This Perfect World (24 page)

And if Thomas was to ask me why Brendon Stone wasn’t
suitable, I could reply in a discreet and evasive tone,
Because
he’s not on the list.

And heaven knows what Thomas might make of that. That
kids whose parents haven’t given their details live in dilapidated,
haunted old houses where the parents eat other, nice
children (like Thomas) for supper, perhaps. Or maybe that
they live in no houses at all. Maybe that those few unfortunate
children who are so discriminated against by this useful
little scheme just disappear at the end of the school day, as
they will eventually disappear from the lives of children like
Thomas altogether one day. It’s a filtering system. It starts
so young.

Today I am updating the list because a new girl has joined
Thomas’s class, and her parents are obviously familiar with
the rules. I have their names (both parents with the same
surname – good), their phone numbers (home and mother’s
mobile – very keen, very good) and their address (also very
good). No doubt little Lydia will have lots of nice new friends
inviting her home very soon.

I wonder if there are class lists at Nathan’s school. I expect
there probably are, but I doubt if his details are on one. His
name will be one of those with the glaring blank spaces
beside it. I think this, and there is a horrible, tight feeling
inside my chest as if my heart is being squeezed. And I
wonder now what the stories are behind the few unadorned
names on Thomas’s class list. I mean, what is going on in
their parents’ lives that touting their precious little darlings
to all the other parents in this dog-eat-dog convention isn’t
top of their to-do list?

I’ve never given a thought to those other lives before.
Before, I’ve just thought of the importance of being in the
right club. Because it has always seemed to me that that is
the only safe place to be.

At my junior school we split into two tribes at lunchtime.
Packed-lunchers – like me – just went straight into the hall
and sat where they liked, but school dinners had to line up
with their trays, shuffling along in a queue to get their runny
mince and cabbage or whatever doled out, and then try to
find somewhere to sit. No one had school dinners if they
could help it, except for some of the boys, the kids from the
council estate, and Heddy Partridge.

We’d sit with our neat little sandwiches in our neat little
lunch boxes and watch Heddy piling up her plate, face flushed,
and eager and ashamed. More mashed potato for Heddy
Partridge, more custard on that sponge. Then we’d watch
her, trying to squeeze her way through the rows of tables to
find somewhere to sit, and wherever she sat she was never
far away, never too far to hear us snorting and grunting like
pigs as she tucked into her scoff. Sometimes we’d make her
cry, but she’d still carry on eating, shoving it in through
her wobbly lips, tears and snot mixing in with the gravy.

I tripped her up once. I stuck my foot out as she tried to
get past our table, and over she went. Right over, sprawling
across people’s backs, sending shepherd’s pie and chocolate
pudding flying through the air and splattering everywhere.
There was mashed potato in Ashley’s hair; hot chocolate sauce
all down Zoe’s back. Everyone screamed, pushing back their
chairs. Zoe screamed the loudest, and then she started crying
and shaking and had to be taken to the medical room to
have ice put on her back.

Everyone laughed, of course, when they’d stopped screaming.
Everyone except Zoe, and those of us who were friends
of Zoe. Those of us who were friends of Zoe were angry
and disgusted with Heddy, and remained angry and disgusted
for a very long time. How would she like it, we kept
asking her, if someone poured boiling hot sauce all down her
back?

We had no need of class lists when I was at school. We’d
got it all worked out by ourselves.

Belinda is standing in the doorway at Carole’s when I drop
off Arianne, with a clipboard clamped to her chest. On it,
in brightly coloured letters, are the words
End-of-term celebrations
.
Oh joy. At school we already have Fiona Littlewood
rallying us all over prom parties, and picnics and balloon
send-offs – even though it’s weeks until the children break
up. And now we have Belinda doing the same, here.

‘I’ll speak to you on your way out, Laura,’ she calls after
me as I sneak past, trying to ignore her. ‘That’s what I’m
doing. I’m catching everyone on their way out.’

Sure enough, there’s no escape, not for me, not for anyone.
She’s blocking the only exit and there’s a queue of women
trying to get through.

‘Now what can I put you down for?’ she demands when
it’s my turn. ‘We’re doing a zoo trip on the Monday, helpers
needed. Hampton Court with a picnic on Tuesday, again
helpers needed. Wednesday Ruby Bassett’s mum is doing a
cordon-bleu cookery demonstration for the children and the
mums – you are coming, aren’t you? Thursday we’re having
our sports day in the park – mums
and
dads needed for
that one – and Friday we’re having the end-of-term party
with a magician, and I’m getting a committee together to
arrange a carousel and maybe donkey rides,
though I’ll have
to keep a bit of an eye on the ticket prices
’ – this last said
in an exaggerated whisper, just in case there’s anyone around
who wasn’t planning to spend their entire holiday budget
on all this fun, fun, fun. ‘And we thought we’d do what
they’re doing at the school and have a balloon send-off,
right at the end. All the children can write their names on
a little piece of paper, tie it onto the balloon string, and at
the count of three they all let go.’ She pauses for breath
and grins at me. ‘I think it’s so sweet when they do that,
don’t you?’

‘I think it’s awful,’ I say and the grin drops right off her
face. ‘I mean, where do all the balloons go? All that plastic,
littering up the countryside, choking the birds. What’s it
going to be like if every school and nursery up and down
the country starts letting balloons go at the end of every
year? It’d be an environmental disaster.’

Behind me someone coughs – I’d forgotten I wasn’t last
in the queue, and of course I’m not the only one who just
wants to get out of there.

I watch the colour rise in Belinda’s face as she puffs herself
up. ‘It’s not me you should be telling off,’ she says huffily.
‘That bit wasn’t actually my idea. Though I happen to think
it is a very good idea, and we shouldn’t start bringing politics
into matters concerning children.’

I laugh. I can’t help myself. She carries on regardless.

‘Actually it was your friend Tasha’s idea.’ Boy, she says it
with such smug, self-righteous satisfaction. ‘So maybe you
should be speaking to her if you have a problem with it.
Though I have to say that
Tasha
has been extremely helpful
with the preparations, and I have her name down here on
my list’ – she glances at her clipboard – ‘
several
times, even
though she has enough on her plate at the moment, what
with being pregnant
and
having the asylum seekers to deal
with—’

‘There
are
no asylum seekers.’ I say it just to shut her up.
She tips her head to one side and looks at me for clarification.

‘Excuse me,’ she says, ‘but I think that you’ll find that
there are.’

‘And I think you’ll find that there are not. It was a joke,
Belinda. I made it up.’ I speak slowly and she stares at me
with her mouth hanging open. I can see the metal of her fillings,
cluttering up her teeth like a scrapyard. ‘There never
were
any asylum seekers, Belinda. But just look at how you
all reacted.’

Suddenly the hallway leading out of Carole’s house seems
very quiet. Whoever it is behind me who was coughing and
sighing so impatiently is now silent, clearly hanging on my
every word. It seems to me as if the whole world has drawn
in its breath right then, and vaguely, in some far-distant
corner of my mind, I wonder what it will be like when there
is no one left around here for me to offend. Belinda’s mouth
is still open, and she is blissfully lost for words. That in itself
makes it almost worth it. Almost, but not quite.

I spot my moment to escape and take it. ‘Sorry, Belinda,
I’ll be late for yoga. I’ll get back to you about your list,
okay?’ And I scoot past her outraged form and out of there,
resisting the temptation to turn round. It feels as if there are
a thousand eyes boring into my back.

I go straight home after yoga, and sit on my own, in the
quiet. Not for a minute do I underestimate what I’ve done.

Inside my head there is a self-destruct button, and I have
both hands on it, pressing down.

I’m late collecting Arianne, and rush in and rush out, managing
to avoid everyone. I arrive latish for Thomas, too; the hordes
are coming out of the school gate as I dodge my way in,
keeping my head down. I grab Thomas by the hand and
escape. Amazingly, no one stops me. No one says a thing.

But it’s only a matter of time.

This is the quiet before the storm. And there will be a
storm.

The moment James comes in, and shrugs off his jacket and
throws down his briefcase and makes his presence generally
known, the phone rings.

It’s Tasha.

‘Laura,’ she says in this brittle-bright, icy polite voice, ‘I
wonder if you might tell me exactly what it is that I have
done to offend you so?’

‘Nothing, Tasha,’ I gush back, equally bright. ‘Honestly, it
was all just a joke and not aimed at you at all. The
Littlewoods—’

‘How can it not be aimed at me?’ Tasha says and my skin
prickles up, all the way into my hair. ‘I mean, I am the only
one who has recently bought a house right opposite the
supposed asylum seekers, am I not? I am the only one whose
husband has just spent an absolute fortune on that house.
Tell me, have you any idea how much time Rupert has put
into finding the right lawyer to get rid of those supposed
asylum seekers? Laura, Rupert is a very busy man!’

‘Oh, Tasha, he hasn’t. I mean surely—’

‘He wanted to speak to you himself. Rupert wanted to
come round to your house and knock on your door and
speak to you himself, and I had to stop him, Laura. I had
to stop him coming round and speaking to you himself.’

She pauses now for a response, and I’m not sure if I’m
supposed to be scared at the prospect of Rupert coming
round or grateful to her for stopping him. Both probably.
Instead I try laughing it off, at which James, who has been
loitering and apparently listening in, sighs exaggeratedly and
glares at me.

‘Really, Tasha, it was all just a joke.’ I laugh again, and it
sounds a little manic. ‘And it got a bit out of hand. You know
what people are like around here—’

‘Rupert doesn’t think it was much of a joke,’ Tasha snaps.
‘And nor do I. And frankly, Laura, this is not the kind of
behaviour I expect from someone who likes to call themselves
a friend of mine.’

She slams down the phone. She does; she tells me off like
that and slams down the phone. I am left standing there,
stunned, and stinging all over. I look at James, and again I
try to laugh.

He doesn’t laugh back. He just looks at me for a minute
with his eyes narrowed, then goes into the kitchen and helps
himself to the supper that I have prepared for him, and ignores
me.

The phone rings again, almost straight away. I think it will
be Tasha calling back, or Penny or Fiona Littlewood, or God
knows who else wanting their say, so I let it go to the answerphone.

It’s Mrs Partridge.

‘Laura? Is that you, Laura?’ she shouts into the hall and
I close my eyes. ‘It’s Violet Partridge calling, dear. I wondered
if you’d be visiting Heddy again this Saturday. Only I was
wanting to take Nathan into Fayle for a new pair of shoes.
His feet have grown, see.’ She pauses and I can feel her
searching for words. ‘I do believe your visits have made a
difference to my Heddy. The nurse said so, just the other
day.’ I hear this and I close my eyes. ‘So kind of you to go
to the trouble,’ Mrs Partridge says. ‘So kind.’

There’s a long pause before she finally hangs up the phone,
as if she’s thinking what else she ought to say, or waiting for
a reply. In that space, I hear the crackle of the phone as she
moves it about, and the faint, background murmur of the
TV. I hear her breathing, tired, old, lonely. I hold my own
breath lest she should hear me back. Lest she should know
that I’m there.

Kind, she says. But I was never kind.

I stand alone in the playground to collect Thomas on Friday.
All the other women are huddled together, in a group, as far
away from me as they can be. Out of this group Fiona
Littlewood extricates herself, and bravely walks over, clipboard
in hand.

I smile as if I am pleased to see her, and unaware of my
so obvious isolation.

She smiles back, short, tight, just a clenching of the cheekbones
and the eyes.

‘I’m organizing the end-of-term celebrations,’ she says, as
if I didn’t know, and her cheekbones tighten further, ‘and
gathering volunteers. But I won’t be asking you, Laura. I
think we all know now that you have different priorities to
the rest of us.’

And then she walks away again, back to the others, and
I am left standing there, grinning like I couldn’t care less,
which, quite frankly, I couldn’t.

It is James’s football night. He comes in from work, he winds
up the children, and he goes out again. He barely speaks to
me, just the coolest of hellos as he passes me on the stairs
where I am bent picking up the discarded socks and Lego
bricks and other various items scattered there by his children.

I am glad he is going out, and taking his cold shoulder
with him. There is nothing I hate more than the feeling of
being judged, especially by my own husband.

As soon as I have finished resettling the children, and
tidying up, and picking up wet towels from the bathroom
floor, I pour myself a glass of wine and slap some bread in
the toaster for my supper. And my mother phones.