and the wall managed to be both, with the help of the type of nasty border normally only seen in motorway hotels. There were frilly things everywhere â tie-backs, potpourri holders, ornamental pigs. It looked like the wet dream of a seven-year-old girl.
âWow,â said Fran, picking up the matching brush set from the glass top of the dressing table, under which rested a doily. âMiss Havishamâs cleaning rotaâs certainly improved.â
I couldnât see the parcel I was looking for and headed towards the cupboard. Fran picked up one of the Laura Ashley pinafore numbers Linda favoured and flounced round the room singing, âIâm Linda, and I couldnât be sorrier for breathing! Sorry, please pay some rent, how about five pence a month? Iâm just going out now â oh, of course, I never do â¦â I grimaced.
Suddenly, the phone rang. We both jumped out of our skins, as if weâd been caught doing something very wrong. Which, of course, we had.
âYou answer it!â I hissed, absurdly, to Fran, and snatched the dress off her. Wrong-footed, she did as she was told.
I went to hang the dress back up and, as I did, I noticed the box peeping out of the back of the cupboard. Feeling thoroughly low, I picked it up anyway.
Inside there was layer upon layer of chocolate:everything from little Flyte bars to enormous, one-acre Galaxys, and those huge Toblerones you can only get in Duty Free. Some were just empty wrappers, strewn about in a most uncharacteristic manner.
âChuffing hell!â I exclaimed, as Fran walked back in.
âHow did you know that was Nicholas from all the way in here?â
âLook at all this!â
âOh my God. Eating disorder city. Jesus!â
âI know. She just gets fatter and fatter. She must eat in secret all the time.â
âWhat are you going to do?â
âWhat am I going to do? Oh, take full responsibility for it, obviously. I donât know! We donât even say good morning!â
We looked at each other.
On the overwrought bedside table, beside the crocheted tissue-box cover, there was only one picture, of Linda â a chubby child â standing next to a vicious-looking pony.
Oh God, what was I going to do â mention it to her? Dâoh! What did advice columns say? Leave some handy leaflets lying about. I didnât know if they did ones that said, âWe were snooping in your room and found something youâre obviously desperately trying to hide.â Go down the pub? I tried to judge a tasteful length of time before suggesting this. Fran gave me a look that plainly told me it wasnât long enough.
âHuh? Sorry, I was just thinking about Linda.â
âSo what do you think we should â¦â
âI have absolutely no idea.â
Pause.
âI suppose I could try and be nicer to her,â I offered.
âWell, you do live together.â
âSo do you, practically, and youâre not nice to anyone.â
âThatâs because most people are boring. But Lindaâs like, you know, sick .â
âOK, OK already.â
I hoisted myself up and went and tackled some of Alexâs and my washing-up. Well, it was a start.
âSo, ehm, that was Nicholas on the phone then?â
And not, say, Alex (who was out buying furniture), having had a big change of heart and begging me to move with him to Fulham.
âYes. You appear to be in demand.â
Well, hooray!
âHowever, I told him you werenât available, so he asked me out instead.â
Boo! OK, I may have despised the guy, but Iâd like to think he could tell me apart from other members of the same species.
âHuh. Did you say yes?â
âWhat do you think?â
âI think you said yes, you would smoochily love him forever and ever, and did he have any more of his hilarious accounting stories?â
âOh, and also he said you may have to test for some
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