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

  Instead I opted for a frosty glare in Frisky Pensioner’s direction and replied, ‘It’s all been very quiet of late, thank you.’

  He looked relieved. In fact his look unnerved me somewhat, as I recalled him spying on the neighbour through the hole in the fence during the summer months. I physically shuddered.

  The next Saturday night Penelope and Rupert were due to visit the Shack – just for a change! I decided to cook a curry from scratch which hopefully would give me an hour to myself in the kitchen while Matt had to entertain our dinner guests.

  Penelope appeared to be on top form. Hanging her coat on her named peg in the cloakroom she poured herself a drink. I’m not sure if Rupert felt a little embarrassed being here again as he retrieved his slippers out of his carrier bag and mumbled, ‘I ought to buy an extra pair and leave them here.’

  Rupert looked very subdued tonight. I collected the beers from his hand and he followed me into the kitchen. Matt was left stranded entertaining Penelope and their kids. Samuel was in hiding, he didn’t want to see Little Jonny. He had been upset all week at school. Little Jonny had begun to tease him at school about his curly hair and Samuel pleaded with me not to let them come round but what could I do? If you fell out with every parent over a child’s argument, you would have no friends left. Gosh I was missing a trick here; that sounded like a plan to me.

  ‘You OK, Rupert?’ I enquired. ‘You appear a little subdued?’

  Pulling the ring pull on his can he looked up and replied, ‘I’ll be OK after a few more of these.’

  He had finished his first beer and was on to his second before I could even remove the cork from the wine. Something was troubling Rupert and I’m sure it wouldn’t be long before we all found out what it was – the beers were not even touching the sides.

  ‘Do you find my wife boring?’ Rupert unexpectedly asked.

  Well that was a loaded question, how the hell was I meant to answer that? I’ve always been taught to be as honest as I can but sometimes the truth can be very painful, so maybe it would be better to lie through my teeth on this occasion. Rupert looked bedraggled and completely fed up. The kitchen door was ajar so I walked over to it while pondering my answer.

  Closing the door I looked Rupert directly in his eyes and I answered him.

  ‘Yes, so boring I would probably have more bloody fun hanging out with dead people.’

  I wasn’t sure if my answer was a little harsh but I knew I hadn’t lied, so my parents would be proud.

  The poor bloke went into a spiel about how he couldn’t take much more. It was all very bizarre standing in my kitchen with some other bloke – wearing his own slippers, which I always thought was strange – slating his wife who was no doubt boring the pants off Matt in the next room – well not literally I hoped. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t opposed to the slating Rupert was giving her but I was concerned that I was starving and if Penelope could hear him, there would be fireworks and we would never get fed.

  Penelope was a smoker but she cleverly hid this secret from her kids. Every smoker I had come across in the past was stick thin, usually because they prefer to stick a cigarette in their mouth instead of food. Penelope was the exception to this rule which proved to me that I should never stereotype people. I wouldn’t let Penelope smoke in the Shack so she always nipped out of the back door and stood around the corner, hidden from the children. Unfortunately on this occasion Rupert and I hadn’t noticed her and she was no longer boring the pants off Matt in the next room. She was staring straight at us through the open kitchen window and had heard every word Rupert had said. Just my luck when I was flippin’ hungry!

  Penelope looked livid. She raced through the back door and stood directly in the space between Rupert and me.

  ‘How could you, Rupert, how could you say I was boring? That’s an unforgivable thing to say.’

  ‘Gosh,’ I thought.

  If that was unforgivable Rupert was on to a winner here. He could walk away from the marriage and his previous misdemeanours would have no bearing on the divorce settlement. I wasn’t sure how much a judge would award in his favour for putting up with a boring wife for years but I guessed it was probably a lot. I could have helped Rupert out of the sticky situation at this moment by agreeing with him but the look on Matt’s face told me we needed to vacate the kitchen quick and leave them to row in peace.

  Matt and I were like school kids with our ears pinned to the kitchen door, listening to every word. Penelope was very forceful with what she thought Rupert should be thinking. She was shouting at him then answering on his behalf. He didn’t have a chance to speak, she just wouldn’t let him. There were no ifs, buts or maybes, Penelope was not boring according to her.

  Matt and I were still trying to hold in our laughter when I realised I had left the curry bubbling away on the stove. How stupid was I? Now I was going to have to enter the war zone and turn off the heat under the curry. I manoeuvred in as quickly as I could, switched off the cooker and retreated out of the kitchen even quicker, not forgetting to grab the bottle of wine from the worktop. I winked at Matt – RESULT! We’d had enough of listening to what Rupert should think – according to Penelope – and we sat in the dining room waiting for them to sort themselves out. How long do you let another couple row in your home?

  We had to admit this wasn’t our usual Saturday night, another couple standing in their slippers rowing in our kitchen; it was like we were the visitors in our own home. Two minutes later, Penelope slammed the kitchen door and ran upstairs. It was all quiet for a minute so I decided to follow her to make sure she was OK; it was my house after all. I found her sat on my bed sobbing her heart out.

  Penelope cried out, ‘I bet you could write a book about us pair, someone should think about making a movie out of my life.’

  I wasn’t sure which actress could play Penelope in a film as I wasn’t sure who could do her justice.

  Matt managed to organise the curry and by the time Penelope’s tear-stained face had returned to normal I persuaded her to venture back downstairs and eat some food. We all sat round the table in complete silence. In fact we all sat in silence for nearly thirty-five minutes. This situation reminded me of the couple that position themselves in the corner of the pub, both staring in opposite directions. They have been married for years and only stayed together for the sake of the kids. Now the kids have flown the nest they have nothing left to talk about, they just sit there for hours until one of them suggests that they return home. Picture that scene; that is exactly what was going on in my Shack.

  Matt and I were biting our lips trying to control our giggles. It was a horrendous atmosphere, I felt like a naughty school girl that had been summoned by the headmaster and because I was nervous I started to laugh. I couldn’t hold it in any longer, it was my house for God’s sake. I just laughed and laughed.

  Matt gave me a nervous ‘I’m not sure that is appropriate’ look but I couldn’t help myself.

  I peeped through my tears of laughter and noticed that Penelope was not amused and Rupert had gone green. He was actually looking very ill. It suddenly hit me and I stopped laughing almost immediately – maybe he’d had an allergic reaction to a chilli in the curry, or maybe he was just allergic to Penelope.

  Rupert spoke slowly, ‘I don’t feel well,’ and before he could say any more, he threw up.

  This wasn’t just a tiny bit of vomit, it was vomit that bounced off the table, up the walls, all over the food and, unluckily for Rupert, all over Penelope’s new sheepskin slippers that had cost her seventy quid. She had been ripped off in my opinion, she could buy her own sheep for that sort of money.

  There was no sympathy for Rupert being unwell, she just shouted, ‘Rupert, how could you make such a show of me? My slippers are ruined. Get up, we are going home.’

  I glanced around the room and was convinced I hadn’t seen vomit like it since I was nineteen years old and had sneaked some of my dad’s whisky from the cellar.

  Outside,
the rain was pouring down. Penelope stepped over her husband’s vomit and pushed him out of the door. She didn’t even let him put on his shoes or his coat. They walked down the path, both wearing their slippers and looking like they had just escaped from the funny farm. You could still hear Penelope shouting at Rupert as they disappeared out of view down the lane.

  I turned to Matt and said, ‘Oh no, I need to go after them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They’ve forgotten their bloody kids!’

  It was mid-afternoon the next day before Penelope remembered she had kids. I had watered and fed them and given them beds for the night. Rupert knocked on the door to pick up his shoes and children – in that order! He looked terrible.

  He thanked us for taking care of the kids and said, ‘See you next Saturday, no doubt.’

  Surely not, I would be too embarrassed to show my face, especially as neither of them had offered to clean up his vomit.

  The next morning I was woken by the sound of my phone beeping. I grabbed my phone and there on the display it read, ‘Penelope Kensington has tagged you in a post’. I was obviously off her Facebook ‘restricted’ list this week as I counted at least twenty notifications from Facebook with various people sending me ‘Good luck’ messages.

  I didn’t have a clue what they were referring to until Penelope commented on the post numerous times. Not only did it seem she was lapping up all the attention, she was loving it!

  ‘Yes we will do our best,’ she posted.

  ‘It’s going to be hard work but training starts this morning,’ read another response.

  What training? Had she entered us into the world championships of one-sided talk-walking? This is an event where two ‘friends’ walk for miles but only one of them is allowed to speak and the topic of conversation must be themselves – or their first-born. I didn’t think we’d be seeing the event at the Olympics any time soon.

  Penelope seemed to know what everyone was talking about but I certainly didn’t until I read the post. It was official; Penelope had put it out there in cyberspace for everyone to see.

  She and I were going to climb a mountain.

  There was no way out of this now. Did I want to climb a mountain? No! Did I want to climb a mountain with Penelope? NO!

  The sheer magnitude of the task ahead suddenly hit me. Not only did this mean I had to climb a mountain, it also meant spending a whole weekend away with Penelope. A weekend spent with Penelope would feel like a lifetime.

  What on earth would Penelope and I talk about for forty-eight hours? This was already beginning to worry me but I was certain she would take care of the situation; no doubt she would talk about herself for the whole time. I could suggest a ban on talking, since we would need to conserve all our energy for the last stretch to the peak. Or better still I could take a gag. What more could she possibly tell me about herself, there was nothing I didn’t already know.

  On venturing downstairs, there, posted through the letterbox, was an A4 piece of paper. I bent down to pick it up and saw the words TRAINING PLAN written in capital letters. Penelope had actually drawn up our training plan. There was an entry on the plan for every day of the week except Saturday. I was relieved that there would be at least one day of respite from Penelope, until I discovered that she had kept Saturday free so we could continue our family get-togethers.

  Fay once said to me, ‘Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.’

  I wouldn’t pick Penelope or her family to be my family. They were on my bus; they were over that cliff.

  I concluded that Penelope must be having a mid-life crisis. Why couldn’t she just buy a sports car, have a tattoo or take Rupert’s lead and have an affair?

  People start to do daft things when they worry where their path is leading them in life – good job she didn’t know she was soon to be driven over a cliff in a make believe bus! I wasn’t panicking, I was quite happy minding my own business, pottering around my Shack with the odd bit of work in the afternoon.

  Initially, the training plan consisted of an hour’s exercise each day. This increased to nearly three hours by week four. The mountain climb was pencilled in for the first weekend in October. I contemplated saving her seat on my bus for someone else as I could simply push her off the bloody mountain. It wasn’t the climbing of the mountain that would be the problem. The greatest challenge was going to be putting up with her for the whole weekend.

  Penelope had not even considered that I may not want to participate in this adventure; I was unwillingly roped in – end of. Maybe I needed to purchase some rope in case I did decide to put her on the bus after all – I could use it to ensure Penelope was tied tightly to the seat of the bus so she couldn’t escape. Fay said I was lacking a very important word in my vocabulary. That word was the word ‘No’. Fay made me say it over and over again on the phone and told me to phone her again the following day for more practice.

  Luckily for me, training started tomorrow. Today was the day we bought the kit. I wasn’t sure what kit I would need – I had two legs, two feet and walking boots – all I needed was earplugs so I couldn’t hear her drone on up the mountain and it would all be sorted.

  The local climbing shop was miles away as there wasn’t much call for that type of gear in the village. For most people the only time they needed to climb was a Friday night – climbing out of the local drinking hole after a particularly heavy session!

  As usual it was left to me to navigate and drive to the shops in the city. She grabbed a trolley at the entrance of the store and before we had even reached the end of the first aisle her trolley was half-full. There were whistles, water bottles, thermal socks, thermal vests, thermal blankets, a sleeping bag and a flag. A flag – what the bloody hell was the flag for? Which mountain did she think we were going to climb, Mount Everest? I decided to have the conversation to confirm the intended mountain sooner rather than later, before I found myself at base camp in the Himalayas.

  I thought I had better show willing so I purchased a water bottle and a thermal vest. Penelope had already moved on to the next aisle and was looking at tents. Why did we need a bloody tent? Had she contemplated being stranded up the mountain or was she simply covering all bases in case we suddenly became ill? There was no way on this earth she would lug a tent up the side of the mountain, heaven forbid she broke a finger nail. If push came to shove, I would probably prefer to die of hypothermia than spend a night stuck up a mountain with Penelope.

  I reminded her that these days there were inventions called mobile phones. I would just make sure my phone was fully charged before we set off and in the event of an emergency, I would simply telephone the mountain rescue services – I didn’t worry about trivial things like mobile reception! Penelope seemed a little more relaxed once I had mentioned this fact and after I refused to go halves on a tent, she didn’t have much choice anyway. My ‘No’ training from Fay was starting to pay dividends. She’d be proud.

  My shopping expedition resulted in one carrier bag containing only two items. Penelope summoned the shop manager to assist her to carry all of her gear to the car. Rupert was going to flip. She had bought another two new coats from the shop – one for minus temperatures and another for the wind and rain. She had seven carrier bags full to the brim, one of which was topped off with two boxes of Kendal Mint Cake. Allegedly these seventy-two bars were for energy up the mountain. I sarcastically asked Penelope whether she would prefer a donkey or a Sherpa to cart all her stuff up the mountain. There was no way on this earth I was helping her to carry any of it.

  The next morning, Penelope turned up for training wearing … well if I’m truly honest I hadn’t got a clue. It was August, the weather was reasonably hot and on her head was some sort of road-kill. I couldn’t make up my mind whether it was a fox or a badger that had been run over. Who did she think she was, Davey Crockett? She looked ridiculous.

  ‘Nice … erm hat?’ I murmured.

  I wasn’t sure what to call it. She inf
ormed me it was a present from Camilla. It wasn’t a hat as such, more half a hat so the heat could escape out of the top of Penelope’s head when she got too hot walking up the mountain. How thoughtful of Camilla! She wasn’t that bloody thoughtful when she was having it away with Penelope’s husband.

  Failing that, I thought to myself, if we got hungry and by some miracle managed to eat all the Kendal Mint Cake, then we could throw the road-kill onto a fire and eat that too.

  Strapped to her back was a rucksack and in her rucksack were some of the items she intended hauling up the mountain. She had a torch, a blanket, thermals, socks, four bottles of water and a coat. Flippin’ ’eck Penelope, where was she going to store her food for the day – and her cigarettes as she was still smoking at least forty a day? Penelope hadn’t given food a second thought. We hadn’t even set off for the first training session yet and she had already packed and unpacked her bag umpteen times.

  I was dressed in my walking trousers, boots and a shirt with no rucksack – one step at a time. We hadn’t even reached the top of the hill on the way out of the village when I thought I had gone deaf. I was relieved when I realised I wasn’t deaf, it was just that Penelope was extremely quiet. Maybe she was conserving her energy because we had planned to walk approximately twelve miles that day.

  The next thing I heard was a thud, which was the sound of Penelope hitting the pavement when she collapsed. Then she threw up everywhere. Twice in less than a week I had observed the contents of her and her husband’s stomachs and there was no way I was cleaning this lot up, I’d gone ‘above and beyond’ cleaning up after Rupert. The so-called hat had slipped right off the top of Penelope’s head as she hit the ground and landed slap bang in the middle of the vomit. It now looked more like an unfortunate freak of nature than road-kill.