May Contain Nuts (20 page)

‘The software company are very excited about it,' added Ffion.

‘What about “salary”?' David continued. ‘Or is that just the same as job status?'

‘No, I think you could have a separate column for that …' mused Philip. ‘Mind you, if this takes off like they think it might, we'll be scoring 100 per cent in both columns.'

‘Penis size,' suggested William, to laughter around the table.

‘It might be a tough one to measure. But I suppose it would liven up a dull board meeting.'

‘OK. What about “beauty of wife”?' suggested David, rather provocatively smiling at me.

There was a pause in which I saw Philip half glancing
towards his spouse. ‘No, I don't think that's a particularly important one,' he said, making no effort to prevent his exhaled smoke coming into the dining room. Ffion bristled very slightly, her wispy moustache just twitching in the afternoon sunlight.

‘Is it particularly good for one's mental health to be so ultra-competitive all the time?' I volunteered into the embarrassed silence.

There was no time for anyone to give an answer. At that moment, Bronwyn burst into the room sobbing in anger while my son followed behind looking a little anxious. The Swingball championship had ended acrimoniously: Bronwyn had just lost the final.

‘Jamie was cheating,' she wailed. ‘He was hitting it too hard.'

‘Really, Bronwyn!' exclaimed Ffion. ‘Jamie's two years younger than you … You're going to have to learn to be a slightly better loser …'

‘But he was hitting it too hard on purpose.'

‘All right, but don't cry just because you lost, Bronwyn. Now, why don't you make the final best out of three? Go on, off you go. But Jamie, try not to hit the ball quite so hard,' she added as an aside. Whether Bronwyn's eventual victory in the Swingball championship was ever entered in a specially designed league table I never discovered.

My chance to check out some of the other parents at Chelsea College came sooner than I expected. A letter came asking me to bring Molly to the school for an opportunity to meet the head teacher for a little one-to-one chat. This was wonderful, I thought. Such a charming letter, such a lovely thought – this was exactly the sort of extra pastoral attention that made
Chelsea College worth every penny that other people were paying. The letter did, however, list the items we would be expected to provide ourselves: sports kit (summer and winter), hockey stick, indoor PE kit, apron (woodwork), apron (food technology), tennis racquet, fencing mask, lacrosse stick, small tiara … it just went on and on. When David added up the total he was thrown into a blind panic; he put the war project to one side and started ringing back prospective clients saying he did have time to take them on after all. So it was just Molly and I who walked up the grand steps to the school's entrance feeling like we were going to Buckingham Palace to collect our knighthoods.

Chelsea College looked different now that I wasn't staring nervously at the polished floor. It felt grand and important, it flattered you with its imperial columns and panelled walls, it assured you that you'd gone up a notch on the social scale by getting your child in there. I found myself walking past other visiting parents and teachers with an exaggerated benevolent smirk. ‘Hello, yes, we'll be starting here in September …' said my munificent nodding grin, and passing teachers smiled hesitantly back wondering whether they were supposed to recognize us. I was directed towards the office where we were to have our individual chat with the head teacher. ‘It's for my daughter, because she passed the entrance exam you see …' I wonder if we'll become friends with them, I thought as I passed other adults bustling down the corridors; I wonder which prep school that lady's daughter goes to; I wonder if Sarah has an appointment today?

But then I did recognize someone. Sitting in the open-plan waiting area outside the head's office I suddenly spotted Ruby, the little girl whose exam paper I'd copied. She was perched awkwardly on the edge of one of the large low chairs as if she
shouldn't really be there, shiny plastic shoes locked firmly together on the floor. Beside her was an elderly woman, her grandmother I presumed, who sat clutching a defensive handbag in front of her while swivelling her head hawk-like, looking for someone to talk to. Ruby's grandmother wore a coat with polished gold buttons and a big hat that made her look as if she was going on to a wedding. Seeing this little girl again unsettled me. My memory had succeeded in burying the particular details of how Molly had won her place here. In fact, recently I had felt a growing sense of pride in Molly's academic achievement – the stunning exam result had gained her a certain amount of kudos at Spencer House. ‘Well done on getting the scholarship!' her form teacher had said to me. She looked a little puzzled when I snapped, ‘It wasn't
me
, it was Molly …'

Ruby glanced briefly at me but gave no reaction and I told myself to stop worrying. We took our seats opposite them and the girls briefly eyed one another.

‘Excuse me, do you work here?' said Ruby's grandmother in an accent that I found hard to locate.

‘No, no. Prospective parent!' I said, adding a long-suffering phoney laugh. I looked away. This was uncomfortable. I didn't want to get into a conversation.

‘My granddaughter passed the entrance exam.'

‘Jolly good. Well done.'

‘Thank you,' whispered Ruby and for a split second we had direct eye contact for the first time since she had given me her maths answers. I quickly looked back to her grandmother, smiled, and found something inconsequential to mumble to Molly. Though I would rather not have encountered the accomplice to remind me of my crime, the fact that Ruby had also got into this highly sought-after school made me feel somehow exonerated. No harm was done.

A rather gangly and flustered teacher struggling to hold a pile of exercise books to his chest popped into the waiting area to check his pigeonhole.

‘Excuse me, sir, do you work here?'

Although he clearly did, he appeared cornered by this question, as if committing himself to any sort of answer might be a mistake.

‘Er, yes, yes, I do.'

‘This is my granddaughter Ruby.'

‘Right, um, hello, Ruby. Are you waiting to see the head?'

‘Isn't she lovely?'

‘Yes. You must be very proud.'

‘She's very polite; always says please and thank you, isn't it …'

‘Glad to hear it.'

‘So can she come to this school then?'

He paused, unsure of how to respond to the old lady's novel idea of an admissions system.

‘Um, well, you know the college has an entrance exam? She has to take that.' The books still threatened to burst from the volatile pile pressed against his chest, and he bent his body awkwardly to try and keep hold of them all.

‘She passed the exam.'

‘Oh splendid. Well, look forward to seeing you in September then, Ruby. I'm Mr Worrall, deputy head.'

‘So she can come to the school?'

‘Yes, if she passed the entrance exam. You should have got a letter. I'm sure the head will be out in a minute.'

‘Can she have a scholarship please?'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘Please can she have a scholarship to pay for her to come to this school?'

‘Well, that depends on how well she did in the exam. Look, admissions isn't really my department. Why don't you wait until the head is finished and speak to her?'

‘She's very clever, you know.'

‘I bet she is.'

‘And she can play the recorder …'

‘Jolly good …'

‘So can she have a scholarship?'

‘Well, you see, that's not how it works. You have to get an exceptional mark to get a scholarship, and you'd have been told if Ruby had done that well.'

‘She very good at her internet. She practises every night … Look at her, isn't she lovely?'

‘Why don't you have a word with the head when she's finished …'

‘Can you just tell me please, Mr Worrall, is the scholarship related to how much money you have?'

‘Er, no … it's just how gifted the child is.'

‘Ruby is gifted. She can send emails and everything, isn't it? But her mother doesn't have any money. She has three jobs, she's working all the time, but it all goes on the children.'

This conversation had now strayed into the uncomfortable territory of money, an area that Mr Worrall seemed not to want to accommodate into his imaginary universe of the happy high-achieving school where fees were an unspoken minor detail, a slightly embarrassing fact of life that one knew about but didn't need to refer to, like going to the toilet or one's parents having sex.

‘Um, well, I can't really, um, as I say, I'm just one of the deputies and I teach English here. Have a seat and I'm sure the head will be happy to explain how it works as soon as she's free …'

‘How much does it cost if she doesn't have a scholarship?'

‘It's in the prospectus there – oh, there's normally some on the table …'

All this time Ruby had been watching this teacher as if she was reading his face, her brow slightly furrowed as she struggled to comprehend his embarrassment. As Mr Worrall made his escape, Ruby's grandmother turned her attention to me.

‘Excuse me, madam, do you know, how much does it cost to come to this school?'

‘Oh, well – at the moment it's about three and a half thousand pounds a term.'

‘Oh my lord! That's a lot of money.'

‘Yes, yes it is.'

‘We don't have three and a half thousand pounds a term … oh my lord, so how much would that be till Ruby went on to Cambridge University?'

‘Well, if she was here for seven years, um, that would be three times three and a half thousand times seven, which is, um …'

‘Seventy-three and a half thousand …' said Ruby quietly.

‘You see how clever she is? Just like that! Can these other children who got the scholarship do sums in their head like that? I'd like to see them try.'

I could feel Molly's eyes boring into me. Don't you dare suggest it, said the silent laser glare.

‘How much did you say, Ruby?'

‘Seventy-three thousand and five hundred pounds.'

‘There's no way I could ever find that sort of money.'

‘No, it's madness, isn't it? It's like they expect us to sell the house or something just to pay the school fees …'

‘We don't own a house.'

I felt my face flush with the warm glow of embarrassment and Molly finally whispered her first words since we had sat down.

‘Mum. Shut up!'

‘No, well, that would make it even harder, I suppose …'

‘Seventy thousand pounds to spend on each child! I've never met anybody with that much spare money in my whole life.' And then she gave a little laugh and added, ‘Apart from you, I suppose!'

I hadn't wanted to say it, but now the alternative seemed worse.

‘No, well, actually we don't have that sort of money either. Molly here got a scholarship.'

‘Mum. Shut up.'

‘She did? Oh my lord, you must be a very clever girl!'

Molly managed a half smile and then asked me how much longer we would have to wait. Almost on cue, the headmistress came out of her office and Ruby's grandmother stood up and said, ‘Hello, we have an appointment. I am Mrs Osafo and this is my granddaughter Ruby …'

‘Hello, Ruby,' said the headmistress. The head was younger than I had expected; in contrast to her surroundings, she had a modern, friendly air about her.

Mrs Osafo gestured to her granddaughter to stand up and held her arm out to direct the head teacher's gaze. ‘Isn't she lovely?'

‘Er, yes. She must make you very proud.'

‘She's very polite. And she can play the recorder. I have it in my bag, would you like to hear her?'

‘Another time,' she said, ushering them into her office and casting me a brief smile as she closed the door.

Five minutes later the door opened again and I heard a
fairly competent recorder player racing through the concluding notes of the theme tune to
EastEnders
.

‘Very nice, Ruby, and thank you for coming in. And best of luck elsewhere …'

The old lady looked dignified but couldn't hide her disappointment. She addressed me directly: ‘You have to try, isn't it?' then headed past me with Ruby scurrying along behind staring at the ground.

The inside of the head's office was a shrine to Achievement. There were silver trophies on the shelf, plaques on the desk, framed newspaper clippings of children holding up science projects, all underlined by several long school photos showing hundreds of healthy smiling children, all with that uniquely rosy complexion that comes from generations of good diet and skiing holidays.

‘Well!' said the head teacher as she closed the door behind her. ‘I've never had anyone ask for a place on the basis of a private recorder recital before!'

‘It must be very difficult. I expect you wish you could give a scholarship to everyone.'

‘Actually that girl came very close, one hundred per cent in maths, just let down by a couple of mistakes on her English paper … It's a great shame. We would have loved to have her here.'

I paused uncertainly, not wanting to presume to take a seat until offered. The last time I had been in a head teacher's office was for writing ‘Duran Duran' on my arm in biro.

‘Anyway, I'm Miss Reynolds, and you must be … Molly Chaplin! Ah yes, one of our new scholars! Well done on your splendid exam result!'

‘Thank you,' said Molly.

‘Were you surprised you did so well?'

‘Well, I was, what with being ill and having to do it at home and everything—'

‘No, darling, that was the mock exam I set you, you're getting confused!' I said, correcting her more sharply than might have been appropriate. ‘No, we weren't too surprised because Molly's always been a very bright girl and, as I say, always been a very bright girl, so we weren't surprised at all, we did a few dummy runs at home, the
mock exams at home
, as it were, and she scored very well in all of those and jolly good, jolly pleased to be here, jolly good!'