The School Gate Survival Guide (29 page)

Clover’s eyes were dancing with delight. Frederica was raising her glass and hooting. When the music changed to ‘Twist and Shout’, Lloyd pulled Frederica to her feet, which broke the ice and everyone crowded onto the dance floor, twisting up and down. Even Venetia was grooving. Her great arse was wobbling as though someone had strapped a beanbag to it. In a white flouncy dress with frilly tiers, she looked like a wedding cake on the move, while Randolph was doing this pointing at the ceiling thing, a bit like a Pinocchio puppet Bronte used to have.

Howard tapped me on the arm. ‘Come on, Megan, let’s show them how it’s done.’ I beckoned to Clover who giggled and waved me onto the dance floor. I tried glaring and pulling desperate faces but the old baggage refused to come to my rescue. She sat there grinning over the top of her wine glass. Howard was all I’d expected but with BO thrown in. He’d taken his jacket off, presumably to free himself up for the Freddie Mercury crossed with Russian Cossack dancer moves for ‘Good Vibrations’. When I looked over to Clover, she had her head on her arms, but I could see her shoulders heaving up and down with laughter. I’d get her back.

Mr Peters and Serena were turned in towards each other, faces serious. She kept touching his knee when she was talking. I hated her for having that privilege. I hated her for looking at him, head on one side, puppy dog eyes, simpering away. She was playing the ‘I love Jimmy Choos and fluffy kittens’ card when she’d probably do you in with a pair of Doc Martens and a rusty screwdriver if push came to shove. I wanted to kill her for butting in when we had one tiny chance to straighten out a few things. Too late now. Mr Peters loved someone else. Someone smart. Love didn’t have much of a place in my world anyway. What a dumbo for thinking it did.

When the music changed to ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ I couldn’t face the prospect of Howard’s arms in the air and told him that Clover loved the song and he should ask her to dance. He scampered across to the table and dragged her to her feet. I waved and watched as a big cloud of BO filtered through to her. The only people left at the table were Mr Peters and Serena. Seeing the back of his neck with the funny little swirl of hairs made me long to touch him. I hovered on the edge of the dance floor. Frederica spotted me and swept me in, bringing me into her circle of foot stampers and air thumpers. Diamond necklaces bounced up and down on cleavages. Fat stomachs bulged over cummerbunds. Rolexes glittered on wrists. And everyone danced as though they were at the Scout Hut jamboree, knocking back the cider rather than the Châteauneuf.

Then the music changed. Lawrence looked out into the audience. His eyes settled on Clover. ‘This song is for a very special person. She knows who she is, but is probably wondering who the hell I am right now. This is for you.’

The chords of ‘Just the Way You Are’ rang out. Then Lawrence’s deep voice filled the marquee and couples moved into each other’s arms. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr Peters and Serena get to their feet. Clover stood in the middle of the dance floor, eyes brimming, oblivious to everyone else around her. Howard hung around at her side for a few seconds before even he had the sense to slink off. Lawrence sang into the crowd, never taking his eyes off Clover. It was a first-class shafting from a two-timing arsehole. What a brilliant way to cover your tracks – sing a soppy love song to your wife with everyone there to witness it. I couldn’t watch.

I marched off to the loo, but not before I’d seen Serena wind her arms around Mr Peters’ neck. I stared at myself in the mirror to see if the sick jealousy churning my insides showed on my face. I couldn’t believe how normal I looked, apart from my eyebrows, which were sticking up like some has-been politician’s. I’d never managed to train them into elegant curves. I didn’t want to go back out so I had another little nose at the photos of Jen1, Leo and Hugo. Hugo had that sly, sharp edge about him that Jen1 had. The sort of look teenage girls have when they’re smoking in school uniform. Leo had a much more open face. There he was at a posh event with Lawrence, holding up some kind of award. They were both in DJs. Leo was bursting, delighted with himself. Lawrence still managed to look scruffy, hair tumbling about as though he’d blundered into the ceremony during a gale-force wind. He had a half-smile on his face, as though he was about to break into a sarky speech, ‘And I’d like to thank my agent, my make-up artist and my manicurist.’

I wondered if Leo knew Lawrence was banging his wife.

Someone rattled the toilet door handle. The throb of music that had been making my buttocks judder had stopped, which meant more sitting round the table nicey-nicey with Serena simpering over Mr Peters. I couldn’t face trying to look pleased for Clover, when heartbreak was heading her way. I pulled my Crocs from their hiding place under the sink, grabbed the gold sandals and crept down the hallway. I peered into the kitchen. There was Jen1, ordering the coffee girls about like a Victorian mistress of the manor. ‘Jessica, no, plee-aase don’t slop it in the saucer. No, give it to me. Goodness me, don’t they teach you anything at catering college?’

How could Lawrence possibly prefer that uptight gold-digger to Clover? I opened the front door and stepped out. Tiny spots of drizzle pattered down onto my arms. I looked up at the CCTV camera, gave it the finger in case Jen1 was watching and set off down the drive.

Once I got outside the gates guarding Jen1’s palace, I walked towards the pub, feeling the hem of Clover’s beautiful dress dragging along the pavement now I’d taken my high heels off. I hitched it up. It was 11.15. If I was lucky, I’d make it to the pub before chucking out time and they’d be able to call me a cab. A few people were straggling out as I clumped into the car park. I walked into the bar. The landlord looked up from washing glasses and offered a surly ‘We’re closed’. He didn’t bat an eyelid at the fact that I had no coat, my hair was wet and I was in a ball dress.

‘I know, I just wanted a number for a cab.’

He nodded towards the corridor. ‘On the wall out there.’ I punched the number into my phone, and as there was no offer for me to wait inside, I walked back out again. By the time the cab arrived, I was shivering.

‘Bloody hell, love, where’s your coat? You girls. Catch your death. Good evening, was it? Where we off to then?’ the cabby said.

I hadn’t planned it. It just came out. Rowley Road, SD1. I saw his eyebrows shoot up in the rear-view mirror. ‘Bit far from home, aren’t we? Gonna cost you. You got the fare? You ain’t gonna get much change out of a twenty.’ I thought about all the things I could do with twenty pounds. But going back to Clover’s wasn’t an option. I couldn’t stand it if she turned up with Lawrence. I didn’t have the stomach for watching anyone being lovey-dovey.

The cab driver nattered on. ‘First time I pick up anyone from round your way in a ball frock. I don’t go there normally. Too many druggies. Used to work that patch between the rec and Walldon Estate but got puke in me car too many times. You live there, do you? It’s a lot worse since all them Eastern Europeans came over. They’ve started taking our jobs on the taxis now. Can hardly speak English, let alone find their way around Sandbury. If you need a taxi, love, you make sure you call my cab company and ask for Ronnie. I know where I’m going, I do.’

And on it went. I looked out of the window, wondering if Mr Peters had noticed I’d gone. I texted Clover to tell her I’d had to go home, no emergency, I’d be over for the kids in the morning. She rang as I was getting out of the cab. She was talking fast. Excited and happy. I fobbed her off, saying I wanted her to have the house to herself. She didn’t put up much of an argument once she knew I was safe.

I stared at the house. There were no lights on. Next door, Sandy’s bedroom was lit up and I could hear the faint strains of Bob Marley. Sandy’s bonking music. I crept up the path, sandals and shiny little evening bag in hand. I opened the door. The house was still. I stood in the hallway and listened, watching my breath form puffy little clouds in the freezing air. Once I’d turned the thermostat up, I tiptoed upstairs. I hung Clover’s dress on a hanger, pulled on an old tracksuit and got to work. I fetched some bin bags from the kitchen and stuffed Colin’s clothes in, willy-nilly, pissed off that I’d wasted time ironing his T-shirts. Never mind. Sandy’s problem now. In went the lucky West Ham pants, the England shirt, the baseball cap with the ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’ logo. I tossed in a pile of rusty Bic razors, the dog-eared toothbrush, all the socks he hadn’t bothered to pair up since I’d been gone. Next, the little darts shield he’d won in the pub league, old copies of
Racing Post
that he’d been too lazy to chuck out and all the old boots, sweatshirts and holey jeans that had been mouldering away in the bottom of the wardrobe.

In less than an hour, I’d packed Colin into a couple of black bin bags. I hopped over the little fence into Sandy’s garden. ‘No Woman, No Cry’ was seeping down into the darkness. One bin bag. Two bin bags. A pile of crappy CDs. Colin’s collection of high body count DVDs. Blow-up football armchair. I rang the bell. There was a thud upstairs. The music went off. Sandy’s shrill voice. Colin’s grumble. Heavy footsteps on the stairs. Colin’s voice, grumpy and aggressive. ‘Who is it?’

I didn’t answer, just stood there. I knew curiosity would get the better of him.

The key turned in the lock. Colin, shirtless, in a pair of tracksuit bottoms.

He took a step back. ‘Maia!’

‘I gather you’ve moved out. You forgot some of your things so I’ve packed them up for you.’

‘Mai.’ Colin’s mouth was moving up and down, but he was struggling to get a sound out. ‘It’s not what it looks like.’

‘What does it look like? You having a neighbourly cup of tea with Sandy? You unblocking the lav? Colin, save it. I heard you the other week with your “Goaaaal”. Not very original, are you? She can have you, and all the crap that goes with you.’

‘You can’t chuck me out like that.’

‘Just watch me.’ I picked up one of his Doc Martens and slung it into the hallway. ‘You’re gone, Colin. History. Sandy can put up with you humping away like a donkey in heat now. You can score as many “goooooaaaaals” as you like.’

‘Oy! You always said I was good in bed.’

‘No,
you
always said you were good in bed.’

Colin’s eyebrows knitted together as he tried to figure out whether that was true or not. He started to bluster. ‘You can’t just turn up and turf me out.’

‘I just have. And if you don’t want me to shop you for working while you’re on benefits, you’ll stay out. Don’t forget I know where all the skeletons are, starting with the dodgy DVD players and the mobile phones. It won’t be just you I dob in, I’ll finger your mates too, so if the cops don’t get you, then I suspect Big Harry or Bruno will.’ I could see Colin’s brain cranking into gear as he totted up the damage I could do him.

Sandy appeared behind him in a lacy dressing gown, a post-goal cigarette hanging out her mouth. She should have been shaking in her fluffy mules. But Sandy being Sandy, she stood with one hand on her hip, a ‘bring it on’ set to her jaw.

I should have flown at her, told her she was a homewrecker, slung a few insults about her being a slag and shitty friend. I couldn’t summon up the energy. It was like finding a home for a settee you wanted shut of, without the effort of taking it down the dump. The biggest surprise to me was that I didn’t feel angry, just resigned. Not much to show for nineteen years’ hard labour with one man.

I leaned round Colin. ‘You’ve done me a favour, love. He’s yours. I’m not having him back.’

She put a hand on Colin’s shoulder. ‘I never have understood what you was moaning about.’

‘Give it time.’ I turned back to my house, then stopped. ‘Just answer me one thing, Colin. Why did you want me back?’

‘I didn’t.’

I registered a tiny fork jab of hurt. Pride, probably. ‘But you practically begged me to come back.’

‘House is in your name, innit? There’s been a bloke from the council poking his nose in cos we’re behind on the rent and you ain’t around. Told me that unless you turned up this week, we’d lose the house. They’re having a crackdown. They ain’t gonna let a single bloke stay in a three-bed house.’

I nodded. ‘Thank God for that. I thought you were thinking of someone else apart from yourself. Now that would have been scary.’

‘You’d better get the rent sorted though, or move back in with that posh Flowerpot friend of yours. I don’t want me kids with nowhere to live.’

The first thing that came to hand was his West Ham mug, which hit the banister with a satisfying smash.

The birds were singing by the time I dropped off. Once the adrenaline of giving Colin his marching orders had worn off, I’d realised that the boiler wasn’t working. I’d stood shivering on a stool for ages, pressing the ignition button till my finger hurt. I slouched off upstairs wondering how long it would take the council to sort that out.

I didn’t want to get into the bed I’d shared with Colin in case he’d been at it with Sandy there. I climbed into Harley’s bed under every duvet and sleeping bag I could find. The bed didn’t smell of Harley. It was cold and unloved, like the rest of the house. I tried to practise thinking of happy things, which is what I told the children when they couldn’t get to sleep, but my brain was locked into misery, stuck on images of Serena and Mr Peters, which made me hug my knees into my chest and curl up into a tight ball. Eventually my mind strayed off into Lawrence in a clinch, the horrible Howard and his BO, a quick flash of humiliation over the cheese, then back to Colin and the way Sandy didn’t give a monkey that she’d stolen my man, before ending up in the black sludge of thoughts about my future.

Was I really going to live here with Bronte and Harley, burying my head under the pillow so I couldn’t hear Colin and Sandy next door? What about the kids? Gypsy and Denim had never known their dads. Would Colin step up to the plate? Bronte would hate that. The prof would have wrinkled her nose. ‘Sordid, Maia, perfectly sordid.’ She would have trotted out one of her favourite phrases, ‘You can do better than that, dear, much better. Lovely young woman like you.’ I missed having her on my side. For some reason she’d believed in me. I cried until water ran into my ears and the pillow felt and smelt like one of Harley’s swimming towels, rotting in his school bag from one week to the next.