Page 109 of The Bad Mother's Diary

Monday November 2nd

Mum is ALREADY putting up our Christmas decorations.

We have two Christmas trees every year – one in the house, one in the pub.

Mum makes sure both trees are so covered with tinsel, flashing fairy lights, and various tacky ornaments you can’t see the branches.

Her favourite ornaments are all from our summer holidays – a mini bottle of Ouzo (Greece 2000), a pink plastic couple having sex (Spain 1991), and a hanging wooden penis (Cyprus 1995).

Mum was annoyed because the village supermarket won’t sell real trees for a few more weeks. The pub one is plastic, so she’s put it up already, but she’ll have to wait to do the house one.

Tuesday November 3rd

Helen phoned today.

She’d heard about Alex and I running around the village.

She said, ‘You’re barely out of your wedding gown and you’re out in public with another man.’

I told her that since Nick got my bridesmaid pregnant I could go out with whomever I liked.

She said, ‘Nobody knows Sadie waswith childon your wedding day. And I think it best we keep that on a low level. No sense in causing a scandal.’

God!

I said, ‘When Sadie has the baby it won’t be hard to do the bloody maths, will it?’

I could almost feel Helen wince down the phone. ‘There’snoneed to swear.’

And then she said how important Nick’s reputation was in hisprofession.

I said, ‘He’s not a priest Helen, he’s an actor. A bit of scandal might do his career some good.’

And she snapped, ‘BUT IT WOULDN’T DO ME ANY GOOD!’

Then she talked about men being men and said Nick’s father had been the same.

I said Nick’s dad sounded like an arsehole.

She got all stroppy then and threatened to ‘end this conversation if you can’t be a grown-up’.

I told her that since she phoned me, I didn’t mind in the slightest if she ended the conversation. In fact, I’d prefer it if she didn’t phone me up and tell me what to do.

I said, ‘I’m not engaged to your son anymore. I’m not living in your apartment anymore. And I don’t have to be nice to you anymore. So if I want to go jogging with Alex Dalton I bloody well will.’

She said, ‘You’re only doing this to get at Nicholas, aren’t you?’

I said, ‘Oh get a life, Helen.’ And hung up.

Mum, Dad and Brandi gave me a round of applause.

Callum said, ‘Who wasthatheadache?’

He sounds so much like Brandi sometimes.

Mum said, ‘The evil stepmother.’

Dad said, ‘Did she ask about Daisy?’

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