my builder, probably the single most useless individual in the northern hemisphere, eventually gets around to finishing the job. ‘You’ll end up selling, mark my words.’
I’m too bloody stubborn, and I’ve shelled out far too much cash at this point to swallow my pride and admit that she might actually be right. Instead, I’ve schooled myself to look on the whole renovation project as a lesson on the triumph of optimism over bitter experience – with such absolute force of will that if I could only apply the same attitude to my love life, sure I’d be laughing.
Honestly, every time I come home it’s like there’s a fresh disaster waiting for me with the builder, who is now a full six months behind schedule. He was to be finished at Christmas, it’s now well after Easter, and I’m still living in a building site; dust everywhere, all my stuff in boxes, and only a travel kettle in the kitchen to make the odd cuppa tea with, which I have to drink out of plastic cups because I’ve no way of washing anything.
I’m not making this up: the other night I came in to find my beautiful original wooden floor in what WILL be my elegant sitting room (trust me, even just saying it is an act of faith) completely and utterly destroyed. Builder-from-hell was supposed to sand it down for me, nice and evenly, then varnish it in a lovely dark, shiny teak; like the kind of floor you’d expect to see Fred Astaire swirling Ginger Rogers around on in a thirties black-and-white movie, at least that was my humble little vision. What I actually ended up with was the whole thing covered in lumps and bumps, not unlike the cellulite on my thighs, except all sealed in with varnish.
‘Do you like it, love?’ he asked me cheerily, seeing the ‘slapped mullet’ look on my face. ‘It’s all the go in these old houses. Gives a kind of “antique” effect. No extra charge for it now, don’t worry.’
Anyway, for better or for worse, my house/building site it is. Barbara’s flat is sadly out of the question as she shares with another ‘resting’ actress, so there’s never any hope of peace or privacy. Now, I love her flat and I love going around there, it’s kind of like a flashback to student days: pizza boxes and empty wine bottles everywhere, with Barbara usually wandering around the place still in her nightie at three in the afternoon watching
Oprah
. Great fun, but our Laura, hygiene fascist that she is, the woman who famously never goes anywhere without Parazone wipes in her bag, reckons she can only ever drink alcohol there, so it’ll kill whatever germs are floating around the glasses. And it’s not really fair for us to land on Laura either, mainly because, God love her, she’ll always jump at any chance she can to escape for a night. It’s rare, believe me, as she can never get babysitters, and, as she says herself, it’s hardly surprising. Any child-minder in their right mind would demand payment in gold bullion to take responsibility for her precious angels. In fact, Laura reckons pretty much every seventeen-year-old in the area has her blacklisted by now.
Right then, deep breath, here we go.
Project ‘let’s all try to get what we want out of life for a change’.
No, hate it, too self-helpy. (Please understand I just love attaching names and titles to things; it kind of comes with my job.)
Oh, I know . . .
‘The law of attraction in action.’
No, too rhymey.
Butterflies . . . something about butterflies . . .
Yes, got it.
For better or for worse, I’m calling us the Butterfly Club.
Now all we have to figure out is how in God’s name we’re going to completely and utterly do a three-sixty on each other’s lives. Within one year.
Gulp.
Chapter Four
The Butterfly’s first meeting. April
.
LAURA ARRIVES BANG on the dot of eight, and I’m not a bit surprised as this is a woman whose punctuality is the stuff of legend. For God’s sake, even all four of her kids arrived promptly on their due
I’m too bloody stubborn, and I’ve shelled out far too much cash at this point to swallow my pride and admit that she might actually be right. Instead, I’ve schooled myself to look on the whole renovation project as a lesson on the triumph of optimism over bitter experience – with such absolute force of will that if I could only apply the same attitude to my love life, sure I’d be laughing.
Honestly, every time I come home it’s like there’s a fresh disaster waiting for me with the builder, who is now a full six months behind schedule. He was to be finished at Christmas, it’s now well after Easter, and I’m still living in a building site; dust everywhere, all my stuff in boxes, and only a travel kettle in the kitchen to make the odd cuppa tea with, which I have to drink out of plastic cups because I’ve no way of washing anything.
I’m not making this up: the other night I came in to find my beautiful original wooden floor in what WILL be my elegant sitting room (trust me, even just saying it is an act of faith) completely and utterly destroyed. Builder-from-hell was supposed to sand it down for me, nice and evenly, then varnish it in a lovely dark, shiny teak; like the kind of floor you’d expect to see Fred Astaire swirling Ginger Rogers around on in a thirties black-and-white movie, at least that was my humble little vision. What I actually ended up with was the whole thing covered in lumps and bumps, not unlike the cellulite on my thighs, except all sealed in with varnish.
‘Do you like it, love?’ he asked me cheerily, seeing the ‘slapped mullet’ look on my face. ‘It’s all the go in these old houses. Gives a kind of “antique” effect. No extra charge for it now, don’t worry.’
Anyway, for better or for worse, my house/building site it is. Barbara’s flat is sadly out of the question as she shares with another ‘resting’ actress, so there’s never any hope of peace or privacy. Now, I love her flat and I love going around there, it’s kind of like a flashback to student days: pizza boxes and empty wine bottles everywhere, with Barbara usually wandering around the place still in her nightie at three in the afternoon watching
Oprah
. Great fun, but our Laura, hygiene fascist that she is, the woman who famously never goes anywhere without Parazone wipes in her bag, reckons she can only ever drink alcohol there, so it’ll kill whatever germs are floating around the glasses. And it’s not really fair for us to land on Laura either, mainly because, God love her, she’ll always jump at any chance she can to escape for a night. It’s rare, believe me, as she can never get babysitters, and, as she says herself, it’s hardly surprising. Any child-minder in their right mind would demand payment in gold bullion to take responsibility for her precious angels. In fact, Laura reckons pretty much every seventeen-year-old in the area has her blacklisted by now.
Right then, deep breath, here we go.
Project ‘let’s all try to get what we want out of life for a change’.
No, hate it, too self-helpy. (Please understand I just love attaching names and titles to things; it kind of comes with my job.)
Oh, I know . . .
‘The law of attraction in action.’
No, too rhymey.
Butterflies . . . something about butterflies . . .
Yes, got it.
For better or for worse, I’m calling us the Butterfly Club.
Now all we have to figure out is how in God’s name we’re going to completely and utterly do a three-sixty on each other’s lives. Within one year.
Gulp.
Chapter Four
The Butterfly’s first meeting. April
.
LAURA ARRIVES BANG on the dot of eight, and I’m not a bit surprised as this is a woman whose punctuality is the stuff of legend. For God’s sake, even all four of her kids arrived promptly on their due
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