Page 112 of Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?
I take his towel and mop at the claggy hairs on his arms and legs. I try and turn him over and do the same. I then roll his body over and attempt to tuck him under the duvet.
‘Why are you manhandling me? You’re like a sex pest.’
‘Drink your tea. Don’t poo in my bed.’
I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and spy my sorry state in the mirror. I grab some old T-shirt from behind the bathroom door and slip it on. When I return to the bedroom, Danny sits there sipping his tea in bed. He looks over.
‘See, that is sexy.’
I shake my head and do some weird Beyoncé-style strut towards the bed.
‘And that isn’t. You look like a randy giraffe.’
I laugh, collapsing into bed. He puts his beloved tea down to rest his head on my lap.
‘Where did they get those sausages from? Just went right through me. Who were on barbecue?’
I stroke his head. ‘You’re just getting old and can’t handle your alcohol anymore.’
‘You can talk.’
I laugh. I throw some of the clothes that litter the bed onto the floor and notice an A4-sized parcel in the middle of the bed. At first glance, it looks like some tombola shite we’ve picked up this evening but Danny sits up recognising the handwriting on the card.
‘It’s that present from Stu, innit? If it’s biscuits, we may as well crack it open.’
I don’t argue with him but think again about those words that Stu left me with. He sorted it. I sit and unwrap the parcel carefully. It’s a huge pile of paper held together by coloured paperclips that I think belong to a ten-year-old’s stationery set.
Danny has the attached card in his hands and reads aloud,‘After thirty years, I finally found a use for that wasted education of mine. Cheers Captain Mintcake. Have a good Christmas you fantastic fuckers xxx’
Danny and I huddle around the papers and have a read. It’s all on a solicitor’s letterhead attached to an eighty-page document. Shit on an actual stick. Danny grabs his phone to try and ring Stu but it’s going to voicemail.
‘Oh my days, he did it. He actually did it.’
Danny looks at me, panicked. ‘He did what? You had a hand in this?’
I browse through the literature, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up with guilt but dare I say it, some excitement.
‘You had all those letters at the mill from agents and publicists and I may have made copies of them and shown Stu.’ I can feel myself go a deeper shade of red. ‘I just showed them to Stu though, when we were putting all that stuff together for Tim. I didn’t tell him to act on them. I was just really proud of you…’
‘They were addressed to me.’
‘Yes…but…I never told him to do this. I didn’t tell him to get out his law degree and make this happen. I swear.’
We sit there, half-naked, holding what looks like a few piles of contracts. Stu has carefully labelled and added Post-It notes along the way to explain it all to us.
Confidentiality Clause – publicist to act on your behalf.
Captain Mintcake LLC has been formed as a company to protect your anonymity.
Potential to get gagging orders to protect you as a ‘trade secret’.
Danny and I are too far gone to be able to focus, let alone read. All I see is one contract has a hefty sum of money written across it. It’s a contract for Danny to have an exhibition in a London gallery as part of a festival at the South Bank, two hardback books published and some of the copyright on the images sold. But Stu has done one better. He’s allowed for Danny to do this without ever revealing his real identity.
‘He’s done everything he can to protect you, to make this happen for you. Geez, this is amazing.’ My heart wells up because I know why he did it: he did it for his brother.
‘This is what he were doing with Polly them mornings then. I thought he were at home eating our food and not cleaning our house.’ He flicks through all of it. I can’t quite read if this is the direction he wanted this to go, but it looks like Stu’s done his homework; all the loopholes are covered and there’s room for Danny to be as involved as he wants. ‘And how I do explain this extra money…How would it appear to the people at the mill? I’ll look like I’m bloody laundering it.’
‘Lottery win, Australian uncle carked it? It’s not like you’re the sort who’s going to buy a mansion and a Ferrari from the off.’
