by Polly James
‘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 go home to visit his family.
He gives his address as the bail hostel on Seymour Road. For God’s sake, what is this country coming to when we put traumatised refugees up in places like that? Dad would approve though – as long as the refugees weren’t young and attractive. And Thai, of course.
I block that thought for the rest of surgery, after which The Boss heads for the Oprah room to do an interview with a reporter from the local paper. (We normally use this room when Andrew needs a lie-down after a particularly hard-drinking lunch, as it contains a comfy couch and is soundproof enough to dull the sound of snoring, but this is one of the rare occasions when it’s being used for its proper purpose.)
Leaving Andrew unsupervised during an interview is a bit of a risk, to say the least – so Greg and I keep our ears pressed to the door as a precautionary measure, only to hear Andrew say that he’s had enough of the red-ink letters, and has decided to ‘speak out’.
In response to the reporter’s murmurs of encouragement, he continues: ‘I refuse to be intimidated and will not be prevented from opening my mail, which consists of important letters from constituents.’
Local vox pops later applaud his courage. The Boss doesn’t open his letters. I do.
SATURDAY, 12 JUNE
Gah. It’s supermarket surgery this morning, and this one is as bad as usual. Constituents who have nothing whatsoever to complain about – which is why they don’t bother to contact the office during the week – spot The Boss sitting under his banner in Tesco’s foyer when they walk past on their way to buy groceries.
As soon as they recognise him, they start racking their brains in an attempt to dredge up a minor irritation to talk to him about, purely to be seen by their neighbours in the company of an MP, however unkempt and hungover said MP may look.
So, today, we are presented with complaints about: uneven pavements; puddles at the end of driveways; overgrown hedges; and litter. Each one will require me to write a letter to whichever is the most relevant agency, and to send a copy to the constituent – together with a covering letter saying how nice it was to meet them (which it often wasn’t, if I’m being honest).
Then, when we eventually receive replies from the County or Town Councils, they’ll be sent out with another personalised covering letter. And so on, and so on, ad infinitum.
What with the weather we’ve been having, there are four hazardous puddle complaints alone; not to mention all the beer-toting, polyester-clad, World Cup-crazed constituents who just want their photographs taken with The Boss – who insisted on wearing an England shirt this morning.
There has to be more to life than this, not that I’m suicidal, of course – unlike The Boss. Taking me home at lunchtime, he drives even more erratically than he usually does.
‘Are you still drunk?’ I ask.
‘No,’ he says. ‘I have a lot on my mind.’
I somehow doubt that, but I know a cue when I hear one. ‘What’s the matter, Andrew?’
‘Do you think I’m too trusting for my own good?’ he asks.
‘Um, I don’t know,’ I say. God knows where this conversation is going and, more to the point, is Andrew looking where he is going? I do wish he’d keep his eyes on the road.
‘I think those shits in the local Party are out to get me again,’ he says. ‘I was set up at GCfn5 last night. Oops.’
He steers the car off the inconsiderate stretch of pavement that has had the temerity to get in his way; and then continues:
‘Bastards wanted me to confirm that, now we’re finally in opposition, I can – at last – be relied upon to toe the Party line. Outrageous. I think I may have to take steps to deal with them. I’m sure that swine Peter Carew is angling to steal my seat.’
I don’t quite know what to say to this. The Boss has recurrent bouts of paranoia anyway – like all the politicians I’ve ever met – but he doesn’t usually look and sound quite so unsettled. I can’t actually think of anyone in the Party (Pete Carew included), who’d have either the energy or the desire to usurp him, but then I don’t share Andrew’s long-standing belief that they’d all stab him in the back as soon as look at him.
‘I don’t want you or Greg talking to anyone from the Party from now on, Molly,’ he says. ‘Not even the staff – you can’t trust any of ‘em.’
‘But they’re in an office in the same building as us.’
Andrew glares at me and almost crashes into a woman with a pushchair standing at a zebra crossing. I decide it’s safer to shut up, to prevent the deaths of innocent pedestrians, and live to enjoy what remains of the weekend.
Now I wish I hadn’t bothered, after Max and I have dinner with Susie and David this evening. We’re celebrating David’s company having just been sold – for three million pounds.
To give him his due, David does resist the temptation to remind me that I warned him he�
��d never make a penny if he set up a courier company, on the basis that the market was already saturated; but he does say,‘Molly, you are the biggest waste of potential I have ever known.’
I may not see David very often since he became so bloody successful, but he’s still supposed to be my best friend. Max says I should have asked him what he meant, but I say I don’t want to know.
SUNDAY, 13 JUNE
I’m feeling a bit fragile after last night’s drinking session with David and Susie, and this isn’t helped by a newspaper article that Dinah sends me in an email.
The report refers to the mass-murderer who went berserk with a shotgun, the one that Greg was so sure would be wearing a shell-suit at the time; and seems to imply that the man was driven to the brink of insanity by falling for a young Thai woman, who allegedly encouraged him to send her loads of money and then dumped him when he ran out of cash.
Dinah doesn’t go into any more detail herself, except to say, ‘There goes our inheritance, and our social standing.’
I don’t bother to reply, as Dad doesn’t own a shotgun as far as I know, and God knows what Dinah expects to inherit anyway. When a man’s been married as many times as Dad, there’s not exactly a limited number of children and step-children to share the proceeds of one small bungalow and a (probably fake) Rolex watch.
My mood doesn’t improve when Josh informs me that today is the day that he and his girlfriend Holly celebrate their third anniversary. What is wrong with young people these days? Why don’t they make the most of their freedom?
I say as much to Max, who agrees rather too wholeheartedly, though cunningly out of earshot of Josh. I can’t stop once I’ve started, though. Since when are you allowed to even have anniversaries of when you started going out together? Anniversaries are supposed to be treats in recognition of hard labour at the coalface of marriage, not trivialised in this way!
The one thing that I do not say is ‘Congratulations’, and now Josh is in a mood with me. Max does and is, as usual, the favourite parent. Creep.
I assume that this craven behaviour is what Max is referring to when, much later, he sidles up to me in bed and tells me that he’s sorry – but, as usual, I’m wrong. He’s trying to prepare me for bad news instead: that he will be away on a business trip to Germany on our anniversary. I go ballistic, but he says he doesn’t have a choice, and that the company are talking about redundancies.
He seems so worried that I don’t have the heart to keep moaning. I wonder if that’s why he’s off sex?
MONDAY, 14 JUNE
My first priority this morning is to make a few calls to see what I can do to help poor little Mr Meeeeurghn – who turns out to be in a bail hostel because he has just got out of prison. More details are being sent by post, and are designated strictly confidential.
I have no one to share this development with, as Greg has decided to take the day off sick with his self-diagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress. He might as well have come into work, seeing as I seem to be the psychiatrist on call, at least as far as the usual suspects are concerned.
Honestly, when Mrs Thatcher’s government got rid of long-stay wards for the mentally-ill, to be replaced by ‘Care in the Community’, it didn’t seem a bad idea at the time – until it become apparent that the two central planks of this new approach were conspicuous by their total absence: Care and Community.
Now we – MPs and their staff – seem to be expected to plug the gap left by this minor oversight, so I decide to keep a tally of how many sane enquiries we get in a day.
Today’s result is nine. Out of a total of thirty-three phone calls, and thirty-nine letters – and not including any emails at all. I don’t count the five Greg sends me, asking whether he really is the ugliest man in Lichford, so I think it’s pretty safe to rest my case.
TUESDAY, 15 JUNE
Mr Meeeeurghn has been convicted of murder. To add insult to my injured faith in human nature, it transpires that he can’t have his passport back because he is on bail and, anyway, he doesn’t need it to go home – because he can’t go home. His country of origin won’t let him back in. God knows what he did there, but my faith in the public has taken yet another blow.
I email Greg and tell him that I don’t care if he is still traumatised, I need him back at work tomorrow to save me from plunging into a suicidal depression, caused by dealing with people with unpronounceable names who turn out not to be half as nice as they appear.
It’s much harder to cope with such disappointments when you’re on your own – although there is one piece of good news today: The Boss has approved a new security door! Admittedly, it’s only a replacement for the one that Steve Ellington broke on his way out this morning, but even so.
The viewing panel’s shattered, and the frame is all bent out of shape – but there wasn’t a mark on Steve’s forehead. God knows what his head is made of, but it’s something a hell of a lot stronger than my nerves. They are feeling completely shredded, especially after Johnny sends me an email in which he says that he loves my photo, but that I look tired and ‘in need of a massage’. What on earth? Maybe the oil spill saga’s starting to mess with his mind now, or he and I are locked in a delusional co-dependency.
I have no idea what the last part of that sentence means, but I quite like the sound of it. I got the bit about co-dependency from Sam, who told me that one of his internet dates had said it about their relationship, just before she dumped him for a used car salesman. (I’ve warned him over and over again to rule out any woman who lists ‘self-help books’ in the Preferred Reading category of her dating profile, but he never listens to a word I say. Like some other males that I could mention.)
Max is about as far from being co-dependent as it’s possible to be this evening – with me, anyway. He barely says a word and looks very tired, so I leave him in front of the TV and catch up on personal correspondence at the computer instead. This doesn’t include emailing Johnny, as I still haven’t decided how to respond to him yet, but Greg replies to my earlier suicidal message thus:
What about drinkypoos and a little outing after work tomorrow night? To include pizza and gin, then gin, gin and gin? I have a pent-up rage that needs dealing with, and minority groups will no doubt suffer.
I ask Greg where we’re going, but he won’t say, and just tells me to put together a list of all our craziest constituents. (He defines these as the people in whose company I hear The Twilight Zone theme, which means it’ll take me hours to comply.)
I tell Max that I have a date with another man, to see how he reacts – but he seems unbothered, presumably on the basis that he thinks I wouldn’t be tempted by an American Psycho lookalike half my age. Maybe he’d think the same thing about Johnny, the oil-rich Putin lookalike, too – but Max doesn’t know about him, yet, does he? Oh.
That’s a bit of an uncomfortable thought but, even so, I don’t know whether to find Max’s faith in me touching, or arrogant. Maybe he thinks it’s irrelevant whether I’d be tempted or not, as no one would ever be tempted by me?
WEDNESDAY, 16 JUNE
After we finish work, I find out why Greg wanted the list. He insists we wait around in the office until it’s almost dark, and then he says, ‘Here are the keys to the Gregmobile – you go and get in. Won’t be a minute.’
Five minutes later, he reappears and dumps fifteen manila folders in my lap, together with a map and a torch. I get really worried. Is Greg’s Patrick Bateman exterior an unsubtle indicator that he is a menacing rapist who carries a chainsaw around? Should Max have been more concerned for my safety, and when will he notice that I’m missing? Will he notice that I am missing?
‘What’s number one on the map?’ says Greg, swerving wildly to avoid a cyclist.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Map,’ says Greg. ‘On your lap. What’s number one?’
I open the map, but can’t see what I’m doing, so then I start dropping files all over the place.
‘Torch,’ says Greg, and th
en, ‘F*ck’s sake!’
I direct the torch at the map and find fifteen small, coloured dots affixed to various parts of East Lichford. These are cross-referenced to a list of numbers stuck at the side of the map. I cheer up – surely Greg wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to rape someone (almost) old enough to be his mother?
‘Number one – Eleanor Road,’ I say. ‘Why?’
‘Find the file with number one on it,’ says Greg.
I do as he says. The file is labelled ‘Edmund Beales’. Oh, Jesus Christ.
‘Gregory,’ I say, ‘I thought we were going for a drink. What the hell are we doing?’
‘Our DIY version of a CRBfn6 check,’ says Greg. ‘I am sick of waiting for a mad constituent to chop my head off with a samurai sword, so you and I are going to make a pre-emptive strike.’
‘Huh?’ is my considered response.
‘We are going to check out what little we actually know about the crazy f*ckers we have to deal with every day – without security – and see if any of it stacks up. We could get killed waiting nine months for the Criminal Records Bureau, and Special Branch only ever seem to notice the animal-rights loony tunes. First stop, the home of Edmund Beales.’
THURSDAY, 17 JUNE
I have a very bad hangover from the bottle of gin that Greg and I drank when we got back last night, after our narrow escape from the dog in Mr Beales’ garden, so I’m taking today off as a holiday.
At lunchtime, I get an email from Greg who says:
The carpenter is here, working away on the security improvements. He tells me that he hasn’t bothered to fit bulletproof glass to the new door he has just installed. The consequence for me, if anyone needs reminding, will simply be this.
I open the attachment to find a video clip of JFK’s assassination.
FRIDAY, 18 JUNE
God, I’m so glad that Connie’s coming home from uni today for the summer holidays. I’ve had about as much testosterone-related craziness this week as I can take. Mainly from my lunatic son.
