by Lauren North
I swallow and give a furtive nod. ‘All good, thanks,’ I add, plastering on a smile that I’m sure is not fooling June. ‘We’d better go. Don’t want to be late.’
‘Of course. Bye for now.’
June returns to her ladder and Molly and I jog, bags jumping on shoulders, to catch up with the twins. It’s a ten-minute walk to the school, or five if it’s just me and I’m walking fast, keen to be in the playground before the bell rings.
The school is at the edge of the village, built at the same time as an estate of detached houses – the big kind with five or six bedrooms, four bathrooms, long gardens, double garages and sweeping driveways.
We head for the alleyway that connects our road of ex-social housing to the estate, saving the long walk down the main road with its grand Tudor houses and quaint thatched cottages interspersed with grazing fields for horses and sheep sometimes too.
‘What day is it today?’ Molly asks, skipping along beside me, her hand in mine, her weight tugging at my arm with every skip.
‘It’s Thursday, sweetheart.’
‘Yessssss,’ she says with a little wiggle. ‘Cookery club tonight. Mrs Waller said we’re making pizza.’
‘That sounds nice.’
Molly chats away to me about Mrs Waller and pizza toppings as my gaze travels between the twins. They’re walking separately now. Elise is lagging behind, tired after her late night. Harrie is in front. Head down, shoulders slumped. It takes me a moment to realize there isn’t a football at her feet. She is still Harrie, still my beautiful daughter, yet something has changed or shifted and I hate myself for thinking it, but it’s the truth. This is not the bright cheeky girl I left on the sofa yesterday.
I don’t know what’s happened to Harrie, but I do know that this is my fault. I was the one distracted this week, so distracted by Monday, by Dean, that I didn’t even try to convince Harrie to come with me last night.
CHAPTER 10
Anna
The school playground is a buzzing hive of activity. Parents huddle by brightly coloured fences while kids tear across the tarmac, jumping over discarded bags, some chasing each other, others racing after a ball.
Harrie and Elise head straight to the corner where the older children stand. It feels like only yesterday that they were the little ones. The thought sends a pang of something shooting through me. Longing? Sadness? I don’t know, but it’s there all the same.
Molly pulls me towards her class line and her best friend Olivia, who is standing beside Tracy and the other mums. I watch them together, Tracy, Sandra, Kat and Gina, and for a moment I feel overwhelmed, like it’s five years ago and we’re the new family, and I’m struggling to remember everyone’s names, let alone the names of their husbands. Struggling to keep my shit together, too.
It was embarrassing how many times I got their names mixed up – calling Sandra Tracy and thinking Gina was married to Jack, not Martin. They laughed at first, but it soon stopped being funny. In the end I made little rhymes to help me. They still run through my head when I look at them.
Kat spots me at the edge of the group and beckons me with a grin. There are strands falling out of her blonde ponytail and a lump at the front as though she’s slept with it in and hasn’t bothered to brush it yet. Mascara is smudged under her eyelids too and yet she still manages to look like Cameron Diaz in that film with Jude Law. Or any film actually. Slim and strikingly beautiful.
One hour to get ready in the morning. Two. Three. It makes no difference. I resist the urge to touch the wispy ends of my own hair, so dull compared to Kat’s. I used to be so much prettier. I catch my reflection in the mirror sometimes and almost do a double take as I wonder if it’s really me. It’s the same face – clear blue eyes, small nose, the same shape to my lips as the girls’. Thirty-seven years old and I’ve aged well, even with the pinched lines between my eyes, but I’ve lost something in the years since London – an inner glow or an energy, something that changes beautiful to plain.
Kat wraps her long knitted cardigan around herself and I smile when I see the fluffy Ugg slippers on her feet.
She follows my gaze and laughs. ‘Running late as usual. At least I’m dressed. That’s got to count for something,’ she says as though she knows the words that were about to leave my mouth before I’ve even thought to say them.
‘We’re just talking about the vandalism,’ she says, nodding to the others.
‘I heard from Bev that Mike thinks it was that supply teacher,’ Sandra says with a sniff.
‘What supply teacher?’ Kat asks.
‘Mr Dudley, the one who taught Year Two for half a term and then Mike complained he was incompetent.’
‘I complained he was incompetent,’ Tracy hisses, adjusting the headband that keeps her braids away from her face.
‘You complain everyone is incompetent,’ Gina quips and they all laugh. The conversation makes a sudden U-turn to a cleaner Tracy hired once and I force a smile and stare between them.
There’s Sandra Briggs, married to Jack. Sandra is in her mid-forties with shoulder-length auburn hair and a sharp nose. She’s wearing her usual high-heeled boots and skinny jeans. Kat told me once that Sandra has Botox every four months, but I’m not sure if that’s true or just Kat’s suspicions. It would fit with the rhyme I made up, I suppose.
PC Jack, not so tall,
And his wife, Sandra, the fairest of them all.
Jack Briggs isn’t actually a police constable. He’s high up in the local force and also head of Barton St Martin’s Neighbourhood Watch, but it helped me remember who Sandra is married to.
Then there’s Tracy in her activewear and muddy trainers, ready to disappear across the fields on a run. Tracy is black and has an elegant way about her. She used to be a ballet dancer, she told me once, narrowly missing out on a place with the Royal Ballet. She’s married to Anthony Campbell. Their rhyme is stupid. They’re all stupid, but it makes me smile when I think of it now.
Anthony Campbell has lost his hair,
Run, Tracy, run and find him a spare.
Her husband, Anthony, works with Dean at Dean’s building firm, and has the shiniest head I’ve ever seen. Anthony is in charge of the Parish Council that looks after the village affairs. They keep the benches painted and the footpaths from overgrowing. Dean is on it. And Gina’s husband Martin and Jack Briggs. Kat and Tracy.
Gina tips her head back and laughs at something Kat has said. It’s a loud raucous laugh. The kind that makes people turn and stare, and typical of Gina.
Gina is always smiling. So is her husband, Martin.
Gina and Martin Walker,
Non-stop talkers.
They’re a pair, Gina and Martin. When they’re not laughing, they’re talking. Gina will tell anyone who listens that she has an allergy to exercise. ‘Anything more than a walk and I’m covered in hives. I’m stuck this way and always will be,’ she always says with a nod to her round waist. ‘Martin isn’t allergic but he is sympathy fat so I don’t feel like I’m the only one.’ They are both lovely people and their daughter Clarissa is good friends with Harrie and Elise.
Only Bev Pritchett is missing from the group. She and Mike have two sons, but I don’t know their names. She always refers to them as ‘the boys’. We’re off to visit the boys at university. The boys have got a summer internship at IBM. The boys did well in their exams. I’m not sure she’s ever mentioned them individually.
There are other ladies in the village of course, other mums who join the message group sometimes, but these are the core, the ones who message every day. All except Gina run their own small businesses. They like pamper and Prosecco evenings, little events they all take it in turns to host, where everyone gets drunk and spends money on tat they don’t need. Kat hosts them for the beauty products she sells, Tracy for the jewellery she makes and Sandra for candles. For Bev, it’s gel nails. They visit her every few weeks for a bottle of wine and a fresh colour or a glittery design. I sometimes think the nails are a
branding, like they’re part of a club. They all have them. All but me.
I’ve lost count of how many times Kat has begged me to get June to babysit so I can join them in the pub on a Friday. Each time I nod and tell her I’ll think about it, when we both know I’ll text her with some excuse. Kat tries to understand that things are tight for us, but she doesn’t get it. No one with money can really understand the day-to-day struggles we face. We don’t have the spare money for a bottle of wine a week, let alone an £80 round of gin and tonics at the overpriced village pub.
My unwillingness to socialize makes me an outsider still, even after five years here. Rob has done a better job of fitting in than I have. Although it’s different for men. Easier. They don’t ask so many questions.
In the brief intervals Rob is home, he’s managed to become part of the dad crowd. Of course he has. Rob is always happy to lend a hand, helping with the electrics for the band at the fete that’s held on the playing field every summer, letting Anthony Campbell convince him to join the Parish Council. It’s a token seat, a vote by proxy when they need him to swing a decision. How can it be anything more? He’s never here. I should know.
The conversation turns back to the vandalism and I wish I’d read the messages about it last night. I nudge Kat, and when she turns I keep my voice low and ask, ‘What vandalism?’
She shakes her head, ponytail swishing from side to side. ‘Do you live in a different world to me, Anna? How can you not know about it? Someone kicked down the fence at the back of the school playing field on Saturday, and threw toilet rolls all over the trees. It took hours to clean up and the fence needs to be replaced. The whole village is up in arms about it. The Neighbourhood Watch have had a special meeting.’ Kat’s voice dances with amusement but I can’t tell if she thinks this is an overreaction or not. Kat is fiercely protective of the village and is always the first to organize a team of volunteers to repaint the playground fence or plant more daffodil bulbs on the verges.
‘And they think it’s a disgruntled supply teacher?’
‘Well, Bev says Mike does too, but—’
‘I think it was that new boy,’ Tracy butts in, lowering her voice and throwing a furtive glance around her. I look too, glad to see Molly and Olivia have gone to play and aren’t listening to their mothers gossip.
‘Which new boy?’ Gina asks, her eyes widening with excitement. She pushes her short brown hair behind her ears and leans closer.
‘Kai, the boy in Year Five who joined last summer. They live in town and his mum only moved him here because he was going to be expelled from his last school. How does a nine-year-old get expelled? That’s what I want to know. His mum is always dropping him off in the village and leaving him to his own devices. He came and knocked for Freya the other day to see if she wanted to play out. Honestly, the look she gave him was hilarious. Why would a thirteen-year-old want to hang out with a nine-year-old?’
‘Oh my God,’ Kat laughs. ‘That must have been the same day he came to ours. He spent all day playing Xbox with Ben. I assumed Ben invited him and forgot to tell me.’
‘I had to complain to Mike about him last week,’ Tracy adds. ‘He’s been teaching Olivia and some of the younger kids swear words.’
‘For crying out loud.’ Sandra shakes her head. ‘This is a village school for this village. Children from out of catchment shouldn’t be allowed to attend.’
‘But if they have the space—’ Gina starts to say before stopping when Sandra shoots her a sharp look. I know it well. It’s the same disparaging glare I received when I first moved here, when it felt like Sandra was assessing me for my worthiness to live in Barton St Martin. Rob thought I was being ridiculous, letting my own insecurities cloud my judgement, but he never saw that look.
PC Jack, not so tall,
And his wife, Sandra, the fairest of them all.
It’s not Snow White I think of when the rhyme runs through my head, it’s the wicked queen.
‘Did you make it home in the end last night?’ Sandra asks me then, her face now full of sympathy, and I remind myself that I made up the rhyme before I knew her properly. Sandra is fiercely loyal and will do anything for her friends. ‘Jack said it was an overturned lorry.’
I nod. ‘Yes, and a car crashed. It was horrible but we got home about midnight.’
‘And Harrie was OK?’ Tracy looks from me to Kat and I follow her eyes. Kat has a sheepish look on her face.
‘Sorry,’ Kat groans. ‘You know I’m terrible with my phone. I left it in the car last night. Only saw the messages this morning.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Harrie’s fine. She was sound asleep when I got home.’ It’s the truth and it’s not, but I can’t tell these women – my friends – about Harrie’s strange behaviour this morning when I’ve not had a moment to process it myself.
The bell rings and I breathe a sigh of relief, stepping away from the other mums to say goodbye to the girls. Elise and Harrie are standing at the back of their line beside Ben. He’s grown taller, I think as I step closer. He used to be a head shorter than the girls but now they’re almost the same height. With Kat’s features and his dad’s dusty-blond hair, Ben is going to be a heartbreaker one day.
Kat likes to joke about which of the twins will date Ben when they’re older, but I can’t see it. Dating and boys are just too far into the future for me to contemplate.
I bend down to kiss Elise and then Harrie goodbye, and when I do, I’m sure I feel Harrie flinch away from me again. The thought turns something in the pit of my stomach. I’m about to pull her aside and check again if she’s really OK, but then the line starts moving and I’ve missed my chance.
Molly wraps herself around my legs and hugs me tight before skipping into school, hand in hand with Olivia, and then I hurry out of the gates, the loneliness closing in, the emptiness of the day unfolding before me as my phone sits silent in my pocket.
CHAPTER 11
Anna
Kat catches me when I’m halfway down the road. ‘Anna, wait up.’ I turn to see her jogging towards me.
She steers me to the side of the pavement to let a group of mums stride by with their Bugaboo and iCandy pushchairs. The mums are walking fast and chatting over each other. They’ll do five loops of the village like that before pouring into the baby and toddler group at the church for tea and biscuits.
Kat nudges my arm. ‘What is the collective noun for a group of pushchair mums?’
‘A gaggle?’ I suggest.
‘A flock?’
‘A cackle?’
We laugh and I’m glad it’s just Kat now and not the others. Standing with Kat makes me feel more like myself than I have done since Monday. Since Dean stood in my kitchen and looked at me with knowing in his eyes, undoing me as easily as a zip on a jacket, buttons on a blouse.
What have I done? The question rises with the bile in the back of my throat and I swallow hard, pushing them both away.
‘I’m so sorry about last night,’ Kat says. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine.’ There’s a wobble to my voice and we both know I’m not.
‘Of course you are,’ she says, raising a knowing eyebrow. ‘Come on, let’s go to yours for a cuppa. You look like you need it.’
‘Yours is closer.’ I nod across the road to Kat’s house. It’s one of the bigger detached properties on the estate, set back from the road. There’s a bushy magnolia tree in the front garden that blooms a stunning pink in the spring.
‘Yours is tidier. And I bet you ten pounds you’ve got milk in your fridge.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Come on then.’
We walk together, Kat still in her slippers, and I feel grateful to have her in my life. Kat is a fiendish lover of memes that she sends me in flurries. Two, three, four at a time before she puts her phone down and forgets about it. They always make me laugh out loud. She’s forever buying me little things too – a plant for the garden, a notebook with butterflies on it because she knows they’re my favo
urite – plus the free samples she gives me from the range of beauty products she sells that are far too expensive for me to buy. I know she never means for it to feel like charity.
Ten minutes later we’re sat at my kitchen table, two mugs of tea in front of us. Kat listens without interruption as I relive the events of last night and this morning.
‘It feels like something happened to Harrie,’ I finish, wrestling to control my emotions, to breathe normally.
‘Has she said anything?’ Kat asks.
I shake my head. ‘No, but she’s not herself. Nowhere close. I know you think I’m nuts sometimes, but I can feel it.’ I press a hand to my chest. ‘The bruise on her neck, the mud on the floor, the open back door.’
‘What do you think happened though?’ Kat says. ‘You’re not in London any more, Anna. And for the record, I don’t think you’re nuts. You just worry too much, that’s all.’
‘I can’t explain it, I just have this feeling. Maybe I’m overreacting,’ I say with a long sigh.
‘You need to relax a bit and give yourself a break, OK? I’m sure Harrie is telling you the truth. The bruise will be something she got at school, messing around with the boys playing football no doubt, and she left the back door unlocked because she went into the garden to look for a cat. She probably got a bit scared on her own in the house and that’s why she was acting weird this morning. I’m sure she’ll be absolutely fine later. You always get like this when Rob has been away for a while.’
‘Do I?’ I look up, surprised by Kat’s revelation.
She nods. ‘Yes. You start to worry over everything. It’s only when you reach the halfway point and can start counting down the days until Rob comes home that you unwind again. Not that anyone would blame you for how you feel. It can’t be easy doing this all on your own. I struggle a lot of the time and I’ve only got Ben. Well, and Steve too, who is a big kid mostly. You’ve got three girls and no one to share the burden with.’