Cause Celeb by Helen Fielding Page B

stay still.
    Just then Hughie Harrington-Ellis came and sat on the other side of me.
    â€œShall we eat?” he said. The thought of food was not good at all. I stuck my fork into the bird’s tiny little egg feeling like a child murderer. I took a bite and there was a vile taste in my mouth which mingled unpleasantly with something sweet on the quail’s skin. My stomach heaved, then settled.
    Hughie turned his back to me and started talking to the Irish actor. I could hear the Irish voice, full of indignation: “Tabloids . . . filth, scum . . . reptiles . . . none of their fockin’ business.”
    â€œYou didn’t say that when you were doing all those profiles with your wife and baby, did you?” I slurred.
    â€œAs Oscar said,‘In the old days men had the rack, now they have the press,’” said Hughie, ignoring me, “the lowest form of life, ‘unable to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.’ That’s Shaw.”
    â€œ. . . vindictive . . . gobshite.”
    â€œ. . . ’avin a fireplace put in next to the bath, made out of bits of this ancient Greek pillar.”
    I could hear Oliver across the table. “You see the problem with Melvyn . . .”
    â€œFockin’ scombags.”
    â€œSold two Ferraris.”
    â€œ. . . two hundred grand . . .”
    â€œ. . . seen her show? Total embarrassment.”
    â€œ. . . seems a bleedin’ lot for a fireplace, but . . .”
    â€œ. . . Renaissance man delusions . . .”
    â€œ. . . lookin’ at ancient history when you’re ’avin a bath an’ a fag . . .”
    Suddenly, I knew I was going to be sick. Where was the loo? I looked round the room. Whiteness, black dresses, and very bright ties against very white shirts danced and crossed each other. The floor was not attached to the walls, it was another of the platforms. I was going to have to walk fifty feet across that wooden floor before I could even start on another spiral staircase. Oliver looked across at me. I felt the vomit rising, started to get to my feet, sat down again, politely cupped my hands over my mouth and threw up into them.

    When I finally laid my head on my pillow that night, I wanted to die. At first Oliver had been kind. He came over to me like a shot, gave me napkins and whispered, “It’s OK, it’s OK, I’ll get you out of here, come on.” He placed himself between me and the faces, put his arm round me and propelled me to the staircase. He counted me up the stairs, “Come on, come on, next one, next one.” I looked down, the faces were still all there, pink, like piggies.
    After a while I was in a bathroom, which was hospital white. I washed my mouth and face and lay down on the cool floor, wanting to stay there, possibly live there, perhaps even marry the cool floor. I could hear Oliver and Richard Jenner outside. Oliver sounded angry.
    When we got outside he was not being nice anymore. I was being sick again in the flower beds outside the flat. “It’s like going out with a fucking puppy,” he said. He lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall.
    â€œI’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I whispered.
    â€œYou should never drink the cocktails at Richard’s house. He does this every time. It’s completely ridiculous.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you warn me?”
    There was a pause. “So. It’s my fault, is it?” he said pleasantly. “It’s my fault. Of course. But then you didn’t need to knock them back, did you?” A wild look came into his eye. “You didn’t, did you? You didn’t need to knock them back. How many did you have?”
    I was getting the hang of what to do when he was like this—nothing. If you neither did nor said anything he had nothing to