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eth
Miller
I see your true colours shining through
‘Typical’, huffed Hoxton Mum, sipping her skinny
macchiato. ‘The one time something exciting
happens in Lewes, and I was stuck in bloody
T<strong>us</strong>cany.’
‘Good holiday was it?’ I asked, idly watching as
Things One and Two carefully emptied hundreds
of sugar sachets into Hoxie’s handbag. So nice to
see them working on a project together without
bickering.
‘Rotten. The coffee wasn’t even as good as here.’
Hoxie waved her hand round Costa, her boycott
of Bill’s having been extended to Caffé Nero
and Baltica. Nero’s due to people with laptops
hogging the best tables, and Baltica beca<strong>us</strong>e ‘the
mirror in the loo makes me look like my mother’.
‘And I couldn’t relax by the pool beca<strong>us</strong>e every
two minutes someone sent me a tweet or text
about this Sunday Times b<strong>us</strong>iness. Maddening,
it was.’
‘Maddening to be acc<strong>us</strong>ed of unthinking racism?’
‘No, maddening to be so far away from the action.
Anyway, the article specifically excluded DFLs
from any such acc<strong>us</strong>ation. Which is only right.
After all, back in Hoxton I won plaudits for my
sensitive direction of Hox-Dram’s culturally
diverse production of My Night with Reg.’
‘Hard for the children’, I said, thinking of the
youngsters mentioned in the article.
‘Yes, indeed. Poor Django: he had nightmares that
everyone would be talking about it on his return
and him quite clueless. Thank heavens I had my
Blackberry so he could Facebook his friends and
keep up.’ She smiled, basking in the glow of her
superb parenting.
w w w. V I VA l E w E s . C o M
C o l U M N
Django and Lysander joined <strong>us</strong>. Lysander had
been charged with supervising his son’s hair-cut in
Avant Garde, but had clearly drifted off, for rather
too much of Django’s pink scalp was revealed.
Hoxie squealed in horror. ‘Lysander, what have
you done? He looks like a Black Shirt.’
‘It’s not that short’, Lysander bl<strong>us</strong>tered. ‘I didn’t
notice them getting the clippers out.’
‘J<strong>us</strong>t pop into Brats why don’t you, get him a Ben
Sherman and some Doctor Martens and your
job’s done’, Hoxie said hysterically.
Thing Two looked up from his sugar work and
said rudely but accurately, ‘Django’s ears stick
out.’
I hastily apologised to Django and reminded
Thing Two of our rule that all personal comments
m<strong>us</strong>t be run quietly past me before being relayed
to a third party. This rule has been enforced since
the time Thing One asked a very large gentleman
if he was pregnant.
But Django leaped to his own defence. ‘You can’t
say that about my ears, it’s racist.’
This gave <strong>us</strong> all pa<strong>us</strong>e.
‘How so, darling?’ Hoxie asked her earnest little
chap.
‘If you say anything about someone’s appearance
it’s racist. It said so in that newspaper.’
‘Hmm’, said Lysander. ‘There’s going to have to
be a certain amount of education all round in the
wake of this b<strong>us</strong>iness.’
Hoxie picked up her bag. ‘Lord, this is heavier
than I remember’, she sighed. ‘How apposite: as
with the burden of kids, one’s load never seems to
lighten.’ And off she went to her yoga class.
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