‘I’m so sorry to trouble you.’ I sharpen my diction, a precise RP to denote a respectable, upstanding member of the community. ‘But there’s a gentleman in the bushes over there’ – I point in the opposite direction – ‘who is filming young female joggers. I thought you should know.’
‘Bleedin’ ’ell, that wrong ’un again!’ He leaps off. ‘Wherezit to?’
I point again, far away, and he lumbers off, leaving me with the machine. After circling it, I climb on, slightly gingerly, because I’ve never ridden one of these things before. But how hard can it be? He’s left the key in the ignition, so I turn it, and grind my teeth in frustration when precisely nothing happens. He was just using it a second ago, why won’t it work for me?
I’m not giving up though. Fishing out my phone, I find a ninety-second YouTube video titled ‘How to Ride Your Lawnmower’ and watch it. Apparently, you have to press the clutch down – there it is – and make sure the mower is in neutral – done. I turn the key again and the vehicle roars to life. Whoopee. With my skirt rucked up to my knees, it feels quite powerful between my thighs – if it were a motorbike, I’d rev the engine, but that’s not an option, so I simply gun for my previous position, taking great pleasure in the immaculate trail of freshly mown lawn streaming out behind me. I could use this machine for my own overgrown front garden, not to mention our field out back. Maybe Robbie would buy me one, a little weekend runabout. Cars might be beyond me, but mowers are more manageable.
My picnic spot is now occupied by a handy line of zoned-out yogis. Deep in their lotus positions, they don’t see me coming, but they do hear me. One by one, heads turn, mouths open, and then it’s a mad scramble of legginged legs as they fight to get out of my way.
‘SHIFT YOUR SKINNY ARSES, MOTHERFUCKERS!’
Cruising through the yoga mats on my reaper, there’s instantly a rubber snowstorm, causing more screams and shrieks as the finest Lululemon runners are ripped to shreds. The grinding sound as blade meets elastomer, and the subsequent flurries, are deeply gratifying, as are the yelps of distress from the Christchurch Yoga Group as they struggle to save themselves. Don’t fuck with the buck, ladies, if you want your posing rugs intact. Sadly, the mower only makes it to the last one before spluttering and dying, after a surfeit of foam. The owner of the untouched mat is cowering in a forward bend, and I feel a pinch of pity because it’s not her fault she was dominated by the Blondie Lilith, who is currently on all fours, crawling through the detritus, howling like a jackal.
Sitting there, surveying my destruction, there’s a split second where I think ‘What am I doing?’ Riding roughshod like this, making women flinch and scream, lying to nice people who don’t know any better, stealing, taking advantage, wreaking havoc, pleasing myself in the most high-handed, heedless way. But I feel like everyone has a quota of this kind of behaviour, and I never used mine up, never even went to the vault where the vial was stored. So I’m going to give myself this moment to crow like a seagull over Blondie’s lithe, writhing body, and imagine her later, teeth chattering over a wheatgrass shot as she recounts the story, casting me as the mat-ricidal villain. And I’m going to allow myself to not give a rat’s ass. Everything happens for a reason; there’s a good one for this.
I climb off the mower, and check that Bigwig is safe in his sack. Noticing my new artwork burrowed alongside him, I pull it out and brandish it at Blondie, giving her the golden finger she deserves.
‘Screw you, Bikram bitch!’
And then I march off, towards the pub, because I’m meeting Maz for a pre-dinner drink and now I’m late.
30
How did I get that all-important promotion, propelled to the lofty position of assistant producer on Songs of Praise? Jobs in telly are like the horse chestnut tree. You start on the tiniest twigs on the outermost branches, and gradually work your way inwards and up, leaping from bough to bough. Ideally you want to find bigger, firmer branches that will bear your weight safely, with the ideal destination the solid trunk. In this particular metaphor, that would represent the dizzy heights of a permanent staff position, rather than the shaky, perilous life of a freelancer. Obviously, you want to be fairly high up the tree so you can have a good view, and throw conkers at people nearer the ground. I’m one of the core team at Red Eye now, meaning I get definite indefinite employment, plus numerous other company benefits like private health cover and childcare vouchers. In addition to my Avon House membership (now sadly revoked), Vince also offers key employees more unorthodox perks like cosmetic dentistry, hypnotherapy and, for reasons I’ve never understood, guitar lessons. I’m yet to take him up on those things, but it’s nice to know they’re there. However, it’s been quite a climb to reach my current branch.
I started out as a junior researcher, but within a few leaps was elevated to a researcher position. I then remained stuck on that branch for ages, even though several of my contemporaries were easing their way up. There was one guy – a mouthy public-school type – who leapfrogged straight from intern to assistant producer through a mix of hustling, entitlement and bare-faced lies. When I joined Beatnik Media, I timidly asked when I might expect to move up to AP level and was told I didn’t have enough credits, but I knew the only credits that really counted were in my head. If I’d been prepared to bulldoze, then I might have got somewhere, but as it was, I was just clinging to my twig while others scampered over me.
Of course, there were other ways to get on. You could get taken under the wing of a great senior producer, who would show you the ropes, and drag you up with them. A mentor. Given that I seemed unable to help myself, it wasn’t unreasonable to hope that someone else might help me. Some ambitious player might spot my potential and groom me to be their second-in-command, their apprentice, their protégée. When I worked for Other Delia, she had a producer called Yufei who she always hired – they had an easy familiarity that I envied, born of numerous productions where they’d relied on each other, propped each other up, drowned their sorrows together when it went wrong, toasted each other when it all came together. When Delia eventually became a commissioner at the BBC, she got Yufei on her team and they continued the working partnership. You might call it nepotism, I suppose, but isn’t that how the world works? I thought that was how the world worked. I thought I knew, at the grand old age of twenty-six. So I got my head down and slogged away, dreaming of getting a leg up like that.
And in the end, I suppose that’s exactly what happened.
* * *
Maz is already in the pub when I arrive, sitting at a table in the corner with a bottle of wine that she’s already halfway down. Rosé for the upcoming encounter with Rose. I’ve never seen my sister drunk, or even tipsy, because that’s not how she reacts to alcohol. It’s more like a dimmer switch that slides her into a faerie dimension. That’s how she copes with our mother, who very much exists in the Real World, where you Get On With Things, and Show Some Backbone. Maz is thinner than me, because she’s not so interested in food, and she’s dealt with the crap hair issue by cutting it all off in an elfin Mia Farrow style that works quite well with her face, which has a permanently faraway expression, like Holly Golightly singing ‘Moon River’.
She raises her glass when she sees me. ‘Don’t think . . .’
‘Just drink,’ I reply, pouring myself a generous quarter-litre. If I’m going to have dinner with Rose, then I want to be safe with Maz in Cloudland.
‘Is that a rabbit?’ Maz reaches out to stroke Bigwig’s head, which is poking out of my bag. ‘How nice.’
‘Hmm. How are the girls?’
‘Dorcas just had mites, poor love, but some Frontline did the trick. People keep trying to feed them things, even though I’ve put signs everywhere. Tilly bit a child, but it was the child’s fault, as I explained to the mother, and I think she understood. Alpacas don’t really like people.’ She sips serenely. ‘How are the Hendrys?’
‘Robbie’s working too hard, as usual. Ethan’s not, as usual. Hazel is now an eco-warrior.’
‘Isn’t it a bit late for that?’ Maz is affably but irrevocably convinced we’re all doomed, and there’s no point in bothering to do anything about it. She says humanity doesn’t matter, and that without us the planet will be fine.
‘Maybe, but she might get a boyfriend out of it.’
‘How nice.’
‘So why does Rose want to see us?’ May as well cut to the chase before Maz zones out entirely.
‘I think she’s having some sort of crisis.’
‘Why?’
‘Why is she having a crisis or why do I think that?’
‘Both.’
‘She came on an alpaca walk.’
‘Jesus.’
Maz nods, a faint smile on her face, which counts as animated. ‘She booked herself in online, like a regular customer.’
‘When?’
‘Last week. And when she turned up, she pretended not to know me, just took Mabel’s reins and went off.’
‘So what did you do?’
She shrugs. ‘Pretended not to know her too. I think we’ll get on much better that way.’
I take a slug of my wine, ruminating. ‘So, what’s the crisis?’
‘Mabel wouldn’t say.’
I ponder. Last time I saw Rose was when she summoned me to Stroud to help her move some garden furniture, and she spent the afternoon complaining bitterly that her next-door neighbours were getting a hot tub installed. It was the beginning of the end, apparently – next it would be pampas grass and keys in a bowl. Then she told me I was thickening around the waist and I’d best start ‘reducing’ or Robbie would get a wandering eye. When I look back now, I really don’t understand why I didn’t just piss on her pristine patio, but of course that was Old Clover, who dutifully shifted her mother’s new Laurel outdoor dining set, arranged the bunch of flowers she’d bought without getting a word of thanks, and caught the train back via Swindon in time to make the kids’ tea.
‘Maybe she’s met someone.’ I’m thinking about the hot tub, how there seemed to be a degree of pique in Rose’s voice when she talked about swingers. Our mother has a number of what she calls ‘gentlemen friends’, but they seem to exist only to give her lifts into town and squire her to local events. Then there’s the owner of the Redcliffe flat . . . The idea of my mother as a sexual being makes me want to heave but I force myself to consider it. Her merry widow act might have palled; oh God, what if she’s getting married and intends to have an actual wedding? Rose would love that . . . She’d have me and Maz trussed up as middle-aged bridesmaids, with herself in virginal white . . . I reach for the bottle of wine and drink straight from it. New Clover will be able to sort this out, even if she personally has to firebomb all the bridal shops in the Cotswolds. I will not walk down the aisle behind my mother.
‘What did you conclude?’ Maz points at the now empty bottle.
‘She’s getting married.’
‘How nice.’ Maz drinks steadily, draining her glass. ‘She can put right all the wrongs from your wedding.’
‘At least she won’t have to invite Cousin Jack.’
‘She’ll do it at Christmas, so she can spray everything with fake snow.’
‘She’ll book King’s College Choir to sing.’
‘At Westminster Abbey.’
