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A. Enlist the help of a friend with a minicab account. Hand her £20 in cash for permission to use the account for one journey. It will be worth it. Next time you have dinner tell your bachelor you have some ‘taxi credits’ given to you by this friend. ‘I don’t know when I’m ever going to use them. Shall we use one now to take you home?’ The following day ring your bachelor up to say how much you enjoyed dinner and ask how he enjoyed the minicab. No doubt he will reply in the affirmative, in which case you should assume dynamic mode and offer immediately to do the paperwork to enable him to sign up for his own minicab account.
Q. One of my best friend’s daughters has moved into her mother’s London house, which is three doors away from my own. Her mother lives abroad and the girl has been given free run of the house while she goes to university in London. Almost every day the daughter telephones me to ask that I do her ‘the most enormous favour ever’ e.g. pop into the house because she has forgotten some key document, find it and read it out to her, check she has not left the back door unlocked and so on. I do not mind doing this but I am increasingly appalled by the mess I find the house in — chicken carcasses on the table with cigarettes stubbed out into them, central heating blasting away all day, etc. I feel torn by conflicting loyalties. I have a good relationship with the girl and do not want to report her to her mother for being so squalid, but I equally feel that her mother should know how her house is degenerating in her absence. What should I do, Mary?
Name and address withheld
A. Next time it happens say to the girl, ‘I have to wait in for a phone call on my landline but a friend of mine is here. Is it all right if I give her the keys and she pops down?’ No doubt she will say yes. Meanwhile you pop down as normal, on your own. Later, however, in collusion with a friend, telephone the mother while said friend is in the room. While talking to the mother in general conversation this third party — a mutual friend of your own and the mother, but not of the daughter, should be in the background shrieking (by pre-arrangement with yourself). ‘Oh dear,’ you can say, ‘I’m afraid she insists on speaking to you.’ You can then hand it over to this third party to detail the outrages in the house, and the daughter will be unable to attach any resentment towards you when she is brought to book for her crimes.
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