl!' had lately taken over as a career choice from that of actress and trolley-dolly. There wasn't enough weather on television for all the blonde beauties with good profiles, sunny dispositions and 36D bold fronts approaching. Her ample breast size would soon make Petronella the most famous forecaster of them all. She only had to turn sideways to obscure all of East Anglia. Norfolk probably hadn't had any weather indication for weeks. But what the hell was she doing
here?
Maddy felt a distinct cold-front making its way across her emotional isobars.

‘It is my belief that smooth inner thighs do not necessarily speak of a rich inner life, Alex,' she said suspiciously.

‘Petronella is planning to do a masters degree in environmental studies,' said Alex, shovelling sociable top-soil into the gap in their conversation.

‘By presenting TV I was hoping to one day, like,
work
in you know, Human Rights or Unicef or something . . . but then I found my—'

‘Vocation?' supplied Maddy, facetiously.

‘Yes! That's it. And you are?' Alex ripped off Maddy's breast labels before the weather girl could read them. Decked out in Felicity's Nicole Farhi and full Estée Lauder war-paint Petronella hadn't recognized her. Maddy wasn't all
that
surprised. Put it this way, if Petronella had been brunette, her blonde roots would be showing.

‘The sucker of the century, apparently. But perhaps I should wear my name tag on my back so that you'll know who you're stabbing?' she asked Alex, who had suddenly discovered a non-existent stain on his tie.

‘And you, like, share our passion for soil conservation?' Petronella probed.

Maddy noted the ‘our'. ‘Oh, yes. I'm a woman of many convictions.'

Alex shot her a look which read ‘a closed mouth gathers no feet'.

‘Petronella's joined the Lib Dems. She's helping with my campaign,' he rushed on. ‘Speaking of which, Pet, we really must get down to the Celebrity Croquet and meet my new election agent—'

‘Pet?' Maddy repeated, distrustfully. The trousers of the weather girl's
haute couture
pant suit were so tight, she'd only have to cough to induce orgasm. What Alex had nick-named ‘breeches of promise' when Maddy used to wear them for him.

‘Lex's campaign aims to dispel the idea that protecting the environment is, like, an expensive luxury.'

This was
not
Maddy's maiden voyage into the Green Seas of jealousy, but this time she had no rudder. ‘
Lex?
' She sent up her first distress flare.

‘Pouring investment into the “greening” of industry, transport and farming, could, you know, save the taxpayer over £3.5 billion in dole payments.' Weather girl
was
her perfect vocation; she obviously knew so much about prevailing wind. Maddy tried to interrupt, but there was more hot air where that came from. ‘We plan to, like, shift transport investment from road to rail, you know, abandon nuclear power in favour of wind farms and solar energy, and force industry to, you know, install new technology to, like, clean polluted land and rivers.' Alex was shifting from foot to foot, his expression hooded. ‘It's time to stop tinkering around the
edges
and put environmental protection at the, like,
heart
of economic thinking, you know? That's our platform. He's going to make a, like,
brill
Minister for the Environment, aren't you, darling?'

Alex flinched. Maddy's suspicious lurched from Park position into Overdrive. She realized she'd left something out of her list of genetic differences between the sexes: air guitar, fridge thermostat fiddling . . . and the ability to go straight into the underpants of another woman. He probably hadn't even
showered
first. ‘Did you know that most murders are committed by people you,
like
,
know?' she informed him through gritted teeth.

Petronella strengthened her grasp on Alex's arm. ‘Alexander, what's going on?'

‘Oh, don't worry,' Maddy assured her. ‘Fighting for us is foreplay, isn't it,
darling?
'

‘Maddy, that's enough. We're leaving.' He nudged Petronella in the direction of the terrace.

Maddy followed at a furious pace, shin-whacking at every turn. ‘Try not to leave any stains on the sheets. I just changed them.'

Petronella just froze on the French-doored threshold. She shook free Alex's arm. ‘You
slept
with this woman?'

‘Oh, yes,' enthused Maddy. ‘Apparently he's re-discovering his sexuality . . . and that of as many women as possible.'

HMS Battleship capsized a prawn cocktail down her front.

‘For God's sake,' hissed Alex, tugging them outside and behind the topiary. ‘Keep it down.'

‘Oh, tough titty, Alex. Tell me you're not serious. She's so
young
. If she were wine, you wouldn't drink her. Bill Wyman wouldn't even drink her . . . Michael Jackson . . .'

‘Look, as you've been, like, insufferably rude,' Petronella pouted, ‘I feel I can now speak my mind . . .'

‘Why not?
You've got nothing to lose
.'

‘What are you insinuating?' prickled Alex. ‘That I'm old?'

‘You look like Ken's dad, out with his son's girlfriend – Barbie.'

Alex instinctively turned to examine himself in the glass of the drawing-room window.

‘Ever since Lex directed me on a shoot at Holloway Prison of all places – we just, you know, “clicked”.'

‘Face it, Alex. You knew Elvis when he was alive the first time.'

‘He rescued me from some kind of
riot
, you know. Alex said that the psychopath who started it was some crazed fan. He was lucky to get out of there alive!'

‘How true,' agreed Maddy, eye-slittingly.

‘He was, like,
so
brave. We've been in an intimate relationship,' Petronella insisted, ‘ever since.'

Maddy hooted. ‘Hah! One thing I learnt
inside
is that the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach – by an upwards thrust with a carving knife.'

‘
Inside?
You don't mean?' Petronella edged backwards. ‘
You've been in prison?
'