"Lovely Lavinia Laker, writer of racy romances, at home in her farmhouse conversion. Here Lavinia enjoys an afternoon cocktail in her luxuriously appointed drawing room..."
I threw the gossip magazine down disconsolately, and looked over the coffee table at the same drawing room depicted in its glossy pages, when in walked the lovely Lavinia Laker herself, holding two cocktails.
"Glamorous Lavinia, her youthful curves and enviable pins belying her age of forty-five, her blonde hair coiffed into a sexy bob, likes to dress to impress..." the article had said. In fairness, they weren't wrong. She could have been dressed for an evening at a party in that red mini-dress and matching heels, rather than having a mid-afternoon drink with her son. With me.
"Thanks, Lavinia" I said as I took the offered drink. I had always called her by her name rather than "Mum" or "Mummy" or "Mommy" or any such. "I'm that sort of mother" she would joke. She had always been rather Bohemian in her approach to marriage and motherhood. A strange contrast with my late father, the earnest and sensible banker. When he died, in a car crash with his young secretary, and the scandal of their affair had broken, no one had been more surprised than me. Except perhaps Lavinia. For all her flirtatiousness, her joie-de-vivre, she had been a dutiful, faithful wife. And all that time, her husband, the sensible, stolid one, had been cheating on her with women half her age.
"Well, now it's my turn, isn't it?" I had heard her say once. And she made good on that vow. A string of affairs with young men in their twenties, and even the odd nineteen-year old university student. A shamelessly outspoken anonymous sex blog, then the first of a series of bestselling raunchy "romance" novels, as smutty as could legally be sold in WH Smith's. When a tabloid journalist managed to work out her real identity, Lavinia had pre-empted it by outing herself, becoming a television chat show favourite and media celebrity. An unstoppable, man-eating force of nature.
I don't see that much of her. Since university I have lived in the city and only visit occasionally. Too many awkward conversations with her one-night stands or toyboys over for a booty-call. What do you say to a guy your age who's been fucking your mum and wants to talk football with you? But still, she is my mother and I do love her. And it was her I turned to when my girlfriend dumped me.
Katy and I had got together in our final year of university. She was the daughter of an Earl, but never gave herself airs about it. I had gone on to work in, and then manage, a little independent cinema. She had studied law and became a lawyer for a big firm. I thought everything was OK between us, but one day unexpectedly she had announced she wanted to break up. I was devastated, but I believed her when she said she just wasn't ready for commitment. Then a few days later, I saw the announcement in Tatler of the engagement of the Honourable Katy Stresser-Price to Lord Angus Bridgington QC. It seems her affair with her boss, a man twenty years older than her and now officially her fiancé, had been common knowledge to everyone but me.
Lavinia had seen it too and called to suggest I some and stay for a few days. So I did, and she was, it must be said, as supportive as any broken-hearted son could have hoped. She listened to my sob stories, she fed me and kept me plied with expensive wines, and after a while I began to feel a little more myself.
And in a day or two I would probably have gone back to my little place in the city and got on with my life. But then came the virus. It was March 2020 and the world was changing.
"Darling," whispered Lavinia, in that low, husky voice which had made her such a hit reading the audiobooks of her own bonkbuster novels, "I think you ought to stay."
"Stay? But I need to go back to work!" I replied.
"Why? You know it's only a matter of days before the government has to close everything down to save us all. Your cinema will be shut by the end of the week. And you'll be stuck in your poky little flat out of work and bored out of your skull. We have a huge house here, and each other for company. I'll find lots to keep you busy. We'll have fun together. Why not say you'll stay? It makes sense, surely?"
And so I agreed. She was right -- that same afternoon my employers texted me to say they were closing up and I needn't return for the foreseeable future. Already, people were avoiding public transport. As Lavinia had said, it made sense to stay in her big house.
The first few days saw me setting up a home office in one of the spare rooms, and trying to adjust to the thought that I might be there for some time. Then came the announcement of total lockdown from the government. Next morning, Lavinia found me rummaging through the kitchen cupboards.
"Whatever are you up to, dear?" She asked.
"I'm checking what supplies we have. There's only one small shop in reach and I bet they'll have sold out of all the staples already. I'm seeing how we are off for rice and tins..."
"Darling! There's really no need to worry. You're not on your own now. You're locked down with Lavinia!"
And indeed, that afternoon a large van arrived and the driver unloaded a series of crates full of food and drink at our gate.
"I took the liberty of phoning that nice man at the supermarket in town. We'll be getting a delivery every week from now on. No go and bring those crates in would you, dear?"
I struggled in with the mountainous loads of food and crates of alcohol she had ordered. My efforts were rewarded with a glass of champagne and a smug smile.
"I'm a celebrity, remember? And I'm very rich. Supplies won't be a problem. When you're locked down with Lavinia, you're locked down in luxury!"
And so it proved. Fresh foods, fine wines, anything we needed, was just a phone call away.
Of course, with such fine dining, standards had to be maintained. The very next evening, I was called to dinner only to be met by Lavinia with a face like thunder.
"Thomas! What do you think you're wearing?"
"The clothes I've been wearing all day."
"Well they won't do. In this house, young man, we dress for dinner. We do not turn up in jeans and a T shirt. Go and get changed. Now!"
Her tone brooked no disagreement. I fled to my room, showered quickly and came back down in smartish trousers and shirt.
"That's better. When you're locked down with Lavinia, you dress for dinner!"
And just like that, it became a catch phrase, a private joke. She would jokingly admonish me with it, and the list of lockdown rules grew longer and longer as time went on.
When you're locked down with Lavinia, you load the dishwasher.
When you're locked down with Lavinia, you take cocktails on the terrace.
When you're locked down with Lavinia, you let her win at Scrabble...
And so on.
After a week or two of work from home, I was furloughed. Leaving me with nothing to do - or so I thought. Lavinia had noticed that I didn't have many clothes with me and ordered some more. When I opened the parcels of new clothes from the tailor in the nearest town, she led me through them all.
"Those are everyday lounging clothes. Those are casual weekend wear. Those are evening wear for formal dinners. That suit is for special occasions. And those are for gardening in!"
"Gardening? And how come there are three sets of them?"
"well, you'll be working in the garden every day now. You don't have your old job, and I can't get the gardeners in, and there's a lot of work with grounds this size. So from now on, from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon every Monday to Friday, you're going to be hard at work in my garden. When you're locked down with Lavinia, young man, you work for your living!"
And work I did. Lavinia was not joking. From eight till five, she expected me to obey her orders and work hard in her gardens. I mowed lawns, dug earth, weeded, planted, pruned, chopped trees and firewood, non-stop except for a long lunch break to enjoy a feast of country cooking she would prepare each day.
Meanwhile, Lavinia herself worked on her latest bonkbuster and when she wasn't writing or cooking would work out in the house's gym and yoga studio or would sun herself in the garden. Most afternoons when the weather was hot, as it was so often in those weeks of lockdown, she would stretch out in her sun lounger with a book and a cold drink (which it was always my duty to keep replenished; "when you're locked down with Lavinia, you don't make her wait for her drink!"). She liked to bark orders at me from her recliner, referring to me during my "work" hours only as "Gardener". Occasionally, she would give me strict orders as to which part of the garden to work on, so that she could have privacy to sunbathe "au naturelle"" as she put it. It is rather strange, toiling in the garden knowing that one's mother is sunbathing in the nude just around those trees...
I could have used the gym myself in my free time, but to be honest the constant gardening was all the exercise I needed. I could feel my muscles developing, my condition improving. I realised this was part of the reason Lavinia was doing this to me one afternoon when I attentively brought her a long cold drink. I was stripped to the waist and soaked in sweat.
"Oh, yes! You're coming along nicely! Country living's agreeing with you!" She purred. Unexpectedly, she took an ice cube out of her glass and ran it slowly down from my throat, over my chest, teasing a nipple with it, then down my stomach. I twitched as it came down to the waistband of my trousers. She slid it back up over my body, then fed it into my mouth. I tasted the salt of my own sweat and the chill of the ice. It was a strange, unexpected intimacy.
