Читать книгу Mum in the Middle: Feel good, funny and unforgettable - Jane Wenham-Jones, Jane Wenham-Jones - Страница 11

‘And you’re complaining?’ Fran swept a layer of colouring books, pens, iPads and beakers from one end of the table, so I could put my coffee down. ‘The only time I ever get to be on my own is in the loo. And then one of them usually bangs on the door!’

She began to sift through sheets of paper. ‘Freya brought home a list of all the stuff they need for their wild woodland project and now I can’t find it.’ She ran an exasperated hand through her short fair hair. ‘It was right here.’

‘Is the school good?’ I asked, pulling some of the lists and envelopes towards me and beginning to flick through them too.

There was an order form for home delivery of paraben-free cleaning products, the guarantee card for a new washing machine, a programme of events put on by the Northstone Primary PTA and a letter home about head lice.

‘Brilliant,’ said Fran, distractedly. ‘Northstone is great for kids. Jonathan was going on about moving nearer to London when he got his promotion but I said, no way.’

‘Well, now there’s the new train …’

‘Precisely! And so what if the drive takes forever anyway, he should try being here. At least he could listen to the radio in peace – oh shit, the twins!’

There was a wail from above and Fran rushed from the room. Her three-year-old, Theo, appeared in the doorway and looked at me solemnly. ‘Mummy is knackered,’ he said matter-of-factly.

‘Tired,’ I corrected. I drew him towards me to give him a hug. He was wriggling away, wiping his cheek, as Fran returned with a toddler on each hip. She did look exhausted. I remembered her in her cottage near the High Street when my kids were young and she was working as a buyer for Harvey Nichols. And her expression if a sticky hand reached for any of the bright pots or crystal candle-holders she’d collected on her frequent trips abroad.

Now this stylish family house a couple of miles outside the town was adorned with fingerprints, childcare paraphernalia filled the hall and the tiles beneath the table were littered with crumbs.

‘I’ve got Bella and Silas this weekend too!’ she groaned, depositing eleven-month-old Jac on my lap and shifting his sister Georgia to her other side as she filled a red tumbler with water for Theo. He scowled. ‘I wanted juice,’ he said.

‘Too much sugar,’ said Fran, briskly. ‘You can have some chopped mango and a carrot.’ Theo scowled a bit more.

I looked at the three children and thought how gorgeous they were, with their big brown eyes and Fran’s blonde curls. Of course she was worn out, with four kids and Jonathan’s two teenagers from his first marriage staying every other weekend making six.

‘I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving those embryos in a deep freeze …’ she’d said when she’d told me she was going to have ‘just one more’ after Theo. Knowing the years of despair she’d gone through before IVF treatment and baby Freya, all the while having to be the yummy step-mummy to Jonathan’s then-small children, I got that. But I was glad I’d done it early and mine were all grown up. So I could have, according to Caroline, the time of my life.

I jiggled Jac, who was grizzling and straining away from me towards his mother, still warm and fretful from his afternoon nap. ‘Can you manage Georgia too?’ Fran plonked the little girl on my other leg and began to chop vegetables. ‘And I want a biscuit,’ said Theo darkly.

Fran ignored this and pulled out a kitchen chair. ‘Sit.’

Theo clambered on.

‘Hands.’ The small boy held them up obediently while Fran wiped them. Fastened to a blackboard behind her head was a page pulled from a magazine containing a list of the ‘best brain food for the under-fives’. One of the photographs beneath the headline looked suspiciously like a plate of liver. Good luck with that one, I thought silently, as Theo poked suspiciously at his carrot – a bunch of which were also illustrated.

‘Have you got a nutri-bullet yet?’ Fran asked me. ‘So much better for you than juicing because you get the fibre from the flesh and skin too. Slows down the fructose hit. I mix berries with frozen spinach, a pear and cherry tomatoes …’

As she rattled on about the benefits of a daily avocado, beetroot and papaya paste, I glanced around at the granite work surfaces and the various stainless-steel lumps of gadgetry and thought about my own tired-looking kitchen with its wonky cupboard doors and chipped tiles. It was going to be my first project and I’d spent hours creating beautiful designs while I was waiting to exchange.

But since I’d moved in, my budget for home improvements was dwindling rapidly. I needed to ask Jinni’s advice on where I might get a decent trade deal and find a fitter. She’d been over, in high dudgeon, when she’d discovered Ingrid had been on Twitter protesting against Jinni’s planning application, keeping up a diatribe against the whole anti-DFL thinking, for which she held Ingrid entirely responsible, while I nodded and gave the dining room its second coat of Morning Gold. Until Jinni eventually drew breath and popped home for a tiny brush – with which she expertly touched in around the light switches – and a bottle of Rioja.

I filled Fran in on this excitement – I couldn’t bring myself to talk about my mother – and enquired whether she knew either Jinny or Malcolm or Ingrid, but she didn’t. Jonathan had met Malcolm once or twice and she knew Ingrid by sight after seeing her in the paper.

‘She led all the fuss when they cut the bus service,’ Fran said dismissively. ‘And she runs some blog called Fight from Within about how we should all lobby the local MP for change.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m a bit busy for all that, frankly.’

I looked at my old friend, tidying up the paperwork on the table as she searched for the elusive list, while her children shifted restlessly in my now-aching arms, remembering a time when she cared deeply about many issues. She’d banged the table and waved her wine glass at a bloke in a bar in Fulham, while rowing over international trading agreements, and then emptied the contents in his lap to illustrate her views on the falling pound.

‘So you don’t care about rising house prices and the DFLs taking over the town and pushing the youth off the property ladder?’ I enquired.

Fran looked surprised. ‘Not given it much thought,’ she said, screwing up an envelope and making a pile of a few more. ‘I know it’s getting a lot more expensive to live here. Jonathan said house prices near the station have risen twenty-five per cent in the last year, but …’ she shrugged. ‘That’s happening all over the place. Who can afford London these days?’

‘But you haven’t seen any bad feeling – you know like that woman in the paper who had her tyres slashed?’

‘The people here are great,’ said Fran firmly. ‘You get a few moaning of course – and that Ingrid likes a demonstration. She was at the school handing out placards when the swimming pool closed – but nobody cares that much.’ She got a carton of almond milk out of the fridge and began pouring it into two lidded cups. ‘Theo – don’t mash it like that.’

The small boy scrunched his hand into a fist. Mango pulp oozed out between his fingers.

‘Mainly we talk about our kids. When the twins are a bit older, I’ll help more with the PTA–’

‘So what have you been up to apart from the children?’ I asked. My opening gambit that I’d been feeling a tad isolated had been met with neither empathy nor any suggestion of a night out. ‘Lucky you,’ Fran had said dryly. Now she looked at me blankly.

‘Do you go to a book group or anything?’ I tried. ‘I did in the old house,’ I continued, recalling the complacent way I sometimes gave it a miss if it was cold out or there was something good on TV. ‘I was wondering if there was one here …’

‘Have you Googled?’ Fran said vaguely. Then as Georgia gave a piercing scream in my left ear, she held a piece of paper up in triumph. ‘Found the damn thing!’

‘Well no,’ I said. ‘I was wondering if we might–’

‘Wellingtons, that was it. I knew there was something major I had to buy. You wouldn’t believe how quickly her feet grow.’ Fran shook her head. ‘Small children cost a fortune.’

I thought about the credit card bill I’d opened that morning. ‘So do big ones.’

‘And I haven’t got empty jars, they all go in the recycling. They ought to be taking plastic anyway – suppose they fall over and cut themselves. I’ll suggest freezer bags.’

‘Perhaps they’re going to collect insects,’ I offered. ‘You can’t put grasshoppers or earwigs in a bag. They’ll get squashed.’

Fran looked alarmed. ‘I was imagining wild flowers … They’re only year one.’ She shuddered.

I looked at the clock. ‘What time does Freya finish?’

Fran swung round. ‘Oh God. Now! And then she’s got her modern dance. I’ve got to go!’ She grasped Georgia, who screamed again. Jac burst into noisy tears. ‘Theo! Shoes!’

‘Shall I fetch her? Or stay here with the others while you go?’

Fran was now darting about the kitchen scooping up children and changing bags, plastic cups and keys, looking wild-eyed.

‘We’ve got tumble-tots while Frey’s in her class,’ she said breathlessly as she pushed Georgia’s arms into a padded jacket and I tried to do the same to Jac, who went rigid and cried even harder.

‘Sorry it’s been rushed, Tess,’ she said, when we were eventually strapping children into car seats. She came round to my side of the car and gave me a brief, hard hug. ‘I miss you, I really do – I want to talk to you and catch up.’ She looked at her watch and shot back towards the driver’s door. ‘Oh Christ, Frey’s teacher will give me that look again!’

I blew the children a kiss. Theo, banging a shiny green alien figure hard against the rear glass, returned it straight-faced. ‘We’ll get together soon …’ Fran was calling through the open window, as she reversed out of their drive. ‘When we’ve got more time …’ She stopped the car for a moment, stuck her head out and gave me a crooked smile. ‘When I have, anyway …