School Run

by Sophie King

  My flowers on the lamp post look nice. Roses, this week. They smell absolutely heavenly.

  Terry used to buy me flowers. ‘Here you are, Mum,’ he’d say, when he came back on Saturday evenings after his little job at Tesco. ‘Got these for you.’

  Then he’d give me a hug before he went out. Tall boy, Terry.

  Always did look older than he was. Still does. I’m the one who’s aged.

  The new house helps, even though everyone thought I was mad. ‘What do you want to do that for?’ asked my sister. ‘Fancy moving to—’

  ‘Don’t say it,’ I said sharply. ‘I don’t want you saying it.’

  There are days when I can talk about what happened and days when I can’t.

  Terry and I, we listen to the radio while I cook breakfast. Great one for general knowledge is my Terry, like his father. Always talking about the Tories and climate change and that kind of stuff.

  Not all kids get a cooked breakfast. Bet that poor kid in the car this morning doesn’t. How could his mother have left him? Sitting duck, he was. Did you read about the lorry that went into the Mini with a four-year-old in it at a petrol station? Killed the kid outright. I’ve got the newspaper write-up here, propped up against the cereal box. I eat corn flakes every morning, like Terry. I still keep the plastic figures they give away and put them in his room, lined up on the windowsill. Just like when he was little.

  I was tempted. It would have been lovely to take that kid home and make him a nice boiled egg with soldiers. Just for ten minutes. But I didn’t, did I? I took him to that nice-looking man and asked if he knew who the child belonged to. After I got home, I saw the mum turning up from my window. (Good view, just like the agent said.) I was glad she was upset. Teach her a lesson.

  Then I phoned up the radio and told them everything. Well, almost. About how the traffic was building up again on Balham high street and how it was really quite warm for the time of year. And the girl at the other end, who seems to like me, passed my message on.

  They haven’t played it yet. But Dangerous Dan hasn’t had a look-in either.

  Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see, won’t we, Terry, love?

  MONDAY P.M.

  ‘. . . and we’re coming up to the four o’clock news. But first an update on the traffic. Betty from Balham reports that it’s surprisingly quiet this afternoon . . .’

  ‘Who p-p-put the wrong p-p-petrol in the car? Who p-p-put diesel in?’

  ‘Shut up, Josh. You keep going on about it.’

  ‘W-w-well she did! That’s w-why we’re in D-Dad’s spare car.

  The other h-had to be drained. D-Dad sounded mad on the mobile.’

  ‘Hurry up, Fartine. We’re going to miss my favourite programme.’

  ‘Why c-can’t we have a TV in the car like Hugo? Then we c-could watch Mum and Dad. Go on, Fartine. Ask them.’

  ‘When’s Dad coming home, Mum? He still hasn’t texted. It’s been ages.’

  ‘And I had a horrid day – it was all your fault. You forgot it was non-uniform day, Mum. I rang but you just had the answerphone on. Where were you?’

  ‘What do you mean your teacher forgot to give you the spelling test? After all my hard work! I’ve a good mind to complain. And don’t drink that fizzy muck in the back, Bruce. You’ll spill it like you did last week. We’ll need to clean this car before Dad gets back.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Julie, there’s a speed camera right there. You can still get points as a learner, you know.’

  ‘Mum would have picked you up, girls, but she needed a bit of a lie-down. She’ll be there when you get back. Don’t worry.

  I’m sure it’s this virus doing the rounds. It comes and goes like flu. Let’s hope you don’t get it too.’

  ‘Where the shit is Dad? Evie said he was picking us up, didn’t she?’

  ‘Ring him on the mobile.’

  ‘I have, stupid. Stop crying, he’ll be here soon with Jack.’

  ‘Everyone else has gone.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Look. No, over there. That weird woman opposite is looking through her curtains at us again.’

  ‘Fuck! Hang on, someone’s picked up. Jack? Jack, get Dad can you? No, darling, Nattie will talk to you later. Oh, for God’s sake, talk to him, Nattie. He won’t hand over otherwise.’

  ‘Jack? Yes, I love you too. Yes, naughty Badron. Can you get Dad now? All right, you can say goodbye to Lennie first.’

  ‘’Bye, Jack. Dad? Thank God for that. Aren’t you meant to be picking us up from school?’

  ‘No, Mark, that’s fine. I totally understand. Yes, I’m sure meetings like this are unavoidable. Another time? Let’s just see, shall we?’

  TUESDAY

  8

  HARRIET

  ‘It’s eight forty-nine a.m. A new survey out today claims families spend more on travel costs than food or entertainment . . .’

  ‘Squeeze,’ Harriet told herself. ‘Hold for six. Down again slowly.’

  ‘This is so boring, Mum,’ said Bruce, leaning forward to twiddle the radio knob. ‘Can’t we have Radio 1?’

  ‘Leave it alone – you’re distracting me,’ said Harriet sharply. ‘I’ll do it.’ Momentarily taking her eyes off the road, she adjusted the tuning. It was the noise that got to her. The cacophony from the kids arguing and their music. Wasn’t there a law that said noise in an office shouldn’t exceed eighty-five decibels? She wouldn’t mind betting the level at home was more than that.

  Since Bruce had joined a band at school, he’d not only got louder but he’d also become an overnight expert on what music was cool and what wasn’t. Still, at least his trumpet gave him something to do in the evening other than annoy his sister. Harriet had even managed to impress him the other week by letting slip that in her younger days (pre-Charlie, of course), she’d been to a Sex Pistols concert. Now she was more into Classic FM. How sad was that? She’d even wanted to hear more on the news about travel costs. As a family, they spent a fortune on petrol. Charlie’s flights, of course, were paid for by the company. Which meant there had been nothing to stop him coming home during the last two months if he’d wanted to.

  ‘Best not to, I think,’ he had said, during the first week, when Harriet, still stunned by the speed with which the text kisses had changed their lives, had made yet another phone call to his hotel in Dubai. ‘We both need time to think. Don’t we?’

  She had been taken aback by his coolness – he must have thought this all through before. ‘Don’t you miss the kids?’ she asked.

  It was her trump card, even though she hated to admit it. Charlie adored them – though he found Bruce hard work – and she knew he had to be missing them, even if he was happy to leave her. They needed him too. I might be old-fashioned, she told herself, but kids need two parents. Charlie can’t just walk off like this. He can’t.

  It had been Pippa who had suggested counselling. ‘You need to talk it through,’ she had said, during one of their lunches soon after Charlie went. ‘See it from all the different angles.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It must be boring for you to have me sounding off all the time.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. But I know you too well – and I don’t really know Charlie – so I can’t be objective. Frankly, I think he’s behaved appallingly but maybe there’s a reason for it.’

  ‘You mean me?’

  ‘Will you get off your guilt trip?’ Pippa had shaken her head in mock horror. ‘Only a prat would blame his wife for not showing enough affection when he hardly went over the top himself in that department. No, you need to think why he’s doing it. Middle-age crisis . . .’ Pippa’s voice tailed off.

  ‘An affair, you mean,’ said Harriet quietly.

  Pippa had shrugged. ‘Well, you’ve got to admit it’s possible. Even if he says not. A counsellor might help you work out what you’d do if it turned out that way.’

  Harriet had made an appointment with her doctor, who then referred her to the counselling centre.

  As luck
would have it, she received a phone call from the counselling centre two weeks after Charlie had gone. There had been a cancellation. Would she like to come for an assessment and, after that, a course of five sessions? Monica, a calm, quiet woman in her late fifties, wearing lavender Jaeger, was refreshingly normal and not too dissimilar from how Harriet saw herself in fifteen years’ time. Nor did she seem surprised by what Harriet told her, which made her feel as though this ghastly mess could be resolved. From then on, Tuesday mornings at nine o’clock – straight after the school run – were circled in red in her diary. Today was the last session and, depending on what happened on Friday, she might or might not need another course.

  It all seemed so far removed from the giggling threesome in the back. Would Kate, Beth and Lucy ever have to go through what she was enduring? Would Bruce, who was quiet for a change, listening to his iPod, ever behave as his father had? Harriet fervently hoped not. The girls were still happily into miniature ponies, whose hair constantly needed plaiting or blow drying. She had been the same – even then she had dreamed of a family. And now it was about to collapse around her.

  ‘Shall we practise those spellings again?’ she asked half-heartedly. ‘Just in case your teacher remembers today.’

  ‘She won’t. It’s Tuesday. We don’t have spellings on Tuesday.’

  How nice to be able to say ‘I don’t have spellings on Tuesday’, or ‘I don’t wait in on Tuesday for international calls that never come’, or ‘I don’t need to go to a counsellor on Tuesday’. Harriet blinked back the tears. There were times when she would do anything to go back down the years and swap places with the girls laughing in the back seat.

  The trouble was, Harriet reflected, you only really knew you had been all right when you weren’t all right any more. Then you looked back and wondered why you hadn’t enjoyed being happy.

  Once upon a time she might have been able to share that thought with Charlie. But not now. She couldn’t even confide in her mother, who lived miles away and would have been devastated if she’d suspected her daughter’s marriage was shaky, after her own divorce.

  ‘Mum?’

  Kate’s voice rose above the radio.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘What’s masterbation?’

  Harriet stiffened. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that’s what Bruce has written in his homework diary.’

  ‘Give it to me, bitch.’

  ‘Bruce, don’t you dare use words like that!’

  ‘Well, she shouldn’t read my stuff.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Lucy, clearly, ‘you’ve spelt it wrong, Bruce. It has a u and not an e. Isn’t that right, Mrs Chapman?’

  ‘Mum!’ Bruce’s voice was indignant. ‘Mum, Kate is nipple-crippling me. Stop her!’

  Harriet forced herself to keep her eyes on the road. ‘What do you mean – nipple-crippling?’

  ‘It’s when someone twists the bits on your chest,’ said Beth. ‘It teaches boys a lesson. Some girls do it at school.’

  ‘Well, we’re not doing it in this car. Kate, stop it immediately or I’ll tell Dad when he gets back. Now, be quiet, everyone. I want five minutes’ peace without anyone talking. OK?’

  ‘You’re so embarrassing, Mum,’ said Kate, reproachfully.

  ‘It’s a perk of the job,’ replied Harriet, smartly. ‘Just wait until you’re a mum. Embarrassing your kids is one of the few pleasures you get.’ She smiled at them in the mirror. ‘That’s a joke, by the way.’

  ‘Sorry about Mum, everyone,’ said Bruce. ‘She’s being really weird this week.’

  NICK

  ‘Meanwhile, in America, the schoolboy holding his classmates hostage shows no sign of giving himself up.’

  Nick checked the clock. Late again. They should have reached the roundabout by now. ‘Keep your eyes on the road Julie. That’s right. Keep looking in the mirror. Watch the Volvo that doesn’t know where it’s going.’

  ‘Roses. Look.’ Julie pointed to the lamp post on the left. ‘Last week, they were freesias. Now they’re roses. How romantic. Someone must have loved that person very much.’

  He couldn’t work her out. Sometimes he couldn’t even mention death without his daughter’s eyes filling with tears, and at others she seemed to wallow in it by pointing out things like those bloody roses.

  Amber had suggested that she was confused. It was one of the few sensible things she had said during their sessions. The rest of it was, frankly, the kind of amateur psychobabble that he could have got from a self-help book. So, why did he keep going? Part of him felt he owed it to Julie and to Juliana. Amber was a qualified psychotherapist. Maybe it was his fault she wasn’t helping him. He really would try to listen to her today and see if any of her stuff made sense. Nine o’clock, his appointment was. Straight after the school run.

  ‘Doing anything nice today, Dad?’ asked Julie, as she reversed swiftly into a space.

  Yes, I’m seeing a counsellor. ‘Just work. Not so fast. Watch that Mini. OK, sharp left now. Stop.’

  Julie leaned across to open his door and check how close she was to the kerb. Not close enough, thought Nick. With any luck, she’d fail, even though she’d passed the theory with ease last month.

  ‘Hi.’ It took Nick a few seconds to translate the grunt. Jason was standing next to him – too close: those pimples were sharply in focus. Julie’s eyes sparkled. ‘Hi, Jason. How are you doing?’

  ‘What do you see in him?’ Nick wanted to ask. But he couldn’t. He didn’t need a counsellor to tell him that that was the worst thing a dad could come out with.

  ‘Don’t worry about picking me up, Dad. Jason’s going to give me a lift home.’

  Nick’s mouth went dry. Julie knew perfectly well she wasn’t allowed to be driven by other teenagers. It was a rule he had instituted when all her friends had started.

  ‘Actually, I’ll be passing, love – and, besides, we were going shopping. Remember?’

  Julie gave him a challenging look from under her eyelashes. ‘Shopping! Well, that’s an offer I can’t turn down. Maybe tomorrow, then, Jason.’

  Off they walked. Not quite hand in hand but close enough. Nick breathed a sigh of relief. He had got out of that one but he’d have to have another word with his daughter. He was damned if that boy was driving her anywhere.

  9

  HARRIET

  Harriet would have liked to have turned down the radio in the waiting room, even though it was on low. It was usually tuned to Radio 2 to put people at ease, along with the cold water and coffee machines, the pile of magazines (surprisingly more up-to-date than those at the doctor’s surgery) and the posters on the wall. One showed a woman with her head in her hands, slumped over the kitchen table. ‘Battered but daren’t say anything?’ Another had a cartoon of a surprised baby in a thought bubble coming out of a woman’s head. ‘Pregnant?’

  No chance of that, thought Harriet, wryly. When she had first started coming here, she had sat on the edge of the brown-upholstered chair, terrified in case someone she knew came in. Now she felt almost relaxed. There was so much she wanted to tell Monica. How stupid she felt about booking an appointment for highlights this week, followed by a manicure, because she still, after all he’d done, wanted to look good for Charlie – show him what he’d been missing and how she could get on without him. But also how much she yearned for him to put his arms round her and say it had all been a mistake. If only his phone calls had given her some indication of how he felt. But, on the whole, they were to the point. Sometimes warm and sometimes cool. So confusing. Such a mess.

  ‘You don’t happen to have change for a pound, do you?’

  She looked up at the tall, broad-shouldered man in the brown suede jacket who was examining the coffee machine. Harriet felt a twinge of panic. He was familiar and she’d been so careful not to let anyone, apart from Pippa, know she was coming here. Seeing a counsellor was tantamount to admitting you couldn’t cope, and she didn’t want the whole world knowing that.

  Sh
e looked down at the magazine. ‘Afraid not. I used my last coin in the car park.’

  ‘Never mind. I’ll have water instead. Sorry to bother you.’

  He was nervous, she realised – picking up one magazine and then another.

  ‘Does it work for you?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The counselling.’ He grinned shyly. ‘Does it help?’

  She was reluctant to be drawn into such intimacy with a near stranger. ‘Depends who you get, I think. My . . . er . . . counsellor has helped me.’

  ‘Mine hasn’t. I’ve been seeing her for three whole months but she doesn’t say anything. Just listens to me spouting.’

  ‘That’s what they’re meant to do. But then Monica . . . my counsellor will ask a question and it helps me formulate thoughts in my head that had been there all along although I hadn’t registered them.’

  The man was nodding. ‘I can understand that. But Amber – she’s mine – repeats everything I tell her like a parrot. And then – can you believe this? – last week, she said, “I want to give you something – a gift.” Well, I thought that was a bit odd but then she said, “Imagine I’m wrapping up all your thoughts and giving them back to you. Then I want you to open them up and examine them as though you’re seeing them for the first time”.’

  Harriet was taken aback. ‘That’s weird.’

  ‘Pure psychobabble.’ The man took a gulp of water, then looked at her again. ‘Listen, this is probably very incorrect of me and all that . . . but don’t I know you from somewhere?’

  ‘I was wondering the same thing,’ admitted Harriet.