School Run

by Sophie King

  ‘Really?’ She was scowling at him. ‘Then how do you explain that I left him in the car only a few minutes ago? I’ve a good mind to call the police.’

  This was ridiculous. ‘Listen, if you want to do that, go ahead. I’m telling you the truth. I’ve got a kid at this school myself and I’ve just dropped her off.’

  The mother’s expression softened. ‘OK, I’m sorry. But I was scared. I knew I shouldn’t have left him in the car and I panicked.’ She hesitated. ‘Thanks for looking after him.’

  ‘You need to be careful,’ said Nick, firmly. ‘That woman looked a bit odd. You get some weird types around here.’

  Her eyes hardened again. Over-plucked eyebrows, observed Nick. They did nothing for her. ‘I am careful, thanks very much. It’s OK, Jack. Mummy’s here.’

  ‘I’ll be off, then.’ Nick wondered if now was the time to remind her that they knew each other slightly. He’d thought there was something familiar about her face and it was only when she’d been sounding off that he’d remembered. She was the editor of Just For You magazine, one of his clients. Maybe it was as well she hadn’t recognised him. Rumour had it that you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Evie Brookes and now he could see why.

  Right now, he hadn’t time to worry about that. If he didn’t get a move on, he’d be late for his session at the centre before the shoot at twelve. He’d been seeing Amber for the last three months at ten o’clock on Mondays. He wasn’t sure if it had helped – and he hadn’t told Julie about it – but the GP had encouraged him. He had tried initially to get Julie to see someone too. School had been good – a Mrs Greathead had contacted him to see if Julie would like to see one of the counsellors who visited school when children needed extra support, but Julie had adamantly refused. ‘I don’t want to talk to a stranger about Mum,’ she had said. ‘How could they understand when they never even met her?’

  Nick had taken her point. But it was precisely because Amber hadn’t known Juliana that he had hoped to find relief. Maybe someone with an objective point of view could put all this into context. So far, she hadn’t done a lot to clear the terrible wrangling in his head but maybe he should go today. It might help him prepare for Friday.

  Friday . . . It seemed impossible that Juliana had died two years ago. Nick hated anniversaries and all the superficiality that went with them. He rubbed his eyes, raw from lack of sleep. If you really loved someone, you missed them every day of the year, not just on one day.

  Especially when you had helped to kill them.

  4

  MARTINE

  ‘Long queues are already building up on the Marylebone bypass, causing severe congestion.’

  Dear Diary,

  What is Congestion? I must seek it in the dictionary or my Roget’s Thesaurus and engrave it in my vocab book like my tutor said. My tutor, she also say to write this diary and listen to the radio. Me, I always record in a diary every day even when I am at home. I do not know if it is aiding my studies and the radio speaks so quick. But I want to try hard and I think it is arriving. Last night I dreamed a morsel in English. I was lying in a proper bed – these English mattresses are so lumpy – with my bolster instead of these pillows that Sally donates me. The shutters at the window were open and Maman was calling me to get up. ‘Come, it is breakfast,’ she is saying. I smell the coffee – real coffee, not this nasty little grains – and croissants that dissolve like butter. And then I wake and find it is me who has to get the children breakfast. The English bread, he is heavy, and the marmalade, she is bitter. Now I am obliged to adorn Alice and Josh for school. When I was their age, I got my own selves up but these enfants are spoilt. Sometimes I feel like leaving them in a residue so they learn a lesson. But then I would be reprimanded. Maybe if Simon and Sally were not so busy working, they would understand. It is part of being a good boss, yes? Even if they are famous. In the interim period, I must endeavour to perform my optimum. You see how I try?

  ‘Capital Radio, da-da-dah!’ sang Martine. ‘It ees a nice tune, no, children?’

  Alice and Josh giggled, nudging each other and rolling all over the leather seats, kicking the back of Martine’s.

  ‘Da-da-dah!’ imitated Alice; then convulsed with laughter, the kind that sounded like the snorting sounds Martine sometimes heard from the spare room when Simon had come in from what Sally mysteriously called a ‘late night’, long after he’d finished at the studios.

  ‘Stop that at once,’ said Martine sharply. All this stress was making her desperate for a cigarette but she didn’t dare – her employers would smell it in the car like last time. ‘When you kick, you hurt my back. In addition, it is rude to laugh. Yes?’

  ‘Wee,’ sniggered Alice.

  ‘Wee-wee,’ added Josh, between snorts. ‘W-what do you think of my p-p-p-pronunciation, Marty?’

  Scratching her head (why was her scalp so itchy?), Martine turned up the radio, determined not to lower herself to their level. She could have sworn that Josh pretended to stutter just to annoy her, and it made it even harder to understand him. The English spoke so fast and the words came out in a different order from her textbooks. Sometimes she felt as though she was the one sane person in this crazy country and that everyone was speaking a mad language that only they understood.

  Martine blew her nose, trying to hide the tears that were coming back again. It was so difficult to be an au pair. The agency in France had said the host family would treat her like a member of their own family. If they went out for the day, they would take her too. She would be like a cousine but a cousine who helped look after the children and drove them to school.

  In reality she was no better than a slave. Simon and Sally were friendly when they saw her but they were hardly there! There had been a housekeeper when Martine had arrived but she had left, and now Martine was expected to do the laundry too. She had complained to the agency but they had said it was in her contract to wash and iron children’s vêtements. And, no, she would not get extra money for this chore – which, her mother had agreed in her last letter (it had smelt so poignantly of Maman’s fragrance), was most unfair.

  ‘Traffic building up on the Staines bypass and it’s nearly twenty to nine . . .’

  ‘Twenty to nine?’ Alice stopped giggling. ‘Sheet, Marty, we’re late.’

  Again she and Josh collapsed into mirth. For once Martine understood the joke. When she had first arrived, Sally had asked her to put fresh linen on the beds. Afterwards she had announced proudly that she had ‘changed the shits’. It wasn’t until Sally explained the difference between sheets and something a little less fragrant that she had understood. Vraiment, only a language like this could encourage such ridiculous confusion. Even the radio was crazy. Why did it go on about traffic in some place called Staines when she was in Bal Ham?

  Then there was the way people drove on the left while the rest of Europe was on the right. She kept having to remind herself about this, although luckily Sally wasn’t aware of it. There were several things her employer didn’t know about because she spent most of her time on television. At first, Martine had been impressed when the agency had told her she would be working for the famous couple who had their own show at teatime, interviewing celebrities, and ordinary people who had done something unusual, like that girl who had sold her virginity for such a low figure.

  ‘You must watch the children all the time,’ the agency had impressed on her. ‘Simon and Sally Pargeter are very well known and they are naturally concerned for their children’s safety.’

  Now when Martine recalled this she couldn’t help feeling that if anyone kidnapped those two children they would soon give them back when they discovered how much trouble they were.

  ‘Nearly a quarter to nine now and . . .’

  ‘Hurry up,’ interrupted Alice, tapping Martine’s shoulder. ‘We’re going to be late for Registration.’

  ‘Never molest the driver,’ said Martine, horrified. ‘I will tell your mother.’

  ‘F-f-fin
e. G-g-go ahead,’ challenged Josh. ‘We’ll t-t-tell her you’re l-lying.’

  Martine pulled up at the lights. A mother crossed, pushing a pram, and Martine’s heart did a little jump. ‘Out. Now.’

  Both children stared at her. ‘But we’re not there yet,’ said Alice.

  ‘I do not care.’ Her eyes were still fixed on the mother, who had now reached the other side safely and was bending over her child. ‘You can walk.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Josh.

  See? thought Martine. No stutter.

  ‘Me too,’ said Alice.

  A green Saab hooted from behind. Martine scratched her head and drove on. She couldn’t leave them, even if she felt like doing so. After all, they were only children. Wicked children but children nevertheless.

  ‘Can you help me with my French homework?’ said Alice, quietly, from the back. ‘I’ve just remembered I should have done it for today.’

  ‘Non. Tu es un enfant terrible.’

  When she felt like this, it was hopeless trying to speak or think in English.

  ‘Martine, I said I was sorry. I just want to know if you can help with my homework.’

  ‘Trop tard.’

  Josh glowered. ‘I’ll ring ChildLine. I know the number.’

  ‘We’ll do nipple cripples again,’ hissed Alice.

  Martine winced. She knew what that involved: it was a ritual among English children to twist each other’s chests, which had them screaming with pain and hysterical laughter in the back of the car. She had complained about this to Sally, who had said it was part of a ‘natural exploration of their inner selves’. Martine knew the phrase word for word because she had copied it into her diary for use in class if the occasion arose.

  ‘I do not care,’ said Martine, unhappily. ‘You are so cruel to me.’

  ‘You’re cruel to us,’ said Alice, indignantly, getting out.

  ‘I’m ringing ChildLine right now on my mobile,’ announced Josh. ‘You’ll be sorry when Dad finds out.’

  ‘No shit, Sherlock,’ added Alice, sniggering.

  Martine held back the tears until they had slammed the door. How much more of this could she take? Thank goodness it was Monday – one of her college days. It would take her mind off her misery and, with any luck, he would ring before she got to her class.

  It made Martine feel better when she thought about the man with whom she had fallen in love. He was married but her own father had been married when he’d met her mother. Besides, their meeting had been down to Fate, she was certain.

  Josh had had a friend over to play one day and the father had arrived to pick him up. Martine had opened the door and invited him in. Never before had she been able to talk to a man and feel aroused by him.

  When he rang the following day, she wasn’t surprised. Not even when he told her that he didn’t normally ‘do this sort of thing’. So English, thought Martine, fondly. And although she insisted she didn’t want to be responsible for breaking up his family, he announced one night that he and his wife were having a trial separation. ‘I need to go away on business,’ he had said, ‘but when I’m back on the twelfth, I’ll come for you.’

  The twelfth! Friday! Just five days away! Martine felt warm inside. Her life was going to change. And she couldn’t wait. If only her head didn’t itch so much . . .

  In the meantime she had to get some petrol. The black arrow on the dial showed the tank was nearly empty. Martine tried to remember what kind of petrol Simon had told her to get. In France it was green because that was better for the atmosphere, but was it the same in England? Indicating right, she turned left into the big garage on the corner and jumped as the car behind her hooted.

  Martine crunched to a halt and examined the petrol pump. Red or green? What about black? Desperately she looked towards the shop, but the cashier’s face was turned towards the customers who were paying.

  ‘Get a move on, love,’ yelled a youth from a car in the long queue behind.

  ‘Which pump do I require?’ called Martine.

  ‘The one on the right, I should think, love.’

  Right? Was that droite or gauche? She’d always had a blockage about that. Green or black?

  ‘Come on, love!’

  Maman! Martine yanked out the nozzle and plunged it in.

  5

  PIPPA

  ‘This is Capital Radio and it’s nearly seven a.m. on a lovely bright summer morning. I’m Sarah Smith and . . .’

  Sod Capital Radio. Sod lovely summer days. Sod everything for being so bloody normal. I can’t remember the last time I swore. ‘Be positive,’ said Derek, prodding me reluctantly with his short, stubby fingers. That’s him to a T. Never panics unless it happens. Never panics unless he really cares about something. Like fishing or when the computer crashes or when Man U are down. But it’s not him who’s got something wrong. Fine. So I’ll see the doctor and then we’ll know whether to worry. I’ll have to ring up for an appointment, which I won’t get because it’s Monday and everyone will have been ill over the weekend and got in before me. And if I do get an appointment, I’ll have to ask Harriet to do the school run even though it’s my turn. Even if I don’t, I don’t feel up to doing the run – I just want to go back to bed and wake up again without this horrible wave of panic that’s stopping me thinking clearly. God, I’m scared. My mouth’s gone dry and I don’t feel hungry. I just want a cup of sweet tea. And yes, Derek, I would like sugar today.

  ‘This is the news at eight a.m. The American schoolboy who is . . .’

  ‘Lucy!’ yelled Pippa, standing at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Breakfast! You’re going to be late for Harriet. Canyouhearme? OrhaveIgottocomeupthestairstogetyou?’

  No, not the phone. Who in their right mind could ring during the peak pre-school run panic? ‘Yes?’ snapped Pippa into the receiver.

  ‘It’s me,’ said Lucy, coolly. ‘Just to say I’m coming down in a minute.’

  ‘Are you ringing me on your mobile?’ Pippa was incandescent with fury. ‘Do you know how much it’s costing? Come down here this instant.’

  Reluctantly Lucy mooched downstairs, walking with exaggerated slowness, her school tie hanging loosely round her neck.

  ‘Give me your phone. Now.’

  Lucy glowered. ‘Why?’

  Pippa snatched it from her. ‘Because it’s for emergencies, like when I lose you in Topshop, not for ringing me in the house because you can’t be bothered to answer or come downstairs.’

  ‘If you don’t give me my mobile back, I won’t be able to call if I’m abducted from school,’ said Lucy smoothly.

  ‘Too bad. If you behave – if, mind – you can have it back at the end of the week. Now, hurry up and eat your breakfast. Harriet’s going to be here in a minute.’

  ‘I don’t want to go with Harriet,’ said Beth, looking up from the kitchen table where she was taking a last look at her spellings for today’s test. ‘Bruce is always trying to pinch me.’

  ‘You encourage him because you fancy him,’ said Lucy, triumphantly.

  ‘Do not!’

  ‘Do.’

  ‘Be quiet, both of you!’ Pippa’s head was ringing. She didn’t need this, not on top of that – and she’d just remembered she had a deadline for Thursday. Her editor, Jean, had already extended it by a week and she didn’t dare ask for longer. ‘Just eat your breakfast and go to school so I can have some peace.’

  ‘That’s not very nice, Mum,’ said Beth, reproachfully.

  ‘I know. But neither are you two,’ snapped Pippa. ‘And look at this mess. I’m just an unpaid servant.’

  ‘That’s what mums do.’

  ‘Well, not this one, not any more. From now on, service isn’t going to be included!’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And don’t be cheeky, young lady. In our day, we didn’t talk like that to our parents.’

  ‘But this isn’t your day any more, is it, Mum?’

  ‘Stop right there. Harriet’s outside. Get a move on, both o
f you. Don’t you want to kiss me goodbye?’

  They gave her a token peck and she watched them amble down the path. She waved to Harriet from the door, then closed it behind her. She sat at the kitchen table, still in the tartan pyjamas the girls had given her (via Derek) for Christmas, and tried to think clearly. It was eight o’clock and she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt incapable of dressing herself – even during her pregnancies when lots of other mothers allowed themselves to relax. She had always been a get-up-and-doer.

  Eight o’clock. The surgery might be open now. Trembling, she dialled the number. Engaged. She waited another minute. Still engaged. Damn it. She’d do ringback. Seconds later, it called.

  ‘An appointment this morning?’ The receptionist sounded amused. ‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Hallet. We’re very busy after the weekend and the last appointment has just gone. I can squeeze you in tomorrow if it’s urgent.’

  ‘It is,’ said Pippa, grimly.

  She wrote down the time, then went back to the table, cupping her cold hands round her mug of coffee, breathing in the aroma to calm herself. No, it was no good. She couldn’t banish the nauseating fear that was taking over her mind. She reached for the phone and punched in Harriet’s number. She’d get the message when she returned from school. ‘It’s me. I can’t get a doctor’s appointment until tomorrow and I wondered if you wanted to come over for coffee after the run.’

  Pippa shivered. Harriet would put this mess into the context it deserved, although with Charlie coming back this week, Pippa should be helping Harriet. Maybe she shouldn’t mention her own problem until she’d seen the doctor. She was always worrying about things that turned out to be nothing. Still, Harriet was her best friend, if you didn’t count Gus: if she couldn’t tell her, she couldn’t tell anyone.

  Sometimes Pippa wondered how she would cope without Harriet although, ironically, their worlds were so different that if it hadn’t been for motherhood – one of life’s biggest introductory agencies – they might never have met. On the surface they were so different. Harriet was a home-lover; her children were her life. Pippa, too, adored her children but her work as a translator was important as well. She had turned freelance when Beth was born because she hadn’t wanted to be one of those working mothers who never saw their kids. She had built up a reputation as a reliable and accurate translator for publishers of cookery books and, more recently, school texts. The deadlines were tough, especially when the girls were at home in the holidays, but Pippa loved the escape that her work provided from the mundane routine of home life.