“Alan! Alan, we don’t do that do we?”
Wide-eyed and mute, Alan stared from the playpen.
“Take it out of your mouth now, darling, there’s a good boy.”
Alan, now obstinate, continued to jab the rattle into his slobbery mouth.
“Stop that, this instant! It’s dirty! You don’t know where it’s been!” It occurred to her that Alan neither knew nor cared where it had been. “You’ll make Mummy cross, and you know what happens when Mummy gets cross!”
Alan scooted about on his nappy seat, his back now turned to her and began hammering on some blocks. Her gaze shifted to the talc that sat by the magazine. He would need changing soon. You could set your clock by him, you really could. Then it would be time for yet another feed.
“We’ll change you in a moment, my sugar plum. Then we’ll see about your lunch, just after I’ve read this article, okay?”
She felt silly, justifying herself like that, but smiled when a gurgle of apparent consent was issued from the pen.
“Mummy won’t be long, dear,” she sighed. “Mummy won’t be long at all.”
Sir Alan Hardacre, junior minister for overseas development, appeared on the right of the security monitor, glanced around, and then walked across the screen. The red of his ministerial case was, unbeknownst to him, a beautiful match for the pulsing letters “REC” that adorned the upper-most right panel of the picture.
As his pinstriped leg disappeared from view, Alice looked up, scribbled the date and time into a notepad, and smiled.
“Mummy will see you in a fortnight!” she called gaily.
Then she went back to the article his feed had so rudely interrupted. The one about the sparkling sports car he did not know he would be buying.