Game Over

9

We meet at King’s Cross station. I spot Darren as soon as the cab sets me down. He stands out like a beacon. But then that’s not so extraordinary as he’s sharing the platform with prostitutes, beggars and commuters. As I approach him he takes my bag from me and briefly kisses me on the cheek. It’s comfortable. It’s unnerving.

‘You look good,’ he murmurs, smiling appreciatively.

‘What, this old thing?’ I shrug.

‘This old thing’ was actually a look achieved after nine hours’ searching through Issie’s wardrobes and mine. I like the final effect. It’s a sort of rock-chic-meets-country-girl ensemble. I think it works, although Issie had doubts. She had questioned whether a six-hundred-quid pony-skin skirt was appropriate for a dash around North Yorkshire. I ignored her advice; after all, she doesn’t read the style pages. She also kept going on about how I’d be cold in a short-sleeved jumper. I explained that my upper arms were really toned at the moment and needed full exposure. She sighed and stuffed another cardigan in my bag. I’m grateful now because? it is freezing on the platform.

Issie had been a bit irritating all round, whilst I packed for this tour of duty. She commented, ‘North Yorkshire sounds very romantic. Isn’t that where the Brontës are from?’

‘Is it? I thought it was Lancashire. Didn’t all the Brontës die spinsters?’ I feigned ignorance. ‘Besides which, we’re going to visit his family. Have you ever known families to be romantic?’

Issie reminded me of the guy she met through her mother, on New Year’s Eve. I reminded her that he never called. ‘So why are you going to Whitby, if you think it’s going to be so dour?’

‘I explained, Issie, I have to get him to agree to be on the show. It’s a matter of professional and personal pride.’

‘Nothing more than pride?’ I’ve been asking myself exactly the same thing all night.

‘I’ve explained, he’d make a great show. He’d silence our few lingering critics.’

‘Nothing more than a great show?’ asked Issie. She didn’t sound as though she believed me. I admit Darren is interesting and funny and ridiculously fanciable. I admit that if Issie were choosing to travel halfway across the globe to visit some guy’s family I’d think it was because she’d fallen for him. But the same can’t be said of me, can it? I’m only doing this for the good of TV6.

‘What else is there?’ I asked, slipping my Manolo Blahnik lilac open-toe shoes into my bag. I would have been extremely grateful if Issie could have answered me; however, she just scowled.

‘It doesn’t sound like you have the faintest chance of getting him to change his mind.’

‘I don’t know, I might have. After all, he agreed to let me shadow him.’

‘Yes, I wonder why he did that. Does he fancy you? I expect he does.’

‘More likely wants the opportunity to save my soul.’

‘Oh lord. His chances are poorer than yours,’ laughed Issie as she walked me to my waiting cab.

Yes, Issie was extremely irritating all round.

*

‘I’ve bought your ticket. Come on, the train is in. Platform Three – we have to run,’ urges Darren.

Despite the fact that we are travelling zillions of miles to (practically) Scotland, the timetable tells me that we will arrive in Darlington in two and a half hours’ time. I’m incredulous, but Darren explains it’s the electric line. I’m still incredulous. What about the obligatory leaves on the track and the right and wrong types of snow? My heart plummets. Even if by some miracle the train does arrive on time, two and a half hours is going to seem like ten and a half. What will I say to Darren? It was OK chatting in the restaurant last night, but I’d had a shedload to drink. But now, in the cold light of day, I’m beginning to regret volunteering to shadow him. I know my chances of persuading Darren to appear on Sex with an Ex are slim. I could be on a wild goose chase! What will I do with myself outside London? How will the studio manage without me? Will Bale buy my reasoning for shadowing Darren? Besides all this, sitting on a train with a moralistic do-gooder is not my idea of fun. Even a devilishly attractive one.

The train journey is awesome.

Besides buying the ticket, Darren also had the foresight to buy up half the magazines and sweets in WH Smith’s. I can’t remember the last time anyone bought me sweets. Big fancy boxes of chocolates, yes, I get those by the dozen. I just pass them on to my mum. She eats some and gives the other boxes to local geriatrics (cellulite not being a major concern of theirs). But Darren hasn’t bought me chocolates in a box. Instead he’s bought the sweets of our childhoods: Jelly Babies, Liquorice Allsorts, Flying Saucers and Sherbet Dib-dabs. Undoubtedly I’ll feel sick by the time the journey is over. Even so, it’s a good call. Instead of the slow and stilted conversation I feared, we have an unlimited avenue in discussing childhood. What were your favourite sweets as a kid? (He remembers Spangles, Space Dust and Cream Soda, he agrees that Snickers definitely used to be bigger and anyway they were Marathons.) What was the first book you read? (Neither of us is sure but, satisfyingly, he’s clearer on his TV viewing habits; he recalls every episode of Mr Ben and swears his sister looked the image of the girl who sat with the clown when there was nothing on TV.) So what was your favourite TV programme? (We agree Mark from EastEnders will always be Tucker from Grange Hill.) When did you learn to swim? (He learned after seeing the advert with the fairy godmother. I learned after seeing Jaws.) And whilst I remember all this I completely forget to uphold my icy reserve. Trivia, but this and reading magazines together mean that the journey to Darlington flies past.

Reluctantly I acquiesce: he does a great line in small talk.

Grudgingly I have to admit that perhaps we do have some things in common.

But nothing fundamental.

I watch the landscapes change. The parks of the south melt into the woodlands of the Midlands, and in no time at all into the rugged, Gothic hills of the north. Although it’s only mid-morning, the sky in North Yorkshire is mauve with damson clouds. Not the cottonwool clouds of textbooks but strong, imposing smudges, more like a painting a child would make with a thick brush. It’s breathtakingly beautiful.

But then, once you’ve seen a scene, it’s over with. It’s not as though you can wear it.

I call Bale on my mobile to explain what I’m doing. It’s a difficult call, as I have to make it from the minuscule British Rail loo, awash with urine and with a dodgy door lock designed to make occupants nervous.

‘If we get him on the show I’d put money on the fact that hell be a pin-up within weeks and he’ll have his own chat show within months,’ I enthuse to Bale.

That good, hey?’

That good,’ I assert.

‘And do you think Fi will manage?’

I enthusiastically sing her praises to reassure him (it doesn’t – he’s understandably suspicious). He wavers, trying to decide whether any guest can be worth my absence. I sense his indecision, so dramatically turn up the charm. I promise I’ll give it two days and travel back overnight on Tuesday in time for Wednesday’s filming. In the meantime, I reassure, he can reach me on my mobile.

When we arrive at Darlington station Darren’s brother, Richard, is waiting for us. Richard is younger than Darren by three years, but he’s beefier (that will be the fish and chips and Yorkshire pudding) and so looks a bit older. Darren’s filled me in with details of his family. There is Sarah, who is thirty-seven, married with three kids. Darren who is thirty-three, like me. Richard, thirty, he’s engaged to Shelly and finally Linda, who was a bit of a surprise to Mr and Mrs Smith. She’s seventeen now. Darren is the only one who has moved away from home. I must ask why. Richard and Shelly are buying a house a few streets away from her parents. Sarah and her family live in a nearby village. I commit all these details to memory in an effort to flatter him and ingratiate myself with his family.

The two men slap each other on the back and this action instantly makes them appear boyish, but in the very best sense. Whilst not obviously showing affection by embracing, it’s clear that they are delighted to see each other.

‘Richard, this is Cas.’ Darren hesitates and then adds, ‘A friend.’ I’m strangely gratified to be described as such and therefore treat Richard to my most winning smile. Naturally he’s enchanted and falls over himself to help me with my luggage. I catch Darren’s eye; I want to know if he’s noticed that I’ve impressed Richard. I can’t be sure; he’s laughing to himself.

I am keen to leave Darlington station behind. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with the station – it has everything one expects; small WH Smith, cookie-cut café and smelly loos – but it is a station and I try to avoid public transport whenever possible. However, I’m not thrilled when Richard indicates which is his car.

The Escort?’ I ask, hoping there’s been a mistake.

‘Yes. The one with the red door,’ says Richard.

‘And the blue body,’ adds Darren in case the situation demanded any more clarity. I try not to show how disgruntled I am, but quietly climb into the back seat, which I share with furry dice (honestly) and an entire forestworth of sweet wrappers.

I don’t say much in the car journey from Darlington to Whitby. Instead I let Darren and Richard catch up with each other’s news. As an only child I’m always fascinated to see siblings’ reactions to one another. Richard is obviously delighted that Darren has paid this surprise visit. I can’t imagine that my arrival anywhere would be awash with such excitement. Except perhaps for Harvey Nics – my personal shopper is always blissed out when she sees me. When Richard asks Darren how he came to have unplanned holiday, I’m unaccountably relieved that Darren fudges the answer. I’m also mollified when Darren comments vaguely that we ‘met at an interview’. Richard obviously feels bad that I’m not part of the conversation and tries to include me by sharing details of the route.

‘We’re on the A66, heading east. We could’ve come across the new road. They both join at A171 to Whitby.’

I’m not sure what response is required of me. This fascination with routes, alternative routes and ‘the road we could have taken’ is definitely a boy thing. I nod, not committing, and turn to gaze out of the window.

I’m in a foreign land. Not least because of Richard’s accent but also because of the strangeness of the landscape. It’s an eclectic mix of the very modern (brand-new and impressive football stadiums, architecturally complex bridges), quaint, old-fashioned poverty (bingo halls and boarded-up shops) and stunning countryside (sheep). I notice that the women standing at the bus stops, in each village, look alike. They are fat and tired – don’t they ever work out? Richard’s Escort pauses at a red light for a couple of minutes and I look more closely. A woman is waiting at the bus stop; another shouts to her from a fifty-yard distance. The first one makes the bus wait whilst the other heaves her excessive weight and carrier bags to the stop. The driver of the bus becomes animated and jovial and doesn’t seem to be too irritated by the delay. As the woman hoists herself on to the bus all the other travellers shout and wave to her. Am I missing something? Is she famous? I don’t recognize her. But she must be because why else would they be so nice to her? The warmth they so obviously feel for one another momentarily sends a freak glow through me.

Which is a bloody miracle, considering that the temperatures I’m enduring are arctic.

As in a wartime era, the men on the streets are either very young or very old. They are malnourished. On the young men, this looks chippy and sexy; on the old men, it looks pathetic. I try to remember some facts from my geography A-level and the news in the eighties. North Yorkshire wasn’t a community annihilated by the closing of the mines, was it? No, definitely not. It was a community ravaged by the collapse of the ship-building industry. I wonder where the men of working age are. Have they got on their bikes? Or are they at the Cargo Fleet Social Club doing their best to support the Bass dynasty?

I sigh, bored, losing interest in my own line of thought. A new level of tedium. It must be this place. I light a cigarette. Richard stares at me through the driving mirror. So as not to be rude I wind the window down an inch, which I think is very considerate of me in these sub-zero climes.

‘Would you mind not smoking?’ asks Richard.

I shift uncomfortably and for a second I’m tempted to say that yes, I would mind very much. I have a thirty-a-day habit to feed. I have a metabolism to send into frenzy. Instead I smile, falsely, and throw the cigarette out of the window. Richard doesn’t congratulate me or thank me but simply nods curtly. I’m surprised. I thought he fancied me. The lust men normally experience when meeting me is, if not a licence to print money, at least a certificate which exonerates me from obeying the no-smoking signs. What is it with these Smith blokes? Don’t they have hormones?

The towns disappear and soon even the villages are spasmodic. The bleak warehouses and graffitied bus stops detailing that, despite the odds, ‘JEZ LUVS BREND 4EVER’, vanish and are replaced by wide open fields of mud, splashed with snow, ice and the odd farmhouse. The sky is still lavender but is now streaked with silver layers of light.

‘I can see the sea,’ shout Richard and Darren at once. Then they both laugh. ‘It’s sort of a family tradition,’ explains Darren. ‘Not a very unique one at that. I’m sure you know the thing.’ I don’t, but I follow their gaze anyway.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I sigh, despite myself. And I immediately regret saying so. My city platitude hardly captures the breath-taking splendour of the scene and I do try to make it a rule not to say anything unless it is original or cutting, yet I’m at a loss for words that are grandiose enough. I catch sight of Darren’s face in the wing mirror. He smiles at me as though he finds my lacklustre comment adequate.

‘You don’t think you’ll be too bored, then?’ he asks. Does he have a tent at a funfair to practise this mind-reading thing?

‘No, I think I’ll find enough to amuse me,’ I answer honestly, with only a smidgen of flirtation.

Richard wiggles uncomfortably.

Whitby is higgledy-piggledy. Built on an undulating coastline, the houses and teashops (closed) look precariously stacked. We steer through narrow streets and climb steep slopes. I’m suddenly in a period drama. Eventually we draw up in front of a row of terraced street houses. I am sure they are going to fall into the sea if anyone coughs too loudly. Darren assures me that the houses are tougher than they look. As they’ve been in place for over a hundred years. I concede he’s probably right; even so I make a mental note not to move too suddenly once inside. From the outside the house looks minute and I wonder how the Smiths managed to bring up four kids in something so small. Isn’t property cheaper in the north? I consider passing this comment as a way of making conversation but decide against it. We don’t go in the front door but slip up an alley-cum-path, which leads to the back door.

‘Alleyways are called ghauts around here,’ explains Darren, doing his psychic party trick again. I wish he’d stop that, it’s freaky.

I realize that the house is in fact deceptively large as it stretches back in a seemingly endless row of rooms. Mrs Smith and Linda are waiting on the back step to greet us. Mrs Smith keeps yelling to ‘Father’ that Darren and his friend are here. Father turns out to be Mr Smith, her husband. He doesn’t get up from his chair in the sitting room but waves cheerfully from where he’s sitting. This is understandable; he’s watching a repeat of The Waltons – pretty compelling viewing. Mrs Smith eyes me mistrustfully. I know from experience that women generally, and mothers specifically, are always wary of me. I also know from experience that if I want to ingratiate myself with Darren I have to make his mother like me. It’s amusing that almost always the reverse is true of a man trying to impress a woman. My mother’s approval is a grade A turn-off. Mrs Smith can’t drag her eyes from my skirt and mutters something about her ‘being sure it’s all the rage’ in London. Linda, by contrast, greets me in a manner with which I am much more accustomed – unadulterated praise and flattery. She loves my hair, likes my bag, adores my skirt and would die for my shoes. Her mother tuts impatiently but I answer all her questions about where I got everything and I let her touch the fabrics. Poor kid, she probably hasn’t ever seen anyone dressed in anything other than a shellsuit before. I offer to take a B&B so as not to inconvenience Mrs Smith but she won’t hear of it and in fact appears offended that I’ve suggested it. She says that Darren can share Richard’s room and I can have Darren’s old room. Linda enthusiastically offers to take me to it straight away and I agree. I haven’t touched up my lipstick since I arrived at Darlington.

Linda is a delight to be with. Adoring me is obviously a point in her favour and she has all the advantages that youth can offer – buoyancy, an uncynical view of the world, hardly any wrinkles and an ability to be oblivious to the humiliation of slavishly following fashion. Besides, she – like Darren – has won the gene lottery jackpot. I much prefer to be surrounded by beautiful people. Linda has thick black curly hair that she wears shoulder-length. She has Darren’s to-die-for eyes and Bambi lashes and she’s slim. Perhaps her most attractive feature is that she seems to have no idea how beautiful she really is. It’s a shame she lives in the armpit of nowhere and won’t ever be seen. In London she’d be a hit. She could get a job in media, modelling or working in the city, all of which require more than a pretty brain. Instead she’ll be consigned to marrying young, raising a football team of children and counting her stretch marks. Blissfully unaware of her fate, she chatters vivaciously and non-stop as she guides me to Darren’s room.

The house, like the county, is a diverse mix of ancient and modern. I spot a warehouseworth of electrical goods: three TVs, two videos, a computer, a number of computer games, radios, hi-fi systems and all white-good mod. cons. Yet the wallpaper and carpets must have been hung and laid before the war (and I’m talking Crimean). I take in endless brass wall hangings and crocheted doilies and make a mental note that next time we are producing a period piece the props department would do well to consider Mrs Smith as a source. Whilst the fixtures and fittings are old-fashioned and, frankly, ugly, they are immaculate. My mother could run her finger along any skirting board or wardrobe top and fail to find cause for concern.

At first I’d been embarrassed by Mrs Smith’s insistence that I stay in their family home. I don’t do family homes. I occasionally stay over at Josh’s but his parents’ houses (note the plural) are so big that there is never any danger of bumping into a parent on the stairwell. Anyway, you can’t justifiably call Josh’s places ‘family homes’. His parents are only together in a nominal sense, negating the term family. And the term home. They both take advantage of the size and number of their abodes to avoid each other. If his mother is in the country, you can put money on his father being ‘up in town’; if his father is in the country, his mother is ensconced in their Spanish villa. Married bliss. Yet despite my reservations about accepting Mrs Smith’s invite I do have an inexplicable, but overwhelming, curiosity with regard to Darren and so I am delighted at the prospect of sleeping in his childhood bed. I casually try to establish if the room I am about to be shown has always been Darren’s and Darren’s alone. Linda assures me that it has: ‘This room has seen everything from bed-wetting to’ – she hesitates – ‘well, bedwetting, I suppose.’ Too much information.

She pushes open the heavy wooden door and we both struggle to get my (extremely large) case into the (extremely small) room. Like a lot of parents, Mrs Smith has lovingly preserved the shrine of her eldest son’s childhood. I feel I’ve just been handed Darren’s diary. The room is a thumbprint. There is a skinny, hard-looking bed pushed up to the wall under the window. It gives the impression that sleeping was a low priority for the youthful Darren. I can’t help but wonder if the same still holds true. There’s an ancient wardrobe and a small hi-fi/dressing-table unit. It’s from MFI and I expect the twelve-year-old Darren demanded it as an act of rebellion against the fifties’ bedroom suites. There are posters on the wall that I would expect in the room of any male who had grown up in the seventies and stagnated in the eighties. Original Star Trek, the A Team and Starsky and Hutch, then Debbie Harry and Pam Ewing. These are the only nods towards a conventional bedroom. The rest is an Aladdin’s cave meets Treasure Island meets Batman’s cave. There are zillions of books. They line the windowsill and countless shelves, and the overflows are piled in precarious, wavering, waist-high stacks around the walls of the room. There’s everything from Beano Annuals to a Reader’s Digest collection of Charles Dickens’s work. His taste is wide but the thing that all the books have in common is that they are well thumbed. Lying on top of the books are a number of models that have obviously been made by a young Darren. I think his mother has arranged them in date order as the ones nearest to the door are childish (although charming in their naïvety) – rockets and submarines, made from loo rolls and cornflakes boxes. Then Darren must have introduced elastic bands and Dairylea tubs to make helicopters and combine harvesters. The models grow in complexity and size until finally, in the corner opposite the door, there is a massive Meccano model about three foot high and two wide.

‘It’s a replica of NASA,’ explains Linda. She must realize that I’m none the wiser because she starts dropping small marbles into buckets, which turn a wheel, which activates a pump, which motivates an engine, which launches a rocket etc. It’s fascinating and it’s more complicated than Mouse-Trap.

‘It must have taken him hours to build.’

‘It did.’

‘Didn’t he have any friends?’

‘Hundreds,’ she grins cheerfully, oblivious to my implied insult. ‘But he’s always been fascinated by ecology and wider than that, the universe, and—’

‘The reason we are here.’ I can hardly keep the smirk out of my voice.

‘Absolutely,’ enthuses Linda. She reminds me of the Americans – they don’t get sarcasm either.

She smiles at me expectantly and, unusually, I’m shamed. I’m forced to mutter, ‘It’s very good.’ Which is honest enough.

The pièce de resistance is the ceiling. Darren has painted a night sky. I look closer at the pattern of the stars and realize it’s an inaccurate rendition of the Milky Way. Scientific accuracy aside, it’s gorgeous. Linda smiles.

‘Mam won’t paint over it. Darren did it when he was thirteen and Mam loves it.’

I can’t decide if this interior decorating proves that Darren is the saddest man I’ve ever met or…

The most amazing.

No, definitely a loser.

I look out of the window, which is encased with sparkling net curtains, hanging straighter than Issie.

‘Is that his tree house?’

‘Yes, it’s mine. I built it myself,’ says Darren. I jump and turn to face him. Linda looks infuriated that he’s crashed our girl time. I, on the other hand, can’t help but be pleased to see him.

‘It’s very fine,’ I say. ‘Most people settle for one storey and forgo the plumbing.’ But I beam, making it clear that I’m impressed. Darren smiles back, and I, for once, am devoid of a sparkling putdown.

We return to the kitchen, which appears to be the epicentre of the Smith household. Mrs Smith hands me a huge mug of strong, sweet tea. I mean to tell her that I prefer black coffee or Earl Grey but I can’t quite find the opportunity. The kitchen is a hive. The radio is tuned into some local station. The DJ has the strangest accent. The washing machine, dryer and dishwasher are all whirling at once. Yet despite this industry there are also great mounds of dirty plates in the sink and clean ones draining on the draining board. There are piles of ironing on at least two chairs. No one is sitting on any of the other chairs, as they are inhabited by fat, lazy, sleeping cats. Intermittently the dog, an aged Labrador, jumps up from its basket and barks at some sound outside. It amazes me that he can hear a sound outside. I can barely hear myself think. There isn’t a pause in the conversation. In fact, conversation is a generous description. It seems to me that everyone is talking at once, about different things and without regard for anyone else. Yet despite this no one, except me, seems to be struggling to keep abreast and answer the correct people at the appropriate time. Linda and Mrs Smith regularly try to force food on me, which I try but fail to decline. I quickly realize that it’s easier to accept the cakes, biscuits and sandwiches and leave them untouched, on the side of my plate. I do quietly sip my tea, which is surprisingly pleasant. Sarah and her husband and kids explode on to the scene. Sarah unceremoniously drops the baby she is carrying on to Mrs Smith’s knee and flings her arms around her brother. The two older children, girls who are probably between three and nine years old (it’s hard to guess, unless you’re into kids), follow suit and climb all over Darren. Sarah’s husband quietly melts away and goes to join Mr Smith watching TV in the front room.

The kitchen, bubbling before, is positively effervescent now. I desperately need a glass of champagne, or at the very least, some soluble aspirin – ASAP. My head is simply throbbing with all this noise. Darren’s nieces are demanding ‘twiz-zies’, and Darren is obliging them. Sarah is demanding a cup of tea and wants to know if her mother’s baked this morning. Mrs Smith assures her she has, which accounts for the delicious smell that’s wafting through the house. Mrs Smith is balancing the baby on one hip and feeding it with one hand, whilst setting up the ironing board with the other hand to iron dry a skirt for Linda. Shelly and Richard arrive. There is more noise and more kissing. Shelly has brought a chocolate cake, which is cut into immediately – with no regard to whether it is a mealtime or not. Richard wants to know if Darren is ‘up for a kick about’ in the back garden. Shelly shows her nieces-to-be samples of material for their bridesmaid dresses. Delighted, they squeal their approval. Sarah is unpacking groceries, recalling some incident to do with her eldest daughter’s (turns out to be Charlotte) school teacher, and throughout all this everyone is interrogating me about who I am and why I’m here.

Mrs Smith, Sarah and Shelly have jumped to the understandable conclusion that I am Darren’s girlfriend. Understandable that is, if you don’t know me. I’ve never been a girlfriend and I have no desire to be one. And if ever I did have the desire to be one, it wouldn’t be with someone like Darren. He may be good-looking, sexy, funny and intelligent but he’s definitely not my type.

I’m sure he’ll make someone a lovely boyfriend.

The kind of someone who wants a lovely boyfriend.

However, it’s easier to allow the Smiths to think that I’m a girlfriend than explain that actually I want Darren to seduce his ex for the edification and delight of the now astounding 8.9 million viewers. The Smith women take advantage of Darren and Richard’s exit to quell their curiosity.

‘So you and our Darren are friends, then?’ Sarah hovers over the word ‘friends’ for about ten seconds. I concentrate on choosing a biscuit from the heaving plate proffered by Linda. I barely nod my head.

‘Known each other long, have you? It’s just that I don’t recall him mentioning you,’ adds Mrs Smith. I’m glad I’m not into this man – his interfering family would be a nightmare. It’s obvious that they don’t think anyone is good enough for ‘their’ Darren. I imagine that a number of years hence Mrs Smith and Sarah will be checking Darren’s bride’s ability to wash whites whiter than blue white. Awful thought. She’d probably have to sit an exam in pastrymaking before they’d hand him over. Poor Shelly, I imagine that she was subjected to the same hostilities when Richard first brought her home. I look at Shelly, expecting to see the browbeaten shrew of my imaginings. She grins at me cheerfully and confidently kicks a cat off a chair, plonking her own bum in its place.

‘Move it, Tabby.’

Hmmm.

Charlotte’s interrogation lacks subtlety, but then this is forgivable because she’s still wearing Winnie the Pooh matching vest and pant sets. She cuts the preamble. ‘Are you Darren’s girlfriend?’

‘Er, no, I’m not.’ I knew the question was brewing, so why am I blushing?

‘Oh.’ Charlotte is unimpressed. The others are simply perplexed. ‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ she continues.

‘No.’ I would never, ever have come here if I’d realized that I was going to be humiliated in this way.

‘Poor you,’ says Charlotte, ‘I have. His name is Alan Barker and he sings to me.’ I smile at her encouragingly. She persists, ‘I’m six and a half. Lucy is four. Ben isn’t really a baby. He’s nearly two. How old are you?’

‘Don’t be rude, Charlotte. You should never ask a lady her age,’ says Sarah. Yet she pauses expectantly, waiting for me to answer.

‘Thirty-three,’ I oblige.

I notice that Shelly, Sarah and Mrs Smith exchange furtive glances. They think there is something suspect about a single thirty-three-year-old woman. I wish Darren would stop farting around with that football and come and rescue me.

‘Do you have a sister?’ pursues Charlotte. We haven’t lost eye contact since the interrogation began. I wiggle on my seat trying to get a better view of the back of her scalp; I’m looking for a tattoo of 666.

‘No.’

‘A brother, then?’ asks Lucy.

‘I’m afraid not.’ Lucy climbs on to my knee, as if to console me. I’m a bit nervous – I don’t think I’ve ever had anything so young on my knee before, not even a kitten or a puppy. How will she balance? It appears that Lucy has got experience in this sort of thing. She expertly cuddles into me and begins to suck her thumb. I can feel her breath on my neck. I look around for approval. No one else seems to think it is at all unusual that I have a child on my lap. But it is. People don’t touch me. Not unless they are paid to or it’s sexual. An important distinction. I’m touched by my hairdresser, masseur, acupuncturist and personal trainer for hard cash and by men for a more amorphous fee. But this child is sitting on my lap and holding my hand, and doesn’t appear to want anything from me at all. How odd.

‘So what do you do for a living?’ asks Sarah. I am about to offer to fill in a questionnaire but I notice that Darren and Richard have just come back inside. I bite my tongue.

‘She works in TV,’ jumps in Linda. Linda is the only one who is impressed by my career choice.

‘What exactly do you do in television, then, dear?’ asks Mrs Smith. I give my dummied-down job description, which I assume will be adequate. No one ever really understands what someone else does for a living.

‘I think up ideas for programmes.’

‘Ooohhhh,’ the kitchen choruses.

‘Did you think up Friends?’ asks Shelly.

‘No, it’s American.’

‘Did you think up Blue Peter?’ asks Charlotte.

‘No, before my time.’

‘Did you think up that game show with the nice Mr Tyrant? The one that makes people very rich?’ asks Mrs Smith.

‘Or Cold Feet?’ asks Linda hopefully.

‘No, not my channel,’ I add apologetically. Clearly I’ve failed to impress anyone.

‘Oh. Well, what did you think of?’ asks Sarah.

Mercifully the doorbell rings and this causes such concern that everyone, other than Darren and Lucy, leaves the kitchen.

‘No one ever rings the door bell,’ he explains. They all come round the back. It must be a delivery.’

I nod as though this outlandish behaviour was second nature to me, rather than the extraordinary adventure it is.

‘Why didn’t you tell them the name of your show?’ he asks.

I stare at him sulkily. ‘I guess I didn’t think it was their cup of tea,’ I mutter.

‘Oh, you took a guess that they weren’t part of your 8.9 million. Very astute.’

I glare at him.

He is so smug. He is so cocksure. He is so sexy.

I think it’s the mouth.