When I wake up next morning my hair is all over the place. I try to smooth it down some with my hairbrush and that makes it worse.
I’m just hacking at some bits that are falling in my eyes when Mum rings and asks me to come up to her suite right away as she has something important to give me.
Give me? I wonder what it is?
I throw on my clothes and make my way up there.
‘Oh yes, I like the hair,’ she says as I enter the suite.
But before I have a chance to continue she says, ‘Listen, babes. I know you were really disappointed we had to come back so soon from Paris. So I’ve got you a little present, to make up.’ She’s holding out a watch that looks a bit like a Swatch.
‘Oh, thanks, lovely. But you shouldn’t have, Mum. I’ve already got a watch.’
‘Not like this one, you haven’t.’
‘Errm no …’ Actually, no one at school is wearing Swatches any more.
‘You see this one has got a little bitsy chip in it which means wherever you go, you can be tracked on a compu—’
‘Tracked?’
‘Umm. On a computer. Isn’t it clever? So even if you did get kidnapped your mama could find you, just like that.’
‘Mum, you can’t mean this! You want to tag me, like some wild animal?!?’
‘Only because I want to keep my one and only baby safe.’
‘No way!’ (No way! My freedom, such as it is. Little forays, like my trip to Harrods, for instance, are important to me.)
So I go on at some length about my right to a degree of personal liberty. Like not being tagged like some violent and possibly perverted prisoner.
Mum pouts at this and says, ‘So if you won’t take a simple little precaution to please me …’
‘Mum, I’m always doing things to please you.’
‘Like what?’
She’s got me there. I can’t think of a single thing.
‘So what are you doing today? Couldn’t we do something together?’ I counter.
‘Well, my meeting’s been cancelled so I thought I’d spend the day at my health club having a body wrap and a de-stress massage. I think I can feel just the teensiest bit of tension coming on in my neck.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘Hollywood, babes – you could come with me and have one too.’
For your information, I do not fancy being wrapped in wet bandages soaked in mud or to have some person pummelling and stretching my naked body. For someone like me, with my least impressive measurement, it is just too humiliating.
‘No thanks. I might drop over and see Gi-Gi. She rang and said she hadn’t heard from you for ages and was everything all right.’
Mum puts on her wounded expression. ‘Well, if you’d prefer to be with your great-grandmother than your very own mother …’
‘It’s not that I’d prefer. I just don’t want to spend a boring day at the health –’
‘No, it’s OK. I understand. You do your own thing. I won’t mind spending the day on my own with no one to talk to.’
So I go over to Gi-Gi’s and invest some time in putting Thumper (who is gaining grams by the minute) through an intensive session on his circuit training course. The only problem is he will only go though each obstacle if I put a tempting morsel of sesame dumpling the other side, which kind of defeats the purpose.
When I get back that evening, Mum is in a post body-wrap state of relaxation. She’s laid out on her bed propped up by big fat satin cushions.
‘How was Gi-Gi?’ she asks sleepily.
‘Fine. She might kind of appreciate it if you dropped by.’
‘Vix. Send Gi-Gi some flowers,’ Mum calls out. ‘With a note. You’ll know what to say.’ She turns back to me with an angelic smile. ‘So it’s all settled, babes. Vix has been on to the agency and she’s got two teachers starting tomorrow. We’ll get the most important things sorted first.’
‘Two?’
‘Well, you can’t expect one teacher to know everything.’
‘No, I guess not. Tomorrow?’ Suddenly starting work doesn’t seem so totally urgent.