Thursday 27 April 8st 10lbs, alcohol units 4, cigarettes 17, Instants 6. It
seems rather unlucky timing to get addicted to the Instants just when
the once-lovely Lottery has become tainted and soured by the
Government's arrogant failure of tact, rather like a half cup of coffee
left out in the sun which someone has dropped a fag end in. I cannot
believe that we are still going to drink it, but that's addiction for
you. Next thing they will be using our millions to buy copies of the
novels of Jeffrey Archer, the 18th hole at Gleneagles, collections of
his mother's handbags from Mark Thatcher and tiny packets of vintage
snuff hand-rolled by Annabel Heseltine, but we are all too hooked to
stop. The
Instants are much better than the Lottery itself, where the numbers no
longer come up during Blind Date and all too often do not have a single
one of yours among them, leaving you feeling both impotent and cheated
with nothing to be done except screw your ticket up and throw it
defiantly on the floor. Not
so with the Instants, very much a participation thing with six cash
figures to be scratched off - often quite a hard and skilled job - and
never giving you the feeling that you didn't have a chance. Three
amounts the same secures a win, and in my experience you always get very
close, often with as many as three matching pairs for amounts as great
as pounds 50,000. It
was a bit off-putting when I bought the first Instant after the
Churchill news, but I suppose it is a bit like smoking and cancer - you
never think it will happen to you. My
pounds are the ones that go to disadvantaged children and not to smug
Winston double Junior or the latest folly dreamt up by a bunch of snobs
smirking about a tax on the stupid. Anyway,
you can't deny yourself all pleasures in life, I'm only on about four or
five a day, and besides, I am going to stop soon, the minute I get down
to 8st 7lbs. Friday 28 April Instants 9. This must stop. Bit
of a turn-up for the books. First Dr Rogers is on the phone all the time
suggesting dates to the theatre. I hate the theatre - it being one of
those school-like things, there purely to be endured in order to earn
pleasures such as interval drinks, pizzas or sex. The cinema long ago
exposed it as completely unrealistic and it is embarrassing to have live
luvvies able actually to see if you fall asleep. Second,
Daniel, whom I have been making a point of ignoring lately, walked past
my desk this morning and said: "Will you come to Prague next
weekend?" (all this goes to show that the way to a man's heart
these days is not beauty, food, sex or alluringness of character but
merely the ability to seem not very interested in him). "What?
er hahahaha you mean the weekend after this one?" "Yees,
next weekend," he said with an encouraging, slightly patronising
air, as if he had been teaching me to speak English. "Yeah,
all right then," I said. "That's
as long as I can get free of work," he said smirking. Dammit. I
should have said no. There isn't a hope in hell of Daniel getting it
together to come to Prague with me. He is just making sure I will still
let him sleep with me if the fancy takes him. Huh. Saturday 29 April Instants 3, better. Normal Lottery pounds 2. At
last I get to the bottom of Mum and Dad. My normally self-sacrificing
mother has somehow engineered it that she now has the family home to
herself while Dad is living in a granny flat at the bottom of the
Alconburys' garden. I have long suspected a post- Portuguese-holiday
Shirley Valentine situation and that one day I will turn on the Anne and
Nick show to see my mother sporting dyed blonde hair and a leopard-skin
top, sitting on a sofa with someone in stone-washed jeans called
Gonzales and explaining that if you really love someone a 46-year
age-gap really doesn't matter. Today
she asked me to meet her for lunch at the coffee place in Dickens &
Jones and I determined to confront her. "There is no one
else," she said, staring into the distance with a look of
melodramatic bravery I swear she has copied from pictures of Marti Caine
in Hello! "So
what is it then?" I said sulkily. "Darling,
it's merely a question of realising when your father retired that I had
spent 43 years without a break running his home and bringing up his
children ("We're your children too," I tried to interject,
hurt) and that as far as he was concerned his lifetime's work was over
and mine was still carrying on - which was exactly how I used to feel
when you were little and it got to the weekends. You only get one life
and I am going to spend what's left of mine looking after me for a
change." As
I went to the cash till to pay, for once I could see her point and
thought it made sense. Then my eye was caught by a tall distinguished-
looking man with grey hair, a European looking leather jacket and one of
those gentlemen's handbag things. He was looking into the caf, holding
his watch and raising his eyebrows. I wheeled round and caught my mother
mouthing "won't be a minute", and nodding towards me
apologetically. Then she saw me looking at her. It's
the first time in my life I have ever seen her blush. |