I gasped.
Jeez.
Matt looked at me quizzically.
‘They are swingers, you dope,’ I mouthed at Matt.
The look of horror spread across Matt’s face; instantly he coughed and cleared his throat.
Matt looked at Charles squarely in his eyes. ‘I think it may easier all round if you leave now please,’ he insisted firmly, handing him back his car keys from the bowl on the table. ‘This is not our thing.’
Awkward silence.
Immediately scooping up her gown Lois scurried through the front door. Charles followed but not before muttering, ‘You don’t know what you are missing.’
That was a chance I was willing to take.
Once the front door was safely closed and locked behind them we all fell about laughing. With only a minute to go until midnight we carried on with our festivities and pulled the party poppers.
Hearing the chimes of Big Ben ringing out from the television we popped the cork from the bottle of champagne.
‘Happy New Year,’ we all cheered.
‘Happy Birthday to me too.’
From that moment on we were lucky to avoid our neighbours from here on in, always making sure the coast was clear whenever we left the house.
Now, on moving day, as I drove away, I glanced into my rear view mirror. The Playground Mafia – still standing on the corner of the road – were about to become a distant memory, wiped out of my life forever as they got smaller and smaller. I knew once we arrived in the new village and the Internet was connected up to the Shack, I would have six fewer friends on Facebook. I had decided on a new motto – ‘don’t pretend, just un-friend’. That delete button was going to be very active.
Joining the busy motorway I put my foot down and glanced over and smiled at my grandma sat next to me – sorry, my mistake – I mean the dog. My four children were all strapped in, squashed amongst blankets, pillows and a picnic. I knew I had finally out-grown that place.
Apart from Aunty May there were a few people I was going to miss, including Margaret and Henry, who were both professional people in the finance world. It was safe to say Margaret was more successful than Henry but he liked to think it was the other way round. As the years went on, Henry had begun to get under Margaret’s feet – so she did what any kind wife would do – she encouraged him to play golf, which gave her hours and hours to herself. I thought this was a genius plan and it is a lead I will follow I’m sure in years to come when the kids can look after themselves.
At one point we used to live next door to them but I kept producing offspring and we could no longer fit them all into that house. Margaret and Henry were sensible and had stuck to two kids. In my eyes any friendship that exceeds the seven year mark is more than likely to last an entire lifetime. Margaret and Henry definitely passed my seven-year rule of friendship and were classed as true friends.
Margaret was genuinely upset to see us leave. Her parting words I will never forget.
‘Just remember, the first person who invites your kids for tea – AVOID!’
Margaret was convinced the Playground Mafia were all the same no matter what school you attended and these people would have an axe to grind. They will have caused animosity all around them, fallen out with everyone and usually want to influence your opinion of others.
There was one good thing about this move, I was moving closer to my best mate in the world ever. We were about to be joined up in the same county of Hampshire even though there would still be an hour’s distance between us – but what’s a few miles between friends?
Fay has known me since I was nineteen years old, she knows everything about me and keeps me on the straight and narrow. Over the years she has more than established herself as my best friend and there is no way she could ever be replaced. She knows way too much about me.
I first met Fay when I was employed to work as a civil servant in the local Job Centre. To the likes of you and me, that’s someone who gets paid to be spat at, shouted at and have computers chucked at their heads from time to time. Fay already worked there. After a few weeks I had been promoted from the girl who answered the telephone and got abuse to the girl who sat behind the front counter and got abuse. My whole day would sound like a cassette tape being played out, over and over again.
‘Have you done any work in the last fortnight?’
If the claimant had failed to seek employment they were immediately at risk of being interrogated by us, the end result possibly leading to the suspension of their benefits. The criteria for this process was pure and simple, we measured them on our make-believe shagometer – I think this scale is self-explanatory. If they were lucky and scored above a seven they had been successful and would receive their benefit as normal.
Fay and I hit it off good style. I think the partnership worked well. Her sevens on the shagometer were my mingers and my sevens were her mingers, so we knew we would never end up falling out over a bloke.
This job wasn’t all bad. There were a few hardcore ‘doleys’ who had signed on for years but we knew the score. If we didn’t give them hassle and paid their benefit on a fortnightly basis, they would look after us every Friday night in the local pub. Often we would end up in a slanging match with the mingers whose benefits we had stopped but the hardcore crew took care of them and made sure we came to no harm. Usually, they would keep them talking in the pub while Fay and I sneaked out of the toilet window to avoid being spotted. Such classy birds! If you have ever seen two women wearing pink hot pants, shinning down a drainpipe and ending up face down in a pile of geraniums under a pub window let me apologise to you now, as that would have been us. We were not hammered, it was usually too early in the evenings – we were just on minger-escape. At the start of the evening I convinced myself I was more Kylie Minogue in my pink sequinned hot pants but by the end of the evening I most definitely resembled Boy George. These times were great times; the best times.
Fay and I spent most of our time clubbing at Maxine’s nightclub, a classy joint on the outskirts of the local town. These nights were fun.
We would start out on a Thursday night usually booking the Friday off work and on more than one occasion arriving straight back at our desks on a Monday morning, often just in time to log on to the computer and start the repertoire.
‘Next.’
‘Have you done any work in the last fortnight?’
Breakfast usually consisted of pinching a pint of milk from the milkman’s float on our way past. Regularly I crossed paths with my father on the doorstep in the early hours of the morning when he was on his way out to play golf. Obviously Margaret had taken advice from my mother on the golf thing. We were the Thelma and Louise of the dole office. It’s such a shame you can’t keep these times forever but responsibilities get the better of you at some point.
Twenty odd years later Fay and I are still the best of friends and always will be. She’s definitely passed my seven-year rule of friendship numerous times over.
My other best mate, Andy, I have known since I was five years old. We attended the same local primary school together where his father was a teacher. Andy used to make fun of me because by the time we went to high school my long curly permed hair resembled that of a standard poodle. I was also the spitting image of my grandma. Maybe I wanted to re-live my youth years later when the first pet I owned was a poodle.
Andy has a theory about life: he thinks the world is full of muppets – and we are not talking about the puppet kind. He has an imaginary bus and every month he allocates the vacant seats to particular people – usually celebrities – and once all the seats are occupied the bus will be driven over the side of a cliff. Those on board will never cross his path again – or the general public’s for that matter – although of course it is all hypothetical!
Andy’s current passengers include Robbie Williams. I do not agree with this seat. I think he is a born entertainer and he definitely earns the title of International Sex God, unlike Charles aka Inte
rnational Sex Pest.
Next to Robbie is Katie Price. Enough said, I’m afraid; I am Team Peter Andre all the way. The next two seats are occupied by the Gallagher brothers. To be perfectly honest I agree that one of these brothers is a legitimate candidate for a seat on the bus but the other brother is my guilty pleasure and an extremely talented musician in my opinion. I love Noel.
Other spaces on Andy’s bus are occupied by Gervais, Barrowman, Walliams, Cowell and Savile. I twice wrote to Jim’ll Fix It as a kid – the first time I hoped to meet Roland Rat and the second time I wanted to dance with a pop group called Five Star. It was actually thanks to my mother that I didn’t end up on the show – she never posted the letters as she didn’t want the family name disgraced.
Andy and I have often argued about Simon Cowell’s seat on the bus. I think he should be saved because with four young children I need brain numbing TV to get me through a Saturday night. Sometimes two bottles of wine is just not enough and secretly if I could spend a night with Simon Cowell and Noel Gallagher – with Gary Barlow thrown in for good measure – my life would be complete. Andy has only one place left on his bus, to be filled at a later date.
I didn’t need to give much thought as to who would fill the seats on my bus. That was simple, they were going to be filled by the Playground Mafia.
These were the good memories that helped me during the long drive to my new life in the country. I was going to be on my own in a new house for a couple of days, settling the kids into a new school before Matt could join me. I was actually excited because it was a fresh start. What would the country life have in store for us? Little did I know…
One
January
The High School Musical gang thought we had left the north under a cloud – the only cloud we left under was a bloody snow cloud. To be precise, five inches of snow covered the ground when we entered our new village Tattersfield.
I continued to drive, fighting through the snow that was falling heavily. I imagined the snowflakes as little flies; the faces of the flies were identical to those of the mothers I had left behind. Hitting the windscreen with force they were squashed and disintegrated into nothing.
This was a move to village life. I wanted the good life. I wanted my children to grow up running and skipping through fields – coughing and spluttering with their hay fever. I wanted chickens and ponies and maybe – if it wasn’t asking too much – a normal person to be my friend who wasn’t in competition with me over the kids’ reading books. I spared a thought for little Troy and wondered what reading level he was up to now?
This village was sold to me as the perfect rural idyll; a great little place with its quaint village hall, blooming hanging baskets, friendly residents, good pub and local shops.
Feeling thankful our long journey was nearly over, I drove through the heart of the village. The weather conditions were still appalling and the snow was falling thick and fast from the murky grey skies above. I was exhausted.
Mixed emotions surged through my body, I was exhausted from the drive but excited too. I spotted the new house in front of us – finally we had arrived. Parking the car on our new driveway I glanced behind me and saw that all of the children were snuggled up, fast asleep, including the dog who was snoring lightly. Ahead of me stood our brand new home, our ‘dream’. A Shack complete with aluminium windows and the ugliest garage you have ever seen, stuck on the front of the house like an afterthought. Why did we buy this house? I’ll tell you why – this house had potential. Although it was small and needed serious attention, it had a massive plot of land and that plot of land was our motivation. The house dated back to the 1950s and in all likelihood hadn’t been decorated since then. It still had orange and brown swirly carpets, avocado kitchen units with a free-standing cooker and an original avocado green bathroom suite. In fact the previous owners had fully bought into the avocado theme. On top of the avocado bathroom suite were avocado tiles, an avocado shower curtain and, to complete the look, an avocado carpet. I knew immediately all the carpets had to go. The swirly ones certainly wouldn’t bode well with a hangover.
By far the funniest feature of the house – which is really difficult to explain – was the internal corridor. When you walked out of the back door, you stepped into a passageway of exposed brickwork and quarry floor tiles. Across the passageway was a toilet, utility room and coal scuttle. At one end of the corridor was the ugly garage and at the other was a conservatory. It was as though there was a collection of outbuildings that had been connected to the main house as an add-on. It turned out that the previous owner of the house had been the headmaster of the local school. He and his wife were highly respected in this village. I could imagine the headmaster pacing up and down this corridor just like the corridors in his school. He must have loved his job so much that he decided to create his own personal corridor in his home. When we first viewed the house I fell in love but this love affair had nothing to do with the colour avocado I can assure you. To the front of the house the views were spectacular, countryside that spanned for miles and miles. There was a certain calm and tranquillity about the place.
The children had moved from a newly decorated five bedroom house to a tin-pot Shack, but we kept reminding ourselves that it had potential. The children would need to share bedrooms and sit on an avocado toilet – at least until we could complete the renovations – but on the plus side, had a garden they could get lost in. I knew this move was the right thing. There were no Disney shops, McDonald’s, pretentious boutiques, or celebrity bistros. Apart from the pub and local shops, there was nothing – just open fields and the promise of healthy country living.
Once inside, the house felt icy, the radiators were stone cold, the heating wasn’t working, it was possible the boiler had been installed at approximately the same time as the avocado suite and we had no beds until the removal men finally turned up. Setting up makeshift beds on the living room floor, the children snuggled deep down into the warmth of their sleeping bags. Daisy was the only one with a proper bed; luckily for her I’d remembered to place her Moses basket in the boot of the car along with numerous blankets and, wrapped up tightly, she was a snug as a bug in a rug and murmuring quite happily.
By the time we appointed an architect, a builder and not forgetting we needed plans approved from the local council, it would be approximately a year before any reconstruction of the property could begin. We were under no illusion it was going to be anything but hard work with four kids. We would have to demolish parts of the house and rebuild it in stages but the land suited us fine.
When the first knock on the door came, the children and I just stared at each other. The dog tipped his head to one side in the funny way dogs do, trying to decide whether he should bark or not. I went to the front door and opened it. There was no-one there. Had I been hearing things? Then I heard footsteps and couldn’t quite work out where they were coming from. Suddenly the back door – that wasn’t really a back door at all because it was halfway down the ridiculous corridor – burst open revealing a rather round, portly man whose cheeks glowed like Alex Ferguson’s after dishing out a particularly ferocious hairdryer tirade. He looked like a posh version of Compo from Last of the Summer Wine. A kind of ‘smart-scruffy’ appearance, as though he spent four nights sleeping under a crisp, duck-down duvet but the other three rooting in bins and sleeping rough behind the skip at the local restaurant. Smart in the sense that he was wearing a suit but scruffy because the suit looked like it was probably bought from Montague & Burton in 1931 and his trousers were literally secured round his over-sized waist with a piece of tatty string. He was clutching a bottle of red wine and a card.
‘Welcome to the village,’ he bellowed.
So this was a villager, a true villager, a real villager in the flesh. The words of Margaret popped into my mind.
‘The first person who invites your kids for tea – AVOID!’
I felt the relief rush over me. It was OK, surely he hardly seemed likel
y to invite the kids for tea. He introduced himself as Mr Fletcher-Parker. Placing the wine and the card on top of the kitchen worktop he held out a short, stubby hand and took mine, placing his other equally stubby hand over the top in a tight vice grip. I struggled to retrieve my hand but after a bit of wriggling and a final wrench it was free. This was all very well and neighbourly but Mr Fletcher-Parker had shuffled up my corridor and burst through my locked back door uninvited.
I was still trying to decide whether I was pleased to meet him or not.
‘How did you get in, the door was locked?’ I involuntarily blurted out.
He could have been a magician or maybe a ghost, but my money was on neither.
‘I’ve been a key-holder for over twenty years,’ he announced.
‘Over twenty years,’ I repeated.
‘Yes twenty years,’ he replied grandly with a beaming smile.
Oh goodness, I wanted that key back.
I didn’t want to appear dramatic but if the truth be known I didn’t feel comfortable with a stranger having a key to my Shack.
‘How lovely, you must certainly be the world’s most trusting neighbour holding a key for over twenty years.’ I smiled.
I didn’t want to upset my new neighbour.
I took a deep breath and opened my mouth. ‘Well it will be no use to you any more. All the locks will be changed when the building work starts, which hopefully will be very soon,’ I said, knowing full well it wouldn’t be that soon.
A Year in the Life of a Playground Mother: A laugh-out-loud funny novel about life at the School Gates (A School Gates Comedy Book 1) Page 3
