Home Truths

Vera should have called ‘Sultan.’ I had just lied to her for the second time in our friendship. Of course, I had been taken in by her offer, was flattered by the opportunity to play at the big table, had found her logic, that one shouldn’t turn an experience down without having tried it, convincing and conscience calming. So, I kept quiet about my unprincipled slide into ‘Vera’s Way’, and continued.

'Sid put me right. What we want and need is not a seat at the posh table. It’s a job with proper living wage that allows us a functioning family life, without overtime, but with children-time instead. Do you know that Mrs Gormley-Stuart cancelled an order for a thousand lobelia - worth perhaps two hundred quid - and it is a big deal for my father? That can’t be the world we want to live in.'

'I know. She told us, last coffee morning.'

'She told you what?' I shrieked. 'Why would my father’s nursery business be of interest to you or your ladies, at a snobby bun-figh