I reply, because I do know how bad it is. I’m no Bobby Charleston but I know that the captain’s supposed to stay on the pitch and, ideally, contribute to the match in some way other than scoring own goals.
Dean realises it too. ‘They’ll probably sell me,’ he said last night, as if he were an old car or an unwanted sofa. ‘Free transfer to some god-forsaken place.’ It had made me shudder. What if the new place was somewhere dreadful like Sunderland?
‘I don’t think prayers are what he needs right now,’ I say, slightly unkindly, but I hate the way she insists on making a huge drama out of everything. ‘Anyway, I didn’t know you were religious.’
‘I’m not, silly. I’m not here to pray, though I did light a candle for poor, poor Dean. No, I’m here because there’s a woman who comes to church who I want to befriend because she runs the best pilates classes in the area and is booked up for twelve months. I thought I would bump into her and become her best friend.’
‘What? You went to church to befriend some woman?’
‘Not some woman—the pilates teacher to end all pilates teachers. If you want to befriend someone, you just follow him or her and start talking to them. I learned that in LA. She went to church, and so did I.’
If you want to befriend someone, you just follow him or her…I find myself thinking. Just follow them.
‘Oh,’ I say, my mind ticking over with thoughts, plans, an idea of how I might be able to help my husband. ‘And did you make friends with her?’
‘Of course,’ says Mum breezily.‘We’re off for organic grass and dandelion-stalk tea now. It’s easy. Honestly, you Brits are so funny—everyone else has put their names down on Leaf’s pilates list and they are all just waiting patiently for a gap to open up. They don’t stand a chance. If you want to be friends with someone just go and “bump” into them. It’s not rocket science. Right, must go—need to balance my chakras and chant my Buddhabhivadana.’
‘Chant your what?’
‘Salutation to the Buddha, silly girl. Don’t you know anything?’
10 a.m.
Oh dear. Very difficult situation. Very, very difficult situation. It’s 8 a.m. on Saturday morning and I’m pacing around the bedroom in a state of considerable distress. Today it’s not even the prospect of Dean scoring eighteen own goals and getting booed off the pitch that’s distressing me…though I have to say life would be altogether more pleasant if he just went out there and kicked it into the right net like the others manage to do. No, the real problem today is that I think I might have to sack Mallory. Can you imagine it? The thing is—I can’t see any way round it. She’s committed a cardinal sin and it would be unforgivable of me not to punish her in some way. I feel like Sir Alan Sugar as I spin on my heels and point at the mirror. ‘You’re fired,’ I growl, with all the seriousness that a woman with her hair in Carmen rollers can muster. ‘You, Mallory. You’re fired.’
Okay, let me think about how I can word this as I explain to you what happened. Mallory came round at 6 a.m., as she usually does on match days, but she forgot to bring her fake-tan spray with her!! Can you imagine? A beautician, going to see a Wag before a match and forgetting the fake tan! It would have been less disastrous to me if she’d forgotten to bring her head.
This is how the whole sorry scene played itself out. Sensitive readers may choose to look away at this point.
‘Mallory, darling, how lovely to see you,’ I said in my best, most welcoming voice. ‘In you come. Have you got everything there?’
Note, please, how I managed to spot immediately that she was less encumbered than usual. Note, please, also, that she did not notice at all that she was carrying significantly less gear than is usual or, as it turns out, desirable.
‘Yes, everything I need is here,’ said Mallory. Or, should I say, ‘lied Mallory’, because that’s what it was—a damned lie.
‘Can I do the fake tan first?’ I asked, peeling off my top and kicking my Jimmy Choos to one side.
‘Sure,’ said Mallory (lying). Then began the fumble through all her bags as she searched in vain for her fake-tanning stuff.
‘I’m sure it’s here somewhere,’ she muttered, throwing things out of her enormous shopper as she did. ‘Mmmmmm…that’s strange.’
More instruments of the beautification process were hurled outwards and upwards as Mallory scoured her bag. A small pot of wax rolled across the carpet. Tea-tree oil, tweezers and nail files tumbled out. Facepacks, toner, moisturiser, creme bleach, a pumice stone, hot stones for massage…no fake-tan sprayer though. No sign of a spray-tan machine anywhere.
‘Oh Tracie,’ said Mallory, clutching her hands around her face in horror. ‘Tracie, I’m so sorry.’
I squawked. I know it was a squawk and I know it was extremely loud, because a horrible grimace descended onto Mallory’s face—the same look she’d had when she’d stepped back and put her stiletto heel through my cashmere cushion. For one horrible moment she thought she’d skewered the cat.
‘How could you possibly forget it?’ I asked.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said for the twenty-fifth time. ‘I’m really sorry.’
The trouble is, ‘really sorry’ isn’t going to make me the colour of a rusty nail by 3 p.m., is it?
I got Mallory to do all the other essential treatments. My fingernails were long and blunt at the end and painted with white tips. Nail extensions had been applied to my toenails and not a stray hair remained anywhere. My body was soft, my nails were tough and my hair was long and thick. But my skin? White.
‘I’ll drop you at the tanning shop on Luton High Street if you want,’ says Mallory, and not for the first time I wondered whether she’d forgotten the spray tan on purpose. I know she doesn’t like doing the spray business. She’s been a bit funny with the whole thing since the unfortunate incident with another Wag and a white Chihuahua. No amount of pleading would convince the woman that her dog looked fine the colour of a ginger-nut biscuit.
I think the fundamental problem that Mallory and other women like her face in a spray-tan sense when working with Wags, is that most Wags have entirely white furniture in their homes, which means that there’s every chance of a major disaster happening.
‘I’ll wait outside,’ says Mallory, as I walk into the salon and request a double spray tan. It goes well to start with. Once I’d got over being told to wear paper knickers, which were entirely unflattering in every respect.
‘Okay, turn round,’ says Debbie, the tanning lady. ‘And back again…Great…Nearly done. Just need to spray your face now. Breathe in when I say, then hold your breath until I’ve finished spraying. Okay?’
Breathe in. How hard can that be? Normally breathing comes to me as easily as applying mascara, driving and drinking a cappuccino at the same time, but suddenly I don’t know how to hold my breath. And just as Debbie sprays a fine mist of cocoa-coloured
