girls.” Jeffrey looked a little woozy, perhaps from his exertions with the bed sock, and said he needed to lie down.
TUESDAY, MARCH 25
Before taking Sophie and Zac to the airport today I finally got a chance to talk to my daughter alone. Zac had gone out for a run—like many short men, he seems to take a perverse pride in his physique—leaving Sophie in the conservatory trying to teach Darcy to say something that sounded like “Comin’ atchaaaa.” Fortunately she failed. I settled down in a wicker chair and waited for her to stop pretending she didn’t know I was there. Eventually she looked away from Darcy, who was shiftinguncomfortably from one foot to the other saying “Atchoo,” turned to me, and said, “All right, Mum?”
I decided to bite the bullet. “Yes, I’m fine, thanks, but I’m a bit worried about
you,
Sophie,” I said. “Jealousy is a terrible thing.” I stared at her in the hope that she would cave in, or at least show some sign of embarrassment or remorse, but instead she stuck her hands firmly in the pockets of her slouchy jeans and stared right back at me through narrowed eyes rimmed with thick green kohl.
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “I saw the look on your face when Aunty Harriet told you that Laura had got engaged.” I could tell that this line of conversation was going nowhere. I will never find out if my daughter is guilty of a frog-related crime passionnel; she will never confess.
Instead I turned the conversation to safer territory. I asked if she was enjoying herself in the Ardèche, and she said it was “all right”; I asked if she’d made lots of nice friends, and she said “’spose”; I asked if her French was getting better, and she said “’spose.” She then perked up a little and said she knew how to give a boy a brush-off by telling him to do something unspeakable with a pinecone—I paraphrase so as to spare your blushes, dear readers. I know I should have told her off but I couldn’t suppress a small giggle. I gave her a hug, and actually felt her hug me back. I felt less bleak than usual when I drove her, and Zac, to Heathrow. It will be Lydia’s turn at the end of the week, and then I hope things will return to normal.
There was no bell ringing this evening because of the Easter break, but after such a hectic few days I was quite happy to sit back on the sofa and watch
Location, Location, Location.
It featured a couple who had spent £100,000 on a two-bedroom flat in Clapham in 1996 and, having added a “feature wall” of glass bricks and painted everything white, were selling it for £375,000.Jeffrey and I bought our house in 1988; even without any novelty see-through bricks, Lord only knows what has happened to its value since then.
And now I must get an early night: tomorrow I am finally meeting Gerald, and I will need all my wits about me to steer him safely into the arms of Miss Hughes.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26
I have just returned from my rendezvous with Gerald. We met in Café Milano, or what used to be the village tea shop before it underwent some spurious Continental makeover. Gerald was there already, perched uncomfortably on a chrome bar stool and clutching a paperback copy of
Anna Karenina
with clammy-looking hands.
He was wearing a lavender-colored corduroy suit, with a crumpled white T-shirt underneath. Either he is taking Miss Hughes’s preferences to heart, or he has managed to lose all his blue shirts and sensible trousers at the launderette. When I went up to him and said a cheerful “Hello,” he appeared ill at ease, perhaps because he was nervous about the conversation that would ensue, or perhaps because he was bamboozled by the café’s terminology of lattes and Americanos. I took matters into my own hands. I was an Englishwoman in an English tea shop; there was no need for me to ask for anything ending in
o.
I asked for one cup of tea, one white coffee, and a couple of biscuits, fixing the waitress (I will not say
TUESDAY, MARCH 25
Before taking Sophie and Zac to the airport today I finally got a chance to talk to my daughter alone. Zac had gone out for a run—like many short men, he seems to take a perverse pride in his physique—leaving Sophie in the conservatory trying to teach Darcy to say something that sounded like “Comin’ atchaaaa.” Fortunately she failed. I settled down in a wicker chair and waited for her to stop pretending she didn’t know I was there. Eventually she looked away from Darcy, who was shiftinguncomfortably from one foot to the other saying “Atchoo,” turned to me, and said, “All right, Mum?”
I decided to bite the bullet. “Yes, I’m fine, thanks, but I’m a bit worried about
you,
Sophie,” I said. “Jealousy is a terrible thing.” I stared at her in the hope that she would cave in, or at least show some sign of embarrassment or remorse, but instead she stuck her hands firmly in the pockets of her slouchy jeans and stared right back at me through narrowed eyes rimmed with thick green kohl.
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “I saw the look on your face when Aunty Harriet told you that Laura had got engaged.” I could tell that this line of conversation was going nowhere. I will never find out if my daughter is guilty of a frog-related crime passionnel; she will never confess.
Instead I turned the conversation to safer territory. I asked if she was enjoying herself in the Ardèche, and she said it was “all right”; I asked if she’d made lots of nice friends, and she said “’spose”; I asked if her French was getting better, and she said “’spose.” She then perked up a little and said she knew how to give a boy a brush-off by telling him to do something unspeakable with a pinecone—I paraphrase so as to spare your blushes, dear readers. I know I should have told her off but I couldn’t suppress a small giggle. I gave her a hug, and actually felt her hug me back. I felt less bleak than usual when I drove her, and Zac, to Heathrow. It will be Lydia’s turn at the end of the week, and then I hope things will return to normal.
There was no bell ringing this evening because of the Easter break, but after such a hectic few days I was quite happy to sit back on the sofa and watch
Location, Location, Location.
It featured a couple who had spent £100,000 on a two-bedroom flat in Clapham in 1996 and, having added a “feature wall” of glass bricks and painted everything white, were selling it for £375,000.Jeffrey and I bought our house in 1988; even without any novelty see-through bricks, Lord only knows what has happened to its value since then.
And now I must get an early night: tomorrow I am finally meeting Gerald, and I will need all my wits about me to steer him safely into the arms of Miss Hughes.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26
I have just returned from my rendezvous with Gerald. We met in Café Milano, or what used to be the village tea shop before it underwent some spurious Continental makeover. Gerald was there already, perched uncomfortably on a chrome bar stool and clutching a paperback copy of
Anna Karenina
with clammy-looking hands.
He was wearing a lavender-colored corduroy suit, with a crumpled white T-shirt underneath. Either he is taking Miss Hughes’s preferences to heart, or he has managed to lose all his blue shirts and sensible trousers at the launderette. When I went up to him and said a cheerful “Hello,” he appeared ill at ease, perhaps because he was nervous about the conversation that would ensue, or perhaps because he was bamboozled by the café’s terminology of lattes and Americanos. I took matters into my own hands. I was an Englishwoman in an English tea shop; there was no need for me to ask for anything ending in
o.
I asked for one cup of tea, one white coffee, and a couple of biscuits, fixing the waitress (I will not say
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