KERRY FISHER
The Not So Perfect Mum

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers in 2014

This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2017

Copyright © Kerry Fisher 2014

Kerry Fisher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007570232

Ebook Edition © July 2014 ISBN: 9780007570249

Version: 2018-05-10

Dedication

To Steve, Cameron and Michaela

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Posh women with dirty houses sometimes phone me. Posh men never do.

Until today, when this solicitor bod burst into my morning with the sort of booming confidence it would be impossible to argue against. My ears closed down, rejecting the steamroller voice, pushing away his words.

‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of ghastly news.’

I’d just got home from what was always my worst job of the week – cleaning the changing rooms at Surrey’s grottiest leisure centre. The phone rang shortly after I’d gone upstairs for a bath to scrub every trace of old plasters and plughole cack off my skin. As I clumped down to the kitchen wrapped in a towel that barely covered my backside, I was praying that the call was from Colin, with good news about work. Instead I stood there, holding the phone away from my ear so I didn’t drip water into the receiver while Mr William Lah-di-dah bellowed away at a slight distance, a sort of old Etonian-cum-Clanger. Then I heard it.

‘I’m afraid Professor Rose Stainton passed away last Friday.’

I pressed the phone into my forehead as I tried to take in the fact that my favourite – and best paying – customer had died. My oddball ally, with her outrageous old lady comments and bursts of unexpected kindness, had gone. I hadn’t even said goodbye. Froths of shampoo seeped out from under my towel turban and mingled with the sting in my eyes.

‘Mrs Etxeleku? Are you still there?’

‘Yes, I’m still here.’ I couldn’t be bothered to correct him. I’m not a Mrs. I’d given up waiting for Colin to pop the question. And my surname is pronounced Ech-eleku, not Et-zeleku. If only my father had hung around long enough for me to be born, I could have had a nice English name – Windsor, Jones, even Sidebottom – on my birth certificate, rather than the blank that made my mother clamp her mouth shut like a Venus flytrap every time I tried to discuss it. Instead I’ve spent thirty-six years lumbered with a Basque surname no one can pronounce.

‘How did she die?’ I heard a wobble in my voice. I leant against the wall, the chilly December draught blowing under the back door, licking around my wet knees.

‘A heart attack.’

‘Was she on her own?’

‘Yes, she managed to call an ambulance but she was dead by the time they reached her.’

He sounded as though he was discussing an order for a Chinese takeaway. I was obviously just a number on his neatly typed list of people to phone – a nobody, someone he needed to tell they no longer had a job. He paused. I imagined him sitting behind a heavy wooden desk, glancing down the page to see who came after ‘cleaner’. The idea that someone who spent her life wiping globs of toothpaste off sinks could be friends with someone who spent hers debating Kafka wouldn’t have crossed his mind. I started clattering about, throwing dirty cereal bowls into the sink and hurling trainers and football boots into a heap by the back door. I had no claim on Rose Stainton. I was just the woman with the mop, the skivvy who washed out the kitchen bin.

‘Anyway, part of the reason I’m calling is that her solicitor would like to see you,’ he said.

‘Solicitor? Is something missing?’ I said, panicking. Surely they weren’t trying to track down the parrot head bookends that the old lady had given me. I didn’t even like them. In my experience, solicitors weren’t people who wanted to see you. They were people who were instructed to see you. Middle-aged men in too tight shirts, who turned up at police stations to work on the pathetic little stories of drug addicts, drunkards and the bog standard low life that hung around our estate. The sort of men who’d saved Colin’s sorry little arse on more than one occasion.

‘No, Mrs Etxeleku. No, of course not, nothing like that. I believe there was something in the professor’s will that Mr Harrison would like to discuss with you.’

It was only after I’d put the phone down that the numbness started to fall away. My teeth were chattering. I pulled on the tracksuit bottoms Colin had left on a chair and grabbed my long cardigan, still damp, from the clothes airer. In films you see people burst into tears, sobbing, ‘I can’t believe she’s gone.’ But I started yelling. ‘Ghastly. Bad. Atrocious. Horrendous. Horrible. Hateful. Crap.’ That was one of the professor’s little games, getting me to think of different words to mean the same thing. When I got to ‘crap’, I banged on the window at the mad git next door who was flicking his terrier’s turds through the broken fence again. He appeared to be aiming for our paddling pool, left out since the summer, which had now become a slimy green home to water boatmen and other wildlife. He waved his shovel at me and smiled like a loon.

The professor had always talked to me like my opinions counted. She knew about Shakespeare, Dickens and foreign writers I’d never heard of before. She really liked Gabriel García Márquez and kept asking me to pronounce Spanish words for her. It embarrassed me because most of the time Mum and I had spoken English together, or at least my mother’s peculiar version of it. I wish she’d spoken more Spanish or even Basque to me, but 1970s Sandbury wasn’t a place to be foreign. It was an English market town, where a wool shop, a cobbler’s and a stamp collector’s shop were among the high street’s thrilling diversions. Mum saw England as the land of opportunity. She might sound like she’d missed her vocation as Manuel’s wife in Fawlty Towers but she was going to make damned sure that her daughter didn’t sound like a ‘second-class immigrant’.

I gave up trying to sort out my shithole of a kitchen and plonked down into a chair. I shoved aside Colin’s dirty plate to find the Open University application form that had arrived that morning. I had been intending to tell the prof this week that I was definitely going to enrol. I’d looked forward to seeing her formal manner give way to that excitable hand waving thing she did, which often ended up with her knocking over her little china teacup on the tray. She used to crack me up when she swore. Sometimes she’d say, ‘bugger me’ or ‘bloody hell’, but she never sounded like Colin when he’d been on the Guinness. More like she was just experimenting, seeing how swear words sounded. I loved the way she spoke, all those words perfectly formed, all the letters where they should be. She never used language to make me feel stupid.

I tore the application form up into tiny little pieces, like a dud lottery ticket. There was no way I could afford it now. I watched the paper float down onto the cork floor, noticing again that no matter how often I washed it, something was always gooing up the cracks between the tiles. I couldn’t even clean properly. I must have been getting ideas well above my station to think I could do a degree. I just thought that if the kids saw me bettering myself, they might aim a bit higher themselves. At Morlands Juniors, where teachers legged it after two terms and crowd control took priority over teaching, people to look up to were a bit thin on the ground.

There was no point snivelling about things I couldn’t change. I wasn’t going to think about how frightened the professor would have been when she realised that frail old heart of hers was finally giving out. Or how alone, in that huge house. I hoped she had died in the library with all her books soothing her to sleep. I started pouring bleach on the coffee-stained Formica worktops, trying to get away from the image of her slumped forwards over the creased brown leather of her winged armchair, grey hair escaping from her hairpins, tea – always Earl Grey – cooling beside her. The bleach stung my chapped skin. I made a silent promise to the prof that I’d never drop a ‘t’ again and said, ‘little, computer, water, butter’ out loud.

The front door banged open. Colin stomped down the hallway and into the kitchen, trailing mud right across the floor. I didn’t say anything. In fact, I deliberately looked away. He was always as touchy as hell when he got back from the Job Centre. There were so few plates left, we’d be eating straight off the table soon.

‘Jesus, that place is a dump. You’ve got more chance of catching bleeding TB than you have of getting a job there. All them silly questions. What letters have you written this week? Have you been to any interviews? Like you get a fucking interview to paint someone’s hallway.’

‘Did she say you could still get the money, though?’ I said, then held my breath.

‘Yeah, they’re going to “review” it in a month. S’pose seventy quid a week is better than nothing – least it gets us through Christmas,’ he said, ripping open a packet of biscuits.

Even though there’d been a drop in unemployment, Colin carried on tutting away, sucking air through his teeth, convinced that the painting and decorating trades would suffer for much longer. ‘Getting your bathroom painted ain’t a priority, is it? No, you mark my words, there ain’t gonna be business for me for a long while yet.’

Just to be sure that he wouldn’t bump into a job offer, he slumped onto a kitchen chair and dedicated himself to eating custard creams like a hamster stockpiling for famine. Unlike me, he was tall so he could get away with it for a while, but the six-pack of manual labour was slowly disappearing into an avalanche of blancmange.

I wanted to tell him about Rose. Just for a moment I wanted to rely on him. I wanted to put my head on his shoulder, have him stroke my hair and cry great big shuddery old sobs until my eyes were like golf balls. I tried to remember if, in nearly nineteen years, I’d ever relied on him. I had to tell him that we had even less cash now. It wasn’t like I was expecting him to make up the shortfall. Even if he could, I wouldn’t have been able to spend it on the Open University degree. Colin thought education was a waste of TV watching time. Why reach for the sky when you could just tune into it?

I counted to three. ‘Rose Stainton died on Friday.’

‘What, that posh old cow at the manor? Jesus, Maia, what we going to do for money now? Her timing stinks. She’s been ill for years and has to pick right now to snuff it. Will they pay you to clean up the old girl’s stuff at least? You’d better get yourself out there and start looking for another job.’

He scraped his chair back and started rummaging in the cupboard like his life depended on finding a tin of ravioli. I tried hard to remember the reason he’d held such a fascination for me. Why I’d loved him enough to have two children with him. Maybe his rebellious streak seemed romantic to me then, the naughtiness that had me skipping school and tearing off to Brighton for the day to eat fish and chips at the beach, shivering under the bandstand, sharing my scarf for warmth. He’d seemed so glamorous and grown-up to me, a twenty-one-year-old with a motorbike and strawberry blond charm. To my teachers’ horror, I dumped my A-levels and any notion of university, then hopped, skipped and stamped on my mother’s dreams and set off on a career on the tills at Tesco. A promotion to head of the deli serving up Scotch eggs followed. I then climbed to the dizzying heights of deputy fish fryer at the chippy and had now reached my peak as a cleaner to those who would rather die than say ‘toilet’ instead of ‘lavatory’ but still managed to piss on the floor.

Now, finally, I had grown up. In that moment, I wanted to rant about responsibility, smash his skull open with the wooden chopping board and cackle wildly. Instead, I made him a cup of tea and talked to him in the voice I used for Harley and Bronte when they were little and didn’t want to go to bed.

‘I’ll put a notice in the post office window. Did you phone that bloke from the builder’s yard who thought they might be looking for someone to help out painting the school?’

‘Bloody marvellous. You lose your job and straightaway you’re on at me. Get it into your thick head, Maia, there’s still a credit crunch, you know. People aren’t paying out to have their spare rooms decorated.’

‘I know, but this is a school, I just thought—’

Mercury FM came blaring on, blocking out what I just thought.

CHAPTER TWO

The prof’s death brought out the worrier in me. Unlike loads of people round our way who only seemed to remember they had kids when they turned up on the front doorstep next to a man in blue, I liked to know where mine were and what they were up to. Colin didn’t like me ‘bloody mollycoddling’ them by meeting them out of school, but that day I was desperate to shake off the dead by hugging the living. I wanted to suck in their just out of school smell, the clammy scent that clung to their clothes, somewhere between lunchtime chicken nuggets, stuffy classrooms and the pong of other people’s kids. They liked the prof and had often played in her huge garden while I worked. I wanted to tell them she’d died without Colin making snidey comments in the background.

I stood in the playground on the faded hopscotch squares, craning my neck. Bronte was often out first, walking through the pushing and shoving with what Colin and I secretly laughed about as her ‘piece of shit’ face, or POS for short. Today was no exception. While girls around her came blundering out with rucksacks half open, socks around their ankles and scarves hanging off, Bronte threaded her way through with the poise of a ballerina, her dark curly hair still clipped off her face, her coat zipped up, not even glancing at the bunfight going on around her. She had more togetherness in her nine-year-old little finger than I had managed in three decades. She smiled when she saw me, but enthusiasm wasn’t really part of her make-up.

‘Mum! What are you doing here?’ she said in a tone that could offend a thin-skinned person.

‘I had to go to the post office, so I thought I’d walk home with you. I had some bad news today so I felt like getting some fresh air.’

Bronte eyed me warily. I could see her closing down, ready to reject any neediness on my part. ‘What?’

‘You remember Rose Stainton, the professor of English, at the big white house? She died last week.’

Bronte looked down at the ground. ‘I liked her. She was nice.’ I waited for her to ask me something, anything. I suppose I’d thought she might cry. But she’d folded in on herself, shutting me out.

I broke the silence. ‘Do you want a hand with your bag?’ I ached to pull her into a big hug but resisted. No one did ironing board as well as Bronte.

‘Okay,’ she said, with a small shrug of one shoulder. She swung her bag towards me. ‘Are we waiting for Harley?’

She’d barely finished the question when he came bowling out of school, parka tucked under his arm, white polo shirt nearly as grey as his trousers. With a ten-year-old’s lack of understanding of weight, speed and energy, he charged into me. I staggered backwards into the straggle-haired woman next to me whose ‘Watch where yer going’ did nothing to put him off. He threw himself round me, unselfconscious, grey eyes shining up at me. I allowed my face to fall down onto his head, breathing him in and threading my freezing fingers into that warm space where his hair curled down over his collar. His shoulders went up as he registered the cold but he didn’t push me off. Harley never hid his feelings; they walked two-by-two across his face, sat in the angles of his body, burst out in his words.

‘What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were coming today. Brill. Can we go down the bakery and get cakes?’

I needed to say no. Chocolate éclairs weren’t going to help the pile of red bills. I could feel some pound coins, fat and solid, in my pocket. Bronte walked next to me, while Harley squashed his nose against car windows, looking at steering wheels, shouting about hubcaps and guff about engine sizes that I’d stopped pretending to understand. I waited until he’d finished peering through the blacked-out windows of a BMW before telling him the news about the prof.

‘She was all right, wasn’t she? Are you sad?’ Harley stopped and gave me a hug. ‘What did she die of?’

That question was the start of a whole discussion about what’s left of a body after twenty years, if worms eat eyeballs, if teeth disintegrate in a cremation, if people are buried naked and whether I knew anyone who’d been put in a coffin alive. I almost preferred Bronte’s indifference. I managed to distract Harley by pointing out a Mercedes SLK, no doubt belonging to a local drug dealer.

I turned my attention back to Bronte. ‘So, who did you play with today?’

‘No one.’

‘You must have played with someone.’

‘Well, I didn’t,’ Bronte said.

‘So did you sit on your own all playtime?’

‘Yes.’

I sighed. Colin never had to squeeze conversation out of Bronte. They would lie on the front room floor giggling for hours. She’d manage to persuade him to play Polly Pockets with her, his huge hands squishing tiny pink shoes onto webbed feet and lining up miniature cartons of milk in her grocer’s shop. I couldn’t even get her to tell me who’d shared her crisps.

We walked past a group of teenagers gathered on the wall outside the bakery, all sloppy T-shirts and arses hanging out of their jeans. They were taking it in turns to swing each other around in a Morrisons trolley. The trolley tipped down the high kerb, throwing a boy with a spider tattooed on his neck and ‘Shit Happens When You Party Naked’ written on his sweatshirt headfirst into the road. I winced at the sound of bones meeting tarmac, but where we lived, a lot depended on your ability to look the other way. Hoots and wolf-whistles filled the air. No one jumped down from the wall. I shooed the kids into the bakery where Harley ran to the chocolate doughnuts covered in multi-coloured sprinkles.

‘What do you fancy, Bronte?’ I asked, squinting out through the reflections on the window into the road. A blonde girl with a glittery thong several inches above her jeans was squatting over the boy.

‘I’m going to get a gingerbread man. Are you getting a vanilla slice for Dad?’

I nodded, though Colin didn’t need any more blubber stuck on his backside. I’d always loved his muscular build towering above my tiny little frame. But now he was more darts player than rugby player.

Harley had bright pink and yellow sprinkles dotted round his mouth before we’d got out of the shop. Bronte nibbled the gingerbread man limb by ordered limb. The gang had disappeared but the boy was still there, propped up by the kerb, half-sitting, half-lying among the cake wrappers, Coke cans and fag packets. The girl was trying to look at his head.

‘I’ll be all right in a minute. S’just a cut, innit?’ the boy said.

‘Are you okay?’ I said.

The girl swung round, black eyeliner and thick mascara out of place on her young face. She pulled her sleeves over her hands. ‘It’s Tarants. He says he’s good, but he’s bleeding from his head, like. I think he needs some stitches or something. The corner of the trolley slashed him.’

‘Can I look?’ I hoped that I wouldn’t get a brick through the window later on. I waved Harley and Bronte over to the bench.

The boy took his hand away from his head. His sweatshirt was sodden. I stopped short of hopping about, waving my arms and shouting, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, you’re bleeding to death,’ but I felt my stomach suck in like a snail into a shell. For the first time I understood what fainting might feel like. I squeezed my eyes tight and fumbled for my phone.

‘Sorry, but you really need to get this looked at. I’m calling an ambulance. All right?’

He was rocking gently and sort of singing one note, all that ‘hard boy, what you lookin’ at?’ gone out of him. He nodded at me, then started throwing up between his legs, splattering his trainers. I took a step back. Colin did blood and sick in our house. I did nits and threadworm. I held my breath, patted him on the back, and considered putting my coat round him. The blood would never come out of it, though. I shouted at Harley to go into the bakery and ask for a towel. I’d never called an ambulance before. I wasn’t sure how bad people had to be for an ambulance. What if I had to pay for it if he wasn’t injured enough? Tarants heaved again. I pushed 999.

Bronte slipped her hand into mine. It only needed someone to half-kill themselves for her to feel affectionate. ‘Is he going to die, Mum?’ she said.

‘No, no, of course not. A small cut can bleed quite a lot, so it’s probably not as bad as it seems,’ I said, not even daring to look at the trolley in case half of Tarants’ scalp, complete with black hedgehog spikes, was dangling there.

Harley spotted the paramedic before I did. I hadn’t been expecting a motorbike. The paramedic pulled off his helmet to reveal a lean capable face and dark hair going grey at the temples. With a brisk ‘I’m Simon,’ he got straight to work, snapping on gloves and shining a light in Tarants’ eyes and ears. I felt responsibility drop off me. Harley edged closer for a better look.

‘Mum, will the doctor take him to hospital? Will he have to stay there? Will he get in trouble for messing about with the trolley?’ As usual I was torn between pride at Harley’s enthusiasm and embarrassment at his appetite for blood and the fact that he couldn’t have a conversation that didn’t compete with passing jet planes.

Harley bellowing in Simon’s ear probably wasn’t helping him concentrate. I tried to pull him back, but Harley looked as though he was on for stitching the wound himself. With a little wink, Simon nodded his head to show where Harley could stand for a ringside view without being in the way.

‘What’s his name?’ Simon said.

‘Tarants,’ said the girl. ‘Short for Tarantula. His real name is Kyle, but no one ever calls him that.’

Simon nodded at her as though he came across a lot of people called Black Widow and Daddy Long Legs in his line of work. He examined the wound, his long fingers smoothing and tapping, like he was reading Braille, talking, talking all the time in a soothing voice. Harley had a definite swagger when Simon asked him to fetch a box of bandages from the back of the bike.

‘Has anyone phoned his parents?’ Simon asked over his shoulder, as he ripped open a dressing.

His shoulders sagged when he learned that Tarants lived with his sister. I looked away. We all knew that our SD1 postcode – stabbings, domestics, heroin overdoses – was the one that the emergency services tried to pass like a forfeit at a party. SD2, a weird oasis of grand Victorian houses bordering our area of flat-roofed sixties flats and terraced stone-clad boxes, was the black fruit gum that everyone wanted – stranded Persian cats, heart attacks, fingers lopped off by pruning secateurs.

When Simon had finished, he smiled round at me, too young for a man who had all of us staring as though he was about to walk on water. Harley didn’t seem to suffer from that best-pants-for-the-doctor deference, though. ‘Cor. How do you know what to do? Have you seen someone die? Will he die? I want to be a doctor like you.’

‘I have seen someone die. Sometimes it happens even when we try our very best. But Tarants is going to be okay. There’s nothing stopping you becoming a doctor. You just have to work hard at school – and have a stomach for blood, which you obviously have.’ He said it like he really believed Harley could do it. And that made me want to smother him with big fat grateful kisses.

Just as I was noticing that he did have quite nice lips, I heard, ‘Hey, Bronte. What you doing here? I thought you was late home from school. I came out to see where you’d got to.’ I turned to see Colin standing behind us, hands on hips. When he came out to see where his little princess was, he was just being a good dad. I, on the other hand, was ‘blinking neurotic’.

‘Bleeding hell, Maia, I thought you’d be home by four. I didn’t realise you was going to get the kids. You’re not going to have time to cook tea before you get off to work.’

I didn’t want to confirm Simon’s SD1 expectations by launching into a slanging match in the street. Colin glanced down at Tarants but apparently the thought of his own hand-to-metal contact with a tin opener was a far greater tragedy than leaving your brains splattered on the road.

I tried to pacify him. ‘I went out to put a notice up in the post office and as it was home time, I thought I’d meet the kids, and then—’

Simon looked up, right into Colin’s paint-spattered sweatshirt. ‘Your wife saw this young man had hurt himself, so she very kindly called the emergency services and was good enough to stay here to make sure he was okay. He should be fine but I’ve got an ambulance coming to take him to the hospital so he can be checked over,’ he said, as though Colin had been falling over himself to make Tarants’ welfare his top concern rather than his ever-rumbling belly.

‘Mai, you’ve done your Good Samaritan bit, so stop bloody standing there and get your arse into gear.’ Colin ignored Simon as though he was just supermarket music.

Simon was obviously a stranger to SD1 customs. He looked over to me and nodded towards Colin. ‘Don’t you mind him talking to you like that?’

For a paramedic with all those qualifications, he wasn’t very bright. I shrugged, knowing that getting my arse into gear had rocketed up from an order to an urgent necessity. I started grabbing the school bags, hustling Harley and Bronte on their way as the first darts of panic shot through me.

Colin stood there, arms folded, jaw bull-dogging like a bouncer from a two-bit nightclub.

‘Come on, let’s go.’ I grabbed hold of Colin’s sleeve.

‘Hang on a minute. You got something to say, mate? Maia here’s got work to do. She needs to be at home sorting out her own family, not sticking her beak into other people’s business and looking for trouble when we got enough of our own. Why don’t you get on with saving the world and leave how I talk to the missus to me?’

I wasn’t so much grabbing as hanging on now.

‘Sorry,’ Simon said. ‘I wasn’t having a go. I think your wife did a kind thing for Tarants here and it seems disrespectful to speak to her like that. You should be proud of her. You’re a lucky man.’

I tried to make out the look on Simon’s face. Not confrontational, just matter-of-fact. Politely surprised even that Colin had spoken to me like that rather than licking the ground clean in front of me. I willed him to shut up before he became his own customer.

‘Since when have you been the expert on me missus?’ But I felt the tension in his forearm sag. Colin always loved having something someone else admired: the red Kawasaki when I first knew him; Bronte as a toddler, with her brown ringlets and eyes like little walnuts; that bloody phone that had nearly landed him in prison for handling stolen goods. Simon didn’t respond, just carried on packing up, arranging rolls of gauze in his bag and checking the bandage around Tarants’ head. Colin was used to men who either quaked in their boots or charged in, arms and legs flying like a Tom and Jerry scuffle. Indifference seemed to floor him.

I called Bronte over. ‘Start walking with Dad, I won’t be a minute.’

Bronte put her hand into Colin’s. ‘Fuckwit,’ Colin said over his shoulder, and walked off, all big man swagger. I breathed out.

Harley hung back with me. I said a quiet goodbye to Tarants but he didn’t answer. The girl mumbled, ‘Cheers’, and gave me a wave, which round here was almost a handwritten thank you note. There was no shock, no soft sympathy in her face. I braced myself for the pity on Simon’s, but instead he thanked me and turned his attention to the ambulance that had just raced round the corner.

CHAPTER THREE

‘Twenty-four thousand pounds a year, until the children are eighteen?’ I said. Twenty-four thousand pounds was so many hours of cleaning that I thought I might start laughing and never stop.

The professor’s solicitor, Mr Harrison, nodded and shuffled his papers. ‘Yes, she left enough money so that both children can stay at Stirling Hall School until they finish their A-levels, should they wish to do so.’

‘Why would she do that?’ I asked. ‘I was thinking that she might’ve left me something little, y’know, like her reading lamp or some of her books. I mean, not that I would rather have had that, I’m really grateful, but I was just the cleaner.’ I fidgeted on his very upright chair. I wasn’t used to wearing a skirt and I felt as though I had been rootling through my mum’s dressing up box. Trousers hadn’t seemed right though, and I didn’t want this guy in his pinstriped waistcoat to think I wasn’t paying proper respect to the prof.

Mr Harrison put the lid on his pen. He had that look about him. Teachers have it on parents’ evening, that blank face that doesn’t give anything away. ‘She’s written you a letter. Would you like to go into the waiting room to read it? I’ve got some phone calls to make, so don’t rush.’

I went and sat in a bright little room next to piles of Country Life magazines. My eyes pricked when I saw Professor Stainton’s careful writing. She’d addressed the letter to Amaia Etxeleku, which almost made me smile. No one called me Amaia, but Professor Stainton thought nicknames were laziness, ‘especially if one has a name to reflect one’s heritage’. The fact that my mother came from a little village in the Basque country fascinated the professor. I hadn’t been there since I was a teenager. Mum and I had always planned to go back together but she’d died before there’d ever been enough cash for jaunts abroad. The Basque thing probably wouldn’t have meant anything to me at all except it was obvious I wasn’t English. I often got mistaken for an Italian with my long dark hair and big cow eyes, just nowhere near as stylish.

I almost didn’t want to open the letter. I knew it could change my life, and all change, even change for the good, made me nervous.

Gatsby,

Stamford Avenue,

Sandbury,

Surrey,

SD2 7DJ

23 November 2013

Dear Amaia,

This may come as a surprise to you as I know you never wanted anything from me. I always felt that you were a very intelligent young woman whose life would have been vastly different had you been afforded a better education. I do not consider it to be too late for you. I know we spoke of you taking an OU degree and I do believe that you will.

However, at my age, I have to make decisions about the future, which is becoming shorter and shorter for me. Since my son died, I have been forced to consider how to make the best use of the little that remains dear to me and consider the legacy I would like to leave to mark my time on this earth. For me, education is the most valuable thing one can have after health, of course, and successful relationships. Therefore it would give me great pleasure to offer your lovely children a good start in life. The time that I have spent with them leads me to believe that they both show intelligence and enthusiasm for learning and I would certainly consider it a wise use of money. Purely because of your domestic circumstances and my fear that my money might find its way onto the horses at Newmarket, I have left my will so that the money can only be used for education at Stirling Hall School. I know from my time as a governor there that it will provide excellent and rounded instruction for your children and open doors for them, which might otherwise remain closed. I hope you will seize the opportunity to help them and keep in mind George Peabody’s wise words: ‘Education: a debt due from present to future generations’.

Finally, Amaia, I wish good things for you and your family. I am so grateful to you for making my last few years as comfortable as possible, with your kindness and attention to detail going beyond the call of duty. I urge you to consider my proposal very seriously.

With my very good wishes,

Rose Stainton

Who the hell was George Peabody? Was he famous? The professor couldn’t resist leaving me one last little puzzle to expand my mind. I started raking through my hair, pulling out all the loose strands. It was a wonder I wasn’t bald.

I screwed up my eyes, trying to find one thought that didn’t pull in a knotty old tangle of other problems with it. Sweat started to gather under my armpits, turning my silk blouse from pale blue to navy and reminding me why I kept it for special occasions. By now, I should have learnt that Etxeleku sweat glands and silk didn’t mix. I was just considering a damage limitation exercise with the kitchen roll by the water cooler, when Mr Harrison called me back. He looked relieved, as though he had been expecting to hand over his handkerchief for a huge nose blow. He settled back into his big boss’s chair and cracked his knuckles. ‘I assume you are going to take the opportunity to send the children to Stirling Hall?’

Assume. How wonderful to be in a life where you could assume anything. Assume that your husband would take care of you. Assume that your kids would be at a school where their days were about education and not survival. Assume that twenty-four thousand pounds a year was fantastic news, not some Australia-sized crow bar to wrench the lid off Pandora’s box.

I remembered my armpits and folded my hands in my lap. ‘I need to think about it, I mean, I’m grateful, of course, the professor has been very generous, but I need to discuss it with the children’s father, like,’ I said, immediately hearing the professor’s voice in my head. ‘Amaia, “like” is for people we are friends with.’

‘May I be so bold as to enquire what the obstacles are?’ said Mr Harrison.

I ignored the ‘being so bold’. He could, of course, just ask, though he was trying to be kind. ‘God, this is so embarrassing. I’m sorry to be so stupid, but how much are the fees at Stirling Hall? You said she was leaving me twenty-four thousand pounds a year. That can’t just be school fees.’

‘I’m afraid it is. Four thousand pounds a term for each child.’

‘Bloody hell,’ I said, then squirmed. ‘Sorry, I mean, that’s a heck of a lot of money. Sorry to sound ungrateful. So all that money would just go on the school fees. Wow. That’s the only option?’

‘I’m afraid the professor has been quite clear. She’s tied the money up so that it can only be spent on Stirling Hall. It will be transferred directly to the school at the start of every term. If you don’t take up her offer, she has left instructions for the money to go to the cancer hospice in town.’

The hair stood up on my arms. Mum had died there three years earlier. I forced away the memory of her little room with the flowery border and the horrible hours I’d spent there, watching her poor, knackered body rise and fall. I needed to think about the next generation, not the last.

‘I don’t want to sound graspy, but has she left any money for uniforms and that sort of stuff?’ I’d seen the piles of hockey sticks, rugby gear and coats for every occasion in the children’s bedrooms where I cleaned. I wouldn’t be able to get away with any old anorak and a West Ham football kit.

‘No, but I believe most of these private schools have good second-hand sales.’

My mind was scrambling to see how I could possibly afford it, even second-hand. Harley wouldn’t give a stuff about worn elbows or knees. But Bronte would make a right ling-along-a-dance. Even at Morlands, she could make me late for work fussing about matching hair bands and the tiniest ant-sized hole in her tights. It would be like pushing a lamb up the slope to slaughter if I tried to fob her off with something that wasn’t brand new.

Unlike Morlands, where a school trip meant walking down to the local museum with its two Roman coins and a few manky old fossils, Stirling Hall was the kingpin of school trips. I’d seen pictures of Stirling Hall’s cricket team on tour in Barbados in the Surrey Mirror. The bloody Caribbean as a school trip. Just off to the West Indies to whack a few balls. That wasn’t going to be a pound in your pocket, a jam sandwich and a packet of Wotsits kind of deal. I’d never be able to afford that for Harley. Still, he’d never played cricket in his life, so hopefully he wouldn’t make the team.

I picked at my raggedy nails. An image of Bronte begging me not to come to any school plays, sports days or carol concerts floated into my mind. She hated people knowing I was a cleaner. She kept trying to get me to apply for the X Factor so I could become a pop star instead, even though I sounded like a Hoover that had sucked up a sock.

Maybe I was going to need Mr Harrison’s handkerchief after all.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘Well then?’ Colin said, through a fistful of crisps. ‘Did the old girl come good?’

‘Depends what you mean,’ I said. I opened the window to let out the smell of Colin’s first, though probably not last, joint of the day. I picked up the pages of the Racing Post strewn all round the settee.

‘Don’t play games,’ Colin said, licking his finger to dab up the crumbs on his T-shirt. ‘How much did we get? Don’t tell me she left you one of her crappy old tea services.’

‘No, she left us enough money to send the kids to Stirling Hall School.’

‘You what? I ain’t sending my kids to no nobby school. How much did she leave us?’

‘Twenty-four thousand pounds a year until they finish their A-levels, but—’

‘Twenty-four grand a year? Way to bloody go!’ Colin leapt up off the settee and started limbo dancing. ‘Whe-hey! Fan-bloody-tastic. Let’s go on holiday somewhere. D’you fancy Benidorm? Or Corfu?’

‘She didn’t leave me the money so we could go off sunning ourselves. She left it so we could send the kids to a decent school, get them a good education.’

‘It’s our money. We can spend it on what we like.’

‘No, we can’t. That’s the point. You’re not listening – unless we send the kids to Stirling Hall, we can’t even get the cash in the first place. It’ll all go to the cancer hospice.’

A great cloud of a scowl rolled across Colin’s face. ‘Let me get this right. That old biddy has left us twenty-four grand a year and we’ve got to spend it on some fancy pants school or we get absolutely zilcho?’

I moved in front of my favourite red vase. I didn’t say anything, just stood absolutely still. The remote control went zinging past my ear, clattering into the front window, taking a bite out of the frame but missing the glass. The batteries pinged out and rolled under the chair.

‘Christ Almighty.’ Colin kicked at the settee. ‘Snotty-nosed bitch. I bet you put her up to this. Didn’t you? Bloody banging on about education, filling the kids’ heads with crap about going to university. Sitting there with your nose in a book, bloody Withering Heights and David Crapperfield. You and your big ideas. Can you imagine Harley in a little green cap and tie? He’d be a laughing stock round here. Get his head kicked in before he got to the end of the road.’

‘It wasn’t anything to do with me. I didn’t even know she’d left me anything. For God’s sake, it’s better than nothing. I think it would be great for Bronte. She’s quite bright. She could really go places with the right education.’ My throat was tight with the effort of not shouting.

‘What places is she going to go? She’ll probably be up the duff by the time she’s sixteen. She needs to start, I dunno, learning to type or something, not having her head filled with a load of old bollocks she’ll never use.’

‘Bronte won’t be stupid enough to get pregnant with some no-hoper sponger from round here,’ I said, looking at Colin’s belly hanging out of his T-shirt. Blue fluff nestled in his belly button. I couldn’t let Bronte end up with a bloke who thought showers made you shrink.

Colin snatched the paper from me, then blubbered down onto the settee, rattling the sports pages into a position that meant I couldn’t see his face. I knew I’d got to him from the way his foot was twitching.

‘Don’t you want the kids to live better than us? Is your greatest ambition for Harley that he learns the difference between off-white and magnolia? Do you want Bronte to end up scrubbing skid marks out of the toilets of the women whose dads didn’t think spelling tests were a waste of time? Or are you just pinning your hopes on Bronte marrying a striker from flaming West Ham?’

He didn’t answer. Usually I knew better than to ‘keep going on’ but people like us didn’t get a lot of chances. I sat on the end of the settee and put his foot on my lap. ‘Can you put the paper down, just for a sec?’

He looked sullenly over the top. His eyes were still beautiful.

I persevered. ‘I think this is a really big chance for them. I never got any qualifications and neither did you, so we’re stuck here. Morlands is such a rubbish school that if they stay there, they’ll end up like us. We’re never going to have enough money to move into a different catchment area. But with a good education at Stirling Hall, the kids could become engineers, architects, doctors, anything. I don’t think it’s fair to stand in their way.’

‘Yeah, but what about when they want to bring their mates home? No one is going to come round here in their Beamer in case it ends up on bricks. You ain’t thinking it through. Let’s say they do go there. We can pay for the school, but what about all the things that go with it? The parents ain’t going to want their toffee-nosed little darlings hanging about with Bronts and Harley, are they? Case they catch something awful off of them. They’re all going to be living in great big houses – I don’t want some kid called Verity or Jasper coming round here to get a look at how poor people live, how Harley pisses against the back fence when I’m on the khazi or how we have to stand on a chair with a match to get the boiler to light every time we want a bloody shower.’

I’d worked in houses where guitar lessons, French club and netball matches were the norm, as run-of-the-mill as living in a home where the children had a playroom and the adults had a study. Of course, there’d been some arrogant little shits along the way like the boy who said, ‘You can’t be a mummy. You’re a cleaner.’ But there’d also been some sweet kids, who’d brought out their old dolls, tea sets and jigsaws so I could give them to Bronte.

The one thing they all had in common was this idea, a confidence that when they spoke, they had a right to be listened to. I was thirty-six and still had to work up the courage to say what I thought when they held meetings at school to improve discipline. I’d think, right, I’m going to put my hand up next. No, next. Then someone would drop in a ‘statistically speaking’ or an ‘economically viable’ and I’d decide that my point was probably a bit obvious anyway and some bloke with a clipboard would thank everyone for their useful input and Colin would be moaning about getting down the pub before closing time and that would be that. If money could buy confidence, I had a chance to do one clever thing in my stupid life.

‘Talk about glass half bleeding empty,’ I said. ‘Yeah, we might get some kids come here who think we’re common as pig shit. On the other hand, Harley and Bronte might even make some nice friends, normal kids who don’t think that a good Saturday night out is kicking in the car wing mirrors on the estate.’

‘You just don’t get it, do you? They’re going to be the council house kids among a bunch of nobs. They ain’t ever going to fit in.’

‘We’ve got to give them a chance. They might see that there’s more to life than a quick shag against the fence in the back alley or getting pissed in the bus shelter on Special Brew.’ I started combing through all the possible tactics I could use to get Colin to agree. I’d only got as far as two – begging or a blow job – when Colin shrugged.

‘I don’t fucking know. I think you’re wrong. How we going to pay for all the kit and crap that they’re gonna need? You’re just sticking your head into a bag of trouble,’ he said.

Colin was voicing my worries. Somehow that made me angrier. ‘That’s typical you. Just sit there and be defeatist. You were just the same when I wanted to go to appeal to get them into a better primary school. Give up before we start instead of using a bit of brain power to see how we could make it work. I’ll have to take on more shifts. Maybe things’ll pick up and you’ll be able to get some work. It’s a real opportunity.’

‘Don’t think you can rely on me getting work anytime soon. It’s not looking good out there.’

I tried to remember that to win this one I needed him on my side. I bit back my ‘change the record’.

He picked at his ear, examined it and wiped it on his tracksuit. ‘The kids won’t thank you for it. Mind you, I might be able to up me rates and find a cushy job with them parents. Some of them must have a nice mansion that could do with a lick of paint,’ he said.

Once Colin started down the ‘What’s in it for me?’ route, I knew that I just had to sneak up and bolt the door behind him. ‘Can we try it for a term? Morlands is never full. People are petitioning not to go there, so I’m sure we’ll get them back in if we need to.’

Colin started scrabbling about on the floor for the batteries to the remote. He flicked on the West Ham vs. Arsenal match he’d recorded the night before. I needed to finish the conversation before he started singing the theme tune, ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles’. God, he was starting to hum. I had about five seconds left.

‘Colin, listen to me.’

‘That ref needs bloody glasses. Oy, four eyes! Christ, he wouldn’t see a foul if they kicked him on the nose. Did you see that, Maia?’ he said, hurling an empty Coke can at the telly and sending an arc of brown drops shooting up the front room wall. He made no move to get a cloth.

I stood in front of the telly.

‘Mai! Out the way!’

‘Shall I send them for a term?’

‘Do what you want but don’t come crying to me when it comes back to bite you on the arse,’ he said, trying to peer round me.

I went straight to my handbag and dug out the solicitor’s silver embossed card.

CHAPTER FIVE

The freezing January mornings didn’t agree with my van. It chose the kids’ first day at Stirling Hall to start making a chugging sound from the engine. I was terrified that it would grind to a halt with the effort of climbing over the speed bumps along the horseshoe-shaped drive at Stirling Hall. Christ, the school had its own one-way system, a slow-moving line of super-shiny, top of the range cars coming in one entrance and spilling out the other like a Motor Show parade. I had visions of breaking down right in the middle of it all, forcing everyone to squeeze past me. Harley was oblivious, hanging out of the window with his cap sitting at a jaunty angle on his blond curls, shouting about cars.

‘Wicked, Mum, look, look, there’s a Bentley. A Bentley Continental. Wow. Do you think it actually belongs to one of the parents? Cor, I saw one of them on Top Gear. Do you think they might let me have a ride, Mum? Will you ask them for me? Who do you think it belongs to? Do you think they got it new? Jeremy Clarkson says they cost £130,000. Do you think they paid that for it? Cool!’

‘Let’s see how it goes, Harley. Maybe the boy will be in your class and he might invite you round,’ I said. I peered at the woman behind the wheel. She didn’t have a hairstyle, she had an official hair ‘do’. A big puffy creation that would surely involve rollers. Definitely not a chop with the kitchen scissors in a shaving mirror and a head-upside-down blast from the hair dryer. I’d rather spend the entire day pulling matted hair out of plugholes than have her pass judgement on Harley over a cheese spread sandwich – or a bloody lobster tail or whatever Stirling Hall kids had for tea.

Bronte was clutching her rucksack on her knee, staring straight ahead, looking just like Colin when his horses fell at the last hurdle. That morning I’d gone in to wake her up all jolly and sing-song but she told me to get lost, she wasn’t bloody going and held on to the duvet for grim death. She actually swore at me. Little madam. I lost sight of my skipping through the daisies voice in favour of a ‘you’ll do as I say’ bellow. I practically dragged her out of bed by her ankles. She got dressed with a slowness that was right on the edge of defiance. She hated the red and green plaid skirt, said it was frumpy and minging and wanted to wear black trousers like she had at Morlands. I helped her into the blazer I’d spent a week’s wages on when I could have bought one for £20 second-hand. I had to walk away when I saw her twisting the buttons, complaining that they didn’t do up properly. Harley had been twirling his cap round his finger for fifteen minutes by the time Bronte slouched out the door. Just as I started to tell her she looked wonderful, she stared at me, her dark eyes narrowing and said, ‘You look horrible. Everyone will know you clean up other people’s shit.’

I decided not to speak to her. My hand tingled with the desire to give her a good slap but attitude adjustments would have to wait for another day. For now, getting her to school was enough. As I looked for somewhere to park, a Mitsubishi Pajero got so close to my bumper that the woman must have been trying to get into my slipstream. I glared into the rear-view mirror and noticed that my foundation looked a bit orange and I’d missed a couple of black hairs on my upper lip with the tweezers. Great. I couldn’t wait to be known as Whiskers.

‘Wind the window up, Harley. Stop shouting.’

‘Mum, there’s a Porsche Boxster. Jeremy Clarkson says you only buy one of those if you can’t afford a 911,’ said Harley, twisting around in his seat and pushing Bronte onto the gear stick.

‘Ouch. Get off,’ said Bronte. She shoved Harley back.

‘Stop pushing her, Harley. Close the window, now.’ I tried not to shout in case I couldn’t stop.

‘This is brill, Mum,’ said Harley, ignoring me and pointing out an open-topped BMW.

I gave up and turned my attention to Bronte. ‘Hey, Bronte, look at those lawns. They look like somewhere the queen might have a tea party. I bet they play rounders there in the summer. What do you think? Doesn’t it look amazing?’ I said, hoping to get a small glimmer of reassurance from her. She shook her head.

I tried again. ‘Come on, love. Let’s try and get off to a good start. Everyone feels a bit shy on their first day, isn’t that right, Harley? You’ll soon make friends.’

Harley tried to help out. ‘Yeah, come on, Bront, it’ll be okay. Anyway, Dad says we can go back to Morlands if we don’t like it here.’

Bronte turned her mouth down so far at the corners, it almost made me laugh. ‘Dad said Stirling Hall was for tossers, anyway. Though he thought I looked really pretty in my uniform.’

Good old Dad. Colin had wandered about the kitchen in his boxers, eating toast without a plate, sounding like he was sucking up his tea through a straw. He made no attempt to help as I double-checked the football socks with named garter, the ‘laces, no Velcro’ rugby boots, the navy ‘no logo’ PE shorts, and every other bloody bit of sports equipment an Olympian in the making could need. I had refused to let myself mourn the days of any T-shirt and a tracksuit, out loud anyway.

I tried to reverse into the one tiny slither of space I could find that wasn’t blocked by a monster 4x4. The Mitsubishi woman, ‘Jen1’, leant on the horn as I had a second go. She was obviously in a hurry to get somewhere. Her plastic surgeon probably, judging by her ugly mush. I wished her a flat tyre as I finally managed to park up.

We got out of the van. I adjusted Bronte’s hat and looked away from the hands I could see waving behind the Mitsubishi’s shiny windscreen. I was never going to beat a Stirling Hall mother in a spelling bee but I’d fancy my chances in a slanging match. I’d get Jen1 back another day.

‘Why was that lady waving at you, Mum?’ said Harley.

‘I’ve no idea.’ I shuffled him forward.

‘She was trying to talk to you. Won’t she think you’re rude? You told us to be polite to everyone we met today.’

Just when the toothpick holding my patience together looked about to snap, Bronte threw her new rucksack down and ground to a halt like a fat old Labrador that’s decided it’s not walking one step further.

‘Mum, I’m not going. I want to go back to Morlands. We should’ve started in September. January’s too late. Everyone will have made friends and I won’t have anyone to play with.’

I dug deep. Ferreted about for a kind word. Beamed myself into my other world as Julie Andrews, dancing about in The Sound of Music singing ‘Do-Re-Mi’, like I did at work when people who were too lazy to pick their pants off the floor started having a go at me. The voice in my head was screaming, ‘You ungrateful cow. Here I am making sure you get a fantastic education and all you can do is whine your arse off.’

I managed a reasonably calm, ‘It’s too late for that. Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine. I spoke to your teacher and she seemed really nice.’ In fact, all I could remember was how I’d nodded blankly at Bronte’s teacher as she talked about ‘prep’ for a good fifteen minutes until I realised she was on about homework.

I stood on the edge of the sea of green blazers belonging to the prep school kids. A steady stream of older children, dressed in grey, dodged around the little ones and headed over to the senior school building on the far side of the cricket pitch. It had towers. Towers! I would be so proud if Harley and Bronte ended up there. However, the odds weren’t looking too hot if I couldn’t even get Bronte through the doors of the prep school today.

Harley stood beside me, relaxed, as though we were queuing for the cinema, happily gawping round at the cars. The other kids were swarming through the stone arch into the playground beyond. In my hurry to get away from Colin and his repetitions of ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain’ in stupid voices, I’d forgotten to re-read the letter and find out where I needed to take them. I glanced around for a mum I liked the look of. Which was more difficult than it first appeared. Not the woman with a long, grey plait down her back. Bloody lentil-eater, for sure. She looked like she knitted her own knickers. Maybe the one next to her. No, she had a briefcase. And stilettos. Obviously rushing off to some mega job in the City. No time for her to be a traffic warden for me when there was a bonus to be had. God, this was hopeless. I felt homesick for the mothers at Morlands with their flip-flops, dark roots and Marlboros, shoving packets of crisps at chubby children and talking about EastEnders as though it was real life.

Bronte looked up at me. ‘I’m not bloody going,’ she said, her eyes darting around for an escape route. That got me moving. I walked straight up to the nearest person, a young woman with peroxide blonde hair and skintight jeans, holding a spaniel on a lead.

‘Excuse me, do you know where 4H or 5R children need to go?’

‘Excuse?’ she said, untangling herself from the spaniel’s lead. ‘My English very bad.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said, waving her away. Of course. No nice Morlands grannies with a fag in their mouths and a toffee in their handbags here. Stirling Hall’s nannies came with a paid-for car and a foreign accent. Bronte was beginning to cry. Just as I was thinking up my most horrible threat for her, a blonde woman, no Penelope Pitstop hairdo, no red lipstick, no handbag with big gold clasp, came over to me. She was wearing jodhpurs. And if they were really only boobs under her sweatshirt, she had an exceptionally large pair of knockers.

‘Hi, are you okay? I heard you asking about 4H and 5R? Is this your first day? It’s always mayhem on the first day of term. I’m Clover, by the way.’ She sounded so like Joanna Lumley in Absolutely Fabulous that I thought she might be taking the piss. She thrust out a hand with nails that looked like they spent time in an allotment. My scabby old mitts looked quite refined by comparison.

She turned to Bronte. ‘Listen, my twins are in 4H.’ She called over two identical girls with curly white blonde hair trapped into scruffy ponytails. ‘This is Saffy and this is Sorrel. Just remember that Sorrel has the mole above her left eye. Even I can’t tell the difference sometimes.’

Bronte made no attempt to say her name, so I filled in the blank. Clover bent right down to Bronte’s level, hauling a bra strap against gravity as she went. ‘Do you know what, Bronte? Your teacher is really lovely. Do you like art? Mrs Harper does the best pictures of horses. She’s taught Sorrel to draw a really amazing pony. Will you let the twins take you to class? Look, hold Sorrel’s hand, she’ll show you where to go.’

Miraculously, Bronte’s snivelling puttered to a halt. She glanced down at Sorrel’s hand, which looked as though it was fresh from digging about in a guinea pig cage. I thought I might have a rebellion to deal with, but Bronte put out a stiff little paw for Sorrel to hang on to while Clover kept up her running commentary. ‘Bye bye, darlings, be good, Saffy, remember not to imitate Mme Blanchard’s accent. And do try and eat your apple at break. Sorrel, did you put your fountain pen in your bag? And tell Mrs Baines that you’re not doing drama next term.’

‘Fucking hell, Mum,’ Saffy said. ‘Shu’ up.’

Bronte looked the most animated I’d seen her all morning. I had to remind myself to close my mouth.

‘Saffy, I’ve told you before about dropping your t’s. Don’t let me hear any more glottal stops or you’ll be mucking out the horses on your own all week.’

That ‘t’ thing was becoming a bigger part of my life than I’d expected. At this rate we’d all be in the van chanting the prof’s favourite tongue twister: ‘Betty Botter had some butter …’ Although I couldn’t help feeling that Clover had overlooked something beginning with ‘F’.

She waved the girls off. I felt my shoulders come down from around my ears as Bronte scuffed away with the twins without looking back. Clover turned to me. ‘Sorry about that. I can’t stand glottal stops, can you? Now, let’s get your boy sorted out. What’s his name? Harley? Orion can drop him at 5R. Orion, Orion, come here.’

Orion raced over, lanky limbs flailing, tie pulled to one side and mud down the front of his blazer. His curly brown hair was cropped too close to his head so it stuck out at right angles which made him look a bit odd, but he had a friendly, open face. ‘Yes?’

Clover dished out instructions to Orion, who turned to shake Harley’s hand. Bloody hell, it was like the Freemasons round here. Harley managed to get his hand out of his pocket before it got embarrassing.

‘Cor, are you named after a car? That’s wicked. Me dad called me after his favourite motorbike.’

Orion looked puzzled. ‘I’m not named after a car. I’m named after the Hunter, the star constellation. My dad does astronomy. It’s his hobby.’

It was Harley’s turn to look puzzled. ‘Not a Ford Orion then?’ But he sounded indignant, as though Orion had somehow messed up the origin of his name. Not humiliated because, among my many other failings as a mother, I hadn’t been teaching him flaming star constellations since he was six months old. Watching all that confidence, all that optimism stuffed into one baby-faced ten-year-old made me ache to hug him. Luckily, the bell rang and Harley gave me a quick wave, a slightly impatient ‘I’ll be fine, Mum’ and walked off with Orion.

I heard Harley ask, ‘So what car’s your dad got then?’

I turned away. I didn’t want to hear the question – or answer – in reverse. ‘Thanks for sorting out Bronte. She was really worried about coming here this morning,’ I said.

‘My pleasure. It’s difficult starting halfway through the school year, and January’s such an atrocious month, but I’m sure they’ll absolutely love it here. It’s a marvellous school, they’ll settle down in no time. You must come to our class coffee morning next week. Monday. We have one at the beginning of every term so all the mums can catch up. It’s at Jennifer’s, Hugo’s mum, he’s in Harley’s class. I’ll pick you up, if you like.’

‘No, no, it’s okay, thanks anyway.’

‘You will come, won’t you? I’ll send home directions in Harley’s school bag. You’ll get to know all the mums so you can sort out playdates. Anyway must go, horses need exercising. Do you ride? No? Bet you do something far more fucking sensible like Pilates. You’re lovely and slim. Big tits always been my downfall.’

With that, Clover, the mother of a couple of herby girls and a star constellation strode off in her wellies to a muddy old Land Rover. Fucking Clover had saved the day.

CHAPTER SIX

I looked down again at the note that Clover had sent home. Though she’d obviously written it with a crayon or an eyeliner, it definitely said Little Sandhurst. Which meant Jennifer’s house was behind these wrought iron gates, a reddish blur down an avenue lined with horse chestnut trees. Jesus. Before I’d even pressed the button to get in, the gates whirred back and a security camera swivelled above my head. Thank God I’d had the good sense to leave the van in the pub car park at the end of the road, otherwise I’d have definitely been risking directions to the tradesman’s entrance.

At the door, I tugged down my T-shirt to make sure my belly button ring wasn’t showing. The long walk up the drive hadn’t agreed with my underwear and I was just in the middle of pulling my knickers out of my bottom when I suddenly remembered the security cameras. I looked round, praying I wasn’t being beamed around the kitchen or the front room, digging between my buttocks for my Asda sideslappers. Then something else caught my attention. A silver Mitsubishi Pajero. Jen Bloody 1. I’d bust a gut, mopping, spraying and hoovering like a chicken on ecstasy to finish early and get over here for coffee with none other than the flaming horn-honker. Stupid cow. For two pins I wouldn’t have come, but Harley and Bronte were having a tricky old time fitting in as it was. If I could help by nodding nicely at other mums and crooking my little finger over a Jammie Dodger, bring it on. Hopefully she wouldn’t recognise me without the van.

The door opened and Jen1 stood there, a skinny minny with super-straight long blonde hair almost down to her waist. I think it was her waist, anyway. The wide belt around it made it look like my wrist. ‘You must be Harley’s mummy. I’m Hugo’s mummy, Jennifer, how do you do?’ She held out a hand that had definitely benefited from the sort of creams I dusted on dressing tables – lotions and potions made from nightingale droppings, Chilean snail slime or snake venom at £100 a blob.

‘I’m Maia, pleased to meet you, Jenny.’ I wondered whether Jen1 phoned the hairdresser’s and announced herself as Hugo’s mummy.

‘I prefer Jennifer, if you don’t mind,’ she said, as she did what I always thought of as the elevator look. She started off looking at the top of my head like an exotic parakeet had settled there, then flicked down, taking in my T-shirt, my cardigan with the button missing, my Primark jeans. She got as far as my shoes, then zoomed all the way up again. As soon as she realised that I was so far down the food chain, there was nothing to compete with, her whole attitude shifted. She dug out a different face, like she was picking one out of the wardrobe. The mask she’d chosen for me was a limited amount of smiling and friendliness so I couldn’t go away and slag her off but I wouldn’t start thinking that I was going to become her bessie mate either.

‘Come in, come in, we’re all in the kitchen,’ she said. I stepped into the hall. Pale cream carpet without a single stain, no splodge of tea, no muddy marks. No place for the Crocs that I’d squelched around the football field in at the weekend. I took them off, wishing I’d worn something other than the Boozy Bird socks that Colin had bought me for my birthday.

I followed Jen1’s trail of perfume as she led me into the kitchen. About twelve women were standing in various little groups around a black marble-topped island with a built-in wine fridge. Jen1 obviously didn’t have to shuffle everything round and stand her milk outside the back door if she’d bought a chicken for Sunday dinner. I handed her the box of bakewell tarts that I’d bought at the Co-op on the way. With barely a thank you, she dumped it down next to a box of Waitrose’s mint truffles and a tin of biscuits from Harrods. She introduced me to a few women who had names like Francesca, Elizabeth and Charlotte, all with their own versions of the elevator look.

I heard Clover swearing before I saw her, a helmet of wayward curls among several shiny bobs. She was wearing a pair of thick round glasses that made her look like Velma off Scooby-Doo. A kaftan top created a beaded shelf over her enormous boobs like an usherette’s ice cream tray. She made her way round to my side of the island.

‘Maia, how are you? How are the children settling in? Orrie said something about a problem with Harley’s hair? They’re such fucking fascists at that school sometimes. I mean, they’re great at telling the kids what they’re good at, all those star charts and best bloody handwriting awards, but they’ve got no bastard idea about individuality. Still, I suppose that’s what we’re paying for. They can instil discipline so we don’t have to bother.’

When she took a breath, I told her about the note his teacher had sent me, saying that Harley wouldn’t be allowed back until he’d had his hair chopped off. That same evening I’d given him a number five in the kitchen with Colin’s clippers and watched his curls gather on the floor like an old wig. When I’d finished, my raggle-taggle golden boy looked like he was about to join the army cadets. Harley had run his hand over it, shrugging. ‘S’all right. It feels like a tennis ball.’

When Colin saw it, he did a Sieg Heil salute and told Harley he looked like a BNP supporter. I picked up a curl from the floor, wrapped it in silver foil and put it in the old biscuit tin under my bed where I kept all my precious things. Right on the top of the pile was his school photo from last year. He looked so much younger, scruffy curls falling over his face, cheekily carefree. I had jammed the lid back on.

Jen1 appeared at my side, all buzzy-bottomed and efficient in her black polo-necked jumper and pencil skirt. She offered us a plate of mini chocolate brownies. Clover took one, then scooped up two more. ‘These are lovely, did you make them?’

‘Hugo and I bake every Sunday afternoon. I think it’s essential for children to learn to cook. It’s no wonder that there are so many of these fat chavvy children about when their mothers just feed them pre-packaged rubbish,’ Jen1 said.

I glanced over at my bakewell tarts, still in their box, shining with thick white icing and glacé cherries. I took comfort from the fact that she hadn’t even let the Harrods pure butter shortbread poison her kitchen.

‘We eat organic as far as possible. I’m even getting the gardener to plant some veggies this year. We should have our own rocket, leeks and red peppers by the summer,’ she said, turning to me. ‘Would you like coffee, Maia? I’ve got linizio, livanto or capriccio if you want an espresso or vivalto or finezzo if you want a longer one. Or I’ve got Mao Feng green tea and white Ginseng tea. Or Tung Ting Oolong.’

I didn’t have a clue what she was on about. I must’ve looked a bit dorky because she indicated the coffee machine on the side. ‘Coffee would be lovely. I don’t mind what sort. Thank you,’ I said.

Clover readjusted a bra strap, temporarily raising her left boob like a put about to be shot. ‘If you come round to mine, it’s just instant,’ she said, not quite managing to whisper.

A tall woman came trotting over, horsey teeth, bright orange lipstick and frilly Peter Pan collar. ‘Clover, how are you? And you must be the new boy’s mother. How do you do? I’m Venetia Dylan-Jones. Welcome to Stirling Hall, or SH as we like to call it. How is your son settling in?’

‘Fine, thank you. I think he’s finding some of the work quite hard but hopefully he’ll catch up.’

‘I think reading’s key at this age, isn’t it? Theo’s a great fan of Beverley Naidoo.’ Venetia had the sort of face on that meant she expected us to be impressed. I obviously didn’t get my eyes open wide enough.

‘I don’t think I know who she is.’

‘Of course you do. She’s written all those books about racism and prejudice in South Africa. You must know Journey to Jo’burg, No Turning Back,’ Venetia said. ‘It’s terribly important for our children to understand other cultures.’

‘I don’t think I’ve come across her.’

Venetia looked as though she thought I might be having her on. She battled on. ‘Of course, he likes fantasy stories as well. Anthony Horowitz, David Almond and Harry Potter.’

‘He’s read Harry Potter?’ Harley was reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid and that was a struggle.

Again, Venetia looked at me as though I was speaking a foreign language. ‘He’d read most of them by the time he was eight.’ She had that ‘hasn’t everybody?’ tone going on. ‘Not so keen on the last one, I think he was finding it a bit easy.’

That morning I’d got really stressed over Harley’s spellings because he still hadn’t cottoned on to the fact that some words had silent letters, still writing ‘nife’, ‘nome’ and ‘restling’ while Bronte sat there rolling her eyes. Nothing compared to how bloody stressed I was feeling now. Weren’t any of the other boys reading Top Gear and Doctor Who annuals?

Venetia patted my arm. ‘Perhaps he’s more into science?’

I didn’t tell her that so far we’d only managed to do one of the science homeworks because we needed to use the internet and the one crappy computer at the library had been out of order. I did a half-shrug and said, ‘We’ll see.’

Venetia ploughed on. ‘I’ve got the number of a terrific science tutor. Even if he doesn’t want to do science at university, it might help him get in if there’s a struggle for places. We get Theo tutored twice a week in science and he’s just started Mandarin as well. My husband is very keen for him to get into Oxford. Languages seem to be terribly important for the best universities.’

‘How old is he?’ I said.

‘Rising eleven, he’s in Mr Rickson’s class with your son. It’s vital to start early. Have you thought about universities yet?’

‘No, not yet.’ Though I did make an effort not to look as though the idea had never occurred to me.

‘I haven’t given it a second thought,’ Clover said. ‘I’m not bothered whether the kids go or not. Some of the thickest, dullest people I know went to university. Never saw the need myself. I don’t care if my kids spend their lives breeding tropical fish as long as they’re passionate about it.’ She licked the chocolate off her fingers.

‘My husband doesn’t see it that way. We both went to Oxford and he’d like to see Theo carry on the family tradition.’ Venetia looked like a cat whose fur had been stroked the wrong way. I wasn’t in the ‘Mandarin by intravenous drip’ camp but I did hope that Stirling Hall would encourage the kids to do something a bit more highbrow than get a few Black Mollies in the family way. God, I was still hoping that it wasn’t too late for me, let alone the kids. Even though I couldn’t afford Open University, I was working my way through the classics at the library. I’d got most of the A’s and B’s covered now so as long as people stuck with Jane Austen or the Brontës I had half a chance of sounding a teeny bit educated.

‘Where did you study, Maia?’ Venetia said.

‘I didn’t stay on at school.’

Venetia looked as though she was going to need smelling salts at the thought of being in the same air space as someone who didn’t even have A-levels, let alone a degree. I didn’t find her response of ‘Oh’ very articulate for someone who’d been to Oxford.

Clover took my arm. ‘Would you excuse us for a second, Venetia? I promised to introduce Maia to our celebrity mum.’ She pointed to a dark-haired woman in the corner. ‘Do you recognise her? Her name’s Frederica Rinton. She’s been in Holby City and Casualty and I think she was in some American soap thing. Can’t remember the name.’

I looked over. I’d been watching her in a hospital drama the night before. She was a lot slimmer in real life. I wanted to rush over and tell her that I thought she should have won the outstanding drama performance category at the National Telly Awards. She probably wouldn’t want reminding of that. I couldn’t wait to tell my neighbour, Sandy, that I’d met and actually nibbled chocolate brownies in the company of Frederica. Sandy devoured Hello! and Heat magazines, talking about TV presenters as though they were her mates. In the meantime, I tried to look like I hobnobbed with celebs all the time.

Clover headed over, weaving her big bum through the chrome stools. ‘Long time no see, Freddie. I see more of you on the telly than hanging around school. How is the glitzy world of TV? Should we be honoured that you’ve found time to come to our humble coffee morning?’

Clover introduced me and filled in the gaps for ‘Freddie’. Harley was in the same class as her son, Marlon. I stood there, nodding along to discussions about after-school rugby, the upcoming play, the shocking standard of school lunches. I was trying to remember not to say school dinners. All the time Frederica was talking, I was waiting for her to do something starry, drop some names, names I had only seen in film and TV credits, bitch about her co-stars – yes, deliver me a big fat nugget of showbiz gossip that I could share with Sandy over a Malibu and Coke. I didn’t say much, just inspected her face for signs of Botox to report back and wondered how to get her autograph in a cool way. There was no cool way. I eyed the serviette she’d been holding her chocolate brownie on. Sandy would love that. I’d try and snaffle it later.

‘I saw you in that costume drama thingy. You lucky bugger, getting to snog Colin Firth; I get to pick up horse shit all day. Life just ain’t fair. Tell me he was a dreadful kisser at least?’ Clover said.

‘I’m going to have to disappoint you: he was the god of kissing. Found it quite difficult to kiss my husband afterwards. But don’t tell him that,’ Frederica said.

I was trying to remember every detail of the conversation for full dramatic recount effect, when Jen1 came twitching over with a list in her hand. ‘Frederica, as you know, Stirling Hall Fete Day is just around the corner and I’ve volunteered to coordinate all the stalls. Have you been approached to open the fete? You do such a great job. I know people love to see you there.’

‘Yeah, like our own Stirling Hall royalty. Frederica is a fantastic queen’s name. We’ll try and get a red carpet for you this year,’ Clover said. Jen1 tutted and frowned at her list. Frederica giggled and told Jen1 she’d be happy to do it.

‘Right. We need to allocate stalls. If I could just have everyone’s attention,’ Jen1 said, picking up a spoon and dinging it on a glass.

‘First off, homemade cake stall. If everyone is in agreement, I’d like to run that one. Everyone needs to contribute at least one cake. I’ll be sending home paper plates in the school bags, so look out for them. Last year lots of people donated shop bought cakes, but let’s see if this year we can get you all in the kitchen doing your bit. Come on, how difficult can it be? Get cooking with your children, remember, quality time, quality time. Don’t forget absolutely no nuts and please list all the ingredients on the label.

‘Who wants to run the welly-wanging stall? Emelia? Great. Now, we’re getting really subversive this year and having a tattoo stall, wash-off, obviously. Vile, chavvy as anything I know, but the children love them. The headmaster has agreed as long as they are removed for school on the Monday.’

She looked round the kitchen. ‘Maia, you can be our tattoo expert. I think you’d be perfect for that.’

‘I’ll do that with you,’ Clover said, but not quite quickly enough to cover the silence in the room.

‘Okay, fine, let me know what I have to do.’ I reminded myself that I was here to look nice enough for other mothers to invite my children to play. Which ruled out flashing the love heart on my left buttock or demanding to know why I, above all the others, would be perfect for the tattoo stall rather than the bloody tombola or serving the Pimms? People brought their gazes back from the furthest point of Jen1’s manicured lawn as the conversation turned to who was going to provide the ‘guess the number of sweets’ jar.

‘Finally, we need volunteers for tickets and refreshments for Oliver! It will come round very quickly, though I don’t think the children know which roles they have yet, do they?’ Jen1 said.

‘They do, they’ve already been rehearsing,’ said Frederica. ‘Marlon is playing Oliver.’

‘Hugo hasn’t said anything.’

‘Isn’t he one of the workhouse children?’ said Frederica.

‘But that’s only a small part, isn’t it? Hugo always has a lead part. We get a teacher down every Wednesday from LAMDA to tutor him. Who’s playing the other big roles, the Artful Dodger? What about Fagin?’

I’d never seen Oliver! but something about the Artful Dodger rang a bell. The auditions had been on the second day of term though, so I was pretty sure Harley wouldn’t have a lead part. He’d only ever been in one play at Morlands as a toy soldier, so I imagined they’d given him some crappo role, like a passerby or a lamp post just to include him.

Frederica glanced at me. ‘Isn’t Harley playing the Artful Dodger?’

‘I think he said he was, though I might have got that wrong.’ I looked at Jen1 whose lips had disappeared completely, wrinkled up like an old sweet wrapper. She hopped off her stool and started scooting about the kitchen picking up coffee cups and crashing them into the dishwasher. I saw her tip the remains of the chocolate brownies into her Brabantia bin. The hostess with the mostest had run out of welcome.

Time to go, but first I needed the loo. Jen1 pointed through the back of the kitchen, with a flick of her wrist. ‘Out there.’ It had one of those funny freestanding glass wash basins, which were a bugger to clean because all the splashes of water drip down the outside and collect in a manky puddle at the bottom. I took my time, studying the photo collage of Jen1 in her bikini, in a motorboat, in a hammock, ribs sticking out like she needed a bloody good steak and chips and a couple of cream cakes. I spent ages rubbing in the Molton Brown hand cream. I might as well get silky smooth hands out of my visit.

As I opened the door, I heard her say, ‘I didn’t realise Stirling Hall provided scholarships for poor children. I suppose they are trying to expose our children to all walks of life. Is that a new thing?’

I walked into the kitchen. I failed to keep the tightness out of my voice as I said, ‘I pay for my kids, just like you do. Nice to meet you, everyone, I need to get off now. Thanks for the coffee, Jenny.’

‘It’s Jennifer.’

She didn’t show me out.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Friday was a low point in my week because I spent the entire day in the house I hated cleaning the most – lots of those white ornaments with drippy shapes of women holding babies and whole shelves of decorative bells and silver spoons embossed with Lisbon, Sicily, Madeira and every other place Cecilia and Arthur had been cruising. Plus Cecilia herself, of course, whose idea of letting things slip was not hoovering the back of the airing cupboard every week.

That Friday, nearly two weeks after the kids had started at Stirling Hall, was particularly grim. I’d been dragging the Hoover up and down three flights of stairs as Cecilia had people ‘coming from the country’ for the weekend so she needed me to have a ‘quick do’ on the third floor, but didn’t take away any of my usual chores to allow me extra time.

I’d already been late to pick up Harley and Bronte once that week and the school had been very clear. More than ten minutes late and they charged for after-school club. I just had the kitchen floor to mop when Cecilia called me into the ‘snug’, where the smell of lavender was fighting with something citrussy. Cecilia sat propped up on a pile of cushions with her feet in a bubbling foot spa as though there was nothing more pressing to do, while a woman with a tidy ponytail and white uniform perched on a stool, massaging her hands.

‘Maia, I’m in such a state. I’m going to a black tie ball with Arthur tonight and I can’t decide which nail varnish goes with my dress. Would you be a dear and get it out of the wardrobe for me? It’s the long purple one with the fishtail and gold trimming.’

I don’t think I managed to look overjoyed but I still ran upstairs two at a time and raced back down, not caring that I was scrunching the silk up as I tried not to trip over it. I burst back in, just remembering to hang the dress on the door rather than throw it on the settee.

‘Thanks, Maia. Have a look at the nail varnishes and tell me which one you think goes best with it,’ Cecilia said.

The grandfather clock was chiming three o’clock. I needed to leave in the next thirty seconds. I plumped for a pink thing on the first row of the rack.

‘Here, how about Pinking Sheer?’ I said, reading the bottom.

‘That’s quite nice. Can you find Poolside Passion to compare? It’s quite a bright colour. That might be it on the second row.’

I started turning up the different bottles with all their stupid names, Punks in Pink, Pinking the Perky, Pinking Obvious, but no Poolside Passion.

The beauty therapist carried on massaging cream into Cecilia’s hands, making no attempt to help me out. In the hired help category, she obviously considered that someone who ripped out pubic hair was far superior to someone who just cleaned it out of the shower.

‘Cecilia, look, I’m really sorry, I’m going to have to go. I have to fetch the children. I’ve done everything, given the top floor a good clean for your guests, but I’m afraid I haven’t managed to mop the kitchen floor. I have hoovered it though, so it just needs a quick flick over.’

I said it as an aside, pulling off my work slippers and turning towards the door. But the idea of sullying herself with a bottle of Flash seemed to wind Cecilia up. It was like those rubbish seventies shipwreck films Mum loved, where a light wind starts to ruffle the trees gently and before you know it, the waves are tossing people over the side and sails are ripping in two when a few minutes earlier there wasn’t even a ripple in the water.

She sat up very straight on the settee, her dark bob rigid like a tin helmet. ‘Maia, I’m sorry, but doing half a job doesn’t work for me, not when I’m so terribly busy. So I’d be really grateful if you could finish off properly?’

I tried again. ‘I’m sorry but if I don’t go now, I’ll have to pay an extra £16 for the children to go into after-school club which I can’t afford at the moment. I have managed a lot of extra things today.’ I smiled to show that I wasn’t offended.

‘I’m sorry but if you can’t stay on for a few more minutes or organise yourself better to fit in a couple of tiny extras, I probably need to think about employing someone more flexible.’

‘What do you mean? I am flexible. I come in at short notice, I do one-off special cleans when you have people to stay. I pop in on Sundays to tidy up when you’ve had a dinner party. And they weren’t tiny extras, I’ve cleaned a whole floor from top to bottom.’

‘I don’t want to lose you, but if your other commitments mean that you aren’t able to maintain a satisfactory standard, then I think it’s better that you seek alternative employment.’

I stood, I think the prof used to call it, nonplussed. The beautician’s hands slathered and smoothed cream. The spa bath bubbled gently. I couldn’t afford to lose another £60 a week. Harley was already clamouring to do guitar lessons at £160 a term. Unfortunately my mouth opened before I got going with the humble pie.

‘I’m sorry you feel like that. By the way, I popped your vibrator back in the bathroom cupboard in case you’re looking for it.’

I saw the beautician’s hands slow, then stop. I tossed a ‘nice working for you’ over my shoulder and took a second to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing Cecilia’s arched eyebrows disappear into her hairline before the reality of being even worse off depressed the shit out of me.

I decided not to tell Colin about getting the sack. He’d grumped enough when a corpse had made me redundant. I knew he’d somehow bring this latest trouble back to the fact that the kids were at Stirling Hall.

That evening, as soon as he disappeared off down the Working Men’s Club for a game of pool – I never dared point out the irony of his choice of venue – I grabbed my bottle of Malibu and headed to Sandy’s. I’d lived next door to her for eleven years since the council gave me a house when I was expecting Harley. Colin had disappeared for a few months as soon as the words ‘I’m pregnant’ left my mouth but he reappeared, broke and full of soppy promises when Harley was about four months old. In the meantime, Sandy helped me through the new baby fog, taking Harley next door to give me a break from the crying, and passing on clothes that her son, Denim, had grown out of.

Sandy and I knew details about each other that adults weren’t supposed to share. We’d laughed till bubbles came out our noses about the noises men made during sex. Once, after too much Malibu, I’d told her that Colin shouted, ‘Goal’ when he came, so now she always called him the striker. Sometimes she’d ask him, ‘Played much football lately?’ when she knew I could hear. Guilt took the edge off my laughter.

Sandy, on the other hand, took information oversharing to uncomfortable extremes. Instead of saying, ‘You remember so-and-so, you know, blonde hair, heart tattoo,’ she’d say, ‘You remember Dave, the one who liked to watch in the mirror.’ ‘You know, Jim, the one who went at it like a hog in heat?’ She showed no mercy when it came to describing men’s ability in bed, parading across the kitchen doing a reverse fisherman – ‘It was this big’ – and peering at a tiny space between her thumb and forefinger.

Friday nights had become my only little moment of ‘me’ time as the women I worked for called it. They got their feet massaged; I parked myself in Sandy’s kitchen and made the miserable events of the week into something we could laugh about. It was like snuggling under a duvet when it’s snowing outside.

When Sandy opened the door that evening, she had a line of bleach on her top lip. The mouldy hay smell indicated that henna was working its red magic under the Morrisons carrier bag covering her hair. Bronte and Harley pushed past her as they always did, grunting a hello. They were far more interested in bagging a cushion next to her sons, Gypsy and Denim Blue, and settling down to Doctor Who with a jumbo bag of Quavers.

‘Hello, Harley, hello, Bronte,’ Sandy shouted through to the front room. ‘I thought they’d be coming in shaking me hand and doing little bows. You wanna ask for your money back.’

I shrugged and followed her into the kitchen, where I helped myself to a couple of glasses. My sense of humour about Stirling Hall had packed up its troubles in an old kit bag and disappeared completely.

‘So, who’s the lucky man?’ I said, pouring out the Malibu and watching the Coke bubble up into a coconutty froth.

‘Who says there’s a new man?’ she said, a big grin making her little elfin face even pointier.

‘Come off it. You only put that rabbit poo on your hair when there’s a new bloke about.’

Sandy was a single mum who worked shifts packing dog biscuits at the factory down the road. Unlike me, being poor didn’t seem to bother her. She didn’t care that she relied on the charity foundation in town for her kids’ clothes, or that she spent her life switching between credit cards, which even at 0% interest, she had no hope of paying off.

‘He’s a new guy at the factory,’ Sandy said.

‘Called?’

‘Shane.’

‘When did he start?’

‘A few weeks ago.’ Sandy lit a Marlboro Light. I wondered if the bleach was flammable but I knew she’d start chanting Sensible Susan at me if I said anything.

‘Go on, then. Spill the beans. It’s not like you to get all secretive,’ I said.

‘I haven’t been secretive. You’ve been too caught up in blazers and book lists to be interested in my shenanigans,’ she said, in a tone that didn’t sound like a simple observation.

‘Sorry.’ I sighed. ‘I’ve been really busy.’ I waited for her to grin, then jump in with marks out of ten, size of willy, number of ex-wives and kids like she normally would. Instead, she sat there blowing smoke rings until I felt I had to explain.

‘I haven’t had a lot of time for anything. It’s a full-time job remembering to buy plain biscuits so that you don’t get called in because you’ve sent in a bloody chocolate HobNob. I spend half my life making sure Bronte’s hair is tied back with green ribbons, not pink elastic bands, and working out how the hell I am going to afford ballet, guitar and flute lessons while losing every decent paying job I’ve ever had. So I probably have had my head up my arse.’ I took a big glug of Malibu to disguise the wobble in my lip.

‘What? You’ve lost another job? Jesus, you’re gonna beat my record soon.’ Sandy sounded reasonably sympathetic considering her own working life was one long verbal warning. While I launched into my account of Cecilia, she pulled off her jogging bottoms with a mutter of ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ and fetched a little pot of wax off the hob. She splayed her legs and started on her bikini line, her voice fading out like a badly tuned radio when the wax didn’t come off in a clean rip.

Harley came bursting in. He stared at Sandy whose red lace thong appeared to be quite fascinating to a ten-year-old. She made no attempt to shut her legs. ‘You know what they say, Harley, you can’t beat an older woman. You come back in a few years’ time and I’ll show you what I mean.’

Harley shrugged but I could tell from the way he backed towards me that he wasn’t quite sure if she was joking.

‘Mum, Denim says he’s got the latest iPhone. But his is only an iPhone 4, isn’t it? That’s not the latest one, is it? Marlon’s got an iPhone 5. He got it early, cos his birthday’s next week and his mum bought it when she was filming in America. But Denim keeps hitting me when I say that. Can you tell him that his is an old one? He keeps calling me a liar.’

Even though people skills had been the focus of Harley’s Personal, Social and Health Education ‘prep’, he could still fit what he’d learnt into an eggcup. I’d taken such a battering that week that my alcohol-dulled reactions were a bit pterodactyl. Sandy, on the other hand, was quick off the mark.

‘You spoilt little shit. Do you know how many bloody night shifts it took me to get the money together for that? He’s only had it a few months and now he’s going to be at me for the new one. Denim and Gypsy not good enough for you now you’ve got all them poncey little Lord Fauntleroys to play with? Sorry if their stuff isn’t quite up to your majesty’s high standards.’

The colour had risen in Harley’s cheeks. His grey eyes were wide, wide open. He glanced sideways at me. I could feel the puzzlement in him. And in me. Sandy had always been such a soft touch, always telling me to ‘leave off of them, they’re just kids’.

I pulled Harley to me. Sandy had called my son a shit. I never swore at kids. Especially not other people’s. Sandy was bristling away on the other side of the table. We usually ganged up against the woman a few doors down whose kids nicked bikes on the estate, Sandy’s bully-boy boss who smelt of Brut, the bastards in the council’s housing repairs department. Not each other. I looked straight into Harley’s eyes, willing him to go with me on this one.

‘Why don’t you go and say sorry to Denim and say that you think you made a mistake?’

‘I didn’t make a mistake. Marlon has got an iPhone 5.’

I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to shake him. ‘Harley. How would you like it if Denim told you that something you’d got new was a load of old rubbish? You wouldn’t. Go. And. Say. You. Are. Sorry. Then I think it’s time to go. Tell Bronte.’

I screwed the cap back on the Malibu. ‘Sorry about that.’

Sandy carried on attacking some stubborn hairs with her tweezers, head bent over her crotch.

‘I s’pose it’s to be expected if you fill their heads with fancy ideas. But you’re not going to be able to afford all that stuff, neither.’

I hated the satisfaction I could hear in her voice.

CHAPTER EIGHT

End of day dismissal was a formal affair at Stirling Hall. A teacher stood by the door and shook the children’s hands before delivering them directly to the collecting parent, unlike Morlands where they spilled out into the playground and were allowed to wander off with anyone who wasn’t carrying a shotgun.

Bronte came out, hat on straight, duffle coat buttoned up to the top. Her voice sounded really clear when she said, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Peters.’ Not quite top end of town posh but not council estate rough either. My proud mother moment was snuffed out as I realised that Mr Peters, the Head of Upper School, was beckoning to me. As I squeezed forward through the gaggle of parents, Jen1 was coming the other way. I caught her eye and smiled but she looked straight through me. Maybe she could only recognise people dressed in Jasper rather than George.

‘Would you have a moment to pop into my office, Ms Etxeleku? Take a seat in reception, I’ll be right with you,’ Mr Peters said.

I nodded, running through the checklist in my head of all my crimes for that week – only ironing cuffs and collars on the school shirts, not ironing Harley’s rugby shirt at all, chocolate digestives for snack two days running, forgetting to check Bronte’s English homework for capital letters and full stops. I was about to disappear through the door, when Clover pulled on my arm.

‘Hi. If you’re going to be a few minutes at the school, why don’t I relieve you of Bronte? She can play with the twins. You can pick her up when you’ve finished. We live right at the end of the lane that runs adjacent to the Royal Oak pub. You can’t miss us, it’s the only house down there.’

Bronte was tugging at my T-shirt and hopping from foot to foot. ‘Can I go with Clover, Mum? I want to see their guinea pigs and rabbits. Please?’

‘That would be great. I just need to find Harley and tell him to wait here for me,’ I said.

Clover fiddled with the toggle on her anorak. ‘I think Harley is waiting for you in Mr Peters’ office. Why don’t you bring him over too and stay for supper when you’ve finished?’

Usually Clover talked loud enough for the whole class to share her thoughts. Her low voice and the way she kept shaking her head at Orion were making me twitchy.

I mumbled a thank you and dived into the entrance corridor lined with posters about five fruit and veg a day, anti-bullying slogans and the benefits of cycling. The squeak of my Crocs on the grey tiles was getting faster and faster. At a corridor crossroads, I saw signs for the physics lab, dance studio, music room but no bloody reception in the business of receiving mothers who were only used to classrooms numbered one to six. Mr Peters caught up with me in a waft of spicy aftershave. ‘Ms Etxeleku, thank you so much for coming in. I won’t keep you a moment, I just wanted a word about Harley.’

‘Is he okay?’ I said, almost having to trot to keep up with his long strides.

‘He’s fine, absolutely fine.’ He steered me left into a room with three chairs arranged in a semi-circle in front of a huge mahogany desk. Harley was in the middle one, with his head bent forwards, slumped on the padded velour armrest. He didn’t bother to look round.

‘Take a seat, Ms Etxeleku.’

‘Hello, love,’ I said, reaching for Harley’s hand. He squeezed my fingers tightly, needily, staring straight ahead without blinking. His breath was whistling in and out of his nose.

Mr Peters sat on the edge of his desk, his broad shoulders silhouetted against the window. His black shoes were smooth and shiny, teacher-like, but I could see an inch of purple and lime spotty socks peeping out under his trousers. He ran his hand over his short hair. ‘This is a bit of a delicate matter, Ms Etxeleku, but there’s been a little problem today between Harley and one of his classmates. From what I understand, there was a bit of teasing that got out of hand, and then the matter seemed to take rather a violent turn.’

‘What do you mean, violent turn?’

‘Harley punched the boy in question in the face.’

I didn’t speak. I pinched the bridge of my nose and stared down at the hole in the knee of my tracksuit bottoms. All the bad decisions I’d not so much made as allowed to happen – letting Harley mix with the older boys on the estate, shrugging off the odd punch-up in the back alley, not being there when he came home from school – crushed in on me. I’d done my best, which was crap and the crap was about to hit the fan.

Harley tugged at my hand. ‘Mum. Mum. I’m sorry. He was calling me a pikey. He said that you dressed from jumble sales and Oxfam, that Dad stole car wheels for a living and that we lived in a caravan under the bridge by the station. Dad said if anyone laughed at me, I should punch them hard enough to make their brains rattle.’

The desk creaked as Mr Peters stood up. He loosened his tie slightly. ‘Ms Etxeleku. This wasn’t all Harley’s fault. Hugo was being very unkind. At Stirling Hall we have a zero-tolerance bullying policy and we do take it very seriously.’

Oh God. Hugo. No, please God. ‘Jennifer’s son?’

‘Yes, I have already seen Mrs Seaford this afternoon. Hugo did sustain a cut eye and some bruising to his cheek, so as a precaution, she is going to take him to A&E to get him checked out.’

I could feel sweat running down my back. ‘Will the police be involved?’

‘As I am sure you will appreciate, Ms Etxeleku, we cannot allow boys to take matters into their own hands, whatever the provocation. Mrs Seaford wanted to involve the police but I think I have managed to dissuade her from that course of action on the grounds that her son’s appalling behaviour would also come under scrutiny.’ His dark eyes were serious but kind.

I kept swallowing but I couldn’t seem to get any moisture in my mouth. I looked at Harley. He wasn’t making any noise but huge gloopy tears were pouring down his face and making dark circles on his white shirt. I patted his hand gently and he got up and poured himself into my arms, burrowing into my shoulder until I could feel the damp heat of his face.

‘May I talk frankly?’ Mr Peters said.

I nodded, though I knew that ‘frankly’ meant Harley would be emptying his desk.

‘Your son has great potential. I think Stirling Hall could help mould him into a fine young man. He is struggling with the academic work, but we have set up some one-to-one tutoring so we could potentially bridge the gap. He has real sporting talent and Harley’s drama teacher tells me he can see star quality there.’ A cufflink clinked against the desk as he leaned back.

I was getting hot under the weight of Harley leaning into me. I tried to relax my shoulders while I waited for the ‘but’.

‘Stirling Hall does have many boys from, let’s say, very comfortable backgrounds. However, the philosophy of the school is to ensure that every boy who comes here accesses the same opportunities. That does, of course, mean that all parents need to support our Platinum rules that include “We solve our disagreements by talking to each other”. I understand your circumstances are quite unique, so a period of adjustment is to be expected while Harley learns what is required of him.’ He unbuttoned his jacket. To my ironing lady’s eye, his blue striped shirt looked hand-tailored.

My heart lifted a little, a bit like it did when I thought I’d missed the bus but a big queue was still standing there when I came racing round the corner.

‘But—’ he said.

There it was. I looked to see how far it was to the door. I wondered if I could make a dash to the van before I started blubbing.

‘But we cannot have boys brawling. I know that some head teachers turn a blind eye to these sorts of disputes, but this is not the way of Stirling Hall.’

A shooting pain through my back tooth reminded me to unclench my jaw.

‘So. What I propose is that I suspend Harley,’ Mr Peters said.

‘Suspend? What? How long for?’

‘I think it would be fair to suspend Harley for two days and Hugo for one, which means Harley would be back in school by Thursday. I do have to say, Ms Etxeleku, if there is another occasion of this severity, Harley is likely to face expulsion. You may wish to convey that to your husband.’

Many years of practising good manners obviously helped him to leave out ‘your arsehole of a husband’.

‘Of course. Thank you, thank you so much. Harley won’t let you down again, will you, Harley?’ Something relaxed in my body as though someone had been standing on my shoulders and had finally hoicked themselves over the wall. Mr Peters smiled down at me. He looked quite boyish when he smiled, almost cheeky, probably not much older than me.

Now that a second chance was on the table, I wanted to stop patting Harley’s shoulders and drag him outside by the ear. Bellow at him for being so bloody stupid. Shake him till his teeth rattled. Ban him from ever talking to anybody on our estate over the age of five again. Ground him until he was twenty-five. Or maybe I just wanted to cry.

Harley peeled himself off my shoulder. His mouth was twitching with the effort of holding back his tears. He shuffled from one foot to another, staring at the floor, then finally seemed to gather the energy to speak. ‘I won’t let you down. Thank you very much, sir. And sir? I’m really sorry.’

‘You’re a good lad. Now get out of here and learn to keep your fists to yourself. You come to me first if there’s a problem.’

I wondered if Mr Peters had a wife.

Harley and I drove towards Clover’s. We took the turning by the pub where the smart townhouses gave way to fields and farmhouses and the road became an unsurfaced lane. Filthy splurges of water shot up the side of the van every time I clunked down a pothole. At the very end, hidden by mature sycamore and chestnut trees, stood a huge ivy-covered building with a dark slate roof. The windows looked as though random bits of putty were keeping them in their peeling wooden frames. Wellies, riding crops and scooters lay tangled in the front porch. Harley and I weaved our way to the door, dodging mini mountains of horse manure. I lifted the lion’s head door knocker. Judging by his green teeth, Brasso wasn’t on Clover’s shopping list.

Clover opened the door in a black swimming costume patterned with huge poppies. She looked like the potato men Bronte used to make – a big round body stuck on thin little cocktail sticks. Unlike Sandy, she was a stranger to the Brazilian, the Hollywood, and apparently, the Bic. I felt as though I’d blundered in on her in the shower, but she waved us in with all the confidence of a size zero model.

‘Come in, come in, hello Harley. Sorry, the girls really wanted to go for a little dip so Bronte borrowed a costume, hope you don’t mind. Orion’s in the pool as well, so do you want to go in, Harley? I’ve been in with them but you can all keep an eye on each other now, can’t you? Don’t worry about taking your shoes off, the whole place is so fucking filthy, keep meaning to get on top of it, but with the horses we’re always dragging in more muck so it seems a bit of a waste of time.’

We trailed behind Clover. The couldn’t-care-less-ness of someone who could greet near strangers in a swimsuit despite having gargoyles of cellulite hanging from her buttocks thrilled and shocked me. She led us into a huge kitchen with an Aga at one end where Y-fronts, stripy tights and hiking socks were drying, filling the room with the smell of damp sheep. A ginger cat as big as a pillow stretched out on the long pine table.

Harley grabbed my arm. ‘Is that a real bird?’ he said, pointing to a blue parrot on the dresser.

I was doing a double take when Clover said, ‘That’s Einstein. We found him in the garden about four years ago.’

‘Wicked! Does he talk?’

‘Yes, he says a few things. Orion is really good at getting him to speak, he’ll show you later.’

I wondered if it pooed everywhere. Clover led us out of a back entrance and into a massive garden full of apple and pear trees. ‘The pool’s out here. Careful where you walk. Orion is supposed to be on bleeding doggy-doo duty but he’s not very diligent.’

She grabbed Harley’s arm and steered him through the mud to the pool house, where shouts and squeals rang out. Through the steamed-up glass, I saw Bronte giggling away as she tried to balance on a blow-up dolphin and keep up with the twins. Orion was sitting on the end of the diving board, swinging his legs. As soon as we stepped through the door, he leapt in and swam over to us.

‘Hey, Mike Tyson. Are you coming in?’ Orion was on his own in finding Harley’s fisticuffs funny, but I felt relieved that at least one child was still speaking to him.

‘We’d better go and let you get on,’ I said to Clover.

‘I’ve got nothing to get on with. I’m going to dig out a pair of swimmies for Harley, then I’ll get you a drink.’

She found a towelling robe for herself and a pair of Speedos that would have been tight on Action Man for Harley. He stiffened beside me, backing towards the pool door like a dog on its last journey to the vet.

‘Have you got boxers on, Harley? You have? Why don’t you swim in those?’ I said.

For once Harley did as I suggested, stripping off his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor and dive-bombing the girls. I envied and resented his ability to bounce back when the skin on my face was so tight and pinched that it felt like someone had tied my ponytail too tight.

‘Come on, I bet you need a drink,’ Clover said. I hoped Clover-speak was the same as Sandy-speak and that I wasn’t going to get a mug of stewed nettles and cat hair. Back in the kitchen she threw open the fridge and hooked out a bottle. ‘Drop of shampoo?’

Champagne on a Monday night where I lived was because someone had got out on appeal. ‘Just a drop, thanks, cos I’ve got to drive back,’ I said.

‘We’ll call you a cab. You can leave the car here.’

Clover must have seen the cash register tinging in my eyes. ‘Anyway, we can worry about that later. You can still have a glass.’

I wiped the rim of the tumbler she gave me with the bottom of my sweatshirt while she had her back turned.

‘Bottoms up,’ Clover said. Just as we clinked glasses, the kitchen door opened and a tall, slim man with dark, curly hair came in. It had to be Lawrence, Clover’s husband. He was an older, more groomed version of Orion. In his suit, he looked as though he’d stumbled into Glastonbury by mistake. Clover introduced us and he said hello without really registering me, just raised an eyebrow at the champagne bottle. He poked about among the roasting tins, colanders and saucepans piled high in the butler’s sink, pulling out a rainbow-coloured welly before he found a mug.

Although nothing suggested he was the least bit interested in who I was or what I was doing there, Clover filled him in. ‘Poor old Maia’s had a terrible day. Hugo was beastly to Maia’s son, and they got into a bit of a punch-up and Hugo came off worse. He’s an arrogant little sod, he had it coming to him.’

‘Like mother, like son. Jennifer’s pretty arrogant herself,’ Lawrence said. I was surprised to hear a Mancunian accent.

‘She’s not that bad. At least she does all the class admin like the fete and tickets for the school play that no one else wants to do.’ Clover topped up her champagne. I shook my head as she pushed the bottle towards me.

‘Don’t be so naive. She loves lording it over people. If Jennifer hadn’t managed to trap Leo, she would still be touting cheese and pickle rolls around Canary Wharf,’ Lawrence said.

‘That’s not fair. Lawrence works in the same department as Jennifer’s husband, Leo,’ she said, turning to me.

‘It is fair. You’d think someone who tracks Japanese investments for a living would have enough brains to remember the condoms when he’s shagging the sandwich trolley dolly.’ Lawrence tried to squash an empty jar of coffee into an overflowing bin.

It was so rare for anything to surprise me in a mouth open, bloody hell sort of way, but Jen1 being from the wrong side of the tracks shot onto the list. I sieved through my dealings with her for the tiniest clue that her diamond studs had once been hypoallergenic lumps of glass from Topshop. Nothing. The woman had studied the middle-class stage and learnt her lines well. That accent. Christ, Jen1 could topple Queen Lizzie II off her throne if she got any posher. Still, the mean part of me would always want to start singing, ‘Prawns and mayonnaise? Bacon butty? Egg and cress?’ whenever I saw her now. On the other hand, if I ever managed to get posh myself, she’d be able to sing, ‘Pan scourer, bog brush, bin bag’ at me, so for now, I’d just sing it in my head.

I tried to look as though I wasn’t even following the conversation. I didn’t want to give Lawrence a reason to ask me about my background. Usually when I said I was a cleaner, a fidgety silence followed while people searched for something good to say about that ‘career choice’. Except Clover who said, ‘Oh my God, don’t tell Lawrence, he’ll want to marry you.’

Just as I was about to go out to call the children in, they came trooping back, trailing great puddles of water and demanding food. I started rounding mine up to leave when Einstein came flashing through the air to shrieks of delight from Harley and Bronte. Lawrence ducked as Einstein whistled past his head, which made him knock over his coffee.

‘Fucking parrot. I’m going to wring its neck one of these days.’

The parrot sat perched on the top of the kitchen door. I swear it was smiling.

‘Poor old Einstein. He doesn’t have very good spatial awareness any more. It’s his age.’ Clover started mopping up the spill with a tracksuit top.

Harley was over by the door, trying to get the parrot to speak. ‘Pretty Polly, hello, Einstein?’ Einstein replied by squirting out a white and brown jet of parrot poo down the door, which had the girls squealing with laughter.

Orion came over. ‘Listen to this. What’s your name?’

‘Einstein,’ came the parrot’s raspy voice.

‘Where do you live?’ Orion waved some kind of seedy snack at him.

‘In a fucking mad house,’ Einstein said, before snatching the snack and cracking it open.

‘I spent ages teaching him that.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lawrence shaking his head.

CHAPTER NINE

Stirling Hall seemed to have a fundraiser almost every week. What they were raising funds for was a mystery, given that there were only so many grand pianos, Mercedes minibuses and Olympic-sized trampolines a school could need. A couple of Saturdays before February half-term it was Fete Day – yet another occasion when Bronte sulked off in front of me and I trailed behind questioning whether I’d made the right decision to send her here.

She stomped into the school hall, without even glancing at the stalls around the edges, as though welly-wanging or marking the treasure on the papier mâché island were beneath her. She was carrying the shoebox she’d covered in old wallpaper and filled with baked beans, bread rolls and teabags destined for the local old people’s home. The night before, she’d moaned that all the other mothers went out shopping specially for the Fete Day charity donation rather than bunging in anything that wasn’t out of date in the kitchen cupboard. Since the prof had died and Cecilia had given me the boot, I was fast becoming a charity case myself. I hoped that Edna, Gertie or whoever was unlucky enough to get our box would forgive me for the budget biscuits that Colin said tasted like bus tickets.

Just as Bronte was hiding her box in the corner, Jen1 pushed past me in a way that made it difficult to know whether she had underestimated the size of her arse by a few centimetres or was looking for a punch-up. She hadn’t glanced in my direction since the Harley–Hugo fiasco. I should have gone over and had a straight conversation with her, but a quiet word was never an option given that the pipe cleaner people she hung out with always surrounded her. Now, at school pick-up, I had to steel myself to get out of the van. I wanted to be oblivious to her but instead I felt the drain of energy it takes to ignore someone.

One thing it was impossible to ignore, however, was her ‘charitable contribution’. All that was missing from her wicker basket was a man with a trumpet. Snuggling in the red tissue paper were pineapples, goji berries, organic lentils, wheat-free muesli, miso soup and a coconut. I imagined some poor sod with arthritic fingers trying to hack into the coconut or getting goji berries stuck in his false teeth when all he wanted was a cup of PG Tips and a ham sandwich. Maybe my baked beans weren’t so bad after all.

‘Bowl of adzuki beans, anyone?’

I swung round. Clover was a sight to behold in turquoise flares that only a six-foot model should attempt, not a stout woman on the wrong side of short. She pressed a couple of pounds into the twins’ hands and told them to ‘bugger off and have a go on a few stalls, but don’t buy any crap’.

‘Otherwise you find that all the junk you got rid of for the white elephant stall is replaced with someone else’s shite,’ Clover said, taking my arm. ‘Now, let’s get this tattoo stall up and running.’

Through the doors leading out into the playground I could see Lawrence setting up the football nets for Five for a Prize. Even though it was drizzling slightly, I wished we were outside. Instead, we fought our way through children clutching coins and grandmas with pushchairs going nowhere fast. Our table was at the side of the hall between the Knock Down the Can and the Wild West shooting stall, where dads were making seven-year-olds cry by hogging the plastic revolvers to prove that they weren’t hotshots only at the office.

It was sweatier than the Tube in a July rush hour. I stuck my hands in the bowl of water we were going to use for the tattoos. A few mothers hurried their children past. ‘No, no, tattoos are so common. No, I don’t care if they wash off, they look awful.’

Most parents seemed amused, as though they were somehow walking on the wild side themselves by letting their kids have a seahorse on their wrist. They wouldn’t be thinking it was such a jolly jape if their darling Henrietta, Rory or Oscar came home with a big declaration of love for Chardonnay or Gav tattooed across their backs in ten years’ time. Or a great big spider like Tarants.

A queue formed and Clover and I pressed on butterflies, hearts and flowers, throwing sticky little fifty pences into a Tupperware container. I’d hardly had time to look up when I heard someone call my name.

‘Ms Etxeleku. How do you like your first Stirling Hall fete?’

Mr Peters still managed to look formal in jeans and a white linen shirt. I felt as though he’d come to tell me off and my mind immediately started running through apologies, excuses and big fat lies. I should have stuck to a non-nutty ‘lovely, thank you’. Instead I said, ‘Would you like a tattoo?’ and then wanted to kill myself. Heads of Upper School probably didn’t go in for a lot of body art.

He surprised me. He laughed. ‘Very rebel without a cause. What do you suggest?’

I pulled out a new sheet, managing to knock my wet sponge into my crotch as I did so. ‘What about a devil?’

‘I leave being naughty to the kids these days, during the week at least. No, I fancy something a bit exotic,’ he said.

Clover leaned over. ‘Mr Peters, that’s favouritism, choosing the new girl on the block. What about all us mums who’ve been slaving away every year since our kids were in nursery? I’ve got a lovely big dragon here I could stick somewhere secret.’

I envied Clover. Being so at ease with it all. But I also wanted her to snout out so I could have Mr Peters to myself, like a child with a protective arm round a bowl of crisps.

‘Thanks for the offer, Mrs Wright, but I don’t want to get too subversive now, do I? Maybe next year.’ He turned back to me. ‘What about that Chinese character?’

‘Okay, where do you want it?’

There was the slightest pause. A tiny curve upwards at the side of his mouth gave me a glimpse of the man he might have been before he dedicated his life to setting a good example.

‘Left or right arm?’ I said. Without looking, I knew that a slow flush would be turning my neck and chest blotchy. I pretended to pick something up off the floor so I could dab at the sweat on my upper lip. Mr Peters sat down and rolled up his sleeve. A forearm made for arm-wrestling. Smooth olivey skin, quite hairy. Big hands but slim fingers and clean fingernails. Everything about him was tended, clipped and cared for. I bet his skin smelt of something lemony. And I bet he didn’t leave whiskers round the sink.

‘Harley seems to be settling down nicely now. In the last couple of weeks since “the incident”, I’ve seen a big change in him,’ Mr Peters said, almost drowned out by the noise and excitement of the Knock Down the Can stall next door.

‘Yes, I think he’s doing much better. Thanks for being so kind to him.’

I wasn’t about to tell Mr Peters that since Harley had given Hugo what for, he’d become a bit of a hero among the boys. His new nickname was ‘Mike’ and the lunchtime footballing gang seemed to have adopted him as a mascot.

‘I wasn’t being kind. I was being fair. Between you and me, I think that little event has given him a certain kudos amongst his classmates,’ he said, leaning in so I could hear him.

Of course. He knew everything. He’d probably worked out that I’d spent ages getting ready that morning, even painting my nails, which was something I rarely did these days. I was glad I had. Didn’t want him thinking that I only did holey tracksuits, Crocs and punch-ups.

‘How are you settling in, Ms Etxeleku?’ he asked, clear greeny-grey eyes trapping me in their gaze.

I mumbled, ‘Fine,’ and became very focused on sponging his tattoo, which, praise the Lord, went on in one piece.

‘Perfect,’ Mr Peters said. ‘I could imagine you in a tattoo parlour inking enormous eagles onto bikers’ backs.’

I think we realised at the same time that might not be as unlikely for me as for most of the mothers at Stirling Hall who were either -ologists of some sort, solicitors, investment bankers or married to one. Mr Peters blushed. ‘No offence, you know what I mean. It was a compliment to your marvellous artistic skills.’

Big red patches like stunted starfish settled on his face. I was fascinated to see a guy with so much going for him, so smart, so in control, blush like that. If I ever got to a place in my life where I could join in a clever conversation and speak with confidence, even on brainy things – politics, literature, the environment – because I had the knowledge to back me up, I swore to God I was never going to waste a minute blushing again.

For the moment, however, I blushed along with him, even though he hadn’t offended me at all. My mother used to call it vergüenza ajena, a sort of second-hand embarrassment at other people’s fuck-ups. I think we were both grateful when the next woman in the queue called Mr Peters’ attention. It was the mother of Kuan-Yin, the little Chinese girl who, along with the few other Asian children – sons and daughters of consultants and lawyers – featured heavily in photos around the school as though Stirling Hall was a multicultural hotbed.

‘Mr Peters. I see you have the tattoo for love,’ she said, pointing at his arm with her small elegant fingers.

‘Love?’

‘Yes, this is the Chinese symbol for love. Does this mean there’s someone special in your life?’ She smiled so widely that both rows of her neat little teeth were on display.

‘I couldn’t possibly comment, Mrs Shen,’ he said, leaning over to put his 50p in my box. He did smell of lemon. ‘Nice tattoo, thanks,’ he said, vacating his chair for Kuan-Yin.

As soon as he’d gone, Clover tapped me on the shoulder. ‘All the mums are dying to get off with him, he’s so gorgeous. Must be something to do with all that calm authority that makes him so sexy. Every time he gets seen out on the town with a woman, the Stirling Hall jungle drums go into overdrive. Always seems to go for brunettes, so you’re in there.’

‘I can’t resist the beer-bellied, unemployed and in deep debt, myself. I wouldn’t know what to do with someone who had a proper job.’

Clover laughed and went back to her swords and flowers. I started sticking on a rainbow for Kuan-Yin, quietly looking round the room to see where Mr Peters had gone. He was over by the Bash-a-Rat stand, chatting to bloody Jen1. He looked up and caught my eye. Probably checking that I wasn’t making off with the fifty pences.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.