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

Bronte came out, hat on straight, duffle coat buttoned up to the top. Her voice sounded really clear when she said, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Peters.’ Not quite top end of town posh but not council estate rough either. My proud mother moment was snuffed out as I realised that Mr Peters, the Head of Upper School, was beckoning to me. As I squeezed forward through the gaggle of parents, Jen1 was coming the other way. I caught her eye and smiled but she looked straight through me. Maybe she could only recognise people dressed in Jasper rather than George.

‘Would you have a moment to pop into my office, Ms Etxeleku? Take a seat in reception, I’ll be right with you,’ Mr Peters said.

I nodded, running through the checklist in my head of all my crimes for that week – only ironing cuffs and collars on the school shirts, not ironing Harley’s rugby shirt at all, chocolate digestives for snack two days running, forgetting to check Bronte’s English homework for capital letters and full stops. I was about to disappear through the door, when Clover pulled on my arm.

‘Hi. If you’re going to be a few minutes at the school, why don’t I relieve you of Bronte? She can play with the twins. You can pick her up when you’ve finished. We live right at the end of the lane that runs adjacent to the Royal Oak pub. You can’t miss us, it’s the only house down there.’

Bronte was tugging at my T-shirt and hopping from foot to foot. ‘Can I go with Clover, Mum? I want to see their guinea pigs and rabbits. Please?’

‘That would be great. I just need to find Harley and tell him to wait here for me,’ I said.

Clover fiddled with the toggle on her anorak. ‘I think Harley is waiting for you in Mr Peters’ office. Why don’t you bring him over too and stay for supper when you’ve finished?’

Usually Clover talked loud enough for the whole class to share her thoughts. Her low voice and the way she kept shaking her head at Orion were making me twitchy.

I mumbled a thank you and dived into the entrance corridor lined with posters about five fruit and veg a day, anti-bullying slogans and the benefits of cycling. The squeak of my Crocs on the grey tiles was getting faster and faster. At a corridor crossroads, I saw signs for the physics lab, dance studio, music room but no bloody reception in the business of receiving mothers who were only used to classrooms numbered one to six. Mr Peters caught up with me in a waft of spicy aftershave. ‘Ms Etxeleku, thank you so much for coming in. I won’t keep you a moment, I just wanted a word about Harley.’

‘Is he okay?’ I said, almost having to trot to keep up with his long strides.

‘He’s fine, absolutely fine.’ He steered me left into a room with three chairs arranged in a semi-circle in front of a huge mahogany desk. Harley was in the middle one, with his head bent forwards, slumped on the padded velour armrest. He didn’t bother to look round.

‘Take a seat, Ms Etxeleku.’

‘Hello, love,’ I said, reaching for Harley’s hand. He squeezed my fingers tightly, needily, staring straight ahead without blinking. His breath was whistling in and out of his nose.

Mr Peters sat on the edge of his desk, his broad shoulders silhouetted against the window. His black shoes were smooth and shiny, teacher-like, but I could see an inch of purple and lime spotty socks peeping out under his trousers. He ran his hand over his short hair. ‘This is a bit of a delicate matter, Ms Etxeleku, but there’s been a little problem today between Harley and one of his classmates. From what I understand, there was a bit of teasing that got out of hand, and then the matter seemed to take rather a violent turn.’

‘What do you mean, violent turn?’

‘Harley punched the boy in question in the face.’

I didn’t speak. I pinched the bridge of my nose and stared down at the hole in the knee of my tracksuit bottoms. All the bad decisions I’d not so much made as allowed to happen – letting Harley mix with the older boys on the estate, shrugging off the odd punch-up in the back alley, not being there when he came home from school – crushed in on me. I’d done my best, which was crap and the crap was about to hit the fan.

Harley tugged at my hand. ‘Mum. Mum. I’m sorry. He was calling me a pikey. He said that you dressed from jumble sales and Oxfam, that Dad stole car wheels for a living and that we lived in a caravan under the bridge by the station. Dad said if anyone laughed at me, I should punch them hard enough to make their brains rattle.’

The desk creaked as Mr Peters stood up. He loosened his tie slightly. ‘Ms Etxeleku. This wasn’t all Harley’s fault. Hugo was being very unkind. At Stirling Hall we have a zero-tolerance bullying policy and we do take it very seriously.’

Oh God. Hugo. No, please God. ‘Jennifer’s son?’

‘Yes, I have already seen Mrs Seaford this afternoon. Hugo did sustain a cut eye and some bruising to his cheek, so as a precaution, she is going to take him to A&E to get him checked out.’

I could feel sweat running down my back. ‘Will the police be involved?’

‘As I am sure you will appreciate, Ms Etxeleku, we cannot allow boys to take matters into their own hands, whatever the provocation. Mrs Seaford wanted to involve the police but I think I have managed to dissuade her from that course of action on the grounds that her son’s appalling behaviour would also come under scrutiny.’ His dark eyes were serious but kind.

I kept swallowing but I couldn’t seem to get any moisture in my mouth. I looked at Harley. He wasn’t making any noise but huge gloopy tears were pouring down his face and making dark circles on his white shirt. I patted his hand gently and he got up and poured himself into my arms, burrowing into my shoulder until I could feel the damp heat of his face.

‘May I talk frankly?’ Mr Peters said.

I nodded, though I knew that ‘frankly’ meant Harley would be emptying his desk.

‘Your son has great potential. I think Stirling Hall could help mould him into a fine young man. He is struggling with the academic work, but we have set up some one-to-one tutoring so we could potentially bridge the gap. He has real sporting talent and Harley’s drama teacher tells me he can see star quality there.’ A cufflink clinked against the desk as he leaned back.

I was getting hot under the weight of Harley leaning into me. I tried to relax my shoulders while I waited for the ‘but’.

‘Stirling Hall does have many boys from, let’s say, very comfortable backgrounds. However, the philosophy of the school is to ensure that every boy who comes here accesses the same opportunities. That does, of course, mean that all parents need to support our Platinum rules that include “We solve our disagreements by talking to each other”. I understand your circumstances are quite unique, so a period of adjustment is to be expected while Harley learns what is required of him.’ He unbuttoned his jacket. To my ironing lady’s eye, his blue striped shirt looked hand-tailored.

My heart lifted a little, a bit like it did when I thought I’d missed the bus but a big queue was still standing there when I came racing round the corner.

‘But—’ he said.

There it was. I looked to see how far it was to the door. I wondered if I could make a dash to the van before I started blubbing.

‘But we cannot have boys brawling. I know that some head teachers turn a blind eye to these sorts of disputes, but this is not the way of Stirling Hall.’

A shooting pain through my back tooth reminded me to unclench my jaw.

‘So. What I propose is that I suspend Harley,’ Mr Peters said.

‘Suspend? What? How long for?’

‘I think it would be fair to suspend Harley for two days and Hugo for one, which means Harley would be back in school by Thursday. I do have to say, Ms Etxeleku, if there is another occasion of this severity, Harley is likely to face expulsion. You may wish to convey that to your husband.’

Many years of practising good manners obviously helped him to leave out ‘your arsehole of a husband’.

‘Of course. Thank you, thank you so much. Harley won’t let you down again, will you, Harley?’ Something relaxed in my body as though someone had been standing on my shoulders and had finally hoicked themselves over the wall. Mr Peters smiled down at me. He looked quite boyish when he smiled, almost cheeky, probably not much older than me.

Now that a second chance was on the table, I wanted to stop patting Harley’s shoulders and drag him outside by the ear. Bellow at him for being so bloody stupid. Shake him till his teeth rattled. Ban him from ever talking to anybody on our estate over the age of five again. Ground him until he was twenty-five. Or maybe I just wanted to cry.

Harley peeled himself off my shoulder. His mouth was twitching with the effort of holding back his tears. He shuffled from one foot to another, staring at the floor, then finally seemed to gather the energy to speak. ‘I won’t let you down. Thank you very much, sir. And sir? I’m really sorry.’

‘You’re a good lad. Now get out of here and learn to keep your fists to yourself. You come to me first if there’s a problem.’

I wondered if Mr Peters had a wife.

Harley and I drove towards Clover’s. We took the turning by the pub where the smart townhouses gave way to fields and farmhouses and the road became an unsurfaced lane. Filthy splurges of water shot up the side of the van every time I clunked down a pothole. At the very end, hidden by mature sycamore and chestnut trees, stood a huge ivy-covered building with a dark slate roof. The windows looked as though random bits of putty were keeping them in their peeling wooden frames. Wellies, riding crops and scooters lay tangled in the front porch. Harley and I weaved our way to the door, dodging mini mountains of horse manure. I lifted the lion’s head door knocker. Judging by his green teeth, Brasso wasn’t on Clover’s shopping list.

Clover opened the door in a black swimming costume patterned with huge poppies. She looked like the potato men Bronte used to make – a big round body stuck on thin little cocktail sticks. Unlike Sandy, she was a stranger to the Brazilian, the Hollywood, and apparently, the Bic. I felt as though I’d blundered in on her in the shower, but she waved us in with all the confidence of a size zero model.

‘Come in, come in, hello Harley. Sorry, the girls really wanted to go for a little dip so Bronte borrowed a costume, hope you don’t mind. Orion’s in the pool as well, so do you want to go in, Harley? I’ve been in with them but you can all keep an eye on each other now, can’t you? Don’t worry about taking your shoes off, the whole place is so fucking filthy, keep meaning to get on top of it, but with the horses we’re always dragging in more muck so it seems a bit of a waste of time.’

We trailed behind Clover. The couldn’t-care-less-ness of someone who could greet near strangers in a swimsuit despite having gargoyles of cellulite hanging from her buttocks thrilled and shocked me. She led us into a huge kitchen with an Aga at one end where Y-fronts, stripy tights and hiking socks were drying, filling the room with the smell of damp sheep. A ginger cat as big as a pillow stretched out on the long pine table.

Harley grabbed my arm. ‘Is that a real bird?’ he said, pointing to a blue parrot on the dresser.

I was doing a double take when Clover said, ‘That’s Einstein. We found him in the garden about four years ago.’

‘Wicked! Does he talk?’

‘Yes, he says a few things. Orion is really good at getting him to speak, he’ll show you later.’

I wondered if it pooed everywhere. Clover led us out of a back entrance and into a massive garden full of apple and pear trees. ‘The pool’s out here. Careful where you walk. Orion is supposed to be on bleeding doggy-doo duty but he’s not very diligent.’

She grabbed Harley’s arm and steered him through the mud to the pool house, where shouts and squeals rang out. Through the steamed-up glass, I saw Bronte giggling away as she tried to balance on a blow-up dolphin and keep up with the twins. Orion was sitting on the end of the diving board, swinging his legs. As soon as we stepped through the door, he leapt in and swam over to us.

‘Hey, Mike Tyson. Are you coming in?’ Orion was on his own in finding Harley’s fisticuffs funny, but I felt relieved that at least one child was still speaking to him.

‘We’d better go and let you get on,’ I said to Clover.

‘I’ve got nothing to get on with. I’m going to dig out a pair of swimmies for Harley, then I’ll get you a drink.’

She found a towelling robe for herself and a pair of Speedos that would have been tight on Action Man for Harley. He stiffened beside me, backing towards the pool door like a dog on its last journey to the vet.

‘Have you got boxers on, Harley? You have? Why don’t you swim in those?’ I said.

For once Harley did as I suggested, stripping off his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor and dive-bombing the girls. I envied and resented his ability to bounce back when the skin on my face was so tight and pinched that it felt like someone had tied my ponytail too tight.

‘Come on, I bet you need a drink,’ Clover said. I hoped Clover-speak was the same as Sandy-speak and that I wasn’t going to get a mug of stewed nettles and cat hair. Back in the kitchen she threw open the fridge and hooked out a bottle. ‘Drop of shampoo?’

Champagne on a Monday night where I lived was because someone had got out on appeal. ‘Just a drop, thanks, cos I’ve got to drive back,’ I said.

‘We’ll call you a cab. You can leave the car here.’

Clover must have seen the cash register tinging in my eyes. ‘Anyway, we can worry about that later. You can still have a glass.’

I wiped the rim of the tumbler she gave me with the bottom of my sweatshirt while she had her back turned.

‘Bottoms up,’ Clover said. Just as we clinked glasses, the kitchen door opened and a tall, slim man with dark, curly hair came in. It had to be Lawrence, Clover’s husband. He was an older, more groomed version of Orion. In his suit, he looked as though he’d stumbled into Glastonbury by mistake. Clover introduced us and he said hello without really registering me, just raised an eyebrow at the champagne bottle. He poked about among the roasting tins, colanders and saucepans piled high in the butler’s sink, pulling out a rainbow-coloured welly before he found a mug.

Although nothing suggested he was the least bit interested in who I was or what I was doing there, Clover filled him in. ‘Poor old Maia’s had a terrible day. Hugo was beastly to Maia’s son, and they got into a bit of a punch-up and Hugo came off worse. He’s an arrogant little sod, he had it coming to him.’

‘Like mother, like son. Jennifer’s pretty arrogant herself,’ Lawrence said. I was surprised to hear a Mancunian accent.

‘She’s not that bad. At least she does all the class admin like the fete and tickets for the school play that no one else wants to do.’ Clover topped up her champagne. I shook my head as she pushed the bottle towards me.

‘Don’t be so naive. She loves lording it over people. If Jennifer hadn’t managed to trap Leo, she would still be touting cheese and pickle rolls around Canary Wharf,’ Lawrence said.

‘That’s not fair. Lawrence works in the same department as Jennifer’s husband, Leo,’ she said, turning to me.

‘It is fair. You’d think someone who tracks Japanese investments for a living would have enough brains to remember the condoms when he’s shagging the sandwich trolley dolly.’ Lawrence tried to squash an empty jar of coffee into an overflowing bin.

It was so rare for anything to surprise me in a mouth open, bloody hell sort of way, but Jen1 being from the wrong side of the tracks shot onto the list. I sieved through my dealings with her for the tiniest clue that her diamond studs had once been hypoallergenic lumps of glass from Topshop. Nothing. The woman had studied the middle-class stage and learnt her lines well. That accent. Christ, Jen1 could topple Queen Lizzie II off her throne if she got any posher. Still, the mean part of me would always want to start singing, ‘Prawns and mayonnaise? Bacon butty? Egg and cress?’ whenever I saw her now. On the other hand, if I ever managed to get posh myself, she’d be able to sing, ‘Pan scourer, bog brush, bin bag’ at me, so for now, I’d just sing it in my head.

I tried to look as though I wasn’t even following the conversation. I didn’t want to give Lawrence a reason to ask me about my background. Usually when I said I was a cleaner, a fidgety silence followed while people searched for something good to say about that ‘career choice’. Except Clover who said, ‘Oh my God, don’t tell Lawrence, he’ll want to marry you.’

Just as I was about to go out to call the children in, they came trooping back, trailing great puddles of water and demanding food. I started rounding mine up to leave when Einstein came flashing through the air to shrieks of delight from Harley and Bronte. Lawrence ducked as Einstein whistled past his head, which made him knock over his coffee.

‘Fucking parrot. I’m going to wring its neck one of these days.’

The parrot sat perched on the top of the kitchen door. I swear it was smiling.

‘Poor old Einstein. He doesn’t have very good spatial awareness any more. It’s his age.’ Clover started mopping up the spill with a tracksuit top.

Harley was over by the door, trying to get the parrot to speak. ‘Pretty Polly, hello, Einstein?’ Einstein replied by squirting out a white and brown jet of parrot poo down the door, which had the girls squealing with laughter.

Orion came over. ‘Listen to this. What’s your name?’

‘Einstein,’ came the parrot’s raspy voice.

‘Where do you live?’ Orion waved some kind of seedy snack at him.

‘In a fucking mad house,’ Einstein said, before snatching the snack and cracking it open.

‘I spent ages teaching him that.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lawrence shaking his head.

CHAPTER NINE

Stirling Hall seemed to have a fundraiser almost every week. What they were raising funds for was a mystery, given that there were only so many grand pianos, Mercedes minibuses and Olympic-sized trampolines a school could need. A couple of Saturdays before February half-term it was Fete Day – yet another occasion when Bronte sulked off in front of me and I trailed behind questioning whether I’d made the right decision to send her here.

She stomped into the school hall, without even glancing at the stalls around the edges, as though welly-wanging or marking the treasure on the papier mâché island were beneath her. She was carrying the shoebox she’d covered in old wallpaper and filled with baked beans, bread rolls and teabags destined for the local old people’s home. The night before, she’d moaned that all the other mothers went out shopping specially for the Fete Day charity donation rather than bunging in anything that wasn’t out of date in the kitchen cupboard. Since the prof had died and Cecilia had given me the boot, I was fast becoming a charity case myself. I hoped that Edna, Gertie or whoever was unlucky enough to get our box would forgive me for the budget biscuits that Colin said tasted like bus tickets.

Just as Bronte was hiding her box in the corner, Jen1 pushed past me in a way that made it difficult to know whether she had underestimated the size of her arse by a few centimetres or was looking for a punch-up. She hadn’t glanced in my direction since the Harley–Hugo fiasco. I should have gone over and had a straight conversation with her, but a quiet word was never an option given that the pipe cleaner people she hung out with always surrounded her. Now, at school pick-up, I had to steel myself to get out of the van. I wanted to be oblivious to her but instead I felt the drain of energy it takes to ignore someone.

One thing it was impossible to ignore, however, was her ‘charitable contribution’. All that was missing from her wicker basket was a man with a trumpet. Snuggling in the red tissue paper were pineapples, goji berries, organic lentils, wheat-free muesli, miso soup and a coconut. I imagined some poor sod with arthritic fingers trying to hack into the coconut or getting goji berries stuck in his false teeth when all he wanted was a cup of PG Tips and a ham sandwich. Maybe my baked beans weren’t so bad after all.

‘Bowl of adzuki beans, anyone?’

I swung round. Clover was a sight to behold in turquoise flares that only a six-foot model should attempt, not a stout woman on the wrong side of short. She pressed a couple of pounds into the twins’ hands and told them to ‘bugger off and have a go on a few stalls, but don’t buy any crap’.

‘Otherwise you find that all the junk you got rid of for the white elephant stall is replaced with someone else’s shite,’ Clover said, taking my arm. ‘Now, let’s get this tattoo stall up and running.’

Through the doors leading out into the playground I could see Lawrence setting up the football nets for Five for a Prize. Even though it was drizzling slightly, I wished we were outside. Instead, we fought our way through children clutching coins and grandmas with pushchairs going nowhere fast. Our table was at the side of the hall between the Knock Down the Can and the Wild West shooting stall, where dads were making seven-year-olds cry by hogging the plastic revolvers to prove that they weren’t hotshots only at the office.

It was sweatier than the Tube in a July rush hour. I stuck my hands in the bowl of water we were going to use for the tattoos. A few mothers hurried their children past. ‘No, no, tattoos are so common. No, I don’t care if they wash off, they look awful.’

Most parents seemed amused, as though they were somehow walking on the wild side themselves by letting their kids have a seahorse on their wrist. They wouldn’t be thinking it was such a jolly jape if their darling Henrietta, Rory or Oscar came home with a big declaration of love for Chardonnay or Gav tattooed across their backs in ten years’ time. Or a great big spider like Tarants.

A queue formed and Clover and I pressed on butterflies, hearts and flowers, throwing sticky little fifty pences into a Tupperware container. I’d hardly had time to look up when I heard someone call my name.

‘Ms Etxeleku. How do you like your first Stirling Hall fete?’

Mr Peters still managed to look formal in jeans and a white linen shirt. I felt as though he’d come to tell me off and my mind immediately started running through apologies, excuses and big fat lies. I should have stuck to a non-nutty ‘lovely, thank you’. Instead I said, ‘Would you like a tattoo?’ and then wanted to kill myself. Heads of Upper School probably didn’t go in for a lot of body art.

He surprised me. He laughed. ‘Very rebel without a cause. What do you suggest?’

I pulled out a new sheet, managing to knock my wet sponge into my crotch as I did so. ‘What about a devil?’

‘I leave being naughty to the kids these days, during the week at least. No, I fancy something a bit exotic,’ he said.

Clover leaned over. ‘Mr Peters, that’s favouritism, choosing the new girl on the block. What about all us mums who’ve been slaving away every year since our kids were in nursery? I’ve got a lovely big dragon here I could stick somewhere secret.’

I envied Clover. Being so at ease with it all. But I also wanted her to snout out so I could have Mr Peters to myself, like a child with a protective arm round a bowl of crisps.

‘Thanks for the offer, Mrs Wright, but I don’t want to get too subversive now, do I? Maybe next year.’ He turned back to me. ‘What about that Chinese character?’

‘Okay, where do you want it?’

There was the slightest pause. A tiny curve upwards at the side of his mouth gave me a glimpse of the man he might have been before he dedicated his life to setting a good example.

‘Left or right arm?’ I said. Without looking, I knew that a slow flush would be turning my neck and chest blotchy. I pretended to pick something up off the floor so I could dab at the sweat on my upper lip. Mr Peters sat down and rolled up his sleeve. A forearm made for arm-wrestling. Smooth olivey skin, quite hairy. Big hands but slim fingers and clean fingernails. Everything about him was tended, clipped and cared for. I bet his skin smelt of something lemony. And I bet he didn’t leave whiskers round the sink.