by Harriet Tyce
I blink.
“Robin. Year Six. Yes?”
“Um, yes.”
The woman doesn’t let me say any more. “It’s extremely rude to leave invitations unanswered.”
“What invitation?” I say, trying not to sound angry. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What invitation? Oh, come off it. The invitation to the drinks tonight. Which Julia has been kind enough both to organize and to host. And which you can’t even be bothered to respond to.”
“I haven’t received any invitation.”
The woman isn’t listening to a word I say. “You should be grateful to receive invitations from someone like Julia. You’ve no business ignoring them. It’s unbelievably rude.”
She spins on her heel and strides back into her group of friends. I’m left standing, my mouth slightly agape, unsure what has just happened.
“That told her,” I hear someone say from the group, and I stare at her, incredulous, before I look away, hoping to God no one else will talk to me before Robin comes out.
“Daisy’s mom is really angry with you,” Robin says as we sit down on the bus.
“Who?”
“Daisy’s mom. She’s the head of the PT something.”
“The PTA?”
“That,” Robin says. “She’s organizing a party tonight and you haven’t replied.”
The events in front of the school gate suddenly start to make more sense.
“Do you know what Daisy’s mom’s name is?”
Robin looks at me blankly.
“No, of course not,” I say, reaching my hand out to touch Robin’s face. “Was it a better day today?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. They did talk to me. But only to say how rude you are.” Robin shrugs, dislodging my hand. “Why haven’t you replied to the invitation? You always tell me we have to.”
“We do always have to. I just haven’t received an invitation, that’s all.”
“Daisy said her mom sent it specially. She wouldn’t make it up,” Robin says with such certainty that I can’t say any more.
I go through my emails. Nothing in the inbox. I check my junk mail folder, with little expectation of finding anything, but then I see it, a tightness building in my throat. Robin was right. I was invited. A week ago.
As form representative and head of the school PTA, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Ashams School. It may seem a little unusual to be arriving in Year 6 rather than earlier, but we will make every effort to ensure that you and your daughter, Robin, feel as welcome at the school as possible. I am hosting a small drinks reception on Tuesday evening at 7:30 to celebrate the new term—perhaps you might be able to join us? Please do let me know.
All best wishes,
Julia Burnet
I hold my phone out to Robin, mute. She reads through it and gives it back.
“I told you you’d been sent an invite,” she says, smiling. Then, “Tuesday. That’s tonight.”
“No wonder they were cross. Oh dear…”
“Email back and tell them you’re coming. It’ll be fun for you to meet the other moms,” Robin says.
I bite my tongue. I keep looking through my junk mail to check I haven’t missed anything else important, and as I do so, a new one appears at the top of the list. From Julia Burnet. The same email address as before. I click on it.
Sadie, it reads. Given your lack of response to my invitation I will assume that you are unable to attend tonight’s drinks. I won’t trouble you with further correspondence as you are clearly extremely busy. Julia
I swallow. Not a good start.
“You should go, Mom. Daisy’s probably the most important girl in the year,” Robin says. Her voice is pleading.
“I can’t. We don’t have a babysitter. I don’t have anything to wear.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Robin says with a groan. “I’m nearly eleven.”
The tension I feel in my chest is lessened by Robin’s expression of offended dignity. She looks even more offended when I laugh at the idea of leaving her on her own.
“OK, Mom—let’s ask Zora. And it might make it easier for me if you get to know the moms. Then they can’t be nasty to me about you being so unfriendly, too.”
Suppressing the thought that if the mums get to know me, it might make Robin’s position worse, not better, I lean over and hug her.
“OK. We’ll ask Zora. But I’m not going if she can’t come.”
Robin rolls her eyes, turns back to her phone. I text Zora, disappointed to see the message immediately picked up, the gray dots moving as Zora texts her reply.
Sure. With you by seven xx
My heart sinks, but I text back my thanks and tell Robin. I’m rewarded with a smile.
I throw some food together for Robin and email Julia, trying to hit a balance between nonchalance—silly me, hadn’t checked my junk mail—and apology for the last-minute nature of my reply. I check the address she’s given at the end of the email—I know the road, an exclusive terrace in Belsize Park. Throwing on some smarter clothes, I rush to get ready. It’s nearly seven by now and I don’t have the time or the inclination to wash my hair so I twist it up into a bun and pin it on the top of my head. Then I go to a mirror and apply foundation and concealer. I look less tired, at least.
A few minutes later and I’m ready to go. I’m wearing jeans, boots and a black silk top. Not too formal, not too casual—just right for drinks at someone’s house. I run downstairs as Zora knocks at the door. We go into the kitchen where Robin is doing her homework. She gets up and gives me an encouraging hug.
“You look pretty, Mom,” Robin says.
“Yes, you do,” Zora says. “Stunning. You’ll knock them dead.”
If only I could. I don’t say it, though. I smile at them both and hug Robin back before heading out of the door.
8
I’m late. No time for the tube. As soon as I see a cab with its light on I stick out my hand and hail it. As we head toward Belsize Park, I look out of the window, trying to calm my nerves.
“This it, love?” the cabbie says, pulling up in front of a long white terrace of houses, pillars on each side of the doors.
“I guess so,” I say, paying him with the final twenty in my purse. “Thanks.”
I take a deep breath and stride up to the front door, ringing the bell. There’s no answer. I wait for a little, ring it again. Nothing. There’s a large brass knocker on the door and I start to raise my hand, when the door opens. I stumble forward, heavily, into a girl about Robin’s age, dressed in a plain red dress.
“Sorry, sorry,” I say, straightening up. At least I haven’t knocked the girl over.
“It’s OK. Are you invited?”
“Yes, I am. I’m invited. I have it on my phone.” I start to grapple for it. “Do you want to see?”
“I don’t need that,” the girl says. “But my mother asked if I could take people’s names.”
I laugh. “Do you get many gatecrashers at school drinks?”
“Mum says we need to be careful,” the girl says with an earnest tone, and I feel bad for teasing her.
“It’s Sadie. Sadie Roper.”
She picks a piece of paper up from the hall table and runs her finger down it. She’s going a bit pink in the face, distress building.
“Roper? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
The girl looks up at me, back down at the list. Shakes her head. Even the end of her nose has turned pink.
“I can’t find you,” she says. “I’m really sorry…”
I scroll through the emails on my phone and open the email from Julia, triumphant.
“Look,” I say. “I told you I was invited.”
The girl looks at the email, then back at the list.
“My mum didn’t tell me what to do if someone wasn’t on the list,” she says. I feel even more guilty that I’m putting the girl in this situation.
“Look
, I totally understand what your mum has said. But I think there’s been some misunderstanding. It’s my fault—I didn’t RSVP till very late, so she must have thought I wasn’t coming. Do you think…”
The girl is shaking her head before I even get to the end of my sentence.
“I’m not allowed to let you in,” she says. “Mum said.”
“But this is absurd. It’s a school drinks party. Who the hell is going to gatecrash a school drinks party? I’ve shown you the invitation.”
The girl’s eyes start to fill with tears.
“It’s OK, I’ll go. I’ll email your mum and explain tomorrow,” I say, and turn to leave. As I reach the bottom step, however, someone calls after me.
“What’s going on?”
It’s the woman from the school gate. Tall, blonde. Angular. Julia herself.
“This lady is invited, but I couldn’t find her name on the list. I’m really sorry,” the girl says, her words falling over each other.
Julia laughs. She puts her arm around the girl and squeezes. The girl flinches a little at her touch. It looks affectionate but Julia’s knuckles are white on the girl’s shoulder. “I think you’ve been a bit over-literal, darling. I wasn’t telling you to turn people away.”
“I’m sorry…” the girl says, her face by now entirely flushed. It clashes with the red dress. “I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s entirely my fault,” I say, keen for the situation to de-escalate. “You were just doing what your mum said.” I climb back up the stairs.
Julia gives her daughter one final squeeze and lets her go. “Right. Well. Please will you go through and fill the glasses? People are running short,” Julia says, and the girl runs off. I look up and find myself caught in the steel blue gaze.
“Sadie,” Julia says, cracks of ice in her voice.
“Sorry I didn’t reply—your message went into my junk folder. Maybe that’s what’s caused the confusion…”
She doesn’t reply, stalks away from me toward the sound of voices. I scuttle to keep up. We walk down a hall, long and marbled, with a staircase sweeping up from the left of the front door, passing through a set of double doors into a large reception space. I can’t help but compare it with the squalor of my mother’s house, and I wonder how Julia would react if she found herself transplanted from this palace, its walls hung with gilded paper, crystal chandeliers suspended at each end of the room, into my relic of a home.
It’s not just the walls that are gilded, either. Before I enter the throng, a waitress arrives in front of me and holds out a tray of canapés, quails’ eggs cut in half and topped with caviar and gold leaf. They look delicious. I pick up two, shoveling them both in my mouth, before registering that the tray of food is virtually untouched. Perhaps I’m the only person to have taken any food at any point this evening, I think with growing horror, and I try fast to swallow the evidence of my greed.
Too fast. A piece of egg sticks in my throat and I cough, my face reddening, my eyes watering. I’m beginning to panic—the food is stuck in the back of my throat; I can’t breathe. I’m spluttering now, bent over, trying to loosen the piece of bloody egg, goddammit how could this happen and then there’s a sharp bash on my back, a thump straight between the shoulder blades, and the egg flies out of my mouth, straight onto the floor. I straighten up, wiping under my eyes, my cheeks flushed.
“Ladies, ladies,” Julia says smoothly, appearing beside me. It’s as though the whole egg incident never happened, though a waitress kneels in front of me, mopping up the floor. “Let me introduce you to our newest mother. Sadie Spence, mother to Robin who has just joined us.”
I’m trying to look collected, but I’m still recovering from the shock of nearly choking, my eyes streaming, snot coming out of my nose. I can’t see who hit me on the back—no one is offering me any help now that I’m upright. A trio of women gathers around me, smiling politely. I feel the heat fade out of my cheeks, wipe under my eyes, remembering only too late about the mascara that I must now be wearing all down my face.
“We are all going to make sure you and your daughter feel very welcome,” Julia says. Her words are kind, but a chill runs through me. Then she turns. “I’ll introduce you to everyone.”
The rest is a blur. Julia whisks me from group to group, introducing me so fast that they start to meld together. Everyone is dressed smartly. Shame is growing inside me, a gnawing sense that I’ve got it wrong; my outfit felt chic and understated earlier, but now it looks cheap and lazy in comparison to the silks and taffetas that rustle in the room. My coughing fit has dislodged my hair from its bun and when I put my hand up to push it back, I can feel the grease against my fingers.
The acoustics of the drawing room are harsh and everyone around me is talking so it’s difficult to hear either the names that are muttered at me, or the names of the daughters, Robin’s classmates. Someone hands me a glass of champagne at one stage and I sip at it with relief, but the slight buzz I start to feel does nothing to help me work out who is who. I place the glass on a passing waiter’s tray and take some water instead.
No one is drinking much, that’s evident, and the food is barely being touched. Every single woman is thin, restrained, eating half a canapé before leaving the rest discreetly at the side of a plate, or wrapped in a napkin. As they stand in their little groups, the women look longingly at the food for a moment as it passes, before one of them declines and the others follow. Even though I’m starving, I don’t dare risk eating anything else.
The last person to whom I’m introduced is a woman called Jessica.
“Is this the one who took, um… the empty place?” she says to Julia, not acknowledging me.
“I don’t—” Julia starts to say, when there’s a crash. I jump as liquid splashes up me. The woman on the other side of me has dropped her glass.
“So sorry,” she says, mopping ineffectually at my arm.
Julia walks off, perhaps to find someone to clear up.
Jessica turns her attention to me. “It’s a bit odd to be starting a new school in Year Six,” she says. “Can’t be very comfortable for your daughter. She’s hardly going to be properly prepared.”
I blink, taken aback by the directness of the comment. “It wasn’t the original plan, but we didn’t have much choice in the end. Prepared for what?”
Jessica is in her early forties at a guess. There is a fixity to her gaze, which suggests a certain amount of cosmetic work. She ignores my question and persists with another of her own. “Have you relocated?”
“We’ve been living in the States for the last few years, for my husband’s work. In Brooklyn. He’s in investments. But then… Well, the place here came up very suddenly, so we moved over,” I say. I know the explanation is full of holes, but Jessica’s eyes are glazing over as I speak, her lack of interest only too evident.
“I see,” she says, a beat too late.
“I’m doing everything I can to make the move easy on Robin,” I say.
“With the entrance exam coming up for the senior school, it’s going to be difficult. I hardly imagine she’s up to the same academic standard as the others. I hope the school won’t be diverting too many resources to helping her catch up.” Jessica smiles, her lips stretched tight over her teeth.
I’m stung. How dare she? “Oh, she’s very strong academically,” I say. “She was at an excellent elementary school, and she’s very good at maths.”
Jessica blinks, her eyebrows moving fractionally. I think she might be trying to frown, though the Botox isn’t letting her. “Well, I’m sure you know best. We’ve all been preparing our girls for the last couple of years for the exam. It’s very selective, you know. Just because you’ve been at the primary school, there’s no guarantee of a place in the senior school. We’re all anxious.”
It takes a moment before her words fully sink in. Our entire living situation is dependent on Robin staying at Ashams. I hadn’t realized her transition through the school might not be automatic
. Great, another thing to worry about. I twitch my lips in an approximation of a smile. I want to bare my teeth at her. But before I can respond, there’s a polite chink of fork tines against crystal and Julia addresses the room.
“First of all, I’d like to thank my amazing daughter, Daisy, for all her help this evening. She’s a fabulous waitress, and what’s more, a fabulous sous chef, helping me make all the canapés beforehand.” Applause ripples through the air. I crane my head to see the girl in the red dress standing beside Julia, her smile fixed as her mother hugs her close.
Julia starts to speak again. “As you know, ladies, despite the huge pressures awaiting us over the next few months, we mustn’t let it dominate everything. It’s so important to keep some balance for the children—they deserve our fullest support in times of such academic pressure. We have to remember that despite the demands of the senior school entrance exam, the competition for places, we’re not competing with each other here—we have to work as a team.”
I’m not sure, but I could swear that someone snorts behind me. When I look around, all I see is a row of bland faces, expressions neutral as Julia continues her speech.
“So, there will be lots of chances to volunteer for activities this term. We’ve got the bake sale, the used uniform sale, and of course the Christmas Fair. And as usual, I’ll be looking for lots of support. Let’s make this our highest fund-raising term yet!”
There’s a burst of applause. I clap along too though I think Julia’s overstating the case of the entrance exam. Huge pressures and troubled times? Jessica turns back to me, perhaps to give me a chance to redeem myself. “Volunteering will be beneficial for you,” she says. “A good way to get to know people. I always think how marvelous it is that we have such an active parents’ association.”
“God, no!” I laugh. “I hate school fairs. I did loads at Robin’s last school—too much. That’s why I’m so desperate to get back to work.”
As soon as the words emerge, I realize this was the wrong thing to say. And the decisive way in which Jessica turns from me and walks away leaves me in no doubt at all.