The Mini Break by Jane Costello Read Free Book Online

enthusiasm for these things. There are lots of lipsticks – the only cosmetics I ever seem to buy (intermittently in a bid to ‘make an effort’) – plus a
Rimmel concealer, dehydrated mascara and something called a ‘chubby stick’ donated by Meredith. That’s pretty much it.
    It strikes me how bad I’ve become at the things girls are meant to be good at.
    I never used to be. Once upon a time, I was into this sort of thing. But for someone who takes their job as seriously as I do, flaunting your assets is not a good idea. Part of me thinks that if
any boss has an issue with glamour and femininity in the workplace, then it should be the patriarchy’s look out, but the reality is it rarely works like that. If I turned up at the office all
pouty lips and filigree undies, my reputation would never recover – and not just because letting
my
boobs off the leash of their control bra would be such a hideous distraction that I
might as well go the whole hog and stick two Mr Whippy cornets on each one.
    But, if I’m honest, wanting to be taken seriously at work isn’t the whole story. The whole story is a long and complicated one, and can probably be summarised thus: I have other
priorities now.
    Still, this trip will be good for me, as everyone keeps saying.
    Part of me can’t believe I’ve never been on a holiday as luxurious as this. Although, to be fair, I’ve had hardly
any
holidays in the last four and a half years, unless
you count
    Center Parcs.
    ‘Mummy!’ my four-year-old daughter, Florence, cries from her bedroom. ‘Something’s . . .
happened
. But it was only an accident.’
    Florence, who was named after her father’s birthplace, might have the voice of an angel but there are few sentences capable of making my heart sink faster.
    I optimistically interpret her tone as being insufficiently urgent to qualify as a true emergency.
    ‘What
kind
of accident?’ I ask lightly, piling my clothes into the bag, deliberately stalling before I face whatever disaster has befallen her.
    ‘Well . . . will you be cross?’
    I take a deep breath. ‘I don’t know – what have you done?’
    ‘It wasn’t me. And, anyway, it’s okay because it was
only an accident.
’
    I abandon my packing and head across the hall to her tiny bedroom.
    We moved here last year because it’s in the catchment area of the exceptionally good state school where Florence will start in September. This monumental date in my daughter’s diary
unfortunately coincides with our company’s most important day of the decade – a headache I have put off tackling because it involves an impossible choice: get my friend and neighbour
Debbie to take her to school on her first day there, or face being burned at the stake by my boss – or something like that.
    Apart from location, the flat is unsuitable for our circumstances in every conceivable way: it’s too small, the garden consists of four potted gerberas, there’s an unshakeable smell
of damp and it’s nowhere near as convenient for work as our old place in Clapham. This means my frenetic daily commute resembles a scene from
Chariots of Fire
, and our regular
childminder is permanently threatening me with the sack, apparently unconcerned that it’s supposed to be the other way around.
    It’s also ludicrously expensive, not helped by the fact that the pay rise for which I’ve been holding out over the last six months has not yet materialised.
    Oh yes, and we have a dog. I don’t make life easy for myself. But it was only when Spud’s owner, Mary – our landlady – died recently that I discovered, to my abject
horror, that she’d bequeathed him to Florence in her will. Her son, James – our new landlord – couldn’t have him because he’s allergic, and has his golfing holidays to
consider. Spud’s a lovely little thing but, practically speaking, not what I need in my life right now. So I briefly considered packing him off to a rescue home, but didn’t have it in