Cause Celeb by Helen Fielding Page A

Voyeurism,” Henry remarked.
    A laugh spurted out of Debbie which she turned into an only quite convincing cough/sneeze hybrid.
    â€œShe was a super girl was Monica.” As if she hadn’t heard, Betty went on trying to convince us this wasn’t a parable. “Married Colin Seagrove who was CMO at Wadkowli in ’seventy-seven.”
    I wanted to stay talking with everyone. It was reassuring, all the normal stupid chat, but they all started getting up and going to bed so I went and sat on the edge of the hill for quite a long time, thinking. Debbie came over after she’d had her shower and we chatted for a bit about the arrivals, and then did a bit of noddingand winking in the direction of Linda’s hut. When I got into my hut I’d forgotten to tuck the net in round the bed and there was a spider on the sheet, a brown one with thick legs covered in lumps. I flattened it with a copy of Newsweek and chucked it outside. I checked the bed with the hurricane lamp but it still wasn’t nice getting in. I couldn’t sleep because I kept seeing the family slumped against Betty’s hut. The dogs were barking. Sometimes they used to bark all night, those bloody dogs. I wondered if Linda really was in bed with O’Rourke. I started to feel lonely, then reminded myself that there are worse things than being on your own.

CHAPTER
Seven
    I was crying in my bed beside him, but I think he didn’t know. A thin wet line was trickling across my face into my ear. It was Saturday night, two months since I had first slept with Oliver. I got out of bed, and crept towards the door, trying to avoid the floorboard that creaked. I stretched out my hand for my dressing gown and as I reached across I knocked a glass off the dressing table next to it.
    â€œWhat the fuck are you doing?”
    I froze, said nothing.
    â€œWhat time is it?”
    â€œI don’t know. It’s dark,” I whispered.
    Oliver picked his watch up off the bedside table and threw it down. “Jesus Christ, it’s five o’clock in the morning. I’ve only been asleep half an hour. Thanks.”
    I stayed where I was till he settled down, then carried on towards the door. It was closed. I turned the handle very, very slowly and pulled. It let out a long, loud creak.
    A book flew across the room. I slipped out and shut the door behind me.
    In the kitchen I made a cup of tea and went through into the living room, where my tapes and books were now arranged in alphabetical order.
    I had been looking forward to Saturday night all week. That was my date with Oliver. He was a busy man. He liked to sleep withme, and seemed keen on me, but he didn’t have time to see me more than once a week. I understood, of course I did. I was lucky to be sleeping with Oliver Marchant. Hermione was positively green. Sex was all the more wild and exquisite because I was unsure of him and had to wait. It was the fruit of days of fantasies. I used to feel him inside me and think I was still dreaming.
    The relationship seesaw: What would you do if it was perfectly balanced? I thought. Sitting there, suspended boringly, legs dangling in the air. Much better to be slightly at a disadvantage; so much more fun that way, swinging to and fro trying to get a bit higher. Much better to have those passionate, tantalizing thrills than endless boring TV suppers, sitting snuggled on the sofa in jeans and an old cardi, not caring what you looked like because inside you were so sure he loved you just for you. I looked at the trail of stockings and suspenders on the living room floor and burst into tears again. What you don’t want is to be on a seesaw with a maniac like Oliver, who keeps lifting you up high then banging you down on the tarmac, so that all your most sensitive inner parts are bashed about and broken. I knew that I should dust myself down, thumb my nose at him and walk away. I couldn’t do it.

    On the Friday he had called me at the