When Kate Maryon isn’t writing, or walking her large Newfoundland dog, Ellie, or spending time with her grown-up children, Jane and Tim, or her grown-up stepchildren, Sam, Joe and Ben, or having fun with her partner Daniel, or visiting the rest of her family, or sitting in cafés and other lovely places with her friends, she can be found working from a clinic in Somerset, where she practises homeopathy, or in Devon where she works on detox retreats. And with all this going on there’s never a shortage of stories and wonderful things to write about.
Kate loves chocolate, films, eating out, reading, writing and lying on sunny beaches. She dislikes snakes, spiders, peppermint and honey.
she’s just like a real magpie…
My mum totally loves shiny things, like silver and gold and jewels and big, fast, shiny cars. Mikey, her business partner, calls her ‘Magpie’ because she’s always on the lookout for things, just like one of those magpie-birds that takes shiny stuff and hoards it in its nest. The only difference is that my mum hoards things in our flat, which means if she doesn’t stop soon we’ll be facing an emergency situation due to lack of space.
The thing I worry about most is that my mum says she can’t stop herself. She is truly addicted. And the worst thing is that often she doesn’t even buy things, she just takes them. Anything shiny is just too tempting for her. Some people might call it ‘stealing’; my mum calls it ‘borrowing’. It is stealing though and, well, that’s not exactly a good thing is it? And though me and Mum do some pretty cool stuff, sometimes she can be so embarrassing. Like the other day when we were walking through the market and she saw a fluffy scarf that she wanted for me. She just strolled up to the stall and while she was busy talking to the lady about the weather, she slipped it into her bag. And then what am I supposed to do? I can hardly scream “Thief” and get my mum arrested for shoplifting! So I just stay close and keep my mouth shut, and if people notice we make a run for it, fast.
I also know that she spends money on the internet using other people’s credit cards. You might think that’s a good thing for me because I have stuff, like three iPods, seven watches, a drawer full of rings, bangles and necklaces, two giant plasma TVs and my own laptop. And I do like getting all that stuff…and I love my mum and we’re a team, just me and her. But sometimes I wish she was more like a normal mum. I can’t tell anyone the truth about the stealing or say anything to her about it because I don’t want to upset her, and I’m afraid that if I do say anything she’ll go off on one of her temper tantrums, which means she’ll go straight out to the shops again, just to cheer herself up.
Last month we had a row and Mum drank loads of wine. Then she went out and came back with an amazing mega-red sports car that Mikey got hold of. I wanted us to make up, so I squashed down my worries and had fun as Mum and me zoomed about all over the place with the roof down wearing headscarves and big sunglasses like movie stars do. “Living the dream, that’s what we’re doing, babe,” Mum giggled as we raced down the High Street. But a couple of days ago Mum got bored of it, and sold it on to this uber-rich lady while I was at school.
“We’ve done it, babe, the world’s our oyster!” she squealed, as she showed me the hugest mountain of cash I’ve ever seen. We danced around the living room like crazy things, throwing our money-confetti high up in the air and letting it fall down on us like paper rain.
Right then we knew that the money would change our days. But we didn’t know how much it would change our lives.
a woman possessed by the idea of a dog…
After school the next day we get down to business, writing big, fat shopping lists and making plans. I am determined not to think about where the money came from and I’m trying to join in with the fun. I find a sheet of plain paper and a marker pen and draw a line down the middle. I write “Tiff” at the top of one column and “Carla”, that’s my mum’s name, at the top of the other. In Mum’s column I write the things she wants: 1) new perfume 2) some more diamond earrings 3) a pair of boots with shiny buckles 4) champagne. Under my name I write: 1) pencil case 2) new tops 3) a book and 4) a pet.
“Don’t even go there, Tiff,” says Mum, “There’s just no way, not ever, that I could put up with a pooping, piddling pet scatting about the house.”
“A pony?” I ask, hopefully. “A pony wouldn’t even come near the house.”
Mum raises her eyebrows and slurps her glass of wine. I can see that something is on her mind.
“My dad got me and Cass ponies when we moved to Sark…mine was called Mabel and…Oh, never mind, Tiff,” she sighs. “The answer’s no and that’s that. Can we not go on about it any more, please? You’re giving me a headache.”
And I know not to go on, or ask any more questions, because my mum never talks about her past. Except occasionally, when she’s had too much wine to drink and the words sort of slip out of her mouth. But once she realises what she’s doing she always stops herself and changes the subject, especially when the subject happens to be Sark, the tiny island her family moved to when she was little. All I know is that my mum ran away from Sark when she was seventeen and has never been back since. I’ve never been, full stop. And I’ve never even met or seen a photo of my dad because he ran off before I was born. And I don’t know her family, including my grandparents and my Auntie Cass.
“In the bright lights, babe, that’s where we belong.” Mum always says. So we never talk about anything old. In our life everything’s always shiny and new.
She takes a brush to my hair and tugs at my tangles. She takes another glug of wine. “Come on, cheer up,” she says, kissing me on the end of my nose. “Let’s have some fun shopping and then we can grab us one of our super-famous slap-up dinners. How would that be?”
“OK,” I say, “but no funny stuff, promise?”
“Promise,” she winks, drawing two big red lines of lipstick across her lips and smacking them together. “You know me, Tiff. It’s you and me,” she says.
“You and me, Mum,” I echo, switching off the TV.
After a bit of retail therapy, where my mum actually managed to keep her fingers to herself and pay for our treats with cash, she decides we need go to Miguel’s to have our hair and nails done. I really, really want to have my hair cut all short and choppy, but Mum insists I keep it long. She loves the way she can brush it and make it all smooth and shiny.
“But I want a proper hairstyle! I’m twelve, Mum; I’m not a little girl. And Chelsea’s having hers done!”
“I said no, Tiff, and that is the end of the haircut conversation.”
And, just like always, Mum gets her way and I have to go along with it.
“Cooooeeeee, Carla,” shrieks Bianca, my mum’s best friend, when we walk into Miguel’s place. She starts leaping up and down in the chair and waving her arms about like a wild thing. “Come and look over here!”
We go over to where she’s sipping coffee and having more highlights put in her ice-blonde hair. My mum and Bianca hug like mad things and jump up and down like they haven’t seen each other for at least a hundred years. Bianca grabs my cheeks and squeezes them hard in a friendly kind of a way.
“Ooh, you two are gonna be so jealous when I show you what I have in here,” she squeals, pointing at her bag. “Look what Harry got me. Can you believe it?”
I do look, and a little pink puppy nose peeps over the top of the bag, and a tiny ball of white fluff wags its tail. Bianca lifts ‘Queenie’