Page 53 of How Much Wine Will Fix My Broken Heart?
G, Congrats about the job. I know how hard you’ve worked for that. Did you celebrate with a tin of Dr Pepper and then sort your knicker drawer? I bet you did. I jest but you worked hard for that so do celebrate, take a sister out or something. One thing, you have friends, right? You never talk about them. Work mates, school mates, uni mates? All you talk about is work and how you sit there worrying about me. You shouldn’t. I’m in Phuket and it’s pretty insane. Beaches and beers and soups that will scorch the gums out of your mouth. I love it. I have tan lines. I know there were pictures on social media but try not to read too much into those because everyone does go around in swimwear all the time so there are a lot of breasts in the vicinity.
T x
‘And then we take our pipe cleaners and we put them through the tube and then we have a flower!’ Miss Loveday announces from the front of the classroom. I look down. There’s no easy way of saying this. It doesn’t look like a flower. It is a tissue-paper vulva in red and pink and the pipe cleaner looks like something is crawling out of said vulva, like a furry worm. That would need strong antibiotics. I look over at Helen on my table and she holds hers up, the flowerhead dropping off immediately.
‘Shit…’ she mumbles.
‘Mummy, we’re at school. You can’t say the s-word here,’ says her son, William, Isaac’s younger brother, disgusted.
‘Yeah, you can… the only words you can’t say are the f-, c- and b-words.’
I run through my alphabetical swear word thesaurus quickly.
‘But there are lots of b-words,’ I whisper.
She glances over at Carrie and I know exactly what word she means. ‘See also the w-word.’
‘That rhymes with the b-word?’
‘God, no. You can say “witch” out loud. It’s the one that rhymes with “tanker”.’
I laugh and put a thumb up in the air. Today all the parents have been invited into the classrooms for a Craft & Create event the school likes to put on occasionally so we can bond, nose around the classrooms and mutter under our breath how we’ve taken a half day off work for this shite. When I came in today, the atmosphere was frosty, shall we say, close to Arctic. Near the sink, I had Carrie, who seemed to adopt a protective stance when I first walked in just in case my rabid daughter went on the attack again. And in the reading nook sat Orlagh, who glared at me intently. I’ve done very well at evading her at the school gate since avocado/lido gate and I hope and pray she won’t shame me for it here. So, all in all, the only solace I take from the morning is that I had the good sense to put Linh in the other classroom with Cleo so she couldn’t fight them all.
I’ve attached myself to Helen today, mainly because she’s good value but also because I know it’ll be handy to have her onside if any fight ensues. I like how hardy Helen is; nothing is for show. She’s wearing leggings, a sequinned sweatshirt and Ugg boots, and you know she’s the sort of parent who drinks and understands the need to sometimes switch on the television and let it parent your children for an evening.
It’s the embellishment part of our flower project now so we let our kids loose with the sequins and the glitter. Better you fulfil these craft needs in a place that isn’t our own homes. Naturally, we’re all teetering over child-sized chairs so Helen pulls hers closer to mine.
‘So I heard from a little bird that you and Sam Headley are doing the do?’ she asks me.
‘Where did you hear that from?’ I enquire.
She smiles. ‘You know how it is in a place like this. You only have to tell one of the childminder lot and the rumours spread quicker than Orlagh’s legs for twenty-year-old lads.’
I try to hold back my laughter.
‘She’s not happy about that, not one little bit. I also heard some rumour that you tried to stalk her at her local pool and shat in her handbag.’
My face reads horror this time. Mainly at how badly Orlagh twisted that fact but also because my sources told me avocado and bacon in a towel. I really hope they didn’t squat over a handbag.
‘We bumped into each other. There were words but there was no faeces in her Michael Kors.’
Helen chuckles. ‘Of course there wasn’t. She’s just a bitter old wench. I hear it’s not going well with the young lad anyway, someone told me he got crabs and then Orlagh got the crabs so that’s made things very interesting.’
We look over at Carrie and Orlagh, who are now sitting at the colouring-in table, talking in whispers. Helen senses my discomfort and nudges me with her elbow.
‘Hun, they’re not worth your salt. I have three more kids next to this one. You’ve met Isaac. Love him but god, he finds trouble. I’ve got into all sorts of scraps, endured all sorts of mums’ nights out, and seen all sorts of characters. That one with the red curly hair…?’
I nod. She’s always dressed in fitness gear, whatever the weather. You get a sense that all that’s going through her head is how many steps she’s getting in.
‘Went to a fondue night with her once and she cried after her first glass of Chablis because she had an argument with her husband over a Hoover. We spent the whole night patting her back. Her mate next to her with the big earrings? Husband left her a year ago, just walked out because he couldn’t bear to be married to her any more. She went on Tinder and ended up being conned out of a grand by a handsome Frenchman who had a twelve-inch wang.’
If the school newsletter gave us this sort of information, instead of news about the school gardening club and the height of their tomato plants, then I’d be more tempted to read it.
‘All of us have all sorts of drama going on in our lives. More often than not, it just becomes gossip fodder. Whatever them bitches are saying about you, no will remember in a month’s time…’
Carrie seems to have cracked a joke and Orlagh cackles, waving an orange colouring pencil around. If Carrie is funny then maybe something has changed in her DNA. Perhaps Maya biting her had an effect.
‘It doesn’t look like a flower, Mama?’ Maya says, holding our creation up in the air. That’s mainly because it’s been weighed down by a heck load of glittery disco pollen. Well, at least it doesn’t look like a vulva any more.
