Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend Read online

  Grace sniffed. ‘Well, it makes you look tarty.’

  ‘You’re just annoyed because nobody wolf-whistled at you.’

  ‘There were hundreds of wolf whistles! All the way down!’

  ‘Yeah - for the bird in the pink, innit. Face it.’

  Delilah jumped up off the sunbed we’d planted next to a big plastic palm tree to make it look as if she was sunning herself topless on a desert island.

  ‘The twins!’ she said in a breathless tone of voice, like you might say ‘Madonna!’. ‘Can I have your autograph?’

  The twins looked unbelievably pleased (as well they might, I thought, while feeling secretly pleased it had been my idea to twin them up in the first place) and Kelly stepped up.

  ‘I sign first,’ she said. ‘As head twin.’

  ‘As fattest twin,’ said Grace, ‘you can sign first.’

  ‘So, now you’re models, right,’ said Delilah, adding, ‘This is my first day.’

  ‘Well, put your top on then,’ suggested Kelly. ‘No point showing off the goods when you’re not getting paid.’

  Julius raised his eyebrows as if to imply he couldn’t care less, but he let the camera drop.

  ‘Do you get to go to lots of celebrity parties and things?’ said Delilah. ‘That’s what I want to do. Go to, like good parties and that.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Grace. ‘It’s brilliant. Last week we were paid, right, a hundred pounds each to go to Whispers in Crawley. And we got up on stage and everything! And there was a football player there!’

  ‘Ooh, who?’

  ‘Tilnsley McGuire. Wolverhampton junior thirds!’ said Grace.

  ‘Everyone has to start somewhere,’ said Kelly.

  Oh God. How I longed to tell them about the time we went to Elton John’s White Tie and Tiara ball (actually it was quite boring, we spent the whole evening slagging off other people’s plastic surgery), or the opening of Shoreditch House, or the Cartier launch where Rio Ferdinand carried Carena out over his shoulder, tickling her mercilessly. God, I missed being rich sometimes.

  I realised I had a stain from a sausage sandwich on my trousers (today’s? yesterdays?). Would they believe me? Probably not.

  ‘That sounds brilliant,’ said Delilah.

  That’s how I found myself doing it. I couldn’t help myself, these girls seemed to think I was just some kind of invisible ancient creature, only there to service their needs for tea.

  ‘I’ve got a party you can come to,’ I said. ‘Lots of trendy artist types.’

  Grace’s little forehead furrowed like a wrinkled tomato. ‘Artists?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘and musicians. People in bands and things.’

  Well, I assumed as much. People at art school were always in bands, weren’t they?

  The girls still looked doubtful.

  ‘There’s free booze.’ Even as I said it I was wondering if this were true.

  ‘Where is it?’ said Kelly, strapping on a pair of the thigh-high boots they were wearing for today’s shoot.

  ‘Hey! I want the pink ones!’ shouted Grace.

  ‘No fuckin’ way!’

  ‘Yes fuckin’ way, it’s my turn.’

  Julius covered his hand with his eyes.

  ‘It’s not fair!’

  ‘Julius!’

  ‘JULIUS!’

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you wear one colour each. It’ll look like you share everything - very sexy.’

  The girls jumped up and down and squealed with delight at this idea.

  Julius half opened a red-rimmed eye at me. ‘Fanks,’ he said.

  Chapter Ten

  In my old life, arranging a party meant hiring a party planner and a designer florist. It meant little canapés, and inventing brand-new cocktails, and quite often a string quartet. I took after my mother: I loved parties.

  Our party wasn’t much like that. Eck came home with seventy-two balloons, so we blew those up, then the boys hung the long ones with two round ones on either side so they looked like penises. ‘How old are you?’ I asked them, and they explained to me that it didn’t matter how old you were, boys always found balloons shaped like penises funny and would when they were eighty and I wondered if that were true of the boys I used to know and concluded that it probably was. And James came home with some jelly, and some vodka from the local no-brand supermarket that smelled pretty much exactly like the oven cleaner. But that was about the extent of our preparations.

  ‘Did you send out invitations?’ I’d made the mistake of asking. All the boys stared at me in complete disbelief.

  ‘Is that what they do in Hackney?’ asked Cal.

  I shrugged. ‘No! I just wondered.’

  And that was it. I was nervous. Would anyone come? Would anyone talk to me? Maybe they would come, chat me up, take me out, get into my knickers then go and marry my best friend. Oh, no, hang on, that had already happened. I groaned again. It was like pushing on a mouth ulcer with my tongue; it hurt, but I couldn’t seem to leave it alone. Nope, I had to move on. I was going to be at a party with a houseful of boys. The odds had to be in my favour.

  And it was just as well the bathroom was clean, because it was well and truly hogged come Saturday. I couldn’t believe how vain they all were. I reflected, slightly sadly, that obviously none of them were considering pulling me, because I saw them kicking about in their grundies all day long and it didn’t bother them in the slightest.

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, queuing up outside and banging on the door. ‘Until I came along you were living in three feet of soil.’

  James opened the door. He was gelling his usually soldier-neat hair up in spikes, which looked phenomenally dated, but I didn’t want to say anything in case it had come back in again whilst I wasn’t looking, seeing as I’d kind of let my Vogue subscription lapse.

  ‘Exactly!’ he said. ‘Now you’ve given us somewhere nice to bring ladies back! So our odds are much better. Thanks!’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to bother Cal,’ I said. I wasn’t really looking forward to my time in the bathroom, especially since I’d shone up the mirror. It had, I now realised, been better a little murky. My hair had an inch of dirty-looking roots; my legs were hairy; my eyes had big dark circles under them from having to get up every morning; my hands had a rash from the cleaning products; my skin looked dingy from missing regular facials and I’d put on nearly a stone having neglected my previously efficient regime of never eating solids unless I totally couldn’t help it. Could I pull it off? My slinky black vintage Azzedine Alaia no longer fitted, and I wasn’t 100 per cent sure about the zip on the Stella McCartney, which had never really suited me anyway. But I had a delicate, shimmery red chiffon dress, which was just the right side of go-go girlish (or, at least, I hoped it was, particularly now my stomach protruded over my hip bones), and some seriously dangerous-looking shoes. I just wanted to show people - well, Cal, if I was being brutally frank - that I didn’t actually spend all my time crawling along the floor on my hands and knees picking up feathers. (I had demanded to know why there were feathers all over the house. Nobody would answer me, which meant they’d been at the conceptual art and absinthe again.) Nope, I was going to wow this party.

  Eck came up to me in the corridor. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘If you were choosing a shirt . . . for a bloke . . .’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  He held up two, one a pale green, one with little blue flowers on it.

  ‘Oh right. I thought it was a hypothetical question.’

  ‘OK. Please would you choose a shirt for a bloke.’

  ‘A bloke? What kind of a bloke?’

  ‘A devastatingly debonair and creative one with the strength of ten men and the heart of a lion.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I don’t know any like that.’

  ‘OK. Me then.’

  ‘The flowers,’ I said. ‘Definitely.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s a bit fruity?’

  ‘Eck, you’re at art college. It’s too
late to be worrying about all that. Anyway, women love a man in pastel colours. It shows you’re in touch with your feminine side but comfortable in your masculine side.’

  ‘That does sound fruity. James!’

  ‘Don’t ask James, for crying out loud! He’s wearing a boot-lace tie. Look. Fruity is quite good. You’ll be Just Gay Enough.’

  ‘Look, I don’t want to be prejudiced or anything, but I haven’t been to a party for ages. Being gay enough is really not what I’m trying to get across.’

  I smiled. ‘Are you on the pull?’

  Suddenly the mood shifted and there was tension in the air.

  He looked at me, with a serious look suddenly. ‘Are you?’

  There was a long pause as a look passed between us, ruined only by the loud sound of the flush going off, and rattling through our completely antiquated plumbing.

  ‘Get out the bathroom, James!’ I hollered. ‘That’s an order.’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ he said, appearing at the door. James responded well to orders. The spell was broken.

  ‘Hey, look, some feathers!’ said Eck, pointing down the corridor. As I turned to follow his finger, he slipped into the bathroom ahead of me.

  Peering in the tiny mirror in my bedroom I realised I hadn’t even bothered putting mascara on for weeks. That was amazing; I’d never been able to go down the street for a copy of Grazia without a full lipgloss session in my life.

  In fact, as I examined my face, I realised it was worse than I’d ever thought. My eyes were horribly bloodshot from cheap beer and, I had to admit, some nights of crying; my skin looked like it had been hiding under heavy clouds - I wondered if north London got more sunshine than south London. Maybe that’s why it was so much more expensive. My hair was a total mess. It had always been my crowning glory, long and pale gold. Recently I’d just been washing it under the tap and leaving it. It didn’t look, as I’d on some level been hoping, like sun-kissed easy-going Sienna Miller beach hair. It looked like a witchy mess. Seeing it properly - all frizz and dark roots - for the first time in weeks nearly made me cry. They didn’t talk about this in the grief manual.

  So, well, all those eighty-quid blow drys had been worth it after all. This was a disaster. I was going to look like a completely hopeless old hag in a too-tight nice frock. It wasn’t going to work at all. I stifled a small sob, but there was a huge lump in my throat. I couldn’t go to the party. I just couldn’t. I’d just stay in here and they could throw the coats on me. The more the better. Hide me away.

  Sniffing, I pulled up the ever-tightening waistband on my sweatpants when I heard the phone ring. My new phone, that is. My lovely silver one was gone. I’d managed to get hold of the cheapest pay-as-you-go model they did. It was pink. I had a sneaking suspicion it was actually for children.

  The built-in ring tone was ‘Glamorous’ by Fergie. It wasn’t glamorous.

  The number wasn’t one I recognised. No. Why would it be. Probably a misdial.

  ‘Hello?’ I said, trying to keep any evidence of sobbing out of my voice.

  ‘’Ello!’ came the voice back. ‘Is that Sophie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank fuck. It’s Delilah.’

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I said. That’s all I needed to hear from right now, some gorgeous eighteen year-old with massive knockers who would look fabulous - well, trashy-fabulous, which I suspected would do - in a bin bag.

  ‘What am I going to wear to this bloody party then? Is it posh or what?’

  ‘Anything you like,’ I said. ‘You’ll look great, I’m sure.’

  ‘But aren’t they like students or something? What do students wear?’

  ‘Just wear a nice dress,’ I said. ‘You’ll be fine. You’ll be better than fine. You’ll be unbelievably popular.’

  ‘Oh, I know that,’ she said dismissively. ‘I just want to fit in.’

  There was a pause. She obviously wanted me to ask her over. I didn’t think that was a good idea right now. No, definitely not, seeing as I was actually going to hide under the bed for five hours. No. No she couldn’t come over.

  ‘Can I come over?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ I said. Then I sighed.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t really want to go,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’

  I paused. ‘I’m having a bad hair day,’ I said. ‘Very bad.’ ‘Oh, you should have said! I’ll be right over!’

  ‘Uh, no, it’s all right . . .’

  ‘Neh, I did two years at beauty school, didn’t I? Hairdressing and everything. I’ll bring my bag.’

  ‘No, really, it’s—’

  ‘And I’ll bring a bunch of clothes and you can tell me what to wear. OK? Get some voddy in and tell me where you live.’

  I think maybe having spectacular knockers can give your confidence a real boost.

  Twenty minutes later I was having a cup of tea and listening to the boys compete with each other as to what the party music was going to be. James had some military marches going. I had the horrible thought that he probably had sex in time with them.

  Cal had some kind of weird esoteric stuff blaring out which sounded like someone hitting a tin dog on some aluminium piping, and Eck was playing The Killers. I wished I had some Madonna to even things out a bit. There was already a large pile of empty beer cans in the kitchen and a huge whiff of hair gel hanging around the place - gosh, they were taking this seriously.

  ‘Hello!’ Delilah bellowed cheerfully. She appeared to be carrying more kit than I’d moved in with. ‘Christ, look at you. We’ve got our work cut out.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ I said. She was wearing spray-on tight jeans with a pink fluffy top.

  ‘Are the jeans OK?’ she said anxiously. ‘I can’t change them now, I’d need metal-cutting equipment.’

  Delilah clomped up the stairs. She didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the big damp stains on the ancient wallpaper, or the fact that the only pictures on the wall were of motorbikes ripped out of magazines.

  ‘Got any voddy?’

  ‘No,’ I said, apologetically. ‘But we can steal the boy’s beer. Or there’s some filthy—’

  Delilah wrinkled her nose. ‘It makes you fat, beer. And it doesn’t get you pissed fast enough. Here . . .’ And she handed over what appeared to be a bottle of wine originating from more than one country.

  ‘Great,’ I said, genuinely pleased to see it. If I really was going to have to go to this thing, the wine was going to prove very helpful.

  Delilah turned round to face me and her brow furrowed. ‘What’s up wiv your hair? Why don’t you get your roots fixed and that?’

  I didn’t know how to tell her that I was scared of every hairdresser who wasn’t Stefano, and that I couldn’t afford to get my hair done.

  ‘OK,’ said Delilah, pulling a large pair of GHDs out of her bag. ‘I hope nobody is arriving early, because this is going to take a while.’

  She turned me round so I couldn’t glance at myself in the mirror as she began her transformation. Two large glasses of wine and a lot of pulling and tugging later, Delilah let me have a look at the end result.

  My first inclination was to laugh. I looked nothing like myself at all. My long blonde hair had gone; it was now styled in a kind of big beehive, coiled around itself in a way that made my head look gigantic (but did hide my roots). I had bright green eyeshadow that followed the shape of my lids, and lashes thick with black mascara, and my lips were a bright coral pink. I looked like a slinky backing singer for a Sixties band. It was a bit peculiar, but, ‘I like it,’ I said. And I did. I didn’t look like me at all - I’d always aimed for low key, sleek, expensive. All of that was gone. I looked a bit hard and up for a laugh, but in a fun way.

  ‘’Course you do,’ said Delilah. ‘You owe me a pint. What are you wearing?’

  I opened up the half-swinging cupboard door and showed her the contents. Her eyes went wide immediately.

  ‘Shit!’ she said. ‘Is this stuff a
ll real?’

  I shrugged. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What did you do, steal it to order?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Were you, like, a posh man’s mistress and he bought you loads of presents and that?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘So where did you get it?’

  I decided to merely distract her. ‘Do you want to try something on?’