Mini Shopaholic

Whoopee-doo. Like I’m interested in some boring old meeting with Christian Scott-Hughes.

‘Great,’ I say politely.

‘Unfortunately I’m going to have to bollock my personal assistant today. Not so good.’ He sighs. ‘Didn’t see that one coming.’

What? He’s doing what?

I raise my head, unable to keep up my distant demeanour any more. He’s going to bollock Bonnie? How can he bollock Bonnie? She’s perfect! She’s lovely!

‘But … I thought you loved her,’ I say, trying to sound only mildly interested. ‘I thought she was the best assistant you’ve ever had.’

‘I thought so, too. But recently, she’s become …’ Luke hesitates. ‘I can only describe it as “inappropriate”.’

I can’t imagine Bonnie being inappropriate for one moment.

‘What do you mean? What’s she done?’

‘It’s odd.’ Luke passes a hand over his brow, looking perplexed. ‘Most of the time she behaves with impeccable discretion and tact. And then all of a sudden she’ll lurch into territory that frankly is none of her business. Like commenting on my shower gel, of all things.’ Luke frowns. ‘I really think that’s unprofessional behaviour, don’t you?’

I feel the colour creep into my cheeks. ‘Er … I suppose …’

‘There have been other comments, too, even more intrusive and personal. Quite frankly, I haven’t hired her to give me opinions about my family or house. Or choice of ties.’

Shit. Shit. This is all my fault. Except I can’t exactly say that, can I?

‘Well, I think you should give her another chance,’ I say hastily. ‘You don’t want to upset her, do you? She was probably just making conversation. I’m sure she’ll never be intrusive again. In fact, I’m positive.’

Because I’ll instantly ring her up and tell her to lay off the suggestions.

Luke gives me a strange look. ‘Why does it matter to you? You hardly know her.’

‘I just feel very strongly that people should be given a chance. And I think you should give this assistant another chance. What’s her name again – Bobbie?’ I add innocently.

‘Bonnie,’ Luke corrects me.

‘Bonnie.’ I nod. ‘Of course. I’ve only really met her once,’ I add for good measure. ‘Ages ago.’

I shoot a surreptitious glance at Luke but he doesn’t seem suspicious. Thank God.

‘I must go.’ He gets up, wiping his mouth. ‘So … I hope it goes well today.’ He kisses Minnie. ‘Good luck, poppet.’

‘She’s not running the Olympics,’ I retort curtly. ‘She doesn’t need luck.’

‘Well, anyway, let me know how it goes.’ He hesitates awkwardly. ‘Becky, I know how you feel about … today. But I really think this could be the breakthrough we need.’

I don’t even bother answering him. There’s no way some child-catching boot-camp expert is having any ‘breakthrough’ in my family.

By ten o’clock I’m ready for her. The house is prepared and I’m prepared and even Minnie is all dressed up in her most innocent-looking Marie-Chantal pinafore.

I’ve done my research. First of all, I looked up Nanny Sue’s website and read every page. (Unfortunately there’s nothing about the boot camp on there yet, just a message saying, ‘My new series of behaviour-management programmes for children and adults will be launched soon – check for details.’ Huh. I’m not surprised she’s being cagey.)

Then I bought all her DVDs and watched them back-to-back. And it’s always the same pattern. What happens is, there’s a family with kids haring about and parents arguing and usually an old abandoned fridge in the garden or dangerous electrical sockets or something. Then Nanny Sue comes in and watches carefully on the side and says, ‘I want to see who the Ellises really are,’ which means, ‘You’re doing loads of stuff wrong, but I’m not going to tell you what yet.’

The parents always end up having a screaming match and then sobbing on Nanny Sue’s shoulder and telling her their life history. And every week she gets out her little box of tissues and says gravely, ‘I think there’s more to this than child behaviour, isn’t there?’ and they nod and spill all about their sex life or job troubles or family tragedy and they play sad music and you end up crying too.

I mean, it’s a total formula, and only complete suckers would end up falling for her tricks.

And now, presumably, she’s going to crank up the drama and take all the children away to boot camp, somewhere really tough like Utah or Arizona, and it’ll make even better telly when they’re reunited.