5

The following morning, the house was run like a military operation; there were six children to wake up, feed and get ready for school and nursery school. I woke up an hour before the chaos started and grabbed a quick shower. I was back on Planet Earth, clean and looking as if I was back in the land of the living. That was it. The Christmas holidays were over, we were back to the same routine, taking our lives into our own hands as I survived the pretentious mothers loitering at the school gates each day – My two least favourite words: school and gates.

I needed to prepare myself mentally for the next six weeks and then I would be rewarded with a week off to recharge my batteries during half-term.

I rallied all the children round, washed, dressed, clothed them, and then dished up bowls of cereal. As I placed the empty packets into the recycling bin, I thought I had never seen boxes of Cheerios be demolished so fast. A quick brush of the teeth and we were nearly ready to go. I packed satchels with lunch boxes full of tuna mayonnaise sandwiches made with chunky malted bread, and slices of leftover birthday cake wrapped up in a serviette – not forgetting leaky water bottles – Father Christmas had failed to remember to bring new ones – it must be his age. The children were bundled up warm with their feet stuffed into snow boots, their bodies wrapped up tightly in their coats, and woolly scarves draped around their necks to keep the warmth from escaping. I opened the door to start the trudge through the crisp snow, when I realised Penelope hadn’t emerged from her slumbers.

‘Penelope, it’s time for the school run, are you ready?’ I shouted up the stairs.

All six pairs of eyes looked up the stairs as Penelope appeared in her fluffy slippers and PJs, with her hair tied back in a bobble and not a scrap of make-up in sight, giving the impression she wasn’t about to go anywhere.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t face the school run today,’ she snivelled. ‘Everyone will be talking about me. Will you take the children?’ she asked, as she dropped her head and sniffled away her tears.

I knew from the antics of yesterday that I could presume Penelope was newly separated with a good chance of becoming divorced. It wasn’t that I lacked sympathy; I did truly feel her pain – which I had a feeling would also become my pain – but the children still needed stability from their mother and walking with them to the playground on the first day of their new term at school would have been a good start. Penelope needed to grasp the fact that some of the mothers do have a life other than at the school gates, and are not interested in tittle-tattle of any sort. But yes, granted there were others who thrived on gossip. Those mothers tended to stick out like a sore thumb; the ones you knew to avoid. They would usually congregate outside the gates in their little cliques with their posh pooches. Even the bloody dog would be wearing a Barbour jacket but I was sure it would be a fake, just like theirs.

I wasn’t sure how Penelope concluded she would be the topic of conversation in the school playground as there was only Matt and me who knew of the split and Rupert’s leisure activity from the previous night, and I wouldn’t be sharing that misdemeanour with anyone at the school gate.

Penelope was lucky that Camilla Noland had left the village, if the Farrier’s account of events was true, otherwise, there would have been a possibility that the whole village would have found out by now – Camilla was a terrible gossip. Anyway, I think Penelope was worrying over nothing. Surely, the topic of conversation would more than likely be the antics of BB that had sealed Frisky Pensioner’s fate. Actually, I owed BB; that was a job well done.

I hurried the older children out of the door; their arms interlocked to steady themselves and to avoid falling over onto the ice. After strapping Matilda and Daisy into the pushchair, I set off through the slush towards the end of the drive. Glancing over at the Farrier’s house, I noticed he was closing his front door behind him and that he and his daughter were en route to the school playground.

I waved, and he smiled back at me. They slipped their way down the path and caught up with the train of children. His daughter Rosie tagged onto Annabel, Penelope’s daughter, who was holding up the rear.

‘How are you this morning? Did you both settle OK in the house?’ I asked the Farrier in my most pleasant neighbourly manner.

‘It felt strange at first; once Rosie had fallen asleep, I helped myself to sleep with a couple of glasses of whisky. Funnily enough, there was no ice in the freezer but I did find a set of false teeth in a glass in a cupboard,’ he replied.

‘New start, New Year; please tell me you didn’t drink from the glass with the teeth?’ I said, and winked.

He laughed. ‘Of course I didn’t, but I just kept thinking they were going to start chattering at me and have a conversation.’

I didn’t really know what to make of the Farrier. I didn’t know if he had a lady in his life; he’d probably had a bellyful after his ex-wife. As far as I could judge, from yesterday, and this morning on the walk to school, he was a caring man, who looked after his daughter beautifully.

This wasn’t the impression that Penelope had given me, but we all should know never to judge a person on another person’s opinion, especially when it’s Penelope’s fuelled by Camilla Noland.

By the time we reached the school gates, the cold had captured our noses and each of us looked like a relation of Rudolf. The cliques were gathered as usual in their usual spots on the playground, and even with the snow on the ground, you knew which territory you belonged to. I could hear BB, but took a while to locate her, now she was minus the flea-ridden chinchilla. She was dressed in a puffa jacket and was sporting new Ugg boots – probably fake – but such different attire from that of forty-eight hours ago. The Farrier tapped my arm and told me he would catch me later on. He walked off along the gritted path in the of the school office probably to inform the teachers of Camilla’s abandonment of their only daughter, the death of his father, and a change of address.

I was standing in a corner of the playground, when I was suddenly aware that heads were turning in my direction. Maybe Penelope was correct, maybe they did all know what Rupert had been up to last night, and the fact she had left him high and dry.

Then I realised that they weren’t looking at me, but at a woman standing next to me, who was busy reassuring her daughter that today would be okay. A new mother; the Playground Mafia would be delighted and no doubt would be desperate to subject her to a full interrogation. They would soon be firing questions at her and trying to uncover her life story – her husband, his salary and more importantly what level reading book her daughter was on. Even the mother with the small pooch wearing the fake Barbour jacket that I had passed on my way into the playground had now tied the dog up at the gate and assembled with the rest of the clique so she wouldn’t miss a trick.

This time last year, that had been me. I wanted to tell the mother to run – to run like hell and get out of here. BB was straining her neck to catch a glimpse of the competition, let’s face it not much competition as this woman didn’t look like a hooker and actually appeared quite normal. In a bizarre twist of events, I noticed BB turn away almost immediately after spotting the new mum. It was a toss-up as to whether BB was going to throw up, pass out or maybe have a heart attack like her love interest had forty-eight hours earlier. Something wasn’t quite right; BB had become very quiet way too quickly. This to me suggested only one thing; there was history between these two women. There was more to her reaction than met the eye. If a stranger could silence BB in less than two minutes then I had an inkling she was going to be my kind of friend.

The mother was quite ordinary looking. She was of average height, and average build with plain bobbed brown hair. Her face wasn’t caked in make-up; her fingernails were clean; nothing out of the ordinary to report. She would be like a lamb to the slaughter once the Playground Mafia got their claws into her. She smiled at me.

‘Hi I’m Melanie, as you can probably guess, we are new. I’m not sure if it’s worse for the mother or the child on the first day of a new school.’

‘Pleased to meet you, I’m Rachel,’ I said with a friendly smile and stretched out my hand.

‘I feel like I’m under scrutiny,’ she grinned grasping hold of my hand and shaking it.

She was being watched all right, except by BB. The majority of the playground mothers were twisting their heads in our direction.

‘Don’t worry about that lot; I was new a little while back. Are you living in the village?’

‘Yes, we’ve moved into the house that is set amongst those beautiful acres of land on the outskirts of the village but unfortunately the acres belong to the local farmer not us. We can’t grumble though, it does provide us with some fantastic scenery. The house was repossessed from its previous owner about a month ago and I couldn’t believe my luck when we purchased it at an unbelievable bargain price. Well, when I say us, I mean my daughter and me; I’ve been a single mum for years. Well, since the day she was born,’ she added.

‘Are you from this area originally then?’ I enquired.

‘Years ago I lived around here, it didn’t work out at the time but I decided to move back recently, so here I am.’

I did wonder to myself why it hadn’t worked out but it wasn’t my place to ask her. That was her business. We had only just met.

Suddenly it struck me like a bolt of lightning; the property she had purchased was Camilla’s old gaff, the one that had been repossessed. Therefore, the Farrier's account was true, but I’m not sure why I doubted that it wouldn’t be, as what did he have to hide?

‘How many children do you have?’ Melanie asked.’

‘I’m a glutton for punishment, These four belong to me,’ I said patting their heads and naming them, Eva, Samuel, Matilda and Daisy and this is Little Jonny and Annabel who came for a sleepover.’

The children looked up at Melanie and smiled.

Wow! You have four of the little people, you must have the patience of a saint,’ Melanie said admiringly.

‘Something like that; luckily for me they are all very well-behaved children – must take after their mother,’ I joked.

Melanie laughed.

‘This is Dotty,’ I have just the one daughter.

‘Hello Dotty how are you?’

‘She’s a little shy and probably a little anxious with it being her first day.’

Squatting down before Dotty I said ‘Eva and Samuel were new last year; it’s a lovely school and you don’t have anything to worry about. This is Matilda and Daisy and they have their mornings at pre-school and nursery.’

Dotty looked up and smiled but still didn’t say anything.

‘Such an adorable name, Dotty,’ I said to Melanie.

‘Yes she was named after my Great Gran.’

‘The bell is about to ring, but if Dotty would like to come over and play to help her settle in please feel free to let me know; we could have a coffee too,’ I suggested.

‘Absolutely, thank you, what a lovely idea I will certainly take you up on the offer. It is so very kind of you,’ Melanie smiled. At that very moment, the bell sounded and all the children scampered off over the brown gritted ground towards their lines.

Melanie walked Dotty towards her teacher who promptly took her hand and with a huge friendly smile welcomed her to the school.

‘Don’t worry Mum, she will be absolutely fine but please feel free to telephone at lunchtime if you would like an update,’ suggested the kind teacher.

After kissing their children on the tops of their heads and checking out the new designer coats of other kids, the wave of mothers turned and headed up the playground towards the school gate.

Melanie was walking back towards me so I waited.

‘Was Dotty OK?’ I enquired.

‘Yes, she went in with no trouble at all,’ Melanie replied relieved. ‘It’s such a worry when they start a new school.’

Just at that moment, BB passed in front of us, glared awkwardly at Melanie, and then turned away sheepishly confirming my impression that there was history between the two of them.

‘Blimey! Do you two know each other?’ I enquired.

Melanie raked her fingers through her hair. ‘Our paths have crossed before. Do you have time for that coffee now? I can tell you all about it.’

I had things to do today: first on my list was to evict Penelope before she decided to get her feet firmly under our table, and the second was a visit to the lovely new shop in the next town that sold all sorts of crafty things. However, my interest was certainly piqued, and curiosity got the better of me.

‘Of course,’ I answered. There’s a quaint little coffee shop that’s just opened near the post office; it’s walking distance and near the pre-school so I will drop the children off there first. You can walk with me if you like.’

‘Perfect,’ came Melanie’s reply.