My darling, darling, darling, etc., etc. I got your text. Delighted to help, etc. Working today but will call you later. Watch Arts Next Week Tonight at 6 p.m. Dx
Honestly. Am furious. There is actually a baby involved in this. They did actually both have sex with me and neither of them had a condom. They don’t have to both disappear up their own arses.
6.16 p.m. Fumbled grumpily with the TV remotes and eventually found Arts Next Week Tonight in the nick of time. There was a studio “hello” shot of Daniel. He looked raddled, not his usual suave, glowing self, but nevertheless smug and optimistic.
“And now,” said the presenter, “former publishing executive turned travel show presenter turned arts show presenter and a consistent womanizer throughout. Poacher turned gamekeeper—and I mean poacher in the broadest sense…”
There was stock footage of Daniel with various women, and then a cutaway of Daniel in the studio chair looking, now, completely furious.
“Daniel Cleaver has come out with his attempt at a ‘serious novel’: The Poetics of Time. Tom O’Shea! Bill Sharp! Novelists yourselves, and, of course, distinguished critics: Quick thoughts, what do you make of it?”
“
This is the single biggest pile of stinking unreadable shit I’ve ever had the misfortune to plough through,” said Tom O’Shea.
“Bill?”
The two critics were seated beside the presenter, looking very concerned.
“It’s neurybathic, neretic, aureate, platitudinous, egregious, insensate, macaronic…”
“Could you translate, Bill?” said the presenter.
“Total unreadable toss,” said Bill Sharp.
“Well, let’s hear a little bit and decide for ourselves, shall we?” said the presenter.
There was a clip of Daniel in front of a bookshelf, reading earnestly from The Poetics of Time:
“The winds shrieked the devil’s shroud as the birds cawed beneath Veronica’s splayed legs. We gorged, raw. Her eyes were all big.”
There were snorts of laughter from the studio. The show cut to Tom O’Shea and Bill Sharp, helpless with mirth in the studio, and Daniel squirming between them and the presenter.
—
6.30 p.m. OMG. There is the sound of a key in the lock. Maybe burglars?
“Coo-ey!” My mother. I forgot I gave her a spare key. “Hello, darling,” said Mum, bustling in with armfuls of carrier bags. “Well, pop the kettle on!”
Mind started whirring. “They’re electric, they’re lethal…”
“I was just in Debenhams doing some shopping and I wandered into the maternity department and ta-ta!”
She pulled out a giant maternity smock—in the style of the late Princess Diana when she was expecting Prince William and everyone thought you were supposed to conceal your bump instead of spray-tanning it and exposing it on the cover of Vanity Fair.
“You see?” she said, holding it up against me. “You’ll look much better in something which covers you up, then you’ll look…”
“Fat?” I finished for her.
“Well, Mummy has piled on the pounds a bit, hasn’t she? Of course I never had that problem. The doctor was telling me to eat Birds custard and blancmange to put on a bit of flesh.”
“The baby needs to graze.”
“He says, ‘It’s not me who wants the food—it’s Mummy!’?”
“Mum. Stop. Why do you always make me feel like I’ve done something wrong? Why are you always trying to change what I wear…”
She sank down on the sofa and burst into tears.