Simply Divine (by W. Holden) 2 page

That, at least, was a thought worth probing. ‘Who were you shooting with?’ Jane asked. It didn’t sound like a very O’Shaughnessy activity. Perhaps Champagne had dumped him for some vague, weatherbeaten blond lord with a faceful of broken veins, a labrador and vast tracts of Yorkshire. Tim Nice Butt Dim.

‘Well, Conal, of course, who the hell do you think?’ came the booming honk. Slosh, slosh went the mystery background noise. ‘The Sisse-Pooles asked him along as well. He had a blast, actually. Haw haw haw. God, I’m runny.’

Jane gritted her teeth. ‘How did he do?’ she asked, trying to imagine the determinedly working-class O’Shaughnessy stumbling around a moor with a collection of portly patricians in plus fours.

‘Only thing he shot was one of the beaters,’ boomed Champagne. ‘But that didn’t matter. Bloke was as old as the hills anyway. Oh yes,’ hollered Champagne over the noise, ‘Conal had a great time. He likes a good bang as much as the next man. Haw haw haw.’

‘So you’re still together?’ The relationship with O’Shaughnessy had now lurched past the fortnight mark. In Champagne’s book, that was practically the equivalent of a diamond wedding.

‘Bloody right we are,’ bawled Champagne. ‘More than that, we’re getting married!’

Jane’s pen dropped with a clatter to the floor. ‘Married?’ Despite being separated from the conversation by the glass wall of his office, Josh’s head shot up like Apollo 9.

‘Yah, Conal asked me last night,’ screeched Champagne excitedly. At least, I think that’s what he said. Might have said “Will you carry me” as he was a bit out of it at the time. But by the time he came round, I’d dragged him into Tiffany’s. Couldn’t go back on his word then!’ She roared with laughter.

The banging and swishing seemed to reach a climax. Champagne’s voice was now barely audible over the terrific sloshing noise, as if she was caught in a terrible storm, Jane finally decided to voice the suspicion that had been building for some time. ‘Champagne,’ she asked, ‘are you filing your column from the shower?’

‘Not exactly,’ bellowed Champagne. ‘I’m just test-driving my new whirlpool bath. It’s amazing. Some of the jets do frankly thrilling things.’

Jane put down the phone feeling sick. Champagne’s wedding was a nauseating prospect. Day after day, Jane realised, she would be forcibly reminded of her own single status as Champagne banged on relentlessly about what would most certainly be the Media Wedding of The Year. The only bright side to it was the fact that if her wedding was splashed all over Hello!, even Champagne might be able to remember something about it for the column.

Extract 10

Still, when life failed, there was always food to fall back on. At lunchtime, Jane headed for the supermarket, deciding to buy herself something glamorous and comforting for supper. She headed automatically for the dairy counter, with its wealth of sinful lactocentricity. But here lurked disappointment. Disillusionment, even. Scanning the shelves, Jane couldn’t help noticing the number of products that seemed to exist to mock the solitary, manless diner. Single cream, drippy and runny and the antithesis of comforting, luxurious double. Those depressing, rubbery slices of processed cheese called Singles.

Feeling self-conscious, Jane shuffled over to the more cheerful-looking Italian section, where she plumped for a big, squashy, colourful boxed pizza. Something about its improbable topping – four cheeses, pineapple, onion, olives, chicken tikka, prawns, peperoni, tomato, capers and tuna – struck her as amusing, and its mattress-like proportions looked intensely comforting. And Italians liked large ladies anyway.

Once the pizza box was in her basket, however, Jane felt racked with embarrassment. She was, she told herself, at least a stone too heavy to wander around in public carrying such a blatant statement of Intent To Consume Calories. Hurriedly retracing her steps, Jane slipped the pizza box back on the cooler shelf and replaced it with a nutritionally unimpeachable packet of fresh pasta. No one needed to know she intended to eat it with eggy, creamy, homemade carbonara sauce.

Having secured the bacon, Jane went into a dream by the eggs, confused by the vast variety on offer. Was barn-fresh grain-fed more or less cruel than four-grain yard-gathered? Spending so much of her time in her own dreary office building, Jane was intensely sympathetic to the plight of battery hens. She picked up a cardboard box of eggs and shoved them vaguely in the direction of her basket. Only it wasn’t hers.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Jane gasped to the tall, dark-haired, leather-jacketed man standing right next to her. ‘I seem to have put all my eggs in your basket!’ She retrieved them and giggled. ‘I’m sorry. I was miles away.’ But the man did not smile back. His handsome face didn’t even crease. After staring at her hard for a second or two, he walked swiftly sway. Jane gazed after him. Really, people acted very oddly in supermarkets. They were the strangest places. Some, she knew, were cruising zones. Some even held singles evenings.

Rounding the corner, hoping to happen upon some garlic bread, Jane bumped into Mr Leather Jacket again. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered again. He stared at her even harder. Annoyance flooded her. What was his problem?

Then a thought struck her. Jane flushed deeper and redder than a beetroot. Oh Christ, she thought. He thinks I fancy him. He thought I put my eggs in his basket on purpose. It’s probably accepted supermarket flirting code. Eggs probably mean something very intimate and repro­ductive. Christ. How embarrassing. She looked round in panic at the contents of die baskets around her, suspecting the existence of an entire alternative universe of shopping semiotics. What, for example, did carrots mean? Or sausages? She hardly dared think about cucumbers. And meat? Were there such things as pick-up joints?

Even more embarrassing was the fact that her advances had been rejected, even though they had been unconscious. Or had they? Had there been some subliminal attempt to attract the man in the egg section? Had she been screaming out ‘Fertilise Me’ as she plonked her Size Twos into his basket? They had, she remembered been free range as well.

Extract 11

Meeting the editor of a glossy magazine in The Ritz was definitely Jane’s idea of journalism. Even if the editor had not yet arrived. Pastel satin sofas and low-slung chairs lurked invitingly in gilded corners. A pianist tinkled soothingly in the background, while penguin-suited waiters glided smoothly about bearing trays of champagne and bowls of fat nuts.

Refusing all offers of refreshment – she didn’t want to commit herself to a mineral water and have Victoria roll up and order a champagne cocktail – Jane fished in her bag for the virgin copy of Hello! that lurked in its depths. She waded greedily through the glossy pages, wallowing in the usual smorgasbord of washed-up rock stars in stonewashed jeans, lovely homes with a firm emphasis on leopardskin, face-lifted film stars flogging autobiographies and, Jane’s personal favourite, Euro-royal gatherings featuring dresses apparently designed by people who had heard about clothes but never actually seen them. Grinning to herself, Jane turned the page. Her good mood evaporated instantly as her eyes fell on a large photograph of Champagne and her latest lover gurning at the camera from the frilled and flower-printed depths of a large four-poster bed. ‘Britain’s Most Famous Party Girl Talks Frankly About Fame After Her Recent Illness And Introduces Us To The New Man In Her life’ ran the big red and white headline. Jane hesitated. She knew reading on could seriously damage her mental health. But she couldn’t help herself.

Champagne, you’re a model, TV personality and, most famously, a writer- How do you fit so many things into your life?

I’m fantastically well-organised, basically. And very self-disciplined. The early bird catches the modeling contracts, after all.

You’re obviously ambitious. What drives you?

A chauffeur, mostly. Ha ha ha. No, but seriously, I love working. I have a very strong work ethic.

Champagne, what is the secret of succeeding in so many different areas?

Sheer perfectionism, I think. I also make it an absolute rule to be pleasant, patient and punctual at all times.

Jane gasped and stretched her eyes.

Your life seems very glamorous. Endless parties and celebrity premieres. Is it as glittering as it looks?

Not at all. Making small talk with famous people is completely exhausting, and I’d like to see the average builder manage five hours a night in my Gucci stilettos.

Did all this have anything to do with your recent illness?

Yes. I was burnt out, basically. People just don’t realize the hard, hard work that goes into being a star. They think they’d like my money and fame but they wouldn’t last two minutes with my timetable. Most of the time, it’s unbelievable.

Unbelievable was the word. And two minutes, thought Jane, was about the longest Champagne spent on any item on her timetable.

Champagne, you have achieved so many things. Is there any ambition you would still like to fulfill?

I would love to be appreciated for my writing. Not for who I am. And I would love to develop my film and TV career. This morning, for example, I visited a beekeeper for a guest slot on a nature programme. It was amazing. So many bees. I told him I couldn’t imagine how he remembered all their names. I would also love to do some charity work. I’m looking into doing something for the Centreparks charity for the homeless, taking over where the Princess of Wales, God rest her, left off.

Finally, Champagne, could we ask you about your relationship with Dai Rhys?

Dai is the first man in my life I would seriously consider settling down with. He’s so supportive and, being so well-known himself, he completely under­stands the enormous pressures of fame and the endless demands.

Tell me about the endless demands, thought Jane sourly.

Are you a football fan?

I wasn’t, but I am now. Dai’s explained so much about it. I even understand the offshore rule – very important when you earn as much as Dai does.

Do you prefer rich men?

I really don’t care about money. Love is the most important thing to me. If Dai hadn’t a penny in the world I’d still adore him.

Jane snorted so loudly that a couple of elderly duchesses on the next sofa almost dropped their glasses of sherry. They glared over their bifocals at her in fury.

Are wedding bells in the air?

Marriage is certainly on the cards.

You bet, thought Jane. Dai’s credit cards.

Would you have a traditional wedding?

Yes. With my darling little pet poodle Gucci as Best Dog, of course.

Extract 12

When Jane returned to the lounge, a woman with a helmet of black hair, a slash of red lipstick and spike heels was occupying a minuscule area of one of the sofas. Jane had seen enough pictures of the Fabulous editor to know who it was. The woman was talking urgently into a mobile phone. Or was she? As Jane approached, she realised there was a mirror glued to the inside of the mouthpiece flap. Victoria Cavendish was evidently checking her lipstick the executive way.

‘Hi,’ said Victoria, holding out a cool hand clanking with rings. ‘Two champagne cocktails, please,’ she added, waving imperiously at a passing waiter. Jane felt relieved. At first glance, Victoria had looked dangerously like the skinny, self-denying sort whose idea of a racy drink was Badoit and Evian in the same glass.

Although probably in her mid-forties, Victoria had the figure and, perhaps less advisably, the clothes of someone half her age. That someone, however, was not Jane. Victoria’s sharp suede jacket and matching miniskirt were far snappier and more costly than anything she had in her own wardrobe. Round Victoria’s neck was a soft brown shawl, which Jane recognised as one of the wildly expensive kind which were, as far as she could remember, made from the beard hairs of rare Tibetan goats. Victoria’s, of course, was probably made from the facial hair of the Dalai Lama himself.

Jane crouched on the edge of the seat, crossing her legs to minimise the spread of her flanks and wishing she had remembered to clean her shoes. Come to that, she wished she had had her hair cut, lost a stone and spent a day in Bond Street in the company of a personal shopper and an Amex card.

‘Well, as you know, I need a deputy,’ said Victoria, lighting a menthol cigarette with a lipstick-shaped lighter. She crossed her bird-like black legs, the razor sharp heels just missing her bony ankles. Jane shivered. There was more than a touch of the Rosa Klebb about all this.

‘You’re very highly recommended,’ said Victoria. ‘Appar­ently you handle contributors very well and I particularly need someone I can trust with a very high-profile new writer we have coming on board.’ A thrill ran through Jane. A famous writer. How wonderful.

‘Who is it?’ she asked.

‘Can’t tell you, I’m afraid, until you’re all signed up,’ said Victoria, taking another swig from her champagne glass. ‘But someone who will hopefully send our circulation into the stratosphere.’

Martin Amis? wondered Jane. Iris Murdoch? She thrilled at the thought of day-to-day contact with a proper author. ‘Sounds wonderful,’ she said, reaching for her own glass, then realising it was empty. As was the dish of nuts. Jane realised she had shovelled in the lot in her excitement.

‘So I take it you’re interested,’ said Victoria, clicking her metallic blue-tipped fingers for the bill.

Jane nodded. ‘Yes please.’

‘Good. I’ll bang you a contract over tomorrow.’ Victoria levered herself upright. ‘Must run now,’ she said, which struck Jane as no less than fighting talk, given her footwear. ‘I’ll be in touch tomorrow.’ She shimmered away across the carpet in a cloud of the sort of delicious perfume Jane instinctively knew one didn’t buy in Boots.

Jane wandered slowly out of the hotel and along the darkening street back towards the Tube station. The 2CV, which had not worked for several days now, lay languishing by the Clapham roadside waiting to be put out of its misery. It probably would not live to see another MOT. The potholes of Mullions had seen to that.

It was flattering though odd, Jane thought, as she wandered absently down the stairs into Green Park Tube, to be suddenly so much in demand. Odd, too, that Victoria Cavendish should be eager to sign her up without so much as asking for her opinion of Fabulous, let alone without a CV, references and especially without the reams of sparkling features ideas invariably demanded on these occasions and never referred to thereafter. Especially as Victoria, if rumour was to be believed, had her own special methods of selection.

Candidates for employment were, so it was said, generally invited to lunch with her so she could observe their table manners and satisfy herself that they didn’t cut their salad with a knife or belong to what she designated the HKLP (Holds Knife Like Pen) brigade. Victoria, reportedly also used these occasions to ensure that any of her would-be co-workers were not prone to the verbal social faux pas that would condemn them without trial into what she called the PLT (Pardon, Lounge, Toilet) category. Jane could believe it all. Victoria, as was well known, was completely unrepentant about both her magazine and the social aspirations it enshrined. ‘Snob­bery,’ she was often quoted as saying, ‘is merely an acute awareness of the niceties of social distinction.’

Even candidates who scraped through Victoria’s restaur­ant tests were far from home and dry. They still risked one of the editor’s celebrated spot checks in which she had a member of staff call the would-be employee’s parents’ home (the number, with address, was demanded on the Fabulous application form) to make sure that the person answering had a suitably patrician tone of voice. By these combined methods any social chameleons of humble origin were prevented from getting their plebeian feet under Fabulous desks. Some, it was said, were filtered out right at the beginning of the process simply by Victoria’s casting an eye over the parental address. If it was a number rather than a name, the letters were filed straight in the bin, a process which had always struck Jane as somewhat unre­liable, ruling out as it did any members of the Prime Minister’s family, for starters.

Yes, it was certainly strange that none of the usual hurdles had been placed before her, thought Jane now, crossing the dirty platform to her Northern Line connection at Stockwell. Especially as she was not at all sure she could have jumped over any of them. The word ‘toilet’ had certainly passed her lips from time to time, and she had yet to see anyone, herself included, eat a Caesar salad without resorting to a blade of some sort. And, although thinner than she used to be, she was certainly not racehorse skinny.

There was, however, one highly plausible explanation for Victoria’s keenness to get her on board, one quite detached from all the flattery about her superior editing skills. Josh. All being fair in love and circulation wars, it was entirely within the rules of the game for Victoria and her rival to poach as many members of each other’s staff as possible. Bagging as key a person as the Gorgeous features editor was certainly a feather in the Fabulous editor’s cap, and would be even if Jane’s parents had lived at 13 Railway Cuttings and she ate her salad in the lounge with a saw held like a Biro.

Extract 13

She returned to her desk, just in time to answer the telephone which had been ringing for ages, ignored, as usual, by Tish who was otherwise occupied flicking through the latest Vogue. Jane’s heart sank as the familiar honk blasted through the receiver. After the exchange she had just had with Victoria, Champagne choosing now to call – collect, naturally – from New York was like a blow upon a bruise.

‘Four bangs,’ squawked Champagne. ‘I’ve managed four bangs so far!’

‘What?’ It sounded positively modest by Champagne’s usual standards. So why was she boasting about it?

‘Four crashes because people were staring at my under­wear ads when they were driving!’ Champagne boomed. ‘One fatal.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Jane. ‘How awful.’

‘No, it’s brilliant. Proves the ads are really working. Superbra are thrilled!’

‘I’m delighted for you,’ said Jane. ‘Is that everything?’

‘Yah, think so,’ said Champagne. Then, ‘Oh, no, hang on, there is something else. I’ve packed in Wayne.’

Why aren’t I surprised? thought Jane.

‘Just too much of an oik, really,’ declared Champagne, even though Jane hadn’t asked. ‘Hasn't a clue. His idea of a seven-course meal is a six-pack and a hamburger. Thinks Pacific Rim is something sailors get. The last straw was when we were in a restaurant and he pronounced claret claray. So embarrassing.’

‘Quite,’ said Jane, not sure how else to respond.

‘But I’ve met some scrummy men in New York,’ Champagne continued. ‘The sweetest English politician at the Donna Karan show last night. Bloody nice guy.’

Jane had seen the coverage of Champagne at this part­icular fashion bash in the tabloids that morning. Coverage, however, had hardly been the word. Champagne’s clinging silver dress had made her cleavage look like the San Andreas Fault.

‘Yah, he was really interesting,’ Champagne gushed. ‘We talked for hours about politics.’

‘Really?’ said Jane faintly. Surely, as far as Champagne was concerned, Lenin was the guy who wrote songs with Paul McCartney. Her idea of a social model was probably Stella Tennant and dialectical materialism meant wearing a velvet Voyage cardigan with a leather Versace miniskirt. Champagne’s concept of social security, Jane felt sure, was ten million a year, a country house in Wiltshire, flats in Paris and New York and a Gulfstream V.

Can You Keep a Secret? (by S. Kinsella)

Extract 1

Of course I have secrets.

Of course I do. Everyone has a secret. It’s completely normal. I’m sure I don’t have any more than anybody else.

I’m not talking about big, earth-shattering secrets. Not the-president-is-planning-to-bomb-Japan-and-only-Will-Smith-can-save-the-world type secrets. Just normal, everyday little secrets.

Like for example, here are a few random secrets of mine, off the top of my head:

1. My Kate Spade bag is a fake.

2. I love sweet sherry, the least cool drink in the universe.

3. I have no idea what NATO stands for. Or even what it is.

4. I weigh 9 stone 3. Not 8 stone 3, like my boyfriend Connor thinks. (Although in my defence, I was planning to go on a diet when I told him that. And to be fair, it is only one number different.)

5. I’ve always thought Connor looks a bit like Ken. As in Barbie and Ken.

6. Sometimes, when we’re right in the middle of passionate sex, I suddenly want to laugh.

7. I lost my virginity in the spare bedroom with Danny Nussbaum, while Mum and Dad were downstairs watching Ben Hur.

8. I’ve already drunk the wine that Dad told me to lay down for twenty years.

9. Sammy the goldfish at home isn’t the same goldfish that Mum and Dad gave me to look after when they went to Egypt.

10. When my colleague Artemis really annoys me, I feed her plant orange juice. (Which is pretty much every day.)

11. I once had this weird lesbian dream about my flatmate Lissy.

12. My G-string is hurting me.

13. I’ve always had this deep down conviction that I’m not like everybody else, and there’s an amazingly exciting new life waiting for me just around the corner.

14. I have no idea what this guy in the grey suit is going on about.

15. Plus I’ve already forgotten his name.

And I only met him ten minutes ago.

“We believe in logistical formative alliances,” he’s saying in a nasal, droning voice, “both above and below the line.”

“Absolutely!” I reply brightly, as though to say: Doesn’t everybody?

Logistical. What does that mean, again?

Oh God. What if they ask me?

Don’t be stupid, Emma. They won’t suddenly demand, ‘What does logistical mean?’ I’m a fellow marketing professional, aren’t I? Obviously I know these things.

And anyway, if they mention it again I’ll change the subject. Or I’ll say I’m post-logistical or something.

The important thing is to keep confident and businesslike. I can do this. This is my big chance and I’m not going to screw it up.

I’m sitting in the offices of Glen Oil’s headquarters in Glasgow.

I’m here representing the Panther Corporation, which is where I work. The meeting is to finalize a promotional arrangement between the new cranberry-flavoured Panther Prime sports drink and Glen Oil, and I flew up this morning from London, especially. (The company paid, and everything!)

When I arrived, the Glen Oil marketing guys started on this long, show-offy ‘who’s-travelled the-most?’ conversation about airmiles and the red-eye to Washington – and I think I bluffed pretty convincingly. (Except when I said I’d flown Concorde to Ottawa, and it turns out Concorde doesn’t go to Ottawa.) But the truth is, this is the first time I’ve ever had to travel for a deal.

OK. The real truth is, this is the first deal I’ve ever done, full stop. I’ve been at the Panther Corporation for eleven months as a marketing assistant, and until now all I’ve been allowed to do is type out copy, arrange meetings for other people, get the sandwiches and pick up my boss’s dry-cleaning.

So this is kind of my big break. And I’ve got this secret little hope that if I do this well, maybe I’ll get promoted. The ad for my job said ‘possibility of promotion after a year’, and on Monday I’m having my yearly appraisal meeting with my boss, Paul. I looked up ‘Appraisals’ in the staff induction book, and it said they are ‘an ideal opportunity to discuss possibilities for career advancement’.

Career advancement! At the thought, I feel a familiar stab of longing in my chest. It would just show Dad I’m not a complete loser. And Mum. And Kerry. If I could go home and casually say, “By the way, I’ve been promoted to Marketing Executive.”

Emma Corrigan, Marketing Executive.

Emma Corrigan, Senior Vice-President (Marketing.)

As long as everything goes well today. Paul said the deal was done and dusted and all I had to do was nod and shake their hands, and even I should be able to manage that. And so far, I reckon it’s going really well.

OK, so I don’t understand about 90 per cent of what they’re saying. But then I didn’t understand much of my GCSE French Oral either, and I still got a B.

“Rebranding… analysis… cost-effective…”

The man in the grey suit is still droning on about something or other. As casually as possible, I extend my hand and inch his business card towards me so I can read it.

Doug Hamilton. That’s right. OK, I can remember this. Doug. Dug. Easy. I’ll picture a shovel.

Together with a ham. Which… which looks ill… and…

OK, forget this. I’ll just write it down.

I write down ‘rebranding’ and ‘Doug Hamilton’ on my notepad and give an awkward little wriggle. God, my knickers really are uncomfortable. I mean, G-strings are never that comfortable at the best of times, in my opinion, but these are particularly bad. Which could be because they’re two sizes too small.

Which could possibly be because Connor bought them for me, and told the lingerie assistant I weighed eight stone three. Whereupon she told him I must be size eight. Size eight!

(Frankly, I think she was just being mean. She must have known I was fibbing.)

So it’s Christmas Eve, and we’re exchanging presents, and I unwrap this pair of gorgeous pale pink silk knickers. Size eight. And I basically have two options.

A: Confess the truth: “Actually these are too small, I’m more of a 12, and by the way, I don’t really weigh eight stone three.” Or…

B: Shoe-horn myself into them.

Actually, it was fine. You could hardly see the red lines on my skin afterwards. And all it meant was that I had to quickly cut all the labels out of my clothes so Connor would never realize.

Since then, I’ve hardly ever worn this particular set of underwear, needless to say. But every so often I see them looking all nice and expensive in the drawer and think, Oh come on, they can’t be that tight, and somehow squeeze into them. Which is what I did this morning. I even decided I must have lost weight, because they didn’t feel too bad.

I am such a deluded moron.

“… unfortunately since rebranding… major rethink… feel we need to be considering alternative synergies…”

Up to now I’ve just been sitting and nodding, thinking this business meeting lark is really easy.

But now Doug Hamilton’s voice starts to impinge on my consciousness. What’s he saying?

“… two products diverging… becoming incompatible…”

What was that about incompatible? What was that about a major rethink? I feel a jolt of alarm.

Maybe this isn’t just waffle. Maybe he’s actually saying something. Quick, listen.

“We appreciate the functional and synergetic partnership that Panther and Glen Oil have enjoyed in the past,” Doug Hamilton is saying. “But you’ll agree that clearly we’re going in different directions.”

Different directions?

Is that what he’s been talking about all this time?

My stomach gives an anxious lurch.

He can’t be–

Is he trying to pull out of the deal?

“Excuse me, Doug,” I say, in my most relaxed voice. “Obviously I was closely following what you were saying earlier.” I give a friendly, we’re-all-professionals-together smile. “But if you could just… um, recap the situation for all our benefits…”

In plain English, I beg silently.

***

I put the phone away, run my fingers through my hair, and glance at the clock behind the bar.

Forty minutes to go before the flight. Not long now. Nerves are starting to creep over me like little insects, and I take a deep gulp of vodka, draining my glass.

It’ll be fine, I tell myself for the zillionth time. It’ll be absolutely fine.

I’m not frightened. I’m just… I’m just…

OK. I am frightened.

16. I’m scared of flying.

I know it’s completely irrational. I know thousands of people fly every day and it’s practically safer than lying in bed. You have less chance of being in a plane crash than… than finding a man in London, or something.

But still. I just don’t like it.

Extract 2

OK. The truth is, I don’t like this.

I know it’s business class, I know it’s all lovely luxury. But my stomach is still a tight knot of fear.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 818