he called ‘lovely to look at, but probably the most boring woman in the world’). He’s stayed for nothing in the best hotels in the best locations, and is endearingly blasé about high-end glamour, preferring to rhapsodize over waterfalls or deserts. When he occasionally emerges from semiretirement in Mallorca, the glossies fall over themselves trying to persuade him to shoot for them. Kimberly’s in the process of proving herself to be nothing more than a nasty little opportunist, and while part of me is delighted she’s showing her true colours, I’m mortified that my father should be the cause of it. I’m also pretty sure this is why Ben is being so unusually solicitous, but am not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Now he tenderly cleans my wound, looking up at me with those delicious blue eyes, and it’s all I can do not to grab him right here and shove my tongue down his throat. I am distracted from my lascivious reverie by the sound of Kim squawking, ‘Oh my God, Justin, you crack me up. You’re just sooooo witty,’ and laughing as if my dad were Peter Cook and Dorothy Parker reincarnated and rolled into one. When she smiles, her pink pointy tongue peeps through her teeth, in a cutesy manner she clearly imagines is both endearing and provocative. It might just provoke me into a spot of GBH. Dad smiles smugly and relights his spliff. Dad and Kim are both sitting with their legs propped up on the table we’ve laid this side of the luminously turquoise pool, just to the left of the French windows. This is Dad’s default position so it doesn’t bug me too much. For Kimbo it is another excuse to show off the length of her horrible legs. She is wearing a cream backless jersey minidress, cut away at the sides and held together with a large gold ring that showcases her pierced belly button and matches her 19
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