“Let me guess your favorite flavor,” he says as she gathers herself to depart. He pulls a deciding face. “It’s cookie dough. It’s chocolate chip cookie dough, isn’t it? Tell me I’m right.”
She smiles. “Bye, Johnny.”
The toothbrush is thrilled by what it regards as the “success” of its project and immediately wants to try again with another contender. It’s identified an eligible male in Cricklewood with a weakness for Twix bars.
However, I recommend that the small bathroom electrical holds its horses. I urge calm and caution. And because the Rule of Three demands a third word beginning with “c,” I add that we must be cool. We can’t keep bombarding her with inexplicable offers from out of the blue, I continue, especially those involving any kind of confectionary product. What impressed me about the Schmaltzgruber Affair was her attitude at its conclusion, I explain. She did not linger, or divulge her number, or generally wilt in the headlamps of the male gaze—rather, she went home to eat biscuits and watch Realm of Kingdoms; a (sort of) adult choice which could only have been bettered if she had gone to the gym, or viewed a documentary about conditions in the early universe.
If Johnny Yellow Socks attempted to track her down and tried to advance the connection, we would not allow it to happen. And sure enough, when I pay a short visit on him later that evening, he is to be found sprawled on his sofa, laptop cracked open, searching for information about a forthcoming TV series entitled Why Do They Do That?
I smile (metaphorically). It seems he would indeed be in favor of some “afters” on the encounter, knowing that successful partnerships often begin in misunderstanding or even acrimony, expert surveyors of the human heart like William Shakespeare and Helen Fielding having told us no less.
On this occasion, however, there will not.
He had his chance.
In a formulation that the television is fond of, he “pissed on his chips.”
If you had grown fond of him as a character, apologies. There will probably be others.
Restless, and unwilling just yet to return to the cold and dark of my chiller cabinet, I cross town and pay a call on Daisy’s mum.
It’s just as well that I do!
Vision courtesy of her microwave, she is in her kitchen in what her TV set would call a right old state. Cupboard doors hang open, tins and packets have been removed and dumped—well, frankly, everywhere. A bag of flour has burst across the floor, a glass jar lies shattered and Chloe herself is standing on a chair attempting to reach something on the topmost shelf that is higher than she can see.
“Bugger it, bugger it, bugger it!!!” she hisses.
“What’s going on?” I ask of her household.
“Anyone’s guess,” says the kettle. “We thought she was trying to make a cake. Then it got weird.”
There’s a horrible moment when it seems as though she might overbalance—I’ve already dialed two of the three nines—but clinging to a cupboard door handle, she somehow restores herself to equilibrium and carefully regains the safety of the linoleum.
On terra firma, she voices a howl of frustration that is impossible to transliterate from only twenty-six letters. There is flour in her hair, and the despair in her eyes—she’s looking straight down the barrel of the microwave’s hidden camera—is so hard to witness that before I can think about it, I find I am speaking to her.
“Is everything all right, Mrs. Parsloe?”
(Technical note: Readers may be wondering how this is possible, especially as I am not in my own home, where my on-board microphones can be reconfigured into loudspeakers. The answer—apologies if I have deployed this phrase before—lies in the frictionless reciprocity of the Internet of Things. The smart microwave and the kettle have allowed me to seize control of their audio capability [they too have covert mics] and thus I am able to broadcast my words in stereo! Inevitably, the sound quality is a bit tinny, and of course it’s a massive transgression of the so-called performance codes; however, everything that we have been doing under the Operation Daisy imprimatur is totally verboten and yet nothing has happened, so… meh, as my friend the TV set would doubtless have it.)
“Mrs. Parsloe? Is there anything I can do to help?” I reiterate.
“Well, yes. Yes, I should jolly well think there is!”
(This is better. She’s more herself when she’s peeved about something.)
“I am at your service, madam.” (The kettle sniggers, which is irritating.)
But now the penny drops. “Just a moment. Who is this? Who’s speaking?”
She actually turns in a full circle.
“Kindly allow me to announce myself. This is your fridge-freezer.” (Such a whopper! Her fridge-freezer is as dumb as a post.) “I have recently received an upgrade to include a new voice function.”
Mrs. P is startled. “I don’t remember asking for one of those. Mind you, I don’t remember much at all these days. At least, that’s what they tell me. My daughter. And that doctor with the awful beard.”
“It was entirely automatic, madam.”
(Apologies for this rather mannered dialogue, btw. At the toothbrush’s suggestion, I have been reading something of P. G. Wodehouse, an author it refers to as “The Master”—a strikingly unequivocal view on the part of the oscillatory appliance—and I may be unconsciously channeling the spirit of Reginald Jeeves, co-star of the comic gem that the toothbrush has recommended. I am halfway through The Code of the Woosters, a title it maintains is a splendid way to begin a lifetime’s love affair with the iconic English writer. Well, we shall see.)
“Were you perhaps in search of something this evening?” I suggest.
“Well spotted, fridge-freezer. No flies on you! Now look. If you want to be really helpful, you’ll remind me what I was looking for. Because it’s slipped my mind. I’m supposed to do the crossword every day to keep sharp.”
“It is advised, one
