Pieces of My Heart (5 page)

Sarah and Ali came out of the school gate together. They were both full of chat.

‘Honestly, Mum, you should see the amount of homework we got – our first day!’ Ali said. ‘It’ll take hours to finish.’

‘How’s David?’ I asked.

She beamed. ‘He’s just great.’

‘You should see them, Mum,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s sickening. They go around holding hands all day long and Ali stares at him with these big moo eyes.’

‘Ah, young love.’ I smiled.

‘Hey, Ali, who’s that new girl in your class?’ Sarah asked. ‘Everyone was talking about her today. She looks like a super-model.’

‘Her name’s Tracy. She’s been expelled from three schools. She’s good-looking, but I don’t think she’s very clever. She thought Aung San Suu Kyi was a form of martial arts.’

Ali and I giggled. Sarah looked at us blankly. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘Come on, you must know who Aung San Suu Kyi is?’ Ali said.

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Does that make me thick, too?’

‘No, it makes you uninformed,’ I said. ‘You should pay attention to current affairs.’

‘
Booooring
. Besides, that Tracy girl doesn’t need to know about current affairs – she’s going to make millions as a model. Everyone was talking about her.
And
all the guys were drooling over her.’

‘She wants to go to New York and model,’ said Ali.

‘Is she really that good-looking?’ I asked.

‘Yes, and she’s stick-thin,’ said Sarah. ‘I bet she eats nothing. Did you see what she had for lunch?’ she asked Ali.

‘No, Sarah, I don’t go around staring at people’s lunch boxes.’

‘You were just too busy staring at David. I’d say she lives on rice cakes,’ Sarah said.

‘How could anyone live on those? They’re like cardboard,’ said Ali.

‘Nobody’s that thin naturally so she must starve herself,’ said Sarah. ‘All models do.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said. ‘Being too thin is awful.’

‘Are you mad?’ Sarah said. ‘I’d much rather be too skinny than fat. I think Tracy looks amazing.’

‘There’s nothing attractive about matchstick legs and sunken cheeks. Victoria Beckham is much prettier when she has some flesh on her bones.’

‘She always looks great, even when she’s really skinny, and her clothes are so cool,’ Sarah disagreed with me.

‘Victoria’s a bit scrawny, but Tracy’s taller so she looks more like a model, kind of like Keira Knightley, naturally slim,’ Ali said.

‘What does David think of her?’ Sarah asked.

‘He said he thought she was pretty, but he didn’t see what the fuss was about.’

‘He’s got very good taste.’ I smiled at Ali. ‘Now, how do you fancy going to Carluccio’s for dinner to celebrate or commiserate your first day back at school?’

‘Brilliant, I’m starving,’ Ali said.

‘Sounds good to me,’ Sarah agreed.

‘OK so. We’ll just swing by and pick up Charlie.’

‘Will Dad be coming?’ Ali asked.

‘Not tonight. He’s tied up.’

I texted Charlie to let him know to be ready, and he was waiting outside when we reached the house. He climbed into the car with his red nose and black eyes.

‘Charlie! What happened to you?’ Ali gasped.

‘I fell over getting out of the bath,’ he said, looking at me.

‘Really?’ said Sarah. ‘It looks like someone boxed you in the face.’

‘Yes, well, they didn’t. He just fell,’ I said firmly. The last thing I wanted was for the girls to find out that their grandfather was a molester.

6

The day of the Mallow twins’ party quickly turned into a nightmare. I had a hysterical phone call from Nancy at nine in the morning to say that because of the weather the night before the marquee was now flying in circles around the garden.

I called Barry, the supplier, and arranged to meet him there at ten o’clock. He held up the filthy, ripped tent and cursed. ‘I don’t believe this. It’s wrecked. The bloody thing is in tatters. I pegged that down last night and there’s no way it should have come up, regardless of the weather. Look – there’s big holes here where I planted the pegs. It looks like someone dug them up.’

‘Jesus Christ, I’ll kill them,’ Nancy huffed.

The twins were frog-marched down to explain what they had done. ‘It was only a joke,’ Ryan said.

‘It was just for fun, to see if it would fall down,’ Harry added.

‘Well, it’s not very funny, lads. My tent is ruined and it’s going to cost a lot to replace it,’ Barry said. ‘And before you ask, no, I don’t have another for you. They’re all booked up today.’

‘What are we going to do? I have twenty-five boys and their parents arriving in four hours,’ wailed Nancy.

‘It looks like the party is going to have to be in the house,’ I said.

‘Over my dead body,’ Nancy said, through gritted teeth. ‘Right, there’s nothing else for it. They’ll have to be in the garage.’

‘I don’t want to have a party in the garage,’ Ryan whined. ‘It’s smelly and dark.’

‘Yeah, Mum, the garage is crap,’ moaned his twin, Harry.

‘It’ll be fine, boys. Ava will make it nice, won’t you?’

‘I’ll do my very best for you.’ Not having seen the garage, I wasn’t going to promise a miracle.

‘You’re so mean, Mum. Dad would
never
make us have our party in the garage.’ Ryan threw himself on the ground and began to wail. This kid was really beginning to get on my nerves.

‘Well, your father’s not here, as usual, so you can stop that whingeing.’

‘When is he coming?’ Harry asked.

‘Whenever he bloody feels like it,’ she muttered, under her breath.

‘Will he be here for the party?’ Ryan asked.

‘Who knows? Daddy does what Daddy wants and to hell with everyone else.’

Clearly all was not well with the Mallows. I felt sorry for Nancy, who was completely strung out, but I felt even sorrier for the boys. They might be annoying, but they were genuinely upset that their dad wouldn’t be there for their birthday.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said, in super-enthusiastic mode, ‘let’s go and take a look at the garage and we’ll see what we can do to make it like a really cool jungle.’

‘It’s this way,’ Nancy said.

I followed her and the twins through her huge kitchen, living room and hall, and out into the dark, damp, cobweb-infested garage. I had four hours to clear it, clean it and transform it into a jungle. How the hell was I going to manage that?

‘Can you really make it into a jungle?’ Harry asked.

‘Sure, no problem. I’ll call a few friends to come and help.’

‘I have to go, Ava. I’ve a hair and makeup appointment and the boys are getting their hair cut, too. We’ll be back around twelve,’ Nancy said. Then, fighting back tears, she whispered, ‘Please don’t let me down. They need to have a nice time. Their arsehole of a father isn’t going to be here.’

I put my arm around her. ‘Don’t worry about anything. I promise they’ll have a great birthday.’

As soon as they left, I called Sally, Charlie and the girls. I needed all hands on deck. They arrived over – Sally had a boot-load of emergency equipment from the office – and we set to transforming the gloomy garage into a jungle.

‘It’s disgusting in here,’ Sarah complained, as she carried a bin out.

‘It’s not exactly a party room,’ Ali agreed, as she dragged an old carpet across the floor.

‘Remind me why the hell she can’t have the party in a wing of her mansion?’ Sally grumbled.

‘Because she’s a bit neurotic and, to be fair, twenty-five seven-year-old boys would probably trash the house.’

‘Well, I’ll be charging a lot extra for this,’ Sally said. ‘I had a massage booked for this morning.’

‘How much are we getting paid for working today?’ Sarah demanded. ‘We’ve been in school all week and it’s supposed to be our time to relax, so we should get paid double what you were thinking of giving us.’

‘You’ll get nothing if you don’t start working,’ I said. ‘Now, come on, we need to get a move on. The best thing to do is push all the junk to one side, cover it with a black sheet and work with the rest of the room.’

We used blow heaters to warm it up and get rid of the damp, then set up the trestle table and covered it with a bamboo-effect cloth, leopard- and zebra-print plates and cups. We covered the walls with black sheets and stuck life-size photos of animals to them. We set up potted palm trees in each corner. We rolled out large grass mats on the floor and placed slimy plastic creepy-crawlies all around. We put huge cut-outs of lions, giraffes and zebras all around the room. Then we hung a mosquito net across the ceiling and suspended spiders, bats and snakes from it, with balloons in zebra- and leopard-print. Finally, we stuck lion paw prints all the way up the drive to the door.

‘Am I in Africa?’ Helen asked, coming through the doorway bearing a very large birthday cake. ‘Good job, guys, it’s very jungle-esque.’

‘And well done to you,’ Sally said, nodding at the cake. ‘It really does look like a crocodile. How did you do it?’

‘Years of practice … and buckets of green icing.’

‘The detail is amazing.’ Ali came over for a closer look. ‘What are the claws made of?’

‘The claws are liquorice, the teeth are cut-up marshmallows, the eyes are whole marshmallows with black jellybeans for pupils and when you cut the cake, raspberry coulis will flow out like blood, just as they requested.’

‘Little boys are freaks,’ Sally said.

I showed Helen into the kitchen and she put the cake and chocolate animals in the fridge and left the canapés for the adults, plus the kids’ lion- and zebra-face pizzas, elephant-shaped sandwiches and sausage rolls on the counter-top. We also had doughnuts, jelly snakes, spiders and dinosaurs and a fruit platter – which the parents always ordered but none of the kids ever ate.

‘You know the score – pizzas and sausage rolls on medium heat for twenty minutes,’ she said.

‘Thanks, Helen. You’ve really outdone yourself with the cake.’

‘You’re welcome. I’ve got to run – I’m catering a dinner party for forty tonight.’

‘Talk to you on Monday,’ I said, as she left.

Just when things were looking up my phone rang. It was Toby, the owner of Clowning Around, which did the entertaining for us. He was twenty-seven and had started the company five years ago, after leaving college. He had a staff of ten and had been working with us for the past two years and so far had only let me down once …

‘Listen, Ava, I’m really sorry about this but two of our guys have rung in sick and I don’t have anyone for you until four o’clock.’

‘Jesus, Toby, the party starts at two. How the hell am I supposed to keep twenty-five kids entertained for two hours? That’s your job. That’s what I pay you for.’

‘I know, I know – look, this never happens but there’s some weird Chinese flu going around. I gave them grief on the phone, but they’re really sick.’

‘Well, you have to find me someone else.’

‘All of my guys are at the Festival of Culture in town today. I’m so sorry – I know I’ve left you stuck.’

‘Bloody right you have. What about you? Why can’t you do it?’

‘I have to go to my cousin’s wedding.’

‘To hell with your cousin.’

‘Ava, we’re really close. I can’t let him down.’

‘You don’t need to go to the church. You can go to the reception after you’ve finished here.’

‘I’m a groomsman.’

‘All they do is walk up and down the aisle with the bridesmaids – any fool can do that.’

‘My mother would kill me, not to mention my aunt – she’d skin me alive.’

‘Christ, Toby, you’ve completely landed me in it.’

‘I know, and I feel really bad. Look, you have all the stuff for the games that I dropped in yesterday so all you need are the instructions, which I’ll email to your phone now. It’s all very straightforward. I promise to make this up to you – I’ll take you and Sally out for drinks.’

‘It’ll have to be Dom bloody Pérignon.’ I snapped my phone shut.

‘I take it the entertainer isn’t coming,’ Sally said.

‘What the hell are we going to do? I promised them Indiana Jones was coming to do the games and play with them.’

‘Any chance we could rope Paul in?’ Sally asked. ‘Pun completely intended.’

I shook my head. ‘He’s gone to chase waves miles away. He’ll be surfing all day.’

‘Isn’t Harrison Ford, like, ancient?’ Sarah asked.

‘He was a bit past his prime in the last film,’ I admitted. Paul had insisted on seeing it and I’d spent the whole time worried that Harrison was going to have a heart-attack.

‘Well, don’t we all know someone who’s old and mad?’ Sarah grinned.

While I stayed to finish the decorating and set up the games Toby had sent over, Sally took the girls home to dress Charlie up as Indiana Jones.

Meanwhile Nancy and the boys came back. Nancy had big hair and heavy makeup. The twins ran straight into the garage and stopped dead in their tracks.

‘
Cooooooooooooooooool!
’

Thank God for that. At least the birthday boys were happy. ‘Hold on, listen to this.’ I played the safari soundtrack.

‘
Coooooooooooooooooool!
’ they shouted, jumping up and down.

‘Well done, Ava. It looks great,’ Nancy said. ‘Come on, boys, we’ll go and get dressed – the guests will be here soon.’

As I was putting wild animal stickers onto white cards, I heard Sally’s car pulling up. I hurried outside, praying this would work. Sarah and Ali hopped from the back seat, giggling uncontrollably. Then Sally jumped out and announced, ‘I give you … Indiana Jones!’ Charlie stepped out of the car. He was wearing the trousers of his good navy suit and one of Paul’s shirts, which was too big for him and open to his belly-button. Hanging down from the side of his belt were a few of his ties, knotted together to look like rope, but they were all different colours so the effect was very odd. He had a black canvas camera cover looped into the other side of his belt like a holster, with a banana sticking out of it. He carried Ali’s turquoise and white flower-print Roxy rucksack on his back and wore my wide-brimmed straw sunhat on his head with a piece of paper stuck to the front that had
Indiana Jones
written on it.