'I can't possibly face the world. I am a harlot and a lush. I should be branded.'
'We can brand you later. We're going out,' Robert says firmly.
'I can't possibly leave the house after my behaviour in the past 24 hours. I'm putting myself under house arrest.'
'Get dressed,' he yells, walking down the stairs.
Leaving Skinny Jeans' house this morning has turned into a fuzzy half-memory. Just like most of last night. I wonder what time we got to bed, I mean sleep.
Flashback: lying on a pillow, kissing Skinny Jeans and looking over at his bedside clock as it hit 5.03 am.
'Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!' I shout.
'Get up!' shouts Robert up the stairs.
I reach into my drawer and pull out my dissolvable vitamin Cs and Solpadeine stash, pop them into the remaining water and swirl them around till they're all dissolved. Sipping it, I lean over and switch on my iPod player. Quite randomly, it's 'Get Over It' by OK Go. How appropriate.
Ah, the joy of a hot shower. I lather up with as much soap as I can and scrub my head with my poshest shampoo, and spend a careful ten minutes on my bed hair with a wide-tooth comb and half a bottle of conditioner.
'Where are we going?' I yell down the stairs at him. 'What should I wear?'
'Something sharp,' he replies. Something sharp?
I open my wardrobe doors. Come on, Abigail. It's time to start speaking clothes. Not what Plum tells you to wear, not what Peter used to like you to wear . . . but what you want to wear.
I feel like looking invincible and effortless tonight, because I feel just the opposite on the inside. So I take out my new Topshop jeans that make me feel extremely tall and thin, and pair them with a super-lightweight white vest. I add a blazer and a long, skinny red scarfy thing, and put on a pair of boots that add a good four inches to my height.
Invincible. But effortless. Yes.
Halfway through blow-drying my hair, Robert knocks on my door.
'Room service.' He walks in with a Bloody Mary and two crumpets smothered liberally with peanut butter. 'I thought you might want to line your stomach.'
'How did you know I love crumpets?' I say, delightedly. 'I thought I'd run out.'
'You've always got a crumpet attached to your face on weekends, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out . . .' he says. 'I picked them up on the way home. And everyone loves Bloody Marys.'
'Thank you . . . but I don't think I should drink again. Ever.'
'A Bloody Mary isn't drinking, it's like nature's Solpadeine.'
I look at him expressionlessly and sip the Bloody Mary.
'Wowsers, that's good . . . You've shaved,' I comment.
'You told me to,' he replies. 'Did you just say "wowsers"? Like Inspector Gadget?'
The next half hour is a mix of chewing, slurping, makeupping and smiling. I almost feel better. The Bloody Mary is extremely spicy. The peanut butter is chewy and just a tiny bit salty. And my make-up is God bless it working wonders. I need a little extra highlighter and concealer tonight, but apart from that I look surprisingly alright. I've had about 10 hours sleep, I guess.
I suddenly feel inexplicably cheerful.
I wonder what Robert has planned for us tonight. I hope it's fun.
I check my phone for the first time since this morning. Seven missed calls and four texts. I love feeling popular. The texts are from Sophie, Josh From HR and ohfucktwofromSkinnyJeansguy. I listen to a message from Mum, asking me about my bridesmaid dress preference. No one else left a message. Everyone I know is too impatient to bother leaving a voicemail.
Sophie: So I hear you've been a very bad girl. Details.
Josh From HR: Hi!!! What are you up to this weekend? Fancy a catch-up? Maybe dinner in SW17? xxx Skinny Jeans: Devastated. I am devastated that you would leave me like this. x Skinny Jeans: Well, you can ignore me, but I had a great night. Let me know if you fancy it again some time.
'Fuuuuuuuck,' I say to myself, and flop facedown on my bed and moan. I feel sick again.
If I was going to have the first one-night-stand of my life, wouldn't it be good if I could actually remember it?
And yes, by the way, it was definitely a one-night-stand. I'm too mortified given my drunkenness, and I don't want to see him again, anyway. He's kind of cute, but his anecdotes centred largely on getting stoned. I kept thinking, Stick it out, Abigail, this is experience, this is experience . . .
I'm going to be brutal, as per Robert's instructions. Josh From HR is just ew, and Skinny Jeans . . . I can't face it. So I won't. For some reason, the decision to ignore them both makes me feel stronger and in control.
I flip through the rest of my texts from last night. They're all from Robert, all in reply to apparent text questions from me. From the end of the night, backwards: 1.32 am I am sleeping Abigail.
12.37 am Don't worry about it. Lots of people get caught snogging in bar toilets.
12.20 am Have a glass of water. I don't speak drunk.
11.57 pm Maybe he doesn't know what comatose means.
11.41 pm Everyone's seen Pretty In Pink. He's lying. PS I can't believe you'd choose Stef.
11.37 pm Try this, then. Ducky versus Blaine who should Andie have picked?
11.16 pm How about this: You look like the kind of guy who sings in a choir. Am I right?
10.24 pm Dater's block, huh. Very funny. Try complimenting him on something he's wearing in a slightly sarcastic way.
9.43 pm Relax. Are you even having fun? Did you have a shot? Remember, you can always leave.
We were kicked out of a bar for snogging in the toilets?
I never want to see Skinny Jeans again. It will be easy because I am never going to get off my bedroom floor. I will die here. Of mortification.
I moan at the ceiling pathetically for a few seconds.
Ooh, text.
It's Henry.
Abigay. What are you doing tonight and can I join?
I invite him along, and resume my position.
It's at this second that I remember that I have not had a bikini wax since quite a long time before Peter and I broke up. My moan turns into a loud squeal of anguish.
'What now?' Robert is in my doorway again.
'Nothing,' I say sulkily. 'My friend Henry is coming along, by the way.'
'Tell Uncle Robbie what's wrong,' he says, coming into the room and crouching down next to me.
I sigh, and meet his amused eyes. 'I just realised that I have not had a bikini wax in a long time. It's pretty bad. I should have had a sign on my knickers saying Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.'
'Only the penitent man shall pass, huh?' Robert starts laughing. 'Hey. I hear the full bush is coming back into fashion anyway.'
'"The full bush"? Says who, the pubic topiary style mavens?' I pause. 'I'm sorry I bothered you so much. With the texts, I mean.'
'There was nothing good on TV. It was a nice distraction.'
'You were at home?' Robert is never home on a Thursday.
'Of course not. I was with bowler-hat girl. She has a TV in her bedroom.'
'That's nice.' I peer at him through my fingers. 'I'm a woman of easy virtue,' I add mournfully.
'Oh, come on. What is this, 1955? No one is judging you except yourself.'
'Sleeping with a virtual stranger and being too drunk to even remember it is a pretty bad fucking mistake, Robert. It's just not something I do. Ever . . .'
'Just shake it off. Remorse is a pointless emotion. Be bullet-proof. That's key to surviving single life . . . What did he say this morning?'
'Nothing,' I say, taking out my notebook and adding Bulletproof to the list. That's a good one. 'I crept out before he could wake up and act like men in films do, all awkward and uninterested . . . what's that line in When Harry Met Sally? Pretend he had to, you know, clean his andirons.'
'What's an andiron?'
'I don't know.' I sigh deeply, and look at the ceiling. 'I don't want to stay here tonight with nothing but my remorse for company, that's for sure. OK, let's go.'
'Well, at least you pre-empted the number one rule, princess,' says Robert as we leave the house a few minutes later.
I almost can't bear to ask. 'What's that?'
He holds the front door open for me. 'Always leave them before they leave you.'
Oddly, that does make me feel better. I pause on the doorstep to add it to my notebook list.
Always leave them before they leave you.
Chapter Ten.
It's raining. Not real, hard rain, but that autumn perma-drizzle that ruins your hair and make-up. Robert and I stand under an umbrella on the corner of our street, waiting for a black cab to take us to a pub in Belgravia called The Pantechnicon Rooms.
'You look alright, by the way. Considering.'
'Gosh, thanks,' I say, slightly sarcastically, to hide the fact that actually, I can feel myself blushing. Compliments have been quite light on the ground since I left Peter.
'Sorry, Abby. You look stunning. Gob-smackingly stunning. Now, let's get you a drink.'
'I don't think I can drink,' I'm trying to angle my words to the side in case, despite cleaning my teeth and scrubbing my tongue three times, my breath still smells like booze and/or vomit. This umbrella seems abnormally small.
'Alright, alright. You're in charge, OK?'
I'm so achey. I think it's the remorse, not the hangover. Can you believe I was kicked out of a bar for snogging in the toilets? And I did splits on the dance floor. Oh the self-loathing . . .
Once we're in the cab, I look out of the window at rainy, grey Friday-night London, and sigh deeply.
'Do you want me to tell you a story to make you feel better?' says Robert. Mind-reading again.
'Yes please,' I say in a small voice.
'When I was 22, I secretly started seeing one of my mates' older sisters. She was 27 and clearly slumming it with me . . . Anyway, I was still at Cambridge, doing a postgrad, which by the way was an utter waste of time, in case you're thinking about doing one.'
'I'm not. But thanks.'
He continues. 'So, I came down one weekend and she took me to a London party,' he says, enunciating 'London party' with all the excitement he clearly felt at the time.
'How glam.'
'I was very nervous, drank half a bottle of Jager, got naked, threw up on her housemate, passed out on the dining room table wearing nothing but a pair of washing-up gloves, woke up three hours later to find the party still going and asked her to marry me.'
'What did she say?' I gasp through my laughter.
'She said no,' he says, looking out the cab window for a second, before turning back to me. 'Unsurprisingly. So, still drunk, I put some clothes on and stormed out to a train station, slept on the platform, got on the first train at dawn the next day, passed out again and ended up in Scotland.'
'Wowsers,' I say, trying not to laugh.
'You think a walk of shame is bad. Try a six-hour train ride of shame back to Cambridge, wearing nothing but boxers, a rugby jersey and washing up gloves as shoes.' He pauses, and starts laughing despite himself.
Our cab pulls up outside The Pantechnicon Rooms.
'Making a fool of yourself at least once is a rite of passage,' he says, as we walk in and get enveloped by the serene, happy buzz. 'Onwards and upwards.'
'Onwards and upwards,' I agree, looking around. Robert was right to force me out of the house. This morning's dash of total fucking mortification in Kensal Rise suddenly seems a long time ago.
I sit down and look around happily. You get the feeling that nothing bad could ever happen in this pub. It's clean and warm and just so. I want to move in and live under the stairs like Harry Potter.