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Trying not to think about my eighteenth-century wig theory, I pointed out that this was most unlikely to happen – no one looks at their best with their hair smeared down with hair-extension and nit oil – and washed Talitha’s hair and blow-dried it. Actually, she looked really sweet. It was all fluffy, like a little chicken.
‘I mean, the whole point about celebrities is that they change their look!’ I said encouragingly. ‘Look at Lady Gaga! Look at Jessie J. You could wear . . . a pink wig!’
‘I’m not Jessie J!’ said Talitha, at which Mabel, who had been watching solemnly, burst out, ‘Kerching, kerching! Berbling, berbling!’ while looking at us expectantly, as if we were going to say, ‘No, YOU are Jessie J!’ Then, crestfallen, she whispered, ‘Why does Talitha look so sad?’
Talitha surveyed our faces.
‘It’s all right, darlings,’ she said, as if we were both five-year-olds. ‘I’ll simply get some pieces put in at Harrods. They’ll come in useful later. As long as they don’t have nits in them.’
11.30 p.m. Talitha just texted: – which is quite a sophisticated thing to say, because she was completely eradicating any sense of passive-aggressive guilt inducement, and actually making it seem as if I’d done her a favour.
Talitha really is a sophisticated human being. She has this theory about people who are in ‘primitive states’, i.e. they don’t really know how to behave.
Also am sure that if Talitha actually thought it was my fault, i.e. I’d knowingly hugged and nuzzled her, whilst aware I might have nits, without telling her I knew I might have nits, then she’d have been completely straight about it.
Tom texted:
Saturday 27 April 2013
Nits and nit eggs extracted 32, pounds forked out per dead nit £8.59.
Nit-nurse expedition was, as Billy put it, ‘extreme, extreme fun’ and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Caring assistants, entirely swathed in white, sucked at all our hair with a vacuum, said they’d found nothing, and then blew us very fiercely with a very hot hairdryer. It was ‘extreme, extreme fun’, that is, until the bill came – 275 quid! We could all have gone to Euro Disney for that! – with the right amount of well-timed googling.
‘How does this actually work?’ I said. ‘Couldn’t I do it at home using the mini-vacuum, then blasting us all with a really hot hairdryer?’
‘Oh no,’ said the Celebrity Nit Nurse airily. ‘It’s all very specially designed. The vacuum comes from Atlanta, and the Heat Destroyer is made in Rio de Janeiro.’
FIRE! FIRE!
Wednesday 1 May 2013
Blimey. This morning, instead of staying in the bedroom when I went down to deal with the kids, Roxster said, ‘I think I should come down to breakfast.’
‘OK,’ I said, pleased, a little nervous in case a knife-wielding bloodbath broke out between the children, at the same time wondering if Roxster was driven by a desire to participate in family life, or simply the notion of food. ‘I’ll just get things ready, then come down!’
Everything was going perfectly! Billy and Mabel were dressed and sitting nicely at the table and I decided to cook sausages! Knowing how much Roxster likes a full English breakfast!!
When Roxster appeared, looking fresh-faced and cheerful, Billy made no reaction and Mabel carried on eating, while staring solemnly at Roxster, never taking her eyes off him. Roxster laughed. ‘Hello, Billy. Hello, Mabel. I’m Roxster. Is there anything left for me?’
‘Mummy’s cooking sausages,’ said Billy, glancing towards the cooker. ‘Oh,’ he said, eyes lighting up. ‘They’re on fire!’
‘Dey’re on fire! Dey’re on fire!’ Mabel said happily. I rushed over to the cooker, followed by the children.
‘They’re not on fire,’ I said indignantly. ‘It’s just the fat underneath. The sausages are fine, they—’
The smoke alarm went off. Oddly, the smoke alarm had never gone off before. It was the loudest noise you’ve ever heard. Deafening.
‘I’ll try and find where it is,’ I said.
‘Maybe we should put the fire out first,’ bellowed Roxster, turning off the gas, removing the sausages and the tinfoil in a smooth movement, dumping them in the sink, shouting above the din, ‘Where’s the food-recycling bin?’
‘Over there!’ I said, looking frantically through various files on the cookery bookshelf to see if I could find the instruction leaflet for the smoke alarm. There was nothing apart from instructions for a Magimix, which we didn’t have any more. Also, where did the fire alarm, as it were, stem from? Suddenly looked round to see that everyone had disappeared. Where had they gone? Had they all collectively decided I was rubbish, and run off to live with Roxster and his flatmates, where they could play video games all day, uninterrupted, and eat perfectly barbecued sausages whilst listening to popular music which was actually current instead of Cat Stevens singing ‘Morning Has Broken’?
The smoke alarm stopped. Roxster appeared down the stairs, grinning.
‘Why has it stopped?’ I said.
‘I turned it off. There’s a code written on the box – which would be bad if you were a burglar, but good if you’re a toy boy and there are burning sausages.’
