Nip 'N' Tuck Read Online Free PDF Page A

brains.’
    My husband snorted derisively. ‘Is that what you think? If you’ll pardon the exaggeration,’ he added, with disdainful suavity, handing me the beaker of tepid
vino
the actress had rejected.
    Britney Amore shot him a wary look from beneath heavily beaded lashes – so thick it looked as though the tarantulas that were obviously nesting in her eyebrows were doing stretch aerobics with their many mohair legs.
    ‘Am I missin’ somethin’, hon?’ she turned to me, placing her manicured hands on her sticky-out hips and cocking one little foot up on to its towering heel.
    ‘I’m terrible at maths too,’ I explained, kindly, ‘But, um, I think you’ll find that ninety and forty is a hundred and thirty per cent.’
    ‘Ah-
huh
.’ She widened her eyes at me as though I were retarded. There was an alluring contemptuousness about her which took my breath away. ‘And that’s exactly what I give, honey-pie.’
    Yeah, along with chlamydia,
honey-pie
, I thought, my good-will evaporating.
    ‘Acting these days,’ said Hugo a bit pompously, ‘is a hundred per cent about looks. Now that the National Theatre is in a state of collapse, the only way they can get bums on seats is by casting actresses from TV soap operas – preferably with a scene where they take off their clothes. I guess it was hard to find a Shakespearean role that required full-frontal nudity. Ophelia’s last swim, perhaps …?’
    I giggled. ‘Can I Ophelia up?’
    Britney met Hugo’s gaze with defiance. ‘I ain’t never had a red-blooded man complain about
my
bodkins forsooth.’
    Her scrum of male admirers, having ignored my bad pun, laughed over-heartily at her worse one. Except Hugo.
    ‘Achievement doesn’t depend on physical perfection,’ he elaborated. ‘Beethoven was deaf. Milton was blind. Stephen Hawking is in a wheelchair. Physical perfection means, well, nothing much, actually.’
    I gave him an imploring glance – one of those oh-there’s-nothing-wrong-with-my-partner-that-a-good-funeral-wouldn’t-cure looks, an expression perfected by wives over the centuries … He completely ignored it – a response perfected by
husbands
over the centuries.
    ‘We’re totally aware of racism and sexism these days. But “lookism” is one of the most pervasive, albeit most denied, prejudices.’ Hugo ran his hands through his tawny mane of hair, which reared back off his broad forehead. ‘Society confuses beauty with goodness. Police, judges, juries – they’re all more lenient towards pretty women.’
    Britney snapped her gum belligerently. ‘Yeah, well,
sex
discriminates against the un-att-rac-tive.’ The elasticated twang to her Texan vowels jarred discordantly with Hugo’s rounded, ringing tones. ‘I reckon a lady’s gotta make the most of what she’s got, ya know?’
    ‘Well, here in
Europe
,’ he responded, pointedly, ‘we have a much more sophisticated approach to life. A woman who ages well is a thing of beauty.’ I can’t say I appreciated the way he draped his arm limply across the back of my shoulders, with all the passion of a beach towel. ‘And those who fight it, ugly.’
    There was a baited quality to the air. The actress bristled. But before she could run him through with her stiletto, the last chorus of
The Vagina Monologues
faded. After the curtain calls, everyone was ushered upstairs for the post-show party.
    A slightly shell-shocked minister from the Department of Culture and Sport and the usual collection of Labour-supporting and toupée-sporting beer barons and tax exiles were approaching the benefit gala like draftees crossing a minefield. Feigning feminist sympathies, yet terrified that they were about to be savaged by a feral Fallopian tube, their smiles were snap-frozen on to bewildered faces. To unnerve them further, on the table in the centre of the room rose a six-foot cake in the shape of a pudenda. Between the two pink marzipan labia majoras pouted the particularly moreish, sugar-coated