The School Gate Survival Guide (23 page)

‘I’ll be right back. Don’t let him in.’ Clover sped off down the hallway.

I wasn’t half as brave without Clover. Colin leered towards me. ‘C’mon babe. You’ve had yer fun. Come home with me. It ain’t the same without you.’

‘In what way?’

‘I’m not cut out for livin’ on me own. House feels really empty without the kids. An’ you, of course. Too big for just me. And I ain’t eating properly. I’ve even got meself a job.’

‘Where?’ That was the point where I should have been really interested in what Colin had to say. Instead, he seemed like a throwback from another era, like someone walking around with an Elvis quiff and thinking he was trendy.

‘The betting shop. But not betting.’ He hiccupped out a laugh. ‘Painting. Doing the front up. All the signs are hanging off so I’m sorting it out. I ain’t been paid yet, but it’ll see us right. Keep them bastard bailiffs away for a bit.’

Which proved to me that Colin had no idea what we owed. I didn’t hold out much hope that the most interesting destination for a bunch of twenties pushed into his hand at the end of the week would be rent arrears rather than the 2.20 p.m. at Kempton races. I was looking for something enthusiastic to say on the grounds that, like it or not, I’d have to share a house with him again soon. Before I came up with anything approaching positive, Colin gabbled on.

‘How are the kids? I’ve missed them, you know. And you.’ He stepped towards me to give me a hug. When I backed away, he got all aggressive. ‘Too good for me now, are you? You better not stop me seeing the kids.’

‘I’m not stopping you seeing them. You haven’t tried to arrange anything.’

Colin looked at his feet. Shifting his eyes off something level seemed to unbalance him and he ended up doing a little crab walk. ‘I thought you’d be home after a few days. S’pose they’ve forgotten all about me, now they’re living in this big old pile.’

‘Bronte is learning to ride which she’s always wanted to do. And Harley loves having a dog. But they miss you. Especially Bronte.’

His face softened. I might have felt a tiny bit of pity for him if he hadn’t started jabbing his finger in my face. He shouted, ‘This is all your fault. You with your fancy ideas. You thinking you’re better than everyone else, not even telling me you was taking the kids out of Stirling Hall. I am their father, you know. I’ve got me rights.’

Colin loved a good ‘right’. Shame he hadn’t thought that his rights included responsibilities, like putting food on the table and paying the electricity.

I stepped back from him. ‘I thought you’d be pleased I was moving the kids back to Morlands. You’ve won. I was wrong. I thought I could manage, but I can’t.’ I stopped. I hadn’t sent the letter yet, or mentioned it to anyone, not even Clover. ‘How did you know anyway?’

‘You told Sandy, didn’t you? Felt like a right plonker hearing it from her.’

Sandy. Bloody cow. She obviously couldn’t wait to stick her nose into that one. I could imagine her calling to Colin over the hedge. ‘’Ere, Col, sorry to hear your kids have to leave Stirling Hall. Still, you was never for it in the first place, was you?’ And her dancing a little jig when she realised he didn’t even know. She hadn’t texted me to find out where I was. Then again, I hadn’t told her I was leaving. I was just as bad, though I wanted to believe that I’d be a bit more generous-spirited if things turned up trumps for her.

Colin lunged forward to grab my arm. ‘Come on, you’re coming home with me.’

I pushed him off. ‘I’m not coming back tonight. The kids are in bed.’

‘I’ll wake them up myself in a minute. Go and fetch them.’

‘No. I don’t want them to see you like this, anyway.’

‘Oooh, their old dad too rough for them now, is he?’ He grabbed me again and for someone who would struggle to walk in a straight line, he was hanging on well.

‘Get off. Off!’ I fought against him as he pulled me out of the house.

‘No. You are going to get it into your thick head that I am the man of the house and you will do as I say. All this bloody liberal crap that your friend, Flowerpot or whatever her name is, is filling your head with. You are coming home with me. Get the children. Now.’

He was beginning to twist my arm well beyond comfortable, when a shot, a bloody gunshot, echoed round the garden. Colin dived to the ground. I leapt back over the threshold and slammed the door. Another shot rang out. Then I heard Clover’s voice shouting down from upstairs.

‘Bugger off. Just fuck off. Next time I’ll shoot you in the goolies.’

I peered through the hall window. From upstairs I could hear Clover yelling every single swear word that finished with ‘off’. Colin was flicking the ‘V’s, shaking his fist and holding his own on slinging the insults. But those little drunken feet were flying over the gravel, until soon, I couldn’t see him at all.

Clover came down the stairs, rifle under her arm, thumbs tucked in her pockets, walking like John Wayne and talking in a Texan drawl. ‘I’ll be darned. That there rifle came in handy after all, dirty rotten scoundrel.’ And other miscellaneous movie lines which should have wound me up. I wanted to be cross. I really did. But relief that we weren’t the target of professional raiders and the memory of Colin’s feet skidding off down the drive tapped into my ‘shouldn’t be laughing’ gene and off I went, trying to disapprove but snorting and giggling instead. I was just thankful that the solid old walls of Clover’s house meant that the kids had slept through the whole commotion. I wasn’t in the mood for any ‘Clover wasn’t really trying to blow your Daddy’s brains out’ conversations tonight.

Clover was as high as a kite. ‘I’ve always wanted to do that. Lawrence keeps it in the garage to shoot the squirrels – they keep getting in the roof and chewing through the wires. I was never going to hit him, you know. I aimed at the chestnut tree by the gates.’

I praised the Lord for the key in the bottom of the compost heap.

The next day was Bronte’s class assembly. All parents were invited so I finished my shift at the gym early and made it back to Clover’s in time to join in all the fun of the breakfast bunfight, against a backdrop of Einstein’s swearing, Weirdo’s barking and the odd rabbit or guinea pig hopping about the room. Since our massive clean-up, Clover had clamped down on outdoor pets coming in the house, but the kids had made a sport out of smuggling them in. I could hear the shower running upstairs, which explained how a huge white rabbit called Blizzard had managed to slip under Clover’s radar to scoff up a hearty breakfast directly from the children’s bowls.

Clover’s fitness fad had led to a Sugar Puffs and Coco Pops ban in favour of organic cereals with happy-clappy names like Tiger Tastic and Monkey Mayhem but which were actually gluten-free, nut-free, taste-free lumps of hippo poo wearing honey as a disguise. The real enemy in the camp though was not the hippo poo, but the amaranth, a cereal which, according to Clover, was bursting with potassium, calcium and goodness knows what, but turned into the texture of a fresh cowpat when milk was added – and tasted worse. Orion was trying to spoon lumps of the stuff into Bronte’s bowl without her noticing. He’d point to the parrot and say, ‘I think Einstein is about to crap.’ She’d turn to look and Orion would dollop in a spoonful of amaranth. I knew there’d be trouble as Bronte’s sense of humour was about as noticeable as Colin’s work ethic. Sure enough, after a few ‘Look at Blizzard, he’s eating a spider’ comments, Bronte started shoving Orion and shouting at him.

‘I hate you. You could make a dot-to-dot on your spots.’

‘You could park a car in your big mouth. No one asked you to come and live here. Why don’t you go back to your own house?’ Orion said.

I put my hand on Bronte’s shoulder. ‘Come on, now. Orion was just having a bit of fun. Why don’t I chop you up a banana? We need to get going because we don’t want to be late for your assembly, do we?’

Bronte shrugged me off. ‘I’m sick of living here. I want to go home. I want to be with Dad, not stupid Clover and her stupid children.’ I was glad that Clover wasn’t there to catch the full force of Bronte’s ungratefulness.

‘Bronte. They are not stupid and they have been very generous letting us stay here. Come on, let’s finish breakfast.’

‘I hate them. I really hate them. Where’s Dad? I want to see Dad. Doesn’t he love us any more? Why doesn’t he come to see us?’ She shoved her bowl so hard it knocked into Orion’s and sent them both crashing onto the floor. I didn’t feel that it was the right time to tell her that Colin had turned up and Clover had practically peppered his arse with shotgun pellets.

Orion did what ten-year-old boys do. He started laughing and pulling faces. Harley was trying not to join in but I could see the appeal as Bronte grew more and more purple, finally screaming at Orion. ‘I don’t know what you’re laughing at. Your dad has left you. He hardly ever phones you. He doesn’t love you any more and I don’t blame him.’

‘You bloody liar. He hasn’t left us. He’s away working. America and now Scandinavia, I think.’ Orion’s face clouded with uncertainty.

I nodded until my neck hurt. ‘Yes, your mum said northern Scandinavia, a really remote part, without any telephone masts.’ I needed to shut up before I started naming Swedish tennis players and pop groups, talking about herring factories, snow sports, any random rubbish to back up my lie.

I grabbed hold of Bronte and prised her away from the table. She resisted me at first, but as soon as we got into the hallway, she started to cry, big chunky sobs, right from the heart. ‘Where is Dad? I thought you said we were just staying here for a bit while you helped Clover clean. Have you left him?’

‘No, I haven’t left him.’

‘But you’re going to, aren’t you?’ Her eyes were demanding the truth from me. Half an hour before her starring role in assembly as a dung beetle wasn’t the moment.

‘I am not leaving your dad. Of course I’m not. He was very unkind to me when he hit me. Now I hope he’s learnt his lesson. As soon as I’ve finished cleaning the house with Clover, we’ll be going home.’ I almost wished that I was lying, but I couldn’t keep behaving like an ostrich and chucking another bucket of sand over my head.

‘When?’ Bronte’s eyebrows were nearly meeting in the middle.

‘Soon, very soon. Now, where’s that dung beetle costume?’

My heart did its usual dance as we drove up to the school. I was looking forward to a fix of a certain dark-haired man. Since parents’ evening over a week ago, he’d rung me every day. Whenever ‘Mary’ flashed up on the screen, I felt as though I was hugging a happy little secret. Every time I answered a call I promised myself it would be the last one. The truth was, he made me feel special. Way too special. We’d spoken long past midnight the night before as I told him about Colin’s unexpected appearance and Clover’s special method of helping him leave. We’d both killed ourselves laughing. I loved being able to make him laugh like that, even if it was at Colin’s expense. Especially if it was at Colin’s expense.

‘Do you think you’ll go back to him?’ he asked.

‘I don’t want to but the kids are getting fidgety. They really miss him and he is trying to be a bit better. He’s got a job now.’ I could picture Mr Peters shaking his head.

‘Promise me you won’t go back without telling me.’ There was a silence. ‘I’d really like to see you, Maia. I keep thinking about you.’

I did what I always did. Made a joke. ‘You’ll see me tomorrow at the dung beetle parade.’ I closed the conversation down. I knew that I couldn’t let Mr Peters get any more involved with me. He’d bust a gut to get from fast-fisted hooligan to well-respected teacher. I could only bring trouble to the party so it was better not to accept the invitation. I just needed to find the strength to refuse.

As we walked into school I was grateful for Bronte’s fussing about whether her dung beetle horns were on properly. I’d spotted Mr Peters by the hall and the last-minute costume faff meant I didn’t have to make eye contact until I got to the door. He was wearing a khaki suit with a pink shirt. I’d never liked pink on men – too long living with Colin and his ‘pink is for poofters’ prejudices, I suppose – but he looked like he’d stepped out from an advert for a top-of-the-range watch. The headmaster was standing next to him, all pointy-faced and frumpy silver-rimmed glasses. I saw the headmaster look at me, then say something out of the corner of his mouth to Mr Peters. Mr Peters shrugged. The headmaster greeted me with a breezy ‘Good morning’ but I didn’t care about him. Mr Peters said a quiet hello and smiled the sort of smile that didn’t even move the corners of his mouth.

I picked a seat on the end, a few rows back from the stage. The teachers gradually trooped in to take their positions along the side of the hall. Mr Peters sat a couple of yards in front of me, to my left. I waited for him to look up and catch my eye but he was staring at the floor. Maybe that grouchy old headmaster had got wind of the fact that the Head of Upper School was providing a little too much ‘support’ for me, but I couldn’t believe anyone had real proof. Mr Peters would piss me off if he gave up on me, even though I’d been encouraging him to do just that.

I turned back to the stage as Bronte pushed a huge brown ball along in her dung beetle role, lecturing the audience on CO2 gases produced by not composting your vegetable peelings. I was in the mood to be irritated. Setting up wormeries to eat your leftover mangetout and using banana skins to fertilise your roses was such middle-class bollocks. The prof would have tutted and told me that intelligent people are not governed by class. It was still bollocks. I was too busy trying to earn enough to buy food to worry about whether my carrot tops were making November a bit warmer. I clapped as though it was the most entertaining thing I’d ever heard, maybe a bit too loudly, in case Mr Peters hadn’t actually clocked I was there. The dung beetles gave way to a group of boys failing to keep a straight face as they read out little gems about recycling human waste – ‘Don’t waste your wee. It’s rich in nitrogen. Mix it with sawdust and use it as bedding for lettuces.’

I wondered if I was the only one who preferred pee-free iceberg. I glanced at Mr Peters. Judging by the big scowl on his face, he didn’t find the idea too appetising either. When it was prayer time, I squinted at him through half-closed eyes, while listening to the cheery words of ‘Greedy lifestyles, piles of waste, boundless avarice and irrational hate, excess packaging, contaminated air, mountains of rubbish, is anyone there?’