The Mercury Travel Club: Getting your life back on track has never been more funny!

by Helen Bridgett

  ‘Oh I’d always find a little something for you,’ I smile.

  We get up and walk until the sun starts setting; then without speaking we turn towards the sea. Together we watch that great glimmering globe melting into the horizon, already starting to wake someone up on the other side of the world. The evening turns chilly; it’s the perfect moment for Ed to drape his jacket around me but he doesn’t.

  ‘Best get going,’ he says, rubbing my arms as if I’m a schoolchild on a rugby pitch.

  Men should watch more Richard Curtis – really they should.

  Monaco

  ‘It’s an awkward time,’ my mum is saying of our afternoon flight. ‘Too late for lunch and too early for dinner here, then when we get over there it’ll be too late for dinner all over again.’

  ‘You don’t have to eat dinner at the same time this week, you are on holiday,’ I counter, wondering why I ever thought this might be a relaxing break.

  ‘We can have supper when we get there,’ placates Dad.

  ‘Which would be what? A small portion of dinner? Then I’ll be hungry all night and I just cannot sleep if my stomach’s rumbling,’ she moans.

  ‘Then let’s get you a packet of biscuits to keep in your handbag,’ suggests Dad.

  I’m surprised there isn’t one in there already.

  ‘Oh I’ve got one of those,’ she says (glad I still know my mum), ‘but it’s not the same. You need a bit more than that after a long journey.’

  I stupidly voice a question that floats into my head.

  ‘Can you take biscuits through customs? Or any food for that matter?’

  ‘Bill,’ she panics, ‘what if they confiscate them? What will I do then?’

  Dad reassures Mum that biscuits aren’t a threat to national security; they’ll be fine.

  He suggests going for an extra meal, ‘like brunch but in the afternoon’, and I say thanks but no thanks to joining them. I opt for a coffee and some quiet time watching the runways.

  Airports have changed so much since my time; this place is enormous and so busy. Excited families and bored businessmen wait to take the same journey, each dreading sitting next to the other. I still get a buzz from just being here and watching the planes. I feel that wonderful sensation when you know you’ve left the ground and you’re airborne, on your way. I used to watch nervous passengers with their eyes tightly closed, clinging to the arms of their seats during take-off, but for me it was the best part, I was flying, actually flying.

  The airline crews sauntering through with their trolley bags fill me with envy. I know it’s harder work now (and I have to say the uniforms look more threadbare) but it still seems glamorous and fun being part of that team and those captain stripes are incredibly sexy even now.

  I’m always very polite to cabin crew, paying attention during the safety talks and asking for nothing awkward; I know what it’s like looking after hundreds of people every day. For this reason, I anticipate Mum’s request for an extra sandwich on the plane by giving her mine.

  Eventually we land and step from the cool darkness of the airport world and re-enter the summer sun of the real world. I get everyone to our hotel and then I’m off-duty for the rest of the trip.

  No matter how well you think you’ve dressed, in Monaco you’ll always feel slightly shabby. The place loves to flaunt its wealth and this is particularly evident around Casino Square. The place just oozes the glamour and notoriety of the Rat Pack era; the cars are something else. You’re either here to watch or be watched and if you want any visibility at all, you need a Ferrari or a Lamborghini or one of the ones I’ve never even heard of.

  ‘Is that a Hennessey Venom GT?’ asks one of my Mercurians.

  My dad and his friends are in complete awe. ‘It certainly is, one of the top ten most expensive cars in the world. Go on, name three of the others,’ says Dad. This quiz team never stops.

  Fortunately the owners of these cars like being gawped at. I order a glass of champagne and sit quietly on the terrace watching my charges enjoying themselves. I know we can make this club work and I know we can make people happy; we just have to be around long enough. If we get good reviews from this trip then we’ve a chance of making that happen.

  I’m interrupted from my thoughts by an older gent and his expensive scent. He leans over me and asks me something in French. At first I think he’s looking for a spare chair or something but then he tries again in English.

  ‘You are looking for business tonight?’ he says.

  Completely misinterpreting the situation I’m about to say yes and ask him where he was looking to visit but my mother gets there first.

  ‘You filthy beast, get away from my daughter,’ she yells twirling her clutch bag around her head on the end of its little gold chain and launching it lasso style on the perpetrator. ‘She’s not some floozy, she’s been brought up properly,’ she adds.

  I’m not sure who moves faster, my ‘client’ or the hotel staff, trying to restore calm. They can’t get us out of there quickly enough. I feel the need to offer payment for my champagne but they wave it away while simultaneously seating a new group in my place as if the fracas hadn’t just happened.

  In a square full of beautiful people and even more beautiful cars, my mother has managed to make herself centre of attention and she’s enjoying it.

  ‘The cheek of it, my Angie doesn’t look like...one of them women,’ she says.

  She pulls me close protectively while tightly wrapping my pashmina over my cleavage.

  ‘He must have thought you were one of those high-class ones,’ she rationalises.

  ‘Gee thanks, Mum.’

  ‘Let’s go down to the harbour,’ suggests Dad and we follow his calm lead.

  There is so much to see in Monaco and by the final evening, when we hold our travel club extra of a night-drive around the F1 circuit followed by a champagne reception, people are already talking about having to take another trip together.

  ‘We could all go back to Casino Square and earn a few euros to help pay for it,’ becomes the standing joke of the trip.

  My mother continues to be outraged that anyone could mistake me for a hooker, but I think she’ll dine out on it for quite some time.

  I’m glad Ed didn’t come; if he had, I wouldn’t have been on my own in a café, wouldn’t have been propositioned and the group wouldn’t have bonded as well. However, I don’t want him to think I’ve forgotten him, so I include him in my jaunty text to Charlie:

  GOING WELL, WONDERFUL PLACE BUT HAVE BEEN MISTAKEN FOR HIGH CLASS HOOKER! ALL HAVING FUN x’

  I then delete ‘hooker’ and replace it with ‘escort’ – just in case he thinks I’m hanging around on street corners.

  High class? comes the typically sardonic reply from Charlie.

  That’s one way to boost profit from Ed. No little ‘x’ at the end.

  I really must give him that list of films to watch.

  Bake-Off

  ‘Bloody hilarious,’ is Patty’s reaction when I tell her about Monaco. ‘I’d have found out how much he was paying before sending him packing,’ she adds.

  ‘You’d have got more than Angie.’ We’re all bug-eyed and open-mouthed after this comment from Mum.

  ‘Well, she probably...knows how to do more things than you,’ she explains.

  Speechless doesn’t begin to describe our incredulity, but Patty roars with laughter. ‘Even better. My best friend’s mum thinks I know how to turn tricks!’

  Mum blushes. ‘Well my Angela’s never been that sort,’ she fusses.

  ‘Please Gran, stop digging,’ begs Zoe, ‘let’s just get on with this.’

  We’re packing to go to the bake-off and probably hindering more than helping her.

  ‘Let’s decide cars first.’ Zoe gets us organised

  ‘I want to come with you,’ bags Mum, linking arms with Zoe as a sign of possession.

  It’s a complete relief to me as I don’t think I could cope with any further analysis
of my sexual prowess, or lack of it.

  ‘OK,’ says Zoe, ‘we’ll take the table settings then you and Patty can take the cakes. You’ve got the air conditioning, that’ll be better for them.’

  She actually means there is more likelihood that they’ll arrive in one piece without icing or edges nibbled.

  ‘Now I want the table settings packed according to their final position and Gran, we’ll need some extra plants and flowers just in case we have more space than we think. Abundant; think Mother Earth at her most plentiful, that’s how we have to look.’

  Mum salutes and takes her directions. We start packing the cakes which smell delicious. I hope they still smell like this when we get there.

  ‘There’s a spray you can buy,’ Zoe tells us matter-of-factly. ‘It smells of baking; restaurants and shops use it to get your mouth watering.’

  ‘That can’t be true,’ I say.

  ‘You think our corner shop kneads dough every morning for those baguettes? I’m telling you,’ she replies.

  ‘What a swizz. Are we using one?’ asks Patty.

  ‘We won’t need to,’ says Zoe, ‘when the cakes warm up again in that room, the whole place will explode with aromas.’

  An explosion of aromas sounds a whole lot better than simply getting out the Febreze ‘Bun in the Oven’ variety. How disappointing would it be to walk into someone’s house and get a whiff of freshly baked goodies to discover it’s a spray and the only thing on offer is a ginger nut?

  ‘I should get some of that spray to use as perfume for any tricks with a mother fixation.’

  Patty is still contemplating her alternative career.

  ‘I could wear an apron and let them lick the spoon. People would pay a fortune in some circles,’ she says.

  ‘I told you she knew things,’ my own mother adds quietly.

  I just shake my head and ignore them both.

  ‘Shall we get these loaded?’ I ask.

  There is something magical about an early-morning start before the world has woken up. A lie-in is a rare and wonderful thing, but to be up and laughing with the girls as the sun rises and warms us has to be a good omen. We pack meticulously, following every instruction we get, and finally we’re on our way. Bake-off here we come.

  ‘Do you think she’ll win?’ Patty slaps my wrist as I try to change from Absolute 80s radio to catch the news on the BBC.

  ‘I’ve never been to anything like this so I have no idea,’ I say. ‘I’m not even sure that it’s really about beating Amanda; it’s about getting Alan to notice her.’

  ‘Why do we still need our parents’ approval at any age, eh?’ asks Patty.

  I shrug my shoulders and wonder whether I should call Alan and let him know how much his appearance would mean to our daughter. Better safe than sorry. I’ll call him when we get there.

  ‘So what’s next after Monaco for the Mercury Club?’

  ‘Your cruise, a wine tour and then finally the New York trip; plus of course selling the packages in between,’ I reply.

  ‘Is it all you thought it would be?’ she asks.

  ‘Tougher than I thought, but when you see people having a good time, I love it,’ I tell her.

  ‘Know what you mean,’ she replies.

  ‘And the Granny-Okes, how is that going without my star performance?’

  Patty laughs, ‘We’ll be all right on the night, as they say.’

  A tambourine beat starts up on the radio and Patty is ecstatic.

  ‘Quick – turn this up.’

  ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ fills the car.

  ‘We’ve put this in the set,’ she tells me.

  Patty sings and I do the dance with all the ‘Eh-os’ in all the right places.

  We’re still singing when we get there and will probably be whistling the chorus all day now.

  ‘Our challenge,’ conspires Patty, ‘is to plant this song in someone else’s head and hear it sung back to us by the end of the day.’

  ‘You’re on.’

  We enter a huge auditorium swarming with activity; I’ve watched American beauty pageants on TV and they looked like this. There’s obviously a circuit crowd who greet each other with bi-focal faces: the mouth is smiling hello while the eyes are snarling ‘die bitch die’.

  I’m sure there are good and bad pitches, but we have no idea what we’ve been handed. It’s not tucked in the corner so it looks OK and the display area seems big enough.

  ‘What do you want us to do?’ I ask. ‘Bring the cakes in?’

  Zoe has eyed up her competition. ‘Not yet,’ she says, ‘let’s keep our powder dry for a while but get the display built.’

  We do exactly as we’re told until Zoe is satisfied and then with half an hour till judging we carry the cakes like precious newborns into the arena.

  Only now does Zoe label her display and get out parchments with herb facts, her inspiration, and the recipes. She’s designed this to ensure the judges have to spend a bit of time with her to read everything.

  I leave her to it and call Alan.

  ‘Are you at this bakery competition?’ I ask.

  ‘Of course I am,’ he replies. ‘Surely you’re not?’

  ‘Zoe’s entered in the Trendsetters category; it would mean so much if you could come and see her.’

  ‘Trendsetters? That’s what Amanda’s doing.’

  Oh no, just what we were hoping to avoid.

  ‘But she’s a bloody professional cook, for God’s sake,’ I say. ‘Get her to pull out, Alan; take your daughter’s side for once.’

  ‘Hold on for a minute, she’s not competing; it’s a showcase event. Even if she were, of course I’d support Zoe over anyone. What on earth do you take me for?’

  I calm down as Alan promises to find Zoe and stay with her during the judging. I grab a programme and look up this showcase event, although I’m not sure I could stomach watching her. Mum on the other hand seems to have the stomach for anything and it is expanding by the minute.

  ‘You’re not supposed to eat the displays,’ I tell her.

  ‘You can after they’ve been judged,’ she counters. ‘They cut some of their cakes up. I hope Zoe doesn’t.’

  Patty reappears. ‘The judges are with her now, fingers crossed everyone.’

  ‘She doesn’t need luck; here try this.’ Mum forces a sample of scone on to us both. ‘I think I’ll buy some of these for your dad.’

  ‘He’s over there with Zoe, by the way,’ says Patty.

  I look over and see my lovely daughter surrounded by Dad, Alan, Charlie and Peter; it looks as if she’s brought her own personal security. They’re all smiles and the boys are working their charm on the female judges. After a few moments they walk away and I watch the team’s shoulders drop with a collective sigh of relief. Everyone hugs and shakes hands and Dad pats Alan on the back with discernible disappointment. It’s time to rejoin them.

  ‘Well, what did they say?’ I ask.

  ‘They seemed to like it,’ offers Zoe.

  ‘You were brilliant. They absolutely loved it, trust me I know these people.’ Alan plants a big affectionate kiss.

  ‘And I wonder why that is,’ murmurs Mum before waving an attendee off the stand.

  ‘Shoo, these aren’t samples you know,’ she says. ‘I don’t know, the nerve of some people.’

  Alan checks his watch and looks over at me. I nod and remind him that he has to get moving.

  ‘Are we going to watch it?’ asks Patty.

  I look at Zoe for the decision.

  ‘I have to Mum, the winners are announced immediately afterwards. It would look awful if I weren’t in the room.’

  ‘You go; I’ll come in when they make the announcements, I promise.’

  Mum and Patty go with Zoe while Charlie, Peter and I take an amble around the dwindling stalls.

  ‘I was wondering whether we could turn this into some type of trip: Bake Baklava in the Baltics, maybe,’ I offer, making conversation.

  ‘Some of
these people need Burn-Your-Butt-Off-Bootcamp rather than more baking,’ says Charlie.

  ‘Cookies and Kettlebells,’ adds Peter.

  ‘Bo, you have got to see this.’ Patty has barged into our midst and drags me towards the exhibition stage.

  Disco music spills out and there’s a glitter ball on the ceiling; Patty plonks me on to a chair so that I can see Amanda and a male assistant both dressed in white shirts with tea towels over their arms. The wall behind them has optics lined up and the table in front has cocktail shakers, straws and little umbrellas on display.

  She calls out to the audience and asks what she can get them. A pre-placed voice calls out ‘gin and tonic’. She takes up the shaker, dances around with it for a few seconds, pops it into the fake oven and pulls out a gin and tonic cake. Using the same routine, she delivers a Limoncello Drizzle, a Black Russian Chocolate and a Malt Whisky Fruit Cake to great applause.

  ‘That was my idea. They’re even the same cakes,’ I yell at Patty through the noise.

  ‘I know, Alan must have told her about it,’ she replies.

  For the second time today I’m speechless, but I hardly have time to take this all in when the judges get onstage.

  Blah, blah high standard; blah, blah exceptional new talent; blah, blah re-emergence of traditional skills like baking.

  Just tell us the winner.

  ‘And we’re delighted to announce one of these new talents in our Trendsetter category...please give a round of applause to...Zoe Hargreaves,’ they say.

  My family holler and whoop for all they’re worth; I am overjoyed until Zoe is joined onstage, first of all by Alan and then Amanda.

  The miked-up judge murmurs in Amanda’s ear, ‘Chip off the old block’, and Amanda has the audacity to nod affectionately.

  I would have thrown something at her if at that precise moment I hadn’t heard someone in the crowd behind me whistling the chorus from ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ and Patty tittering quietly to herself.

  Meanwhile...

  I’m having a coffee on the patio enjoying a rare moment where everything around me is calm and uncomplicated when I get a call from Charlie.