The School Gate Survival Guide (28 page)

Serena and Clover seemed to be having a great time, hooting over cop shows on TV and debating whether they represented real life or not. Venetia was on the sidelines with a fixed grin like she wanted to join in but had only ever watched
Panorama
,
Newsnight
and
University Challenge
. I wanted to tap Serena on the shoulder and tell her to get lost, that she already had my man, so she could keep her hands off my friend. Mr Peters was in my seat and was having some hoo-ha about the length of teachers’ holidays with Howard and Lloyd.

He stood up as I got close to the table. ‘Maia, here, have your seat back.’

‘No, it’s fine, I wanted to have a word with Frederica, anyway.’

He was trying to lock me in, chiselling into my secrets with that steely stare. I wasn’t falling for that old bollocks again. ‘So you are speaking to me then.’ He was talking very quietly with his back to the others.

‘There’s no point in speaking if there’s nothing to say.’ I took a gulp of my wine, trying for a woman of the world flounce and hoping he didn’t see me dribble it down my chin.

‘Have you been okay?’ he asked.

I glanced at Serena, shrugged slightly and said, ‘Spiffing. Marvellous. Fine and dandy.’

He looked as though he was about to say something, but I could see the excuses, the lies gathering like pigeons on a phone wire. I left him standing there and walked round to Frederica. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him shake his head and just managed to stop myself shouting, ‘What? What? What’s your bloody problem?’

Frederica beckoned to me, bellowing in her stage voice as though she was trying to reach the cheap seats. ‘So, Maia, where’s that gorgeous husband of yours tonight? Now, there’s a man who’d look good in a tux. I do think there’s something a bit Daniel Craig-ish about Colin.’

My jaw thudding open must have registered on the earthquake scale. ‘This isn’t really his kind of thing. He’s more a pie and a pint sort of man. I came along to keep Clover company.’

‘You look fantastic.’ Frederica paused. ‘Did Harley tell Marlon that you were living at Clover’s at the moment? Or did I make that up? I never know what to believe.’

‘I’ve been helping her out a bit while, you know, Lawrence and all that. Anyway, we’re going home on Monday.’ I tried to make light of it and move the conversation on. I didn’t want Mr Peters to overhear and think I was crawling back to Colin with my tail between my legs. Frederica was still projecting her voice to the other end of the marquee, when Clover, not short of a foghorn or two herself, joined in.

‘She’s had enough of the Wright family. I keep trying to get her to stay, but no, seems Colin is more of a pull than me.’ That did piss me off. Colin didn’t come into it and she knew it.

‘Gorgeous man like that, Clover? Are you surprised, darling? You’ve got many qualities but I expect there are some areas that Colin trumps you in. Isn’t that right, Maia?’ And off Frederica went, cackling at her own joke. I was relieved when the lamb shanks arrived and I could sit down again. Serena leapt up and started spooning out the asparagus, mangetout and dauphinoise potatoes, patting the men on the shoulder and salsaing round the table like she’d known everyone for years.

When she was right over the other side, Mr Peters bent his head towards me. ‘So you’re going back to Colin?’

‘You have a problem with that?’

‘Yes. Same one that I always had. He’s an arsehole.’

‘Takes one to know one.’ I sounded about twelve but it couldn’t be helped. There was a tiny moment when I thought I’d gone too far and my shoulders came up round my ears in that ‘oh shit’ position. I wasn’t quite ready to be the talk of Stirling Hall.

Mr Peters was far too classy to make a scene. He made a sound as though someone had punched him in the stomach. ‘Has something happened I don’t know about? I didn’t get the impression you thought I was an arsehole before.’

I could feel myself backing away from confrontation with him. I reminded myself that I wasn’t a pupil having to explain myself to him, he wasn’t my teacher, he was a man, nothing special, just been to school a bit more than me. I redoubled my efforts and found a lovely pit of anger. ‘Since you ask, it really fucked me off to find out that you’re leaving Stirling Hall and hadn’t bothered to mention it.’

‘Who told you that?’ he asked.

‘Is it true?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘But bloody what?’ I saw Serena glance in our direction. Every muscle in my face strained with the effort of smiling at her. Mr Peters leant over and filled up her wine glass. We both sat with fixed grins on our faces until she went back to her conversation with Clover. I whispered. ‘But what? Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘God, this is complicated.’ I could hear the northern inflection in his voice. He was fiddling with his cufflinks. His voice was so low I had to lean towards him to hear. ‘I could say the same about you. I wasn’t too pleased myself to have a letter thump on my desk saying that you’d withdrawn Harley and Bronte without even discussing it with me.’

‘I didn’t send that.’

‘Colin’s taken to forging your signature now, has he?’ He was drumming his fingers on his glass.

‘No. I mean, I did write the letter but I was going to talk to you about it. I’d left it at the house because I was still thinking about it. He posted it before I could speak to you.’

His eyes narrowed and then his face relaxed. He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘You went all funny on me before I could tell you about changing jobs. There was a good reason for it.’

I never got to find out. Serena took Mr Peters’ hand and butted in. ‘Weren’t you saying you wanted to go to Florence, Zac? Venetia went at half-term.’

And like a preacher sharing the gospel with the great unwashed, Venetia spouted out her views on Florence and Mr Peters had no choice but to listen. ‘We thought it terribly important for Theo to see the
Birth of Venus
in the flesh as it were. Interestingly, he preferred Giotto to Botticelli. Of course, there are so many amazing churches. We had to set ourselves a limit of two a day. My personal favourite was Santa Croce.’ Venetia was really giving it some on the Italian pronunciation front, sounding like an advert for pasta sauce with her ‘Santa Crrrrotchaaay’.

Clover started sniggering. ‘Is that where you pray to God for a big cock to come visiting?’

Venetia looked like she was going to answer that one seriously. Just in time she realised it was a joke and bared her teeth in a thin smile. Frederica was talking about Mauritius and some amazing place on stilts; Howard started banging on about his holiday home in St Lucia. Even bloody Serena had slummed it off to California touring the Napa Valley – ‘Zinfandel Blush is to die for’. I was dying to imitate her.

Mr Peters didn’t seem about to enlighten us on whether the sky-high fees at Stirling Hall were funding luxury cruises in the Galapagos. He nodded in the right places but he didn’t offer a view. I couldn’t see whether he was still holding hands with Serena. I sat there picking at my lamb, desperate for the band to come on and drown them all out.

‘What about you, Amayra? Is it Greece you’re from? Do you go back there every year?’ Venetia said.

My will to live had seeped away. ‘I just took the kids camping in Suffolk.’

Venetia clapped her hands. ‘Oooh, glamping. It’s all the rage. Did you stay in one of those big yurts with a wood burner stove? Did it have a solar-powered shower? Did you have to pedal a bike to generate your own electricity? Most places are getting so eco-friendly these days. It must be such fun.’

‘This was just a normal campsite.’ I didn’t add that it rained all week and the four of us squashed into a tent that stunk of mould because Colin had put it away wet the year before.

‘Oooh,’ Venetia said again. ‘British seaside holidays are so trendy now. Makes the Caribbean sound so passé. You are brave though, Amayra, I don’t know whether I could face camping.’

Not brave. Just poor.

‘Whereabouts in Suffolk?’ Venetia said.

‘Sizewell.’

‘Isn’t that where the nuclear reactor is?’ Randolph suddenly rattled into life. ‘Aren’t they planning to build underground caverns to house nuclear waste there?’ Off he went into a rant about the ‘monumental folly’ of this, that and the other plan. Even Clover pretending to snooze didn’t make me crack a smile.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Serena turned to me. ‘So, Maia, how did you get on at the homeopath’s? I’ve been wondering if homeopathy could help with my hormones. As Zac knows, I get quite bad-tempered at certain times of the month.’ A little knee pat.

‘I just thought that was your personality,’ Mr Peters said, deadpan.

Annoyance flashed across Serena’s face. She ploughed on. ‘I forgot to tell you that I bumped into Maia at yours the other day.’

My turn to be annoyed. ‘I go to see the homeopath there. She helps me with my eczema. I think the cleaning stuff causes it.’

Serena’s eyebrows knitted together. ‘She? I thought the homeopath was a man?’

Shit. ‘I think there are two of them. The woman only does a few hours a week, I think.’ I looked at Mr Peters.

He said, ‘I’ve never seen a woman homeopath there. Maybe it was Mandy, the beautician who shares the studio?’

‘I go to Mandy,’ Serena said. She leant over, putting her hand in front of her mouth like a schoolgirl with a secret, and whispered: ‘She does electrolysis on my face.’ She started speaking loudly again. ‘Mandy’s never mentioned homeopathy to me. Come on, Maia, admit it to us, you were really there for a Brazilian, weren’t you?’

Serena found herself hilarious. I wondered if she was sporting a landing strip that she’d be putting on show for Mr Peters later that night. His face was wary, as though he didn’t like the way the conversation was heading.

A great big flush was spreading across my chest. I couldn’t think of a single girl’s name. I was searching round for inspiration when I saw sherry vinegar on the menu. ‘I think she’s called Sherry. Anyway, I’ve only been a couple of times, so I don’t know whether it works or not.’

‘What did she give you?’ Serena said.

‘I can’t remember now. Some pill thing.’

Thankfully, just as I was digging myself a hole so deep I could shake hands with a kangaroo, the cheese plate arrived. Venetia was out of her seat with excitement. ‘Ooooh, look, Duchy Originals biscuits. And Cambozola. Scrummy.’

‘I think that’s Dolcelatte, not Cambozola,’ Serena said.

Venetia frowned. ‘I did do a Cordon Bleu cookery course. Cheese identification was part of it.’

‘Sorry, I was just saying.’

Venetia harrumphed and carried on pointing at the cheese plate. ‘That’s Cornish Yarg, look, it’s got the nettles round it. That’s Norbury Blue. They make that on a farm over at Mickleham. I think that’s ordinary Brie.’

‘Jesus, just when I was longing for a bit of Edam,’ Frederica said, winking in my direction.

Howard passed me the plate. ‘You go first, Megan.’ I dreaded to think what he’d smell like after a round of blue cheese. I’d just taken a piece of the identity crisis Cambozola/Dolcelatte and was in the process of cutting some Brie, when Howard shrieked, ‘Megan!’ I looked round for the fire, or the man with a machine gun, or the big fat hornet with a sting the size of a drill.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘You’ve cut the nose off the Brie,’ Howard said.

‘What?’

‘You can’t cut the nose off the Brie.’

Saying ‘What?’ for the third time was going to make me seem a bit short of imagination. Clover stepped in. ‘Fuck off, Howard. Get a bloody life. If you’re worried about who is cutting the pointy bit off the Brie or whether someone uses the right fucking fork, you are not busy enough.’ You had to love the girl. She’d actually managed to tell me what Howard was on about, without having to take me to one side and spell it out. I mouthed a thank you at her. Clover did a not very discreet tosser gesture in return.

Howard spluttered but didn’t try and argue back. Venetia started off on some boring technical explanation about how it was important to keep the cheese in its original shape so everyone got exactly the same amount of good and bad bits. Howard nodded away, a ridiculous flappy bit of hair bouncing up and down. How could there be a right or wrong way to cut a piece of cheese? I got the point of knife rules if you were operating on someone’s brain, carving a piece of wood or carrying out scientific research on rats, but cutting a piece of cheese? Was there someone sitting in an office somewhere making up stupid rules for posh people? Did it only apply to Brie or was it the same for Dairylea Triangles, Philadelphia and Babybel? And if you were posh, how could it be considered good manners to point out the social cock-ups of people who didn’t know any better?

Thankfully, the lights dimmed and the growly throb of an electric guitar started up before I used the cheese knife to gouge out Howard’s Adam’s apple. The joy of a diversion from all these people with their heads up their backsides nearly had me whipping off my dress and streaking across the marquee singing, ‘Get yer tits out for the lads.’ Clover had gone still. Venetia was trying to shout about the advantages of a cheese wire over a cheese knife above the music but Clover had turned her back on her to look at the stage. Lawrence came on, looking much younger than his forty-two years, in drainpipe jeans, Andy Warhol T-shirt and a leather jacket. With his curly black hair and blue eyes, he looked as though he’d hopped down from a Romany caravan in Galway. He bowed low and then broke into ‘I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll’.

Howard leaned towards me. Tiramisu-mixed-with-dustbin-left-in-the-sun breath gusted over me. ‘Every middle-aged man a rock star.’

I wanted to pretend he was invisible but I needed to defend Lawrence. ‘He’s brilliant though, look at him.’ Lawrence was living and breathing every chord, eyes half-closed, looking as though this was what he was born to do. I couldn’t imagine him squinting over sheets of figures and sitting in meetings with dandruffy old bankers. Then I remembered he was having an affair with Jen1 and hoped that he would be forced to bean count from here to eternity and that tonsillitis would plague him into old age.