The Not So Perfect Mother: A feel good romantic comedy about parenthood

by Kerry Fisher

  Harley leapt out of the Land Rover. ‘Wicked! Come on, Orion, let’s go and help.’

  Before I managed to yell at them to stay away from the car, a huge spray of brown sludge shot over them both. They started slinging globs of mud at each other, slamming each other over and killing themselves laughing. Hugo and Marlon rushed to join in. Venetia’s son, Theo, shouted at them to stop, standing with his arms folded, looking just like his fussy father when a big splat landed square on his chest. Suddenly all the violin lessons, all the Mandarin tuition, all the Kumon maths rolled off him as he hurled himself at Harley, joining in with more spirit than I’d ever seen in him.

  One of the men suddenly stopped pushing the car and came running over to them. I steeled myself for them getting banned from the tank driving. Instead, the man pulled Orion into his arms.

  Clover’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘That’s Lawrence. Fucking hell. I haven’t seen him in six weeks and here I am in his old jumper. Not even lipstick.’

  ‘Go and say hello.’

  ‘I can’t. I feel sick.’

  We watched as he hugged Orion and Orion hugged him back, not giving a monkey that all his friends were there. Lawrence waved at Clover.

  ‘I’ll just go and pop the presents in the barn,’ I said.

  Clover’s hand shot out. ‘No, stay, don’t leave me.’

  Lawrence looked like a clay figure plastered from head to toe in gunge as he squelched up to us.

  ‘Hello love.’

  Clover had emotions bubbling up to her eyeballs. She gasped a hello. I couldn’t bear it. There were some things a wife had to do without a friend in tow. Sex and tricky conversations about relationships were in that category. Especially as last time I’d met Lawrence, I’d threatened to poke his brains out with a wooden giraffe. I waved a hello and raced off. The other men had taken a break from trying to budge the limousine, so I went over to Jen1. She was wearing a sweatshirt with a baby photo of Hugo and eleventh birthday nonsense all over it.

  I didn’t want to sound like I was crowing so I didn’t mention the car. ‘You’re very brave hosting a party the day before the ball. You must be so organised. Harley was really excited about it.’

  ‘We booked it as soon as we knew about the teachers’ training day. I wasn’t about to tell Hugo he couldn’t have a party because mummy was too busy with the school ball. He’s only going to be eleven once – my little baby is eleven! He can’t help that it’s his birthday today. I’ve been baking all week and freezing the food, so I only had to pull it all out this morning.’

  ‘Jeepers. When my kids were little, I used to move their birthday to a day more convenient to me,’ I said.

  ‘What? If Harley’s birthday was on a Tuesday, you’d move it to a Thursday if that suited you better?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you gave them presents on their real birthday, right?’ Jen1 stared at me as though I’d told her that I’d put whisky in their bottles when they were babies so they’d sleep while I went down the pub.

  ‘Wrong. I just moved the whole thing to two or three days later. They didn’t even know.’ I smiled and handed her the presents. I’d have liked to see her face when Hugo opened them. She’d asked me for some vouchers for the Royal Opera House – ‘He’s dying to go and see Così Fan Tutte’ – which didn’t really fit into my £5 a present allocation. She’d suggested a bird table to Clover – ‘Hugo loves watching the birds in the garden. We spotted a green woodpecker this morning.’

  Clover had snorted and said, ‘Poor little bugger, I bet he hates birds and dreads being dragged along to some vile opera when he’d rather go and watch some computer-generated rubbish at the cinema. I’m going to buy him a huge bucket of sweets and a catapult to frighten the birds.’ I totally ignored Jen1 and trotted off to Oxfam, thrilled to find Mockingjay, the third book in Suzanne Collins’ trilogy for 75p. I knew from Harley that Hugo was reading the second one so I decided that I would look thoughtful, if not generous. Anyway, ignoring what she’d asked for didn’t seem any ruder to me than dictating what people should buy in the first place.

  I looked over at Clover and Lawrence. Orion was still standing with his arms round his dad. He’d forgotten any ten-year-old cool.

  ‘What’s Lawrence doing here?’ I said to Jen1.

  ‘He and Leo are terrifically good friends and Lawrence has always wanted to drive a tank apparently, so Leo told him to come along. I meant to warn Clover, but I got waylaid making Hugo’s cake. It’s a chameleon. I had to use about six different colours of icing. It’s not as hard as it looks. A bit fiddly cutting out every little scale separately but it’s turned out fabulously well.’

  ‘I’m sure Clover will be delighted that Hugo has got a wonderful cake.’

  Jen1 stared at me as though she was trying to work out whether I was serious or not. I wondered whether Leo had ever had a good laugh with her in his life.

  Lawrence stepped away from Orion as Leo shouted to everyone to push the car again. Clover came over to me looking as though she needed to get out of there quickly before she made a show of herself. I raised my eyebrows. She shrugged. ‘We couldn’t talk because Orrie was there. Lawrence said he’d done a lot of thinking. And that he’d missed the children terribly. I couldn’t tell whether he’d missed me though. I made him agree to come round next week, so we can make some decisions. I managed to whisper that I loved him.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘No. He just gave me a tiny wink. I do really, really love him.’ Tears were leaking down her face.

  I took her arm. ‘Come on, let’s go. I’m not helping Jen1 get her stupid limousine out of the mud. Silly cow.’ And to prove that good things come to those who hang about long enough, Jen1 chose that moment to fall flat on her face in a mud bath, her blonde mane hanging round her shoulders like a muddy octopus. I waved a very cheery goodbye to Harley and leapt in the Land Rover, shoulders shaking.

  29

  Clover made me jump on the morning of the ball. It was 6.30 a.m. and nothing usually disturbed my porridge eating, apart from Weirdo who would roll onto his back for a tummy tickle. She came clattering in, rustling about in the cupboards for something less healthy than a bran muffin. It was probably a bit rich for me to feel grumpy that she’d come into her own kitchen but I’d never been a morning person.

  We’d already discussed five hundred – or possibly five thousand – Lawrence scenarios the night before, ranging from him suddenly fancying men to sleeping with prostitutes to falling in love with a school friend he’d found on Facebook. Clover kept wanting reassurances from me that she was, above anyone else we could think of, the perfect match for Lawrence. The problem was I didn’t know enough about him to have a clue. If what you wanted from marriage was a huge-hearted, generous and funny human being then Clover was your girl, but if you were in the market for shiny skirting boards, polished shoes and an ability never to run out of kitchen roll, then she probably wasn’t.

  At the crack of dawn I didn’t want to discuss Lawrence any more. I don’t think there was ever a moment in Clover’s life when her jaw wasn’t in constant jabbering motion. It normally didn’t bother me because she made me laugh, but I was having my own Mr Peters trauma. I’d ignored so many texts and phone calls from him now, there was no going back. I needed a bit of quiet time to work out what face to put on if he did show up at the ball. I didn’t really think he would – busman’s holiday and all that, at eighty-five quid a ticket to boot – but I needed to be ready on the off chance. I couldn’t do that while Clover needed an answer every two minutes. I did an ‘Oh my God, is that the time?’ and made a break for the van before she started debating whether the woman who changed the bin liners where Lawrence worked might have stolen his heart.

  My cleaning shifts passed in a blur. My customers would have nothing to complain about. Wherever I could, I took rugs outside and beat the shit out of them. I plumped pillows until feathers threatened to fly everywhere. I polished tables until my angr
y little face glowed back. It was nearly twenty years since I’d first been stupid enough to fall in love with Colin, but I couldn’t remember him ever getting such a reaction from me. Even though I was furious with Mr Peters, my belly kept doing that flapping fish thing every time I thought about him. I was going to have to take up boxing as a second career to stop myself going mad.

  When I got home, Clover was standing on her head against the wall. She’d covered her face in black mud.

  ‘I read somewhere that standing on your head boosts the circulation to your face. Thought it might help my wrinkles. This mud stuff is from the Dead Sea. Not sure that’s a selling point but it’s supposed to rejuvenate. Do I look eighteen yet?’ She was scissoring her legs while she balanced.

  I didn’t want to offend her by laughing, but I didn’t think Lawrence would be making similar preparations. ‘You haven’t got any wrinkles.’ I wasn’t being kind. Despite Clover’s beauty regime of a splash of water and a dab of patchouli oil, she had great skin. And her high cheekbones were beginning to stand out again.

  ‘I still look a bit chipmunky though. Still, can’t do anything about it now. I daren’t eat any more of that rabbit food. Popping lethal farts in his face isn’t going to win him back.’ Amen to that.

  I carried a huge bundle of ironing into the kitchen, leaving Clover to head off upstairs to ladle on the Immac. I needed to get the shirts out of the way so I could spend a bit of time getting ready. I wasn’t going to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear but with the dress Clover was lending me, if Peters did turn up, there was half a chance that he wouldn’t be shouting ‘Hallelujah!’ on his lucky escape.

  Seventeen shirts and many mad conversations in my mind with both Colin and Mr Peters later, I headed upstairs. I’d expected Clover to be twirling around dancing to Hot Chocolate like she normally did when she was getting ready to go out. But no ‘You Sexy Thing’, no ‘It Started with a Kiss’. ‘Clover? Clover?’ I knocked on her door.

  She appeared in a fluffy dressing gown, hair wrapped in a towel, her cheerful face all upside-down clown. I didn’t even have to ask what was wrong.

  ‘What if he doesn’t want me?’

  I hustled her into the bedroom. ‘There is absolutely no way he is not going to want you. Look at you, you’re gorgeous. Come on, let me blow dry your hair.’

  Time was ticking away. Six o’clock and we had to leave in an hour. I’d just have to look like shit. It wouldn’t change the outcome of my life. I tamed Clover’s blonde mane until it hung smooth and relatively frizz-free. She kept telling me to leave her and get ready but by now, the rebel in me had gained the upper hand and I felt like showing up in my tracksuit to prove to everyone they could chant ‘Chavarama’ at me and I wouldn’t care.

  I handed Clover a little brown bottle of Rescue Remedy, rolling my eyes as I did so. Rescue Remedy was in the same category as homeopaths, chakras and auras. Before I put it back in the bathroom, I had a quick swig. Tonight was a night for bet hedging. I zipped Clover up into her brand new lime green dress. She stepped into her silver stilettos. Any resemblance to a farmer’s wife had disappeared. She looked every inch the grand lady. The square frame of a few weeks earlier was now a curvy, busty silhouette. I turned her round to face the mirror. I could see belief and relief in her eyes.

  I left her trying on different earrings. I threw myself in the shower and dried my hair upside down on full blast until I looked like I’d been swept in off the moors. The taxi was hooting. I ran downstairs, zipping up the red dress, still in my Crocs, sandals in hand. I shouted goodbye to the kids who were playing a rowdy game of table football with the babysitter refereeing. Bronte came to the door and waved. ‘You look lovely. Not like a cleaner. Like a princess.’ I still felt like a cleaner.

  We bundled into the taxi where I put my hair up with the black plastic crocodile clip I used for work, did my make-up in a compact mirror and painted the two toenails that would be visible in the gorgeous gold Louboutins Clover had lent me.

  When the cab pulled through the gates at Jen1’s, I realised that a twenty-minute turnaround wasn’t the way to go. I’d never been to a ball before. I knew it wouldn’t be jeans and fleeces in the village hall, but I hadn’t expected it to be like a bloody film festival in the South of France. The entire driveway was decked with pink fairy lights, strung from tree to tree. Oil lamps burnt on the ground. At the side of the house a red carpet led to the marquee. Black dominated. Long, short, lacy, frilly, sequinned, with a bit of gold or red thrown in. Clover and I shuffled out. A flash went off in my face. I vaguely recognised one of the dads behind the camera. No doubt I was pulling a face like the village idiot after too much cider. I looked down. I had the bloody gold sandals in my hand and my sludge green Crocs peeping out under my dress. You couldn’t take the SD1 out of the girl.

  I wanted to hunch over and rush inside. Preferably to the ladies and not come out again. I knew Clover was nervous. That’s where confidence, paid for at finishing school, stepped in. As soon as she put an ankle out of the car, it was show-time. She was waving, joking, posing in a ta-da way for the camera, kissing other people’s husbands, never doing that awkward nose crash tangle. I followed her, smiling gawkily, trying not to show my teeth in case I had lipstick on them. As soon as we made it into the shadows of the marquee, I headed to the toilet, leaving Clover holding two glasses of Buck’s Fizz.

  I should have known that the school ball would have doubled the turnover of hairdressers, beauticians and shoe shops for March. I stood messing about in front of the mirror for ages. Hair clipped up like a cleaner? Or down like Morticia from The Addams Family? I quietly opened the cabinet under the sink to see if there was a brush or some perfume I could borrow but bleach and Glade were my only friends. I dragged my fingers through my hair and left it down. I made do with a big squidge of hand cream that I rubbed into my arms, calves and chest. Someone was knocking on the door. I shoved my Crocs under the sink, stuck the sandals on my feet and with a ‘Here goes nothing’, I stepped out. Straight into Serena. ‘Hello, hello again,’ I said, as though she was the person I’d most looked forward to seeing. My belly clenched so tight I wished Ram was there to see it. What the F was she doing there? She’d had her hair curled which made her look so much less sturdy-shoes-and-notebook and far more sex-plaything-draped-on-an-animal-skin. Everything about her was glossy. Bright red lips. Bright red nails. Beautifully plucked eyebrows. The sort of long glittery halter-neck dress that people over five foot nine could carry off in a way I never would. She’d better not have come with Mr Peters.

  She smiled. ‘We must stop bumping into each other like this. Nice to see you again – you look gorgeous. I’ll catch up with you later – you must tell me what you thought of the homeopath.’

  I nodded vacantly. ‘Mmm. Yes. The homeopath was interesting. See you later,’ I said, as she disappeared into the toilet. Homeopath. Shit. I’d have to make up some old guff.

  I found my way back to the marquee and stood against the back wall. The draught grouched across the top of my sandals. The heaters were on but cold gusted down my back. I wished I was at home. Even shitty Colin home. I couldn’t see Clover. But I wasn’t looking for her really. I was looking for Mr Peters, praying to my mother’s favourite saint, St Jude, the patron saint of hopeless cases, that he wouldn’t be there. I could hear Mum’s guttural voice in my mind, ‘Amaia, San Judas Tadeo, his help come at last minute. You believe, you pray, he always respond.’

  St Jude must have been on a coffee break or maybe I was too hopeless even for him. Mr Peters was there all right, with his back to me, talking to the headmaster. I knew he would look gorgeous in black tie. I reminded myself that he’d done a runner on me without a word, long before he knew that I was taking the kids out of school. He turned round. I deliberately looked towards the stage so I didn’t catch his eye. I had no idea what I’d find there. Pity, hate, anger? Or maybe he just wouldn’t give a shit. Better not to know.

  Clover appeared at my side. ‘I�
��ve seen Lawrence.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I lost my nerve. I dived into the kitchen.’

  ‘He must know you’re here, though. Why don’t you wait until he’s played the first set and then go and talk to him? He must be feeling nervous about performing in front of people he knows.’

  ‘You’re probably right. Here, let’s get some more champagne.’ Clover took a couple of glasses off a passing waitress.

  ‘Might be a good idea to take it easy on the booze, so you’re not stumbling into the plant pots when you do finally speak to him.’

  ‘Stop being so hideously sensible. I might be devastated tomorrow, so let’s have a bit of a hoot now.’ Instead of passing me the second glass, she glugged it down herself and scooped up two more. I took one from her. Thankfully someone banged a spoon on a glass and called us to our tables. Clover already had that slightly lairy look about her. Clover and I arrived at the table first. A huge orchid sat in the middle, surrounded by fake rose petals and gold sequins. Little gilt-edged place cards dictated where we sat. Clover started snatching them up. ‘Good, Frederica’s with us. Bad, so’s Venetia “my son’s violin playing brings a tear to my eye” Dylan-Jones. Oooh, lucky you, you’re next to Mr Peters. Who’s Serena Blake? She’s on his other side.’

  ‘Serena’s the policewoman who helped find Bronte.’ I thought I might cry. ‘I can’t sit next to Mr Peters. Will you swap with me?’ I was hissing in a sort of desperate way.