Mum on a Mission
Chapter 1
The massage had not begun well. The towel had fallen off, leaving Jo stark naked on the bed for several painfully long seconds. Oil had run into her freshly washed hair and her masseur seemed to have some sort of indigestion situation going on, which involved small but faintly smelly garlic burps.
The mobile in her bag had rung twice, which she’d tried to ignore, shrugging off images of today’s babysitter – her mother – desperately trying to contact her because the girls had choked/drowned/been abducted.
But now, despite the annoying tinkly music in the background, she was finally settling down into this and relaxing.
The masseur was circling his thumbs firmly down the sides of her spine, unwinding the tension that had built up since she’d returned from the half-term holiday week.
For those six glorious days, newspaper journalist Jo had managed to avoid all newspapers, most news bulletins and phone conversations with her divorce lawyer, Hugo.
But she was now back in London, back in reach of the news desk, and already she felt bombarded, although technically she had one last day of holiday left.
Oh… that was good. The masseur had leaned right over her so that he could elbow his way into the mass of tension knots at the base of her neck. He was pressing down and it was painfully blissful.
Then there was a tap on the door.
The masseur straightened up, went to answer it.
‘Sorry to interrupt but is Jo Randall in here?’ the woman at the door asked. ‘There’s someone on the phone, says it’s urgent.’
‘Oh no!’ she blurted. Then, clutching her towel, Jo sprang from the table and made for the shop’s front desk.
See?! She should never have ignored those mobile calls; it had obviously been her mother…
the girls had choked/drowned/been abducted and it was all her fault.
She should be at home on the last day of her holiday, not here, listening to muzak, indulging in a tolerable massage.
Hair sticking up in a towelling band, ignoring stares from the other customers, she jogged to the salon’s front desk and took the call.
‘Hello, Jo here,’ she barked into the phone.
To the strained interest of the few people milling about the reception, whoever the somewhat crazed but energetic-looking woman (slim but with bum, broad shoulders and chunky calves – surely once a hockey champ) was talking to, didn’t seem to be making her very happy.
‘Look, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, Rod,’ she snapped into the receiver, with a softened Northern accent, at the number three news editor manning the desk on Monday: ‘But I am trying to have a bloody day off here.’ She paused to listen to the response, then went on: ‘Well, you’re right, that is bad.
But there’s not much I can do about it on a Monday morning, is there?
’ She answered her question herself: ‘No! I’m not going all the way up to Warrington.
The daily papers will be all over it and by the time we come out on Sunday, this will be old news, dead as a doornail.
Look, don’t cry—’ This caused heads to swivel in her direction.
For goodness’ sake, she was only joking, you didn’t get to be one of the top Sunday newspaper reporters in the country unless you always gave as good as you got.
‘Rod, I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?’ she added, almost quite nicely, but then with another blast of annoyance, she remembered to ask: ‘And how did you know I was here? I see. Well, I’ll have to kill him.
Until tomorrow morning I am still officially on holiday. So, goodbye.’
She slammed the phone down and stomped back to the treatment room where she managed a quite charming smile for the masseur, considering.
‘I realise I’m presenting you with a challenge here, but I need to relax,’ she told him.
‘I want to get my shoulders down from round my ears before I start work again tomorrow. Now another thing…’ Jo leaned over to look at his name badge, ‘Jamie. I’ve got some mints in my handbag.
They’ll help with the garlic indigestion thing you’ve got going on there. ’