May Contain Nuts (27 page)

‘Now hang on a minute, Ffion. It wasn't just Molly, they were all playing it. I've told Molly off – why don't you have a word with your own child?'

‘Because Bronwyn was really looking forward to learning bridge. Bronwyn was hoping to join the bridge club at Chelsea
College but she won't be able to if your daughter keeps leading her astray and turning on Splishy-Sploshy.'

‘Wishy-Washy,' Molly corrected her, perhaps unwisely.

‘BE QUIET, MOLLY!' shouted Ffion. ‘We've had quite enough from you today, thank you very much.'

‘DON'T YOU SHOUT AT MY DAUGHTER,' I suddenly shouted back.
‘I'll
tell her off, not you!'

‘You have to admit—' began Philip in his best placatory tone.

‘No, I don't have to admit anything. This is my house and she is my daughter and I will not have her taking all the blame for everything.'

My anger had shocked everyone, including myself. Some primal defensive instinct had kicked in and now I was tearing up the ancient treaty under which adults had agreed to always present a united front in the face of errant children.

‘Why don't you have a word with your own bloody daughter, instead of everyone else's? Why don't you face up to the fact that your child is not, in fact, the only child in the world that is one hundred per cent bloody perfect?'

‘Because Bronwyn wasn't the one who turned on the Game Cube, that's why!'

If Molly considered pointing out that it was a PlayStation, not a Game Cube, she decided against it. The children were staring open-mouthed to see the adults turn on one another like this.

‘And Bronwyn didn't start playing computer games, so don't blame me for Molly's intellectual immaturity.'

‘Intellectual immaturity? What sort of bollocks is that? You think your child's so bloody smart just because she came top of a league table that her own mother designed! Well bugger me, what a surprise!'

‘Please don't swear in front of Bronwyn,' said her mother. The language had taken the children's amazement to an even higher level. Their faces betrayed an uneven mixture of excitement rapidly being swamped by acute embarrassment.

‘I'm sorry that you are so angry that Bronwyn is a higher achiever than Molly,' she continued, ‘but perhaps that's what happens when your children start mixing with coloured children off a council estate. I don't mind you frittering away your own daughter's potential, but I won't have you letting it affect mine.'

‘What are you talking about? They were playing a bloody computer game …'

‘I'm sorry, but Molly is holding Bronwyn back academically, and I simply cannot have that.'

‘
What
?'

‘Your daughter is holding my child back academically. I don't think the friendship is benefiting Bronwyn.'

Suddenly my rage crossed a line and I felt possessed by some sort of serene calmness that came from no longer caring. I was furious without being volatile, incandescent but in control. There was a pause and then I just looked her up and down and said, ‘Hey, F-f-f-fion? Why don't you just f-f-f-fuck off ! Just f-fuck off and f-find something more worthwhile to do, like shaving off that hideous moustache, you big fat walrus.'

There was a stunned silence. And then William said, ‘So, um … anyone fancy a game of Wishy-Washy?'

‘Shut up, William!' said Sarah, but Ffion was already gone. We hadn't even set a date for the next bridge lesson. And out by her car I caught a glimpse of her husband taking a long slow drag of a cigarette.

 

Can Crystals Cure Cancer?

By Dr Henry Bagge

Sunrise Books £6.99

No.

The book didn't actually say ‘No', but I felt able to make up my own mind about this without reading two hundred pages of what David termed ‘bogus anti-scientific mumbo-jumbo'. I don't think I'd have been very comfortable if one of my children was rushed to hospital and the doctor said, ‘I've just read this amazing book on crystology, so instead of giving him the usual cure for pneumonia I thought we might rest some agate on his forehead because that's the birthstone for Scorpio, although we might try some topaz since he's on the cusp with Sagittarius.' I'd always thought it was rather liberal and forward-thinking to be open to ideas about alternative medicine, spiritualism and astrology. But now I'd lost the faith.

I pulled
Can Crystals Cure Cancer?
from the shelf and chucked it on the pile destined for the Oxfam shop, and then decided it might be a bit tactless to give them
Think Yourself Thinner
. But they did get
Yoga for Toddlers
,
The Womb-man's Guide to Lunar Menstruation
and
Choose Your Child's Star Sign: How family planning and elective caesareans can help you pick the best sign of the zodiac for your baby
. Nor did I keep
Men Say Tomato – Women say Tomato
,
Homeopathy for Cats
or the book that suggested I might use tarot cards to help me pick my child's GCSE subjects. Looking at the pile now made me feel there was something rather decadent and narcissistic about all these quasi-alternative bibles and endless self-help books. Funny how there isn't a market for ‘help-other-people books'.

Ruby failed to get into Barnes School for Girls. Despite a planned programme of study sessions round at our house, despite mock examinations done in David's office while he tutted and huffed around in the kitchen, my adopted prodigy failed to make the grade. And it wasn't because I didn't give her any echinacea and nettle. Her grandmother rang me to thank me for all my efforts but to say that Ruby would be going to Battersea Comprehensive with all her friends after all. She didn't want to talk for long; when I asked how Ruby did in the interview with the head teacher, she mumbled something about them missing it because the bus had been late. There was a suggestion of embarrassment in her voice as if she now felt foolish ever to have harboured such social aspirations for her granddaughter. But I felt a personal sense of failure, as if I was somehow responsible for Ruby's fate. Her brother Kofi dropped round the practice papers that I hadn't wanted back.

‘He really is very tall, isn't he?' said David. ‘Do you know what occurs to me? That somebody should put him in contact with a professional basketball team.'

Sarah happily agreed to my suggestion that we take our girls out to buy their uniforms for Chelsea College together, and then her daughter let slip that this was the second set of school clothes they had bought; they'd already been out once with Ffion and Bronwyn. (Ffion and I had
not been in touch since I had happened to allude to her striking similarity to an enormous whiskery sea-mammal.) Now with the kids all at school and David visiting a client, I sat at home sewing Molly's nametags on her Chelsea College blazer. I didn't use the whole space provided because Molly didn't have a triple-barrelled name. But I couldn't get Ruby out of my head. She would never wear a blazer like this one, I thought as I held it up. I pictured her in the whole outfit, walking side by side with Molly up the steps of Chelsea College. And then I shuddered at the thought of my daughter being friends with Bronwyn for another seven years.

My attention was distracted by seeing a police car pull up in the road. Had a resident of Oaken Avenue committed some crime? Had somebody been putting white flour in their bread-maker? But then my casual nosiness turned to panic as I spied a uniformed officer striding down my path. Inside my brain, some sort of instinctive rapid-response unit instantly kicked into action: heartbeat alarm on maximum, adrenalin mobilized, hand movements set to medium-level shaking. I must try to remain calm, I told myself. I must not appear to panic; no, I am going to remain in complete control. And then I dived behind the sofa. I lay there hidden, feeling my heart thumping too loudly against the carpet, staring into the darkness of the gap under the couch. The police had come for me, they had found out, it was all over. But at least I had located Sneezy from Alfie's Polly Pocket Snow White Cottage, so that was something to be positive about.

The doorbell made me jump even though I was expecting it. What was the point of having electric gates if I was going to leave them open in the daytime? The police had warned us
about undesirable characters knocking on people's doors and now they'd been proved right. I stayed hidden. I would just ignore it and the policeman would go away again; yes, that was surely an excellent and foolproof way of dealing with this particular problem. The carpet down there was much less worn that in the centre of the room, I noticed. Give it another minute or so and the arresting officer would be gone. The doorbell rang again.

‘I'll get it!' shouted Carmen, and I heard the front door open.

Since when did Carmen start answering the door for us? Ironing, hoovering and a little light dusting: that was the deal. I'd never mentioned anything about handing me over to an arresting officer.

‘Mrs Chaplin, policeman to see you …' said Carmen, showing him into the lounge with more than a tinge of excitement in her voice.

‘Ah, hello there …' I said smiling, my head popping up from behind the settee. ‘Just getting the bits of fluff off the carpet. Carmen, don't forget to hoover behind the sofa when you do this room, will you?'

‘OK.'

‘But maybe you should do the upstairs rooms now,' I emphasized, getting to my feet and placing a rather paltry amount of fluff in the wastepaper basket.

‘OK.' And she left me alone where I was trying too hard to adopt some sort of natural standing position.

‘Alice Chaplin?'

‘Yes,' I said, stiffening. I was sure this was it.

‘Hi there, Alice, I'm Mike.'

Oh how lovely! How friendly and informal! Even though he'd come to drag me down to the cells and probably beat me
into a signed confession, how charming that some expensive PR consultation had concluded that arresting officers should take the trouble to establish first-name terms beforehand. I'm sure when the hangman put the noose round Ruth Ellis, it would have really brightened up her day if he'd said, ‘Hello, Ruth, I'm Albert. I'll be your hangman for this morning …'

‘Hello, er, Mike …' I mumbled.

On his lapel, his walkie-talkie chattered away on a special frequency reserved for distorted static and bizarre non sequiturs.

‘So, Alice, do you know why I'm here?'

‘Er … neighbourhood watch?'

‘Ruby Osafo?'

‘Ruby Osafo … ? Ruby Osafo … ?' I repeated, in the hope that the name might ring some distant bell. ‘Ah yes, I remember.'

‘I've just been round to the flat of the family in question. They claim to be the victim of a crime?' and he looked at me with meaningfully raised eyebrows. I think that was the moment that I was certain I was done for.

When I had gone to court for causing a road accident with the model child, I never felt that bad about it because deep inside I felt no shame.

‘Really? A “crime” – that's a very strong word, isn't it?' I gabbled, my voice cracking slightly. I was conscious that I was avoiding eye contact, and was also concerned that my impression of an innocent acquaintance with the Osafos might not be made more convincing if I suddenly threw up all over the fluffy carpet.

‘Oh yes. But I'm concerned that this is far more serious than it looks. We might be talking fraud here, Alice.'

The excessive use of my first name was not an act of friendship at all – it was a subtle form of police brutality, designed to make the interviewee explode with indignation, inadvertently revealing all sorts of incriminating information in the outburst.

‘Fraud?' I was fighting back the tears but had to stay strong. ‘Aren't I allowed to phone my solicitor or something?'

‘There's not much point in that, Alice.'

I slumped into a chair.

‘Fraud? What's the punishment for fraud? A fine, maybe? A suspended sentence?'

‘Ooh no, it's a very serious offence. Custodial sentence is quite common. So I need to ask you a few questions, if I may …'

I could just make a dash for it now, I thought. Go on the run, live wild in Richmond Park, dig out a secret den and live off raw rabbit meat and venison, occasionally popping to the Centre Court Shopping Centre, Wimbledon for essential toiletries and Belgian chocolates.

‘Have you given any valuables of any sort to the Osafo family during the past couple of weeks?'

‘Hmmm?' I lifted my face out of my hands. ‘Yes, my old laptop computer. Why?'

‘Oh. Really?' He sounded extremely disappointed. ‘What sort of computer was it?'

‘A little grey one – er, a Sony “Vaio” – I never know how you pronounce it.'

‘Oh, that's what they said. And you'd be willing to say that in a signed statement, would you?'

‘I don't understand – what's this got to do with anything?'

‘Well, it's been stolen.'

‘What?'

‘Your laptop. The Osafos have reported it stolen.'

‘Oh, thank God.'

‘What?'

‘Thank God, oh what a relief!' I was almost laughing. ‘I thought you were, I mean, I thought that, um – it doesn't matter. I thought something worse must have happened. So you just came round to see if I had given them my laptop?'

‘I had to check it out. See, it's the easiest thing in the world for them to fake a burglary, claim they lost an expensive laptop. And when they couldn't produce any receipt or anything, I thought they might be trying to defraud the insurance company.' He glanced meaningfully through the net curtains. ‘Wasn't this the road where that nutty woman got done for sticking a model Tony Blair out in front of a car? One of them anti-capitalist types, you know, anarchist or whatever …'

‘Really? No, I never heard about that. So you're saying the Osafos have been the victims of a crime?'