The School Gate Survival Guide (34 page)

I was going to love telling Colin. Mansion, mine. Council house and Sandy, yours.

I couldn’t take it in. Mr Harrison had informed me, with a note of satisfaction in his voice, that in the months since the professor – my grandmother – had died, he’d completed the legal formalities and the inheritance was mine ‘as soon as I was ready’.

Strangely enough, I didn’t feel the need for any further delay. However, for the next five days, until term finished, I carried on turning up to work as normal. Now I didn’t have to do it, I didn’t mind as much. I didn’t breathe a word to anyone, not even the children. I nearly blew my cover by paying £60 for Harley to go on a school day trip to France to see the First World War battlefields. The amazement and delight on his face filled me with the sort of joy that made my feet float. I nearly let the cat out of the bag loads of times but I wanted to have the Easter holidays to get used to being our new non-welfare selves without the whole world whispering about us.

On the last day of term I dropped the children off earlier than usual. The van had developed a cough that blew out a cloud of black smoke every time I changed into third. Knowing I could march off to the garage and buy a Lamborghini if the fancy took me made me wave at Jen1 as she made an exaggerated detour around us. When I went into reception, I rang the bell for attention, rather than skulking about on the other side of the glass hatch hoping that someone would notice me. I could see down the corridor to Mr Peters’ office. I willed the door to open. I willed the door to stay shut. My heart leapt every time I heard footsteps, then sank again as the wrong faces came into sight.

Felicity bustled out. ‘Good morning, Mrs Etxeleku, what can I do for you?’

I wondered if she ever went anywhere without a little clipboard. ‘I wanted to let you know that circumstances have changed. The children will be staying on at Stirling Hall after next term.’

‘Let me just check, Mrs Etxeleku. I don’t think their places have been allocated yet. Just bear with me a moment.’ She pulled down a big file and started leafing through the pages, sharp pencil twitching. It had never occurred to me that there might not be room for them, even though I was now in a position to come and dump great bags of swag on her desk. If she said they had to leave anyway, I thought I might burst through the glass partition like a rhino with a dart in its backside, roaring and spearing all who crossed my path.

Felicity was scribbling something in her file. I balanced on tiptoes to see what she was writing.

She looked up. ‘Wonderful. All done. Luckily because it’s been so busy, we haven’t had time to reassign places yet. There are six on the waiting list for Bronte’s class and three for Harley’s.’

Felicity obviously thought I should be grateful to be allowed to spend over twenty-four thousand pounds a year at Stirling Hall. I was. Fantastically, ecstatically, massively, wildly, wonderfully grateful that I’d got one thing right in the huge dung heap of everything I’d got wrong.

‘I also need to give you my new address. We’re moving in today.’ As soon as I pronounced the words ‘Gatsby, Stamford Avenue’, she scrumpled her face up as though she was trying to understand an immigrant with a particularly heavy accent. I would never get tired of saying SD2. Or of seeing the look of surprise when they realised that Maia Etxeleku, bog cleaner, van driver, tracksuit wearer, lived in – what had Mr Harrison called it? – one of the premier roads in Sandbury. I ignored my natural urge to explain how I ended up there.

I smiled right into her bemused face, then bent down, pretending to do up my trainers. I didn’t want to leave without seeing Mr Peters, even if it only gave me the opportunity to ignore him, but I couldn’t hang around any more without beaky old Felicity getting all suspicious. Maybe he’d already left for the other school. Maybe he was, at that moment, touching Serena’s face as gently as he’d touched mine. Just the night before I’d been reading Tennyson’s poem
In Memoriam
, trying to convince myself that it really was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I needed to grow up and stop wanting the complete fairy tale. The prof had already taken the role as the knight in shining armour. A grand future for the children was fairy tale enough.

I headed back to my old house, trying to get rid of the feeling that Mr Peters had been hiding in his office, waiting for the all clear that I’d left the building.

As I drew up outside, I noticed the ugly square windows with their yellowing PVC frames for the first time. I’d always considered windows a barrier to burglars rather than works of art. I went into the house and started at the top, walking from room to room, scanning for anything I couldn’t leave behind. I picked up a little doll in traditional Basque dress off Bronte’s chest of drawers. My mum gave her that. I scooped up Gordon the Gorilla. I chucked Harley’s
Top Gear
annuals into a carrier bag, then picked up the prof’s ugly old parrot head bookends. I paused in the doorway of my bedroom. I didn’t want anything that reminded me of Colin. Nothing at all. I took off my eternity ring, the closest he’d ever got to romantic, and left it on the bedside table. He could recycle it to Sandy.

I didn’t even go into the front room. I wasn’t about to start making off down the path with crappy old armchairs. Enough. I’d buy anything I needed. I loved how arrogant that sounded.

I paused on the threshold and said a loud goodbye into the hall, then banged the door shut. Just one more thing left to do, then it was time for the curtain to fall on Maia Etxeleku, Act One. I knocked on Sandy’s door. When she saw it was me, she took a step forwards and jutted her chin out. ‘What?’ She rasped up a phlegmy cough without bothering to put her hand in front of her mouth.

‘Is Colin in?’

She shouted back into the house. ‘Col, it’s Maia.’

He appeared, unshaven, a big blob of some ketchup-looking thing on his T-shirt. He wasn’t about to waste any words either. ‘Yes?’

Jesus. Where did all that love go? How many people were floating about the world looking at people they used to kiss, tongues and all, and thinking, ‘You grubby jowly-faced frog, don’t touch me because I’ll scream’? He had a big spot with a whitehead on the side of his neck. I’d never be able to kiss anyone less fragrant than Mr Peters ever again.

I held out the keys to the house. ‘Good news. I’m moving out. You can have the house – get in touch with the council and find out what I need to do to sign it over to you. Give me a ring when you want to see the kids.’

His mouth fell open slightly. I could see his brain struggling against spliff-induced slowness. If Colin had been a car, the sound of backfiring would have filled the air. ‘Where you going?’

‘Stamford Avenue.’

He peered out at me as though he needed glasses. ‘Stamford Avenue? What? You got a job as a housekeeper?’

‘No. I own a house there. The prof that died? She left her house to me. So we’re moving in today.’

I stood there just long enough to watch the first drops of realisation filter through. If I knew Colin, the old back pedals would start flinging round at any moment, now that a meal ticket for life was on the table.

‘When did you find out? Why didn’t you tell me?’ Indignation was pogoing all over his face.

I couldn’t be bothered to explain anything. I’d found leaving jobs I hated more difficult than this. Nineteen years and all I could think about was whether I had time to go to Homebase for some sweet pea seeds before I picked the kids up at lunchtime.

‘Bye, Colin. I’ll give the kids your love.’

I left him grunting and spluttering, next door to the house where I’d lived for over a decade. I sat Gordon the Gorilla on the passenger seat and hopped into the van without the slightest twinge, as though I’d been a plane in a holding pattern, waiting to land at the right destination.

Some goodbyes were turning out to be easier than others.

I drove up to Stirling Hall with little squeaks of excitement vibrating in my throat. Shuffling from foot to foot, I waited for Harley and Bronte right at the front, scanning the children’s faces as they came bowling out, weighed down with papier mâché volcanoes, hockey sticks and their own Kandinsky creations. When Harley and Bronte finally surged out, I couldn’t concentrate on their chatter at all. Even when Harley thrust his drama cup into my hands, I had to work hard to find a ‘well done’. Bronte was the first to clock that I wasn’t driving straight home.

‘Where are we going?’ Bronte could never do neutral, only accusatory. Today she couldn’t touch me.

‘It’s a surprise.’

‘Give us a clue,’ Harley said.

‘You wait and see.’

Bronte hunched down in the front of the van, grumbling under her breath about wanting to get home and chill out. I turned into Stamford Avenue and flicked the automatic gate opening gizmo.

Harley was first to react. ‘Why are we coming to the professor’s house? Are you going to clean it up?’

Bronte was sitting up a bit straighter. ‘How long are you going to be? Can we go and play tennis while you clean?’

‘No, not today you can’t.’ I threw the van door open. Bronte and Harley scrambled out, Bronte frowning, ready to moan. I didn’t want to spoil the moment so I said, very quickly, ‘You can’t play tennis today because you need to choose a bedroom.’

Bronte scowled. ‘What do you mean? Have we got to help you?’

I pushed away the thought that she reminded me of Colin, always scared of wearing himself out if he did anything that didn’t directly benefit him.

‘It’s our house now,’ I said. There was a silence, a puzzled shoulder shrug from Bronte, then Harley started to grin, his eyebrows raised in a question. I nodded.

‘What do you mean? This is our house? What? Forever? How did that happen?’ Harley said, throwing his arms round me. Even Bronte started jumping up and down on the spot, whooping and yeehahing. I told them that Rose Stainton had left it to us and I would tell them all about it later. For the moment, I wanted to focus on the future. The past wasn’t going to change if I left it half an hour.

I opened the door, loving the solid clunk as the key turned in the brass lock. I stood back as the children elbowed each other to be first through the door. The grandness of the huge hall with its grandfather clock and massive gilt mirrors seemed to act as a brake and they came to a halt, gazing about, as though they were waiting for the real owner to appear and tell them to take their shoes off.

‘Go on, go and explore. It really is ours.’ Harley and Bronte stampeded up the main staircase, ringing the servants’ bells and counting the bedrooms. I walked up slowly, running my hand along the solid oak banister. Bronte came bursting out of a bedroom overlooking the orchards. She beckoned me up.

‘Can I have this room, Mum? I really like it, it’s got a window seat and everything. I could keep all my Polly Pockets in that cupboard. Those little shelves could be their home. Can I have one of those lava lamps like Saffy’s got?’ I nodded. My new bank account could run to a lava lamp. Bronte rewarded me with a hug so tight I heard my lungs empty.

Harley chose the smallest room, a funny little semi-hexagonal box room in a turret on the second floor. ‘I love this room. I feel like Harry Potter. Can’t wait until Orion comes over here. Will you buy me a telly? And a PlayStation? And a computer? And can I have a dog now we’ve got the space? Maybe Bronte could have a horse. Then we won’t argue over it. I want one of those Pyrenean mountain dogs. Or a Great Dane.’

I didn’t make any promises, just laughed and said I’d think about it once we’d settled in. I needed time to work out what was right, not just what was rich. I still couldn’t get used to going into Morrisons and picking up anything I wanted. I’d stood struggling with myself for ages before putting blueberries in my trolley at £2.99 a punnet. Even then I only ate a few a day and wanted to have a right go when Harley crammed them into his mouth willy-nilly.

Now the children knew the good news, I was free to tell Clover who sounded more excited than we were, if that was possible. She wasted no time in checking out the good fortune of the Etxeleku/Caudwells and arrived for a thorough inspection the very next day. I threw the door open with a dramatic ‘Welcome to my humble abode’ then did a double take as all five of them – including Lawrence – stood there.

‘You expected me to bring Lawrence, didn’t you?’ Clover said as the kids charged upstairs in a big jumble. ‘Forgot to ask on the phone. We can put him to work, he’s very good with his hands.’ She gave a saucy little laugh.

I’d been so obsessed with my own goings-on that I hadn’t really got my head round the fact that he was back on the scene. So I arranged my face into some kind of welcome.

‘Of course I expected Lawrence, come in, come in. I promise not to attack you,’ I said. I struggled not to sound grumpy that the day I had planned with Clover was now going to become a polite getting-to-know-you session with Lawrence. He didn’t even look that thrilled to be there, standing in the entrance hall with his hands in his pockets.

‘Nice pad,’ he said. No doubt turning up to the houses of friends he wasn’t the slightest bit interested in was the downside of being back in the bosom of the family.

Clover clapped her hands together. ‘Can we have the grand tour then? This is a gorgeous house. I suppose the kids are staying at Stirling Hall now? You’ll have to be class representative next year so you can invite everyone back for coffee. I’d love to see Jennifer’s face. She’d kill to live on the “right side” of Sandbury. Wouldn’t we all?’

At the mention of Jen1, I stared at Lawrence to see if he was squirming. He didn’t look embarrassed. Just blank, as though he’d whitewashed all the emotion off his face. Maybe I was so burnt by Colin and Mr Peters that I saw betrayals and lies behind every curtain when really the poor bloke was just a man who’d lost his marbles for a while. I needed to let that whole Lawrence–Jen1 thing go.

I took them upstairs, hearing the thumps and bangs of a rough game of hide and seek as the children clumped up and down the servants’ stairs and climbed into cupboards. I hated them marauding about but I knew Clover wouldn’t say anything. I couldn’t bear it if anything got broken before I’d had time to decide I didn’t like it. Harley came barging past us, his shirt hanging out, crashing into the banister as he went. I tried not to shout but I couldn’t help it.