Page 65 of Me and Mr. Darcy

Quietly I lift up the toilet lid. I might have pelvic-floor muscles of steel, but there’s no way I can hold this. I’ve gone from wanting to go to desperate to go in under five seconds. I have the Ferrari of bladders.

‘And he was there with a whole bunch of girls. Right there! In the middle of the dance floor!’

‘Seriously?’ I begin quietly unravelling the toilet roll, careful that the holder doesn’t rattle and give me away.

‘Seriously!’ she cries. ‘They were all over him and he was all over them. I nearly didn’t see him because of all that foam.’

I dip the sheets of toilet paper into the bowl, crisscrossing them backwards and forwards across the U-bend to form – how shall I put it? – a soft landing.

As you can probably tell, this is not the first time I’ve peed while on the phone.

‘So I marched right up to him and threw my margarita in his face. And I know what you’re going to say, Em . . .’

Really? ’Cos I don’t, I muse, sitting down on the ‘loo’, a word I’ve picked up from Maeve.

‘“What a waste of good tequila” – but I was so goddamn angry . . .’

I chime in with a sympathetic ‘Uh-huh.’

‘The slimeball!’

This time I go for an enthusiastic ‘Uh-huh.’

‘Bastard!’

Followed by a wearily resigned ‘Uh-huh.’

‘Fuck-face!’

Building to a you-go-girl ‘Uhuh!’

God, it’s amazing what you can convey through intonation, isn’t it?

‘Loser!’ she gasps, then corrects herself. ‘Well, actually he’s not a loser, is he?’ she says dryly. ‘He’s rich, handsome and successful and probably having an orgy right now.’

I finish peeing and go to flush the toilet. Then remember . . .

‘God, I feel like such a fool,’ she adds quietly and, if I’m not mistaken, I’m sure I can hear a tremble in her voice. ‘I was totally taken in. I thought he really liked me.’

There’s a pause, and then I hear it: a sniff.

It’s my cue to speak.

‘But did you really like him?’ I ask gently.

‘Yeah.’ She sniffs, only louder this time and I can imagine her sitting on her bed in her hotel room, dabbing her eyes with her Chinese sarong. ‘Well, he could be a bit arrogant . . .’ she trails off doubtfully.

It’s her first admission that Scott might not be the god she thought he was, and I seize the opportunity: ‘Just a bit?’ I coax. I feel like Harvey Keitel in that film with Kate Winslet – you know, the one where she’s in a cult and he has to de-indoctrinate her.

‘Mmmm,’ she murmurs, still sniffing into her sarong, but I can tell she’s starting to think about it. There’s a slight hesitation and then, ‘He did go on about his bonus a lot and how this year he’d made his company a fortune so he was expecting a really huge one . . .’

‘Really?’ I ask, trying to sound surprised.

‘Yeah, all the time,’ she replies, as if she’s surprised too. ‘Plus, he was always flashing his platinum Amex about . . .’

‘Tacky,’ I chime in. All she needs now is a bit of encouragement and she’ll be on a roll. ‘And what about his clothes?’ I prompt, fingers crossed.

‘Oh, my God, didn’t I tell you about his jeans?’ she cries.