The Not So Perfect Mum: The feel-good novel you have to read this year!. Kerry Fisher

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       CHAPTER SIX

      I looked down again at the note that Clover had sent home. Though she’d obviously written it with a crayon or an eyeliner, it definitely said Little Sandhurst. Which meant Jennifer’s house was behind these wrought iron gates, a reddish blur down an avenue lined with horse chestnut trees. Jesus. Before I’d even pressed the button to get in, the gates whirred back and a security camera swivelled above my head. Thank God I’d had the good sense to leave the van in the pub car park at the end of the road, otherwise I’d have definitely been risking directions to the tradesman’s entrance.

      At the door, I tugged down my T-shirt to make sure my belly button ring wasn’t showing. The long walk up the drive hadn’t agreed with my underwear and I was just in the middle of pulling my knickers out of my bottom when I suddenly remembered the security cameras. I looked round, praying I wasn’t being beamed around the kitchen or the front room, digging between my buttocks for my Asda sideslappers. Then something else caught my attention. A silver Mitsubishi Pajero. Jen Bloody 1. I’d bust a gut, mopping, spraying and hoovering like a chicken on ecstasy to finish early and get over here for coffee with none other than the flaming horn-honker. Stupid cow. For two pins I wouldn’t have come, but Harley and Bronte were having a tricky old time fitting in as it was. If I could help by nodding nicely at other mums and crooking my little finger over a Jammie Dodger, bring it on. Hopefully she wouldn’t recognise me without the van.

      The door opened and Jen1 stood there, a skinny minny with super-straight long blonde hair almost down to her waist. I think it was her waist, anyway. The wide belt around it made it look like my wrist. ‘You must be Harley’s mummy. I’m Hugo’s mummy, Jennifer, how do you do?’ She held out a hand that had definitely benefited from the sort of creams I dusted on dressing tables – lotions and potions made from nightingale droppings, Chilean snail slime or snake venom at £100 a blob.

      ‘I’m Maia, pleased to meet you, Jenny.’ I wondered whether Jen1 phoned the hairdresser’s and announced herself as Hugo’s mummy.

      ‘I prefer Jennifer, if you don’t mind,’ she said, as she did what I always thought of as the elevator look. She started off looking at the top of my head like an exotic parakeet had settled there, then flicked down, taking in my T-shirt, my cardigan with the button missing, my Primark jeans. She got as far as my shoes, then zoomed all the way up again. As soon as she realised that I was so far down the food chain, there was nothing to compete with, her whole attitude shifted. She dug out a different face, like she was picking one out of the wardrobe. The mask she’d chosen for me was a limited amount of smiling and friendliness so I couldn’t go away and slag her off but I wouldn’t start thinking that I was going to become her bessie mate either.

      ‘Come in, come in, we’re all in the kitchen,’ she said. I stepped into the hall. Pale cream carpet without a single stain, no splodge of tea, no muddy marks. No place for the Crocs that I’d squelched around the football field in at the weekend. I took them off, wishing I’d worn something other than the Boozy Bird socks that Colin had bought me for my birthday.

      I followed Jen1’s trail of perfume as she led me into the kitchen. About twelve women were standing in various little groups around a black marble-topped island with a built-in wine fridge. Jen1 obviously didn’t have to shuffle everything round and stand her milk outside the back door if she’d bought a chicken for Sunday dinner. I handed her the box of bakewell tarts that I’d bought at the Co-op on the way. With barely a thank you, she dumped it down next to a box of Waitrose’s mint truffles and a tin of biscuits from Harrods. She introduced me to a few women who had names like Francesca, Elizabeth and Charlotte, all with their own versions of the elevator look.

      I heard Clover swearing before I saw her, a helmet of wayward curls among several shiny bobs. She was wearing a pair of thick round glasses that made her look like Velma off Scooby-Doo. A kaftan top created a beaded shelf over her enormous boobs like an usherette’s ice cream tray. She made her way round to my side of the island.

      ‘Maia, how are you? How are the children settling in? Orrie said something about a problem with Harley’s hair? They’re such fucking fascists at that school sometimes. I mean, they’re great at telling the kids what they’re good at, all those star charts and best bloody handwriting awards, but they’ve got no bastard idea about individuality. Still, I suppose that’s what we’re paying for. They can instil discipline so we don’t have to bother.’

      When she took a breath, I told her about the note his teacher had sent me, saying that Harley wouldn’t be allowed back until he’d had his hair chopped off. That same evening I’d given him a number five in the kitchen with Colin’s clippers and watched his curls gather on the floor like an old wig. When I’d finished, my raggle-taggle golden boy looked like he was about to join the army cadets. Harley had run his hand over it, shrugging. ‘S’all right. It feels like a tennis ball.’

      When Colin saw it, he did a Sieg Heil salute and told Harley he looked like a BNP supporter. I picked up a curl from the floor, wrapped it in silver foil and put it in the old biscuit tin under my bed where I kept all my precious things. Right on the top of the pile was his school photo from last year. He looked so much younger, scruffy curls falling over his face, cheekily carefree. I had jammed the lid back on.

      Jen1 appeared at my side, all buzzy-bottomed and efficient in her black polo-necked jumper and pencil skirt. She offered us a plate of mini chocolate brownies. Clover took one, then scooped up two more. ‘These are lovely, did you make them?’

      ‘Hugo and I bake every Sunday afternoon. I think it’s essential for children to learn to cook. It’s no wonder that there are so many of these fat chavvy children about when their mothers just feed them pre-packaged rubbish,’ Jen1 said.

      I glanced over at my bakewell tarts, still in their box, shining with thick white icing and glacé cherries. I took comfort from the fact that she hadn’t even let the Harrods pure butter shortbread poison her kitchen.

      ‘We eat organic as far as possible. I’m even getting the gardener to plant some veggies this year. We should have our own rocket, leeks and red peppers by the summer,’ she said, turning to me. ‘Would you like coffee, Maia? I’ve got linizio, livanto or capriccio if you want an espresso or vivalto or finezzo if you want a longer one. Or I’ve got Mao Feng green tea and white Ginseng tea. Or Tung Ting Oolong.’

      I didn’t have a clue what she was on about. I must’ve looked a bit dorky because she indicated the coffee machine on the side. ‘Coffee would be lovely. I don’t mind what sort. Thank you,’ I said.

      Clover readjusted a bra strap, temporarily raising her left boob like a put about to be shot. ‘If you come round to mine, it’s just instant,’ she said, not quite managing to whisper.

      A tall woman came trotting over, horsey teeth, bright orange lipstick and frilly Peter Pan collar. ‘Clover, how are you? And you must be the new boy’s mother. How do you do? I’m Venetia Dylan-Jones. Welcome to Stirling Hall, or SH as we like to call it. How is your son settling in?’

      ‘Fine, СКАЧАТЬ