sunshine on top of the rubble, washing his back leg. I wonder how long it will take Alan to sort that lot out, she thought. It could end up like Mrs Fingellâs garden. She bent down to stroke Biggles, and picked up a blown-in Snickers wrapper.
âPity about your wall!â Carol trilled at her from the window of her all-white Peugeot. Pity about your bloody husband, Jenny felt like shouting back.
Polly was looking unusually subdued, sitting big-eyed and wary out on the school steps, watched over protectively by her loyal friend, Harriet Caine. Jenny sensed trouble as she struggled to squeeze the Golf between a Nissan Patrol and a Vauxhall Frontera.
Harriet did the talking. âMrs Spencer says she would like to see you,â she reported quietly to Jenny, standing guard in front of the guilty-looking Polly.
Jenny gently moved Harriet aside. âWhat have you done now, Polly? You know this is an important time, with your exams coming. I hope it isnât anything naughty.â
âDepends how you look at it. Not very naughty. I donât think so anyway, but I think maybe Mrs Spencer does.â
Jenny strode up the steps into the grandiose Victorian building, wishing she wasnât wearing her oldest jeans and sweatshirt but was one of those mothers who always dressed as if they were about to go to a charity lunch. The building was scruffy, a large converted house forming the tacked-on junior department of the High School. Few of the parents here had ever visited an ordinary modern primary school, but had they done so they would have realized that no state school would have tolerated the dingy corridors and lack of space that parents here were taking out second mortgages to pay for. What they wanted and got for their money was to have their little daughters grandly presided over by the formidable Fiona Pemberton, to learn French from the age of eight, and to scramble at eleven for the forty or so places reserved for them in the famously successful senior department of the school.
Ahead of Jenny a gaggle of the velvet headband brigade (pie-crust collars and cashmere to match) were discussing the forthcoming exams, which would weed out the no-hopers from those who would make it through to the senior school and safely on their way to Oxbridge, exams which would make lifelong enemies out of politely ruthless mothers. The crowded corridor, cheerfully lined with splodgy paintings, smelt of brown rice and chicken, overlaid with the soupy aroma of pre-pubescent little girls. The lino floor was scratched and filthy, and Jenny wondered, if it wasnât in the interests of keeping the place clean, why the uniform list required the girls to have three pairs of shoes each.
Jenny took a deep breath and knocked on the open door of Pollyâs classroom. She felt guilty herself, summoned like this to the teacherâs presence. She should have waited and got some idea about what Polly had actually done before she rushed in, then she could have prepared an informed defence. Mrs Spencer, a brisk young woman with neatly bobbed, conker-brown hair, was sitting at her desk marking the dayâs maths.
âAh. Mrs Collins,â she said, but didnât continue, and Jenny thought, Oh God, itâs so serious, the poor woman doesnât know what to say. âAh. Mrs Spencer,â was the most tempting reply, which Jenny, wisely, didnât make.
âPolly tells me you want to see me,â she said instead, as evenly as she could manage.
âYes. Mrs Collins, Iâm afraid I found Polly and her friend looking at this during the lunch break.â Glancing nervously towards the open door, Mrs Spencer pulled the
Playboy
magazine from under the pile of exercise books. Jenny could feel her mouth twitching treacherously into a smile and fought to resist it. Mrs Spencer had put the magazine down and moved her hands down to her lap, as if not quite liking to touch. Sheâs only young really, Jenny
âPity about your wall!â Carol trilled at her from the window of her all-white Peugeot. Pity about your bloody husband, Jenny felt like shouting back.
Polly was looking unusually subdued, sitting big-eyed and wary out on the school steps, watched over protectively by her loyal friend, Harriet Caine. Jenny sensed trouble as she struggled to squeeze the Golf between a Nissan Patrol and a Vauxhall Frontera.
Harriet did the talking. âMrs Spencer says she would like to see you,â she reported quietly to Jenny, standing guard in front of the guilty-looking Polly.
Jenny gently moved Harriet aside. âWhat have you done now, Polly? You know this is an important time, with your exams coming. I hope it isnât anything naughty.â
âDepends how you look at it. Not very naughty. I donât think so anyway, but I think maybe Mrs Spencer does.â
Jenny strode up the steps into the grandiose Victorian building, wishing she wasnât wearing her oldest jeans and sweatshirt but was one of those mothers who always dressed as if they were about to go to a charity lunch. The building was scruffy, a large converted house forming the tacked-on junior department of the High School. Few of the parents here had ever visited an ordinary modern primary school, but had they done so they would have realized that no state school would have tolerated the dingy corridors and lack of space that parents here were taking out second mortgages to pay for. What they wanted and got for their money was to have their little daughters grandly presided over by the formidable Fiona Pemberton, to learn French from the age of eight, and to scramble at eleven for the forty or so places reserved for them in the famously successful senior department of the school.
Ahead of Jenny a gaggle of the velvet headband brigade (pie-crust collars and cashmere to match) were discussing the forthcoming exams, which would weed out the no-hopers from those who would make it through to the senior school and safely on their way to Oxbridge, exams which would make lifelong enemies out of politely ruthless mothers. The crowded corridor, cheerfully lined with splodgy paintings, smelt of brown rice and chicken, overlaid with the soupy aroma of pre-pubescent little girls. The lino floor was scratched and filthy, and Jenny wondered, if it wasnât in the interests of keeping the place clean, why the uniform list required the girls to have three pairs of shoes each.
Jenny took a deep breath and knocked on the open door of Pollyâs classroom. She felt guilty herself, summoned like this to the teacherâs presence. She should have waited and got some idea about what Polly had actually done before she rushed in, then she could have prepared an informed defence. Mrs Spencer, a brisk young woman with neatly bobbed, conker-brown hair, was sitting at her desk marking the dayâs maths.
âAh. Mrs Collins,â she said, but didnât continue, and Jenny thought, Oh God, itâs so serious, the poor woman doesnât know what to say. âAh. Mrs Spencer,â was the most tempting reply, which Jenny, wisely, didnât make.
âPolly tells me you want to see me,â she said instead, as evenly as she could manage.
âYes. Mrs Collins, Iâm afraid I found Polly and her friend looking at this during the lunch break.â Glancing nervously towards the open door, Mrs Spencer pulled the
Playboy
magazine from under the pile of exercise books. Jenny could feel her mouth twitching treacherously into a smile and fought to resist it. Mrs Spencer had put the magazine down and moved her hands down to her lap, as if not quite liking to touch. Sheâs only young really, Jenny
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