A Surrey State of Affairs (31 page)

“Flippin’ ’eck Connie, have you seen the papers today?” she said, before inviting me over for a coffee and a chat. Craving distraction of any sort, I agreed.

It was my first trip to her new flat, which is a big step down from their old house but nevertheless rather smart. Tanya has taken over the open-plan living room and dining area for Idle Hands, leaving Mark to run the administrative side from the storage room. Next to the vials of varnish and pots of sequins, Tanya had a copy of the
Sun
open to a
Dungeon
double spread. I took a gulp of my coffee. My jaw dropped in horror, partly from the Nescafé, partly from the sight of Sophie admiring Peter Andre’s tattoos in the dim glow of a Bic cigarette lighter. Tanya tried to convince me that it was all okay, that she’d be able to make twenty grand “just like that” from talking to the magazines afterward. She is probably right, but it is not for this that Jeffrey has been putting 5 percent of his salary into a trust fund every year.

10 P.M.

Jeffrey and I have just finished watching
Dungeon.
The circumstances are far from ideal, but it’s the first time for as long as I can remember that we’ve shared a pastime in this way. Jeffrey
poured himself a whiskey and me a sherry, and we settled companionably on the sofa as the opening sequence of dark corridors lit by fake electric candelabras, with a soundtrack of thumping beats and demonic cackling, began. It was Sophie’s turn to cook for the group. Her chili con carne was a modest success; if it hadn’t been for the council worker being a vegetarian, and for the dwarf finding a mustache hair in his serving, it would have been a triumph.

  
SATURDAY, JULY 12

Today I ventured onto Facebook and searched for Sophie’s name. I wish I hadn’t. There were 193 results, including many fan clubs, a hate club, and a group called “I would cut off my own balls with a rusty spoon for the pleasure of having Sophie Harding make me chili con carne.”

I logged back off quickly.

  
SUNDAY, JULY 13

Church today, and Mother, both of whom were thoroughly oblivious to
Dungeon.

The
Sunday Telegraph,
sadly, was not. There were no lurid photos or suggestive headlines, but there was a substantial article in the comment section by some professor of sociology, which claimed:

“The reality television genre has reached its apotheosis in
Dungeon:
the contestants strut through its gaudily lit corridors, they are both manipulated and manipulating; they are the commodities and consumers of voyeurism; their much-vaunted eccentricities are what make them uniform. In her complete unawareness that the only real prison cell she inhabits is one of her own making, Sophie Harding is the new Emma Bovary.”

I showed it to Jeffrey, and he didn’t know what it meant either.

  
MONDAY, JULY 14

10 P.M.

Once again, Jeffrey and I have just watched
Dungeon.
The housemates were set another challenge: to learn how to ride a monocycle, then perform a relay race down the gloomy corridor, with an electric light made to look like a candle (presumably a real one would breach health and safety regulations) serving as a baton. Jeffrey’s hand reached out to mine, and our eyes met, fearfully. We both knew that Sophie would struggle.

And she did. Even with the Peter Andre impersonator holding her hand, she could not bring herself to make that leap of faith, to peddle on ahead and keep her hands at her sides. “Go on, Sophie!” bellowed Jeffrey, rising from the sofa on her sixth at-tempt. But it was in vain. All the other contestants managed it, even the dwarf, on a custom-made “minicycle,” but not poor Sophie. And because of her, the housemates failed the challenge, and had to face a week without wine.

Afterward, there was footage of Sophie with her scrawny ankles clasped in plastic replica stocks, weeping mascara down her cheeks, wailing, “It’s all Dad’s fault. He wouldn’t buy me training wheels and I never learned to ride a bike properly and I hate him and you and everyone, it’s not fair!”

Jeffrey had to physically restrain me from calling the producer again; then he poured us both a double scotch, neat.

  
TUESDAY, JULY 15

It was with a heavy tread that I approached the belfry last night. Was it too much to hope that no one caught a glimpse of Sophie on
Dungeon,
in one way or another? Alas, it was. No sooner had I put down my handbag and taken up my usual position at my rope than Miss Hughes turned to me and said, “I saw that daughter of yours in the newspaper today.”

“Oh,” I said, not knowing how else to reply. At that moment I noticed Gerald standing quietly next to his bell rope, his hair neatly combed, listening.

“I never thought I’d see the day when someone from this village would be caught cavorting on television like that.”

Just as I was struggling to formulate a response, Gerald intervened.

“Isn’t it about time we got going?” he said quietly; and we did. The lovely clanging of the bells, and the regular reaching and pulling on my rope, soon managed to erase all thoughts of Sophie, minidresses, monocycles, dwarfs, and Peter Andre impersonators.

I left feeling calmer, and gave Gerald a grateful smile on the way out.

The feeling did not last, however. When I got home Jeffrey was sitting in front of the television watching
Dungeon,
gripping his glass of scotch so tightly his fingers were white; on the screen our daughter was having a screaming match with the Brazilian lap dancer. He explained to me that Renita had accused Sophie of stealing her eyeliner. I would like to have thought her innocent, but my mascara did make a mysterious disappearance at the same time as Sophie, suggesting a certain predilection for helping herself to other people’s cosmetics. I told Jeffrey, and he shook his head, then went to his decanter for a top-up.

  
WEDNESDAY, JULY 16

Once more to the newsagent’s. This time I could no longer avoid Niral’s eye as I paid for my tabloids. “This is your Sophie, isn’t it?” he said, gesturing to the cover of the
Sun,
which had a close-up of Sophie and Renita screeching at each other with the headline M
AKE UP, GIRLS!

“She has spirit. That Renita girl is a nasty piece of work,” he
said in his gentle, undulating voice. “I hope that she will be out on her ear when it comes to parole time.”

Parole! Of course. Rupert had explained how it worked over the phone only yesterday, but I was too distracted to pay attention. The cell mates must be due to nominate someone soon. I realize it’s unkind to hope that one’s own daughter will be socially ostracized and summarily booted out, and yet I long for it to be so. Our ordeal could be almost over.

10 P.M.

Sophie is up for parole! How I hoped I would be writing those words; and how much trouble they have brought. I have had a most alarming sort of surprise.

Jeffrey and I were settled, as usual, to watch
Dungeon.
I had told him that I suspected a parole notice was imminent, and he perched on the edge of his sofa, so precariously that I feared he would spill his whiskey onto the carpet. Sure enough, one by one the housemates filed into the “interrogation chamber,” that ludicrous room with medieval implements of torture on the wall, pimp’s furniture, and a voice-over of a young girl pretending to be a George Orwell character. (I never liked Orwell much. Why slum it in Paris and London when he had a perfectly respectable array of relatives to stay with? But I digress.)

Each cell mate had to say whom they wanted to send home, and things were not looking good for our daughter. Though she had the physics teacher and the Peter Andre impersonator on her side, she seemed to have alienated the entire female contingent, including the transsexual, who said that she had stolen his moisturizer. Once the votes were in, the results were clear: Sophie and Renita were up for eviction. The result would be decided by a public telephone vote. As soon as the numbers to text flashed on
the screen, Jeffrey put down his glass and grabbed his BlackBerry from his pocket. I was impressed that he was taking matters into his own hands. Sophie clearly needs to be out of that house for her own good, and the British public cannot be relied on to vote the right way; how else would you explain more than a decade of Labour government?

I looked over his shoulder as he typed in “RENITA.”

“You’ve got it the wrong way!” I said. “You have to put in the one you want to send home, not the one you want to stay.” Perhaps, after all, it was similar confusion that accounted for Gordon Brown’s presence at No. 10 Downing Street.

“What are you talking about, you silly woman?” Jeffrey exclaimed. “Why would I want Sophie to go? This is the most fun I’ve had in years.”

He hit
SEND
.

  
THURSDAY, JULY 17