Studs and Stilettos

Lesson 15 - if your best friend's engagement ring is rubbish - LIE!

It's Sunday morning.

Just.

Eleven fifty-five to be precise.

Brutus has forgiven me. I knew he would – particularly as I promised to buy him tickets for the Queen tribute band at Wembley. (He wanted to go and see Michael Jackson's grave but I couldn't manage that - even on a year's wage.) At the moment he's making me a Brootie Baby Fry-Up designed to put heart and soul back into the crucified and enough cellulite on the hips to keep a liposuctionist in BMW convertibles for a lifetime.

I successfully avoided Anneliese at the match, and now I have a whole half day to get my act together to look in the Times Ed for another job (fat chance) or just pootle down to the post office window to spy out a suitable cleaning job. I refuse to deliver papers – that would be too demeaning – but if I put on a Ukrainian accent, I may get a job as a shelf stacker, no questions asked, no references required.

'Here y'are precious.'

Brutus, wearing a naked chef apron, is balancing two platters precariously at ear level. He's got a sparkly rainbow bow tie round his neck and his face is flushed and shiny with spattered chip oil.

'Get that down your necko. Ketchup?'

'You've taken all this rubbish with Ed remarkably well my little fairy friend.' I mumble, wolfing down a drippy eggified chip. 'God this meal is just what I needed. I don't think I've eaten proper food for ages.'

'A good lining of fat in the stomach – that's what my old mother always recommends. Not for hangovers you understand: she being of the non-drinking persuasion. In her book comfort comes in the form of a tub of lard – or marg if you're after the healthier option.'

'Thanks Brutus. I really need a bit of comfort right now.'

'Course, it was a mistake from the start.' Brutus waves a chip through the air, its progress watched by the hound of Satan. Samantha is slavering, sending out evil vibes in the hope that the deliciously scented offering will drop off Brutus's prongs and into her snappy jaws. She's looking particularly hideous today in a pink dog cardigan with little pearly buttons and a feather boa trimmed collar which makes her sneeze constantly. By the end of the day, that boa will be shredded at the bottom of her basket and for the next two days her faecal offerings will be delicately sprinkled with tiny rivulets of pink.

'What do you mean a mistake?'

Brutus lays down his fork and stares into space, chin resting between finger and thumb. 'I don't usually go for the younger ones. See, I quite like to be dominated. I want masterful, power, protection. Geraldo ...' he looks across at me quizzically, ' ...you remember Geraldo don't you?'

Who could forget the thirty stone labourer from Barnsley?

I raise my eyebrows.

'Geraldo was a father figure. He was someone to re-spect, look up to, worship.... I couldn't have done that with Ed. He was too...too...inexperienced.'

'So, what went wrong with Geraldo?' I can't remember the inns and outs of all of Brutus's relationships. 'If he was so masterful and overwhelmingly fatherly?'

Brutus crosses his legs twice and rests his fingertips delicately on bony knees.

'B.O.'

'B.O?'

'Thats what I said. B.O.'

'So he was fat and smelly!'

'No..no no no no. BO is Barnsley Obsessive. He couldn't wait to get back up North and take me with him. He thought Barnsley was the only place on the planet sufficiently full of whippets, real ale, flat caps and back to back houses with outside lavvies to ensure his survival.' Brutus shivered violently.