Page 11 of Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?
This menagerie of animals was never my idea. That was part of some outdoorsy dream that Danny hadn’t been able to fulfil in London where he could live in a field with his girls, scrambling up rock faces and befriending wild birds. I had grown up the eldest of five sisters with parents neither stupid nor brave enough to add pets to the equation, so animal husbandry was properly foreign to me. I was initially annoyed that Mr T lacked the communication skills to impart his wisdoms on to me (how did I know running in a circle and barking your balls off meant needing to go outside for a poo?). The breath that smelt of old ham coupled with the continuous moulting was not endearing either. Yet after a while, Mr T became a part of the furniture. Obviously, he likes Danny more than me; I still lack his dog-whispering alpha master ways, but I like to think that over time Mr T has come to respect the fact I am a mother of sorts – and will always give him some of my crisps. He’s especially keen on Pringles.
Today, I use him as some sort of shield on the school run and he eyes me curiously; less enquiring about my emotional state but curious as to why I haven’t brought biscuits. Danny walks ahead with all of the girls – one on each hand and the littlest strapped to his front swathed in fleece. It’s a sight I’ll never get sick of but it does mean Mr T and I follow behind carrying an assortment of book bags and rucksacks like sherpas. But having the dog means I can distance myself from Danny to ponder the events from this morning. It doesn’t even seem real; normally drama at that time on a Monday morning is a car not starting or me having forgotten to launder a sports kit. Was he lying? Why would he lie about a sex toy? It conjures up images that dwell and invoke a tiny bit of bile. I look down at Mr T. If he was playing away from home, you’d know wouldn’t you, Mr T? You’re a member of the A-Team! Mr T looks at me. He sits waiting for that biscuit I haven’t brought him. You stupid furry bastard.
We live in a townhouse in Kendal built from grey limestone, the same colour as the perpetually overcast sky. Danny had been less keen to live there. However, I was a city girl, not a rambler, and certainly not someone who understood the aesthetic appeal of waterproof trousers. I lack the ability to charge a car down a country lane, mount a hedge and overtake a tractor. I need to be within the safety net of an M&S Food Hall, and in the very least a Top Shop. I defiantly stood by this notion which led us closer to the town centre. However, to get his revenge on buying his central townhouse, Danny refused to buy me a car which meant that I usually walked everywhere, along the weaving ginnels of Kendal, usually pushing buggies and dragging a dog around. It was probably better than having to do this in London along streets littered with old kebabs, pollution and congestion charges but it would always make Danny laugh to see me take on anything with a gradient steeper than a road bump; his city lass out of her comfort zone, without a Tube or taxi in sight.
Given the school was just three roads down, it was also something we regularly walked, if only to escape the fight outside the gate with grown women fighting for parking spaces. As we approach the huge iron railings of the school wall, it’s the usual scene of families milling around the windswept playground marked out with hopscotch and health and safety-friendly play equipment.
‘We want Daddy to take us in!’ Eve announces and I don’t argue, pulling softly on Mr T’s lead, glad that I can stand by the railings and escape the parents and teachers exchanging gossip and civilities. I distribute the girls’ belongings and misplace kisses on cheeks. Danny looks pleased to be wanted, Polly cradled into his chest, and I leave him to escort them to their classrooms.
In the middle of the school playground, Mr McArthur is doing his headteacher spiel. He’s also a Kendal native who went to school with the Morton brothers and if I remember rightly, Stu may have once dated his wife. Joanne McArthur is a nurse who works at the local hospital and together, they are one of those legendary all-star status couples. He even has the glossy American-medical-drama locks and teeth to match. They have three sons, run half-marathons together and live in a giant farmhouse on a hill somewhere that may or may not also be a hospital for dying kittens. OK, I made the last bit up. When I speak to the Mortons about him, they all say the same. He was one of those Scouting-Duke-of-Edinburgh-types who has an overbearing enthusiasm for life. I spy him squatting down to look at a child’s rainforest project offering which looks like a sloth made out of a broom head attached to some loo rolls. Two mums stop conveniently behind him, most likely to check out his arse. Danny emerges from the school and when he sees McArthur, they stop to talk.
‘Morning, why are you hiding back there?’ A voice catches my forlorn-looking sad figure: Sarah, a mum acquaintance from school, married to Jez and mum to George and Maisy.
These mothers are sometimes the only people you speak to in a day and you end up knowing everything about their lives and more, whether it’s through the class WhatsApp group, social media or the daily playground chatterings. You know who’s married, who’s split up, whose party you haven’t been invited to and who’s looking for a builder. Sarah is the classic Alpha Queen Bee – she’s the one organising all the drinks, popping up on all the Facebook pages, the one who knows all the gossip because she’s a childminder so has her ear in a lot of people’s lives. It also means she comes with an entourage of little people who more often than not are running circles around her.
‘Leon, put that stick down and your coat on! You OK, love?’
I don’t suppose Sarah really cares much if I’m OK or not and I think for a moment before I divulge anything. Oh yes, all good. We had a dildo delivered in the post this morning that’s the size of an Alsatian’s hind leg and I’m not sure I believe why it’s in my house, but apart from that I’m tickety-boo. That would get around this playground faster than the nits do.
‘Nothing, just got Danny on dad duty today so I don’t have to cross the threshold,’ I say instead.
She gestures over to him as he stands there chatting with McArthur. ‘I forget those two know each other from back in the day.’
Naturally, she also knows the social tapestry of Kendal and how the Morton brothers are woven into it. This means she always talks at me like she knows more than she’s willing to let on.
‘That is true,’ I reply.
‘I’m sure Danny has told you everything.’ Her words ring with double meaning this morning, so much so that I can’t reply. She doesn’t seem to care but moves her attention to another mum who’s more worthy of the conversation. All I know of this other mother is that she told us all off on a Facebook group once because someone had stolen her kid’s Pokémon cards. I’d never seen such fury. They remain within eavesdropping distance so I can hear how they went drinking at the weekend and someone called Mandy left her shoes in the minicab. Danny and McArthur continue to chew the fat and I will my husband to hurry the hell up.
‘I tell you, she were there and flirting with Marv all night,’ drones Sarah.
‘Speak of the devil.’
Their disapproving tones mean I can’t resist but turn my head and try to work out who they’re talking about. I scan through the railings and across the way. Oh dear. It had to be Briony Tipperton. I let out a resigned sigh. If Sarah was your Alpha, Briony was your classic caricature yummy mummy. The glass slipper in a sea of walking boots, a world away from sensible and hardy, she’s the sort who tackles the school run dripping in fake tan, bottom-lifting animal print jeggings and towering heels. I spy her tottering over the tarmac in furry, diamanté-clad shoe-boots and what looks like a cashmere poncho. I’d have to go over and stroke her to make sure. I won’t.
Briony and Sarah do not mix well – there’s a competitive nature to their relationship that if anything, is fun to witness at boring school events. That said, I also have my own thing with Briony as when we first moved up here, I found out that she and Danny used to date in college and that she was the very person he’d lost his virginity to. I couldn’t understand it, not least because they are chalk and cheese, and because she has that flashy, attention-seeking personality to match, a laugh that echoes around the school with the jarring dissonance of a small yapping dog.
Sarah and her mum companion glare over at her.
‘Attention seeker, always has been. Her and Ian belong together, that’s for sure.’
Ian, Briony’s estate agent husband, likes a shiny suit, car and shoe, and when you walk past him, it’s like he’s been bathing in Lynx.
I watch as Briony’s ample bosom bounces in time with her high-heeled shuffle. I look over at Danny, still in conversation with McArthur and his eyes shift towards her. There’s a look between them.
‘Back in day, when we were at school,’ Sarah says, ‘she’d be in the cafeteria doing her fifty layers of slap and combing through her extensions. Nowt’s changed.’
I see Briony go over to Danny and McArthur and join in, a little three-way conversation. This is when I wish I could lip-read. McArthur says something and Briony laughs. Danny smiles and nods, not one to ever be too casual with his emotions.
‘Oooh, she’s such a flirty tart. “Oh, Mike…you’re so funny! Look at my tits! Snatch is wide open for yer like a hippo’s jaw.”’ Her friend’s laughter goads Sarah’s bitchery. ‘I’ve heard she’s had work done too. Her arse is filled with air. They attached a bike pump to her arsehole. If she landed on a hedgehog, she’d pop like a balloon.’
The ladies cackle with an assortment of children stood at their feet listening to every word, one of whom has lost a shoe and is making their way through their lunch.
I move away from Sarah and her friend to get a better view of this three-way. I’m not wearing cashmere, that’s for sure. Just my Lakes mother uniform of sensible rain jacket that is not remotely stylish, although on a practical note the hood can be tightened around my rain-beaten face, peering out like a newly born babe from her mother’s nether regions. I’m not in the same fashion postcode as Briony, nowhere near.
Why is she standing with her hip to one side? She and Danny start their walk back to the gate then engage in pleasantries. Or not? Is it more than that? She touches his arm, he nods.
This is what I hated most about relocating to the Lakes. It’s full of history for the Morton brothers – three lads who’d dated around, got into trouble and had used this manor as a playground in their mid-teens. Every so often we’d bump into a woman in a supermarket or a pub. They’d recognise Danny and have a very brief conversation doused in Northern while I tried to join the dots. Then usually once they’d disappeared, Danny would say, ‘Yup, shagged her back in day.’ To which I’d normally spit out something through a nostril.
