a good time. But I’m not interested. I know I’ll lose most of today. The team’s productivity will be severely depleted because of the necessary administration of Alka Seltzer and intravenously dripped black coffee. They’ll spend hours discussing the pros and cons of the various hair of the dog cures. Choices being Bloody Mary, a pint of Guinness, fried eggs with gin. Most importantly they will all be extremely ashamed of themselves and so tomorrow I’ll get commitment overdrive.
My phone rings again.
‘Cas Perry, TV6. Good morning.’
‘Jocasta?’
‘Mum.’
‘How are you, dear?’
‘Brilliant. Mum, did you ring about the show?’ I’m thrilled.
‘Show?’
‘My show. You did watch it, didn’t you?’ I’m devastated. I can’t believe that my mother has forgotten about the show. Even when things were really hairy and busy around here, in the penultimate couple of weeks before the show went live, I’d religiously visited my mum on Sundays. I had been there in body, although, I admit, not always in spirit. I’d had to spend a lot of time on my mobile. But when I wasn’t on my mobile I had taken time to tell her all about the show. Now my mother is acting as though she’s never heard of it.
‘Oh yes. Erm, Best with an Ex.’ She demurely avoids the S word. Actually, I’m quite impressed with her title. I should have consulted her before the show went out. Best with an Ex is so much more subtle than Sex with an Ex. I wonder if there is any chance of a name change at this stage. My train of thought is interrupted as Mum mithers on.
‘I did watch the first ten minutes but then Bob, from across the road, popped over to fix that drawer that’s been sticking. You know, the third one down in the kitchen.’
Bob, one of a small number of names that my mother floats past me on a regular basis. ‘Mrs Cooper said that there’s a buy two and get one free offer on shampoo at Boots at the moment’; ‘It’s Albert and Dorothy’s fortieth wedding anniversary on Saturday – they are having a supper’; ‘Dr Dean was asking after you’. It’s tedious keeping up with the comings and goings of these tiresome people.
‘I couldn’t have the television running whilst he was in the house,’ comments my mother.
I’m disappointed, so move quickly to get her off the line. A non-offensive exit demands a certain amount of self-sacrifice. I agree to go shopping with her on Saturday. I regret the offer almost the moment the words are out of my mouth. It will be a disaster: it always is. For a start she will want to find a bargain in the Army and Navy store, whilst I will want to spend obscene amounts in Bond Street. If we do go to Bond Street, her face will settle into one of the expressions I can only assume she most favours, shocked or cross. Shocked at the prices and cross at life. I can’t bear her sudden outbursts in small boutiques. ‘That’s how much? There’s nothing to it! Look at the hemming. I could run you one up on the sewing machine.’ Which is odd, as she has never sewn in her life. Worse than her audible disgust will be her silent condemnations of my frivolity, the incessant tutting at the cashpoint as I hand over one of my magic pieces of plastic. Therefore we usually shop at the Army and Navy store, where I destroy her pleasure by continually pointing out ‘nice’ things and adding for clarity, ‘Nice for you, Mum.’ Revenge is always hers as she buys whichever monstrosity I’ve picked out and gives it to me for Christmas or my birthday. All this accepted, we regularly put ourselves through this purgatory on earth. What else can I do? She’s my mum. I wonder if I can get Issie or Josh to meet us for lunch.
By the time I put the phone down most of the team have arrived. Except for Tom and Mark. Their status as creatives excludes them from having to appear at work at all if they are hung over. The scene is as I’d predicted: I am in an office with the walking dead. They are pale and unshaven, and they smell of booze, sweat and sex. There is a certain amount of squabbling, the excuse being that the vending machine is all out of non-dairy creamer, the real reason being the bad heads. However, the atmosphere is immediately dissolved when Ricky