Free Foetal Attraction by Kathy Lette

already to say they’re aiming for a girl this time, so Imogen can only eat, I forget … tofu and bats’ testes. Sonia and the Rock Star are no doubt trying for a boy, and will only eat Tibetan fennel and Maltesers.’
    ‘Just serve pink food to one and blue to the other.’
    ‘Yeah. And lemon for the first-time fatalists.’
    ‘Now you’re talking.’
    ‘Oh God, I feel sick already. Look what the butcher gave me. Budgies.’ The two of them looked dubiously at the tray of quails.
    ‘Relax. How bad can it be?’ Gillian languorously extracted a bottle of wine from her bag. ‘If they burn, we’ll call it Cajun.’ She clenched the bottle between both knees and twisted in the corkscrew. ‘And if they’re underdone, we’ll call it sushi,’ and yanked. The cork came away with a resonant plonk. ‘All right?’ Gillian rolled up her sleeves and slithered off the counter top to help Maddy with the stuffing. ‘I’ve brought you over my copy of
Who’s Who
by the way,’ she said with mock nonchalance.
    ‘Gillian, I told you. I’m
not
going on safari with you any more.’
    ‘Well, just glance through,’ she said sweetly. ‘After your experiences at Wimbledon, I think you may find it rather … interesting reading. I mean, you’ve got so much to learn about the delicacies of English convention,’ she lectured, shoving her forefinger up a bird’s bottom. ‘I’ve marked some relevant pages—’
    ‘Gillian, if I don’t get cracking now, it’s all going to be a disaster.’
    Gillian thrummed her nails on the big book. ‘No, I think
this
will be the recipe for disaster,’ she said, ambiguously.
    Gillian and Maddy were still up to their elbows in quail innards when Alex, fresh from his première, breezed in. He eyed Gillian with the same suspicion one gives a plate of monkey brains that has unexpectedly turned up on a set menu. Maddy introduced them.
    ‘Ah,’ Gillian extended a damp hand encrusted in tiny bird bones. ‘The knight in pin-striped armour.’
    Alex blanched. ‘Ah, the Great White Husband Hunter.’
    ‘Um … let me get the door.’ Maddy, returning to fetch glasses, found her lover and best friend glowering silently at each other across the bowl of carcasses. ‘Everything okay?’ she enquired, casting little exploratory glances at them both.
    ‘Oh yes, fine,’ Alex lied. ‘We’re getting on like a stove on fire.’
    ‘Why did you have to invite
her
?’ he snapped, once all the guests were esconced out of earshot in the living room. ‘She’s just totally out of place.’ The trendy kitchen in their flat was so small that if you stood in the middle it was nearly possible to touch all four walls at once.
    ‘Why? Wrong
class
?’
    ‘Maddy, your friend Gillian is made from totally inferior substances. You, my love, are silk …’ Alex ducked the deadly arsenal of cooking utensils which dangled from the ceiling ‘… albeit
raw. She
is one hundred per cent man-made fabric. Her father was an arms dealer, for God’s sake!’
    ‘What’s her old man got to do with it?’ Maddy wielded the chopping knife with subdued violence. ‘I take people at face value.’ She manoeuvred around Alex to the sink. ‘At least she’s honest. At least she
knows
she’s vain and shallow and self-interested.’
    ‘What’s
that
supposed to mean?’ Alex tried to follow, howling as the imported chopping block on wheels thudded into his shin.
    ‘I just hate the Mother Teresa act your friends bung on. A donation to Oxfam here, a dedication to Vaclav Havel there, and they think they’ve cornered the market on Human Tragedy.’
    ‘At least they make an effort. For Gillian Cassells, a tragedy would be going out with, I don’t know … lipstick on her eye tooth.’
    Maddy slurped the diminutive livers, hearts and other disembowelled vital organs left over from the stuffing, into the blender. ‘That Humphrey creature, griping on about being a Progressive Socialist … All
he
cares about is the wider