Read Online In Bed with Jocasta by Richard Glover - Free Book Online

now successfully employed as Chief Eunuch to the Sultan of Dubai.
    Oblivious, he stumbles on: ‘What am I meant to do? Even if I admit I’ve stuffed up, how can I suddenly come up with a bloody fairy? At 10.00 a.m. on a Sunday!’
    He gives a little wink, and attempts a sort of greasy, unctuous smile. ‘I mean, lady, I can’t just wave a magic wand.’
    The manager of the Clown and Fairy Party Centre may well believe that humour is the best way to diffuse a threatening situation. Isn’t it amazing just how wrong a bloke can be.
    Fresh waves of fairies are now entering the shop, part of a second party which, it emerges, this bloke’s also forgotten to book. There are now thirty-six fairies packed into the corridor in front of the fairy’s magic cave — all of them covered in tulle, their sparkly garlands aquiver.
    Thirty-six girls, plus The Space Cadet, who’s now sitting sullenly on a polystyrene toadstool, glancing occasionally towards me — his big eyes full of reproach. The question ‘How could you do this to me?’ springs to mind.
    There are now two enraged mothers at the counter. And a manager whose eyes are full of fear. He might not be able to find a fairy in a hurry, but he’s facing a terrifying oversupply of ogres.
    ‘Look, pal,’ says my friend, stabbing her receipt towards the manager’s face, ‘you find a fairy, a real magic fairy, and find one fast.’
    ‘Otherwise,’ chimes in the other mother, producing her daughter’s large, spiked wand. ‘I’m sure I could make
this
disappear.’
    A tremor passes across the manager’s face. ‘Well,’ he concedes, with some uncertainty, ‘I suppose we could ring Tracey.’
    It takes an hour for Tracey to appear — an hour in which the thirty-six little girl fairies work their own vengeful magic on the Clown and Fairy Party Centre, while The Space Cadet sensibly creeps ever lower behind his toadstool.
    But finally Tracey makes it — and in so doing makes it abundantly clear why she’s not her manager’s first option. The night before, it appears, Tracey has been making magic in her own special way. As fairies go, she’s had a pretty big night, with — from the look of things — liberal supplies of fairy dust.
    ‘Ahhh, g’day kids,’ says Trace, her eyes a most magical shade of red. The little girls look up, full of innocent hope, but Trace’s bleary eyes instead settle on The Space Cadet, the cloud of confusion suddenly clearing from her mind.
    ‘Bugger me, it’s Elvis. Hey, come here, pal.’
    And so The Space Cadet slips off his magic toadstool, and comes to sit on Trace’s lap, there to luxuriate in her confusion. And to enjoy that morning’s
particularly
wild fairy stories.
    As fairy parties go, it was one of the best.

Old-Man Emu
    T he Space Cadet, as always, has a teenage girl at his beck and call: he is sitting on our young friend’s shoulders, being carried down to the beach. I’m on the other side of the road, walking with Batboy and Jocasta, and I can’t stop myself saying something. Putting on a bad southern American accent, I yell across the road: ‘You know you’ll spoil that boy — spoil him rotten.’
    The only problem: just as I yell it out, a car is slowly motoring past. A woman is driving. There’s a child in the back. Her window is open. She thinks I’m talking to her.
    Coming to a halt, and genuinely baffled, she says: ‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’ I stammer an excuse. I was just talking to my friend. The one, um, over there.
    By now, though, there is no-one over there. The lady shakes her head, saddened by the proliferation of insane people since community housing policies were introduced. And then she drives off. Which is when I notice Batboy, standing by my side. He is rigid with embarrassment.
    He’s stock still, staring intently at the ground, and has swivelled his shoulders away from me. His body language says it all: ‘I’m just waiting here to cross the road. The loud fat man? Never seen him