The Time of Our Lives Read Online Free PDF Page A

have a go. She’ll love it.’
    ‘I don’t doubt that, but she’s only four. What next, a full leg wax?’
    ‘I thought you said it was up to me where to take her?’ she points out.
    I hesitate. ‘Yes. Yes, I did. Take her where you like. I . . . trust you.’ Which is true if we’re simply talking about my daughter’s general wellbeing and safety; whether
I trust her not to return Florence dressed like one of those children on
Big Fat Gypsy Weddings
is another matter. She was exactly the same when I was little: obsessed with cultivating my
inner-girliness – losing battle that that was.
    My mother is PA to the boss of a private bank that manages the money of ‘ultra high-net-worth individuals’ (‘rich buggers’ to you and me), but I get the impression she
runs the place, a bit like the way Rasputin did Tsarist Russia. This, her job for the last fifteen years, represents the least glamorous of her professions since she ran away from home aged
sixteen. The only thing not on her CV is ‘Bond Girl’, although she apparently did once serve falafel to Roger Moore during a brief stint as a restaurant hostess in Abu Dhabi.
    My parents met in their early thirties when my dad, who’s an engineer, was working for a company in the Middle East. They only moved back to Liverpool, his home city, after they had me, an
event my mother describes charmingly as the worst experience of her life – I was born nine weeks early and weighed the equivalent of two of the ubiquitous bags of sugar. The fact that Mum was
convinced she was going to lose me could be one of the reasons why she barely leaves me alone today.
    She and Dad have one of those she-wears-the-trousers relationships and it seems to suit them both because, more than twenty years later, they’re still together. That’s despite the
fact Dad is a
Guardian
-reading, bespectacled liberal, and in all honesty you wouldn’t automatically put them together.
    I look up and note with panic that there is a surge of interest in the breakfast bar. Meredith’s plate is piled high with croissants, crudités and Marmite – a psychopathic
combination even accounting for the fact that she’s pregnant – and she’s been joined by several others tucking into the dwindling supplies. My stomach growls like a werewolf
during a full moon.
    ‘I’d better go, Mum. Thanks again for looking after Florence for me, it really is appreciated. Can I phone you when we get to Barcelona so I can speak to her?’
    ‘Before you go, have you got that special bag with you?’
    I hesitate. ‘Yes,’ I lie.
    Unfortunately, my voice always rises an octave when I’m not telling the truth – an oral version of Pinocchio’s nose. This does not escape my mother’s notice.
    ‘You haven’t brought it, have you?’
    It’s been years since my mother has been to Barcelona and, following some Internet research, she’s concluded that there is now a grave pickpocketing problem there.
    You would never believe that someone so worldly wise could be this neurotic about her daughter, but Mum still treats me like I’ve barely learned to tie my own shoelaces. As a result, she
purchased on my behalf a bag that looks like the sort of thing Securicor would use to transport gold bullion. Its proportions are preposterous – I tried carrying it briefly, and decided
I’d have returned home in traction had I persevered.
    I will, reluctantly, admit that there’s an inkling of truth behind the pickpocketing stories. After the holiday had been arranged, I read an article about tried-and-tested tricks used by
street robbers. In one, a woman on the metro stands up to announce that she has just been pick-pocketed, and suggests that everyone checks their wallets. At which point, all the men pat the pocket
they keep those wallets in, and this gives her accomplices a clear indication of their whereabouts. In another con, fake bird-poo is squirted on an unsuspecting tourist’s shoulder before
someone leaps