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Authors: Polly James
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mirror, while mumbling that he’ll never get another girlfriend.
I try to cheer him up by pointing out that no one is as bonkers as Mrs Nudd: an over-optimistic theory which Dinah succeeds in disproving, when she phones just as Max, Josh and I finish eating dinner. She sounds as mad as a hatter.
‘Dad’s joined bloody Facebook now,’ she says.
‘And?’ I say. There’s always an ‘and’.
‘He’s got six friends already, apart from me – and they’re all women. I told you not to teach him to use that computer!’
‘Well, maybe they’re old school-friends or something,’ I say – with an optimism that I do not feel. (My Mrs Nudd theory didn’t exactly stand up well to scrutiny.)
‘They’re all about twenty, and look Thai! Silver surfer, my arse.’ Dinah sucks noisily on her cigarette for emphasis, says, ‘ F*ck’s sake! ’ and then hangs up.
Sometimes I think it wouldn’t matter if I walked off when she phones, like I do with Miss Chambers. I am nothing more than a receptacle for the venting of others and it’s very tiring indeed.
I’m not the only one who’s knackered tonight. Both Max and Josh have already gone to bed by the time that I check my email, before I hit the sack myself.
There’s a message from Johnny, who negotiates receipt of my challenging photo with consummate ease, by the simple trick of restricting his response to ‘ Very attractive!’ He has more political awareness than The Boss, that’s for sure – so I feel compelled to send him a proper picture as a reward.
I end up sending one that Josh took by accident earlier this evening, when he wanted to check whether the batteries in the camera were still working. It shows me with my eyes closed, thus allowing me to retain an air of mystery. Or that’s what I tell myself, anyway.
When I finally get into bed, Max asks me what took me so long, and I say that I’ve been working on a report for one of the Select Committees. I don’t think he knows The Boss isn’t on any of them since the election, but he does go a bit quiet after that. Now I’m not sure if he doesn’t believe me, or if he’s just asleep. He’s not snoring yet, so it’s hard to tell.
FRIDAY, 11 JUNE
Thank God Greg and I refused to go out for the Christmas meal at lunchtime, as surgery proves quite stressful enough on its own. I try to persuade Greg to go in with The Boss for a change, on the grounds that I’ve already been lumbered with doing tomorrow’s supermarket surgery, but Greg is having none of it.
‘I am still suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,’ he says, taking a long look into his pocket mirror to add an air of verité . ‘The ego is a fragile thing.’
That’s undeniable – so, as usual on a Friday morning, I’m the one who has to sit listening to The Boss promising the impossible to each constituent who has an appointment, before he leans back and basks in the love in the room. Later, it’ll be down to me to tell them that what he’s promised is unfeasible, or against regulations, or whatever – and then the constituents will phone him, to complain about my attitude.
Today he assures a single woman with one small child that he can get her a four-bedroomed Council house in the same street as her mother, ‘no problem.’ This is despite my resorting to kicking him under the table, and making my ‘Infected’ face.
Then he promises a slimy old man, who’s just got out of prison for an unspecified sexual offence that ‘of course’ we can get him a visa for his Thai bride – whom the man hasn’t even met yet. (This leads to me fretting about Dad, and briefly losing concentration, so I can’t recall what the next constituent is promised.)
We do have one case that gets me really ‘exercised’, as The Boss would say. A sweet little guy, called Mr Something-or-other-totally-unintelligible, but which sounds like Mr Meeeeurghn, wants us to see if we can get his passport back from the Home Office, as he wants to
I try to cheer him up by pointing out that no one is as bonkers as Mrs Nudd: an over-optimistic theory which Dinah succeeds in disproving, when she phones just as Max, Josh and I finish eating dinner. She sounds as mad as a hatter.
‘Dad’s joined bloody Facebook now,’ she says.
‘And?’ I say. There’s always an ‘and’.
‘He’s got six friends already, apart from me – and they’re all women. I told you not to teach him to use that computer!’
‘Well, maybe they’re old school-friends or something,’ I say – with an optimism that I do not feel. (My Mrs Nudd theory didn’t exactly stand up well to scrutiny.)
‘They’re all about twenty, and look Thai! Silver surfer, my arse.’ Dinah sucks noisily on her cigarette for emphasis, says, ‘ F*ck’s sake! ’ and then hangs up.
Sometimes I think it wouldn’t matter if I walked off when she phones, like I do with Miss Chambers. I am nothing more than a receptacle for the venting of others and it’s very tiring indeed.
I’m not the only one who’s knackered tonight. Both Max and Josh have already gone to bed by the time that I check my email, before I hit the sack myself.
There’s a message from Johnny, who negotiates receipt of my challenging photo with consummate ease, by the simple trick of restricting his response to ‘ Very attractive!’ He has more political awareness than The Boss, that’s for sure – so I feel compelled to send him a proper picture as a reward.
I end up sending one that Josh took by accident earlier this evening, when he wanted to check whether the batteries in the camera were still working. It shows me with my eyes closed, thus allowing me to retain an air of mystery. Or that’s what I tell myself, anyway.
When I finally get into bed, Max asks me what took me so long, and I say that I’ve been working on a report for one of the Select Committees. I don’t think he knows The Boss isn’t on any of them since the election, but he does go a bit quiet after that. Now I’m not sure if he doesn’t believe me, or if he’s just asleep. He’s not snoring yet, so it’s hard to tell.
FRIDAY, 11 JUNE
Thank God Greg and I refused to go out for the Christmas meal at lunchtime, as surgery proves quite stressful enough on its own. I try to persuade Greg to go in with The Boss for a change, on the grounds that I’ve already been lumbered with doing tomorrow’s supermarket surgery, but Greg is having none of it.
‘I am still suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,’ he says, taking a long look into his pocket mirror to add an air of verité . ‘The ego is a fragile thing.’
That’s undeniable – so, as usual on a Friday morning, I’m the one who has to sit listening to The Boss promising the impossible to each constituent who has an appointment, before he leans back and basks in the love in the room. Later, it’ll be down to me to tell them that what he’s promised is unfeasible, or against regulations, or whatever – and then the constituents will phone him, to complain about my attitude.
Today he assures a single woman with one small child that he can get her a four-bedroomed Council house in the same street as her mother, ‘no problem.’ This is despite my resorting to kicking him under the table, and making my ‘Infected’ face.
Then he promises a slimy old man, who’s just got out of prison for an unspecified sexual offence that ‘of course’ we can get him a visa for his Thai bride – whom the man hasn’t even met yet. (This leads to me fretting about Dad, and briefly losing concentration, so I can’t recall what the next constituent is promised.)
We do have one case that gets me really ‘exercised’, as The Boss would say. A sweet little guy, called Mr Something-or-other-totally-unintelligible, but which sounds like Mr Meeeeurghn, wants us to see if we can get his passport back from the Home Office, as he wants to
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