by Green, Linda
She mumbled something incomprehensible.
‘Sorry?’
‘I said it’s not my shoes.’
‘Well what is it?’ She nodded towards her violin case. ‘How did it get on that?’ I asked. I knew, of course, as soon as the question passed my lips. It hadn’t got on it at all. It had been put on it.
‘At lunchtime,’ she said quietly. ‘I must have left my locker open. They took it out without me realising. Took it into town, I guess.’
‘Oh Charlotte.’ I held my arms out to her, she came to me without a fight. Emptied herself into my arms. Sobbing, shaking.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually.
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘No, I mean they took my violin out of the case. They’ve basically ruined it.’
I realised my hands were trembling. My whole body was pulsating inside, trying to repel the bad smell. And feeling increasingly sick.
‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘Only Mrs Partington. I had to explain why I couldn’t do my lesson. Well, not really explain. Make something up about dropping it, I mean. I cleaned it best I could in the girls’ loos, but I still can’t get rid of the smell.’
I nodded slowly. ‘I’m going to get this sorted first thing tomorrow morning,’ I said, my voice on the edge of breaking. ‘I want you to go upstairs, love, and get a shower and then I’m going to run you down to choir practice. I don’t want you to worry about anything. Esme’s gone to Alice’s for tea and I’ll put the case in the shed before she gets back so she won’t need to know what’s happened. And tomorrow, I’ll go to school and get this whole thing sorted once and for all and we’ll get your violin replaced, OK?’
She nodded. Muttered some thanks. She didn’t even have enough left in her to protest. I hugged her to me. Told her I loved her. Watched her go upstairs like a disgraced puppy with her tail between her legs and vowed silently that I would never let anything happen to her again.
Sam sat at the head of the kitchen table, seemingly unable to speak for smiling.
‘Will you tell us whatever it is you’ve got to tell us before you burst or do yourself an injury,’ said Jackie.
Sam looked at us both in turn and took a deep breath, ‘We’ve been asked to do some media appearances,’ she said.
‘Go on,’ I replied.
‘Newsnight.’
‘Bloody hell!’ said Jackie.
‘And Question Time.’
‘You’re having us on,’ said Jackie.
‘Nope. And an alternative leadership debate on Radio 4, just for good measure.’
Jackie whooped a little and did a series of air punches. Sam laughed and grinned some more. And I sat there trying to take it all in. The first thing that went through my head was that David was going to hate me for this, not having ever made it past the Hebden Bridge Times. And the second thing was that I was going to have to leave Charlotte while I went down to London.
‘Are you OK?’ It was Sam who was asking. I realised I had been sitting there silently while they had been staring at me.
‘Me? Yes, sorry. I was miles away.’
‘What’s up? You don’t seem very pleased.’
I sighed. I hadn’t wanted to mention it, more because I couldn’t trust myself to stay composed while I told them rather than a desire to keep it to myself. And I hated crying in front of Sam. Always felt so bloody ungrateful.
‘It’s this whole thing with Charlotte,’ I said. ‘She had dog shit smeared all over her violin today. She’s in a bit of a state.’
‘Oh Anna,’ said Sam. ‘That’s awful. How could anyone do that to her? I just don’t understand.’
I shrugged. ‘I’m not sure I do either. All I know is that it’s got to stop. I’m going to see Freeman first thing in the morning.’
‘Sorry,’ said Jackie, looking down at her hands.
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘It’s my bloody school, though. I’m embarrassed just thinking about it. If Freeman doesn’t do something about this he wants shooting.’
‘He won’t have any choice this time,’ I said.
‘Well, if there’s anything I can do to help, inside information, whatever, just let me know, OK?’
I nodded.
‘Are you sure you’re up to doing this tonight?’ asked Sam.
‘Yes, absolutely. It’s good to have something to take my mind off it, to be honest. And to get out of the house.’
Sam and Jackie nodded. None of us said anything for a moment.
‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘you were saying about the TV stuff. When are they?
‘Newsnight’s next Monday,’ said Sam, ‘they’re having a debate about new-style politics, Question Time’s next Thursday and Radio 4 on the Friday morning. I say we do one each. Anyone got any preferences?’
I racked my brain, trying to remember if David had any council meetings next week. I was pretty sure he had something on Monday. I also knew that Radio 4 would be the least conspicuous of the three. And that it would give me longer to get things sorted with Charlotte before I had to go away overnight.
‘I’ll do Radio 4,’ I said. ‘If that’s OK with everyone.’
‘Fine by me,’ said Sam. ‘Jackie, I think you’d be great on Question Time.’
‘I think I’d be the token crazy woman with big earrings who didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.’
‘You’d be brilliant,’ I said, backing Sam up.
‘Did they say who else is going to be on?’ asked Jackie.
‘No. It’s in Leeds, though. So I guess a few Yorkshire MPs.’
‘Oh God! It’ll probably be Galloway. He’ll be trying to get me to tickle him under his chin.’
‘And you’ll eat him alive,’ said Sam, ‘which would be great television.’
‘I’ll do it as long as you both promise not to sack me if I’m an embarrassment to the Party.’
‘Deal. And you won’t be,’ said Sam. ‘You’ll be fantastic.’
‘So you get Paxman,’ I said to Sam. ‘Are you sure it’s going to be OK for you to go down to London? With Oscar, I mean.’
‘Yeah. Rob will be fine with him. They’ll have a boys’ bonding session and probably pizza for breakfast, dinner and tea, but they’ll survive.’
‘And Rob won’t mind?’ I asked.
‘No. He’ll be fine. He’ll enjoy it, actually.’
I nodded. Wishing I felt that confident about David’s reaction.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if we’re going to be a serious Party it’s a bit of luck we’ve got some serious funding.’ The others turned to look at me. ‘See, I can keep a secret too, you know.’ I smiled.
‘What? Who? How much?’ asked Sam, jumping up and down on her chair.
‘We’ve got fifty companies willing to sponsor a candidate which will bring in twenty-five grand. Not massive high-street chains. Smaller companies, mainly based online and mainly run by mums. A lot of them selling ethically produced children’s wear or toys, cloth nappies and eco-friendly baby products, that sort of stuff. In return they get a link to their website on our website.’
Sam leapt up and flung her arms around me. ‘You’re a genius,’ she said. ‘Remind me to make you business secretary when we get in.’
‘That’s fantastic,’ said Jackie. ‘All we need now are some candidates.’
‘Oh, we’ve got a lot of those too,’ I said, opening up my laptop. ‘Over eighty at the last count. All of them with something particular they want to fight for or some kind of campaign they’re running. I’ll email them all to you, but there’s one in particular I want to read to you.’
I scrolled down to the email I’d read that morning, the one that had got me off to a weepy start to the day. ‘It’s from a woman in Leicester,’ I said. ‘Her name’s Karen. This is what she said: ‘My son James has a serious disability and needs a major operation on his spine as the metal rods he had inserted when he was younger are now preventing him from growing properly.
‘“We had been on the waiting list for a long time, then in January the number of children’s IT beds in the unit was cut from ten to four. A date came through for his op, but it was cancelled. They rescheduled for a month later. The day before the op I received a phone call to say it was being cancelled again as a little girl who had already had her op cancelled five times needed the bed.
‘“When I told James he turned pale and was quiet for a moment. Then he turned to me and said, ‘I’m not important, am I?’
‘“I, of course, reassured him that he was. But what he said broke my heart because I knew deep down that he was right. In this country he’s not important and nor are any of the other children whose operations are cancelled every day. If they were, they wouldn’t be cancelled, would they? We wouldn’t put one single child through that extra trauma. It’s as simple as that.”’
My voice caught as I finished reading. I looked up. Sam had tears streaming down her face. Jackie was fumbling in her bag for a tissue to blow her nose. No one said anything for a bit.
‘That’s why we’ve got to do this,’ said Sam, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘Because she’s right. Children like James are important. At least they bloody well should be. I want her to stand for us. I want her to bloody get in as well.’
‘Well, let’s tell her she’s in,’ I said. ‘We’ll go through the rest of them later. We should probably skype everyone who looks like a contender. Make sure they’re genuine and sound like they’ve got what it takes. Then we can sort out membership and put them in touch with other candidates in their region. Then they can support each other.’
‘Good idea,’ said Jackie. ‘Let’s tell Karen we’re going to add it to the mummyfesto as well. No child should have their operation cancelled within a week of the op. And if it’s cancelled before that the hospital has to guarantee that it will not be cancelled again.’
‘Agreed,’ said Sam. ‘It’s in. Who else have we got?’
I ran through the list of prospective candidates: a mum who had launched a campaign against knife crime after her son was stabbed; a woman who was fighting for better treatment for her anorexic daughter; a woman who was trying to get legal aid to take a pharmaceutical company to court over the side effects her father had suffered after taking a prescription drug. The list went on, amazing women doing amazing things on their own. And now we were going to join them together, who knew what they could achieve.
‘Any blokes?’ asked Jackie.
‘Why are you so interested?’ asked Sam.
‘Because I don’t want people saying we’re sexist and anti-men when we’re not.’
‘We’ve got a couple,’ I said. ‘A guy called Chris who runs a campaign group which is calling for an end to male violence against women.’
‘Great, he’s on the list,’ said Sam. ‘Who else?’
‘A chap called Boris who is calling for family cycle lanes for safer commuting in London.’
Jackie snorted a laugh. I looked up. Sam was also smiling.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘I think you’ll find that one is a wind-up,’ said Jackie. ‘From a Mr B. Johnson of Oxfordshire, I presume.’
I smiled and shook my head. ‘Well, it’s good to see we’ve got the opposition worried, isn’t it?’
David looked up when I walked in later on.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I was hoping it was Will.’
‘He’s still not back?’
‘No. Obviously not.’
I raised my eyebrows, but stopped myself from saying anything. I went into the kitchen to check the calendar before going back to David.
‘Are you OK to hold the fort next Thursday night?’ I asked.
‘Another meeting?’
‘No. I mean all night. I’ve been asked to go on an alternative leadership debate on Radio 4 on Friday morning. I’ll have to go down to London the night before.’
David stared at me. It was a moment or two before he spoke. ‘Can’t one of the others do it?’
‘They’re doing Newsnight and Question Time.’
‘Fucking hell!’
‘Do you have a problem with that?’
‘Would it make any difference if I did?’
‘Look, I know it’s a bit sudden …’
‘Sudden? Meteoric more like. I can’t believe they’re all taking you seriously.’
‘Thanks,’ I said and walked out of the room.
I’d wanted to tell him about Charlotte. To share the pain of what was happening to our daughter. To ask him what he thought we should do. But he wasn’t there for me. He hadn’t been for a long time. I was to all intents and purposes a single mother who just happened to live with the father of her children.
I heard the key in the door. I went out into the hall. I could smell cigarettes on Will’s clothes. At least I hoped it was just cigarettes.
‘Did you know about what happened today with Charlotte?’
He appeared surprised to be challenged about something to do with his sister rather than the time he’d chosen to roll home and the company he’d been keeping.
‘No,’ he said. ‘What have they done now?’
‘Dipped her violin in dog’s mess, smeared it over her case.’
Will’s eyes grew darker, his jaw set hard. ‘They are bang out of order,’ he said. ‘If I had my way—’
‘I don’t want you to touch them,’ I said. ‘I’m going to see the Head tomorrow morning to put a stop to it, but I’d like you to keep an eye on her for me, at least at break and lunchtime. And if anyone still finds it amusing I hope you’ll find a suitable riposte to wipe the smile off their faces.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Leave it with me.’
‘Mrs Sugden, I don’t think you’ve got an appointment,’ Freeman’s secretary said, as I strode past her towards his office.
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I don’t need one, thank you. This won’t take long at all.’
I went straight in without knocking. Freeman was on his computer. I couldn’t see the screen, but I guessed from the expression on his face that it was probably something he shouldn’t have been looking at.
‘What the hell is going on?’
‘That’s exactly what I was going to ask, Mr Freeman. Because my daughter came home in tears yesterday having had her violin and its case smeared in dog faeces by some of your pupils. They stole it from her locker and took it off the premises at lunchtime. Here are the girls’ names,’ I said, handing him a piece of paper from my trenchcoat pocket.
Freeman looked up at me. ‘And you have evidence of this, do you?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, plonking the bin bag containing Charlotte’s violin and case, on his desk. ‘This is exhibit one and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of pictures of the culprits on your CCTV pictures, and probably those on the high street as well.
‘Now, obviously you could take strong immediate action against those concerned or we can simply go straight to the police with this matter. I’m sure you’ll make the right decision, Mr Freeman. And if you don’t, I feel it’s only fair to let you know that I and my colleagues in the Lollipop Party will be appearing on Radio 4, Newsnight and Question Time in the coming week and will have no hesitation in raising the issue of bullying at this school at a national level.
‘Oh, and we expect Charlotte’s violin and case to be replaced by the school by Friday. Whether that’s paid for by the culprits’ parents or the school is up to you.
‘Finally, by the time we come back to school after the Easter break, I expect to see the antibullying strategy actually being implemented across the whole school. Thank you, I’ll see myself out.’
I turned on my heel and strode out of his office and past his secretary, who still appeared to be in a state of shock. The adrenalin was still surging through me, my primeval desire to protect my offspring flashing red. I wished I hadn’t needed to do it, wished Charlotte hadn’t had to suffer the indignity of the previous day, but maybe sometimes things
needed to get worse before they could get better.
16
SAM
Millie from next door stood forlornly at our front gate. She was six going on sixty. This, coupled with the fact that she spoke in a broad west Yorkshire accent and her knee-high school socks were invariably around her ankles, always made me think she should have been an extra on Last of the Summer Wine.
‘Mummy’s run over Easter bunny so there’ll be no eggs this year.’
‘Oh,’ I said, trying hard not to laugh. ‘That’s a shame.’ I couldn’t help thinking Millie’s mum, Caz, could teach the government a lesson or two about how to dress up the cutbacks as a tragic accident. ‘I tell you what,’ I continued. ‘We’ll be having a little Easter egg hunt next weekend. Why don’t you come and join in that?’
‘Will they be real eggs?’
‘No, little chocolate ones wrapped in foil.’
‘Yeah, I will then if they’re chocolate. I don’t like real eggs. Not unless they’re in cakes.’
I nodded and smiled. ‘Would you like to come in and play with Oscar?’
‘What’s he doing?’ she asked, watching him intently as he chalked on the easel in the garden.
‘I’m drawing a picture of Jesus dying on the cross,’ he replied, very matter of fact as he added what appeared to be spurts of blood flying out everywhere. Clearly the school’s efforts to relate the Easter story had left a lasting impression.
Millie turned to me with a solemn expression on her face. ‘There’s summat I want to know about Jesus and the cross,’ she said.
‘OK,’ I replied, bracing myself for an awkward question.
‘Well, where did they get all the nails from?’
I tried very hard to keep a straight face. Clearly this had been troubling her. I was glad Rob was at the studio because I was quite sure he would have told her ‘B & Q’.
‘That’s a good question, Millie,’ I said. ‘Only I’m afraid I don’t know the answer. Maybe you should ask your teacher at school.’
Millie looked at me with a frown, seemingly disappointed that I should have reached adulthood without knowing the answer to such questions.
‘It’s only a story anyway,’ said Zach, who until that point had been sitting quietly on the front step with his head in an astronomy book. ‘Jesus wasn’t real. Like God isn’t real.’