The Woman Who Upped and Left: A laugh-out-loud read that will put a spring in your step!. Fiona GibsonЧитать онлайн книгу.
like the components of some primitive game. I pick one up and bite it. It lacks freshness. I stare at the mess, dithering over whether or not to lose my rag, and deciding that I can’t face a confrontation the minute I’m home.
Anyway, there’s no one to be annoyed at as the rare nocturnal mating pair has yet to appear. Of course: it’s not yet 11 a.m. As my darling boy is currently neither in employment nor further education – unless you count a weekend course in beginner’s circus skills, foolishly paid for by me, as he fancied ‘a go at street theatre’ – he has no real reason to get up. While Jenna is reputedly studying beauty therapy, the course seems to have an awful lot of leisure time built in. I find it hard to comprehend how two people can do so little with their time.
‘I’m off to work now,’ I call up from the hallway. ‘You might think about hoovering the stairs, Morgan? And get some shopping in, would you? We need bread, cheese, fruit … remember fruit? Does that sound familiar? Apples, pears, stuff like that. They grow on trees, reportedly good for you …’
An unintelligible response. At least I know he’s alive.
‘Or oranges? How about some of those? Full of vitamin C, darling, handy if you want to avoid rickets or scurvy …’ His bedroom door creaks open and he appears on the landing in his oversized stripy dressing gown. He looks pale – light-starved and faintly sweaty – yet is still handsome in his rather malnourished, hair-untroubled-by-comb sort of way.
‘What d’you say?’
I muster a brisk smile. ‘Fruit, darling. Get some, please. There’s money in the jar. Oh, and clear up all that mess you left. I don’t know who’re you’re expecting to do it for you. A team of magic elves?’
He peers at me, as if trying to process my incomprehensible request, then shuffles off back to his room.
‘Even some canned pineapple would do,’ I trill, a little manically, as I step out into the street.
My daytime job is at the local primary school. The brisk ten-minute walk is just long enough for me to shake off domestic irritations and slip into the cheery persona required for working in the canteen. Our home town is definitely a proper town, although Morgan would term it a village as he reckons nothing of any interest ever happens here. ‘What am I s’posed to do exactly?’ he moaned recently, when I complained about his lack of activity. ‘I’m dying in this place. It’s crushing my soul. Why did we ever leave York?’ That’s where he spent his first seven years until Vince, his father, and I broke up. It made sense then to move to the house my friend Kim had just inherited from her mum and offered to let to me at a ridiculously low rent. Although Morgan welcomed the move – and made friends here immediately – he now views it as unforgivable on my part.
School is an imposing Victorian red-brick building, with part of the playground given over to wooden troughs crammed with pansies and marigolds planted by the children. Although being a dinner lady didn’t exactly feature on my plans, I had to find something – a stopgap – to fit around looking after Morgan when we first moved here. I try not to dwell upon the fact that it’s been a very long time since his school hours have been a factor in my life.
In the kitchen, Amanda, the cook, is stirring an enormous pot of fragrant chicken curry. It’s the last day of term, and there’s a lightness in the air, a palpable sense of anticipation. ‘So what are you and Morgan up to this summer?’ she asks, briefly looking round from the stove.
‘Me and Morgan?’ I laugh. ‘Nothing. God, can you imagine him wanting to come away with me?’ I pause, then add, ‘I think me and Stevie might book a last-minute thing …’ Why did I even say that? We have never discussed going away for more than a night together, and certainly nowhere other than a motorway hotel.
I pull on my blue school apron and set out plastic cups and water jugs on the tables. My proper job title is an MSA, a Midday Supervisory Assistant. I don’t exactly look like your classic dinner lady – the stern auntie type with a perm – but then nor do my colleagues. Whippet-thin Amanda has a diamond nose stud and a bleach-blonde crop, while Delyth is all raucous laughter and glossy red lips, possibly the vampiest woman to ever grace a school canteen. However, she can be rather formidable when crossed; she takes no nonsense from the children. Me, I’m a bit of a pushover where kids are concerned – languid teenagers also, obviously.
‘You mean you’d leave your poor boy home alone?’ teases Delyth, who finds it endlessly amusing that I fuss over Morgan so much.
‘I’m sure he’d survive,’ I say with a grin.
‘Have you taught him to cook yet?’
I shrug. ‘Well, he can just about fry an egg without setting his hair on fire.’
‘God, Aud,’ Amanda remarks with a smirk, ‘you’ve treated that boy far too well. He doesn’t need to figure out stuff for himself. He’s never had to.’
Although I shrug this off, something gnaws at me: because that’s what Vince says too. He reckons I’ve pampered our boy, and that it’s my fault Morgan seems to think it’s fine to undertake nothing more taxing than wobbling about on his unicycle and half-heartedly tossing a couple of beanbags about. Can I add that Vince is the one who started it, by buying our boy a juggling kit last Christmas ‘for a laugh’. He was a bright, sparky kid until the teenage hormones kicked in: excellent at maths, science and history, forever huddled over a book. We’d watch movies and play board games together; it felt as if we were a little gang of two. I can no longer remember the last time he read anything – apart from the Chinese takeaway menu – and these days he seems allergic to my company.
But never mind that because the children are surging in now, the younger years first, jostling into a straggly line at the counter while Delyth and I dish out their meals. It’s an Indian banquet today, to celebrate breaking up for summer. The queue has already disintegrated into an unruly gaggle. There are shrieks and giggles and much pushing in. ‘Calm down, everyone,’ I exclaim, stopping Joseph from grabbing a handful of mini naans.
‘Please, Miss Pepper!’
‘No, Joseph, only one naan each.’
‘Miss, please, they’re only tiny—’
I glance at Delyth, expecting her to lay down the law. But no, she’s smirking while doling out curry and rice from the stainless steel containers. ‘Go on, let him have two,’ she hisses.
‘It’s a special day, Miss Pepper!’ giggles Holly, clutching her tray.
I frown, deciding it must be the fierce July heat that’s making the children so giddy today. Fleetingly, I wonder whether Morgan has managed to draw his bedroom curtains yet, and picture him staggering back, half-blinded by the sudden exposure to sunlight. Delyth and I finish serving the younger ones, and I deal with a small altercation between a bunch of girls at a table – ‘I’m saving a place for Shannon!’
‘You’re not allowed to save places, Lily, you know that …’
‘Please, Miss Pepper …’ And off they go again, dissolving into splutters of laughter.
Delyth and I serve the older years, who are no less hyped up than the little ones, then it’s on to wiping tables as the children begin to congregate at one end of the hall. Normally they’d have surged out to the playground by now. Today though, they’re sort of loitering. I’ve never seen this happen before. ‘Off you go,’ I prompt them. ‘Your lunchtime’s ticking away. Don’t you want to be outside in the sunshine?’
‘Not yet, Miss Pepper!’ someone blurts out. There’s a ripple of sniggered asides. I frown at Delyth, then catch the eye of Moira, the head teacher, who’s glided into the canteen, as regal as the figurehead on a ship with her magnificent bosom and glossy black hair piled high.
‘Everyone!’ she calls out, waving a large white envelope above her head. ‘Boys and girls, gather round and remember what we said at assembly this morning …’ Another burst of laughter. ‘… Now, all quieten