by Sue Margolis
“Really? Now I feel even more guilty. Damn. Why didn’t I pick up the phone?”
She insists we exchange phone numbers here and now. We’ve just finished texting them to each other when somebody calls out to Ginny:
“Don’t forget, coffee at Claudia’s this morning to discuss the spring fair.”
Coming toward us is a woman with shoulder-length blond dreadlocks. These have been pulled into a giant, scruffy ponytail. I can’t help thinking they must be a devil to keep clean. She has porcelain skin and a way with red lipstick.
“Hi, you must be Judy,” she says. “I just saw you with Sam and Rosie. I’m Tanya, Cybil’s mum.”
I’ve met Cybil several times at Abby’s. She often comes over to play with Rosie. I’ve never met her mum. Abby doesn’t know Tanya that well—work has prevented her from making many mummy friends at school, but she says Tanya’s lovely.
“Tanya. Of course. You’ve offered to take the girls to drama and Zumba. Thank you so much. You’re a lifesaver.”
Tanya insists it’s no problem because she has to take Cybil anyway.
“Well, I’m still grateful… . It’s funny. I feel like I know you. Rosie’s told me so much about you.” But not about those dreadlocks. It’s strange the things kids leave out—or just take for granted.
“Oh God. That sounds ominous.”
“Not at all. She thinks you’re great.” Even with the dreads, Tanya is beautiful. I assume she’s the token boho mum at Faraday House—another oddball like Ginny. I can see how the pair of them teamed up.
“Rosie likes me because I let her and Cyb eat crap all day long and stay up late when we were on holiday… . By the way, I got Abby’s e-mail about Nicaragua. I think what she and Tom are doing is truly inspirational. There aren’t enough people like them in this world.”
She says if I need any more help with the kids, she’s around.
“I’m allowed to work from home. It’s a perk of sleeping with the boss.” She explains that she and her husband run a small record company. “We specialize in rap artists mostly. Zane Needlzz is one of ours.”
“Not sure I’ve come across him,” I say—insinuating that there are other rap artists I have heard of. “I’m more Supertramp really.”
“Oh, I love Supertramp,” Ginny says. She starts singing: “Take a jumbo, cross the water. Like to see America …”
Tanya is laughing. “You old fogey, you. So, are you coming?”
“Where?”
“Claudia’s coffee morning.”
Ginny grimaces. “Really?” She tells me that parents in each year group take turns to organize the spring fair. “This year it’s our turn. God help us.”
“I’m sensing this isn’t an event you’re keen on.”
“You sense correctly… . Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for raising money for charity, but these things always descend into such a bitch-fight. Everybody competes to get the best stall and donate the best raffle or auction prize. Nobody really mucks in.”
“Please, Ginny. You promised you’d come. Bloody Claudia has already roped me in and I’m not going on my own. You’re my only ally.”
“I’ll go, but only if Judy comes, too.”
“Me? But I’m not a parent.”
“Nor am I,” Ginny says, “but Rosie’s in our year and right now you’re her guardian. I promise you, nobody will mind. They’re only interested in getting volunteers to run stalls.”
“OK—I suppose I don’t mind helping… . So tell me: what is it about this Claudia woman that you dislike so much?”
“You’ll see,” Tanya says.
• • •
Twenty or so mothers and a handful of dads are milling in Claudia’s granite-and-steel basement kitchen-cum–living space. I can’t help noticing how the women seem to hang on to the men’s every word.
“To be honest,” I hear one of the dads say to an eager-faced woman, “we’ve stopped the kids listening to pop music. The form is too simplistic.”
“Oh, I couldn’t agree more,” says Eager-faced Woman with a coquettish flick of her hair. “We’ve just introduced Milo to Wagner. Of course his teacher had no idea it was spelled with a W.”
“Typical,” another dad pipes up. “Actually Freddie’s just started playing the French horn. He’s loving it.”
The man turns to another of his male companions and asks if his family had a good Christmas.
“Not bad. After the festivities, I gave my wife a break and took the kids on a French-language course in the Loire—just to give them a bit of an edge.”
“Wow, you are amazing,” simpers another woman. “I wish my husband would do stuff like that with our kids.”
Tanya catches me eavesdropping. “Meet the stay-at-home tiger dads.”
“Tiger dads are a thing?”
“You bet. Also known as DILFs.”
“Sorry?”
“Dads I’d like to fuck. Well, not me personally. I don’t get it. Most of them aren’t even that good-looking.”
“No, but they’re around.”
“Precisely. You wouldn’t believe some of the shenanigans.”
“Oh, I bet I would.”
Tanya’s eyes are scanning the room. “OK, that’s Claudia, over there,” she says with a jerk of her dreads, “holding court as usual.”
Claudia is hard to miss. She towers above the women she’s speaking to. She has to be five-ten. Her body is slender and willowy. Auburn hair trails down her back. She’s the type that looks good smoking a cigarette.
“I imagine she’s very bendy,” I remark.
“Funny you should say that,” Ginny says, “because apparently she wanted to be a ballet dancer. She got into the Royal Ballet School, but then she shot up, so she was asked to leave.”
“That’s bad luck.”
“Yes, but afterward,” Tanya says, “she waltzed into Cambridge, came out with a PhD in child psychology, set herself up as a child care expert and now she’s got her own radio advice slot … calls herself Dr. Claudia.” She snarls as she says it. “Oh, and she also managed to bag a venture capitalist and produce two sickeningly gorgeous children.” Hero is in Rosie’s class. Sebastian is in the year above Sam.
“Are you sure you’re not just a teensy bit jealous?” Ginny says.
“OK, I admit I wouldn’t mind her money. But that’s not it. I could forgive her the money and the fame if she weren’t so bloody patronizing and superior.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of her. And Abby’s never mentioned her.”
Tanya reckons that’s because Abby probably has the sense to give her a wide berth.
“I think you’re being a bit hard,” Ginny says. “Claudia’s all right. You just have to know how to handle her.”
Meanwhile I’m finding it hard to get worked up about a person I haven’t met. On top of that I’m starving. I’ve spied baskets of croissants and pastries on the long dining room table and suggest we dive in. Ginny pats her belly—which her sweatshirt is doing nothing to disguise—and says she’s watching the old waistline. Tanya doesn’t do wheat. I apologize for having to abandon them and make a beeline for an apricot Danish. I sink my teeth into the sticky pastry and thick, sweet custard. I appear to be the only person eating. All around me, huddled women are sticking to coffee and gossip. I eavesdrop as I chew.
“Of course there are far too many Japanese children at Faraday House. The way standards have risen is so unfair.”
“What gets me is that their teacher has no idea how to give the class a sense of brand or uniqueness.”
“Mimi is in the lowest group for maths, but I’m sure she’s being used as an aspirational focus to inspire the less able children in the class.”
I don’t know how Abby puts up with these women. On the other hand, she works, so she doesn’t see much of them. And looking round the room, I can see a few more ordinary-looking folk: real women whose vaginas aren’t pixilated and who have their roots and Gap labels on display.
Abby says that Faraday House is made up of two distinct halves. There are the well-off parents: one or both will be the corporate lawyers, bankers and hedge fund managers. Then there are lower-earning professionals: teachers, journalists and civil servants, who, like Abby and Tom, often need help to pay the fees. Either that or they live in small apartments and go without decent cars and holidays.
I’ve finished the Danish, but so far it’s done nothing to raise my blood sugar level, so I help myself to a mini pain au chocolat. I’m in midchew when a couple of women approach me and tell me that I must be Abby’s mum.
“She’s so brave, flying off to minister to the afflicted. I take my hat off to her.”
“Me, too,” the second woman says. “On the other hand, I can’t help thinking it would have been easier to send the afflicted a check.”
I look around, or should I say up, to see that Claudia has joined our little group.
“Claudia,” gushes Check Woman, “you must meet Judy. She’s Abby Schofield’s mother.”
“Of course!” Claudia says. “I saw you at school with Sam and Rosie. Thank you so much for coming, particularly at such a busy time. Taking on two children can’t be easy. You have my sympathies.” She dispenses largesse as if she was born to it.
“I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”
“By the way,” the friend of Check Woman says to Claudia, “now that I’ve got you, I wonder if we can have a word. Charles and I are convinced that Ollie has attention deficit disorder. Meanwhile his teacher insists he’s just naughty and we need to come down on him more firmly. I’ve tried confiscating the iPad, but he just finds one of the spares.”
Claudia manages to let drop that she wrote her doctorate on ADHD. “Why don’t we have a chat about it later—after everybody’s gone?”
“I don’t want him taking Ritalin,” the woman continues. “I’ve seen what that does to kids. It turns them into zombies.”
Claudia rests a willowy hand on Check Woman’s arm. “Listen to me. Nobody’s going to prescribe Ollie Ritalin, just like that. First I’d need to see him in action and assess him. After that we can look at practical ways to modify his behavior. I’ve got plenty up my sleeve.”
“Really? I can’t tell you what a relief that is.”
“See?” her friend says. “I told you Claudia would be able to help. Now stop getting yourself so worked up.”
Claudia has turned away from Check Woman and is looking at me. Her head is tilted, her brow furrowed with concern. “So, how are Sam and Rosie coping with their parents being away?”
“They only went yesterday. But so far they seem to be fine.”
“That’s good to hear—because you never know how children are going to react when parents leave them for weeks on end. Some get very angry because they feel abandoned. Suddenly you’re faced with a whole load of behavioral problems.”
I don’t get a chance to reply because Tanya has come out of nowhere and is already setting Claudia straight. “No chance of that. Ginny’s just been telling me how much Judy’s grandchildren adore her. She’s like a second mother to them.”
“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Claudia gushes, touching my arm in the same proprietorial way that she touched Check Woman’s. “But I’m always here if you’re worried about anything and feel like a chat.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Tanya retorts. “Judy will be fine.”
“I’ll be fine,” I repeat, starting to feel invisible because Tanya is speaking for me.
“Of course you will,” Claudia simpers. “But it can’t be easy being landed with two children, particularly when you’re still coming to terms with widowhood.”
My widowhood and how I’m dealing with it are nothing to do with her, but for the sake of politeness I decide to let it go … unlike Tanya.
“I think that’s Judy’s business. Don’t you?”
Claudia looks at Tanya and narrows her eyes. For a moment I think the pair of them are about to lock horns. But instead she turns back to me. “Goodness … yes, of course. I’m so sorry if I overstepped a boundary. I was only trying to be of help.”
As I smile at Claudia and tell her not to worry, I’m aware that she’s looking over my shoulder, most likely searching for another group of women among whom she might distribute her largesse. She informs us that she really ought to mingle and goes on her way.
Check Woman and her friend are eager to tell me how amazing Claudia is. They simply don’t know how she does it. She writes books and articles, has her own private practice counseling parents and children and manages to run a home.
“I think you’ll find that staff might be the answer,” Tanya sniffs. She makes our excuses and steers me away from the table.
“That was a bit rude,” I say, midsteer. “They seem pretty harmless.”
“I know, but I couldn’t help myself. Claudia gets on my top tits, but not half as much as her bloody acolytes.”
“Tanya, please don’t take this the wrong way. I know you were only trying to help back there, but I am capable of speaking up for myself. I don’t need you to do it for me.”
“Sorry. It’s just that she and I had a run-in a while back and I didn’t stand up to her. It felt easier somehow, doing it on your behalf.”
I ask her what happened and she explains that she and her husband, Rick, got a bit merry at the school quiz night. “We weren’t drunk—just a bit loud. We were having fun—as were loads of other people. Anyway, afterward Claudia took me to one side and asked if we were high. Said that working in the music business as we do, it must be hard not to succumb to drugs and that if we needed help getting clean, she knew somebody.”
“Getting clean?”
“Yes. God knows what she thought we were on. It’s so ironic because Rick and I never take anything stronger than Tylenol.”
“So, what did you say?”
“Nothing. I didn’t owe her an explanation. I walked away. If I’d stayed I would have punched her.”
“I’m guessing she took your silence as an admission of guilt.”
“Too bloody right she did. You can imagine the gossip. It’s died down now, but it was horrible at the time. I thought about having it out with her, but Rick said I might end up digging myself in deeper. So I kept quiet and tried to rise above it.”
“She really is a piece of work. I think I shall do my best to keep out of her way.”
“Good luck with that.”
Ginny sees us and breaks away from a group of women she’s been chatting to. Her dietary resolve appears to have fizzled out, because she is chewing on a croissant. “So, what were you and Claudia talking about?”
“She was offering me the benefit of her vast experience and wisdom, said if I was having trouble with my abandoned grandchildren I could always call her for a chat.”
“That sounds about par for the course.”
“Don’t worry,” Tanya says. “I told her to get stuffed.”
We carry on chatting, Tanya and Ginny pointing out mothers and giving me the lowdown on each of them. “That one there—with the hippie skirt—her name is Hester. She gives her kids breast milk eardrops when they have an infection. And she gives her husband, Reiki, blow jobs.”
“What, when he has an ear infection?” Ginny says.
The three of us are falling about. At the same time, Claudia is tapping a glass with a teaspoon, trying to get everybody’s attention. We hear, but we can’t stop laughing.
By now everybody else is standing in silence, staring down their noses at us. We finally pull ourselves together, but not before Tanya has let out one final snort of laughter. As Claudia waits for quiet, she is smiling and serene—as if she has risen above the smut.
“OK … if everybody is finally ready … I just wanted to say happy spring term to one and all—and to remind you that the school fair is only a few months away and that we really do need to get cracking.”
The first item on the agenda is to elect a committee chairman. Claudia regrets that
she won’t be standing because she has too many work commitments.
Straightaway a woman announces that last year she organized the fair at her older daughter’s school and would be more than willing to head up the committee. “I’ll be in New York for the next eight or nine weeks, but I’m sure you can all work with me in my time zone. It’s only a five-hour difference.”
“No problem,” Tanya says, her voice loud and heavy with sarcasm.
Claudia makes a point of ignoring Tanya and thanks the woman for offering her services. She does, however, suggest that maybe the five-hour time gap isn’t ideal. Seconds tick by. There are no more volunteers. Nobody wants to take ultimate responsibility. Then:
“I know,” Claudia says, “what about Tanya?”
“Me?” Tanya looks as if somebody has walloped her.
Ginny tells her that this is her comeuppance for telling Claudia to get stuffed just now.
“You think I don’t know that? … Bitch… .” Tanya’s face is pink.
“Please don’t make a scene,” Ginny says.
“Why the hell not? She’s not going to tell me what to do.”
Claudia is smiling, head tilted, waiting for Tanya’s reply. “So, what do you say?”
“I’ll do it,” Ginny pipes up. “Tanya has a job. She hasn’t got time.”
Claudia’s smile vanishes. Her mouth becomes a thin line. She’s angry and, for the time being at least, defeated. “Excellent. I’m sure we all appreciate you putting yourself forward.”
Claudia goes on to say that she’s sure Ginny will have no trouble recruiting fellow committee members and wishes her good luck. “Right, if there’s no other business I’ll organize some more coffee.”
“Thank you,” Tanya says to Ginny. “That’s one I owe you. But you didn’t have to volunteer. Organizing the fair is your worst nightmare.”
“I know. But you were about to start yelling.”
“I wasn’t. Not really. Not in public. I was just going to say no and refuse to let her badger me.”
“You mean I volunteered for nothing?”