Chapter 7
An exasperated Cherry arrives at dinner with only one child clattering noisily behind her. ‘Please, just take them off, Clem.’
Clementine inspects the white frilly socks that she is wearing on her hands before glancing down at her feet.
They are wedged into the toes of her mother’s stilettos.
The shoes are fourteen sizes too big for her and are currently on the wrong feet, poking in opposite directions like two bananas.
I suppress a small giggle. Clementine must love dressing up in Cherry’s costumes and click-clacking around in her six-inch skyscraper heels.
Cherry continues pleading, while Matteo and I watch spellbound, as Clementine covers her ears with her socked hands, wiggles her hips from side to side and begins to sing the ever-popular stripper theme tune, ‘Pink Pony Club’, to herself.
All she needs is a pole to grind against and she’s in business.
‘If you don’t stop, I’ll have to give you a time out,’ Cherry says firmly, hand on her bony hip.
Clementine stops singing long enough to stick out her tongue before she carries on regardless.
‘I’ll put you on the naughty step!’ Cherry states more forcibly, which only causes Clementine to take her singing up a notch. ‘I mean it!’
Wiggle. Wiggle. Wiggle.
‘Fine. Then… then I’ll just have to send you to…’
Wiggle. Wiggle. Wiggle.
‘I mean it, Clem. I’ll send you to… erm, send you to…’
Prison?
Clem makes eye contact with her mother and begins a series of hip thrusts, pumping her arms forcefully.
Matteo and I politely find objects of interest on the table and around the room to inspect. This is arguably low-level parenting at best.
‘Right! That’s it! No more Strictly!’ bellows Cherry.
This causes Clementine to stop singing, her eyes narrowing as she considers this DEFCON 1 level threat.
But within seconds, Cherry’s mini-me makes a snap decision, shrugs the warning off like an old coat and continues singing and swaying her hips, hands still clamped firmly over her ears to block out any further attempts from her mother to administer discipline.
Cherry, flustered and aware that everyone is observing her as though she’s competing at the Behaviour Management Olympics, yells, ‘Santa won’t bring you any presents!’
Clementine’s head snaps up. Her hands spring from her ears.
We gasp. We are days away from Christmas. This whole place is decked out like Santa’s grotto. It might not be a winter wonderland outside, but inside it is every child’s dream.
Cherry, world’s worst mother, flicks us the briefest of glimpses and changes tack, instantly pivoting to a carrot-based incentive.
‘Santa won’t bring you any presents unless you do as I say.
What about the Barbie horse riding stables, matching limited edition twelve-acre Barbie cattle ranch and the VIP ultra experience Taylor Swift tickets you asked for?
Santa and Mrs Santa will just have to keep the tickets and go to the concert themselves. ’
Clementine is visibly interested to see where her mother is going with this. Cherry must have paid a fortune for those VIP meet ’n’ greet tickets.
Cherry is clearly feeling the pressure to get her child to do at least one thing that she is told.
She is rescued by Dom, who swings into the room with a screaming toddler draped over his shoulder, bum sticking high in the air.
Peaches is kicking her legs so violently against his stomach that he has tears collecting in his eyes.
‘What do I do?’ he barks at Cherry. ‘She won’t stop kicking me.’
‘I don’t know,’ Cherry snaps. ‘Have you tried asking her to stop?’
‘Of course I have. She won’t listen.’
Cherry’s voice softens. ‘Peaches, honey, what’s wrong?’
This simple question seems to incense Peaches further, almost as though her parents should be able to read her frazzled little mind and take an educated guess. Dom swings her off his shoulder and holds her at arm’s length. Her face is contorted and an angry shade of beetroot.
Cherry puts her hands on her hips with a humungous sigh. ‘Peaches, is this still about the Malteser you found under the bed?’
Peaches takes a split-second break from squawking, clearly surprised that her mother does in fact pay attention to her wants and needs.
She swallows. Her lips begin to wobble. Tears pool in her eyes as she blinks them slowly away and nods her head.
She has transformed from spitting, seething hellcat to adorable angel sent from above in less than a nanosecond. Incredible.
Cherry’s shoulders sag. ‘But it was manky and covered in fluff, love. Who knows where it had been?’
Peaches, infuriated by her mother’s calm reasoning, takes a loud inhale and holds her breath until she turns almost blue.
Matteo looks very alarmed as we wait for Peaches to begin breathing again.
Feeling upstaged, Clementine lets out an ungodly wail, complaining that no one ever pays her any attention.
Not that we’ve discussed having any children because we’ve only been married for five minutes, but I’m pretty sure Cherry and her family will have managed to put Matteo right off.
‘Goodness me, what’s all this racket?’ shrills Tash, swooping down to pick Clementine up before glancing appreciatively at the pair of heels left behind on the floor.
‘Nice shoe choice, babes. I love your style. Hand socks? So brave. Now, tell your auntie Tash just what the friggin’ frig is going on. ’
Both children immediately stop bawling to gawp at her. It appears as though Tash has activated their mute button. She holds out her spare arm to wiggle her fingers at Peaches. ‘You too. Come here, babe.’
Peaches readily reaches both arms out to Tash, and Dom speedily hands her over. Tash plonks a girl on each of her hips. They gaze adoringly up at her. ‘First, let’s get you both into hair and make-up. Do you want to see what I’ve brought you?’
As Tash totters towards the table, Sister Kevin sweeps in behind to help her settle both girls smoothly into two high chairs either side of her. ‘This is Kev,’ she tells them. ‘My lover.’ The girls stare, enthralled.
Tash places a huge bag onto the table and opens it up to reveal a treasure trove of cosmetics, the equivalent of a TikTok shop haul on Black Friday.
As Tash gets to work delicately swishing imaginary make-up onto their faces with fat powder brushes, the girls obediently close their eyes and sit still.
‘Kev. Be a doll and gently comb this through their hair.’ Tash spritzes some light mist above the girls’ heads.
It fills the air with a coconutty holiday fragrance as she dabs a fluffy powder puff under their chins.
Sister Kevin is given a wide-toothed comb and left to get on with it.
His fingers are surprisingly dexterous. ‘My sister is only ten. I practically raised her,’ he explains to us.
Tash pauses. ‘Did you, babe?’
He nods and they carry on.
Equally happy to let this insightful and heartfelt revelation of Sister Kevin’s go without comment, Cherry and Dom let out a huge sigh of relief and automatically choose seats as far away from their children as they possibly can.
And as though the staff have been hiding around the corner out of sight, they miraculously appear to serve warm bread rolls and small plates with curls of herb-infused butter stacked into pyramids, and place delicate bowls down ready for the four-mushroom consommé that is on its way.
Liberty and Nacho arrive, arm in arm, giggling about something.
‘What a day!’ gushes Liberty, making a beeline for the girls whose eyes snap open, their faces lighting up.
She places kisses on their cheeks, tickling under their arms before producing two huge chocolate lollies in the shape of Christmas trees with gummies for baubles, sugar for glitter and a candy star on top for each of them.
‘Ooh, I see you are having a makeover. Well, count me in, ladies!’
Clementine and Peaches are visibly delighted with their giant sugar-laden treats.
Tash and Sister Kevin take the opportunity to throw a couple of glasses of Lovington sparkling wine down their necks.
I can sense Matteo and Nacho are horrified at the level of saturated fats being speedily ingested by the two small children before dinner.
Before even a vegetable has passed their lips.
They glance from the girls to Dom to Cherry, back to Dom, back to the girls who, like two ravenous jackals, are cramming the festive treats into their mouths with gusto and leaving smears of chocolate across their chubby cheeks like war trophies.
An awkward silence descends except for the sucking, licking and chomping noises.
Cherry actively avoids administering some proper parenting by refilling her wine glass while Dom becomes very interested in the mountain of assorted butter curls.
Fortunately, the consommé arrives and the waiters choose to ignore what the girls are doing while they pour the translucent brown liquid silently into our bowls.
When they approach the girls, Cherry suddenly finds her voice and bellows, ‘Not for them!’ – startling us all.
While the waiter takes a second to compose himself, Cherry holds a hand to her chest. ‘Jesus. They’ll kick off big time.
They hate anything to do with vegetables, don’t they, Dom? Or any fruit, despite their names.’
‘Or anything without sugar in. We should have called them Candy and Coco,’ Dom adds, tapping the side of his nose wisely. ‘Good job we brought a whole suitcase full of donuts, sausage rolls and steak bakes with us.’
Matteo wears a dubious expression, as though he’s not sure if Dom is joking. I imagine he and Nacho were raised on a healthy Mediterranean diet of locally sourced olives, organic fruit and common sense.