A Year in the Life of a Playground Mother: A laugh-out-loud funny novel about life at the School Gates (A School Gates Comedy Book 1)

by Christie Barlow

  Poor Samuel was screaming even louder now so I finally decided to venture out of bed and pass him some toilet paper. Then I went in search of Matt who must have spent the night with the dog as he had never made it to bed. Matt was hugging his mug of tea and nursing a hangover. In my opinion there was no need to show off just because it had been a sober Saturday night for me. It wasn’t fair.

  ‘You’ll never guess what happened last night,’ I exclaimed.

  I was just about to divulge all the details to Matt when the back door flew open and Imogen was standing there grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘Come on in why don’t you,’ I sighed and handed her my mug of tea.

  ‘You’ll never guess what?’ remarked Imogen.

  ‘Go on, enlighten me,’ I replied.

  Then it all came spilling out. Apparently Rupert had been caught red-handed by Penelope having an affair with her best friend Annie. I could feel Matt’s eyes locked in my direction but I managed to discreetly shake my head towards him. He knows this is the code for ‘Keep your mouth shut and play dumb,’ which is not hard for Matt. The last thing I wanted to do was to deny or confirm anything. If Imogen had known I was present at the time of the discovery, I would have to explain why I was out with Penelope – her arch enemy – and why I ended up stalking Rupert in monster slippers. I didn’t care how she had got her information; she was not hearing any of it from me.

  I was intrigued to know how the whole village had found out about the sordid affair while I was sleeping. I couldn’t imagine Penelope broadcasting the fact that Rupert was showing his full house to her best mate.

  ‘Where have you heard this from, Imogen?’ I enquired.

  Her answer took me by surprise.

  ‘Camilla Noland.’

  Camilla Noland? How the hell did she know? Had she been stalking us while we were stalking Rupert? But no, Annie is friends with Wendy, Penelope’s other best mate. Last night Annie had taken refuge round at Wendy’s house. She needed to come up with an explanation to why Rupert’s car was parked on her drive. They both enlisted Camilla’s help and the three women pushed the car to the end of the road and rolled it into a hedge. Unfortunately Camilla is not the soul of discretion but it was drastic measures at drastic times. She took every opportunity to bad-mouth Penelope and this occasion was no different. That morning in the local newsagents while buying a newspaper, Mrs Noland had already been spouting off about the affair in earshot of Imogen.

  I felt really sorry for Penelope, she really didn’t need the whole village knowing her business.

  Just at that moment I received a text message from Penelope:

  Can I come round?

  That was all very well but Imogen was standing in my kitchen filling me in on last night’s adventure that I had been slap bang in the middle of. I’m sure old Rupert had been slap bang in the middle of getting his ace high as Penelope hammered on the door. Dempsey and Makepeace lived another day!

  Imogen was in full gossip mode and informed me that Rupert had been up to no good before. I already knew he had been up to no good on more than one occasion. Imogen went on to reveal that again, according to Camilla, Rupert had already had a fling with another one of Penelope’s friends called Stephanie. Shaking my head in disbelief I thought to myself it may just be easier if Penelope had no friends, or even easier to name the friends he hadn’t had an affair with. Camilla still failed to let everyone know that she had previously shown Rupert the back of her horsebox on numerous occasions. So while trying to be diplomatic and suggesting we shouldn’t gossip – actually I wasn’t gossiping, Imogen was – my kitchen had been invaded and all I wanted was breakfast and a peaceful day. Already this looked like it wasn’t going to happen. I was beginning to think it had been easier living next door to the International Sex God.

  Stephanie’s affair with Rupert had lasted six months. It had been easy for them to conduct an affair because Stephanie only worked one day a week. She was an attractive woman, and quite quietly spoken but, as the saying goes, the quiet ones are always the worst. Luckily for Rupert, Penelope never discovered this affair. Eventually Stephanie and Rupert drifted apart when Penelope fell out with her. According to Camilla – via Imogen – the rumour was that they argued over Annabel’s christening because it fell on the day that Stephanie was working. Penelope had begged her to phone in work and take the day off sick but this was against Stephanie’s moral ethics.

  I wasn’t quite sure where playing with Rupert’s king and pair of jacks scored in Stephanie’s morals. Rupert just liked to score full stop. Stephanie assured Penelope that she would be there for the evening do but, as Penelope needed to get her own way, it was all or nothing. Stephanie called her bluff and opted for nothing and even gave up Rupert without a fight. Rupert was devastated by this decision; she was the first of his many women and the first one to dispose of him!

  I was bloody intrigued as to what Rupert actually had to offer and what everyone saw in him. I didn’t get it and had no intention of getting it. I did my best to dodge weekly amorous acquaintances with my Matt, never mind getting it elsewhere. I replied to Penelope’s text telling her I was free in an hour which would give me enough time to eject Imogen from the Shack and to jump in the shower. I needed to get myself mentally prepared for the day ahead. Once washed and changed I checked on the children. Eva, Samuel and Matilda were occupied and snuggled up watching a DVD in front of the telly upstairs, and Daisy was still fast asleep after having a restless night.

  Matt was banished back to the conservatory with his new best friend, the dog.

  It seemed that Penelope wasn’t very successful at keeping her best friends. She seemed to rotate them in a two-year cycle and for whatever reason she no longer spoke to Imogen. Two years after that she had driven Stephanie away and now Annie had decided her relationship with Rupert was more important than her friendship with Penelope.

  On arrival at the Shack Penelope looked dreadful. Making her a brew I wondered whether to offer her a biscuit, even though there were no chocolate ones left, or should I offer her a stick of celery? In the end, I opted for the safe option, I offered nothing.

  For the next two hours – yes two hours – and seven fags later I had her life history. It was two hours of my life I will never get back. But I nodded and tilted my head in the correct places just so Penelope was aware I hadn’t slipped into a coma.

  Penelope confided in me how she’d taken the texts from ‘Hot Legs’ to a close neighbour, because she needed a shoulder to cry on. This neighbour was also a mother at school. Penelope made it clear she liked being friends with her as Little Jonny was way more intelligent than her son. I was astounded by her attitude and would have been amazed if that friendship lasted either. Her name was Josie. Josie was good friends with Stephanie and often shared lunch or shopping dates with her. She was already aware of Rupert’s affair with Stephanie and knew exactly what he was like.

  Penelope had confided in her that the affair was all Annie’s fault. Rupert had somehow managed to convince Penelope that physical contact never took place. Who was he trying to kid? They were at it every Friday night while Penelope trundled off to Bingo with her mates. Didn’t she think it was strange Rupert never got paid for his overtime at work? Oh and why was he lacking his pants when we busted him at Annie’s house? I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to watch that Oscar-winning performance. How naive was Penelope?

  We all knew Rupert had been enjoying regular rendezvous in the local hotel with Annie. Not only had he taken Annie joy riding in his new car but he’d enjoyed afternoon sack games in Penelope’s own bed with her and let’s not forget his rendezvous with Camilla in the back of her horsebox – not a euphemism by the way! Biting on my bottom lip I kept quiet, which was very difficult for me; being a northerner, I usually have no qualms in saying what I think at the best of times but on this occasion I never said a word.

  I was beginning to see that this local village was weaving some very tangled webs. Goodn
ess knows what the gossip was like at Stitch and Bitch this week once they had hit the sherry.

  Penelope steered the conversation round to Wendy Barthorpe. In my opinion this poor woman was stuck in the middle of it all. Penelope blamed Wendy for hosting the poker game at her house in the first place. I wanted to suggest that maybe it wasn’t Wendy’s fault, she couldn’t have ever imagined Rupert was actually going to poke Annie. I couldn’t understand why she was blaming anyone else, it was Rupert who hadn’t been loyal, and he was the one married to her.

  At this moment I mentioned that I had received a friend request from Wendy on Facebook. Penelope wasn’t best pleased. Penelope drivelled on about how Wendy wasn’t prepared to break her friendship with Annie. I wasn’t sure why Wendy would, unless we had been catapulted back in time twenty-five years to the school playground. Penelope thought it was outrageous that their mutual friend was trying to steal her husband. If this was me, I would no longer have wanted to be friends with my husband and probably would have wanted to shake Annie’s hand for revealing the type of bloke he was. I did think about pointing out that maybe if she wasn’t so interested in Little Jonny and his climb up the Oxford Reading Tree and paid her husband a little more attention, none of this might have happened. But I didn’t, as I only had Imogen’s take on how Penelope worshipped Little Jonny.

  Penelope begged me not to accept the Facebook friend request, claiming Wendy didn’t like her having new friends and she was the jealous type. For the time being the only reason I hadn’t accepted the friend request was because I wasn’t acquainted with the woman. ‘Quality not quantity’ was my motto and I was sticking with it. I wasn’t yet convinced that accepting Penelope’s request was quality over quantity but I supposed time would tell.

  As a friend – maybe that was pushing it a little as I had only known her forty-eight hours and as a result of this friendship I had frostbite, had had my first sober Saturday night in years and had just thrown my monster feet slippers into the open log fire to cremate them as they hadn’t survived the previous night’s adventure – unfortunately I needed to tell Penelope that actually she may not be able to keep the village from discovering Rupert’s antics. Half of them had already overheard Camilla spouting her mouth off in the local shop while buying their morning paper. I decided not to rub Penelope’s face in it – by also letting on that Camilla and Wendy had helped Annie to roll Rupert’s car away from the house, therefore buying Annie some more time before she was busted by her husband.

  Penelope stared at me wide-eyed.

  ‘How do you know this?’ Penelope asked sternly.

  I wanted to say that what I hadn’t learned about Tattersfield over the last few weeks probably wasn’t worth knowing. Instead, as I had nothing to lose I just replied with the truth that Imogen had passed on the morning gossip to me from the newsagents. Apart from the shoplifting I did quite like Imogen. She was very witty and with her dry sense of humour I thought she would fit in well with my friends up north. But in the next ten minutes Imogen’s right ear must have been burning – right for spite – as Penelope verbally tore the poor woman limb from limb.

  Penelope started by slating Imogen’s ‘annoying’ kids; Little Jonny was much cleverer than her lads of course – well according to her. She then suggested Imogen’s husband, Steve, was a sandwich short of a picnic and the only thing he was good for was circulating the latest chart CD rip-offs or hooky Xbox games. She suggested Imogen was clingy and Meredith and Lucinda only put up with her because they felt sorry for her. I thought about giving Penelope Mrs High School Musical’s address and suggesting they could become pen pals. Planet School was enough to deal with but now Planet Village seemed to be taking over.

  I ventured into the kitchen to make Penelope yet another cup of tea. Matt popped his head around the kitchen door, which was becoming a bit of a habit. His lips were turning blue and I realised the poor bugger had been stuck in the conservatory for over two hours in freezing cold conditions. Being the kind wife that I am I let him back into the main Shack and suggested to Penelope that maybe I would be arrested for Matt cruelty if he had to stay in there any longer. Penelope took the hint and reluctantly ventured back home.

  Before I knew it, it was Monday morning again and I was sitting in the car with the children parked in the space outside the school gates. I had nine years left of this routine, nine years left of my primary school sentence. Watching the playground from afar whilst the mothers trundled in to the yard, I realised I’d only been present for a few weeks and already there had been numerous shuffles around the playground. Mothers appeared to jump from one clique to another, usually because another child had become more intelligent than their own.

  Botox Bernie had taken a step to the left in the playground over the last couple of days. According to Imogen she had apparently fallen out with another mother over a recycled birthday present. Two weeks ago, Botox Bernie had given a book as a birthday present to a child and penned a personalised birthday message at the front – only to receive it back for her own child two weeks later. The moral of that story is to make sure you check all the pages of the book before you wrap it back up and give it away.

  This particular Monday morning the gossip was rife in the playground. Everyone had heard the Rupert story, thanks to Camilla Noland. The Playground Mafia were like vultures flapping around whilst waiting for Penelope to enter the playground, I felt sorry for Penelope. Botox Bernie seemed to live for gossip. She got high on other people’s news and this morning was no different. She received a blow by blow account of Rupert’s infidelity from Camilla herself.

  Botox Bernie was an unsavoury character. She used the playground like a big chessboard, attempting to dominate the mothers ranking top in playground feuds. Botox Bernie – the white queen – moves first by targeting the mother she wants to displace. She makes her latest grievance known in the playground within earshot of any mother willing to listen. The rest of us on-lookers are simply pawns in the game; occasionally, one of us makes a wrong move after being given little time to think and we make an ill-judged remark, placing ourselves in a position where we appear to have taken sides. Usually the best thing to do is not to think and stay out of it but that is easier said than done. The mother that has then been dragged into the argument – the innocent party – is then a trapped pawn, unsupported by the other pawn mothers and unable to advance as they are dumped after sticking up for the original pawn. I flippin’ detest chess – and playground mothers.

  I’d had a more than eventful weekend and was hoping the quiet life would soon return. My morning was planned out – a morning of cake baking followed by cleaning out the coop and checking on the ponies, which now had increased to two. Matilda toddled after me everywhere and Daisy would be strapped in her buggy happily gurgling whilst sucking on bread sticks. The weather was warming up a little and it was starting to feel like spring. I had just switched on the kettle when there was a knock at the door.

  Opening the door I found Penelope on the other side. Sometimes I envy people with those peep holes in their door; this would have been one of those occasions when I could have peered through and pretended I wasn’t at home. Penelope seemed excited, she had an idea that she wanted to run past me. Grabbing her a mug, I poured her a cuppa and we sat down at the kitchen table. Penelope had been thinking, she’d decided that Rupert had only fancied Annie because she was thin. Shaking my head in disbelief I had no idea where Penelope was going with this but I continued to listen. The only thought that crossed my mind was maybe Rupert fancied Annie because he was simply fed up with Penelope and Annie was fun. She told me that it was her fault Rupert had been attracted to Annie because she no longer was taking care of herself and had let herself go. I couldn’t believe it. There was only one way this conversation was going and I was correct, Penelope had let Rupert off the hook! She’d thought about it long and hard, well for approximately forty-eight hours and made the decision to save her marriage to Rupert because she didn’t want Littl
e Jonny and Annabel coming from a broken home; they deserved better. Penelope was hoping she could forgive Rupert in time. Her master plan was to lose weight. She felt everywhere she turned in the village everyone was whispering about her, so she had decided to get her act together and start to lose weight by walking. And that’s where I came in: she had come to the Shack to persuade me to be her walking partner as she felt that I would motivate her. She was so keen she wanted to start walking right that very minute.

  Why me? Surely she had other friends in the village that could walk with her. Then again, sitting back and thinking about it, she had already fallen out with most people, so maybe I was the only one left daft enough to go walking with her.

  Wrapping the children up in their coats I strapped them into the buggy. Grabbing the dog’s lead and my own boots and coat we set off walking.

  We had set off towards the canal. Popping my head over the buggy, I saw that Matilda and Daisy had drifted off to sleep. Ambling along nicely and enjoying the scenery, I couldn’t believe it when Penelope dropped into the conversation the infamous question.

  ‘What reading scheme did you have at the last school?’

  I just knew that the next hour or so was going to be living hell. That was the only time my input was required over the next hour, as the remainder of the walk was filled with Penelope going on and on about Little Jonny. I felt like throwing myself in the canal rather than walking beside it.

  I was starting to realise that Penelope was obsessed, not only with her own voice, but more so with her pride and joy – the golden child – Little Jonny. I had to endure every detail of the pregnancy: the days she was sick, her cravings, the description of the first outfit they had bought him, her labour and finally her pain relief. I would have loved a tank of gas and air or an epidural myself at this particular time, just to numb the pain of this conversation. Then thankfully he was finally born! I wasn’t sure how much more I could take of this. I felt my eyes starting to glaze over. I was beginning to understand why Rupert strayed; in fact I would have probably encouraged him myself. Rupert thought the grass was greener and he was probably right.