‘Well, I think so, Harriet. It’s sort of fleshy and grey, like an uncooked Cumberland sausage. I could send the picture to you, if you like? I’ll forward it now, just give me a moment…’
‘No! Mum!’ I nearly impaled my eyeball on one of Sideshow Bob’s spikier leaves as I bolted forward. ‘You can’t share explicit images. It’s a criminal offence.’
‘Well, that’s ridiculous darling. It’s hardly pornography. Looks more like something in the butcher’s window.’
I laughed in spite of myself. ‘Still, Mum, please don’t forward it to me. You can show it to me in person next time I see you.’
‘And that’s legal, is it? You’re not going to have me hauled up in front of a magistrate for soliciting sexual images if I share it with you face to face? Or face to, well, you know.’
‘I – I think it’s legal?’ I said, wracking my brains for context.
‘Righty-ho! I’ll wait until tomorrow and pop in for a cup of tea and you can help me decide what to do about it, darling. I’m not sure what the correct etiquette is. Should I reply? Should I reciprocate somehow?’
‘Noooooo!’ we all chorused, our faces showing various states of grimace.
‘Just leave him on read, Granmerry,’ said Layla. ‘Don’t do anything at the moment. He might just realise it’s a mistake and delete it.’
‘Oh.’ She sounded a little disappointed at the prospect.
‘So maybe she should screenshot it, in case she needs it for evidence?’ I whispered to Layla who nodded.
‘Screenshot it, Mum,’ I shouted. ‘But don’t do anything else.’
‘Oh, I’ve already done that, darling. Saved it to my photos. I was thinking I might show it to Marjorie when I see her at Westbury Arboretum this afternoon. Compare it to the one she received from a milkman called Terry last year.’
‘No. Don’t show anyone else,’ I said, horrified by the prospect of my mother’s friends all sharing knob shots on their walk around the horse chestnuts. ‘Just forget about it for now and we’ll have a think about what we’re going to do tomorrow.’
‘Lovely,’ she said.
‘And no more conversations about gardening either,’ I said. ‘With Brian. Or anyone. No more messages. Just please, do nothing.’
‘Understood,’ she said. ‘Although, really Harriet, you don’t need to treat me like a child.’ She sounded cross. ‘Anyway – Layla, darling,’ she raised her voice as if it was hergranddaughter who was hard of hearing, ‘I hope today goes well and you settle into student life. I’ll be thinking of you.’
‘Thanks Granmerry,’ said Layla. ‘I’ll keep you posted.’
‘As will I you re the dick-pic situation, darling.’
‘Great. Speak soon then!’ I said, exhaling loudly as my mother disconnected the call. There was an incredulous pause before Joe spoke up.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’ll say one thing for your mother. She certainly knows how to provide a bit of distraction.’
Chapter Six
A few hours later we arrived in the city that would be home to my daughter for the next three years. We’d broken the journey with a trip to the motorway services and the standard stale muffin and scalding coffee offered by all such establishments.
‘We’ll need to work out which are the best service stations for future visits,’ Joe said, as he contemplated the pleather driving gloves in the wire discount basket near the exit. I say discounted but obviously everything in those baskets is at least fourteen times the price you could buy it for elsewhere. Captive audience and all that.
As we left, I regarded the centrally positioned massage chairs with the usual disbelief that anyone would ever choose to spend the equivalent price of a Cotswolds minibreak to lie on a vibrating bed in full view of the motorway-using public, and visions of our future opened up in front of me. My husband compiling spreadsheets of useful highway information, planning our routes to English caravanning-holiday destinations using the cost of petrol and availability of roadside KFC as metrics while I meekly accepted the fact that a vibrating chair massage overlooked by lorry drivers would be my new annual highlight.
‘Well, this all looks very nice, doesn’t it,’ Joe said now as we queued in stationary traffic at a four-lane junction.
Layla was studying the sat nav. ‘I think we need to turn right here,’ she said, prompting a blast of horns from neighbouring drivers as Joe put on his indicator and nudged across to the other side of the road. ‘Sorry, Dad.’
‘Not a problem,’ he said, cheerily ignoring the hand gestures of the drivers we’d cut in front of. I cringed down into my seat,grateful for the foliage of Sideshow Bob for the first and only time on the journey.
We began the steep climb out of town towards university buildings that loomed in stately grey on the brow of the hill. ‘Student Union,’ said Joe, nodding in the direction of an ugly construction of brown shoeboxes that straddled the railway tracks. Everywhere we looked people were milling about, many of them obviously parents and new students.
‘And here we are!’ Joe indicated left and we pulled into Milton Court halls of residence. We were greeted by two youths clad in orange t-shirts.
