The Woman Who Upped and Left

by Fiona Gibson

  My vision fuzzes as I remember the bad thoughts I had yesterday, beaming hatred at Morgan’s boxers and kicking Jenna’s thong into the corner of the bathroom to fester with the dusty old bottles of floor cleaner and bleach. When did I become so intolerant? What happened to the fun, perky woman who blithely stepped over the odd dropped item of underwear, and who never seethed over a dressing gown dumped on the stairs, and who was certainly never seized by an urge to set it alight? They see only the good side of me here: the woman who runs off to find a plaster for a cut knee, and takes the time to chat to a little girl who’s crying because there was no room for her to sit with her friends.

  Sure, I’m good with other people’s kids. I love their enthusiasm for life. If only they knew what a colossal grump I am at home, fizzling with irritation over scattered trainers and the forever elusive remote control … ‘“Miss Pepper is like a kind friend to me,”’ Moira continues, and there’s more, so much more: about the time I ‘helped’ Ailsa Cartwright (she means when I spotted a remarkably fat nit crawling in her hair and quietly whisked her to the office and called her mum without anyone else ever finding out). Now Moira is talking about some kind of prize I’ve been awarded, but I’m not paying full attention. Instead, I’m thinking, what would anyone have done, in that situation? Produced a loud hailer and boomed, ‘Back off, everyone, Ailsa’s crawling with lice?’

  ‘Our incredibly kind, hard-working, long-serving dinner lady,’ Moira booms across the hall. ‘So here’s to another ten years with the wonderful Miss Pepper, dinner lady of the year!’

  ‘What?’ I blurt out as the room fills with applause.

  ‘You’re dinner lady of the year!’ Delyth exclaims, throwing her arms around me. ‘What did you think this was about?’

  I laugh, shaking my head in amazement. ‘I had no idea. I mean, I didn’t even know there was one …’

  ‘Well, there is,’ she laughs, ‘and you’re it.’

  ‘Bloody hell …’

  ‘Language, Miss Pepper,’ Joseph giggles.

  I smile, tears forming as quickly as I can blink them away. ‘But what is it? What does it mean?’

  ‘It means,’ Moira says with exaggerated patience, ‘there’s a national competition to find a dinner lady who does far more than her usual duties …’

  ‘Like helping us build that massive snowman,’ Joseph pipes up.

  ‘And washing the netball team kit,’ Amanda adds with a grin.

  ‘And you let us throw wet sponges at you at the car boot sale!’ shrieks someone from the back, somewhat overzealously.

  ‘So we put you forward,’ Moira adds, ‘and, well, the judges agreed that you’re pretty amazing …’

  ‘Really? I don’t know what to—’

  ‘Speech!’ Delyth calls out, and the children’s chatter melts away into a respectful hush.

  I give her a quick, alarmed glance and push back a strand of hair that’s dangling at my boiling cheek. ‘I, er, I mean … I can’t begin to …’ Oh no. Hot tears are spilling now as I try to scrabble together an intelligible sentence. I have never made a speech in my life; I’m not even keen on being the centre of attention. ‘I’m delighted,’ I start, blotting my face with my apron. ‘This means so much to me. I love my job here, you’re all such wonderful people …’ I tail off, fazed by the sea of expectant faces all turned towards me. ‘… And all I can really say is … this is totally unexpected and completely wonderful. Thank you so much …’ There’s a cheer as I am handed a huge bouquet – an explosion of red and orange blooms – then a cake appears, carried towards me on a silver board by a grinning Amanda. The outlandish creation is swirled with creamy icing, with Congratulations Miss Pepper Dinner Lady of the Year!!! in wobbly pink piping on top. Clearly, one of the kids has had a hand in the decorating. There’s more cheering, and paper plates appear, and the cake is cut up and distributed to the children who stuff it into their mouths before rushing outside, icing smeared, to play.

  ‘You really deserve this, Audrey,’ Moira says, hugging me.

  ‘Thank you, I’m still trying to take it in …’ I swipe the last remaining piece of cake. It’s tiny; no more than a mouthful.

  ‘So which prize are you going to choose?’

  ‘Oh, er …’ I lick a sticky smear from a finger. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t actually catch—’

  ‘You weren’t listening?’ Moira laughs with mock indignation. ‘You’re worse than the kids, Audrey. Mind always elsewhere.’

  ‘Well, er, I was quite overwhelmed …’

  She chuckles. ‘Okay, there’s a prize of a French cookery course – classic cuisine and patisserie in a fancy hotel down south somewhere. Buckinghamshire, I think. I can’t quite remember. Come on, I have all the details in my office …’ We retreat to the tiny, cluttered room where she hands me a glossy brochure depicting the hotel. Wilton Grange is a grand, turreted affair with landscaped gardens and a lake, surrounded by rolling hills and woodland.

  ‘Wow,’ I murmur. ‘I’ve never stayed anywhere like that.’

  Moira smiles.‘I know, it’s incredible …’ She has the decency to flick through a sheaf of paperwork as I pore over the brochure. The oval lake is flat as glass and edged with swathes of yolk-yellow flowers. There are four-poster beds in the traditional rooms, and sunlight streams in through enormous bay windows. Recently, I felt obliged to move out of my own bedroom, which is next to Morgan’s, due to being woken up to the toe-curling soundtrack of my son’s energetic sex life.

  I just couldn’t bear it. I tried sleeping on my side and stuffing a pillow corner into the exposed ear, but the terrible noises still forced their way through. Ditto with many types of earplugs: foam, silicone, even wax. ‘Snoring husband?’ asked the woman in the chemist with a snigger, the third time I went in. Apart from the utter wrongness of hearing your own child at it – a child whose Action Man still resides in the house, along with his spy’s fedora hat and the code-cracker’s kit he was obsessed with – it also highlighted how dismal my own love life had become. This was before I’d met Stevie. At that point, I hadn’t been to bed with anyone for almost two years. While I vaguely remembered the various anatomical parts, I couldn’t actually picture a naked man in any kind of realistic way. If this went on any longer, I feared I’d have to study Action Man just to remind myself. But then, Action Man doesn’t have a penis – just an eerie plastic slope – so that wouldn’t have been any help. Anyway, I moved into the box room at the far end of the landing. It’s tiny. That’s fine. I’d rather sleep in a drawer than be subjected to the ecstatic gruntings of a boy who is still barely able to operate a toaster.

  Moira is clutching the paperwork to her chest. ‘So there’s that,’ she remarks, ‘a five-day residential course with some fancy chef, what’s his name …’ She peers at the brochure. ‘Brad Miller. Never heard of him …’

  ‘Neither have I.’

  ‘But it does sound incredible …’

  ‘It really does.’ I nod.

  She pauses. ‘… Or there’s a cash prize of £5000.’

  I stare at her. ‘Really? So I could choose that instead?’

  She nods. ‘I’m so proud of you, Audrey …’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, folding the brochure and placing it on her desk. Five thousand pounds! Perhaps not an earth-shattering amount to some, but to me? Pretty life-changing. Seriously, I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t utterly broke. My Charnock Richard date shoes were from the PDSA charity shop and I’m forever stretching yesterday’s food to cobble together another meal today. I don’t blame Vince for no longer bankrolling our son, because I shouldn’t either; by rights, Morgan should be making his own way in the world. But the reality is that he’s not, and some months I struggle to make even our perfectly reasonable rent, although I’d never tell Kim this (she’d probably let me off, which would be mortifying).

  ‘The course is worth twice that,’ Moira adds.

  ‘Really? I can’t believe anyone would pay that kind of money to learn
to cook …’

  ‘Me neither,’ she laughs. ‘Guess some people have more money than sense. So … have you decided which prize you’ll take? Or d’you need time to make up your mind?’

  I muster a wide smile and give the brochure one last, lustful glance. ‘Oh, I’ll take the money of course,’ I say firmly. ‘I mean, I’d be crazy not to.’

  Chapter Four

  Disappointing Soup

  I leave school with my outlandish bouquet propped over one shoulder, like a toddler, wondering what to spend my prize money on. Not because there’s nothing I need, but because there’s so much: a new car, perhaps – one that starts every time? I could upgrade our furniture – most of it is quite pitiful, and our kitchen table has a gouge out of it from when Morgan rammed into it on his unicycle. Or maybe I should stash away the cash to avoid further rent panics?

  I call Kim to share my news. ‘You can’t spend it on something sensible,’ she declares. ‘For God’s sake, it’s prize money. It’s for something treaty and fun, not a bloody kitchen table or curtains or—’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘That’s the law,’ she cuts in, forthright as usual. Kim is a make-up artist: renowned for her ability to beautify not only the bride, but battalions of bridesmaids in record time. ‘You should have fun with it,’ she adds. ‘You’re long overdue a shopping spree, Aud. Why don’t we have a day out?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ I fib, remembering our last trip to York together, which culminated in her virtually manhandling me into a spray tan salon. My milky-pale skin turned an alarming shade of terracotta, like a plant pot. ‘God, Mum,’ Morgan exclaimed on my return. ‘I hope that’s gonna scrub off.’

  ‘Sure you don’t want to take the hotel prize?’ Kim asks. ‘Do something for yourself for a change? Or take the cash and blow the lot on a holiday, surprise Stevie …’

  I laugh, shaking off a twinge of regret that my boyfriend isn’t the type who’d allow himself to be whisked away. ‘He doesn’t do surprises, you know that. He operates on a strict schedule.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ she says dryly. ‘I forgot.’

  ‘I’ll think about it, okay? And I’ll see you tomorrow …’

  ‘Can’t wait, birthday girl,’ she says warmly as we finish the call. I quicken my pace, deciding it’s not really about the money, although a spree would be fun; it’s the fact I won it at all. Dinner lady of the year! I still can’t figure out what I did to deserve it. This sets me thinking, as I stop off to pick up a few groceries for Mrs B’s: how much longer am I planning to work in a school canteen? Sounds churlish, I know, after the children wrote such lovely things about me. But something about Moira’s speech has lodged in my brain: ‘… Our incredibly kind, hard-working, long-serving dinner lady … here’s to another ten years!’ Bloody hell: I’m 44 tomorrow. Do I still want to be dishing out potato wedges at 54?

  Laden now with shopping and flowers, I trudge along the cobbled driveway which cuts across Mrs B’s enormous lawn to her stark, gunmetal grey house. It has the air of an approved school, or a former mansion taken over for governmental purposes. Even the beautiful gardens, the herbaceous borders bursting with colour, fail to raise its spirits. Six of the seven bedrooms are never used – apart from when Mrs B’s daughter, Victoria, comes up from London to pay an occasional visit – and the entire upper floor remains chilly and damp, even on a bright summer’s day. ‘The only way I’m leaving here is in a coffin,’ Mrs B retorted, when I gently asked if she ever planned to downsize.

  Spotting me, Paul, the gardener, sets down his wheelbarrow and strides across the lawn. ‘God, Aud,’ he exclaims, ‘they’re beautiful. You shouldn’t have.’ I laugh and fill him in on today’s events. ‘That’s amazing,’ he says, sounding genuinely impressed. ‘You should’ve taken the rest of today off, done something special to celebrate.’

  ‘I couldn’t really, not at such short notice …’

  He smiles, rubbing his five o’clock shadow. When I started working here four years ago – my dinner lady earnings weren’t nearly enough, and being a home help and carer seemed preferable to bar work – Julie happened to mention the ‘sexy gardener’ who’d recently transformed Mrs B’s grounds. I had to admit that the dark eyes, the chestnut hair and general rugged, outdoorsiness of him all added up to one pretty appealing package. ‘Doesn’t say much, though,’ she added. It took a few months to learn that Paul’s apparent shyness was, in fact, just a desire to get on with his work. ‘I noticed you swapped with Julie yesterday,’ he adds. ‘I had a box of veg set aside for you, don’t forget to take them today …’

  ‘That’s so kind of you,’ I say, meaning it: I am eternally grateful for the virtually limitless supply of produce he supplies.

  ‘So?’ He grins, squinting in the bright sunshine. ‘Impromptu motorway date, was it?’

  ‘Yep, that’s right.’ I chuckle awkwardly. Hell, what possessed me to tell him about Stevie’s preferred venues for meet-ups? I’d only meant to ask him how long it would take me to get to Lancaster Services and then it had all poured out. And now, he won’t let it go.

  ‘Lucky lady,’ he teases. ‘So where was it this time?’

  ‘Charnock Richard.’

  Paul barks with laughter. ‘Oh, Aud. He knows how to treat you special. The romantic drone of six lanes of traffic …’

  ‘You could hardly hear it actually,’ I say, a trace defensively.

  ‘… The whiff of fuel from the petrol station, the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet with those coiled-up sausages … how much was it this time?’

  ‘A fiver,’ I say with a snigger.

  ‘Bargain …’ He smirks. For some reason, he seems to derive enormous pleasure from hearing about my adventures. I’m not sure if he has the odd dalliance himself; there’s been no evidence of women around, as far as I’ve noticed, apart from his ex-wife, who drops off their daughters for weekends at the cottage behind the main house, which comes with the gardener’s job. I spot Jasmine and Rose from time to time, helping their father to harvest vegetables, or darting like shy woodland creatures between shrubs. At seven and eight, they clearly love their visits to their dad’s.

  ‘It was actually an early birthday treat,’ I add with a grin.

  ‘Oh, when’s the big day?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ I smile.

  ‘Not the biggie, is it?’

  ‘You mean 50?’ I ask, aghast. ‘Thanks a bunch, Paul!’

  He laughs. ‘I meant 40 …’

  ‘Flatterer. I’ll be 44,’ I say with a smirk.

  ‘Ah, nothing to get too het up about then. C’mon, give me that shopping and I’ll help you in with it …’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, and we make for the house where I give the bell two brief rings – just a courtesy really – before stepping in and inhaling the stale, musty air. ‘Hello, Mrs B?’ I call out, propping my bouquet against the wall in the hallway and taking the shopping from Paul. ‘It’s me, Audrey …’ As he heads back out to the garden, I drop off the groceries in the kitchen and make my way to the rather faded, chintzy drawing room to greet her.

  ‘How are you feeling today?’

  ‘Just the same,’ she replies tartly, ‘sitting here all on my own.’

  ‘Oh, hasn’t Paul been in to make you a cup of tea?’

  She peers up at me through wire-framed glasses. Like a tiny bird with plumage of fluffy white hair, she is perched in her usual spot: squished up at one end of the enormous brown Chesterfield. The rest of the sofa is heaped with unravelling balls of wool and half-finished embroidery projects. ‘Paul?’ she repeats with a frown.

  ‘Yes, Paul. I know he pops in every morning …’

  ‘He makes terrible tea,’ she says crossly. ‘Far too weak. I keep telling him but he won’t listen.’ On her lap, the newspaper is open at the cryptic crossword. Here we go …

  ‘Well, maybe Julie could stay longer in the mornings? I’m sure we could work out a rota, or perhaps find a new person to do extra—’

  ‘Nev
er mind that,’ she cuts in, rapping at the paper with her pencil. ‘Help me with this. Seven across, eleven letters …’

  ‘Oh, you know I’m no good at these, Mrs B.’ As an avoidance tactic I start gathering up the cups and glasses that litter the numerous spindly side tables.

  ‘“Biblical character jumps ship, perhaps.” Four-five …’

  ‘Really, I have no idea …’

  ‘Don’t be so defeatist.’

  I pick up a plate bearing the remains of one of those pastries with squashed currants inside. I have to say, Mrs B favours the more dismal end of bakery goods. She is still watching me, waiting for an answer. ‘I know,’ I blurt out. ‘I’ve got it. King somebody …’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘That king, the one who made the sea go back with his hands … King Canute!’ I smile, feeling pretty confident that I’ve got one right, therefore proving I’m not the halfwit she has me down for.

  ‘I don’t know how you came up with that,’ she mutters.

  ‘You know – the sea, jumping ship …’

  ‘King Canute is four-six … ’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I say, feeling chastised as I stack all the crockery onto a sticky wooden tea tray. She gnaws at her pencil and mutters an unintelligible answer before setting the newspaper aside with a sigh. I don’t even know why she keeps insisting on pinging incomprehensible clues at me. It’s like expecting a plumber to be capable of performing root canal work.

  ‘Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to do crosswords?’ she asks, as if I lack a vital skill: like tying shoelaces or telling the time.

  ‘No one did them in my house,’ I explain. ‘Dad didn’t really have time for that kind of thing, and remember I told you Mum left when I was nine? She went off with Brian Bazalgette who delivered our coal. Huge guy, strong as an ox from lugging those enormous sacks from his truck to—’

  ‘Oh yes, your mother married the coal man.’ Her pale eyes glint with interest.

  ‘Well, she’s never married him, but they still live together …’ As far as I know, I add silently. Mum’s communications have been pretty sporadic over the years. She doesn’t have a mobile, or even a landline at her cottage deep in the Welsh valleys. How can you keep in contact with someone who really doesn’t want to be contacted? While I have written to her, sporadically, over the years, Mum is never prompt with a reply, and she doesn’t own a computer. I can count on one hand the times she’s seen Morgan, her only grandchild.