The Toymaster's Castle

Chapter Two - The Quarterly

The fancy, executive coach took us just out of London to this incredibly posh country house hotel. Of course I felt totally out of place there. Mandy tried to chat to me but I could tell she was just being nice and, before long, she had drifted off to talk to the other girls. They were all so super-glamorous and sophisticated and things and the way they all seemed to fit in so naturally in the place made me feel even worse.

So I was basically left all on my own and I was wandering around their huge lobby bit, looking at the pictures they had hanging on the walls, when Daniel and Angus and the rest of the important people turned up - I guess that meant they had got their contract sorted out.

Angus came over and asked me what I wanted to drink... and when I asked for an orange juice I had to explain that I didn't really drink alcohol. He didn't say anything but I think I noticed a funny sort of half smile thing.

Then Daniel came over and tried to chat to me but I'm completely useless at the whole smalltalk thing and things were getting pretty awkward when Angus appeared with Gin and Tonics for the two men and an orange juice for me. The stuff tasted a bit funny but I guessed that must be what it tasted like in this sort of posh place.

More of the awkward smalltalk stuff followed until we were 'saved by the bell' - quite literally. There was a gong to summon us to dinner.

And, without me really noticing what was happening, Daniel managed to steer me over to the big people's table and sat me down next to him... with Angus on the other side. By the time I'd worked out what was going on, it was all much too late.

The meal was completely different from anything I'd ever eaten before - millions of tiny little courses and they not only tasted amazing but they were all quite spectacularly beautifully presented on the plate too.

There was basically a new bottle of wine with every course and Daniel persuaded me to try a little drop of each - he told me that he'd arranged some of his favourites. But mostly I stuck to my orange juice - Angus managed to find another one for me

Those little drops of wine seemed to be working though and I was soon feeling much more relaxed. When Daniel asked me about my family, I told them about my parents' messy divorce when I was about six and then about growing up in a little house with my mum near the football ground in Charlton.

"We can probably see it from my office!" Daniel said. "We'll have to take a look tomorrow."

"But then my mum started behaving oddly and forgetting things," I went on. I guess I just wasn't used to having such a sympathetic listener. "And then they found her wandering around on the railway lines with no idea how she got there... which is how they managed to work out that she was suffering from early onset Alzheimer's. And that meant that, by the time I was sixteen, I was having to take care of her pretty much full-time as well as everything else. I mean... it was awful. I even had to lock her up in the house when I went to school."

By this time I was getting pretty tearful and I took another drink of the orange juice - luckily Angus had organised another one for me.

"That must have been really terrible for you," Daniel said. "I know it's not the same thing but my grandma suffered from senile dementia and you just feel so helpless."

"You do... and things got so bad that they had to take her into proper care... and for a while it was a relief... but then my mum started forgetting who I was... that was the worst. Now she doesn't recognise anybody anymore."

"So, how are you finding your new job?" he asked. Looking back, I can see that I was well into 'too much information' type territory for that sort of office 'do' and that he was trying to steer me onto safer topics.