‘Apparently not,’ I reply.
‘But she has her talents,’ he adds, clearly unaware that I’m having to restrain myself from wrestling him to the ground.
‘I’m sure she does.’ Deborah beams at me. ‘Kate, would you mind checking the state of the Portaloos?’
I suspect I’m being exiled, leaving the coast clear for her to fawn some more over my husband. Perhaps she’ll hoick up her maxi dress and straddle him on that plastic chair. She can do what she wants, I decide furiously as I stomp away.
In a Portaloo I snap on disposable blue rubber gloves and violently squirt the loo seat with powerful disinfectant. Tomorrow Vince will be back here to do a second event (such was the demand for tickets, he agreed to a repeat performance). Meanwhile I’ll be safely occupied at the far end of town, on reception at Shugbury Spa Hotel. I don’t normally do weekends but they asked me to cover holiday leave. Now, I’m extremely glad I said yes.
It’s come to something, I realise as I give the toilet seat another vicious squirt, when spending my Sunday clopping about in excruciating high heels sounds like a treat.
CHAPTER FOUR
A brief account of my attempt to fit in in an affluent country town.
1.Never, ever describe where we live as an ‘estate’.Residents of Shugbury Old Town are snobbish about The Glade, a collection of 1960s bungalows plonked a little way out into the countryside. From visits to Vince’s parents I realised that this has fuelled a rabid neighbourhood pride, and the place has the eerie sheen of a too-perfect neighbourhood in a sci-fi movie.
2.Accept that, for entertainment, The Glade’s residents flit in and out of each other’s houses, commenting on neighbourhood goings-on.I saw Maureen had a new sofa delivered... Yes, the van blocked our driveway and the man stood there smoking for ten minutes... Did you see the Watsons are having a conservatory built?... Oh, really? How do the Bennetts feel about having their view blocked?
3.Join a yoga class.Immediately, it was apparent that this wasn’t the gentle yoga I’d gone to with Tash in Bethnal Green. No, this was extreme stuff, requiring excruciating poses to be held forweeks, it felt like. ‘Maybe this isn’t the class for you,’ the instructor remarked, after I’d put my back out and had to be dragged up off the floor.
4.Get a job.I suspect some people assume that, because Vince is a little bit famous now, we are loaded. This is absolutely not the case. I need regular work – it’s feast or famine with Vince’s job – and had to find something pretty quickly. As there are no similar jobs to my ass-cure role around here, I found a part-time position at the sleekly modern Shugbury Spa Hotel.
5.Be insulted in a shoe shop.The hotel’s female reception staff are required to wear heels. It seemed incredible that I’d be required to attach such bizarre contraptions to the ends of my legs in this day and age, in order to ‘project professionalism’ as my boss, Wilma, put it. Yes, the heel enforcer is a woman. She might as well make me wear a corset.
‘You’re a very,verybroad fitting,’ barked the terse young assistant at Soled Out as she glowered at my feet. I’d known they were a little wide, yes, but never thought I needed specialist footwear which, this girl announced, ‘We keep in the back.’ Isn’t everything ‘in the back’ in a shoe shop? Why was she making me feel like a freak? I wasn’t used to such scrutiny in the anonymous high street stores of London. Off she bustled – to the famous ‘back’ – returning with the only heeled shoes she reckoned I’d be able to cram my colossal hooves into.
‘We recommend these for bunions,’ she announced. I don’t have bunions. But I might as well have, I thought grimly as I tapped out my PIN.
When I showed them to Vince, I detected a rare glimmer of interest as he exclaimed, ‘Ooh, heels!’
‘Like them?’ I asked.
‘I do actually. With you being so short, they give you a bit of height.’
*
At least the hotel guests’ demands go some way to taking my mind off the torture devices attached to my feet. All slate floors, glass walls and cedar relaxation pods dotted around the grounds, it really is the height of luxury. Today a group of glossy women are appalled that I can’t magically arrange for them to all have their massages at the same time. Plus, one of them wanted macadamia nut oil (which we don’t stock), the jacuzzi jets aren’t hot enoughandsome kind of insect has landed on the surface of the outdoor pool. My shift whips by, and before I know it I’m swapping my heels for trainers ready for my walk home.
Along the way, Edie and I message back and forth, as we tend to do on weekends when she’s not rushing to work. Her internship led to a permanent position on a whale research project, and at twenty-six she has a kind of easy confidence I’ve never possessed.
How’s the job?she asks.Still making you wear those stupid heels?
Yep. That’s not going to change unfortunately.
There must be a law against that!Edie wears T-shirts, dungarees and sneakers – she’s already saying ‘sneakers’ – to work.
Employment laws don’t apply at Shug Spa, darling.
You should look for something else. So how was the festival? Dad a raving success?
Of course! They loved him.
All that adulation. Don’t let it go to his head!She loves to rib her dad about his relatively new-found fame.
Too late for that!
We catch up on her news, then sign off with kisses. I smile, grateful that I’m kept in the loop with what’s going on in her life. More than her dad is, actually. Vince is always taken aback when I mention Edie’s friends, flatmates and colleagues by name. ‘D’you keep a file on her?’ he often teases. He doesn’t seem to have a yearning for all the details in the way I do.
