She was seized with a strange desire to howl but only managed to achieve a sort of low keening noise. Her body’s way of saying, enough.
She stopped when she heard the chair rasp against the tiles again.
‘Alright there, darling? Me again.’ Stuart’s voice sounded a bit choked, as if he needed to clear his throat but was waiting until he got off the phone because he knew how much Flo hated the noise. An old person’s noise, she’d snipped at him. Save it for your eighties. ‘How are you getting on, Florence? Really?’
‘It’s – I … I’m finding elements of it a bit more challenging than I thought.’ It was the closest she had come to being entirely honest with him on any of their calls. ‘Two more days. And it’s for such a good cause.’
‘Absolutely. We’ll be cheering you on, George and I. And the children, of course.’
‘Thank you, darling,’
‘Night night, then. Rest well.’
They ended their call and in the ensuing silence Florence sunk into a dark abyss, having never felt more alone.
Raven tip-toed through the darkened bedroom and into the loo. After carefully pulling her pants out and away from her derriere as opposed to stripping them downwards as she’d made the critical mistake of doing when they’d finally reached the b&b, she slowly lowered herself onto the toilet seat. Ohwowthathurt. Stingy where she’d never been stingy. Raw where … well … frankly … bum blisters weren’t really de rigueur in your average teen’s life, were they? She wished her mum was here. Her mum would help her. If she weren’t too stubborn to admit to her mother she’d been mortal and made a mistake. Raven panted through the most tortuous wee she’d ever had then sort of slithered down to the bathroom floor. She pulled all of the towels she could reach over her, tucked a face cloth beneath her cheek, and closed her eyes. A return journey to her bed was beyond the realms of possibility. Her entire body was being savaged by lactic acid. Those final seven miles had utterly slaughtered the remains of her bum skin, not to mention … other bits … down there. Tomorrow was going to be a loooooong day.
Chapter Forty-Eight
10 SECOND INTERSTITIAL: BRAND NEW DAY
VISUAL: Sunita ‘Raven’ Chakrabarti
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
RAVEN: It’s amazing, yeah. To be part of something bigger than myself. It shows you how good people really are beneath, you know, whatever their personal armour is. Mine is obviously make-up.
Off-camera question: Who taught you how to do it?
RAVEN: Who taught me? YouTube. There isn’t a Brown Goth Vlogger I couldn’t name. Ha. Hmm … It was my sister actually. For her wedding. She was such a Bridezil—sorry – she was very exacting about how she wanted everyone’s make-up to be because she wanted a traditional Indian wedding even though we were born and raised here, but … you know … it was her wedding and I was her little sister – keen to please – so I used to lock myself in my room and practice and practice and practice, until – voila! I can do an eyeliner flick with the best of them.
Off-camera question: Your parents must be proud of you.
RAVEN: My parents? Well … you know. They work hard in their shop. Their pharmacy. To be honest – that’s my new thing, bald honesty on hashtag Big Boned Goth Girl – I spent the night on the bathroom floor wishing my mum was there. I knew exactly what she’d do. She’d grab one of her weird salves and begin dabbing me with it while tell me off for being such an idiot, letting my bum get as sore as it is. Who knew it would take blisters on my booty to finally realise that micromanaging me is her version of love. She does it to all of her customers. Telling off Mrs Caplan for not picking up her prescription before the last one is out. Calling the Saunters’ grandkids so that they’ll come get Mr Saunter’s heart pills because he can’t walk very far anymore. They know everything about their customers. So, yeah … I guess, it’s me who’s proud of them, really. Doing what LifeTime does on their own street corner, because that’s where kindness begins, if you’re lucky. At home. Sorry, I – does that answer your question?
GRAPHIC: BRAND NEW DAY: Bringing out the Best in Britons Everywhere
‘Well that’s it for the shout outs this morning. I’m glad we had time to get all of them in today. And an extra thank you to the Toes Up Energy Drink company for sending along a case of their carrot and ginger power shots! I think we’ll all be needing one of those today, especially with the weather. I thought it was April showers that were supposed to bring May flowers!’ Kath smiled, then frowned. She still had three minutes. Five if she asked them not to run the piece on wine tours outside of Cape Town which, all things considered, she thought was for the best. Kev was being flown back to the UK, allegedly to apologise, but she had her doubts. Apology was not one of Kev’s fortes. Her producer had advised her to proceed as normal, no acknowledgement of what happened, business as usual. The advertisers were all being busily and adamantly assured that something like that would never, ever, happen again.
Kath didn’t think Kev should be given a chance to prove them right or wrong.
She pointed up to her right, as instructed, knowing the team back at the studio would be filling the spot in with a Horrible Histories-esque graphic. We’ll be riding
