The School Gate Survival Guide (35 page)

‘Right. I think it’s time you went outside. Go and get the others and have a game of tennis. Or see if you can find some tadpoles in the stream.’

‘That’s boring. We’re having really good fun. This house is wicked for hide and seek,’ Harley said.

One day in the new mansion and the boy was already bored. I’d never invited any kids from Stirling Hall over when we lived on the Walldon Estate because I was ashamed of where we lived. Now I could invite them over, I didn’t want them there. I was giving Harley my ‘NOW!’ look when Lawrence came to my rescue. ‘I’m sure your mother doesn’t want everyone stampeding round the house. Why don’t you get the others together and I’ll come down and you can show me the garden?’

‘That would be great, thanks, Lawrence. I’ll make some coffee in a moment. There’s a lovely little walled garden at the side. It’s quite sheltered so we could sit out,’ I said.

He stroked Clover’s arm. ‘Is that okay, love?’

‘Course.’ They held each other’s eyes for a second. I couldn’t read whether it was an ‘I love you’ moment or a ‘Be on your best behaviour’ moment.

I wanted to talk to someone with my eyes.

Lawrence slung his arm round Saffy’s shoulders as the five children clattered down the stairs, trailing grubby little hands down the walls.

I took Clover round the house, straightening the bedcovers and closing wardrobe doors as we went. ‘This is marvellous,’ she said, pressing her nose against the porthole window in Harley’s room. ‘I’m so pleased for you. I always knew that you were destined for better things.’

I grinned. ‘Anyway, enough about me. How are things with you, with Lawrence, I mean?’ I watched her carefully.

Clover picked up a model of a James Bond Aston Martin DB5 and the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car that Harley had discovered in a cupboard. ‘I had these as a kid.’ There was a slight pause. She turned to me. ‘Okay, I think. He gets a bit funny when I ask him about his time at Leo and Jennifer’s. He doesn’t really like talking about it. I think he feels a bit ashamed. I don’t know whether he had an actual breakdown, but whatever, I don’t think he thinks it was a very virile way of going on.’

There it was again. That edge of a cliff feeling as though I was about to shout out the truth. ‘Do you think he’s got it together now though?’

‘I don’t know. I hope so. I find it a bit galling that Jennifer knows more about my husband than I do.’

‘Is Lawrence still friendly with her? Does he ever see her now?’ I said. ‘Or Leo?’

‘Lawrence isn’t terribly fond of chatting on the phone. He’s spoken to Leo a few times. I keep thinking I should invite them over to supper to thank them for what they did but every time I imagine Jennifer pushing food round her plate and holding forth about only eating organic bloody lamb and spinach washed in spring water, it makes me want to disappear to Africa and never come back.’

She adjusted Truly Scrumptious in the car and lined it up on the windowsill. ‘It’s a bit weird him going to live there though. And them keeping it a secret. I mean, he wasn’t that friendly with Leo. He’s always been utterly disparaging about Jennifer but now he keeps defending her. Maybe he just got to know her better. Though frankly, I’m not sure getting to know her better would be a bonus. I think we’d just discover more things about her to dislike.’

It was my chance. I smoothed Harley’s duvet and looked out of the window at the kids splashing about in the stream, shoes kicked off, trousers rolled up but not far enough. Bronte was jumping from one side of the stream to the other. I was still organising my words when Clover broke in. ‘Maybe he fancies her. She does look good.’

‘She looks good if pipe cleaners turn you on. You’re far more gorgeous than she is.’ I would have to stick to the facts if I did tell Clover, not make a cuddle on camera sound like a great big affair because I wanted to have my own pop at Jen1.

‘Don’t think I’ll bother asking that question. Don’t want to know that my poor husband is lumbered with a gigantic bubble of a pear when he’d rather be having sex with a string bean. Perhaps they did have it off while he was there.’ She shrugged, laughing as though the thought was ridiculous. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to know. He’s back and he seems fairly contented. He’s a bit more patient with the children and he’s loving the music teaching. He’s so restless most of the time, but when I see him teaching, he seems almost serene.’

Never mind the bloody guitar lessons and Lawrence’s Zen state when he was plinking about on the piano. I tried again. ‘Would you really not want to know?’ My heart was heaving in my rib cage.

‘Fuck, no. What’s the point? I love him. I don’t want him to leave me. It’s just sex at the end of the day. If it’s over, I don’t need to know. I mean, if Mr Peters turned up in my bedroom in his birthday suit, who’s to say I wouldn’t give in to temptation?’

I couldn’t quite pin down the emotion that shot through me at the mention of Mr Peters. Jealousy that Clover should even think of him like that, plus some kind of missing him feeling, sadness that he’d only ever been part of the lows in my life. I tried to re-order my thoughts on the ‘to blab or not to blab’ dilemma.

Clover was flicking her hands about. ‘Christ, is there anything more hideous than people who think you need to know the truth? Half the time they only tell you the details to make you feel dreadful, not because you need to know. Truth be known, I bet ninety per cent of happily married couples have had a dalliance somewhere along the line. That whole splitting the assets, fighting over the family dog and who keeps Aunt Ethel’s teapot seems a high price to pay for a quick roll in the hay that doesn’t mean anything.’

She looked out of the window and beckoned me over. Lawrence had all the children chasing up and down an obstacle course that ended with a dash through the stream. It was the perfect snapshot of how children should look – carefree, rosy-cheeked, excited. ‘Anyway, he’s the disciplinarian in our house. I’m not much good at any of that, bit of a lousy old mother to tell the truth. God knows how unruly the kids would be if he didn’t lick them into shape. Orion’s already nearly as tall as me.’

I was clear. It didn’t actually matter whether or not Lawrence had had an affair with Jen1. Even if I could prove it, Clover didn’t want to know. Time for coffee, Waitrose
tarte aux pommes
and shutting my big trap forever. But I’d be watching.

Although it was only mid-April, the walled kitchen garden was such a little suntrap that I could hang out the washing there. Living next door to the turd flicker meant I’d always had to dry my clothes inside. After years of stiff socks and trousers dried to a crisp on storage heaters, laundry flapping out in the fresh air filled me with a ridiculous amount of joy. I was humming ‘Wonderful Life’ to myself, smoothing out some Egyptian cotton sheets that I’d discovered hidden away in a linen box. During the three weeks we’d been at Rose’s house, I’d taken to luxury quite well. I’d never be able to do brushed nylon again. I pulled the sheets into a square, feeling the sun on my face and picturing the geraniums and dahlias I would grow in the summer. Footsteps on the path behind me made me look round. My hand flew to the scarf turban I’d tied my hair in to keep it out of the way while I worked.

Mr Peters.

The blush was instant.

‘Hi.’ He was leaning against the archway.

‘Hello.’ My lungs appeared to have a bit less puff in them. I was feeling good, for the first time in ages. I didn’t need him coming along to remind me what I couldn’t have. He looked gorgeous in his checked shirt, jacket and jeans. Now it was the Easter holidays, he’d obviously decided to funk up his look to fit in at the state school. His hair was a bit longer, quite wavy now it wasn’t so closely cropped. I ignored the begging in my stomach and folded my arms.

He pulled at the collar on his shirt. ‘Sorry to disturb you while you’re working, but could I talk to you for a few minutes?’

‘How did you know I was here?’

‘I went to the gatehouse. A bloke with a spider’s web on his neck gave me the third degree before he told me where you were. Didn’t look like the normal inhabitant of Stamford Avenue.’

‘That’s Tarants. He does the garden and the odd jobs. He’s taken it upon himself to double up as a security guard. Anyway, I didn’t mean how did you know I was hanging out my sheets, I meant how did you know I was living here?’

He smiled. Longing swept through my belly. Or stomach, as Mr Peters would say. ‘I knew you wouldn’t answer the phone if I rang, so I went to your house. I’ve been there every day for the last couple of weeks but there’s never been anyone there. Your neighbour yelled out of the window that you didn’t live there any more or “had buggered off” as she put it. She slammed the window shut before I could ask her any more and she started shouting some very rude words through the door when I knocked. I take it she’s not very keen on you?’

‘You can say that again. Colin’s bit on the side. So how did you find me?’

‘I rang Felicity to see if you’d left any change of address.’ He put his hands up. ‘I know, I know. I expect the whole world now knows that I was looking for you but I couldn’t think of what else to do. Anyway, is it convenient to speak for a moment? Or shall I come back later when you’ve finished?’

I could practically hear my better judgement galloping off down to the stream at the bottom of the garden. ‘I’m only hanging out the washing. I’ll make you a coffee.’ I nodded towards the French windows into the kitchen.

‘Are you sure it’s okay for me to come in?’ Mr Peters seemed fidgety.

‘Of course. The kids are down in the orchard, building dens. They absolutely love it here.’ I pulled the scarf off my head and shook my hair free.

‘I bet. Looks like you could have a mean game of football on that back lawn.’

We ducked under the magnolia tree, bursting with great bowls of pink flowers and stepped into the sunny kitchen. I put the kettle on the Aga, then leant against it feeling the warmth of the oven through my jeans. He was rubbing his hands together, biting his lip as though he had something unpleasant to say. He started rolling up his sleeves. I couldn’t stand it.

‘So what brings you here?’ I was preparing my face muscles to form a smile if he announced that he was marrying Serena.

‘I heard Harley tell Orion in my French lesson that Colin had moved out. Is that right?’

Harley and his bloody foghorn. ‘Yeah.’

‘Are you okay about it?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be? To use your words, he was an arsehole. He was having an affair with Sandy, the woman who told you I’d gone away.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

I felt my face fall into that ‘doh’ face that Bronte made when I was being particularly uncool. The kettle started whistling behind me and I was glad of an excuse to turn round. I couldn’t seem to get my brain working quickly enough. Truth? That I’d turned up at his house and bumped into Serena coming out with a snog rash all over her face. Lie? I couldn’t even think up a lie. There must have been one out there I could trot out and save a tiny scrap of pride.

I warmed the teapot. Rose had insisted on it. I preferred my tea made in a mug, soupy and strong, but for the moment, I was trying out all sorts of middle-class nonsense to see if it fitted. Make my grandmother proud.

‘Maia? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘For God’s sake. I came round to tell you but I bumped into Serena when she was leaving your flat and I felt ridiculous because I didn’t know you were seeing her as well as sort of, well, not seeing me, but you know what I mean. I’d obviously got totally the wrong end of the stick like a complete dork.’ My voice was rising. I could feel tears looming in the distance.

‘I’m not seeing Serena.’

I set down Rose’s blue and white Wedgwood teacups. I frowned. He was doing my head in. ‘What? She knows that, does she?’

Mr Peters nodded.

‘That must be a recent thing then because I saw her come out of your block of flats and she was all over you like an ivy at the ball, just a few weeks ago.’ I poured a tiny drop of milk into his tea and hated myself for storing the useless piece of knowledge that he liked his tea almost black.

‘I went out with her ages ago, a couple of years ago now. Not for long. She’s a lovely girl but she wasn’t right for me.’

‘But you were at the ball holding hands with her.’ I could see her reaching out for him in my mind and yes, I would still like to belt her one.

Mr Peters stirred his tea even though he didn’t take sugar. I pulled out a chair for him but he started pacing around the table.

‘Maia. Christ, where to start?’ He ran his hands through his hair, leaving it sticking up in gorgeous little tufts that made him look like he’d just got out of bed. Bed thoughts couldn’t come into this discussion. He looked at his watch. ‘Shit, I’m taking up loads of your time. Is this okay?’

‘Yeah, spit out whatever you came to say.’ Colin screwing Sandy hadn’t hurt me anywhere near as much as Mr Peters holding hands with Serena.

His face set. ‘Make it easy for me, why don’t you, Maia?’

I shrugged. ‘Well?’

He didn’t look at me. We both jumped as the cuckoo flew out of Rose’s clock as it chimed eleven. The noise seemed to jerk him out of whatever trance he was in.

‘Maia, this is the truth and I’ll have to go and kill myself with embarrassment afterwards but here goes. When Bronte went missing, I knew I was getting too close to you. When I was holding you on the sofa when you were crying, I just didn’t want to let you go. I didn’t want to leave you there with Colin. You seemed so alone, so vulnerable. I promised myself then that I would stay away from you. I was desperate not to cause trouble for you or the children at Stirling Hall. I could see that you had enough to deal with without everyone gossiping. The problem was, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I had all these moments in staff meetings when I needed to be firm and decisive and I’d be daydreaming about you. I’d look up and there would be an array of puzzled faces waiting to hear how we were going to approach the parents of a bully or what the budget for next year’s drama production would be.’

He turned his back on me and leaned on the worktop, apparently intent on Robert Frost’s poem, ‘The Road Not Taken’, which hung on the wall. Just as well really, otherwise he’d have seen the great Etxeleku gob clanging open.