‘And I’ll be up in arms if you let her stay!’ I hissed, getting to my feet and resting my palms on his desk. ‘What am I supposed to do, say, “Good morning, Miss Harrison, and how was pillow talk with my husband this morning?” Compare notes or something?’
He laughed nervously. ‘Ha ha, no, no, but then in all honesty, that situation is not likely to arise, is it? I mean you don’t exactly come across her on a daily basis. Claudia’s not in the infant school and –’
‘That’s not the point!’ My voice was shrill. ‘It’s the indignity of the whole thing the – the – God – it’s everyone knowing! And apart from my pain, apart from my abject humiliation, what about the message it sends to the children? Hmm? Answer me that one, Mr –’ I nearly said Farty, the children’s nickname for him – ‘Harty. What sort of moral guidance are you giving these children in your care – what sort of direction? Because, believe me, they’ll all know about it, you can bank on that. You can’t keep it from them. Oh, mark my words, within minutes it’ll be all round the school – Claudia’s dad’s having an affair with Miss Harrison – and how d’you think Claudia will feel about that? Oh no, Mr Harty, Miss Harrison’s position here is totally untenable. You must see that. She has to go!’
I was shaking with rage now, glaring at him over his oak desk. I wanted her head on a plate and I wanted it now. Mr Harty looked like he’d just run in from an icefield, he was glowing so much. He squirmed some more in his swivel chair, fiddled with his wedding ring, his second wedding ring, if I remembered rightly, because … oh God, it was all coming back to me now. He’d left his first wife, hadn’t he? For the biology teacher. Dumped the first Mrs Harty for a certain Miss Quigly, she of the wiggling hips and the burgeoning bosom, all of which had seen quite a bit of action in the photocopying room. There’d been a hell of a furore about it at the time, but Mr Harty, being such a good headmaster, and being so well thought of, had stayed on and married Miss Quigly in double-quick time, who in turn had produced twins precisely nine months later. I groaned; held my head. If Miss Harrison produced twins in nine months’ time I’d bloody top myself. And her. I picked up my bag from the floor.
‘Well, Mr Harty, I can quite see how this is a tricky one for you, bearing in mind your own personal domestic history. Miss Harrison is hardly a trail blazer, is she?’ I eyed him beadily. ‘It’s a well-worn path, isn’t it, and of course, one wouldn’t want to appear hypocritical, would one? Wouldn’t want to reek of humbug?’ I ground my teeth as he failed to answer. ‘OK,’ I spat, ‘fine. Do nothing. But, believe me, you haven’t heard the last of this. I shall fight my corner despite your inertia. I shall be writing to the governors, voicing my concerns. I shall be lobbying other parents for their support. I shall even chain myself to the school railings, if needs be, and rest assured, Mr Harty, I shall have Miss Harrison out of this school within the week. Good day.’
With that I swept out of his office, head high, cheeks burning. I strode to the car park, roared home at top speed – narrowly missing a group of cyclists on a blind bend, who careered nervously into the back of each other in confusion – before screeching dramatically to a halt outside my house. I sat for a moment, feeling the anger thickening inside my head – clotting actually. Finally I got out and slammed the door. Hard. I set my teeth. And if they’re not working in my bloody kitchen, I seethed to myself as I strode up the path, if they’re still in my sitting room, watching my television, swigging my PG Tips … I flounced in, all guns blazing, ready for action, and slammed the front door behind me so it rattled on its hinges.
‘MAC!’ I yelled at the top of my voice as I stood on the doormat, fists clenched. Nothing. I strode off down the hall. ‘MAC! Oh!’ I stopped; stepped back as I went bellowing and stomping past the kitchen. ‘Hello, Mum.’
My mother raised herself delicately from the dusty Lloyd Loom chair she’d perched herself on in the little scullery and daintily brushed the back of her skirt.
‘Mr Turner is working at the other side of the house in your new kitchen,’ she informed me. ‘I presume that’s what you employ these people to do?’
‘Oh, yes. Yes, it is. Um,’ I held my head for a minute. It was throbbing madly. ‘Right. How are you, Mum?’
‘I’m well, which is more than I hear can be said of you.’
I took my hands from my head and met her eyes. Cold and grey. I sighed and brushed past her. Damn. All I needed right now. Really, all I needed.
‘Yes, well, things aren’t too great around here at the moment,’ I admitted, dumping my bag and reaching for the kettle.
‘And I have to be the last to know?’
I spun round. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I would have rung only –’
‘Mrs Hinton, the greengrocer, told me when I went in for some Granny Smiths. Said she was so sorry to hear about my little Olivia, being left on her own with a kiddie like that. Said it had happened to “her Kylie” too, who’d been left on her own without any “social” either.’ She shuddered. ‘Yes, that’s how I heard that my daughter had separated.’
‘Yes, well I’m sorry, Mum, but I was a bit distraught, OK?’ I slammed the kettle down angrily on the counter. ‘And I didn’t want to break down in front of you because I knew I wouldn’t get any sympathy either, just a lot of I-told-you-sos. I thought I’d wait until I was a bit stronger before I tackled you, all right? Look, I’m the one that’s been left, Mum; I’m the injured party here, not you. Don’t make me apologise, OK?’
She regarded me for a moment, then sniffed and sat down again, folding her hands in her lap and crossing her ankles.
‘There’s a cup of tea in the pot. It’ll still be hot.’
‘Oh. Right.’ I turned and found the pot with its tea cosy on, which she’d given me and I never used. I filled up the cup she passed me and one for me too. Cups and saucers. Never mugs. I turned and leant against the counter, sipping it, watching her.
‘This place is a disgrace,’ she said, looking round. I followed her gaze around the room, taking in the cracked sink, the piles of washing-up, newspapers everywhere … God, she had to see it like this, didn’t she? Today of all days.
‘I know,’ I said flatly.
There was a silence.
‘When did he go?’
‘Three weeks ago.’
‘Is there someone else?’
‘Oh yes,’ I laughed hollowly. ‘And I don’t know what’s worse. To be left for someone else, or to be left because he simply couldn’t stand me any longer.’
‘The former, I think,’ she said quietly.
I looked up quickly. God, how stupid of me to miss the parallel. Of course. This had happened before.
‘It was … the comparison that I couldn’t bear,’ she said softly.
I nodded, and a chill went down my spine. Never, never, had I thought I’d be in the same boat as my mother. Sitting here comparing notes. I cast around desperately. I couldn’t talk about this to her, couldn’t do this. I wasn’t her, never would be.
‘Do you know who she is?’
‘Yes, she’s a teacher at Claudia’s school.’ I didn’t recognise my own voice. Flat, toneless. ‘I’m going to get her sacked.’
‘I see.’ There was a silence. ‘Do you think that’s wise?’
I paused, my cup midway to my lips. My eyes darted to hers. ‘What?’
‘I said, d’you think that’s wise?’
‘Yes, I heard you, I just couldn’t quite believe it. She’s at Claudia’s school, Mum.’
‘Do you want him back?’
‘Yes, of course I want him back.’
‘You do? Really?’
‘Yes, dammit, really!’
‘And so d’you think that getting his popsy sacked is going to further your cause? Do you think that he’s going to look favourably on you, think: dear little Livvy, how well she’s behaving, how controlled, how dignified? Or d’you think he’ll think: poor, sad, vindictive little bitch?’
I opened my mouth dumbly. She put down her cup, lea
nt across and, for the first time in years, held my hand.
‘I’ve been here, Olivia,’ she said softly. ‘And I did it so wrong. I did all the things you’re about to do. I ranted, I raved, I went berserk, I threw plates, I slashed clothes, poured paint on cars, wrote terrible letters. I did all the things you can’t possibly imagine me doing. And do you know what? I found out later, from another friend, that it had only been a whim, him and Yvonne. A drunken nonsense after a party, a quick roll in the sack, as you might put it. He would have come back, apparently, and she would have gone back to Derek, but I drove them relentlessly together, Olivia. And I not only drove them together, I drove them away. Drove them from the country. They emigrated to Australia, I made their lives such a misery. I did it all so terribly, terribly wrong. Don’t follow my example.’
I gazed at her. ‘I never knew that.’
‘I never told you. Too much pride. Have some now, Olivia. Walk tall and hold your head high as you go to that school. Do nothing, say nothing. If you see her, smile, say good morning, be polite, but most of all, have pride. He’ll be back. Men are intrinsically stupid and vain, but give him six months and he’ll wonder what he ever saw in her. But you get her sacked and you’ll never see him again.’
I stared, my teacup cold in my hand. So rarely did I ever hear anything from her lips that rang true. But this had bells pealing all over it. I gulped.
‘Thanks, Mum. I think you might be right.’
‘I know I’m right,’ she said, getting to her feet. She reached for her handbag. ‘I’ve got to get back now. I’ve got a man coming to service the boiler. And if you’re going back to get Claudia soon, I’ll have a lift. I had to get the bus over.’
‘I’ll take you home.’
‘I can walk from Claudia’s school.’
‘I’d like to take you home.’
We didn’t talk as I drove, but when we got to her house, my old home, I stopped the car and just sat, staring at the place. Up there was my bedroom window, the glass I’d pressed my nose against countless times, dreaming of being somewhere else. I couldn’t wait to get away from that dismal pile of bricks, with its tiny front room, back kitchen, downstairs bathroom, two bedrooms upstairs and its patch of dry lawn at the back. No fun, no laughter – how I’d longed for that – just a mother who’d set her nose to the grindstone and concentrated on the grim task of bringing up her only child, suffering in silence. And she thought she’d never burdened me with her pain. Oh, but she had. If only she’d told me, confided in me, talked it over with me in a chatty, mother-to-daughter sort of way, but her silence had just deepened the suffering. It had dragged her down, and made me desperate not to sink into the quicksand with her. How different it might all have been.
As she got out, I leant across and kissed her cheek.
‘Thanks, Mum.’
She gave her usual tight little smile. ‘Give my love to Claudia. Oh, and I collected these for her.’ She handed me some coffee jar labels. I’d forgotten that Claudia was collecting the tokens for something, but Mum always remembered, sent them in the post. I smiled.
‘Thanks.’
As I drove back to the school, glancing at the little bundle of labels on the seat beside me, I felt ashamed. I knew in my heart I’d always mentally dismissed my mother, wanting to stand alone, not beside her, not wanting to be associated with her, but one never could. And rightly so. Flesh and blood was what made one tick, ultimately.
Before I swung into St Luke’s gates for the third time that day, I popped home quickly, collected something from the hall table, then crawled back into the half-empty car park. I was early, and Claudia wouldn’t be out for another ten minutes, but some of the really tiny children were already straggling on to the blistered playground, hats falling over their eyes, drowning in outsized blazers. I loitered by the nursery, watching, as each toddler with its bundle of wet paintings and egg-box alligators fell into the arms of an adoring parent. When I was sure every one of them had been collected, I sailed into the empty classroom.
Mrs Hooper I’d already seen, trussed up in her headscarf even in this sweltering weather, and heading for home, and the other assistant had gone too. Nina was bending over the story mat, picking up bricks, cars and other toys that had been fiddled with during the tale of ‘The Enormous Caterpillar’, but discarded the moment their mothers had arrived. Her back was to me, and she was bent at the waist, straight-legged as she picked up things from the floor, which showed an element of elasticity. She was wearing a calf-length, Laura Ashley-style spriggy cotton skirt, a white T-shirt through which I could see her bra strap, and her hair was short and fair. The back of her neck looked curiously vulnerable. Suddenly she heard me, turned with a smile.
‘Can I hel– Oh!’ She started, hand to mouth.
Ah. So she recognised me. I smiled warmly, taking it all in quickly, noting that she was quite pretty in a pink-cheeked, healthy sort of way, and also quite pneumatic, but heavens, Imo was right, nothing special. She had that sort of skin that blushed easily, and the colour rose up.
‘Hello,’ I smiled. ‘Look, I just thought I’d pop in because I realise this situation could potentially be very embarrassing for both of us, so I wanted to break the ice and say hi. We’re obviously going to be seeing each other around a bit and I thought – well, far better to be grown up about it and not let everyone think we’re at each other’s throats, don’t you think?’
‘Oh! Yes, well –’ she faltered, flushing to her roots.
‘I also wondered,’ I went on, ‘if you’d be kind enough to deliver these to Johnny.’ I handed over a package of his letters. ‘Only I’ve been sending them to his office every day, which costs a fortune, and it seems crazy when I could quite easily give them to you.’
Her mouth went slack with shock. ‘Oh! Well – yes, I –’
‘Is that OK then? If I just pop them in periodically? Thanks so much.’
Without waiting for an answer I bestowed yet another warm smile on her, turned, and pushed out through the glass swing doors. I made off down the long corridor. Off to collect my daughter. On the way I passed plenty of waiting mothers hovering outside classrooms, some of whom I knew, and some of whom, quite possibly, already knew of my predicament. My head was high, though, and my chin well up. Thanks Mum, I thought, my heart pounding as I strode along. Thanks for the tip, but actually, I can go one better.
Chapter Seven
Days passed and Nanette’s dinner party loomed. On the day of the actual event, I tried to get out of it a few hours beforehand by coughing wretchedly into a bloodstained hanky, but Claudia wasn’t impressed.
‘Alf saw you do that in the kitchen with the tomato ketchup bottle,’ she informed me sternly as I sat on my bed clutching hanky to mouth. She had her back to me at my open wardrobe and was riffling through my hangers. ‘We all thought it was pretty sad of you, actually. Alf was on the phone to Vi at the time, and when he told her about it she said that you should definitely get out more and had you thought of taking Prozac? What’s Prozac?’
‘Jesus!’ I flopped back on the pillows. ‘Now my labourer’s wife is pitching in with her two pennyworth, is she?’
‘Don’t say Jesus, Mummy – Oh! Hang on. What about this?’ She pulled out a hanger and threw a short red dress at me.
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Claudia. I haven’t worn that in years! Not since puberty. Ooooh … God.’ I shut my eyes and clutched my forehead. ‘I do feel rotten.’
‘Mum, I told you, the game’s up. We all know you’re faking it. Oh look, what about this one then?’ Some equally ancient miniskirt came winging my way. I snatched it up, then threw it on the floor, swinging my legs round to get up.
‘Claudia, if I’m going out at all I’m wearing my black, and that’s final – if I’m going out.’
‘Oh, Mummy, not your black again,’ she wailed. ‘You always wear that; you look like Batman.’
‘Rubbish. I look thin and mysterious,’ I said, wiggling into black trousers and
a velvet shirt.
‘And old and tired.’
‘Thank you so much, my angel.’
‘Well, you could at least wear chunky jewellery or something, like Nanette does.’ She leapt up on my bed and bounced up and down in her nightie, a packet of crisps in her hand, ‘or that pashy thing.’
‘My pashmina –’ I reached for it.
‘No, not the grey one, the red one, and look, you tie it like this …’
‘Yes, I know how to tie it.’ I snatched it from her salty hands and sat at the dressing table to arrange it. Then I dropped it. Groaned. ‘Oh God, what am I doing here? Dressing up to go to some godawful party of Nanette’s to talk to some ghastly greasy Herbert she’s lined up for me?’
‘How d’you know he’s going to be greasy? How d’you know he won’t be absolutely gorgeous? And if he is, for heaven’s sake smile, Mummy, flash your rings, tell him you’re a rich divorcee or something.’
I gazed at her a moment in the dressing-table mirror; turned. ‘Claudia, what’s the matter with you? Don’t you want Daddy to come back? You can’t want some slimy accountant sneaking about the place, surely?’
‘Of course I don’t. I’ve told you, Mum, this is tactics. Apparently you can bring a man to his knees by pretending to be in love with someone else, and Dad’s got to see you’re having a good time,’ she insisted. She knelt up on the bed urgently. ‘And even if you’re not, you’ve got to pretend, Mum. I know you think I’m the only one in my class from a broken home – I’ve heard you wailing about it on the phone to Molly – but I’m not. Chloe Chandler’s dad went off with a floozie, and d’you know what Mrs Chandler did?’
‘No idea.’
‘She went straight down to B&Q where lots of men hang about, followed a few around with power drills and things in their baskets, and when she found one she liked, she brought him back home and – guess what – Mr Chandler came back the very next day!’
‘Claudia –’
‘And it doesn’t have to be a Homebase-type thing. Chloe says you can do it anywhere. For instance, you could go to a bookshop, Mum – you like books – or – or yes, a garden centre! Mum, go to a garden centre! There’s bound to be some there. They’re everywhere!’ She opened her eyes wide. ‘Men are everywhere!’ she repeated with awe. She flopped back dramatically on the bed, arms wide like a starfish.
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