Free Kissing Toads by Jemma Harvey

been elected first murder victim by the viewers, probably because they’d heard him sing. He wasn’t an inspiring choice, but the only other options were the ex-children’s TV presenter, an ex-small screen cop (with ex-hair), and an ex-footballer who hadn’t made it as a commentator. The kind of celebs who went on Murder Island were all desperate to relaunch flagging careers. Anyway, just as I had the pop star cornered Brie joined us, wearing a dress that appeared to have been made in spandex and spangles for Slappers ’R Us and a perfume so sweet it smelt like something dead. Not that I wish to be critical, but she doesn’t really have Taste. She proceeded to mention my engagement three times before collaring the pop star for the rest of the evening. Roo, meanwhile, was talking to Morgana, in the mistaken belief they had a lot in common.
    â€˜What’s the matter?’ she demanded as I dragged her away. ‘She seems very nice.’
    â€˜She isn’t nice ,’ I explained. ‘She’s chatting you up. Don’t you read the tabloids?’
    But of course Roo didn’t.
    For Christmas, we usually go home. Home as in Little Pygford, which I still think of as ‘home’ on a subconscious level, even though home is really me and Alex. Probably one of those Freudian things which I can never figure out. Geoff Harker used to come until he remarried, and Pan’s always there, and Mummy cooks, and Pan and I argue, and it all follows a safe familiar routine. But this year I was going to the Russos – Alex’s father, his current wife, assorted siblings – in the big country house where I had no intention of getting married. I didn’t like leaving Roo, though she said she would be all right. After intensive doses of VivaTV, all she really wanted to do (she said) was sleep. I spent the holiday getting cosy with Alex’s family, discussing wedding plans, and deciding not to have his two nieces as bridesmaids, since they were very badly behaved and clearly had no idea what a privilege it would be to dress up like flower fairies and feature in a leading magazine. The older one used my make-up when my back was turned and I found the younger peacocking round in my shoes and my favourite evening scarf, which is handmade cobwebby lace and much too delicate to be touched by children. I pointed out to their mother that they were aspiring vandals in need of discipline, but she just said they were such darlings, they loved dressing up like grown-ups, just got a wee bit unmanageable when the nanny wasn’t around. Some parents have no sense of responsibility. That lace scarf would have been frightfully expensive if I’d had to pay for it.
    When I have children I intend to make sure their nanny teaches them to behave perfectly all the time , not simply when they’re under her eye.
    Among other things the two hooligans got a puppy for Christmas, a tiny bundle of white fluff with round dark eyes and black button nose – utterly adorable, but prone to pee and poo all over the place. Their father said the girls would have to train it themselves, which didn’t augur well for the future of their carpets. Alex was very taken with it. ‘It’s a bichon frisee,’ he told me. ‘Pure pedigree: its great-grandfather (or great-great) won Crufts.’ Personally, I would have given them a mongrel with plenty of Rottweiler in the hope that it would grow up and eat them.
    We had dogs when I was a child, but they were Labs and retrievers who knew to poo in the fields when out for walks or in the garden where Mummy and the assistant gardener could clear it up. I loved them, but that was in the country. Dogs in the city require a lot of effort (Alex’s sister and the brats live in Bayswater). And small dogs, though cute and attractive accessories, have to be walked and trained just like big ones.
    In January, we went to stay with friends who have a ski