The School Gate Survival Guide (25 page)

‘If it’s for the end of next term, the summer term, I’m not sure he’s the best person to ask because he’s leaving us at Easter. Let me see if I can put you through to Mrs Saltrey, she’s going to be his replacement.’

‘No, no, hang on a minute. Mr Peters is leaving? When?’ My voice had become a shriek. When the hell did Mr Peters, who up until two days ago was on the blower to me every day, decide he was jumping ship? With no warning?

‘There’ll be a formal announcement going out soon, but he’s being seconded for a year to a state school on special measures.’ She was typing away while she spoke to me, Little Miss Efficiency. ‘Stirling Hall management and governors are fully in favour of it because they think he’ll bring new ideas when he returns. Move with the times and all that. Anyway, I’ll just transfer you.’

I got a surprised-sounding Mrs Saltrey on the phone. My garbled request obviously puzzled her, given that I was having to invent some guff on the spot about the school needing to know which reading levels they were on. Having established that the kids were off to Morlands, she said, ‘I think you can rest assured that both Harley and Bronte will be far in advance of their peers in the same age group,’ in a tone of voice that suggested they would be reciting Latin prose from memory while everyone else was on
The Beano
. I thanked her and slammed the phone down.

I couldn’t stand it. When exactly was he going to tell me that he was off? That he would no longer be able to support me or help Harley and Bronte to find their niche at school? He must have made the decision to leave before he knew I was taking the children out. The difference was his leaving was about choice; mine was about necessity. All that bollocks about ‘keep talking to me’, when he was about to pull the biggest bloody Houdini stunt of all. Pretending he’d always be there for me. Making out he was keeping an eye on the kids when in fact, he was just marching on the spot, waiting to find some interesting little thing to add to his CV. Moves like that didn’t get made overnight. There was me thinking that we were friends. At the very least, friends.

Hurt spread from my head, through my heart and squeezed at my belly. I’d nearly begun to believe in him. Nearly begun to think that however complicated, however hard, that man, with all that kindness, might have been meant for me.

I looked at my watch. 12.30. I knew he sometimes went home on Wednesdays because he had a free lesson before lunchtime. I might just find him there. I didn’t know what I was going to say, but I had nothing to lose. It wasn’t long till the end of term and then he’d be gone and I’d never see him again. I drove – with a trigger-happy use of the horn – to his flat. I cursed the fancy underground car park that meant I couldn’t see whether his car was there or not. I looked up at the windows to work out which balcony belonged to him. First floor I seemed to remember. Yes, there it was, with the stripy olive and orange curtains. I couldn’t see any movement.

I walked up to the front door, remembering the last time I’d been there, after Colin had given me a black eye. I’d never trust anyone again if that turned out to be some great big piss-take. I stood there summoning up my courage to press the doorbell, scared that he’d answer and refuse to see me. Scared that he wouldn’t answer and I would have to simmer away, not understanding what the hell had happened forever more. A big bust-up was better than nothing. My finger was hovering over the button when the front door opened. A tall woman with long brown hair came out. She looked a bit familiar.

She smiled uncertainly. ‘It’s Maia, isn’t it?’

I nodded, taking a moment to place her. Then the light went on. Serena, the policewoman who’d helped me find Bronte. Last time I’d seen her she’d been in uniform with her hair in a tight bun. Now she was all flowing locks and Timberland casual but I’d recognise that deep voice anywhere.

‘What brings you to this part of town?’ she said. Something was odd about her. I looked more closely. She was red all round her mouth and chin. She looked like someone had been kissing her face off. God, I was slow. The familiarity yet strange tension at my house between Serena and Mr Peters. The snippy ‘Long time, no see’. By the looks of things, she’d remedied that.

The hot spike of jealousy that sliced through me made me feel sick. I glanced at the names on the doorbells. ‘I’m on my way to see the homeopath.’ Even though all my religious belief had disappeared years ago, the Catholic in me still struggled to lie.

I saw her shoulders relax. She didn’t seem very keen on meeting my eye. ‘I’ve heard good things about homeopathy. I’ll be interested to know if it works for you. Bronte all right now?’ She sounded in a rush to get away, as though she was asking out of duty rather than interest.

I wanted to say, ‘Too busy having sex to ask Mr Peters?’ Pride saved me. ‘She’s doing well, thank you, no more hiccups so far.’

‘Good. Pleased to hear it. Good luck with everything.’ She held the door for me and I walked through, but I had no intention of going to see Mr Peters. I couldn’t bear watching him dart guiltily round that kitchen, tidying away the two post-rumpy coffee cups. I didn’t want to look down the corridor and see the ruffled bed. And I definitely didn’t want to see his dark hair all mussed up. I’d be able to smell her Armani on him. I couldn’t compete with Serena. Educated, successful, tall, pretty. God knows what made me think I’d ever been in with a chance.

I lurked around the bottom of the staircase, waiting until I could be sure that Serena had gone. I didn’t know what I’d do if he stepped out of the lift. He’d never been serious about me. He’d probably been laughing about my pathetic attempts to educate myself and my kids. Why behave like he was interested? Maybe I was some social study, some weird modern day
My Fair Lady
. Or perhaps he did like me, but when push came to shove, he was terrified I’d sink him back to where he came from, away from his crayfish salad, oak-aged Modena balsamic vinegar and cold-pressed olive oil to a world of Pot Noodle, battered sausages and KFC Bargain Buckets. I heard the lift crank into action and ran out of the building, bolting back to the van.

Clover turned up from horse riding to find me in a big cupboard cleaning frenzy, sorting out her millions of sandwich boxes so that we didn’t get buried in an avalanche of plastic every time we needed a packed lunch. We’d come to read each other’s moods well. If Clover was standing up, eating cereal out of the box or spooning peanut butter out of the jar, I trod carefully. If I was on the obsessive edge of cleaning – tops of cupboards, bleaching the grout in the kitchen tiles – Clover knew that I was trying to turn my smash-your-face-in energy into something useful. It was so much easier to live with a woman than have to spell out your moods in mile-high glittering letters to a man.

Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to serve up the whole Mr Peters humiliation. I’d never mentioned him to Clover. She loved gory details and I wasn’t yet ready for one of her interrogations – ‘Did you get him in bed? What’s his house like? Did you see his bathroom?’ – so I fed her the Colin–Sandy scenario. Which was humiliating enough.

‘I should have blasted Colin’s brains out whilst I had the chance. So much simpler,’ she said.

‘I don’t love him any more. I don’t. But I’m going to have to put up with him. The kids will have left home by the time the council can rehouse me.’ I chucked out a pile of mouldy takeaway containers.

‘You’re not leaving me! I’m not letting you go back there. You might not love him, but surely you’re not going to put up with him screwing Sandy whilst you’re cooking his tea next door? I mean, it’s one thing if he’s had a dalliance, seen the error of his ways and come to his senses, but you’re not going to let him have his cake and eat it, are you?’ Clover said.

‘No. Even I’m not stupid enough to let him carry on with Sandy while I skivvy after him. But it’s not your problem, Clover. We’ve loved the fortnight we’ve spent with you here but this isn’t my life. It’s your life. When Lawrence comes back, he’s not going to want the Etxeleku/Caudwells hanging round. You’ve been really, really generous, with everything. Enough is enough.’ I closed my eyes. ‘The kids are going back to Morlands. I can’t afford to keep them at Stirling Hall.’

‘No! No! You can’t do that. You can’t, Maia. They’re excelling there. You can’t remove them now. That’s insane. Bronte’s in all the top groups now, spelling, maths. Saffy says she’s the one everyone wants to beat. And Harley, he’s managed to elbow Hugo out of the A-team in football and rugby. I imagine Jennifer is at the school banging on the headmaster’s door now. He’s doing so well in drama, I could see him on stage.’ She tried to make me laugh. ‘Christ, Harley’s even made it onto the A-list of birthday guests – he’s got an invitation to Hugo’s tank and paintballing party. Ten-year-old boys would auction their mothers for one of those.’

‘I’ve already given notice. They leave at the end of next term.’

Rich people saw things differently. Clover might pretend she was like me. Sure, we both got frustrated with the kids. We both had problems with our men. We both loved each other’s company, quite often staying up till one or two in the morning to check there wasn’t a detail about each other we hadn’t picked over or taken the piss out of. She made me laugh with impressions of her mother whose idea of relaxed was serving home-baked Victoria sponge without a doily underneath. I made her cry talking about how much I missed Mum and my frustration at never finding out who my father was. She was growing more like me – she could now wipe up something sticky before it got covered in cat hair and I was growing more like her – I caught myself saying ‘clearly, obviously, frankly’ quite often. But we were separated by several hundreds of thousands of pounds, which right now wiped out all our similarities. And I was in the mood to take things the wrong way.

‘For God’s sake, Clover. None of this is about the bloody school. It’s about money, as in, I don’t have any, as in, the bloody bailiffs are round my house trying to take my crappy telly, as in, I don’t have a fucking choice.’ I banged the cupboard door shut.

Her eyes flew open. ‘Sorry. I’m really sorry. That was really tactless and stupid of me. There I go with my hobnailed boots again.’ She scrabbled in her bag and produced a dog-eared chequebook. ‘You’ve got the fees covered, so why don’t you let me lend you some money to tide you over and you can pay me back when you can? Even in twenty years?’

She was being generous beyond the call of duty, and I needed to be grateful. In that moment I hated everyone who had an easier life than me. I managed to soften my face. ‘I can’t let you do that. But thank you.’ She tried to stop me getting up and I just managed to disguise my desire to push her away as a gentle pat on the arm. There was only one place for me when I felt like this.

I drove straight to the gym. Ram took one look at me and got the boxing gloves out. I slugged away, fury seeping out of every pore. Uppercut. Hook. Straight arm. I pounded into his hands, punch after punch until my shoulders ached and sweat was flying off my hair. Every now and then I’d catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, wet strands of hair plastered to my forehead, my T-shirt clinging as though someone had chucked a bucket of water over me, plus mad-woman-escaped-from-the-attic sort of eyes. Ram stopped to let me get my breath. I buried my face in my towel, glugged down a whole bottle of water and carried on. Left, right, hook, foot forward, swinging at the waist, belting imaginary blows into Colin, into Sandy, into the wall between the bedrooms. I wanted to slug one in for Mr Peters as well but every time I thought of him, the anger that had been boiling away in me all day dropped away, and a sadness, the sort that would need hot water bottles and fleecy blankets over many months, rushed into its place. Anger, for now, was easier.

‘Okay?’ Ram said, as I slowly ground to a halt, each blow becoming weaker as my wrists complained. I nodded. He looked as though he was going to stray off his professional autopilot of ‘Make hunger your friend’, ‘Don’t eat for an hour after exercise’, ‘Winners make goals, losers make excuses’ mantra and put the personal into trainer. I gathered up my towel and walked away. I didn’t want anyone else’s advice today. And I needed to have someone left to fall out with another day.

The next morning everything hurt. Even pulling back the duvet sent a jag of pain squealing through my shoulders and down through my back. My body was nothing compared with my head. I vaguely remembered Clover deciding that there’d been such a lot of upset that we couldn’t get through it without alcohol. ‘We need the Tatty, darling.’ She’d powered up her wind-up torch and trundled down the garden in her riding boots in the dark, to return a good twenty minutes later with a slimy key to the wine cellar. ‘Fucking hell, that’s the last time I chuck anything on the compost heap. The bloody rats have made a nest in there. I thought it was a stringy old parsnip until it started wriggling and shot off across my feet. If I didn’t need a drink before, I do now.’

And drink we did. Champagne. Mostly pink Taittinger. Then she got the Kir out. I groaned at the memory. She’d been determined to convince me to stay and also to keep the kids at Stirling Hall. ‘I’ll make you Kir Royales every night of your life.’

I couldn’t allow myself to borrow money. I’d never be able to repay it. If Lawrence didn’t come back, she’d need her trust fund. Maybe I was of ‘parochial mind’ as the prof used to say about anyone who couldn’t recite at least ten poems off by heart, but surely even Clover couldn’t lend me £15,000 without noticing the difference. And £15,000 would probably only pay off the debts I had now and see the kids through another few years before I’d be out with the begging bowl again. She seemed almost insulted I wouldn’t accept her offer.

‘Darling, I wouldn’t suggest it if I couldn’t afford it,’ was as close as she got to saying, ‘It’s nothing to me.’ I loved her for not ramming that point home.

I frowned. My eyes stung as though some elf had been sandpapering them smooth during the night. A blurry recollection of eventually giving in to Clover and agreeing to stay until after the ball next Friday was fighting its way through the morning fog. Clover had said she needed someone to drown her sorrows with if Lawrence left permanently, then burst into tears. I’d surrendered, somewhere between finishing off the champagne and hoovering up the stale Wotsits that had escaped Clover’s health blitz. Just over a week to plan my dead-end future.