The Grand Mothers Tale
 
CHAPTER THREE
 
"...........men make bad judgements when they think with their dicks...
.....a beautiful woman changes the world i.e. Helen of Troy and if I may make so bold , lil' ol me  Diana"
Diana, entrepreneur, investor in industry winner and bonne viveur
 
The newsagent says that he is surprised to see me up so early (9.45a.m!) but as I point out to him "9.00 a.m. is nothing to me, I do this all the time." I scoop up one of every paper except the Daily Mail.
(I firmly believe that the Daily Mail is the tool of the British Conservative (nee Nazi) party. Each copy carries a homing device cunningly placed within the barcode. This newspaper is specially constructed for women who think their views are important but in reality are just mere puppets of their men. Demographic Group ABC2 aspirant / doormat / cuckold is the gene pool. The homing device will ensure the reader an unfaithful husband and at least two visits from your local Conservative candidate just before each election time. If you want your babies dribbled over by an upper class twit with bad breath then be my guest.) 
 
His raised eyebrows perhaps mean something different in Pakistani or where-ever he comes from or perhaps he is just being insolent. I mentally make a small indentation on the internalized score card that I carry in my head. Three strikes and he's dead, ha hah but then he's small fry. Gentle Reader, we have affairs of state to attend to -hurry, don't lag behind. You'll have a chance to get the sleep out of your eyes and "do" your hair in the taxi  
 
I spread the Daily Star out in the taxi as our seat protector and scan the front pages. Sad to say I will never read the Star, not until my bottom takes reading lessons, anyhow. I marvel at how quickly the ‘papers have captured last nights affairs. When do they go to press, for heavens sake? They must be up all night long in that newspaper world of theirs. All except the Telegraph, who focus on a Diplomats untimely death in Dubai, are giving accounts of carnage in Knightsbridge involving my daughter of all people.
What has Cassie been up to? I shall summarise. An ambulance was called to one of the capitals best addresses in the small hours, the wife of the UK's most charismatic businessman taken in an emergency dash to hospital as a result of her drugs overdose. The postulations are varied, some even say that there had been loud rock and roll, sadistic sex play, and a private fetish torture chamber is hinted at.
The more sensationalist headlines are introducing elements of Voodoo devil worship and exotic Haitian fruit at it's centre. All immensely satisfying. Even more so, when it seems that the whole incident from start to finish was picked up on CCTV. But wait, whats this? The video evidence cannot be trusted. It seems there are two Cassies at the same time on the important footage. General opinion is divided. The Sun and the Sport are united in their conviction that some weird ritual has conjured another Cassie out of thin air, an alter ego if you will, that has gone violently out of control and attacked both her and her lover who is unnamed. Their resident psychic is contacting the dead to see if this theory holds water.
A Satanic experiment in a dark hinterworld has gone horribly wrong, the Mirror says. Others have a more rational take, the Guardian and the Express have pointed out that earlier footage on the videotape has obviously not been completely wiped off and that the double images are merely earlier versions of Ms Reynolds and a co-incidental overlay of Ms Reynolds which give the untrue impression that she has assaulted herself. If one set of images was separated from the others, the twin trains of thought agree, then one would see Mrs Mark Reynolds going about her daily business or tidying her abode. There is no more mention of her unnamed lover. Mark's publicity minders have obviously sprung into mindful action suppressing further scandal and conjecture. There is little more said by any of the newspapers other than my son in law, Mark Reynolds has been contacted and is returning from business affairs in Beijing to be at her bedside. We shall meet him before too long - Dear Reader. Perhaps you could spruce yourself up a bit by then, you look a fright - almost as if you've been up all night!
 
We're here, W One W , W1W, so good they named it twice.Location, location, location and this is the location that says you have aaaaaaaaaarrived.
This is where  I work, where my business is based and in my naturally modest way that you've come to know me by so far I'm almost too embarrassed to say that they all adore me.
We employ a steady stream of young ladies from the finest British families at Brookstein and Partners, if any of the young ladies fail or forget to adore me then they're disposed of and are replaced by those who will ADORE me.
The Company name is a bit of a misnomer as there are no partners, I would never suffer a partner in any aspect of my life, let alone business. The premises are huge, grand, stylish and the reception is bursting at the seams with tasteful objet's d'art and priceless paintings that I have selected myself.
I have, though I say it myself, a fine understanding of art and I personally do not believe that you can have an item too big, too grand or too expensive. What it's of or what it represents doesn't concern me.
 
There are hundreds of staff. I must admit I'm not sure what we actually do here, but whatever it is, it's mine, mine, all mine. From the ostentatious spotless, spacious reception manned at the huge kidney shaped desk (or womanned) by three near-identical human Barbie dolls in their regulation navy blazers and Maggie Thatcher inspired white starched neck frilled cravats, right the way through to the inner reaches of the huge baying open plan office which is our ground, mezannine and first floor. I have never visited the other three floors, they may be empty for all I know or contain skeletons of my former love conquests - who cares, I don't.
This floor, my floor, looks like a trading floor at one of the Commodity Exchanges. As you might expect my desk is at the epicenter of this hurricane of busy busy commerce and I acknowledge the bows and scrapes of my underlings as I make my way towards the hub. I touch a shoulder here, whisper praise there, and generally spread the sunniness of my personality to rank and file. By the time I reach my desk I note that the trays on it have been filled with many documents, reports, contracts and files, each of which looks very important, demanding my attention or signature. "Looks" being the operative word for (as I have "stage managed" several times with my no.2 Philippa Mann) I do not expect to be actually troubled by such trivia. However appearance is everything and as I hover over my desk to the general delight of my assembled staff who saw me do this very same thing only three weeks ago, I appear to them to be looking at the matters placed on the desk. Unbeknown to all I am merely studying different aspects of my reflection thrown back to me by the high polish from the inlaid marquetry of maple and walnut wood. I decide that I would look just as beguiling if my skin were darker. That thought sends my mind back to how to deal with the papershop asian who I'm certain by now, has slighted me. His time will come, I decide.
 
Time flies when you're having fun and I suddenly realise that although it seems as if  I've only just arrived it's already lunchtime. Phillipa has assembled a new gaggle of feisty youngsters to be my luncheon companions today at the Ivy and for me to be hugged and air kissed by several minor celebrities who will be beneficial to my burgeoning reputation.
 
Fashion Tip-If you want to stay young, surround yourself whenever possible with young people, do what they do, eat what they eat and how they eat it, sleep only when they sleep. Read what they read etc etc ad infinitum. It works for me, it works for Cher, Kylie and it works for Tina Turner. I'm so glad that they followed my advice, they look wonderful.
 
Stretch limousines find it hard to negotiate London West End streets but ours is on autopilot homing in on and then depositing all us blue stocking girlies outside the current place to be. The Ivy.
 
The girls are on their best behaviour as we all push pieces of lettuce around our plates of untouched food. I know the Ivy would never stoop to recycling the plates of their food to their next set of diners but they could, they most certainly could because it is "de rigeur" that no one actually consumes food at the Ivy. The only possible exempt group from this rule are the celebrity supermodels who eat with brazen gusto but visit the "loo " intermittently to return their food to the watery depths.
 
Enough of such unpleasantness. My group of us young girls are on to weightier topics; the assembly are interested to know a) whether I know Peter Andre and b) if his legendary six pack is for real or silicone implanted, like female breasts. We debate this hard and long, long and hard ha hah. I never once for a minute let on that I've actually entertained the said Peter Andre in my bed, although I do hint at it very often. It washes over their vacuous heads without them registering. That may be because we're all talking at once and not listening. Conversation only falters in reverence as minor celebrities make their way to my table to embrace me. Today -it's the turn of Daley Wintony, closely followed by Philly Schofieldy. We kiss air, they, figuratively speaking, kiss my bottom and once I have dismissed them , make their way back in the darkness of their sordid little lives to obscurity and the Ivy's inferior clutch of tables near the Orangery quarter. Sometimes they brown nose, saying they are so happy to be clients of my company and want to touch on some business issue about our conduct of their affairs. This horrifies me and the expression I fix them with always ensures that we have a non conversation. Today they don't bother me with such trifles and as I rejoin the melee of conversational tripe it appears we've moved on to whether Justin Timberlake will ever duet with Missy Elliott or Pink. Pink stands the better chance in my LOUD VIEW but delightfully, nobody hears because nobody is listening.
 
We straggle out eventually to the silver stretched Bentley, the conversation lively and buzzing and plentiful like a horde of bees around our heads. I notice that our uniformed driver, A Huge smiling Oriental  has one of the early editions of the Evening Standard and is reading it, headline front page open as we approach the car.
I reach in through his open window and take the whole paper from his grasp. Such is my due. I may dock him money for reading on the job, he could have been shining the car instead, or some such.
The pink financial pages make my seat cover and I roll the rest of the paper to read later. Once we are all seated I strike the air with it like a baton; I'm a conductor conducting my young orchestra of girlies with their best years well ahead of them, if I'm anything to go by, which I most certainly, am.
 
After the girls are unloaded at the office I have the dilemma of what to do with my afternoon. I know that everyone expects me to visit my stricken daughter  but I am pulled in another two directions. The third avenue is closed to me, that option of returning with the girls to the office I have already firmly dismissed in my mind. Let's face it, I've done far too much work already today, wouldn't you agree?
 
So is it home for a nap? After all I was up late last night. Though if anyone asks I was home all night and early to my bed (and I strongly recommend that you verify this -if asked. Understand?) or to my exclusively exclusive club where I can while the afternoon away nursing a huge brandy in a crystal vase while I look out of the window over broad views of St James Park and marshal my thoughts.
 
What's a girl to do-eh? Then as I unroll the paper and see what the latest update to my daughters story is, I realize that I must be selfless. Duty calls. "Queen Victoria Private VE (Very Expensive) Hospital" I tell my Yellow driver as I immerse myself in the unfolding story.
 
The Evening Standard is fabulous at being the Evening Standard. With no competition from a similar paper it just tells it like it is and doesn't have to spend all it's time and energy defending itself against or attacking rival newspapers. It also has that very funny cartoon "Bristow" in it.
The Evening Standard is telling me that they have eye witness accounts from people who saw Cassie leaving with a man from a trendy West End bar. Now I would never call the Ewer and Harpsichord trendy or in the West End, but the accounts pinpoint Cassie leaving at closing time last night  with a mans genitalia in her grasp with a man (unidentified) on the other end of it. Shocked onlookers recount a bar room brawl. A bottle blonde with a split lip and black eye ( color photo close up) is explaining how she came close to death at Cassie's hands. As I read, it just gets funnier and funnier. Definitely not funny though, is that there is no mention of me. Either Mark's publicity machine has expurgated all references to Cassie's mother, me, the nations favourite uptown girl or Alex Montgomery, the publisher of said Evening Standard has forgotten how much money I've ploughed into his organ. Take that as you will, ha hah.
But as the story dwindles on to pages 7, 9, 14, and a tiny bit of 15 I am horrified. I am absolutely certain by now that I do not get one bloody mention.
 
We reach the hospital and I am distraught and desperate to get to ............. The Hospital's Gift Shop.
I spend absolute ages in the hospital gift shop but just can't find anything suitable and I do so want to arrive as soon as humanly possible at Cassie's bedside but I must not be empty handed. Who buys those tartan tins of biscuits? I wonder as I make my third circuit of the shop, my wire basket still empty save for a small tin 285g  of Del Monte pineapple rings in syrup (hugely overpriced-but then I am a captive purchaser ) that I've selected. I'm sure Cassie will enjoy those.
 
Then it occurs to me. Visitors to hospital bring flowers. What a fabulous idea, if I ever own a hospital, I decide, I would put a florist shop just inside the entrance. I'd make a fortune. It's a masterstroke of genius and no-ones' thought of it except me. As if by magic there is actually a flower shop right next door to this gift shop inside the hospital entrance. It's almost as if they read my mind, do you believe in telepathy?- Dear Gentle Reader,  I do, sometimes I can get people to do exactly what I want just by shouting at them ha hah.  
 
In the florists, the florist is arguing with me. Can you believe it? she reckons that her years of training as a florist empower her to put together a better arrangement of flowers than me. She obviously doesn't realize who I am. I am bloody one hundred per cent certain that if I leave it up to her she will palm me off with all the small flowers. I want the biggest flowers your shop has got, I tell her imperiously. She goes about my bidding mumbling and grumbling under her breath as she selects by size, which between you and I is the best way to choose most things, isn't it? Her complaining is getting to me. Oh, if only this was the story Alice in Wonderland I'd be saying "off with her head". Off with her head would be a definite improvement. She has a nice neck, but her face has little to recommend it. Face like a bulldog chewing a wasp. Fell out of the ugly tree, hit all the branches on the way down, did she?
 
I contemplate leaving the shop with my huge bouquet without paying and even calculate risk over time gained / distance covered as I send her scurrying into the back room to add even more fern yet again to the meadow and forest that I have insisted upon. Instead, I settle for the minor brilliance of adding one used DNA tracker swab into her jar of florist tools on her assembly desk while she is in her back room. Angelically I smile as she swipes my credit card for £56.90 unaware that I shall be complaining bitterly to Barclaycard tomorrow and retrieving all the money back into my account. Such joy - American excess -that'll do nicely-sir, my very very flexible friend.  
 
Staggering under the weight of the fauna, masses of glossy crackling cellophane (and the 5, yes five taffeta bows. I demanded the bows one at a time for no other reason than exasperating my friendly florist; there I was considering the package for a few seconds then sending her back for yet another bow , then doing it again, then again, then again.- me ecstatic, her foaming at the mouth).
I make my teetering high heeled way towards the inner reaches of the hospital. As I do so I catch the eye of a huge Negro security guard and leaving his post he races over nimbly to help me with my burden. The height and bulk of the man is impressive, he seems to go up and up and up, and under other circumstances and at other times his personal attraction may lead to other things, but my daughter is very ill and needs her mother desperately, don't you know? I must rush to my injured baby's bedside forthwith. However, the darkness of his skin and the whiteness of his teeth imbue him with a certain cachet. I must steel myself to be a fortress for Cassie, she needs me so. For a moment I forget myself and as I smile gratefully, literally light this giant man up, I visualize the effect I could have, arriving at Cassie's bedside cradled like Cleopatra under this giant eunuch's arm, the equally sized bouquet under his other arm. What an entrance, that'd show them, but then we'll never know as I humbly settle to walk alongside my beau, him stopping every 4 strides of his, 12 of mine, to allow me to catch up. Although he's only been working at the hospital for only two months, the man is a goddamn genius, not only did he recognize me but he also knows the way to Cassie's suite and we head there with haste.
 
I change my focus, this is a toughie, I'm finding it even harder to dredge up a tearful arrival for Cassie's plight  than I did for mediteranean matey;  my personal rolodex of sad images rolls through my mind but nothing comes until - bingo - surefire, my damaged nail of yesterday which has turned out to be almost (hold back your tears - folks- you'll set me off even worse) irreparable.
 
The tears flow like a mighty river, and I am racked with sobs as the world's paparazzi and reporters come into view. There is an avalanche of questions, lightning fields of flash photography. I just can't go on, can't take another step as the baying mob converge  on me, capturing my overwhelming distress for all the world to see (including viewers in  Scotland). I answer "no comment" though to one enquiry as to whether I will be presenting the prizes at the Brit Awards later this month. Other than that, I'm silent, too distraught for words.
I am petrified as if carved in stone, my giant is a protecting angel acting like a huge bodyguard pushing back at the mob and bodily protecting me with his bulk from the most inquisitive questioners. We're stuck like that for what seems a long while, until I've ensured that they have had enough photographs of me from my best side and angle. Hey, I just remembered, I was gonna tell you about my choice of  outfit for today, do you mind if we do this later, I solemnly promise,  I'm a bit tied up at the moment as you can see ha hah.    
 
 
But hold, here cometh my white knight. Mark Reynolds himself, a cross between Richard Branson and Mother Teresa,  yet somehow  downright sexy nevertheless, has come to my rescue." Prithee, fair maiden, can you spread your legs and take me to paradise down on this hospitals floor before the world and it's press" he says. I respond lustily "not alf"
So much for the fantasy. Back to reality, whoops, there goes gravity -In truth, he's not saying anything, just grabbing my wrists and ushering me and my monolithic protector into the anteroom preceding Cassie's sick room. Mark firmly pushes the door closed on the insistent horde of media and then informs me that Cassie has lost a lot of blood and has been briefly compos mentis but is now sleeping again. We're not to be shocked, he goes on, there are a lot of tubes attached to her. It's not for the squeamish. I brace myself for the shock, delicate flower that I am, and respectfully, head bowed, I follow him solemnly through. It's exactly as he said, my baby is connected from various orifices by a series of tubes and wires to a lot of expensive looking machines which must take up a lot of expensive electricity, some with complex dials and switches on. I look for the machine that goes "Ping". Other tubes are feeding her various colourful liquids or removing watery viscous bodily fluids.  She looks pale and very light, angelic, as if she might slip away at any moment, if any of the tubes are suddenly yanked out - for example . There are no nursing staff in attendance. I study her lack of make up and idly wonder if the hospital employ a traveling beautician who could do something about Cassies nostril hair and put some colour on her cheeks. I know she'll appreciate me having seen to that when she wakes up. There is no fruit next to the bed or cordial. The drawers of her bedside cabinet are empty and I realize that I may have to send out for a can opener for the Pineapple Rings if Cassie is to enjoy them. My fingers itch to tamper with the machines but I resist the urge. I suddenly realize that Mark hasn't seen the flowers and without seeing the magnitude of the bouquet, he will not fully realize the love that I feel for my invalid daughter in her distress. I rush out into the anteroom and grab the bunch from my immobile guardian and return blinking back even more tears to kneel at the foot of Cassies bed, In my grief my chin is resting against the flies of Marks trousers. He's not pulling away but nothing else is happening either. I contemplate how long I can stay here in this situation before it becomes too embarrassing or cramp sets in. Suddenly, a loud metallic noise from the bed surprises us both and within seconds the whole room is a mass of activity. White uniformed staff have entered the room from three separate directions. The "crash team" have assembled and Mark and I are both unceremoniously shooed out of the room into the antechamber where my giant security man has been patiently waiting to do my bidding. Mark is in distress and wringing his hands. I keep opening the door to take a peek but can only see uniformed backs. Mark is leaning on and over me to get a look. It's delicious but this is not the time or the place. I'm much too responsible and unselfish for that, and I thank you for your agreement on this. My £60 worth of flowers have been  crushed underfoot. They are wasted. All that time and trouble I put myself through has all been for nothing. Serious situation or not, when this is over, this hospital will not hear the end of it, I'll make sure of that.
We hear counting, then the crew all stand back, opening up the circle like a child's game or the hokey cokey dance. When they close ranks again there are so many hospital staff that the bed disappears from view. There is a smell of  burnt air and the count begins again "1, 2, 3 and clear" This comes from a strong voice. Mark's breathing is hot and rapid on the side of my neck and despite the gravity of the situation I must admit that I'm getting very slightly highly aroused. He looks really concerned and although I try to fix my attention on the same item of concern a flash of inspiration hits me and I know exactly how  I can use this weakness of his to get my way. Hard as it is to believe he is fond of her and concerned for her welfare. An unscrupulous person could use that against him.
 
I snake myself under and around him leaving him holding on to the inner plaque of the door frame as if he is holding on to Cassie's life.
 
Pushing my way to the front of the scrum, I shout "let me, I'm her mother" and deliver a roundhouse open handed smack to Cassies jaw almost knocking her out of the bed like a fairground sideshow. 
 
She is instantly awake sitting up in her bed, her hands raised protectively in front of her as if to ward off an onslaught from an unknown assailant.
 
Various tubes that have become detached are re-inserted and clamped and the assembled medical retinue, rather than being pleased with me, are manhandling me out of the room. One hard faced bitch nurse dressed in blue with an upside down watch, you know the type I mean, is muttering something like "she was just coming around."
 
A doctor in the interim has explained that my actions however well meant were totally the wrong thing to do. He could understand a mothers grief and anguish and despair-he says. He drones on with words like "inappropriate" "ejection from the hospital" court action" sprinkled into his diatribe. I'm not interested studying instead the bald pate of his head and his old mans "monks tonsure". Visulalising myself  with a spoon, his head in an eggcup-you catch my drift.
 
Mark has been listening to the Doctor intently hanging on his every word as if Cassie's life depends upon it. He more than likely believes all this drivel.
 
Mark and I have been re-admitted. When we return we see that the room has been cleared. The ECG machine is showing pleasant regular hills. The machine that goes ping is going "Ping" pleasantly. Cassie is once more asleep. One nurse, white clad and virginal, is sitting by Cassies bedside. I use the silence to whip out my mobile phone.  I am going to phone Barclaycard and rescind the charge forthwith for my abonimable trampled flora.
 
Mark grabs the phone from my hand and switches it off before slapping it back into my surprised outstretched palm. He points to the dials on the machines. I shrug my shoulders at him and swich the phone back on. It's booting up and I am posed to pick out Barclatycards digit when Mark loses it.
 
He's accusing me of being cold, uncaring and vicious. Yes Mark, so whats your point.
After a while he gets into his stride and I receive the most hurtful accusation. You would not believe the spite of some people. Mark is telling me that he has the certain impression that I am not at all concerned about Cassie at all. He justifies this by saying he got to her bedside from halfway around the world quicker than I did from five minutes away. Did he bring a gift though? I counter and this has stumped him. He is speechless, his eyes bulge out of his head
When he does eventually recover his voice, he tells me that I am also trying to engineer a situation where he can fall under my spell and into my evil, yes, he's saying evil clutches. Perhaps he's been reading too many bodice rippers, I tell him and with that under the weight of these malicious accusations I fall into a deep slithering faint prettily across the nurse and  blackness surrounds me. My last conscious thought is that I have grazed Cassies face with my teeth - accidentally.
 
When I come to I'm sitting in the chair that the nurse herself has vacated. She's standing concerned over me, holding my wrist and counting under her breath. When she is satisfied, she then holds a glass of cold tap water raised to my lips and I sip cautiously. I am told fish have pissed in this water. I prefer Evian-it's so pure-like me.
 
I get to my feet, looking to press home my advantage. Look Mark, who's the more ill, me or Cassie, who needs the nurse me, me. I point to my chest.
 
Perhaps I've gotten to my feet too quickly and much as I would have enjoyed defending my honour and my besmirched reputation the room suddenly starts to spin, my eyes grow heavy, hea veeeeeeee  and I fall to the floor prettily and gracefully as if in a faint.
 
It also means I don't have to explain my actions, Dear Gentle reader. Even the insides of my eyelids are beautiful to me.
 
Oh, that outfit I meant to tell you earlier,
 
Hair by Vidal, Piccadilly
Earrings and Accessories and watch by Cartier, New York
Mustard Velour Jacket Hermes Milan
Crisp White Mannish Blouse Dolce and Gabana
Skirt JPG Florida (up and coming-tell them I told you)
Lingerie- Victoria's Secrets-Rich Bitch collection
Stockings Aristoc Millionairess Honey Trap (Boots-Nottingham)
Boots-Jimmy Choo-bespoke version
Perfume - Diana by Diana (me) $787 per oz. (imperial) credit card orders Brookstein & Partners W1W     
 
 
Blackness enfolds me in its wings