I squeezed open my eyes the following morning and, after a few minutes of disorientated incredulity, realized that I hadn’t overindulged on the cheese platter and that I really had actually kidnapped, terrorized and blackmailed a drug baron.
I squinted at the clock. It was only 10 a.m. Still, I pondered, it must be happy hour somewhere on the planet. Surely I could have just one little drink to steady my nerves? Because, as I thought over the events of the previous day, the aftershock of my own behaviour reverberated through me. I heard a low, incoherent moaning and slowly realized that this strange disembodied sound was my own voice. Who had I become? I had compromised my core belief system and taken the law into my own hands. I was little better than a common thief. A vigilante. A desperado highwayman bandit-type bushranger. If I were writing an updated rap sheet for myself, it would now read:
Matilda Devine
35, mother of one gorgeous, if slightly disobedient girl, whom I’d put in serious danger . . . and daughter of a renegade mum with a heart of gold whom I often woefully underappreciated.
Previous convictions: that Jack Cassidy was an A-grade ratbag way back in law school when he took my virginity and he always would be.
Current convictions: that I’d convicted Jack Cassidy of leaking information to the defence without any hard evidence and with no chance of a fair trial.
Misdemeanours: taking the law into my own hands and betraying everything I believed in.
Future convictions: that clearly I was the one who should be on trial, for going for gold in the hypocrisy Olympics.
Crimes of the heart: yes, my relationships with Stephen and Nathaniel made me a pathetic hit-and-run-romance casualty. Yes, it was no wonder that my trust in men was now so minuscule it could only be located by X-ray. But I, too, had been unfair, refusing redemption to my long-lost father. And, even worse, being totally judgemental and prejudiced against the one man who had ever really meant anything to me.
A conscience, I now discovered, is what hurts when all your other parts feel fine.
Still, one thing was startlingly clear. I was not cut out for life at Pandora’s. I had to resign immediately and take a nice, quiet job in a nice, steady practice, handling nothing more stressful than parking infringements and jay-walking fines. I would spend the rest of my legal life grazing on the easiest of cases, like one long, bland buffet.
I dressed with the intention of walking to the office, to tell my mother I was quitting Britain’s first two-person, mother–daughter, solicitor–barrister, boutique feminist law firm. But, halfway there, I lost my nerve. Could I really just leave my dear mum in the legal lurch? Roxy was evangelical about our purpose – liberating the world’s female underdogs from their kennels. I detoured left to Regent’s Park to think it through. It was a crisp morning. The air seemed freshly laundered, but everything about me felt stale. I lay on my back on a grassy bank, looking past the interlaced limbs of the trees, with their russet-red and gold leaves, into a sky where grey and white clouds sloshed about like jumbled washing. Black crows were like bullets in the blue sky. A vigilante’s bullets . . . My stomach curdled once more. My mind was made up. I was going to leave Pandora’s. From now on, I really was going to think outside the box, as I never, ever intended to set foot back inside it.
Roxy was on her mobile when I slunk into the office. She rang off and chortled. When Roxy laughed, she shook all over, as though a seismic tremor were coming up from her core. ‘This would be funny if it weren’t so tragically pathetic.’ She slapped her knee, which was encased in a pair of lime-green lizard-print stretch pants which left nothing to the imagination. It was teamed, naturally, with a cobalt cashmere jumper and pink go-go boots.
‘That call was from a British woman in Kuwait. Her husband and daughter drove over the border to Saudi Arabia in their British car to visit a mate. They were pulled over by the police, who presumed the daughter was driving, which, as you know, is illegal for women there. When the daughter pointed out that their car was a right-hand drive, she was accused of driving without a steering wheel. She’s been bloody well arrested.’
‘Roxy, I need to talk to you . . .’
‘Apparently, one imam has declared that women can only drive wearing a full burka, which completely covers the face – talk about the blind leading the blind.’ My mother guffawed again.
‘Mum . . . listen, I have something to say . . .’
‘Plus, we have a poor woman who’s being sued by her husband because she gave birth to an ugly baby.’
‘Roxy! . . . Listen to me for a moment . . .’
‘Wait, you’ll love this. Apparently, the father fell in love with his wife because of her beautiful looks, not realizing that she’d paid for them. Nose, eyes, boobs, botox, lipo, collagen, fillers . . . When she squeezed out an ugly baby, he went snooping through her childhood photos. She had no choice but to confess to her enhancements, and now he’s suing her for false advertising. Think of the bloody fun we’re going to have with this one!’
‘Roxanne!’ Using my mother’s full name, which I’d never, ever, done in my whole life, won her full attention. ‘I think it’s best if Portia and I move back to our old house and I find a job with a more . . . conventional clientele.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ She waved away my comment with a flutter of pink varnished nails.
‘I mean it, Mum. It’s time I lived an independent life . . . just as soon as you wash my clothes so I can pack them,’ I joshed, to soften the blow.
Roxy swivelled around to face me and peered over the tops of her diamante, cat’s-eye specs. ‘We’ve had an unusual few days. You’re just shell-shocked, possum.’
‘My God, Mum! We kidnapped and tortured a man. What we did was wrong.’
‘Maybe, but it achieved the right result. Look.’ My mother turned up the volume on the BBC lunchtime news. The screen was filled with the Darth Vader outfits of the riot police, who had launched a morning raid on Nathaniel’s drug ring, and the reporter was saying:
Hundreds of Met police officers swooped on suspected drug dealers in a mass raid across London today. Nearly 100 people were arrested, 10 guns were recovered and more than 60 crack cocaine rocks and 57kg of heroin were seized, according to officers from the Serious Organized Crime Agency. More than 300 officers took part in the Operation Hawk initiative against street-level drug dealing, using tip-offs from the community.
‘The “community”? That’s Nathaniel the Nark to you and me, kid. And look who’s there.’ My mother vaulted from her seat with the speed of a teenage gymnast and jabbed a nail at the screen. A group of men were being hounded out of a block of council flats on the Tony Benn Estate. Amongst the hoodied throng I glimpsed Stretch and Bash being taken into custody.
‘What’s not to be happy about, darl? Your reputation’s saved, those rapist bastards are going down and that posh, lying git is now a police informer. I’m so happy I feel I should – I don’t know – dance a jig, or run naked through the streets, or slaughter a cow, or something.’
‘Roxy, what we did was immoral.’
‘Oh, Tilly, if you want a moral, go look in an Aesop’s fable.’
‘I’ve made my mind up. I’m leaving.’
‘You can’t resign. Especially not today. It’s Pandora’s anniversary party. Two years and still standing. Phyllis is coming over to help me cook up a feast.’
‘I’m still resigning, though I’m not sure where I’ll work. Jack always said he’d take me into his Chambers. But I haven’t just burnt bridges with the man, I’ve kinda demolished both riverbanks.’
A Skype call buzzed insistently on Roxy’s computer. She pressed the green phone icon and the Countess’s lugubrious face came into full view.
‘Shhh! I can’t speak!’
‘That’s a first. Why?’ Roxy asked.
‘I’m at a Buddhist retreat,’ she whispered. ‘I took a vow of silence.’
‘Gee, that’s working well for you, possum.’
‘Yes, it’s killing me! Because guess who I ran into in the Indian Sweat Yert? . . . Stephen!’
‘I hope he’s got a third-eye infection,’ I said, nonplussed. The man was so far off my radar he barely registered a blip.
‘Apparently, Petronella caught him slathering his scalp in Regaine and popping Propecia pills to turn back the tide of hair loss and, repulsed, immediately hit the relationship ejector button. He told me to tell you that he’s ready to come back home.’
Roxy gave a rich chuckle. ‘The only way we want that bastard back is in a box.’
But the way I was feeling, it would be me not him, to turn up my toes. If I were in hospital, the wavy line on my terminal monitor would be fading to black. No doubt the French would have a name for this flattened, empty feeling of crushed expectations and self-loathing. But the best I could come up with in English was ‘I mean it, Mum. I want out.’
Exhaustion suddenly overwhelmed me. I trudged home and collapsed into a coma. I was woken, hours later, by nostril-tickling aromas wafting up from the kitchen below. I hadn’t eaten in what felt like days. Not even a chocolate bar – which proved how discombobulated I was. Hunger propelled me to pull on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I bunched my hair in an elastic band and padded barefoot down the stairs. Through the stained-glass panel of the front door I could see the outline of a person on the landing. Thinking it might be Portia, home from her enforced sleep-over at Amelia’s, I opened the door.
The man leaning nonchalantly on the stair rail was immaculately dressed, a cashmere jumper casually knotted around his broad shoulders. He was all sanguine charm and sardonic eyebrows and was pulling decadently on a cigar.
‘I don’t want you to presume for one minute that I’m here for any other reason than your mother’s cooking. In fact, I’ve only been pretending to like you all this time to get a taste of Roxy’s legendary Thai curry – a curry so strong I’m told it would send a South American chilli chef screaming from the room with his tongue in flames.’
‘Who invited you?’ I asked, perplexed.
‘You did,’ he said, breezing inside, unasked and kicking the door shut behind him with a suede loafer.
‘Well, I must have been writing in invisible ink again.’
Jack extracted his iPhone from a hip pocket and scrolled down through emails. He angled the phone screen towards my face.
Please come to dinner tonight. My mother’s cooking her famous Thai curry. For those who don’t like chilli, there’s a gratin dauphinois and duck à l’orange in the oven too. My exonerated murderess prepared it, so if it’s laced with poison, you can tell everyone that you were the very last person to hear from me and that I send them greetings.
Love, Tilly.
‘Well, yes, it does sound like me, but obviously I didn’t write this. I have never ended a correspondence to you with the word “love”.’
‘I invited him this morning, after our little chat.’ Roxy’s voice thundered behind me. ‘Ulterior motive. Once you spend time with each other, you’ll realize that you couldn’t possibly work together. One or other of you would be up on a murder charge by lunchtime.’
Jack hitched a brow and looked my way. ‘Work together?’
The door rat-a-tatted before I could reply. This time, Roxy answered it.
‘Thanks for asking me for dinner, Rox.’
‘I didn’t bloody well ask you,’ Roxy snapped at Danny, who was all freshly showered and shaved and looking a little ill at ease in his ironed jeans and best shirt, from which his big, bulging muscles were trying hard to escape.
‘No, I did. I texted him this morning. It’s time you two made up,’ I said.
The four of us stood in silence in the hall, absorbing the situation. Portia turned her key in the lock and entered. Seeing her grandfather, she vaulted into his arms and hugged him hard. Roxy couldn’t eject Danny now, not after this display of granddaughterly devotion. When nobody took out a restraining order or rang the police, or even spoke, Portia immediately read the situation and threw us a conversational life raft.
‘I’m sorry I worried you all. I have been acting a bit teenagery lately. But none of you has been behaving much better. So, may I suggest that the tableware-throwing resumes after a brief truce and a drink or two, because dinner does smell yummy,’ she said, all poise and precocity.
In desperate need of alcoholic fortification, we four adults practically stampeded our way to the drinks trolley in the living room, steeplechasing over any furniture in our path. While Portia cleverly involved her grandparents in a complicated conversation to do with homework matters, I decided it was best to take the stand and make a full confession to Jack, and hope he showed me more clemency than I’d afforded him.
‘At least we now know I’ll never have to pen a long and complicated speech after winning the Nobel Peace Prize . . .’ I gulped at my drink.
Jack canted a mocking brow. ‘Is that your way of saying sorry?’
‘No. But this is. You’d better guzzle that down, then get another drink. You’re going to need it by the time you hear the evidence in this immorality tale . . . I know I do.’
After Jack had topped up our champagne, he settled back on the couch while I explained how Nathaniel’s mask had slipped, literally. His vampire mask.
When the whole gruesome story concluded, Jack feigned huge astonishment. Rising to refresh his drink, he said, ‘Nathaniel turned out to be a lying, deceitful, grade-A arsehole?? No. I’m shocked.’ He put his hand on his forehead and staggered backwards a few feet.
‘What can I say? One of these days I’ll be out of therapy.’
‘I knew the toffee-nosed twit was a charlatan. I help a charity called Connect, which really does help ex-offenders go on the straight and narrow. I checked with them. They’d never heard of him.’
‘You help a charity?’ I marvelled.
‘I’m on the board. But don’t tell anyone. I don’t ever want it to get around that I’m not as evil as you’ve led people to believe. You’ll ruin my bad-boy reputation.’
He gave me a warm, wry, mischievous smile, which I reciprocated. The French would no doubt have a word for this, too – the secret kindness you don’t want the world to see but which gives your ex-girlfriend the urge to lick you all over. ‘This is worrying. The way things are going I’ll soon have to remove the word “bastard” from your resumé.’
‘So . . .’ An amused but sceptical line furrowed his brow. ‘Nathaniel told you all about the DVDs of the girls’ rapes and the drug deal coming in from Turkey because he was intimidated by your moral indignation and superior reasoning powers?’
‘Well, yes . . . and also Danny’s Glock 500 . . .’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘Plus the added incentive of a testicle-devouring South American pacu fish and the blackmail potential of a mock-paedophilia photo shoot involving simulated masturbation to an episode of the Teletubbies.’
Jack, who was draining his second glass of champagne, spluttered so hard, Veuve Clicquot came out of his nostrils. He then gave me a look of profound, if baffled, admiration. ‘The compromising film footage of Nathaniel in mock-paedophile pose does appeal from a karmic point of view . . . But couldn’t you have just taken the traditional Pandora’s approved route and shot him in the nuts? And . . . what happened to the fish?’
‘We’re eating it tonight. It’s in the curry, apparently.’
Jack laughed. ‘Well, I suppose it’s wiser to eat it before it eats you. Dieting from the inside . . . But tell me, how did Nathaniel, um, cope with the stress of the evening?’
‘The big hard man cried like a baby.’
Jack’s smiling mouth stretched even wider. ‘So is this private and confidential, or must I keep it to myself?’ he teased.
‘In fairness, Jack, who’d believe you?’
Jack reappraised me. ‘Well, Miss Inhabiter of the Upper Slopes of the High Moral High Ground, what a turn-up. If this is your idea of law enforcement, it’s just as well that you’re friends with a top criminal-law practitioner.’
‘So . . . are we friends?’ I asked tentatively.
‘I’m feeling quite friendly towards you right now actually,’ Jack said. ‘In fact, my offer still stands,’ he entendre-ed, smirking flirtatiously. ‘To join my Chambers.’
I swallowed hard. ‘Really?’
‘For the comedic value alone, it would be worth it. Are you interested?’
I nodded so hard I’m surprised my neck didn’t snap and my head fall to the floor.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘It’s agreed then. You can move in right away. Monday. I’ll pay your first few months’ rent, gratis. I’ll send one of my clerks over to help you with your boxes.’ To seal the deal, he tossed his cherished cigars into the bin.
‘Oy! Youse lot!’ Phyllis bellowed from the kitchen. Portia, back to her normal, obliging self, sprang to her feet. Chantelle, who had left school to take a cookery course on the other side of London, was already in the kitchen, working as sous chef. The two teenagers began carting steaming vats of aromatic gourmet delights to the table. Portia was beaming ear from ear at the sight of all the people she most cared about exclaiming joyfully over the feast. Soon, we were all bobbing about in a comforting broth of warm emotions. We cosied up under a thick blanket of relaxed chatter. If you’d glimpsed us through the window, it would have looked for a brief moment as though we were playing happy families.
But, of course, as one of the Countess’s beloved Russian writers would no doubt note (though it would take nine hundred turgid pages to say it), the family that eats together . . . gets indigestion.
Danny suddenly tapped his knife on the side of his wine glass, tearing a hole in the conversation. He rose to his feet. ‘The thing is, when you’re out there, all alone, lost in some jungle, behind enemy lines, you get the chance to do a lot of thinking. And what I finally realized is that love is all that really matters. And a soulmate. Which is why this old gypsy dog has decided that it really is time I settled down and got hitched. I’ve waited so damn long, there are cobwebs between these fingers.’ He waggled his calloused digits for all to see. ‘So, what I want to say is – and this time I’m sober enough to do it properly – will you marry me, Roxy? At our age, there’s not so much pressure on the till death do us part, part, right?’ He then fell to his knees on the floor beside my mother, pulled a diamond ring from his ironed-jeans pocket and presented it to her with a flourish.
Roxy looked at him, dumbfounded. The silence was palpable.
‘So, what do you say?’ Danny persisted. ‘Shall we try to raise a little mortgage together?’ All eyes were on my mother, who sat stiff and stony-faced. The silence in the conversation was now big enough to drive a truck through. ‘Stop saying nothing in such an aggressive voice,’ he teased her, as the tension mounted.
‘From what I’ve gleaned,’ Roxy finally said, ‘marriage is like being dead, except you still feel the urge to go shoe shopping.’
‘Well, if she won’t marry you, I will . . . As long as you can keep me in the tax band to which I’ve become accustomed.’ We all swivelled, to see Countess Flirtalotsky, who was standing in the hall doorway, Louis Vuitton suitcase in hand, having let herself in with her key.
‘I keep telling Roxy that she loves me, but the damn fool won’t listen,’ Danny told her, before turning his full attention back to my mother. ‘I adore you, woman, always have, always will.’ Danny lifted Roxy’s hand and placed it on his cheek. He pushed his face against her palm and kissed it with great and very grave tenderness. ‘What is it you don’t like about me? Whatever it is, I’ll change. Is it the snoring?’ he joshed.
‘It’s not the snoring I mind, it’s the talking noise you make during the day.’ Roxy snatched her hand back from his grasp. ‘I can’t abide people who can’t tell the difference between talking and saying something. I mean, this proposal is preposterous. I still don’t know anything about you. Like who you really are, exactly. Or where you grew up. I mean, I don’t even know how old you really are . . .’
‘I’m about 6,400 in dog years,’ Danny said, patting Roxy’s rescue canines, which were licking his face and fingers. ‘I don’t know about camel years or lemur years’ – he grinned sheepishly – ‘but it’s old enough to know what I want, anyway.’
‘How can I marry a man whose name I don’t even bloody well know?’
‘Um . . . that’s classified information.’ Danny leapt to his feet defensively. ‘You don’t really want to know that.’
My mother folded her arms and gave a stern stare.
‘. . . Fergus,’ he mumbled reluctantly.
‘Christ, no wonder you changed it!’ The Countess snorted with laughter. She poured herself a glass of wine and squeezed in around the table.
‘Fergus! Fergus!’ Roxy was hooting. ‘You silly bugger.’
Jack noted Fergus’s hangdog expression and rallied on his behalf. ‘There’s nothing wrong with changing your name. After all, the British Royal family provoked the First World War merely to enable them to change their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.’
‘Don’t defend him, Jack,’ Roxy snapped. ‘It’s just so typical that you men would stick together.’
‘Jesus, woman! I’ve apologized a gazillion times for my past. But, despite all the shit that’s gone down, we still love each other, Roxy,’ Danny declared. ‘You know we do. Look how well we work together. We proved that yesterday. Which is why we’re getting married. One of us had to make the decision, and I’ve decided that it’s me.’
Roxy’s face slammed shut. Her eyes narrowed into slits. ‘Funny, because I’ve decided that I don’t like men deciding things for me. The truth is, Danny, we don’t need men. That’s why we set up Pandora’s.’
‘But that’s all changing now,’ Jack said. ‘Matilda’s just asked if she can join my Chambers. So perhaps Danny could become your collaborator. Tilly’s told me all about your latest escapade. And you and Danny clearly do work so well together.’
‘You really have agreed to join Jack’s Chambers?’ Roxy asked me, crestfallen.
‘Yep. And I’ve accepted her offer . . .’ Jack answered for me. ‘Although there’s one proviso that I’m still to negotiate. You must go on another date with me, Tilly. I’ve taken Rohypnol, so you can have your way with me,’ he joked.
Roxy speared him with a reproachful glare. ‘Have you no bloody sensitivity at all? How can you joke about that, Jack, after what Matilda’s been through?’
‘How can I not? Truth is, Tilly, you’re a lovely, kooky, quirky, clever bookworm of a girl, far too gentle for this big, bad world. At least when you’re in my Chambers, I can take care of you and protect you and keep you out of harm’s way. And Roxy, despite all your bluster and bravado, you need protecting, too. As Danny proved yesterday, by all accounts.’
A cold silence fell like a snowdrift on to the room.
My mother pushed up slowly to her high-heeled feet, pepper grinder in hand. ‘I’m not sure if this thing’s on . . .’ She tapped the grinder, then spoke into it as though it were a microphone. ‘On this day, the second anniversary of Pandora’s, I’d just like to say that I was never sure if this venture of ours, the world’s first two-person, mother–daughter, solicitor–barrister, boutique feminist law firm, created to fight for women’s rights, would survive . . . I was not sure at times if our family would survive . . . But survive we have. And with a lot of adventure, fun and frivolity en route. Plus, some victories for women. And I couldn’t have had a better partner in crime – well, a better partner in fighting crime – than my darling daughter, Matilda.’ A look of fondness spilled and rippled over her face. ‘But it’s never going to be easy. And I totally understand and respect any decision you make about changing your life and finding a more conventional law practice, Tilly. Because I’m way too old to change.’
It must have been the wine speaking or chronic chocolate withdrawal, because I then heard myself say ‘And I wouldn’t change one thing about you, Mum . . . Except maybe those pink go-go boots.’ I smiled.
Portia pushed her way between us and wrapped her arms around our necks. ‘Well, I’d like to leave both you bonkers women . . . only I just can’t think of anyone I’d want to leave you for. It was sooooooo boring at Amelia’s! I’m just so glad things are back to normal. Well, as abnormal as that is.’
My mother and I exchanged a melty look. The cute-o-meter had just gone off the scale – but neither of us cared at all.
Phyllis now emerged from the kitchen, staggering under the weight of a huge chocolate cake in the shape of a glittering casket, candles blazing. It had been iced pink by Chantelle and simply read – ‘Pandora’s’.
‘Jeepers. That cake would feed one hundred Frenchwomen,’ the Countess declared, as Roxy gouged out a huge hunk with a knife and devoured it whole.
‘Oh, I so much prefer a woman with appetites,’ Danny flirted, gazing at Roxy hungrily.
‘By the way, I stole Petronella’s Facebook details from Steve’s computer and have posted them on a fetish dating site for geriatric kinky singles,’ the Countess informed us.
‘Excellent!’ Roxy laughed, eating another huge hunk of cake. ‘Now that’s what I call “just desserts”.’
As I sank my teeth into a giant slice of soft chocolate sponge, nothing was needed to enhance my mood of utter contentment. I felt along my veins a tingling happiness, almost frightening in its physicality.
‘. . . I’ve been thinking about that man who’s suing his wife because he didn’t know she’d had cosmetic surgery and so wasn’t expecting an ugly baby . . . I think we should fight it on the grounds of facial prejudice – a discrimination suffered only by women,’ I said to Roxy.
‘Ah yes, show me a woman who is happy with her looks and I’ll show you the electroconvulsive-therapy scorch-marks,’ Roxy replied.
‘What? Don’t be ridiculous,’ Jack scoffed. ‘The woman clearly deceived her husband. It’s a clear-cut case of fraud.’
‘Roxy’s right. It’s just so typical of you, always to take the man’s side, Jack,’ I said crossly.
Jack smirked. ‘Phew. I was worried we hadn’t had a disagreement all night. I thought you were perhaps seeing someone else? . . . After all, fighting is foreplay for us . . . I suppose a little tiff before bed would be out of the question?’
I slit my eyes in Jack’s direction, suddenly losing the urge to remove the word ‘bastard’ from his resumé.
‘I could get some undercover info on the hubby of the cosmetically enhanced bride . . .’ Danny volunteered. ‘See if he’s having any affairs . . .’
It was Roxy’s turn to slit her eyes and level a suspicious glance at Danny. ‘I thought you’d given up undercover work! See? . . . You haven’t changed at all.’
‘Crikey,’ Phyllis rasped to Chantelle, ‘I think we’d better get back to the estate, pet, where things are quieter and more civilized.’
Chantelle giggled. It was the first time I’d heard her laugh since the trial.
‘Anyway, Matilda,’ Jack remonstrated, ‘you’ve just agreed to join my Chambers and I’m sorry, but we don’t do pro bono work. I mean who really needs a halo? It’s just one more thing to clean, right?’
My mother glowered judgementally at Jack, then raised her brows in my direction.
‘I made that rash comment about joining your Chambers in my youth, Jack. People say wild things when they’re young.’
‘But you made that comment only an hour or so ago, Tilly,’ he said.
‘Kids!’ I smiled at my mother and shrugged. ‘They grow up fast.’
When my mother beamed back at me, Jack let out an irritated moan. ‘Jesus. Where did I put those bloody cigars? I have never needed a smoke so badly.’
When the doorbell rang, the adults were too busy arguing to move from the table, so Portia answered it. She returned five minutes later and tapped her fork on the side of the glass, as Danny had done, looking grave. When we still didn’t simmer down, she picked up the pepper grinder and spoke loudly into it.
‘Attention! Um, sorry to interrupt the squabbling, but I have an enquiry for Pandora’s.’
We all turned as one to face my darling daughter.
‘There’s a woman at the door whose marriage might have suffered a slight setback.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Well, she’s holding her husband’s penis . . . but, unfortunately – um – he’s not there . . .’
‘Oh!’ we pretty much said in unison. Followed by ‘Eugghhhhh!’
‘Well, show her into Pandora’s,’ Roxy boomed, squeezing my hand. ‘Where we think inside, on top of, under, over and outside the bloody box.’
To be continued . . .