The Only Boy For Me Read online

  The end of term is looming, and the PTA has gone into overdrive. The auction is next week, and then the Nativity play. Miss Pike is desperately trying to give everyone a part, and not offend any parents. But there are only so many donkeys and sheep you can fit on a tiny stage at once, and the role of Mary is being hotly contested. Mrs Bates is lobbying hard, and keeps sending in bunches of flowers and cakes for Sophie to share with Miss Pike. But Miss Pike is wise to this, and finally selects a very sweet girl called Ellie. Charlie has refused point blank to be a sheep and decided instead that he’ll be a pheasant, and Miss Pike agrees because she thinks it will be fun. So could I just make a pheasant costume, please?

  No would be the honest answer, but I somehow find myself saying yes, and spend hours sticking feathers on to a pair of tights and a long-sleeved vest, and making wings from an old velvet dressing-up cloak. I use the feathers from an old pillow, but these are tiny and look pathetic, so I supplement them with special decorative feathers, which are bright blue, purple and red, and cost a fortune. When Charlie tries it on I’m overcome with laugher. He sulks and refuses to wear the costume. I finally persuade him he looks marvellous; Miss Pike agrees and Charlie relents and says he’ll wear it if he can have a special beak. I make a special beak out of tinfoil. Now he looks like a cross between a mad emu and an illustration of what will happen if you try to pluck your Christmas turkey yourself. He adores the beak.

  I have a night out at the pub with Kate and Sally, leaving Roger at home to babysit all the kids. The children are all clamouring for pizza and a game of hide-and-seek as we leave. Roger is wearing his whistle on a string round his neck. It makes him look a bit like a PE teacher, and he says he bought it specially for evenings with under-twelves. The sound of a whistle being blown repeatedly accompanies us as we drive down the lane. We get to our favourite pub, which is in a nearby village, and discover there’s a quiz night on, with Our Vicar leading one team, and the chairman of the local Tories heading up the other. Deadly. We hide in the back room, and compete to see who’s going to have the most draining Christmas. Kate wins, as usual, because she has to go to her mother’s. We’ve agreed not to talk about men or children, or we’ll get depressed. So we talk about clothes, and what we’d do if we won a million quid. Kate reveals a passion for villas in Barbados, and Sally says she would never cook again, ever. Kate is doing the driving tonight, so Sally and I get rather drunk. The quiz finishes and the vicar’s team wins, and then we organise an impromptu karaoke session. I find myself standing up with Kate and Sally belting out ‘I Will Survive’ at the top of my voice. We stagger back outside into the pitch blackness, and Sally falls down a hole in the car park and says fuck just as Our Vicar walks past. He pretends not to have heard, and we spend the entire journey home debating whether he could have identified exactly who was spreadeagled on the tarmac swearing. We decide he couldn’t, but Sally makes us promise not to tell Roger, because he is thinking of standing as a school governor and the vicar is on the selection committee.

  When we get home we cross-examine Roger as to why on earth he wants to be a school governor, and he goes all coy and says, ‘Oh well, just a thought.’ And then Sally explains that he read an article in the paper about how vital it is to have school governors who are not just local busybodies. Apparently schools now manage entire budgets on their own and cannot rely on those whose only real qualification for the job is a strong desire to read the confidential school records of other people’s children. We all agree with this, especially given Mrs Harrison-Black’s recent comments to a mother of a slow reader, and elect Roger as our number-one choice.

  My Christmas shopping list is now getting so long I need two separate sheets of paper. I decide to drive up to town early and get a couple of hours of shopping in before wandering into the office. Barney is taking everyone out for a Christmas lunch, which last year went on until midnight. I park in the usual car park and manage to find a space without having to drive up the bouncing metal ramp. Then I spend a fraught couple of hours dashing between Liberty’s, Hamleys and HMV.

  The prices in Hamleys are extortionate, so I only buy the things not readily available in local toyshops. I finally get into the office at around eleven, desperate for a coffee and a nice little lie-down. I’m trying to work out if it’s too risky to have a nap on the sofa in Barney’s room, as he’s not turned up yet, when Lawrence comes upstairs and says he’s sorry to hear things didn’t work out with Mack MacDonald. And did I know he’s the toast of New York, and has been seen with a succession of beautiful young women on his arm? I’m just about to punch him when Barney arrives, and has clearly overheard the last bit of Lawrence’s little heart-to-heart.

  ‘Hello, darling. You look gorgeous, as ever. What’s old Lawrence wittering on about now? Telling you all about his latest plans for the office furniture, is he? He’s going to sit on the door with a special little peaked cap on, so he can keep an eye on everyone and not miss out on any of the gossip. Aren’t you, Lawrence?’

  Lawrence tries to laugh, but Barney isn’t finished.

  ‘Oh and by the way. If he’s telling you about Mack MacDonald, don’t believe a word of it. I bet he’s hating it. All those hideous American piranha women scenting fresh blood – he’s probably gone into shock. Anyway, Lawrence, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like a word with Annie.’

  Lawrence goes back downstairs devastated to be excluded from the conversation.

  ‘Thanks, Barney. But I bet he’s having a ball.’

  ‘More like having his balls off. That job won’t be easy, you know. And if he does end up with some New York princess, then good luck to him. He’s going to need it. What happened with you two, anyway?’

  ‘Oh nothing really. He wanted me to jack it all in and follow him to New York, and I didn’t want to.’

  ‘Quite right too. What would you want to live there for? And anyway, I need you here. Shame, though, you seemed really happy.’

  ‘I was. Now can we stop talking about this or I’ll end up in tears.’

  ‘Been a bit of a rough year for you, really, hasn’t it, darling?’

  ‘Well, yes and no. I mean, Charlie got well again, and I had some good times with Mack. Don’t look at me like that; I’m trying to be positive.’

  ‘That’s the spirit. Look on the bright side. You might meet another little fucker who’ll totally bugger you about next year – think what fun that’ll be.’

  ‘Thanks, Barney, that really helps. I can’t tell you how much I count on you to cheer me up.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. Anytime. Now, before we go off to lunch I’ve got you this. I don’t want Lawrence to see you open it or he’ll sulk all afternoon. Anyway, it’s just to say thanks, it’s been a great year and all that bollocks.’

  He goes bright red and gives me a Liberty’s bag, containing the most beautiful velvet scarf I’ve ever seen, in a mixture of blacks and purples. I saw something similar this morning and was tempted to get it for Lizzie, until I saw the price and decided I’d better go for something that wouldn’t require a bank loan.

  ‘Oh thank you, Barney, it’s beautiful.’

  When I lift it up to try it on, a piece of paper falls out and flutters to the floor. I pick it up and realise it’s a cheque, for a thousand pounds.

  ‘Just a little bonus. To say thanks for all your hard work.’

  ‘Oh, Barney, I don’t know what to say. Thank you.’

  I give him a hug and a kiss, and he goes rigid with embarrassment and says, ‘Right. Glad you’re pleased. Now for God’s sake get off. You’re squashing my jacket.’

  The office lunch goes very well, but everyone gets very drunk and as I’m driving I can’t join them, so I end up creeping off at around five and meeting Leila for a cup of tea.

  Leila is thrilled with Barney’s present, and wants to help me spend it immediately. I eventually manage to persuade her that I would rather lie down in the middle of Oxford Circus and get flattened by a bus than go shopping again today.
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br />   ‘Anyway, you haven’t told me, how’s the Flying Dutchman?’

  ‘Oh, shaping up very nicely, thanks. I’m trying to pace myself a bit this time. Bloody difficult, though, he’s gorgeous. I’m seeing him tomorrow, actually, to look at his plans for the house. In fact I’m almost as excited about the plans as I am about seeing him again – do you think that’s a bad sign?’

  ‘No, don’t be daft. It’s probably all mixed in together. And even if he turns out to be a pillock, the house will look great. So you can’t lose really, can you? Anyway, never mind about that. When are you coming down to see me and Charlie? We’ve got presents for you.’

  This is guaranteed to send Leila into a frenzy, as she adores being given presents. She’s incredibly hard to buy for, since her idea of deferred gratification is to wait until after lunch before she gets out the credit cards, so this year I’ve gone for the basket-of-goodies approach. I’ve bought her loads of little sparkly things and Charlie has made her a picture frame using about half a ton of glitter and four yards of tinsel. He has put in it a photograph of Leila holding him when he was about an hour old, and done her a special picture with the words ‘I love Leila’ on it. Pink features heavily in his colour scheme, along with a great deal of silver and gold. She’ll love it. I tell her about Lawrence’s helpful news about Mack, and she says she is sure it’s bollocks and that Barney is far more likely to be right. She offers to ring her friends in New York and find out, but I tell her I don’t really care. We both know this is a huge lie but pretend it isn’t, and move on to talking about designs for her new bathroom.

  The night of the Nativity play arrives, and I take Charlie to the village hall. We are greeted by a very odd procession of small children trooping in dressed as assorted farmyard animals. It’s freezing, and I sit in the audience with Kate for hours before the performance actually begins, hearing lots of muffled thuds and bumps from behind the curtain. Sally and Roger creep in very late and sit in the seats we’ve saved for them. Apparently William had a last-minute crisis with his sheep costume. The tension in the audience has built almost to breaking point when the curtain finally opens and the show begins. I’m in tears almost immediately: a very tiny boy in a donkey costume falls off the stage, and a small sheep stands up and waves to his mum. Mary is quite overcome and cannot speak until jabbed in the ribs very sharply by one of the angels. Probably Sophie Bates, but it’s hard to tell under all that tinsel.

  I’ve forgotten to bring tissues, so I’m reduced to sniffing quite a lot, but luckily half the audience is doing the same. The school has very sensibly banned people from taking pictures or using home video recorders, because last year there was almost a fight as two dads jostled each other for the perfect spot at the back of the hall. This year Mr Jenkins is making a video which the PTA will sell to boost funds. I’m not sure he’s quite got the hang of the automatic zoom button, as he keeps rushing forwards and then walking backwards very slowly. But I’m keeping a low profile because Mrs Harrison-Black suggested I should get one of my ‘director chaps’ to turn up and do the video, and I refused. I explained that all the directors I know would rather stab themselves repeatedly with forks than be involved in anything amateur, but she wasn’t convinced. Then I said that they’d need a full crew and would want to remove at least one wall of the village hall to get the lighting right. Mrs Harrison-Black thought Our Vicar would not like the hall being dismantled, and thankfully the subject was dropped. But I could tell she thought I was being unnecessarily artistic.

  Charlie enters the stage with James and William dressed as sheep for ‘While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night’. He flaps his wings enthusiastically, and half the audience begin to laugh, and then try valiantly to smother this with lots of coughing. Their song is completed, and the audience claps. Charlie does more flapping of wings, and the audience claps louder. I can tell Charlie is delighted and is about to launch into an encore when Miss Pike’s arm appears from behind the curtain and he is removed, apart from a few feathers which linger centre stage.

  The play rolls on, the baby is born, and the top class attempt a rock-and-roll version of ‘Away in a Manger’ which is a huge mistake, although the boy on drums is very enthusiastic. Then it’s the final song, and everyone troops back on stage for ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’. Mrs Taylor appears and makes a speech thanking everyone for coming, and says we must all stay inside the hall and buy tea and mince pies from the PTA while the teachers get the children off the stage and out of their costumes. I know without a shadow of a doubt that their chances of getting Charlie out of his costume are nil. Charlie continues flapping throughout her speech, and lots of people give me amused glances. Then there’s lots of applause, and the children all bow and look pleased. The curtain shuts and the lights go back on, and everyone surges forwards towards the tea trolley.

  Kate thinks Charlie’s costume is a triumph, and wants to know if she can borrow it for her loathsome nephew, Liam, so he can wear it to her father’s traditional Boxing Day shoot. She says getting Liam shot would do them all a huge favour, and her Uncle Geoffrey always gets so drunk he shoots at anything that moves. Last year he narrowly missed Polly, the family Labrador. Miss Pike finally appears with the children, who run around yelling with relief now that their ordeal’s over. As predicted, Charlie is still in his costume, flapping his arms and pecking people with his beak. Miss Pike comes over to say hello, but a fracas is developing in the corner of the room involving lots of small boys and mince pies so she rushes off to sort things out.

  Charlie is now showing people how he can fly by jumping off a chair, so I feel it might be time for us to leave. It’s snowing outside, not actually settling on the ground but with lots of snowflakes whirling about which looks magical. Charlie is thrilled and runs round trying to collect snow in his outstretched wings. A passing van nearly drives into a wall as the driver spots a giant bird-like creature hopping about while a frantic-looking woman tries to shove it into a car. I have a hell of a job persuading Charlie he can’t sleep in his pheasant costume.

  ‘I need to keep it on, in case a werewolf comes. Then it will get a surprise and I can peck it.’

  ‘Charlie, there are no werewolves. And all your feathers will fall off if you sleep in your costume all night. Now stop being silly and put your pyjamas on.’

  ‘I hate you, Mummy. I really do.’

  ‘I thought you were brilliant in the play; I can’t wait to buy the video and show everybody.’

  ‘Will you show people at your work?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  The sad truth is I probably will, and Barney will have a lovely time saying he can’t believe the poor quality of the video, and was the man blind? Just like he does whenever I take photos of Charlie into the office and he insists on seeing my ‘snaps’, and then goes into fits of laughter and mutters about being astonished that I have picked up nothing after being around experts for so long.

  ‘If people see them at your work they might want me to be in a film.’

  Over my dead body. I cannot begin to imagine the combination of Charlie and a film crew, but I know it would end in tears. Mostly mine.

  ‘Hurry up and put your pyjamas on, and maybe we’ll have a story.’

  ‘OK, Mummy, but I’m keeping my beak on.’

  It feels very odd reading a book about penguins to a small boy wearing a large tinfoil beak. I go up to check on him later and he’s fast asleep, with his beak still attached, making amplified snoring noises and clutching a small handful of feathers. I can’t wait to get a copy of the video, which I shall treasure. It will also be a useful bargaining tool for when he’s a teenager and has girls to impress.

  The last day of term arrives, and I still have a long list of things to do before Christmas. I’m really getting desperate now, and have taken to muttering about satsumas and cranberry jelly as I drive, in between singing along to a new Whitney cassette, which I felt compelled to purchase when I should have been buying a gift for Auntie Joan
. But I’m no longer reduced to a snivelling wreck by ‘I Will Always Love You’, and in fact I’m starting to get rather irritated by it, so progress of some sort is being made. Today is party day at school, and all the children are allowed to take a toy in. Charlie wants to take his Lego castle, complete with knights, cannon and assorted animals including a dragon. I tell him that he’s only allowed to take one small toy, but he will have none of it. In the end I rely on an old trick of Kate’s by pretending to ring up Miss Pike and seek guidance. Charlie hops up and down in the kitchen waiting to hear what Miss Pike says, and when I finish my pretend conversation I confirm that only one small toy is allowed. He accepts this without a murmur. I cannot explain why this is so annoying, but it is.

  He finally selects a hideous robot thing that turns into a gorilla and then back into a robot, and shoots small plastic missiles out of the top of its head. I feel sure Miss Pike will not approve, but am not up to another round of pretend telephone calls so we set off for school. There’s no school uniform today, and it’s odd seeing all the children in normal clothes: they look so much more relaxed and unruly. I can see why schools go in for uniforms with quite so much vigour: it seems to break their spirits before they even get in the door.

  Kate and I have volunteered to help at the tea party. Mrs Harrison-Black had a clipboard at the school gates, and there was no escape. It was either party helping or carol singing. Last year two boys from the carol-singing group went missing halfway round the village, and the parent helpers spent ages retracing their steps in pitch darkness trying to find them. They were on the point of calling the police when they found them, watching unsuitable videos at a friend’s house. So we feel sure party helping is the soft option. We turn up at two to help set the tables, and realise we have made a tragic mistake. Some mad woman has made enough jelly to feed the entire county. Every single item of food either contains levels of sugar guaranteed to send the average five year old into orbit, or enough additives to bring on epilepsy in those unaccustomed to children’s party food. And some bastard has put us down to help with the reception class, most of whom can barely cope with the excitement of eating a normal packed lunch, let alone party food with jelly.