Queen Mum (5 page)

‘Come on,’ said Manny when he saw me. ‘Let’s go. Has he got his case?’

His gaze travelled over my shoulder to Ben behind me, rucksack dangling from his hand.

‘But I need to speak to Ben’s teacher,’ I said.

‘Please, Mum,’ I heard Ben mutter. ‘I want to go home.’

Manny strode over and reached up for the rucksack. ‘Let’s get this lad back. I’ll fill you in on what’s been said.’

This is ridiculous, I’m his mother, I wanted to say. Then I felt Ben lean wearily into me and I knew I didn’t have a choice.

‘I’ll phone you when I get home,’ I said to Mr Hannant, who pressed his lips together and spread his palms. Do what the hell you like, the gesture implied.

I ran back up the stairs for Ben’s suitcase and came out into the yard to find Manny bundling him into the car. As Manny started the engine, Mr Hannant appeared in the doorway looking
small and sour. I tried not to look at him as we drove away.

When I thought I could speak, I said, ‘Why did he tell you the story? Why didn’t he wait for me to come down?’

‘He thought I was your husband. I didn’t say I was, he just leapt to conclusions.’

‘And you didn’t explain?’

Manny stared straight ahead. He began to speak, but the car clamoured over a cattle grid and I didn’t catch the words.

‘Manny?’

‘I said, I didn’t disabuse him of his error.’

I turned in my seat to look at Ben. ‘Hannant says I’m going to be suspended,’ he said.

‘He won’t suspend you,’ said Manny. ‘Trust me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I told him if he did, we’d sue him for lack of proper care.’

Ben smiled faintly and I leaned back in my seat, my stomach churning. What in God’s name was I going to say to Tom?

*

*

I phoned Tom’s work as soon as we got in and left a message without going into detail. Manny had the good grace to leave us on the doorstep, and Juno’s car still
wasn’t in the drive, so it was just me and Ben. I installed him on the sofa with a bucket, because he still looked greenish, although he hadn’t been sick in the car. He sat hunched at
one end with his back to the arm and his stockinged feet up on the cushions.

‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’

‘Not really. Look, I’m not being cheeky or anything.’ He glanced over at the bucket, then away again. ‘But if I do tell you, will you go through it all with Dad for me? I
can’t face a double dose of disapproval.’

He’d thought that line up in the car, and decided it was safe to use with me. Not with his father, though.

‘All right.’

‘It was a dare.’

I sighed. ‘A dare.’

‘Yep.’

‘And?’

‘That’s all.’

‘You know I’m going to call Mr Hannant as soon as we’ve finished, don’t you?’

He nodded and swallowed. ‘OK. You must promise not to drop anyone else in it, though? ’Cause it wasn’t just me, drinking. Only I won’t tell you their names if
you’re going to pass them on.’

‘Oh, Ben, what do you take me for?’

‘Right.’ He took a deep breath. ‘What happened was, this boy, well, Felix, said he could drink more than me and I said he couldn’t, so we did this game where you threw,
flicked, little balls of wet paper, paper you’d chewed, off the end of a ruler, at the light shade and you tried to get them to stick. Stop looking at me like that, Mum, or I won’t tell
you the rest. And every time you missed, you had another swig of whisky. So it got, it got more difficult to aim the balls. And I ended up drinking loads more than Felix; he may not have been
drinking at all now I think about it, it could have been a set-up. And then Mark said there was a forfeit if you lost, and I said it was the first I’d heard about it, but they all swore it
was true. And the forfeit was to go outside and lie on the grass for half an hour. Except the doors were locked at nine, we’d been told that. But Mark said he’d checked the kitchen
window when we were washing-up and it didn’t have a lock, so I could go through there. Climb into the sink, and out. And that’s what I did. And it was so nice lying there on the moor,
it wasn’t cold like you might think, that I went to sleep there, and Mr Cottrell found me in the morning.’

I felt suddenly sick myself. ‘So you could have died of hypothermia, in fact?’

‘Not in this weather, Mum.’

‘You weren’t to know that. It could have dropped icy. Oh, God.’ I put my hand to my brow and pinched the skin hard. ‘Your dad’s going to go up the wall.’

‘I know.’

We sat in silence for a while, then I sent him to his room and phoned Mr Hannant.

I haven’t the energy to be angry any more. Tom does angry in our house.

‘What the bloody hell were you all playing at?’ he stormed at me. So many people to be pissed off with. ‘Did it not occur to you that I might have wanted to drive up there with
you?’

If I could have lied about Manny being there, I would have. But I’m a useless liar, and Juno or Ben might have let it out at some point, and then it would have sounded
really
suspicious. It’s crossed my mind in the past that Tom thinks I fancy Manny.

‘I’ve already told you, I didn’t want to waste any time getting to Ben.’

‘Poking his big bloody nose into our business. I bet we’ll have Juno round tonight, dispensing advice.’

I wanted to tell him that without Manny, I’d have panicked myself into collapse, that Manny had saved the day. But that would have been a very bad move.

‘The main thing is, Ben’s OK,’ I said. ‘At least he’s safe. And all teenage boys drink too much from time to time. It’s a rite of passage.’

‘But wandering off! What a bloody idiot.’

‘I know. I’ve been on to him. He does realize how stupid he was.’

‘I should bloody hope so.’

‘We all do daft things.’ I thought of Bethany and the lunchbox, the clunk of impact and the way she’d jolted her head in shock; there was that to face tomorrow. ‘He
wouldn’t be a normal teenager if he didn’t get himself into trouble from time to time.’

Tom frowned. ‘Hmm. S’pose so. Not like those freaky Stepford girls next door. They never put a foot wrong. Not yet, anyway.’

‘I like Pascale and Sophie.’

‘I know you do.’

‘Are you going up to see Ben?’

‘Uh-huh. Pour us a drink first, though, will you?’ said Tom, the thin end of a smile on his face.

Later, about ten, I went to Ben’s room myself. He was lying flat out with his headphones on, gazing at his map of the world stuck to the ceiling.

‘You’re going to have to come back downstairs again at some point,’ I said, lifting one of the pads from the side of his head. ‘Tomorrow morning would be good, so you
could go to school.’

He switched his amp off, pulled the phones from his skull and sat up. ‘So I’m definitely not suspended?’

‘Mr Hannant never mentioned it to me. Anyway, the Head would have phoned us and told me not to let you darken his doors. I expect he will want to see you, so be prepared.’

‘Do I have to go in? Half our year’s still at Crawdale.’

‘And half isn’t. Including Felix, probably.’

‘Yeah, he’s home. I had a text off him an hour ago. Hannant found his gin supply round the back of the sink.’ He grinned half-heartedly. I took the opportunity to hug him and
he didn’t protest.

‘Go in tomorrow, get it over with, I say.’ I smelt the cleanness of his hair, felt it with the skin of my cheek. ‘Ben, is anything in particular troubling you?’

He broke away at once. ‘No, Mum.’

‘So I won’t find you laid out on our back lawn at midnight tonight?’

‘Mum?’

‘Yes?’

‘It wasn’t just the dare, why I went out.’

I sat very still, like a naturalist waiting for a rare animal to come close.

‘Mark did dare me, but I’d have told him to, you know, get lost if I hadn’t wanted to do it. I wanted to be outside, sometimes I need to get out.’ He closed his eyes.
‘Does that sound mad to you?’

‘Not at all,’ I said.

Two vans from Umanzu parked in Juno’s drive tipped us off that the real filming had started.

‘I thought you weren’t going for another week?’ I said to Juno when she came round to moan that one of them had backed into the outside tap and split the pipe.

‘They’re doing establishing shots, apparently. Some of the cameras are fixed, some of them are ones that you carry about, then there’s a big thing on wheels. The one in the
back bedroom is for Kim to talk to and record a video diary. There’ll be another for me at her house.’ We settled into the bay to watch the crew trailing wires around her porch.
‘Listen, I came to ask, what happened at Meadowbank? What did Geraldine say, in the end?’

‘Do you mean, have I still got a job? Yes, but with the proviso that I don’t ever throw anything at anyone ever again. Which will be easier because Beth’s now with Big
Toddlers.’

‘You’ve been separated?’

‘One of the dads complained she was yakking on her mobile while she was supposed to be supervising playtime.’

‘God.’ Juno rolled her eyes. ‘She’s an accident waiting to happen, isn’t she?’

‘Geraldine says she’s on her last warning, but that was still no excuse for lobbing a lunchbox at a trainee’s head. She said I could have had the nous not to do it in front of
an adult witness, because that meant her hands were tied. So I got a written warning, which is pretty severe, really.’

‘You should contact your union.’

‘I can’t be bothered. Do you know, it all fades away to nothing in the light of Ben being OK; all of it, the whole awful day.’

A grey-haired man stepped out of Juno’s front door and walked backwards across her lawn, scanning the roof.

‘What’s he doing? Counting jackdaws?’

‘That’s Kieran the producer,’ she said, a little smile playing on her lips. ‘I shouldn’t say this – for goodness’ sake don’t repeat it to Manny
– but I think Kieran and I have rather hit it off. He’s terrifically charming.’

The man went in again.

I said, ‘So, are you all packed?’

She blew at a hair that was lying across her face and smoothed it back behind her ear. ‘It’s not so much the packing, there’s all sorts of preparation.’

‘What, stuff they tell you to do?’

‘Some of it. But a lot of it’s just me. Such as minor redecorating, because you would, wouldn’t you, if your house was going to be on TV? That back bedroom had marks all along
the wallpaper where we used to have the blanket chest. And I wanted to stock the kitchen up with new herbs, because those old dried bunches by the sink have been there for eighteen months and
they’re more dust than plant. Just before I go I need to remember fresh flowers for every downstairs room, and I want to stock up the freezer, in case Kim can’t cook.’

‘Won’t that be defeating the object? You don’t want to make it too easy for her.’

‘That’s what Manny says. But I can’t bring myself to leave the house without topping up the food stores, call it a mother’s instinct. Maybe I’ll just get plenty of
staples in; pesto, tomato purée, couscous, that sort of thing. Then anyone can throw a meal together.’

‘Are you allowed to take food of your own?’ I imagined her struggling out of the car with an armful of baguettes.

‘No. But I can pack my echinacea and my evening-primrose capsules. So if they have no fruit in the house when I get there, my immune system’ll still cope. And I’ve been reading
up.’ She looked pleased with herself.

‘On what?

‘
Raising Boys
. It’s this book by Steve Biddulph. It talks about how boys are different from girls and have specific parenting requirements.’

I couldn’t help laughing at her earnestness. ‘What, other than not kitting them out at Claire’s Accessories? Oh, Juno, I could have told you that. Requirements such as, you
don’t ever ask them what they were up to in the bathroom all that time, and you don’t go rooting under their beds, or hassle them when they first come home from school. I could write a
bloody book on it.’

‘You should!’

Only Juno could make a suggestion like this seriously.

‘OK. Chapter One: never let them run out of deodorant. Chapter Two: don’t buy own-brand coke. Chapter Three: on no account touch them in front of their friends. I’ll ask Ben
for you, get him to list the worst parent-crimes.’

‘Ben’s a sweetie. So low-maintenance.’

Well, I thought, apart from the odd drunken midnight crawl across the moors.

‘He’s not a bad lad. But, Juno, you’ll be fine. They’re going to love you.’

She pulled a scared face. ‘I hope so. I’ve spent a fortune on smartening myself up; cathiodermie facials, some new clothes—’