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The door opened and Jen1 stood there, a skinny minny with super-straight long blonde hair almost down to her waist. I think it was her waist, anyway. The wide belt around it made it look like my wrist. ‘You must be Harley’s mummy. I’m Hugo’s mummy, Jennifer, how do you do?’ She held out a hand that had definitely benefited from the sort of creams I dusted on dressing tables – lotions and potions made from nightingale droppings, Chilean snail slime or snake venom at £100 a blob.
‘I’m Maia, pleased to meet you, Jenny.’ I wondered whether Jen1 phoned the hairdresser’s and announced herself as Hugo’s mummy.
‘I prefer Jennifer, if you don’t mind,’ she said, as she did what I always thought of as the elevator look. She started off looking at the top of my head like an exotic parakeet had settled there, then flicked down, taking in my T-shirt, my cardigan with the button missing, my Primark jeans. She got as far as my shoes, then zoomed all the way up again. As soon as she realised that I was so far down the food chain, there was nothing to compete with, her whole attitude shifted. She dug out a different face, like she was picking one out of the wardrobe. The mask she’d chosen for me was a limited amount of smiling and friendliness so I couldn’t go away and slag her off but I wouldn’t start thinking that I was going to become her bessie mate either.
‘Come in, come in, we’re all in the kitchen,’ she said. I stepped into the hall. Pale cream carpet without a single stain, no splodge of tea, no muddy marks. No place for the Crocs that I’d squelched around the football field in at the weekend. I took them off, wishing I’d worn something other than the Boozy Bird socks that Colin had bought me for my birthday.
I followed Jen1’s trail of perfume as she led me into the kitchen. About twelve women were standing in various little groups around a black marble-topped island with a built-in wine fridge. Jen1 obviously didn’t have to shuffle everything round and stand her milk outside the back door if she’d bought a chicken for Sunday dinner. I handed her the box of bakewell tarts that I’d bought at the Co-op on the way. With barely a thank you, she dumped it down next to a box of Waitrose’s mint truffles and a tin of biscuits from Harrods. She introduced me to a few women who had names like Francesca, Elizabeth and Charlotte, all with their own versions of the elevator look.
I heard Clover swearing before I saw her, a helmet of wayward curls among several shiny bobs. She was wearing a pair of thick round glasses that made her look like Velma off Scooby-Doo. A kaftan top created a beaded shelf over her enormous boobs like an usherette’s ice cream tray. She made her way round to my side of the island.
‘Maia, how are you? How are the children settling in? Orrie said something about a problem with Harley’s hair? They’re such fucking fascists at that school sometimes. I mean, they’re great at telling the kids what they’re good at, all those star charts and best bloody handwriting awards, but they’ve got no bastard idea about individuality. Still, I suppose that’s what we’re paying for. They can instil discipline so we don’t have to bother.’
When she took a breath, I told her about the note his teacher had sent me, saying that Harley wouldn’t be allowed back until he’d had his hair chopped off. That same evening I’d given him a number five in the kitchen with Colin’s clippers and watched his curls gather on the floor like an old wig. When I’d finished, my raggle-taggle golden boy looked like he was about to join the army cadets. Harley had run his hand over it, shrugging. ‘S’all right. It feels like a tennis ball.’
When Colin saw it, he did a Sieg Heil salute and told Harley he looked like a BNP supporter. I picked up a curl from the floor, wrapped it in silver foil and put it in the old biscuit tin under my bed where I kept all my precious things. Right on the top of the pile was his school photo from last year. He looked so much younger, scruffy curls falling over his face, cheekily carefree. I had jammed the lid back on.
Jen1 appeared at my side, all buzzy-bottomed and efficient in her black polo-necked jumper and pencil skirt. She offered us a plate of mini chocolate brownies. Clover took one, then scooped up two more. ‘These are lovely, did you make them?’
‘Hugo and I bake every Sunday afternoon. I think it’s essential for children to learn to cook. It’s no wonder that there are so many of these fat chavvy children about when their mothers just feed them pre-packaged rubbish,’ Jen1 said.
I glanced over at my bakewell tarts, still in their box, shining with thick white icing and glacé cherries. I took comfort from the fact that she hadn’t even let the Harrods pure butter shortbread poison her kitchen.
‘We eat organic as far as possible. I’m even getting the gardener to plant some veggies this year. We should have our own rocket, leeks and red peppers by the summer,’ she said, turning to me. ‘Would you like coffee, Maia? I’ve got linizio, livanto or capriccio if you want an espresso or vivalto or finezzo if you want a longer one. Or I’ve got Mao Feng green tea and white Ginseng tea. Or Tung Ting Oolong.’
I didn’t have a clue what she was on about. I must’ve looked a bit dorky because she indicated the coffee machine on the side. ‘Coffee would be lovely. I don’t mind what sort. Thank you,’ I said.
Clover readjusted a bra strap, temporarily raising her left boob like a put about to be shot. ‘If you come round to mine, it’s just instant,’ she said, not quite managing to whisper.
A tall woman came trotting over, horsey teeth, bright orange lipstick and frilly Peter Pan collar. ‘Clover, how are you? And you must be the new boy’s mother. How do you do? I’m Venetia Dylan-Jones. Welcome to Stirling Hall, or SH as we like to call it. How is your son settling in?’
‘Fine, thank you. I think he’s finding some of the work quite hard but hopefully he’ll catch up.’
‘I think reading’s key at this age, isn’t it? Theo’s a great fan of Beverley Naidoo.’ Venetia had the sort of face on that meant she expected us to be impressed. I obviously didn’t get my eyes open wide enough.
‘I don’t think I know who she is.’
‘Of course you do. She’s written all those books about racism and prejudice in South Africa. You must know Journey to Jo’burg, No Turning Back,’ Venetia said. ‘It’s terribly important for our children to understand other cultures.’
‘I don’t think I’ve come across her.’
Venetia looked as though she thought I might be having her on. She battled on. ‘Of course, he likes fantasy stories as well. Anthony Horowitz, David Almond and Harry Potter.’
‘He’s read Harry Potter?’ Harley was reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid and that was a struggle.
Again, Venetia looked at me as though I was speaking a foreign language. ‘He’d read most of them by the time he was eight.’ She had that ‘hasn’t everybody?’ tone going on. ‘Not so keen on the last one, I think he was finding it a bit easy.’
That morning I’d got really stressed over Harley’s spellings because he still hadn’t cottoned on to the fact that some words had silent letters, still writing ‘nife’, ‘nome’ and ‘restling’ while Bronte sat there rolling her eyes. Nothing compared to how bloody stressed I was feeling now. Weren’t any of the other boys reading Top Gear and Doctor Who annuals?
Venetia patted my arm. ‘Perhaps he’s more into science?’
I didn’t tell her that so far we’d only managed to do one of the science homeworks because we needed to use the internet and the one crappy computer at the library had been out of order. I did a half-shrug and said, ‘We’ll see.’
Venetia ploughed on. ‘I’ve got the number of a terrific science tutor. Even if he doesn’t want to do science at university, it might help him get in if there’s a struggle for places. We get Theo tutored twice a week in science and he’s just started Mandarin as well. My husband is very keen for him to get into Oxford. Languages seem to be terribly important for the best universities.’
‘How old is he?’ I said.
‘Rising eleven, he’s in Mr Rickson’s class with your son. It’s vital to start early. Have you thought about universities yet?’
‘No, not yet.’ Though I did make an effort not to look as though the idea had never occurred to me.
‘I haven’t given it a second thought,’ Clover said. ‘I’m not bothered whether the kids go or not. Some of the thickest, dullest people I know went to university. Never saw the need myself. I don’t care if my kids spend their lives breeding tropical fish as long as they’re passionate about it.’ She licked the chocolate off her fingers.
‘My husband doesn’t see it that way. We both went to Oxford and he’d like to see Theo carry on the family tradition.’ Venetia looked like a cat whose fur had been stroked the wrong way. I wasn’t in the ‘Mandarin by intravenous drip’ camp but I did hope that Stirling Hall would encourage the kids to do something a bit more highbrow than get a few Black Mollies in the family way. God, I was still hoping that it wasn’t too late for me, let alone the kids. Even though I couldn’t afford Open University, I was working my way through the classics at the library. I’d got most of the A’s and B’s covered now so as long as people stuck with Jane Austen or the Brontës I had half a chance of sounding a teeny bit educated.
‘Where did you study, Maia?’ Venetia said.
‘I didn’t stay on at school.’
Venetia looked as though she was going to need smelling salts at the thought of being in the same air space as someone who didn’t even have A-levels, let alone a degree. I didn’t find her response of ‘Oh’ very articulate for someone who’d been to Oxford.
Clover took my arm. ‘Would you excuse us for a second, Venetia? I promised to introduce Maia to our celebrity mum.’ She pointed to a dark-haired woman in the corner. ‘Do you recognise her? Her name’s Frederica Rinton. She’s been in Holby City and Casualty and I think she was in some American soap thing. Can’t remember the name.’
I looked over. I’d been watching her in a hospital drama the night before. She was a lot slimmer in real life. I wanted to rush over and tell her that I thought she should have won the outstanding drama performance category at the National Telly Awards. She probably wouldn’t want reminding of that. I couldn’t wait to tell my neighbour, Sandy, that I’d met and actually nibbled chocolate brownies in the company of Frederica. Sandy devoured Hello! and Heat magazines, talking about TV presenters as though they were her mates. In the meantime, I tried to look like I hobnobbed with celebs all the time.
Clover headed over, weaving her big bum through the chrome stools. ‘Long time no see, Freddie. I see more of you on the telly than hanging around school. How is the glitzy world of TV? Should we be honoured that you’ve found time to come to our humble coffee morning?’
Clover introduced me and filled in the gaps for ‘Freddie’. Harley was in the same class as her son, Marlon. I stood there, nodding along to discussions about after-school rugby, the upcoming play, the shocking standard of school lunches. I was trying to remember not to say school dinners. All the time Frederica was talking, I was waiting for her to do something starry, drop some names, names I had only seen in film and TV credits, bitch about her co-stars – yes, deliver me a big fat nugget of showbiz gossip that I could share with Sandy over a Malibu and Coke. I didn’t say much, just inspected her face for signs of Botox to report back and wondered how to get her autograph in a cool way. There was no cool way. I eyed the serviette she’d been holding her chocolate brownie on. Sandy would love that. I’d try and snaffle it later.
‘I saw you in that costume drama thingy. You lucky bugger, getting to snog Colin Firth; I get to pick up horse shit all day. Life just ain’t fair. Tell me he was a dreadful kisser at least?’ Clover said.
‘I’m going to have to disappoint you: he was the god of kissing. Found it quite difficult to kiss my husband afterwards. But don’t tell him that,’ Frederica said.
I was trying to remember every detail of the conversation for full dramatic recount effect, when Jen1 came twitching over with a list in her hand. ‘Frederica, as you know, Stirling Hall Fete Day is just around the corner and I’ve volunteered to coordinate all the stalls. Have you been approached to open the fete? You do such a great job. I know people love to see you there.’
‘Yeah, like our own Stirling Hall royalty. Frederica is a fantastic queen’s name. We’ll try and get a red carpet for you this year,’ Clover said. Jen1 tutted and frowned at her list. Frederica giggled and told Jen1 she’d be happy to do it.
‘Right. We need to allocate stalls. If I could just have everyone’s attention,’ Jen1 said, picking up a spoon and dinging it on a glass.
‘First off, homemade cake stall. If everyone is in agreement, I’d like to run that one. Everyone needs to contribute at least one cake. I’ll be sending home paper plates in the school bags, so look out for them. Last year lots of people donated shop bought cakes, but let’s see if this year we can get you all in the kitchen doing your bit. Come on, how difficult can it be? Get cooking with your children, remember, quality time, quality time. Don’t forget absolutely no nuts and please list all the ingredients on the label.
‘Who wants to run the welly-wanging stall? Emelia? Great. Now, we’re getting really subversive this year and having a tattoo stall, wash-off, obviously. Vile, chavvy as anything I know, but the children love them. The headmaster has agreed as long as they are removed for school on the Monday.’
She looked round the kitchen. ‘Maia, you can be our tattoo expert. I think you’d be perfect for that.’
‘I’ll do that with you,’ Clover said, but not quite quickly enough to cover the silence in the room.
‘Okay, fine, let me know what I have to do.’ I reminded myself that I was here to look nice enough for other mothers to invite my children to play. Which ruled out flashing the love heart on my left buttock or demanding to know why I, above all the others, would be perfect for the tattoo stall rather than the bloody tombola or serving the Pimms? People brought their gazes back from the furthest point of Jen1’s manicured lawn as the conversation turned to who was going to provide the ‘guess the number of sweets’ jar.
‘Finally, we need volunteers for tickets and refreshments for Oliver! It will come round very quickly, though I don’t think the children know which roles they have yet, do they?’ Jen1 said.
‘They do, they’ve already been rehearsing,’ said Frederica. ‘Marlon is playing Oliver.’
‘Hugo hasn’t said anything.’
‘Isn’t he one of the workhouse children?’ said Frederica.
‘But that’s only a small part, isn’t it? Hugo always has a lead part. We get a teacher down every Wednesday from LAMDA to tutor him. Who’s playing the other big roles, the Artful Dodger? What about Fagin?’
I’d never seen Oliver! but something about the Artful Dodger rang a bell. The auditions had been on the second day of term though, so I was pretty sure Harley wouldn’t have a lead part. He’d only ever been in one play at Morlands as a toy soldier, so I imagined they’d given him some crappo role, like a passerby or a lamp post just to include him.
Frederica glanced at me. ‘Isn’t Harley playing the Artful Dodger?’
‘I think he said he was, though I might have got that wrong.’ I looked at Jen1 whose lips had disappeared completely, wrinkled up like an old sweet wrapper. She hopped off her stool and started scooting about the kitchen picking up coffee cups and crashing them into the dishwasher. I saw her tip the remains of the chocolate brownies into her Brabantia bin. The hostess with the mostest had run out of welcome.
Time to go, but first I needed the loo. Jen1 pointed through the back of the kitchen, with a flick of her wrist. ‘Out there.’ It had one of those funny freestanding glass wash basins, which were a bugger to clean because all the splashes of water drip down the outside and collect in a manky puddle at the bottom. I took my time, studying the photo collage of Jen1 in her bikini, in a motorboat, in a hammock, ribs sticking out like she needed a bloody good steak and chips and a couple of cream cakes. I spent ages rubbing in the Molton Brown hand cream. I might as well get silky smooth hands out of my visit.
As I opened the door, I heard her say, ‘I didn’t realise Stirling Hall provided scholarships for poor children. I suppose they are trying to expose our children to all walks of life. Is that a new thing?’
I walked into the kitchen. I failed to keep the tightness out of my voice as I said, ‘I pay for my kids, just like you do. Nice to meet you, everyone, I need to get off now. Thanks for the coffee, Jenny.’
‘It’s Jennifer.’
She didn’t show me out.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_97cfc379-7adf-5ac9-9d25-156c33e35edc)
Friday was a low point in my week because I spent the entire day in the house I hated cleaning the most – lots of those white ornaments with drippy shapes of women holding babies and whole shelves of decorative bells and silver spoons embossed with Lisbon, Sicily, Madeira and every other place Cecilia and Arthur had been cruising. Plus Cecilia herself, of course, whose idea of letting things slip was not hoovering the back of the airing cupboard every week.
That Friday, nearly two weeks after the kids had started at Stirling Hall, was particularly grim. I’d been dragging the Hoover up and down three flights of stairs as Cecilia had people ‘coming from the country’ for the weekend so she needed me to have a ‘quick do’ on the third floor, but didn’t take away any of my usual chores to allow me extra time.
I’d already been late to pick up Harley and Bronte once that week and the school had been very clear. More than ten minutes late and they charged for after-school club. I just had the kitchen floor to mop when Cecilia called me into the ‘snug’, where the smell of lavender was fighting with something citrussy. Cecilia sat propped up on a pile of cushions with her feet in a bubbling foot spa as though there was nothing more pressing to do, while a woman with a tidy ponytail and white uniform perched on a stool, massaging her hands.
‘Maia, I’m in such a state. I’m going to a black tie ball with Arthur tonight and I can’t decide which nail varnish goes with my dress. Would you be a dear and get it out of the wardrobe for me? It’s the long purple one with the fishtail and gold trimming.’
I don’t think I managed to look overjoyed but I still ran upstairs two at a time and raced back down, not caring that I was scrunching the silk up as I tried not to trip over it. I burst back in, just remembering to hang the dress on the door rather than throw it on the settee.
‘Thanks, Maia. Have a look at the nail varnishes and tell me which one you think goes best with it,’ Cecilia said.
The grandfather clock was chiming three o’clock. I needed to leave in the next thirty seconds. I plumped for a pink thing on the first row of the rack.
‘Here, how about Pinking Sheer?’ I said, reading the bottom.
‘That’s quite nice. Can you find Poolside Passion to compare? It’s quite a bright colour. That might be it on the second row.’
I started turning up the different bottles with all their stupid names, Punks in Pink, Pinking the Perky, Pinking Obvious, but no Poolside Passion.
The beauty therapist carried on massaging cream into Cecilia’s hands, making no attempt to help me out. In the hired help category, she obviously considered that someone who ripped out pubic hair was far superior to someone who just cleaned it out of the shower.
‘Cecilia, look, I’m really sorry, I’m going to have to go. I have to fetch the children. I’ve done everything, given the top floor a good clean for your guests, but I’m afraid I haven’t managed to mop the kitchen floor. I have hoovered it though, so it just needs a quick flick over.’
I said it as an aside, pulling off my work slippers and turning towards the door. But the idea of sullying herself with a bottle of Flash seemed to wind Cecilia up. It was like those rubbish seventies shipwreck films Mum loved, where a light wind starts to ruffle the trees gently and before you know it, the waves are tossing people over the side and sails are ripping in two when a few minutes earlier there wasn’t even a ripple in the water.
She sat up very straight on the settee, her dark bob rigid like a tin helmet. ‘Maia, I’m sorry, but doing half a job doesn’t work for me, not when I’m so terribly busy. So I’d be really grateful if you could finish off properly?’
I tried again. ‘I’m sorry but if I don’t go now, I’ll have to pay an extra £16 for the children to go into after-school club which I can’t afford at the moment. I have managed a lot of extra things today.’ I smiled to show that I wasn’t offended.
‘I’m sorry but if you can’t stay on for a few more minutes or organise yourself better to fit in a couple of tiny extras, I probably need to think about employing someone more flexible.’
‘What do you mean? I am flexible. I come in at short notice, I do one-off special cleans when you have people to stay. I pop in on Sundays to tidy up when you’ve had a dinner party. And they weren’t tiny extras, I’ve cleaned a whole floor from top to bottom.’
‘I don’t want to lose you, but if your other commitments mean that you aren’t able to maintain a satisfactory standard, then I think it’s better that you seek alternative employment.’
I stood, I think the prof used to call it, nonplussed. The beautician’s hands slathered and smoothed cream. The spa bath bubbled gently. I couldn’t afford to lose another £60 a week. Harley was already clamouring to do guitar lessons at £160 a term. Unfortunately my mouth opened before I got going with the humble pie.
‘I’m sorry you feel like that. By the way, I popped your vibrator back in the bathroom cupboard in case you’re looking for it.’
I saw the beautician’s hands slow, then stop. I tossed a ‘nice working for you’ over my shoulder and took a second to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing Cecilia’s arched eyebrows disappear into her hairline before the reality of being even worse off depressed the shit out of me.
I decided not to tell Colin about getting the sack. He’d grumped enough when a corpse had made me redundant. I knew he’d somehow bring this latest trouble back to the fact that the kids were at Stirling Hall.
That evening, as soon as he disappeared off down the Working Men’s Club for a game of pool – I never dared point out the irony of his choice of venue – I grabbed my bottle of Malibu and headed to Sandy’s. I’d lived next door to her for eleven years since the council gave me a house when I was expecting Harley. Colin had disappeared for a few months as soon as the words ‘I’m pregnant’ left my mouth but he reappeared, broke and full of soppy promises when Harley was about four months old. In the meantime, Sandy helped me through the new baby fog, taking Harley next door to give me a break from the crying, and passing on clothes that her son, Denim, had grown out of.
Sandy and I knew details about each other that adults weren’t supposed to share. We’d laughed till bubbles came out our noses about the noises men made during sex. Once, after too much Malibu, I’d told her that Colin shouted, ‘Goal’ when he came, so now she always called him the striker. Sometimes she’d ask him, ‘Played much football lately?’ when she knew I could hear. Guilt took the edge off my laughter.
Sandy, on the other hand, took information oversharing to uncomfortable extremes. Instead of saying, ‘You remember so-and-so, you know, blonde hair, heart tattoo,’ she’d say, ‘You remember Dave, the one who liked to watch in the mirror.’ ‘You know, Jim, the one who went at it like a hog in heat?’ She showed no mercy when it came to describing men’s ability in bed, parading across the kitchen doing a reverse fisherman – ‘It was this big’ – and peering at a tiny space between her thumb and forefinger.
Friday nights had become my only little moment of ‘me’ time as the women I worked for called it. They got their feet massaged; I parked myself in Sandy’s kitchen and made the miserable events of the week into something we could laugh about. It was like snuggling under a duvet when it’s snowing outside.
When Sandy opened the door that evening, she had a line of bleach on her top lip. The mouldy hay smell indicated that henna was working its red magic under the Morrisons carrier bag covering her hair. Bronte and Harley pushed past her as they always did, grunting a hello. They were far more interested in bagging a cushion next to her sons, Gypsy and Denim Blue, and settling down to Doctor Who with a jumbo bag of Quavers.
‘Hello, Harley, hello, Bronte,’ Sandy shouted through to the front room. ‘I thought they’d be coming in shaking me hand and doing little bows. You wanna ask for your money back.’
I shrugged and followed her into the kitchen, where I helped myself to a couple of glasses. My sense of humour about Stirling Hall had packed up its troubles in an old kit bag and disappeared completely.
‘So, who’s the lucky man?’ I said, pouring out the Malibu and watching the Coke bubble up into a coconutty froth.
‘Who says there’s a new man?’ she said, a big grin making her little elfin face even pointier.
‘Come off it. You only put that rabbit poo on your hair when there’s a new bloke about.’
Sandy was a single mum who worked shifts packing dog biscuits at the factory down the road. Unlike me, being poor didn’t seem to bother her. She didn’t care that she relied on the charity foundation in town for her kids’ clothes, or that she spent her life switching between credit cards, which even at 0% interest, she had no hope of paying off.
‘He’s a new guy at the factory,’ Sandy said.
‘Called?’
‘Shane.’
