‘It’s tips left, right and centre, over here. I’m bleeding cash,’ mumbles my dad.
‘I’m sure we should have tipped her,’ argues my mum.
‘She works for me, Mum, you’re in my home. Dad, put your money away, there’s no need for a tip.’
‘I’ve gone blonde.’ Mum fingers the edges of her hair shyly. I think she’s telling me she’s blonde because there is a level of uncertainty, the shade is open to interpretation; I’d say it has the same hue as rice pudding – the sort with sultanas and nutmeg in.
‘Our Fern will have someone who can do something with it,’ says Dad. ‘Fix the colour.’ He’s said what I’m thinking but the anxiety that floods into Mum’s face stops me backing him up.
‘You look fantastic,’ I smile.
She repays my solidarity by commenting, ‘You’re too skinny.’
‘Do you like your hotel?’ I ask.
‘Your father struggled to get into the bathroom for thirty minutes. There’s no handle on the door. You just give it a gentle push and then it sort of springs back at you.’ Mum looks smug, as she was clearly the one who conquered that particular Everest.
‘Too bloody clever for its own good,’ mutters my dad. I remember feeling just as helpless when I struggled to turn on the taps that first night I arrived here. ‘And your mother isn’t keen on the enormous tangerine-coloured mirrors; she says they make her look overcooked.’
‘It’s very spacious though, dear, very elegant,’ adds my mum. ‘And those lovely long terraces! Oh, the views, city wide! Stunning. Shame about your dad’s vertigo, though.’
Clearly they are bewildered and uncomfortable. I bet my mum hasn’t dared use the soap or disturb the towels; she probably brought her own with her. Saadi should have put them in a more traditional hotel. What was she thinking?
‘You could stay here,’ I offer, not for the first time.
‘We don’t want to be in the way,’ says Mum, gazing around my vast bedroom, which is the size of their house.
‘You wouldn’t be.’
She shakes her head and I know her decision is final. She’s a proud woman and I understand her reasoning. If it’s going to take them thirty minutes to open a minimalist door, they’d rather do that in privacy.
‘Listen, how about I get dressed and show you around?’ I offer.
Mum and Dad are overwhelmed by Scott’s place. They are, in fact, flabbergasted, a word my dad uses to describe his reaction to the snooker table, the gym, the extensive gardens and the Jacuzzis (we have one indoor and one outdoor). My mother repeatedly asks, ‘What will they think of next? A cinema in your house?’ When I show her the cinema in our house, she resorts to Dad’s response of choice; she too is flabbergasted.
I’ve lived in Beverly Hills, Hollywood, in Scott’s home, for six weeks now and I have already become entirely accepting of luxury. The funny thing about luxury is that it turns out to be more or less the same everywhere and it’s possible to stop noticing it’s there at all, thus defeating the very point of luxury, surely. In just six weeks I’ve started to expect nothing less than perfection. I’m no longer amazed by translucent fabric walls that screen glamorous and outlandish goings-on. I barely register frosted glass furniture that changes colour with the beat of the music (a challenging indigo at the beginning of the evening when lounge music drifts through conversations, then – shifting through the rainbow – a cool blue as the beat intensifies, then an invigorating green as people start to party and then finally a sinful red as the bodies and thoughts flail around the dance floor). I expect every object I encounter – whether it’s a shopping bag or a hotel lobby – to be tasteful, modish, kitsch, discreet, flamboyant or stunning; I expect everything to be, in some way, notable. Nothing is ordinary any more, so in an odd way, once again everything is. Just a different kind of ordinary.
My family are not similarly acclimatized. I realize that Fiona has arrived as I repeatedly hear her yell at her children, ‘Don’t touch that, you’ll break it!’ or ‘Be careful of that, it will be worth a fortune.’ I pour her a large G&T as quickly as I can. My younger cousins, nieces and nephews quickly strip off and dive into the pool. Most of them have had the sense to bring swimwear but a few haven’t and dive in wearing just their underwear. My mum is