The School Gate Survival Guide (17 page)

Harley held my hand. ‘I know, Mum, let’s ask Sandy to take us. She won’t mind. We’ll still get there in time for first break. We could say that the van broke down, couldn’t we? They don’t have to know we’re so poor they took it away, do they?’ I nodded, unable to think of a better plan.

Bronte threw down her bag. ‘I am not going to school in a Reliant Robin. It’s bad enough that we have to go in a van. I’ll get the bus.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I’m not trying to be difficult, but I can’t go in that, everyone in my class will see me.’

I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her towards Sandy’s house. ‘You will do what you are told. I am having a shit morning, an absolutely shit day, and you are not going to make it worse. Do you hear me? Get moving, now.’

I expected her to fight against me, but I think even she was shocked that Colin had thumped me, so she grumped along beside me. I banged on Sandy’s door.

She opened up, a fag in one hand and a can of Coke in the other. She’d gone blonde again since I’d last seen her. ‘Jesus, Maia, what happened to your face?’ I shrugged and darted a look towards the kids. She shook her head. Sandy was no stranger to fat lips and black eyes.

‘Can you take us to the school? The bailiffs have taken the van,’ I said.

‘Bastards. Ain’t they got nothing better to do? What was it for? The leccy? They took my TV once for that. Council tax? Double bastards. They want to start picking up a bit of litter and sorting out them needles and condoms in that back alley before they start worrying about whether we’ve bloody paid or not. Come on, I’ll get me keys.’

Bronte clambered into the back, muttering away. Harley, bless him, was busily telling Sandy about how the
Top Gear
team had tried to convert a Reliant Robin into a space shuttle. I slumped in the front seat, wondering how the hell I was ever going to speak to Colin again. How was I going to get my van back without coughing up £375 plus a huge recovery fee? Without the van I couldn’t work, which meant things could only get worse. It was the first time I’d really admitted to myself that my private school experiment had been madness. How I’d thought that I was going to keep the kids in rugby boots, lacrosse sticks and duffle coats when we couldn’t even pay the rent on a fleapit, I didn’t know. A triumph of optimism over realism. That old professor no doubt thought she was doing me a favour. In fact, all I’d really done was show my kids what they could never have.

Sandy’s Reliant Robin laboured up Stirling Hall’s drive as she sang, ‘Who ate all the pies?’ Thankfully as we were over an hour late, there was no one about. ‘Do you want me to wait for you, sweetheart?’ she said.

‘No, I’ll get the bus back. I don’t know how long I’ll be. I need to sign the kids in. Thanks a lot though.’ I tried to smile but my whole face creaked.

‘Just call me James.’ She waved and skidded off down the drive, bouncing over the speed bumps till I thought the thing would tip over.

I pulled my sunglasses down over the worst cut, took a deep breath and walked into reception. ‘Good morning, Ms Etxeleku. Children been to the dentist’s, have they?’ said the secretary, sliding back the glass window.

I should have gone along with that, but my brain was numb. ‘No, the car broke down.’ I couldn’t bring myself to say ‘van’.

‘Poor you, never mind, these things happen, if you’ll sign the late book here. Harley, your class is just about to get changed for swimming. Crikey, Ms Etxeleku, are you okay? Your face?’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’ I didn’t offer any explanation, despite the fact that the secretary was practically dangling through the window to get a better look. I turned my back on her to say goodbye to the children and walked out. I hurried away down the drive, past the rugby fields and the tennis courts. Colin was right. I was wrong. We were going to end up on the streets if I carried on fooling myself that Stirling Hall was an option for us. I’d write a letter tonight to give notice and see if I could get the kids back into Morlands.

I stood at the end of the drive. I looked back at the grey stone building. The last time I felt so hopeless was when I buried Mum. I thought about Clover and what she’d said about Lawrence and the working-class chip on his shoulder. He and I would be good company for each other right now. There were some things that a woman with a trust fund wouldn’t understand as well as a woman with a black eye and a bailiff habit.

I sped up as I heard a car rumbling down the drive. I had seventy-five pence, which meant I would have to get off the bus halfway home. I was just working out which jobs I could walk to, assuming that I could carry all my cleaning stuff, when the car stopped beside me. Mr Peters wound down the window and told me to get in. Obviously, that garrulous old bag of a secretary couldn’t keep her mouth shut for two seconds. He sounded stern. I did as I was told.

‘What on earth happened to you?’

The ‘It’s nothing’ of thousands of women before me formed on my lips. I screwed up my eyes and jumped. We were leaving Stirling Hall anyway. ‘Colin hit me.’

Mr Peters didn’t reply to that, but the skin tightened around his mouth. ‘I gather the van has broken down.’

He thought I was scum anyway. ‘The bailiffs took it.’

His shoulders sagged. ‘Is that linked to the black eye?’

‘Yep.’

Mr Peters drove out past the last of the built-up area of Sandbury, cut down a long country lane and parked up in some woods. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘What do you mean, do? I’m not going to do anything. I’m going to get on with it. What can I do? Go to the police? Help my kids by giving their dad a criminal record? He’s never hurt me before. It was just the shock that things had got so bad that the bailiffs were standing outside our door.’ Even to my ears, I sounded pathetic.

‘Don’t make excuses for him, Maia. He’s twice the size of you.’ I’d never heard Mr Peters sound cold before.

‘It’s not about me making fucking excuses, oh fuck, I said fuck, sorry. I’m not making excuses. Well, I am. But people like you, you don’t get it. You live in your fancy houses, drive nice cars and if you get a bill, it’s not the end of the world, you can pay it. It’s just not like that for me. It’s about trying to keep a roof over the kids’ heads and, I dunno, getting through the days and feeding them and hoping to have some good times now and again and remembering to keep the bloody kitchen door locked so that the bailiffs can’t walk in. I shouldn’t have sent them to Stirling Hall, cos that’s made everything more difficult and now I can’t even go to work cos I’ve lost the van.’

Mr Peters reached over and lifted up my glasses. He winced. And I winced at him seeing me in this state. ‘What a bastard, excuse my language. You poor thing,’ he said.

‘Don’t be nice to me. I’ll cry,’ I said.

‘I can cope.’

I nearly smiled then.

‘Have you put anything on it?’ he said.

‘A damp tea towel.’ Remembering Harley’s face trying to contain his emotions made mine spill over. I really had to stop spending time with Mr Peters. I bet he called me Crybaby behind my back.

Mr Peters unclipped his seatbelt, and mine, then pulled me towards him. ‘God, Maia, come here.’ He held me with such tenderness, stroking my back and shushing me so sweetly that the rest of my life seemed even lonelier. When I finally pushed away from him, the concern in his eyes shocked me. The only person who had ever looked that worried about me was Mum, which was the wrong thought to have as it sent a fresh gush of tears flooding out. Very gently he took my sunglasses off.

‘Hang on a minute.’

He got out of the car and went to the boot. He came back a few seconds later with the first aid kit and proceeded to dab antiseptic wipes onto my cut and massage arnica cream into my cheekbone.

‘You’re wasted as a teacher,’ I said.

‘You’re wasted on Colin.’

A look, a flash of surprise, ran over his face as though he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Then, once he had, it was as though he’d crossed a boundary and he bent his head and kissed me, a tiny hesitant touch of the lips. He lifted his head up, tracing my lips with his finger, holding my eyes with his, even though I knew I should look away from that dark-green stare drilling into my soul like a tractor beam. He pressed his mouth onto mine again, softly exploring my lips, then my mouth with his tongue until I forgot about my cheek, the cut under my eye and was conscious only of his breathing, my breathing and the sensations streaming through me as though I’d woken up after a long winter of hibernation. After years of Colin going at my body like it was something to be dominated rather than celebrated, I’d forgotten how powerful a kiss could be.

He pulled away and looked at his watch. ‘I have to go. I’m teaching your son French in precisely twenty-five minutes.’

‘Lucky Harley.’

‘Maia?’

‘Don’t. I don’t know what you’re going to say, or maybe I do, but I’ve got the life I’ve got, you’ve got the life you’ve got and there’s no room for them to overlap.’ I retrieved my sunglasses from the dashboard.

‘Listen to me.’

‘No. Come on, you need to go.’ I put my seatbelt on.

‘Will you listen to me if I tell you how I might be able to help you get the van back?’

Oh yes. The van. That was several lifetimes ago. He started the car.

‘How?’ I asked.

‘By rights, bailiffs can’t remove anything that is essential for your work. Your van falls into that category. I know someone on the council. I’ll make some phone calls when I get back. Let’s find out where it’s ended up at least, then we can arrange for you to pick it up.’

‘I can’t pay.’ Shame was swallowing my voice.

‘Doesn’t matter. Legally they can’t take anything you need for work.’

It was all about who you knew. I shoved away my ungrateful thoughts long enough to thank Mr Peters.

‘My pleasure,’ he said.

‘I s’pose it’s common knowledge round the school now that my husband beats me up?’

‘No.’ He sighed.

‘I’m assuming your secretary came scuttling in to tell you.’

‘Felicity did come “scuttling in” to tell me. I’ve told her not to breathe a word unless she wants to walk away with a P45 in her hand.’

Despite myself, I couldn’t help grinning at Felicity giving herself indigestion with the effort of not opening her big trap. ‘Oh, to have your magic wand.’

A cloud settled over his face. ‘I wish. There are some things I can make happen, but far too many I can’t.’

I wondered if he meant me. I didn’t want to know if he meant me. It didn’t matter anyway.

He frowned. ‘I suggest you drop the children at the bottom of the drive until your face heals. I’ll arrange for them to wait by the school gates in the evening so you don’t have to come in.’ A man who thinks of everything. I nodded.

He dropped me at the bus stop. I shuffled about a bit when he stopped the car because I didn’t know how to say goodbye. The moment for kissing was long gone, so I went for a hand pat, the sort you’d give to your Great Uncle Arnold in a nursing home, but he caught my fingers.

‘Maia, I’m not a violent man. Not at all. But when Felicity came in to tell me today, I wanted to leap into my car and sort a few things out with your husband. I can’t remember the last time I felt so angry.’ He paused. ‘I just wanted you to know that.’

I allowed myself to think about him on the bus. Then again on my walk home. It was like having a little treasure box, a tin of memories to open. Those eyes narrowing with annoyance, the way he rubbed his thumbs together when he was thinking, his manner of staring that meant I couldn’t lie. The memory I loved most of all, the one that made my belly hollow out with desire, was of those gentle fingers working circular patterns of cream into my cheek. I thought about that as I walked up to my front door. I focused on that sensation of leaning against someone solid, someone dependable, while I reassured myself that Colin was still out. Then feeling like a traitor to my kids, the prof and Mr Peters, I went to dig out some writing paper and do what I had to do.

The van came back that afternoon. I didn’t even have to go and pick it up. I watched while a couple of beefy council workers rolled it off their tow truck and clunked it back down onto its ageing axles. One of them came to the door and shoved a form at me to sign.

‘You must have some clout. Ain’t very often we deliver things back, ’specially not the same day. Even if we give them back to people, they have to get them from the depot.’ He wiped his nose on his fluorescent jacket, waiting for an answer. I signed in silence and shut the door on him. I wasn’t about to let him into the secret world of the wonderful Mr Peters. I texted him to let him know that the van was back safe and sound, debated over signing an ‘x’, then left it blank. He’d know who it was.

I got an immediate response. ‘
My pleasure. We need to talk when you are ready.
’ No kisses. We need to talk? I didn’t need to make an appointment to be told that snogging Mr Peters was a fat mistake. I could work that one out myself. Presumably he was kicking himself as well as shitting himself. The headmaster would take a ‘very dim view’, I was quite sure. Once I took the children out of school, he’d never have to see me again. I wanted to warn him before I sent the letter, even though I knew he’d try to talk me out of it. I started to look half-heartedly for a stamp, knowing it was the right thing to do but still hoping for a last-minute get-out when Sandy’s coo-eee echoed through the letterbox.

It was over two weeks since she’d been round, not since Bronte went missing. ‘Hi darling, you all right, love? I was really worried about you this morning. How’s that face of yours? That’s nasty. Colin do that, did he? They’re all the same, aren’t they? I’ve never met a bloke who weren’t handy with his fists at some stage. Never mind. It’ll be gone next week.’

I led her through into the kitchen and filled her in on the row about the bailiffs. ‘I don’t know why he went for me then, we’d been getting on a bit better lately. He even came to watch Harley in a play at school and managed not to be too sniffy about it.’ I put the kettle on.

‘Maybe he’s coming round to the idea of that posh school. Blimey, we’re going to have to watch our Ps and Qs next door with all of you at it.’