Singular life
I screamed and I screamed . . .
Petronella Wyatt
It has been one of those 'what fresh hell is this?' kind of weeks. Becoming the Samuel Goldwyn of the chocolate business was not as easy as I imagined. My appren- ticeship at the altar of commerce has been, in two words, as the great ham himself used to say, un endurable.
Good old British Telecom really showed itself in its true colours, a sort of murky yel- low. They were meant to set up my choco- late line at home. A suave voice would purr, 'You have reached La Casa di Casanova, please leave your name and tele- phone number after the tone.'
Only it didn't work out like that. The engineer who was supposed to come last Wednesday morning missed the appoint- ment. This was un peu aggravating as the advertisement with the telephone number was going in The Spectator the next day. People would ring it and get one of those tones that sounds like a baby that has fallen under a cupboard door.
Oh dear, they said, but they couldn't pos- sibly get another engineer out for seven days. Seven days! I saw thousand of pounds of business melting away like April snow. After I had screamed louder than at any time since I was three, a manager came on the line. He agreed to send an engineer out the following morning. The engineer, bless him, did appear. But while he was putting in my new line he cut off someone else's. We yelled down the road after him. He obligingly returned and re-installed the line. Then he accidentally cut off mine.
By the time I discovered this, the ad had been in the paper for six hours. All was lost. The receptionist at British Telecom was admirably unruffled. It would be another seven days. In my anguish I began to exaggerate wildly. 'Don't you realise what you are doing to me?"No."Well, you're, er, ruining my life. I have to support my elderly mother and this is my last chance.' Histrionic pause. 'Do you want me to have to put her in a home?' The recep- tionist was suitably moved. 'Oh dear.' She put on a manager. 'Hello, I am a senior manager. How can I help you? I gather your mother wants to call home.' Poltroon! `No, she doesn't want to call home. She might have to go into a home.' Why?' `Because we haven't any money.' His logic was voracious: 'Then why do you want another phone line?' Because I want to make money from a chocolate business. But I can't unless you send the engineer hack tomorrow.' Wah. Wah. 'What's that noise?' I'm crying. Don't you know crying when you hear it?' Fortunately, they didn't have hearts of stone after all, only porous chalk. Someone came out and fixed the line.
Then disaster stuck again. Our car was stolen. We called the police. My mother went down to the station to make a state- ment. It must have been taken during the night. It was parked outside the house on the other side of the garden. The police searched for it all day. Then in the late evening they telephoned, sounding shirty. They had found the car. 'Who was respon- sible for the crime?' we asked. 'Your neigh- bours.' Our neighbours? 'Yes, they asked some private firm to tow it away, because one of their dinner guests wanted to park there.' What? This was incredible. Whatev- er happened to 'please will you be so kind as to move your car, even though it is per- fectly legitimately parked?' The police were nonplussed. 'We've been on a wild-goose chase all day. They should have told us before.'
We rang the private firm that had taken the car away. It was called Area Parking Control. The man who answered was bare- ly literate. 'What want?' Want car,' we said, falling in with it. 'You woman in St John's Wood?"Yes, I am woman.' I am man.' This was becoming like Tarzan. 'Yes, I know. I want the car back.' You can't have it back today.' Why?"No today. Tomorrow morning.' He quoted some address south of White City. 'Isn't what you do illegal?' I asked. He slammed down the mobile. The location of the 'firm' appeared to be in a sort of shanty town. The natives were very hostile. The cab driv- er wouldn't let me go in alone. It was just as well for 'the man' resembled Cheops reborn. Pork Cheops. He was pink in the face with rage. 'Want car back, pay £300 cash only.' What?' That's for overnight keeping.' Bastard. So that's why he wouldn't give it back the day before.
It was a sad impoverished little party that returned home with the car. Meanwhile, the neighbours had put out perfectly illegal signs saying that any car parked on their street, even though half our house was on their street, would be removed. Just wait till I find out who these neighbours are. Shove thy neighbour may be their motto but mine is revenge is a dish best served burnt.
Here's a pip. Some nutter has written a letter in response to my Diary a few weeks ago, in which I said that my father had once advertised for an 'ornamental hermit' to sit in a wooden shelter in his garden. Well this man from Concord, Mas- sachusetts, wants the job. 'My principal qualification is that I am a male approach- ing my 70th year,' he writes. But he's ain't half picky, this one. He spurns the wooden shelter and demands a master bedroom with a bookcase to store all his William and Biggles books. I think I shall send on his application to my neighbours.
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