* * *
I was squelching around the side of the cottages towards my back door when Mack’s opened, and a woman stepped out. She glanced at me briefly, then took another sharp look, eyebrows raised in alarm.
I froze, Old Jenny painfully aware of the leaves in her hair, mud streaking her clothes and wonky glasses hanging off one hinge. Mack’s wife wore a mint-green sundress and red heels. Expensive-looking sunglasses held toffee-coloured hair off her round face. Honestly? I had been expecting Mack’s wife to look like a snobby bitch. She was more like a pretty, shiny apple. Under the fitted dress she was soft and curvy and… luscious.
I swallowed, hard, and tried to force my limbs towards my own door, aware I must appear like a demented puppet.
Before I reached her, she disappeared, slamming the door shut. I jerked my way inside and scurried upstairs. It had only been a few days. We hadn’t even been that close, yet. But I missed my friend all the same.
I stripped off my filthy clothes and took a long shower. Cried some lonely tears, ate a packet of chocolate biscuits, then decided that was enough wallowing. If Mrs Mack was here to stay, why couldn’t that mean two neighbours to be friends with – double the best friends? If Mack loved her she had to be a nice person.
Of course, anyone with half a brain knew why the lonesome neighbour couldn’t be hanging out gooseberrying with the recently reconciled couple next door.
I flopped into bed, briefly wondering if Mrs Mack would want her duvet back, a thought swiftly followed by the image of her cuddled up in bed on the other side of the wall, and realising that, no, she’d probably be fine without it.
30
I hustled into the playground with five very late children. Irritable and distracted, I felt as if I’d slipped back two months in my childcare capabilities. I’d given Dawson a perfect excuse to moan and snipe at his sister all the way to school, while she fussed about rushed plaits, thrown-together lunch and the upcoming spelling test I had failed to find the time to test her on.
I hoped no one would notice the triplets’ wrinkled shirts, mismatched (or, in Billy’s case, lack of) socks and unwashed faces.
Then I spotted Adam running across the street towards the playground with his three daughters and I knew that absolutely no one was going to notice Jonno’s felt-tip tattoo.
He tumbled through the gate, getting Hannah’s pushchair stuck on the railings for a frantic couple of minutes, while the older girls hopped with agitation at their increasing lateness.
The eldest, Lily, was wearing what must have been her younger sister’s school trousers, revealing three inches of ankle and a pair of jelly sandals. She clearly hadn’t been near a hairbrush since her mum left on Friday, and, instead of her usual Pokemon rucksack, was clutching a plastic carrier bag.
Her little sister had apparently dressed herself, foregoing the regulation school uniform for that worn by princess fairy ballerina mermaids everywhere, including a huge matted blonde wig and a pink flashing sword.
She stamped her rainbow wellies like the star of Riverdance. ‘Come ON, Daddy! You have to tell Miss Howe about the washing machine so I don’t get in trouble.’
‘I know, hang on.’ Adam pulled and twisted the pushchair to no avail, as Hannah wailed.
‘I’ll sort this,’ I said, hurrying over. ‘Go and get the girls signed in.’
He gave me such a look of relief I almost felt a teensy bit sorry for him.
‘Um, I’d take Abbie’s wig off, though.’
‘NO!’ Abbie screamed, grabbing both sides.
‘There was an… incident with a pair of scissors,’ Adam mumbled.
I remembered my promise to Kiko, and beckoned to Abbie. ‘Come here, let me see what I can do.’
A few minutes later, I bounced Hannah about on my hip while Adam took the girls inside, Abbie’s real hair now twisted to cunningly conceal the missing chunks, Lily’s neatly brushed.
It was only when he jogged back out that I noticed Adam was wearing pyjama bottoms. He clearly hadn’t shaved, and, judging by the reek as he took Hannah out of my arms, hadn’t showered either.
I pushed my glasses up. ‘Going well so far?’
He wrestled a squirming Hannah into the pushchair, and straightened up to face me. ‘About as well as it would if I landed Kiko with the job of running the charity out of the blue.’
‘This isn’t a job, it’s your children.’
‘No. My job is nothing compared to this.’ He shook his head. ‘I have no clue what I’m doing.’
‘Didn’t you find the manual?’ We started to walk back towards Kiko’s house.
