The Misadventures of a Playground Mother (11 page)

I'd noticed it was becoming the norm to pour myself a glass or two of wine in the early evening while preparing the children's tea. These were empty calories to say the least that needed to be disposed of immediately, but sometimes a small tonic was just what I needed during the children's meal times when they refused to eat or were squabbling amongst themselves.

Finally admitting to myself that I needed to take back some control, my mind began racing with keep-fit ideas. I wasn't the type of woman to feel comfortable spending time at the gym, competing against other men and women drenched with sweat. Wearing the latest sports gear, exhibiting the latest headphones in a driven environment, and taking out a yearly membership that in all likelihood would be wasted after a couple of visits, wasn't for me. Diet products were equally as dreadful: chalky milkshakes, chocolate looking bars that tasted of cardboard; anyone with an ounce of common sense knows the only sensible way to lose weight is to put less in and move more.

Deciding that walking was no longer keeping me toned or providing me with a mental challenge, my mind was made up; I was going to start running. Every runner I noticed was not only fit but also thin. Magazine articles highlighted stories from women who became addicted once the running bug took its hold.

In all honesty, I had no idea where this thought emerged from; it was a laughable plan, really. I detested running and I couldn't do it very well. I was the kid at school that did everything in her power to skive the cross-country races, nipping behind the bushes and walking up the lane to the nearest friend's house to enjoy a can of coke. Then, smearing ourselves with mud and splashing in puddles, we'd sneakily re-join the race on the bend where the teachers didn't have the manpower to supervise, and sprint over the finish line; but I was still always last.

Yet despite this, my mind was made up, there was nothing like the here and now so I went to retrieve my old battered trainers from the overcrowded shoe boxes in the utility room. Throwing on a T-shirt and pair of shorts and hiding the front door key under the broken plant pot, I headed off, attempting to co-ordinate my arms and legs in broad daylight, looking more like a demented drunk spider than Mo Farah.

Clasping my water bottle, my heart was pounding, sweat poured off my forehead as I'd never experienced before. I wasn't sure I'd even clocked up 400 metres; I was going to die, and fighting for my breath, I soon halted. Bending over clutching the pain that crippled my side, I concluded I'd spent longer getting changed for the outing than actually running. Turning around, I headed home which actually, wasn't very far at all.

D
etermined not be beaten
, I decided I had gone about this running lark all wrong. Throwing myself into strenuous exercise like this was simply idiotic; I'd obviously been hanging around with Penelope way too long as this was the type of madcap idea she would normally be responsible for. Putting my best foot forward – I wasn't quite sure which was my best foot – and coming up with plan B, I decided the best thing to do was to up the ante at a reasonable pace.

Plan B: After dark, I would attempt to run again. Outlining the route in my mind, nothing too strenuous of course, I prepared myself to half walk and half jog to the telephone box approximately a mile up the lane, which was located on the corner outside the local shop, then return home walking.

Once all the children were fed, washed and ready for bed, I placed my old battered trainers on my feet once more. Matt was curled up on the settee with the dog looking comfy, ‘I'll see you in five minutes,' he said smirking. ‘If it's any longer, I know you will have nipped into the local for a pint.'

‘Cheeky,' I laughed, winking back.

Wandering out into the cold night air my second attempt was underway. I'd show Matt; this time next year I would be running marathons. Setting my new running app, which I'd downloaded that afternoon, I was off. This time I was not sprinting like a rabbit being chased by a fox, but taking deep breaths and finding a rhythm that started to suit my clumsy co-ordination. Slow and steady wins the race. I was jogging, albeit slowly, but faster than walking – just. Fighting against the voices in my head that were screaming for me to stop, I created myself targets, pushing my legs to the next tree, the next bus-stop. I was ambushed by a gaggle of women on the main road through the village, who overtook me at great speed, dressed in bright pink trainers and tight black running leggings. I was amused by the wearing of sun visors, I wasn't sure of the purpose of those at this time of night. I recognised the women; they were mothers from the same school, obviously the running clique.

Before I knew it, I was leaning against the phone box fighting for breath; nevertheless, I'd done it. I was enormously proud of myself.

I turned round to head back home slowly – I actually had trouble putting one foot in front of the other if I'm truly honest – yet I was delighted with my achievement. I spotted a figure in the distance walking rapidly towards me. I recognised Penelope who was approaching me faster than a high-speed train, and I immediately noticed her tear-stained face.

‘Are you OK?' I asked her.

Penelope, looking up, appeared startled; she was obviously not expecting to bump into me, never mind dressed in old shorts and T-shirt and fighting for breath.

‘Whatever has happened?' I asked.

Penelope was having difficulty communicating through the sniffles, but she waved her tissue in the direction of her house and we walked over together. Taking the house keys from her hand, I unlocked the door. Flicking on the light switch, I helped her to remove her coat, hung it on the peg, and ushered her into the living room. Grabbing a box of tissues, I thrust them into her hand and headed towards her kitchen to make a cuppa.

I fumbled for the light switch, and then stopped dead in the kitchen doorway and stared. The sight was unbelievable: mountains and mountains of clothes in mammoth piles were heaped on the table, drooped over the chairs and dangled from the curtain rails. After finally tracking the kettle down under all the clothes, I removed the mugs from the cupboard and dropping the teabags into them, I stared around the room.

Recognising the sea of red and black garments scattered around the room, I saw that Penelope really had her work cut out for the uniform sale. There was tons of the stuff; she could never manage all this on her own and she had clearly buckled under the strain. Picking up various items near the kettle and inspecting them, I saw they were in dire condition. The pile on the table were in the best condition with the price tags still attached. In fact, all the clothes on the table still had the labels attached. Hopefully Penelope would remember to remove them before the uniform sale.

Placing a mug of tea in Penelope's hand, I realised Matt would be wondering where the hell I was after leaving the house nearly an hour ago. Quickly taking my phone out of my bum-bag – which I acknowledge is not a good look, after observing the running clique mums – I sent him a text informing him I was with Penelope.

Meanwhile, Penelope's tears began to flow faster and she was plucking the tissues out of the box at a rate of knots, she was certainly devastated.

‘I'm going to have to reacquaint myself with Rupert, and take him back; we need to be a family again,' she wailed.

I didn't understand; she was coping fantastically on her own; less manic than usual and was appearing a lot more chilled about life. OK, so it had taken her a few months to adjust to single life and organise her finances but the toughest times were hopefully behind her now.

‘We need to be a family again, and the sooner the better. It's Little Jonny, the separation, split whatever you want to call it, is having a massive effect on him,' she sobbed.

My heart truly went out to her. Her tears were genuinely out of concern for her children. I hadn't realised the children had been affected so much, and was quite saddened that as a friend, I hadn't detected they were struggling. I'd let her down. Leaping from the chair and throwing my arms around her, she continued to sob into the dark depths of my sweaty armpit.

Gently releasing her, I apologised for not spotting any signs. As far as I could remember, Little Jonny had been bounding to school quite happily from the times I had witnessed in the mornings and bouncing out just as happy at the end of the school day. How did I get this all so wrong?

‘It was today, the shock when I saw it, I felt sick to the pit of my stomach,' she carried on.

All kinds of thoughts were racing through my mind; what could she have possibly witnessed? There and then I made up my mind to support them through counselling or whatever it took to help Little Jonny and Annabel deal with the trauma of coming from a broken family.

‘I was paralysed in the doorway I couldn't move, and not believing my eyes I took a closer look. My eyes weren't deceiving me, It was there in a fluorescent pink circle: Miles has over-taken him on the leadership board. Little Jonny is no longer the best reader in the class,' Penelope cried.

The look on my face must have said it all. Penelope was pounding the streets wailing, all because Miles in the same class as Little Jonny had overtaken him on the reader scheme. I was speechless, utterly speechless.

‘I've neglected him, it's my entire fault, I decided to put myself first and dispose of Rupert not giving it a second thought on how it would affect Little Jonny's education.'

Penelope was unbelievably distraught and I sincerely didn't like to witness her in this state, but it was just a reading book. All children develop at different rates in their own time. Little Jonny was probably enjoying himself a fraction more now he has been released from the gruelling schedule of workbooks, reading and spelling due to Penelope's readjustment to her circumstances.

There was nothing more I could do. In all sincerity, I was utterly perplexed by the situation. School work with the children was never really high on my priority list; my general opinion being the little ones spend hours at school and when they return to the comfort of their own home they need to relax, play games and have a laugh. Respecting that we are all different, I gave Penelope a quick hug and told her to get an early night, tomorrow was the uniform sale day and judging by all the piles of clothes in the kitchen she would have her work cut out transporting and hanging them all up before nine o'clock in the morning.

Matt was convinced my detour from my exercise regime had been straight to the bar of the local pub, and not to Penelope's.

T
he day
of the uniform sale was upon us; the hall would be opened up to the mothers at 9:30 a.m. for the purchase of items. Penelope wasn't present in her usual spot next to mine on the morning school run. Time was getting on and I was just about to enquire where she was, when Melanie noticed her hanging out of the headmistress's office shouting coo-ee and waving wildly at the pair of us, ensuring every other mother in the playground noticed her too, of course.

She was really taking her role seriously especially as she had descended on the headmistress at this time in the morning; Melanie joked that she bet the headmistress regretted off-loading the job on to Penelope now. Waving back at Penelope I wandered across to the window that she was hanging out of; she seemed in very high spirits compared to how she'd been the night before. I asked if she required my help to hang all those clothes up and organise the sale, but she assured me it was all under control.

Melanie and I decided to hang around the playground after the children had filtered into their classrooms, to give Penelope some moral support. She must have been up at the crack of dawn transporting all those clothes to school, preparing price tags, and hanging them up onto the clothes rails. There were other mothers circulating in the playground waiting for the doors to open, but not many that I recognised any more, maybe they were newer mothers from the years below. Glancing around the playground, it suddenly dawned on me I hadn't seen BB for a while

The lovely school secretary opened up the side door to the school hall sharp at 9.30 a.m. The school building was nothing remarkable; in fact, it was very unimpressive. It was home to approximately 120 children based in six classes. It was a very spacious building, all on one level, with a large hall that doubled up as a dining room at lunchtime and used by the after school clubs for activities. In addition, there was one large field, a netball court and a bandstand – still to be used – bought by the Petty Tedious Army after numerous fundraising efforts.

Melanie and I were standing back in amazement as we witnessed a frenzy once the doors were opened; for a moment, we thought Gary Barlow must be in the building as the mothers, re-enacting a scene from Black Friday, pushed into each other, tripping and falling as they tried to squeeze through the door. The school secretary was lucky to have escaped with her life. Melanie and I headed in slowly; neither of us was in any rush to fight our way through the hysterical mothers trying to bag a bargain and I was in no hurry to purchase back any of the clothes I had donated. Once inside the hall the previous five minutes seemed like a dream, everyone was calm, no one was pushing, and in fact, they were all standing in an orderly fashion looking mystified.

The hall appeared strangely quiet, which led me to stare in Penelope's direction. She was standing behind a table with an aluminium tin – probably full of loose change – her homemade name badge with the words PTA chairperson was being worn with pride, and I honestly felt like saluting her, or placing one leg behind the other and giving a quick curtesy.

Melanie was nudging me in the back, bending forward to whisper in my ear, ‘Where are all the clothes, I can only see one rail; I thought you'd told me Penelope's kitchen was overrun with uniforms?'

Glancing from the back of the queue, straining my neck to see, Melanie was correct there were no clothes except one rail with a handful of jumpers and polo shirts with the odd skirt and pair of trousers thrown in for good measure. The mothers began muttering amongst themselves, ‘Is this it? Where are all the clothes? What a waste of time!'

Soon enough, we witnessed the mothers who had fought hard to elbow their way to the front of the queue, now turning away, disappointed, scuttle back to their household chores, rattling their loose change with not a carrier bag to swing between them. Apart from Penelope, the only two people that were left in the vast vacant hall were Melanie and me.

Dumbfounded by the lack of clothing, I wasn't sure that Penelope's first mission set by Bridget the headmistress had been a resounding success. Penelope, appearing embarrassed by the whole scenario, began to unhang the few items that were dangling on the rail and to drop them back into carrier bags. We were just about to question Penelope on the whereabouts of the clothing when Bridget appeared at the doorway to supervise the sale. There was only one thing for it; I wasn't going to be summoned to the headmistress's office at the age of thirty-five. Retreating quickly out of the school hall, Melanie and I left Penelope explaining to Bridget where it had all gone wrong.

W
e were
both feeling a little parched and at a loose end so decided to drive into town to treat ourselves to one of the delicious pastries that were sold by the quaint little coffee shop located in the corner of the church square.

Luckily, we managed to find ourselves a table situated in the window, and sank into the comfy chairs. We sat waiting for the waitress and watched the hustle and bustle of the town pass us by. Our chat turned to Penelope and the disastrous clothes sale. I just didn't understand it, swearing blind to Melanie that her kitchen had been jam-packed, full to the brim with uniforms – piles and piles of the garments cluttering up her kitchen – where had it all disappeared to? The only explanation we could come up with was that between the time, I left Penelope's house last night and the early hours of the morning, she had been working extremely hard to secure sales of the items before the actual event started. Which would ensure that she wouldn't be giving up hours of her time in the morning; hats off to her for using her own initiative if this was the case.

With Penelope, still our topic of conversation, Melanie began quizzing me over our upcoming holiday arrangements. In fact, for the past few months I had been successful in blocking the very thought of this holiday out of my mind. To be honest I had no idea what was going to happen; the holiday had been booked during Rupert and Penelope's anniversary meal last year. At the time, they pressed that final button on the laptop to confirm they were spending their holiday at our house in Spain with no proper discussion. Matt and I felt conned and that our holiday had been hijacked. Over the past couple of months, walking on eggshells, I had managed not mention the holiday in front of Penelope, and wished that Matt, the kids, and I could slip away during the May half term unnoticed. We were longing for the situation to just disappear, but time was ticking on and the holiday was creeping nearer and nearer. Matt and I had discussed the awful scenario of Penelope still wanting to come on her own with the kids, but being as useless as we are, neither of us had managed to come up with a plan of action.

Melanie thought it was highly amusing, chuckling into her teacup; she could just visualise Rupert lording it around the pool strutting his stuff swinging his beer bottle and wearing his black speedos with the white drawstrings dangling.

It was not an image I was chuckling at believe me. Spending a fortnight with Penelope, Rupert, Little Jonny and Annabel was something I didn't find amusing at all, but with Rupert currently out of the picture, it would be just my luck that I would end up babysitting Penelope and her kids for a fortnight on my holiday in my house.

Melanie was still giggling over the image of Rupert in his speedos, when I looked out of the window and there was Penelope striding straight past us. Looking as if she were on a mission, she didn't notice us and pushed her way through the double doors of Marks and Spencer. She was clutching three black bin bags that looked as if they were about to burst open all over the floor. Leaping up and leaving our money on the table, Melanie and I followed her into Marks and Spencer's; we were intrigued by the contents of the bulging bags.

Almost immediately, we spotted her standing in the queue for refunds. With each second that passed, she edged forward towards the counter dragging the black bin bags behind her along the floor. As she made her way to the front of the queue, Melanie and I were in fits of giggles, like a couple of school girls. Hiding behind a humongous artificial potted plant placed on a pillar, we began pushing each other out from behind it. An elderly couple wandering past, tut-tutted, not impressed by our childish behaviour, it was obviously a crime to have fun now we had hit our middle years.

Penelope heaved the bags on to the top of the refund counter, she turned them upside down and the contents spilled out. Melanie and I were speechless as we witnessed the items that fell out in front of the shop assistant.

The missing uniforms – pinafores, trousers, and polo shirts aplenty lay out on the refund counter. The uniforms I had donated from my wardrobes, still with the price labels intact were being handed over the counter in exchange for a refund.

‘She is unbelievable, what a cheek! Please tell me she has not been filtering off all the pristine uniforms and cashing in on them for her own gain? We donated that uniform for the less fortunate families and the new chairperson of the PTA, it seems is abusing her newly appointed position!' Melanie whispered in amazement.

I had to admit the scene we were witnessing did suggest just that, but surely, Penelope wouldn't stoop so low? ‘What are we going to do?' I asked. Scanning the refund desk, I saw the next two bin- bags of clothes being turned out onto the counter; the shop assistant looking flustered by the volume before she carried on zapping the labels with her price gun then folding the refunded clothes neatly into piles. The cash till with its constant pinging reminded me of the slot machines ringing out in the arcades of seaside towns as the amount of money was still increasing automatically on the cash register.

Scrutinising the numbers that were lighting up on the display of the till, we were flabbergasted; it was already confirming the sum of the refund was a whopping one hundred and seventy pounds, not at all bad for a morning's work.

Our giggling girl mood rapidly evaporated; Melanie's mood, I sensed, was now one of anger and mine was of disappointment, not because I was judging Penelope for her actions, but because there were genuine families genuinely struggling to make ends meet at the school, and the uniform sale would have made a huge difference to them.

Melanie took it upon herself to approach Penelope. I stood rooted to the spot behind my pot plant. Melanie tapped Penelope firmly on the shoulder. Penelope turned around looking startled.

I was fixed to the spot still hiding behind the artificial plant in the pot. Not knowing what to do, I contemplated just waiting there until Melanie had confronted Penelope. I didn't want Penelope to feel as if we were ganging up on her and judging by the look on Melanie's face she was really gunning for a pound of flesh.

However, the decision was made for me, as just at that moment, I was pushed from behind, and my knees buckling underneath me, I grabbed onto the potted plant, and there was an almighty crash. My face bounced off the plant and then the pot, which then smashed into hundreds of little pieces shattering all over the floor. I was face down, sprawled out on the floor looking a complete idiot. A woman hauled me up apologising profusely. She was the owner of a double buggy with two jam-smeared faces belonging to two small people who were both laughing at my misfortune. Bending down to retrieve a dropped beaker the woman hadn't noticed me or the plant and had pushed the buggy right into the back of my legs bringing me down to the ground like a professional rugby player. In all the kerfuffle I momentarily forgot about Penelope and Melanie.

‘What are you doing down there?' I heard Melanie's voice from behind the store manager who had rapidly appeared and was sweeping up the broken pieces of pot muttering like a mad man. Being dragged to my feet and brushed down, hurt my pride more than my clothes. Melanie was standing in front of me fanning herself with a wad of notes, nearly two hundred pounds to be precise.

‘What the hell happened? I was just about to come over when that mother ran me over!' I said.

‘It was exactly what we had suspected; we caught Penelope red-handed abusing her position as PTA chairperson.'

‘Surely not?' I still wanted to give Penelope the benefit of the doubt.

‘She crumbled when I tapped her on her shoulder and apologised profusely for siphoning off the uniforms, and then she begged me not to report her to Bridget.'

I was genuinely shocked. I thought to myself that maybe Penelope was finding it financially difficult due to the split with Rupert, desperate times sometimes equalled desperate measures, or more than likely, knowing Penelope's obsession with Little Jonny's reading ability, it was possible she was going to use the money to fund a tutor.

‘I demanded the cash and she handed it over. She was probably too embarrassed she had been caught to put up a fight.'

‘Where is Penelope now?' I asked.

‘She flounced out the shop in tears.' Melanie confirmed.