The Little Things Read online

  Our poor, lovely lollipop man, Norman, who greets every child with a smile and a sweet every afternoon, sums it up perfectly: ‘I think some of these drivers should have gone to Specsavers, don’t you, Hannah?’

  I am feeling the weight of my newfound hopelessness one drizzly Wednesday morning as I battle to school, Ollie under the plastic cover of his pushchair, the twins either side, dressed for a rainforest expedition. I propel us across the playground towards the entrance.

  ‘Hannah, squeeze under this brolly,’ Gill calls, beckoning me over as we huddle under an umbrella the size of a four-man tent and I say goodbye to Noah and Leo.

  Gill is thirty-four, divorced and a yoga teacher, which may or may not be the reason she seems to glide everywhere. She has pretty, Tinkerbell features, framed by boxy glasses, above which her eyebrow arches with innuendo directed at the better-looking school dads.

  ‘Morning, all,’ says a voice behind us, and we turn to see Laura and Natalie, who drop off their respective children before heading over.

  ‘Has anybody else been roped into the PTA meeting tonight?’ asks Natalie. She worked for Clinique for years, though is defiantly makeup-free every time I see her, and retrained as a midwife four years ago.

  ‘Yes, me,’ says Gill.

  ‘Well, I’m neither a parent nor a teacher, so I’m definitely out,’ I tell her.

  ‘That wouldn’t stop them,’ Laura hoots. ‘If you can make cornflake cakes and sell a raffle ticket, they’ll have you handcuffed to a school fête stall before you know where you are.’

  Laura is the only one of them who works full time, as some sort of clerk for an insurance company. She started telling me about it once, before stopping and saying, ‘It’s okay, Hannah. Everyone’s eyes glaze over when I try to explain,’ at which point I blustered protestations, before dropping the subject in case she subjected me to some sort of test about it.

  As a bunch, they are gossipy, funny and good company, and they’ve welcomed me with open arms. But I still can’t shake the feeling that I don’t quite belong around here.

  ‘I’m starting to think even a cornflake cake is beyond my capabilities these days,’ I mumble, though immediately wonder why I’m drawing attention to my inadequacies.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Hannah.’ Laura nudges me. ‘We’ve had years to get used to all this. You’ve been thrown in at the deep end – with four kids. Try treating it all like it’s a work project – get yourself some Excel charts or something to put their homework schedules on. You’ll feel far more at home.’

  I wonder for a moment if she might be onto something, that I just need to be a bit more methodical.

  ‘Oh, look who it is,’ Natalie murmurs under her breath.

  I look up as a tall, immaculate-looking woman in a long cream coat sweeps to the school door. ‘You’ve still had no apology, then?’ Laura asks.

  Natalie shrugs. ‘What do you think?’

  She goes on to recount a tale to me about how Caroline – the woman in the cream coat – accused Laura’s daughter Scarlet of picking on her daughter Ceri. The story goes on at length, during which time my eyes blur and I go in and out of consciousness, but by the end of it one thing is clear: Caroline is the Antichrist in cashmere.

  I was used to office politics, but nothing seems to compare with the politics of the school gate, which could rival the fall of the Roman Empire sometimes.

  Take Smug Dad for example, whose name, it turns out, is Michael Blankstone. Unbeknown to him, and without the slightest bit of effort on my part, I now know enough about him to write three volumes of his biography. Not that it’d make particularly pretty reading.

  He’s a doctor (I knew it – kind of!) who works in A&E at the Royal Liverpool Hospital. Three years ago, he walked out on his wife Diana, a sweet and fragile-looking woman with honeysuckle hair and bee-stung lips who rocks the vintage look beautifully (as opposed to me, who look like the sort of woman who befriends pigeons when I attempt it).

  I know her only to say hello to, and because she occasionally goes to Pilates with Suzy. But, according to Natalie, Diana had a full-scale nervous breakdown after he left and recovered only with the help of her new partner, Martin, who proposed to her last year.

  While she’s finally settled with someone stable and loving, Dr Smug amuses himself by playing the field, and has been spotted out and about in the city with a multitude of attractive women, all of which leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth. At least it does mine. Gill is another matter: she has ill-concealed ambitions to be the next to join the attractive multitude.

  After the school run, Ollie and I head to a soft play centre. I was drawn to these places at first because they advertise free wi-fi and Illy coffee but, as I’ve come to discover, the opportunities for enjoying either are limited when you’re pursuing a hyperactive toddler through a ball pool.

  I find a seat in the corner and buy Ollie a drink before I let him loose on his adventure, taking the brief opportunity as we sit together to log on to Facebook. One post has been dominating conversation among my former colleagues this morning: a news article about my old firm Panther’s expansion.

  I read on, feeling mildly queasy about their gushing, a feeling not helped when I see that James has posted a picture just forty minutes ago, at a rooftop party in such high swing I can almost hear the glasses clinking.

  The problem is not the party, nor indeed that the picture demonstrates how happy my fiancé looks in his new home these days, which I’m genuinely very glad about.

  It’s that he’s photographed between Keith Blanchard and Gary French, all three of them grinning heartily. ‘The boss has arrived in town so we’re showing him a night out Dubai-style!’ reads the caption.

  James told me yesterday that he was racked with nerves about Keith flying out for a few days to see how the Middle Eastern expansion was going, but I didn’t know Gary French would be in tow too. Not that I should have a problem with that, obviously – he’s probably just been asked to tag along as Keith’s lackey, although by the glowing nose he’s clearly found time to top up his tan, too.

  I suppose the problem is more an instinctive discomfort at the image: I’m glad that the visit-cum-inspection is going well, for James’s sake, obviously. I’d just probably feel more comfortable if my fiancé was photographed snuggling up to a couple of Page 3 girls.

  I force myself to think more positively.

  I know I’ve still got all my former ability and passion, partly because, when I helped James write the campaign brief for the PR company he ended up choosing, I found myself virtually taking over – once I’d started, I couldn’t stop. I felt a bit sheepish when I finally sent the mammoth piece of work to him: some men would be defensive at the idea of their girlfriend trying to tell them what to do.

  In the event, he was nothing but gracious, genuinely grateful. At least I think so.

  Anyway, I am hoping that very soon this situation will resolve itself, because, finally, I’m starting to gain some interest from suitable companies in Dubai – and have a phone interview lined up with one tomorrow.

  ‘Slide!’ Ollie shouts.

  ‘You want to go and play?’ I ask.

  ‘Slide! Slide! Slide!’ he replies, in case I’ve been in any doubt whether that was a yes.

  I have been a member of various gyms over the years. Despite the recent lapse in both that and my devotion to the Davina DVD, I have had moments in my life when I’d consider myself to be of reasonable fitness for a late-twenty-something woman. But nothing compares to the punishing workout you get when crawling on your hands and knees through a bright-yellow Perspex tube, down a squishy set of stairs and landing in a ball pool, all in an attempt to keep up with a two-year-old who can, after a sugary drink or two, reach speeds comparable to that of a Japanese bullet train.

  Ollie might be only two foot tall but show him a climbing net and he’s unstoppable. I tried once to keep him contained in the under-fours section, but he wanted to be with the big boys. I
texted Suzy about this, hoping she’d respond with something along the lines of, ‘Are you insane?’

  But she replied that he was fine as long as I was ‘right behind him’.

  So here I am: ‘right behind him’.

  It’s going as well as it can when your kneecaps feel as though they’ve been subjected to a meat tenderiser, until Ollie decides he wants to explore the upper level.

  We’re already fairly high up, but the upper level is the equivalent of the mountains of Mordor, strange and dangerous land to which we’ve never ventured. And, frankly, I’d rather keep it that way.

  Ollie has other ideas. Obviously.

  ‘Let’s go down the blue slide!’ I hoot in my Mr Tumble voice, but he casts a dismissive glance behind him and scuttles away.

  Before I know it Ollie is climbing, and climbing. And, although I’m right behind him, my cheeks beetrooting, there are several heart-stopping moments when I become completely convinced he’s going to escape me.

  It’s only when we reach the entrance to a way-too-steep, way-too-spirally slide that I decide I’m going to have to put my foot down and get him out of here.

  ‘No, Ollie. That one’s too big,’ I say, redundantly attempting to reason with him before he spins round and expels the loudest shriek he can possibly muster.

  ‘HELLLLLPPPPPPP!’

  Heat shoots to my face. ‘Shh, Ollie! Don’t say that!’ I plead, concerned Interpol will have my name on a list by the close of the afternoon.

  ‘HELLLLLPPPPPPP!’

  ‘Ollie!’ I hiss, but he shakes me off, pitter-patters forward and, before I can stop him, dives head first down the way-too-steep, way-too-spirally slide.

  ‘Arrghhh! Ollie!’

  I scramble to the slide, which is alarmingly narrow and absolutely not designed for anyone over the age of, say, eight. There, I flip onto my bum and squidge in my legs, before leaning back in the hope that this streamlined position will augment my acceleration.

  My descent, sadly, involves a torturous stop/start motion during which I contort myself claustrophobically into a variety of positions in an attempt to get going.

  The most effective turns out to be an ungainly reverse-commando position, which has the undesired effect of making my skirt ride up my legs, chafing my thighs in a sort of megawatt Chinese burn.

  By the time I reach the bottom, my hem is by my shoulders and, briefly relieved that I decided against a thong today, I scramble to my feet and scan the room in abject panic for my nephew.

  ‘I think you may have mislaid something,’ says Dr Smug, as I spin round and see Ollie giggling happily in his arms.

  Chapter 7

  ‘I should probably be buying you the coffee,’ I say awkwardly as Michael – which Dr Smug insists on my calling him – places two cappuccinos before us. Not that I even want another coffee. I feel like a traitor to Diana, or maybe womankind in general, just to be sitting at the same table as he.

  Except, given that (a) he rescued my nephew, (b) he saw my knickers and (c) I’d rather keep him on my side long enough for him NOT to recount either story at the school gates, I feel as though I don’t have much choice.

  The knicker issue is pressing increasingly on me right now, and the fact that, had I known I was going to put my underwear on show to the school heartthrob, I’d have made sure they were my Grade 2 pants – not the sort I’d wear on a date (Grade 1), but the sporty, newish and non-fraying ones, very unlike the Grade 3 affairs I’m wearing, which are technically white but have seen better days thanks to my lackadaisical approach to separating out coloureds before laundering.

  ‘Oh, he couldn’t have got far – all the doors are childproofed,’ he replies. ‘But he was fast, I’ll give him that. I could see you were struggling.’ I wince at the thought of the pantomime he could have witnessed before Ollie shot down the slide.

  ‘I take my hat off to you, though. Cameron and I haven’t even attempted the curly slide yet. You’re clearly a lot more ambitious than we are.’ He’s smiling. It’s unsettling and enjoyable enough to make me avoid eye contact.

  ‘Unless it wasn’t obvious, I didn’t have much choice in the matter. I think Ollie will be taking on Everest by the time he’s nine.’

  ‘Well, he looks happy enough in the toddlers’ area now.’

  Ollie is next to us in the bit specifically designed for very little ones, playing with a stack of big Lego foam bricks with Cameron, Nathan’s three-and-a-half-year-old brother.

  ‘He does. And this is the first time I’ve sat down all morning.’ I think again. ‘Or possibly all month.’

  ‘Kids can be hard work, can’t they? I live for the days when I’ve got the boys, but I can’t deny I go to bed feeling like I’ve run a marathon. I’d don’t think I’d ever make it as a childminder. It must be a real vocation for you.’

  I look up, alarmed. ‘Oh, I’m not a childminder,’ I explain. ‘Not really. I’m Suzy’s sister. Suzy – their mum. I’m just . . . helping her out. It’s a temporary situation. Completely temporary. This is not where I belong.’ I sound as if I’m about to tell him I need to find my spaceship to get back to my proper home.

  ‘What did you do before this, then?’

  I suddenly regret leading us to this conversation. ‘I’m kind of between jobs.’ I squirm. ‘I used to work for Panther – you know, the cars.’

  ‘Oh, I know them. One’s on my list if ever I win the lottery. Though I suspect they’d be wasted on me – any car I’ve driven since Nathan was born seems to end up with chocolate ground into the upholstery and undiscovered banana skins crammed into the seat pockets.’

  ‘Mmm, nice,’ I say. ‘If it means anything, I used to have a G-type once – now I’ve got the bus. Or my sister’s car.’ I pretend to sob.

  ‘Oh, dear!’ He smiles. ‘You have fallen on hard times.’

  I raise my eyebrows. ‘I haven’t quite made it to a soup kitchen yet, but . . . yes. I worked in the marketing department. Then I was sacked. Or at least made redundant. Ironically, I’d thought I was all right at my job, but I’m obviously deluded.’ I laugh, then look down, embarrassed.

  ‘Redundancy doesn’t mean you weren’t any good – just that your position was no longer there any more. If it means anything, it happens to the best of us.’

  ‘You’ve had it happen to you too?’

  ‘Well, no. Though I was booted out of my Saturday job at a key-cutting shop when I was eighteen. I’d been out on the lash the night before and mucked up every order of the day. I don’t think a single customer got into their house that night.’ I laugh. ‘I’m sure something will come up,’ he adds. ‘You don’t strike me as the kind to be down on your luck for too long.’

  And then he smiles again, and warmth spreads through me, making me decide with a jolt that now is the time to make my excuses and leave. Preferably by making a dignified exit after my insalubrious entrance. ‘Well, it’s nearly eleven thirty,’ I say, looking at my watch. ‘I think Ollie and I are going to head back now. I’ve got a really important video call to make. It’s for a job interview in Dubai.’

  He looks at me again. ‘I’ve enjoyed chatting.’

  I nearly say ‘me too’ but stop myself. ‘Bye, then!’ I conclude, before turning my head to Ollie.

  ‘Oh . . . Hannah.’ I spin around. ‘I wasn’t sure how to mention this, but . . . well, if you’ve got an interview via video . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ I frown.

  ‘You’ve got something in your fringe. I think it might be a Rice Krispie.’

  The interview goes well, I think. I won’t go any further than that, partly because I don’t believe in tempting fate, and partly because I’ll admit to being slightly thrown by some of the questions.

  My interviewers – whose faces gaze at me through the screen of my laptop – are both expats: Paula Cullen, an HR manager with long, wavy hair, dyed to the colour of a tangerine; and her boss, Mike Morely, a balding, bespectacled gentleman whose face is as kindly and potato-shaped as I’ve
ever come across.

  It’s not just that the questions are incredibly basic that’s thrown me – we’ve barely progressed beyond ‘Tell me a bit about yourself.’ It’s that my interviewers have veered onto a rather odd tangent.

  ‘If you were a biscuit, what type of biscuit would you be?’ asks Paula Cullen enthusiastically.

  ‘Oh, um . . . gosh, that’s something I’ve never been asked before,’ I say, shuffling in my seat.

  ‘I thought so!’ She grins, clearly considering this evidence of her superlative investigative skills.

  I try to pick a biscuit that could, in some contrived way, highlight my marketing skills. ‘Okay. I’m a chocolate digestive,’ I conclude.

  Paula flashes Mike a side glance, as if this choice were all she needs to hear to deduce that I’m a genius. ‘Why’s that?’ asks Mike.

  ‘Because I’m an all-rounder, I have a solid, traditional base – and I have a lot of good stuff up top.’ I glance down and realise I’m showing a bit too much cleavage. ‘By which I mean my brains, not anything else,’ I say, leaping in, crossing my arms across my chest. ‘I just meant I’m very brainy. Immodest as that sounds,’ I splutter, wishing we could’ve just stuck to discussing what I can do for their marketing department. ‘I should add that I’m exceptionally good at forward planning.’

  Mike hesitates. ‘What’s that got to do with a chocolate digestive?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I reply weakly. ‘I just thought it’d be relevant to the position.’

  ‘Do you know what I’d be?’ Paula Cullen interrupts, giggling. ‘I’d be a flapjack. Squidgy, sweet and just a little bit nuts!’

  Chapter 8

  It’s amazing how much better life feels when you’ve got a spreadsheet or seven to help you out. Which by the way is restrained: there are so many elements of the boys’ lives that need organising that I could fill an entire wall with graphs and charts, as if I were planning a WWII land attack.