Page 48 of Anything but Easy
Kira had a large percentage of the green slime smeared down her top now and the stuff was causing the ridiculous t-shirt she had on to be mostly see-through. Her tiny excuse for a bra was clearly outlined and I felt a flash of jealousy as watched her. When Millie laid her small hand on my arm I flinched. I’d been so focused on Kira I’d almost forgotten Millie was there.
“IloveKira,” she told me. “She was the first person in my life to give me a nickname, the first one to really force me out of my comfort zone. I want her to be happy. I want her to find her ground when she needs it, but I don’t want her stifled or hurt. Do you understand me?”
“I would never hurt her. I wouldn’t want to change her.”
“I’ve seen the way she looks at you. I . . . Kira’s always seemed like a force of nature to me – strong, confident, indestructible. This is the first time I’ve seen her . . . vulnerable. And for the last two weeks she’s been . . . different. I know you wouldn’t mean to hurt her, I just . . . she’s got a lot going on at the moment and –”
“What’s she got going on?” I tore my eyes from Kira to stare down at her friend.
“Er, that’s probably for Kira to tell you. It’s just some stuff with work.”
“Work? But I–”
“Barclay, old chap,” Giles Grantham cut in, giving Millie a kiss on the cheek and then clapping me on the back again. “So, about that little speech . . .”
I looked over Giles Grantham’s head as he droned on between us. Millie gave a quick shake of hers and I resolved to find out later what was going on with Kira at work.
Only after I was strong-armed into giving a speech, and finally managed to make it to Kira again, it was like she wiped my memory clean away. She’d smiled at me before, but after I’d spoken about the environment and the energy revolution to the entire of Bunt Fest, she fucking beamed at me before throwing herself into my arms and covering my shirt with that neon slime in the process. Full wattage Kira was intoxicating. So much so that when she grabbed me a lukewarm cider (I hated cider), I drank it down, and when she then offered a sincerely disgusting lentil curry that her mother was selling at a small stall, I choked that back too. Pav and Jamie found me eating the vile stuff and laughed at me until Mrs Murphy forced them to take their own plates of it.
It was then, eating a foul-smelling lentil curry, that I realised why it had been such a ball ache to get into the festival at all. I’d come straight to Richmond from my constituency clinic which I ran every Saturday morning. Seeing as my constituency was in London, I felt that even though I was a Cabinet minister I owed it to the people who voted for me to listen to them every week without fail. I hadn’t wanted to waste time changing, hence the ridiculous suit. When I arrived, I’d assumed I could just walk straight in, but there was a massive amount of security surrounding the entire estate. Eventually Sam had to vouch for me (the company running the security was well known to him) so I could get in the bloody place. I thought this might be overkill for a small folk festival, but as I watched Urvi Patel take to the stage and the crowd go absolutely nuts, I realised that it washerteam, not the festival’s, guarding the estate and now guarding the stage.
Of course Kira danced right at the front of the crowd, dragging her friends with her. Jamie and Pav had pulled me aside and we’d retreated slightly uphill. We couldn’t actually see Urvi and the Ferret’s Testicles but we had a great view of Kira, Libby and Millie.
“Same shit food every year,” Jamie shouted.
“Worth it though,” said Pav, his eyes glued to his wife who was being spun around by Kira, and laughing so hard she was nearly crying.
“Yes,” I said, my mouth lifting in a smile as I watched Kira’s beautiful hair flying out behind her as she spun Millie Martakis. “Totally worth it.”
Chapter 19
Hot like an Aga hot
Kira
“I could have taken the tube, you know,” I told Barclay as he pulled up into a rare space outside my block of flats. He frowned at me.
“You were not getting on public transport in that get-up.”
“What about my ‘get-up’?”
He gave me a side-eyed look and raised one eyebrow.
“Ha! You’re a prude.” I mean, okay, my cut-offs were alittleshort, and my t-shirt was atad bitsee-through with my bra being atad bitpurple but . . . hello? Glitter Angel? Compared to most of Bunt Fest I was in a nun’s habit.
“I might have been able to tolerate a crowd of hippies staring at your nearly-naked torso,” he told me. “But I’m afraid that tolerance does not extend to London in general.”
He put the handbrake on and I grinned at him as he turned to me fully.
“Okay, Sex Badger, but you’re still a prude.”
He blinked. “Uh, Sex Badger?”
“Sex,” I held out one hand, “’cause you . . . well . . . as we’ve discovered, you’ve got itgoing onin that department. And Badger,” I held out the other “’cause – even though it doesn’t show on the telly – up close you’re rocking a little bit of the grey stuff just here.” I touched his temple before bringing my hands together palm to palm, “Sex Badger.”
He stared at me for a few seconds before he burst out laughing. Making the normally taciturn Barclay laugh had to be up there as one of life’s biggest highs. I mean, Stern Barclay was of course a joy to behold, but Happy Barclay was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him.
“We’ll call you SB for short in company. Wouldn’t want the nextDaily Mailheadline to be My Wild Night with Sex Badger. I mean–”
