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

He picked at his ear, examined it and wiped it on his tracksuit. ‘The kids won’t thank you for it. Mind you, I might be able to up me rates and find a cushy job with them parents. Some of them must have a nice mansion that could do with a lick of paint,’ he said.

Once Colin started down the ‘What’s in it for me?’ route, I knew that I just had to sneak up and bolt the door behind him. ‘Can we try it for a term? Morlands is never full. People are petitioning not to go there, so I’m sure we’ll get them back in if we need to.’

Colin started scrabbling about on the floor for the batteries to the remote. He flicked on the West Ham vs. Arsenal match he’d recorded the night before. I needed to finish the conversation before he started singing the theme tune, ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles’. God, he was starting to hum. I had about five seconds left.

‘Colin, listen to me.’

‘That ref needs bloody glasses. Oy, four eyes! Christ, he wouldn’t see a foul if they kicked him on the nose. Did you see that, Maia?’ he said, hurling an empty Coke can at the telly and sending an arc of brown drops shooting up the front room wall. He made no move to get a cloth.

I stood in front of the telly.

‘Mai! Out the way!’

‘Shall I send them for a term?’

‘Do what you want but don’t come crying to me when it comes back to bite you on the arse,’ he said, trying to peer round me.

I went straight to my handbag and dug out the solicitor’s silver embossed card.

CHAPTER FIVE

The freezing January mornings didn’t agree with my van. It chose the kids’ first day at Stirling Hall to start making a chugging sound from the engine. I was terrified that it would grind to a halt with the effort of climbing over the speed bumps along the horseshoe-shaped drive at Stirling Hall. Christ, the school had its own one-way system, a slow-moving line of super-shiny, top of the range cars coming in one entrance and spilling out the other like a Motor Show parade. I had visions of breaking down right in the middle of it all, forcing everyone to squeeze past me. Harley was oblivious, hanging out of the window with his cap sitting at a jaunty angle on his blond curls, shouting about cars.

‘Wicked, Mum, look, look, there’s a Bentley. A Bentley Continental. Wow. Do you think it actually belongs to one of the parents? Cor, I saw one of them on Top Gear. Do you think they might let me have a ride, Mum? Will you ask them for me? Who do you think it belongs to? Do you think they got it new? Jeremy Clarkson says they cost £130,000. Do you think they paid that for it? Cool!’

‘Let’s see how it goes, Harley. Maybe the boy will be in your class and he might invite you round,’ I said. I peered at the woman behind the wheel. She didn’t have a hairstyle, she had an official hair ‘do’. A big puffy creation that would surely involve rollers. Definitely not a chop with the kitchen scissors in a shaving mirror and a head-upside-down blast from the hair dryer. I’d rather spend the entire day pulling matted hair out of plugholes than have her pass judgement on Harley over a cheese spread sandwich – or a bloody lobster tail or whatever Stirling Hall kids had for tea.

Bronte was clutching her rucksack on her knee, staring straight ahead, looking just like Colin when his horses fell at the last hurdle. That morning I’d gone in to wake her up all jolly and sing-song but she told me to get lost, she wasn’t bloody going and held on to the duvet for grim death. She actually swore at me. Little madam. I lost sight of my skipping through the daisies voice in favour of a ‘you’ll do as I say’ bellow. I practically dragged her out of bed by her ankles. She got dressed with a slowness that was right on the edge of defiance. She hated the red and green plaid skirt, said it was frumpy and minging and wanted to wear black trousers like she had at Morlands. I helped her into the blazer I’d spent a week’s wages on when I could have bought one for £20 second-hand. I had to walk away when I saw her twisting the buttons, complaining that they didn’t do up properly. Harley had been twirling his cap round his finger for fifteen minutes by the time Bronte slouched out the door. Just as I started to tell her she looked wonderful, she stared at me, her dark eyes narrowing and said, ‘You look horrible. Everyone will know you clean up other people’s shit.’

I decided not to speak to her. My hand tingled with the desire to give her a good slap but attitude adjustments would have to wait for another day. For now, getting her to school was enough. As I looked for somewhere to park, a Mitsubishi Pajero got so close to my bumper that the woman must have been trying to get into my slipstream. I glared into the rear-view mirror and noticed that my foundation looked a bit orange and I’d missed a couple of black hairs on my upper lip with the tweezers. Great. I couldn’t wait to be known as Whiskers.

‘Wind the window up, Harley. Stop shouting.’

‘Mum, there’s a Porsche Boxster. Jeremy Clarkson says you only buy one of those if you can’t afford a 911,’ said Harley, twisting around in his seat and pushing Bronte onto the gear stick.

‘Ouch. Get off,’ said Bronte. She shoved Harley back.

‘Stop pushing her, Harley. Close the window, now.’ I tried not to shout in case I couldn’t stop.

‘This is brill, Mum,’ said Harley, ignoring me and pointing out an open-topped BMW.

I gave up and turned my attention to Bronte. ‘Hey, Bronte, look at those lawns. They look like somewhere the queen might have a tea party. I bet they play rounders there in the summer. What do you think? Doesn’t it look amazing?’ I said, hoping to get a small glimmer of reassurance from her. She shook her head.

I tried again. ‘Come on, love. Let’s try and get off to a good start. Everyone feels a bit shy on their first day, isn’t that right, Harley? You’ll soon make friends.’

Harley tried to help out. ‘Yeah, come on, Bront, it’ll be okay. Anyway, Dad says we can go back to Morlands if we don’t like it here.’

Bronte turned her mouth down so far at the corners, it almost made me laugh. ‘Dad said Stirling Hall was for tossers, anyway. Though he thought I looked really pretty in my uniform.’

Good old Dad. Colin had wandered about the kitchen in his boxers, eating toast without a plate, sounding like he was sucking up his tea through a straw. He made no attempt to help as I double-checked the football socks with named garter, the ‘laces, no Velcro’ rugby boots, the navy ‘no logo’ PE shorts, and every other bloody bit of sports equipment an Olympian in the making could need. I had refused to let myself mourn the days of any T-shirt and a tracksuit, out loud anyway.

I tried to reverse into the one tiny slither of space I could find that wasn’t blocked by a monster 4x4. The Mitsubishi woman, ‘Jen1’, leant on the horn as I had a second go. She was obviously in a hurry to get somewhere. Her plastic surgeon probably, judging by her ugly mush. I wished her a flat tyre as I finally managed to park up.

We got out of the van. I adjusted Bronte’s hat and looked away from the hands I could see waving behind the Mitsubishi’s shiny windscreen. I was never going to beat a Stirling Hall mother in a spelling bee but I’d fancy my chances in a slanging match. I’d get Jen1 back another day.

‘Why was that lady waving at you, Mum?’ said Harley.

‘I’ve no idea.’ I shuffled him forward.

‘She was trying to talk to you. Won’t she think you’re rude? You told us to be polite to everyone we met today.’

Just when the toothpick holding my patience together looked about to snap, Bronte threw her new rucksack down and ground to a halt like a fat old Labrador that’s decided it’s not walking one step further.

‘Mum, I’m not going. I want to go back to Morlands. We should’ve started in September. January’s too late. Everyone will have made friends and I won’t have anyone to play with.’

I dug deep. Ferreted about for a kind word. Beamed myself into my other world as Julie Andrews, dancing about in The Sound of Music singing ‘Do-Re-Mi’, like I did at work when people who were too lazy to pick their pants off the floor started having a go at me. The voice in my head was screaming, ‘You ungrateful cow. Here I am making sure you get a fantastic education and all you can do is whine your arse off.’

I managed a reasonably calm, ‘It’s too late for that. Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine. I spoke to your teacher and she seemed really nice.’ In fact, all I could remember was how I’d nodded blankly at Bronte’s teacher as she talked about ‘prep’ for a good fifteen minutes until I realised she was on about homework.

I stood on the edge of the sea of green blazers belonging to the prep school kids. A steady stream of older children, dressed in grey, dodged around the little ones and headed over to the senior school building on the far side of the cricket pitch. It had towers. Towers! I would be so proud if Harley and Bronte ended up there. However, the odds weren’t looking too hot if I couldn’t even get Bronte through the doors of the prep school today.

Harley stood beside me, relaxed, as though we were queuing for the cinema, happily gawping round at the cars. The other kids were swarming through the stone arch into the playground beyond. In my hurry to get away from Colin and his repetitions of ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain’ in stupid voices, I’d forgotten to re-read the letter and find out where I needed to take them. I glanced around for a mum I liked the look of. Which was more difficult than it first appeared. Not the woman with a long, grey plait down her back. Bloody lentil-eater, for sure. She looked like she knitted her own knickers. Maybe the one next to her. No, she had a briefcase. And stilettos. Obviously rushing off to some mega job in the City. No time for her to be a traffic warden for me when there was a bonus to be had. God, this was hopeless. I felt homesick for the mothers at Morlands with their flip-flops, dark roots and Marlboros, shoving packets of crisps at chubby children and talking about EastEnders as though it was real life.

Bronte looked up at me. ‘I’m not bloody going,’ she said, her eyes darting around for an escape route. That got me moving. I walked straight up to the nearest person, a young woman with peroxide blonde hair and skintight jeans, holding a spaniel on a lead.

‘Excuse me, do you know where 4H or 5R children need to go?’

‘Excuse?’ she said, untangling herself from the spaniel’s lead. ‘My English very bad.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said, waving her away. Of course. No nice Morlands grannies with a fag in their mouths and a toffee in their handbags here. Stirling Hall’s nannies came with a paid-for car and a foreign accent. Bronte was beginning to cry. Just as I was thinking up my most horrible threat for her, a blonde woman, no Penelope Pitstop hairdo, no red lipstick, no handbag with big gold clasp, came over to me. She was wearing jodhpurs. And if they were really only boobs under her sweatshirt, she had an exceptionally large pair of knockers.

‘Hi, are you okay? I heard you asking about 4H and 5R? Is this your first day? It’s always mayhem on the first day of term. I’m Clover, by the way.’ She sounded so like Joanna Lumley in Absolutely Fabulous that I thought she might be taking the piss. She thrust out a hand with nails that looked like they spent time in an allotment. My scabby old mitts looked quite refined by comparison.

She turned to Bronte. ‘Listen, my twins are in 4H.’ She called over two identical girls with curly white blonde hair trapped into scruffy ponytails. ‘This is Saffy and this is Sorrel. Just remember that Sorrel has the mole above her left eye. Even I can’t tell the difference sometimes.’

Bronte made no attempt to say her name, so I filled in the blank. Clover bent right down to Bronte’s level, hauling a bra strap against gravity as she went. ‘Do you know what, Bronte? Your teacher is really lovely. Do you like art? Mrs Harper does the best pictures of horses. She’s taught Sorrel to draw a really amazing pony. Will you let the twins take you to class? Look, hold Sorrel’s hand, she’ll show you where to go.’

Miraculously, Bronte’s snivelling puttered to a halt. She glanced down at Sorrel’s hand, which looked as though it was fresh from digging about in a guinea pig cage. I thought I might have a rebellion to deal with, but Bronte put out a stiff little paw for Sorrel to hang on to while Clover kept up her running commentary. ‘Bye bye, darlings, be good, Saffy, remember not to imitate Mme Blanchard’s accent. And do try and eat your apple at break. Sorrel, did you put your fountain pen in your bag? And tell Mrs Baines that you’re not doing drama next term.’

‘Fucking hell, Mum,’ Saffy said. ‘Shu’ up.’

Bronte looked the most animated I’d seen her all morning. I had to remind myself to close my mouth.

‘Saffy, I’ve told you before about dropping your t’s. Don’t let me hear any more glottal stops or you’ll be mucking out the horses on your own all week.’

That ‘t’ thing was becoming a bigger part of my life than I’d expected. At this rate we’d all be in the van chanting the prof’s favourite tongue twister: ‘Betty Botter had some butter …’ Although I couldn’t help feeling that Clover had overlooked something beginning with ‘F’.

She waved the girls off. I felt my shoulders come down from around my ears as Bronte scuffed away with the twins without looking back. Clover turned to me. ‘Sorry about that. I can’t stand glottal stops, can you? Now, let’s get your boy sorted out. What’s his name? Harley? Orion can drop him at 5R. Orion, Orion, come here.’

Orion raced over, lanky limbs flailing, tie pulled to one side and mud down the front of his blazer. His curly brown hair was cropped too close to his head so it stuck out at right angles which made him look a bit odd, but he had a friendly, open face. ‘Yes?’

Clover dished out instructions to Orion, who turned to shake Harley’s hand. Bloody hell, it was like the Freemasons round here. Harley managed to get his hand out of his pocket before it got embarrassing.

‘Cor, are you named after a car? That’s wicked. Me dad called me after his favourite motorbike.’

Orion looked puzzled. ‘I’m not named after a car. I’m named after the Hunter, the star constellation. My dad does astronomy. It’s his hobby.’

It was Harley’s turn to look puzzled. ‘Not a Ford Orion then?’ But he sounded indignant, as though Orion had somehow messed up the origin of his name. Not humiliated because, among my many other failings as a mother, I hadn’t been teaching him flaming star constellations since he was six months old. Watching all that confidence, all that optimism stuffed into one baby-faced ten-year-old made me ache to hug him. Luckily, the bell rang and Harley gave me a quick wave, a slightly impatient ‘I’ll be fine, Mum’ and walked off with Orion.

I heard Harley ask, ‘So what car’s your dad got then?’

I turned away. I didn’t want to hear the question – or answer – in reverse. ‘Thanks for sorting out Bronte. She was really worried about coming here this morning,’ I said.

‘My pleasure. It’s difficult starting halfway through the school year, and January’s such an atrocious month, but I’m sure they’ll absolutely love it here. It’s a marvellous school, they’ll settle down in no time. You must come to our class coffee morning next week. Monday. We have one at the beginning of every term so all the mums can catch up. It’s at Jennifer’s, Hugo’s mum, he’s in Harley’s class. I’ll pick you up, if you like.’

‘No, no, it’s okay, thanks anyway.’

‘You will come, won’t you? I’ll send home directions in Harley’s school bag. You’ll get to know all the mums so you can sort out playdates. Anyway must go, horses need exercising. Do you ride? No? Bet you do something far more fucking sensible like Pilates. You’re lovely and slim. Big tits always been my downfall.’

With that, Clover, the mother of a couple of herby girls and a star constellation strode off in her wellies to a muddy old Land Rover. Fucking Clover had saved the day.

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, thank you. I think he’s finding some of the work quite hard but hopefully he’ll catch up.’

‘I think reading’s key at this age, isn’t it? Theo’s a great fan of Beverley Naidoo.’ Venetia had the sort of face on that meant she expected us to be impressed. I obviously didn’t get my eyes open wide enough.

‘I don’t think I know who she is.’

‘Of course you do. She’s written all those books about racism and prejudice in South Africa. You must know Journey to Jo’burg, No Turning Back,’ Venetia said. ‘It’s terribly important for our children to understand other cultures.’

‘I don’t think I’ve come across her.’

Venetia looked as though she thought I might be having her on. She battled on. ‘Of course, he likes fantasy stories as well. Anthony Horowitz, David Almond and Harry Potter.’