“I’ll just make sure I don’t need the toilet.”
I can’t describe how I felt when I finally met Mum’s clients.
Being scared did not come close to it.
We got off to a bad start when they were certain that my name was Janine and not Janice,
then Mum made a real boo-boo when we ordered the food and called me Janine.
I was asked about my previous experience and felt it would be safer to claim that this was my first post as a PA.
I’d supposedly worked for Mum for two years,
spent a year at secretarial school after I’d completed my A levels,
but that would put my age at twenty-one and not twenty-three as we’d claimed.
Mum and I bumbled our way through Janine or Janice’s back story,
filling in the gaps on the fly.