The Only Boy For Me (30 page)

I can’t believe this is really it. Surely there should be something major going on, an announcement on the breakfast news at least. But apparently there will just be silence. Bastard. I ring up Leila who agrees that it’s awful, but then she spoils it by saying she rather admires him really, because at least he’s not prolonging the agony: he’s made up his mind and is sticking to it. I know what she means: one of the
things I really love about him is how determined he is. It’s a bit ironic really, as the thing he seems most determined about at the moment is leaving me and getting on with his new life.

Kate comes round to commiserate, and says I’m doing absolutely the right thing and if he really loved me he would realise that. This makes me cry. I become addicted to soppy love songs, and sit in the car after the school run singing along to Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’. I nearly jump out of my skin when a woman delivering the parish newsletter knocks on the car window and asks me if I’m alright. I’ve explained to Charlie that we won’t be seeing Mack again for a while, because he’s gone to work in New York, and Charlie has accepted this without a murmur. In fact he doesn’t seem to have noticed that his mother is distraught, except that he’s started refusing to get into the car unless I agree not to play any music.

I’m tucking him up in bed a few days later when he says, ‘Mummy, why are you so sad? Is it because I was ill? You don’t think I’m going to get ill again, do you?’

He looks very anxiously at me. Oh God. I’ve been indulging myself by wallowing in misery, and he’s been half terrified that the hospital has called to give me early warning of a relapse.

‘No, of course not, darling. I don’t think you’ll get ill again, I promise. I’m just a bit sad about Mack. I miss him, that’s all. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, sweetheart.’

‘Oh that’s OK. I miss him too. Shall we get a dog? That would cheer us up, you know, Mummy, and it would be a friend for you when I’m at school. And if Mack comes back one day it could bite him, and serve him right for going to America. What do you think, Mummy, can we, can we?’

I spend the next half-hour trying to convince him that
owning a Great Dane would not cheer me up and finally come up with what I consider to be an excellent argument: ‘Anyway, Buzz and Woody would be frightened by a great big dog charging round the garden. That wouldn’t be fair.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Mummy. It would be a tiny little puppy when we got it, and they could all play together and everything. Then when it got big they would be used to it. It might let them ride on its back. They’d love that.’

I try to persuade him that rabbits do not like riding round gardens balanced on the backs of huge dogs, but he’s not convinced. In the end I give up and bring the conversation to a close by simply walking out of the bedroom and switching off the light. Charlie promptly bursts into tears, and I feel guilty. I stand outside the bedroom door for a bit trying to decide what to do, and then go back in and we have a cuddle with me kneeling by the side of his bed and getting a severe crick in my neck. Eventually I get him off to sleep, and decide that I’ve got to pull myself together or Charlie is going to get really worried. I try to distract myself from thinking about Mack by writing my Christmas shopping list, but this is so depressing I end up watching
The Bodyguard
on video. Again. It looks like my new-found Whitney habit is going to be a hard one to break.

The end of term is looming, and the PTA has gone into overdrive. The auction is next week, and then the Nativity play. Miss Pike is desperately trying to give everyone a part, and not offend any parents. But there are only so many donkeys and sheep you can fit on a tiny stage at once, and the role of Mary is being hotly contested. Mrs Bates is lobbying hard, and keeps sending in bunches of flowers and cakes for Sophie to share with Miss Pike. But Miss Pike is wise to this, and finally selects a very sweet girl called Ellie.
Charlie has refused point blank to be a sheep and decided instead that he’ll be a pheasant, and Miss Pike agrees because she thinks it will be fun. So could I just make a pheasant costume, please?

No would be the honest answer, but I somehow find myself saying yes, and spend hours sticking feathers on to a pair of tights and a long-sleeved vest, and making wings from an old velvet dressing-up cloak. I use the feathers from an old pillow, but these are tiny and look pathetic, so I supplement them with special decorative feathers, which are bright blue, purple and red, and cost a fortune. When Charlie tries it on I’m overcome with laugher. He sulks and refuses to wear the costume. I finally persuade him he looks marvellous; Miss Pike agrees and Charlie relents and says he’ll wear it if he can have a special beak. I make a special beak out of tinfoil. Now he looks like a cross between a mad emu and an illustration of what will happen if you try to pluck your Christmas turkey yourself. He adores the beak.

I have a night out at the pub with Kate and Sally, leaving Roger at home to babysit all the kids. The children are all clamouring for pizza and a game of hide-and-seek as we leave. Roger is wearing his whistle on a string round his neck. It makes him look a bit like a PE teacher, and he says he bought it specially for evenings with under-twelves. The sound of a whistle being blown repeatedly accompanies us as we drive down the lane. We get to our favourite pub, which is in a nearby village, and discover there’s a quiz night on, with Our Vicar leading one team, and the chairman of the local Tories heading up the other. Deadly. We hide in the back room, and compete to see who’s going to have the most draining Christmas. Kate wins, as usual,
because she has to go to her mother’s. We’ve agreed not to talk about men or children, or we’ll get depressed. So we talk about clothes, and what we’d do if we won a million quid. Kate reveals a passion for villas in Barbados, and Sally says she would never cook again, ever. Kate is doing the driving tonight, so Sally and I get rather drunk. The quiz finishes and the vicar’s team wins, and then we organise an impromptu karaoke session. I find myself standing up with Kate and Sally belting out ‘I Will Survive’ at the top of my voice. We stagger back outside into the pitch blackness, and Sally falls down a hole in the car park and says fuck just as Our Vicar walks past. He pretends not to have heard, and we spend the entire journey home debating whether he could have identified exactly who was spreadeagled on the tarmac swearing. We decide he couldn’t, but Sally makes us promise not to tell Roger, because he is thinking of standing as a school governor and the vicar is on the selection committee.

When we get home we cross-examine Roger as to why on earth he wants to be a school governor, and he goes all coy and says, ‘Oh well, just a thought.’ And then Sally explains that he read an article in the paper about how vital it is to have school governors who are not just local busybodies. Apparently schools now manage entire budgets on their own and cannot rely on those whose only real qualification for the job is a strong desire to read the confidential school records of other people’s children. We all agree with this, especially given Mrs Harrison-Black’s recent comments to a mother of a slow reader, and elect Roger as our number-one choice.

My Christmas shopping list is now getting so long I need two separate sheets of paper. I decide to drive up to town
early and get a couple of hours of shopping in before wandering into the office. Barney is taking everyone out for a Christmas lunch, which last year went on until midnight. I park in the usual car park and manage to find a space without having to drive up the bouncing metal ramp. Then I spend a fraught couple of hours dashing between Liberty’s, Hamleys and HMV.

The prices in Hamleys are extortionate, so I only buy the things not readily available in local toyshops. I finally get into the office at around eleven, desperate for a coffee and a nice little lie-down. I’m trying to work out if it’s too risky to have a nap on the sofa in Barney’s room, as he’s not turned up yet, when Lawrence comes upstairs and says he’s sorry to hear things didn’t work out with Mack MacDonald. And did I know he’s the toast of New York, and has been seen with a succession of beautiful young women on his arm? I’m just about to punch him when Barney arrives, and has clearly overheard the last bit of Lawrence’s little heart-to-heart.

‘Hello, darling. You look gorgeous, as ever. What’s old Lawrence wittering on about now? Telling you all about his latest plans for the office furniture, is he? He’s going to sit on the door with a special little peaked cap on, so he can keep an eye on everyone and not miss out on any of the gossip. Aren’t you, Lawrence?’

Lawrence tries to laugh, but Barney isn’t finished.

‘Oh and by the way. If he’s telling you about Mack MacDonald, don’t believe a word of it. I bet he’s hating it. All those hideous American piranha women scenting fresh blood – he’s probably gone into shock. Anyway, Lawrence, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like a word with Annie.’

Lawrence goes back downstairs devastated to be excluded from the conversation.

‘Thanks, Barney. But I bet he’s having a ball.’

‘More like having his balls off. That job won’t be easy, you know. And if he does end up with some New York princess, then good luck to him. He’s going to need it. What happened with you two, anyway?’

‘Oh nothing really. He wanted me to jack it all in and follow him to New York, and I didn’t want to.’

‘Quite right too. What would you want to live there for? And anyway, I need you here. Shame, though, you seemed really happy.’

‘I was. Now can we stop talking about this or I’ll end up in tears.’

‘Been a bit of a rough year for you, really, hasn’t it, darling?’

‘Well, yes and no. I mean, Charlie got well again, and I had some good times with Mack. Don’t look at me like that; I’m trying to be positive.’

‘That’s the spirit. Look on the bright side. You might meet another little fucker who’ll totally bugger you about next year – think what fun that’ll be.’

‘Thanks, Barney, that really helps. I can’t tell you how much I count on you to cheer me up.’

‘Don’t mention it. Anytime. Now, before we go off to lunch I’ve got you this. I don’t want Lawrence to see you open it or he’ll sulk all afternoon. Anyway, it’s just to say thanks, it’s been a great year and all that bollocks.’

He goes bright red and gives me a Liberty’s bag, containing the most beautiful velvet scarf I’ve ever seen, in a mixture of blacks and purples. I saw something similar this morning and was tempted to get it for Lizzie, until I saw the price and decided I’d better go for something that wouldn’t require a bank loan.

‘Oh thank you, Barney, it’s beautiful.’

When I lift it up to try it on, a piece of paper falls out and flutters to the floor. I pick it up and realise it’s a cheque, for a thousand pounds.

‘Just a little bonus. To say thanks for all your hard work.’

‘Oh, Barney, I don’t know what to say. Thank you.’

I give him a hug and a kiss, and he goes rigid with embarrassment and says, ‘Right. Glad you’re pleased. Now for God’s sake get off. You’re squashing my jacket.’

The office lunch goes very well, but everyone gets very drunk and as I’m driving I can’t join them, so I end up creeping off at around five and meeting Leila for a cup of tea.

Leila is thrilled with Barney’s present, and wants to help me spend it immediately. I eventually manage to persuade her that I would rather lie down in the middle of Oxford Circus and get flattened by a bus than go shopping again today.

‘Anyway, you haven’t told me, how’s the Flying Dutchman?’

‘Oh, shaping up very nicely, thanks. I’m trying to pace myself a bit this time. Bloody difficult, though, he’s gorgeous. I’m seeing him tomorrow, actually, to look at his plans for the house. In fact I’m almost as excited about the plans as I am about seeing him again – do you think that’s a bad sign?’

‘No, don’t be daft. It’s probably all mixed in together. And even if he turns out to be a pillock, the house will look great. So you can’t lose really, can you? Anyway, never mind about that. When are you coming down to see me and Charlie? We’ve got presents for you.’

This is guaranteed to send Leila into a frenzy, as she adores being given presents. She’s incredibly hard to buy for, since her idea of deferred gratification is to wait until
after lunch before she gets out the credit cards, so this year I’ve gone for the basket-of-goodies approach. I’ve bought her loads of little sparkly things and Charlie has made her a picture frame using about half a ton of glitter and four yards of tinsel. He has put in it a photograph of Leila holding him when he was about an hour old, and done her a special picture with the words ‘I love Leila’ on it. Pink features heavily in his colour scheme, along with a great deal of silver and gold. She’ll love it. I tell her about Lawrence’s helpful news about Mack, and she says she is sure it’s bollocks and that Barney is far more likely to be right. She offers to ring her friends in New York and find out, but I tell her I don’t really care. We both know this is a huge lie but pretend it isn’t, and move on to talking about designs for her new bathroom.

The night of the Nativity play arrives, and I take Charlie to the village hall. We are greeted by a very odd procession of small children trooping in dressed as assorted farmyard animals. It’s freezing, and I sit in the audience with Kate for hours before the performance actually begins, hearing lots of muffled thuds and bumps from behind the curtain. Sally and Roger creep in very late and sit in the seats we’ve saved for them. Apparently William had a last-minute crisis with his sheep costume. The tension in the audience has built almost to breaking point when the curtain finally opens and the show begins. I’m in tears almost immediately: a very tiny boy in a donkey costume falls off the stage, and a small sheep stands up and waves to his mum. Mary is quite overcome and cannot speak until jabbed in the ribs very sharply by one of the angels. Probably Sophie Bates, but it’s hard to tell under all that tinsel.

I’ve forgotten to bring tissues, so I’m reduced to sniffing
quite a lot, but luckily half the audience is doing the same. The school has very sensibly banned people from taking pictures or using home video recorders, because last year there was almost a fight as two dads jostled each other for the perfect spot at the back of the hall. This year Mr Jenkins is making a video which the PTA will sell to boost funds. I’m not sure he’s quite got the hang of the automatic zoom button, as he keeps rushing forwards and then walking backwards very slowly. But I’m keeping a low profile because Mrs Harrison-Black suggested I should get one of my ‘director chaps’ to turn up and do the video, and I refused. I explained that all the directors I know would rather stab themselves repeatedly with forks than be involved in anything amateur, but she wasn’t convinced. Then I said that they’d need a full crew and would want to remove at least one wall of the village hall to get the lighting right. Mrs Harrison-Black thought Our Vicar would not like the hall being dismantled, and thankfully the subject was dropped. But I could tell she thought I was being unnecessarily artistic.