Miss Manners (2 page)

Madam? Since when did I become Madam? Seriously, it couldn
’t possibly get any worse than this.

I was wrong.

Before I had a chance to respond, my phone bleated. The caller ID confirmed my worst fear. It was Him. William Weisman. AKA Bill – my boss. My heart skipped a beat.

‘
Aa-nn-aa! Where are you!?’ he screamed the moment I snapped open my battered old blower. ‘You were supposed to be here five minutes ago!’

‘
I’m so sorry, it’s just that my car’s broken down in the middle of–’

‘
I don’t want to hear it,’ he snapped, cutting me off. ‘Just get your sorry self in here right now or you’re fired!’ Click. The phone went dead.

I stared at it for a few seconds...
breathe in, breathe out
... and then continued with my miserable life.

The burly cab man that looked like a wife-beater rapped on my car window, yelling once more.
‘Oi! Are you deaf? I said move yer blinkin’ car!’

‘
I can’t, it’s broken down. I mean, what do you want me to do? Fly?’

Suddenly, I realised my window was closed the whole time and the cabbie couldn
’t hear a word I was saying. So, I cautiously opened it a bit.

‘
My car’s broken down,’ I repeated.

The cabbie scrunched up his face like a constipated bulldog, folded his Popeye arms, then huffed,
‘Deaf
and
dumb.’

Ignoring his comment, I picked up my phone and tapped in the number for the RAC.

‘Hiya, yeah, my car’s broken down in the middle of Camden High Street. I literally hit the brake pedal and it just stopped. I’ve been here for ten minutes now and I’m running late for work. How long before you get here? What!? Forty minutes! I can’t wait that long! I’ll get fired for sure! I need to get to work ASAP. Is there any way you can get here sooner? Look, who am I speaking to? Sharon. Alright, Sharon. Shaz. Can I call you Shaz? I’ll call you back in five minutes. I need to call my boss to let him know.’

Be calm, be confident
, I coached myself.

The cabbie stared at me. I stared at the cabbie.

‘The RAC will be here in five minutes, mate!’ I shouted in an attempt to make him go away.

It worked.

The cabbie shook his head angrily, then walked back to his cab behind my Mini. Several cars were queued up behind him.

I checked my watch
: 9.14 a.m.

This is ridiculous
, I thought.
I’ll get fired for sure at this rate
.

I turned the key in the ignition twice, but the car just choked, coughed and spluttered.
My breathing quickened and my brain went into overdrive. I had to think of a solution... and fast. I sought a tunnel in the earth or a ladder to the sky.
Anything that would get me out of this hell hole.

I
n a moment of madness, I stepped out of my car, slammed the door shut behind me and proceeded to the nearest Tube station – Camden Town. I hated public transport. I mean, I really hated it. It smelled, made me feel claustrophobic and you could never look at a person for too long in case you offended them.

During rush hour, the commuters were always packed like models backstage at London Fashion Week. And, as if that wasn
’t enough, just before the doors slammed shut, there was always that one latecomer who would jump onto the train at the very last minute and shove his stinky armpit in my face. It made me feel about as dignified as an elderly man line-dancing in a pair of Y-fronts and cowboy boots. But, in this case, I would have to bite the bullet and overcome my phobia so I wouldn’t get fired.

If only nose pegs were socially acceptable
, I thought to myself.

As I entered the train car, I noticed there was only one seating space left. But there was a short, rotund lady on the opposite bay
who spotted it too.

I looked at her. She looked at me. The race was on.

For a moment, I dissolved into a daydream of leaping onto her and fighting for the seat. But, in reality, I walked briskly towards the seat and sat down.

Big mistake.

A squat, grey-haired man in his fifties sitting to my right was reading
The Telegraph
– a broadsheet newspaper renowned for its massiveness – which he flapped in my face the entire time. A hefty man in his forties sitting to my left kept nodding off into dreamland onto my shoulder. And there was a loved-up couple standing by the doors who were all snuggled up and whispering
I love yous
into each other’s faces before looking at me as if to say ‘none of your business’. They were obviously at the honeymoon stage in their relationship, where whoever wakes up first in the morning sneaks off and washes and comes back to bed to make it look like they just woke up that way. They were disgustingly in love. On top of that, I was enveloped by the smell of BO, cheap deodorant and morning breath.

Only ten stops to go
, I reassured myself whilst looking at the Tube map and realising I had to change from the Northern to the Piccadilly line.

It was 9.46 a.m.
when I finally arrived at Knightsbridge station.

I ran out of the
Tube station and straight to the entrance of Harrolds on Brompton Road. It was a quaint, beautiful piece of architecture encompassing seven floors. Although I knew a little about its history, I never had the time to appreciate it fully.

I stared at the elated Japanese tourists with their cameras flashing away at the building and felt jealous
of their carefree nature and ability to appreciate its beauty whilst I was about to be told off like a child who tried to set fire to the school.

I took one final glance at the entrance, held my breath and braced myself.

2

Attack of the Giant Bunny

It was 9.52 a.m. Fifty-two minutes late.

I’m dead
, I thought to myself, even though I was still very much alive. Unfortunately.

I ran up four flights of stairs as fast as I could to Toy Kingdom on the fourth floor. But before I had chance to step through the door, Bill came running over to me, shouting in panic.
He looked as if he needed a Rennie.

‘
Quick! I want you to learn these lines. You have five minutes,’ he wheezed, shoving a piece of crumpled paper into my hand. ‘Pinkie Mortimer’s publicist noticed you in the bunny costume yesterday and insisted you front her book signing today.’

Pinkie Mortimer? Firstly, who was Pinkie Mortimer? And secondly, what kind of a name was that? It sounded
like a Bratz doll.

‘
Oh, and here,’ he continued. ‘Put this on quickly. No time to waste.’

Bill handed me the sweaty pink Easter bunny costume I had been wearing for the past nine days to promote the Harrolds Easter events, which ran from Saturday
, 9
th
April to Monday, 18
th
April.

But Easter at Harrolds was no ordinary Easter. Here it meant organic chocolate eggs (where chocolate hens have been given the freedom to roam), a twenty-four carat
gold bunny worth in excess of twenty thousand pounds and an Easter egg hunt (five eggs with a letter on each) in Toy Kingdom.

Oh, but wait. It didn
’t stop there. Oh no. Harrolds, being Harrolds, decided to go one step further than everyone else. As it was Monday, 18
th
April – the final day of festivities – Harrolds decided to finish it off with a bang.

As I looked around the store, I noticed Toy Kingdom was full of leaping furry lambs, little yellow squawking chicks and cuddly bouncy bunnies
. Children were petting, stroking, yanking and poking the animals to their hearts’ content.

I spott
ed a girl in the petting corner holding a chirping chick surrounded by tiny tots with shiny faces – very tempting to slap. They were all screaming with delight at the thought of being allowed to touch one.

‘
But–’

‘
No time for questions,’ he interrupted. ‘Chop, chop. I’ll be waiting downstairs in Riverstones on the third floor.’ And with that, Bill waddled off down the stairs like a drunken penguin.

William Weisman, more commonly known to the level
-four Harrolds staff as Bill, was short, round and fat, like a football with legs, whose face looked as though it had been made with plasticine and then squashed by something angry. He was a sweaty, umbrella-haired man in his late fifties who hated his life and everyone in it, and who acquired a sense of empowerment by treating his staff like servants. Although I felt a little sorry for him, I hated him more. I mean, Bill was definitely one of those people you loved to hate.

I walked into the loos with a bunny costume in one arm and a script in the other, remembering how my
mum would always advise me to ‘Do your best and forget about the rest’ whenever I was faced with a challenge.

As I battled my way into the smelly costume and finally zipped it up at the back, I looked at myself in the full
-length mirror.

I looked like a Teletubby.

Seriously, what was this? A Jerry Hall promo video?

Next, I looked at the lines and attempted to memorise them as quickly as possible. It reminded me of all those school play auditions and how I had only ever been given small, non-speaking part
s, like a flailing tree or a glove. Although, I do remember once being given a line that went something like, ‘I have a message for you, Sire.’

M
y phone buzzed. It was none other than Bill.

Man, was I popular.

‘What’s taking you so long!? Pinkie’s entourage is here!’ he spat down the phone.

Why don
’t you go and suck on a lemon
,
sour face?
I thought to myself. What I actually ended up saying was, ‘Sorry, Bill. Just on my way now. But I haven’t managed to memorise all the–’

Beep beep
beep. The phone went dead.

‘
Charming,’ I said to myself.

As I arrived at Riverstones dressed as a pink Easter bunny holding a basket of chocolate eggs, I was immediately swamped by children who decided it would be a good idea to pet, stroke, yank and poke me.

I hate kids
.

I looked around the room, noticing a horde of paparazzi, columnists, children (mostly young girls) waiting for an autograph and Pinkie’s PA, who looked panicked, her eyes fixed on her BlackBerry, no doubt making sure everything was running according to schedule.

She was a short
, stout woman in her mid thirties with short brown hair, who looked like everyone’s mother. It seemed she had little or no time to herself, that her life revolved around making Pinkie Mortimer happy. She reminded me of a stage manager at the theatre, ensuring that all departments were on standby and everything was running smoothly before each show. In fact, there wasn’t really much difference between a celebrity circus and a West End show. Pinkie’s entourage was the production team: her publicist was the director, her PA was the stage manager and Pinkie was, well, who would have guessed it, the star of the show.

‘
Okay, okay. Here she comes. Pinkie’s a VIP, so you’d better be on your best behaviour,’ Bill half whispered, half choked.

VIP? I
’ve never even been an IP. I’m just a P.

Anyway, cue Pinkie Mortimer strutting into the room with one hand on her hip and posing for the cameras as if she were on a Milan catwalk, walking in a way that advertised her fertility.

Pinkie was a peroxide blonde, size zero twenty-something with eyes like a pair of long-legged spiders, a bum like an eight-year-old boy’s, and a fake-bake the colour of an Oompa Loompa. She was wearing a tacky tiara, a Hubba Bubba pink, skimpy little dress and an accessory under her right arm – a shivery, frail-looking chihuahua called Tinkerbell (according to its jewel-encrusted name tag) with a matching outfit. A deep, pouty perfume mixed with the smell of dog immediately enveloped the entire room. Under her left arm, Pinkie was carrying a book with a retina-frying pink cover and the words PINKIE’S DIARY written across it in bold letters, which was lined with tacky glitter-fluff-trimmed edges. She then whispered something to her PA, handing the diary over to her, who in turn vanished from the room.

She had barely been away for one minute.

‘Joy, where’s my
l’eau minérale
?’ Pinkie demanded like a diva. ‘Joy? Joy! JOY!’

‘
Coming.’ Joy charged over to Pinkie with a bottle of Clarendon
mineral water.

Does Joy wipe Pinkie
’s bottom, too
? I thought to myself, then quickly tried to erase the disgusting vision from my mind.
She’ll probably be asking for a glass of Moët & Chandon next.

Seriously, the world doesn
’t make any sense.

Once Joy had handed the mineral water over to Pinkie, she turned to walk towards Pinkie
’s publicist. A David Brent-lookalike in his late forties, wearing a blue suit and a headset in his ear, he stood beside the row of waiting journalists delivering press hits and pitching items to the gossip columnists.

A good publicist can make anyone seem more important and more desirable than they really are
, I thought.

But before Joy had the chance to speak to
him, Pinkie interrupted.

‘
Joy? Joy! JOY! This isn’t Bling H
2
O. It’s Clarendon. I specifically asked for Bling H
2
O. Tinkerbell hates anything else,’ she said in a whiny, nasal, Daddy’s-little-girl voice.

Poor Joy. Why did she put herself through all the trouble? Money? I mean, was it really worth it?
All the stress and sleepless nights. Joy was literally her surrogate mummy – minus the unconditional love, of course.

I turned to a shop assistant at
Riverstones whom I had never seen before; he seemed hypnotised and in awe of Pinkie. He was a spotty, over-confident teen, wearing a standard uniform. His name tag read ‘Lloyd Moseley, Sales Assistant’.

‘
Who is she?’ I asked Lloyd, whose gaze was transfixed on Pinkie as if he had just been turned to stone by Medusa.

There was no response.

But just when I was beginning to think he hadn’t heard me, his head swished around as if he were auditioning for a L’Oréal advert. He looked straight at me with glaring eyes, evidently angered at my lack of pop culture knowledge.

‘
Who is she?’ Lloyd repeated mockingly, his brow furrowing furiously.

The flock of waiting fans became eerily silent and turned to gaze at me as if I had just entered the room dressed as Hitler in a tutu.

‘Who
is
she?’ Lloyd said again, but in a louder voice. ‘OMG, kill yourself! She’s an angel sent unto us to deliver unto us her awesomeness.’ He turned to face the crowd, like a proud parent at a graduation ceremony. ‘She accidentally accepted my friend request on Facebook, you know.’

‘
No, I meant why is she famous?’ I rephrased, trying hard to stay composed.

The starry-eyed boy, who
 was about eighteen years old and immersed in a world of airbrushed celebrities, pondered for a brief moment before answering, as if considering the meaning of life.

‘
It doesn’t matter what she’s famous for. She’s amazing! She’s an inspiration! A goddess! And I love her. L-O-V-E LOVE HER!’ 

Having finished his
 spelling bee warm-up, Lloyd turned towards Pinkie, kissing then holding up a pink book above his tiny little peanut-shaped head. ‘Love ya, Pinkie!’ he blasted deafeningly, his thumb and index finger flashing an L shape.
 

Obviously, I had asked the wrong person.

Seriously, why is it people worship celebrities like gods?
I thought, resigning myself to the idea that their attraction probably lies in the fact that they lack any resemblance to reality.

I made sure to ask another shop assistant who didn
’t seem to be affected by Pinkie Mortimer’s presence.

As I scanned the room, I noticed a girl standing behind the till wearing a look of sheer boredom on her face and staring into space.

As I approached, she looked up at me with a smile that seemed to say ‘Poor you’.

‘
You’re Pinkie’s mascot, right?’ she asked, her lips curling into a crisp smile. ‘Bunny Simpkins?’

‘
Only for today. I’m usually Anna Borgström, sales assistant at Toy Kingdom upstairs.’

‘Felicity Diamond
,’ she said.

I looked over at Pinkie, who was busy throwing a tantrum as well as a bottle of water onto the floor.

‘Do you know who that kidult is?’ I asked, nodding in the direction of Pinkie. ‘Why is she famous?’

‘
That’s a very good question,’ Felicity said, sniffing out a laugh. ‘But then again, why are most people famous nowadays?

‘
True,’ I said, feeling as if I’d just found a new sorority sister.

‘
Pinkie’s a notorious social climber – not so much a climber as a mountaineer! She’s dated everyone from Tylar Novak to Sam Caspian. And her latest is Charlie Rose – bachelor
du jour. He’s number three on the Most Eligible Bachelors of London list. But once she’s been seen with him a couple of times, she’ll ditch him, then continue to move up the ladder until she finally ends up dating Brian Fairfax –
the number one most eligible bachelor
. I mean, she literally collects boyfriends like stamps.’

I didn
’t have a clue who any of these people were. The Most Eligible Bachelors of London? Who cares?
They’re probably all a bunch of players, anyway.

‘
So, who’s Brian Fairfax? And why is
he
number one? Does he lay golden eggs or something?’

‘
Close,’ she said, smiling. ‘He’s the heir to the Fairfax Publications fortune.’

‘
Fairfax Publications?’

‘
You know, the company that owns magazines like
Couture
,
Nouvelle Vague
,
Prestige
and
Glitterati
.’

I shook my head.

I felt as if I had buried my head like an ostrich all my life. I hadn’t read any of them. In fact, I wasn’t much of a magazine reader at all. I mean, who would believe Jennifer Lopez had lost weight and Gwyneth Paltrow had put it on?