The Single Mums' Secrets - Janet Hoggarth Page 0,91

flower beds were planted, and dandelion clocks spread their spores like an old man’s sneeze causing weeds to sprout like inflamed psoriasis on perfectly peachy skin. The grass had almost bounced back where the paddling pool had reigned for the whole summer, but not before the kids had mashed it up playing football when they’d deflated the sides, water slowly seeping over the edges, flooding the lawn.

Louise had reclaimed the garden as her own and if there were weeds and leggy lavender, so what? She had enough shit to cope with. The house had always been her territory. If it was up to her, she would have paved the entire garden and professed it was Japanese. Low maintenance at the same time as being Zen…

‘Have you decided about the holiday?’ Phil asked as she handed him a coffee and a Penguin bar amid the hay bales. ‘I’d understand if you didn’t want to go. I could see about getting a refund. In the circumstances I’m sure we could get some money back.’

‘I think we may go. It might be a good distraction from everything. Do you reckon I can bring someone else? Because, you know… Nigel can’t come. I’m not sure I could cope with all three on my own the entire time. I mean of course I could, I do it every day, but it would be a logistical nightmare, swimming and stuff.’

‘We can check the small print when we’ve finished this. I’m sure it will be allowed.’

*

‘Uncle Phil, what was Daddy like when he was a little boy?’ Ted said at teatime. Louise had asked Phil if he wanted to stay for food before she’d collected Isaac from a whole day at nursery.

‘Are you sure I won’t be in the way?’

‘No. The kids would love to see you.’

‘Daddy as a little boy. Let me see…’ Phil pretended to ponder the question, drumming his fingers on his chin.

‘Was he naughty?’ Gemma cried before he could answer.

‘Oh yes, he was always naughty!’

Louise smiled sadly. She could imagine that he had been an interminable rogue. When she’d first met him there had been an air of mischievous schoolboy about him. It was what she’d loved instantly.

‘Did he like school?’ Ted wanted to know.

‘Yes, your daddy loved school. He did so much better than me at school. In fact, he was almost head boy. But then there was the unfortunate incident with, the, er, oh nothing.’

‘What? What?!’ the children cried, Isaac shouting even though he didn’t completely understand what the commotion was all about.

Louise shook her head at Phil, warning him not to tell the real story.

‘He smuggled a, er, dog into the dorm, and it er, bit a teacher!’

Louise widened her eyes, impressed with Phil’s swift interpretation of the well-worn fabled story. Over the years the ending would subtly change with each retelling.

‘What happened, Uncle Phil?’ Gemma cried. ‘Did he get excluded?’

Phil laughed. ‘You would have thought so, wouldn’t you? No, he charmed his way out of it, was suspended, and Grandpa made a generous donation to the school library fund.’

It hadn’t been a dog. It had been an air rifle filched from Brendon’s shed after a weekend home. Another seventeen-year-old boy from the next dorm had bet he could beat Nigel at target shooting. They’d decided to have an old-fashioned duel, fuelled by a black and white film they’d watched on BBC2 the week before. But instead of shooting each other they would aim at tin cans; both dorms had got involved.

The time had been set for midnight behind the dormitory building at the bottom of the grounds where the trees backed on to public tennis courts, out of sight of the housemaster. However, there must have been a snitch in their midst because they were subjected to a dorm raid and in his haste to hide the rifle, which hadn’t got a safety catch (it was broken), it went off and hit Mr Whoever (Louise could never remember his name), in the leg, just shy of his groin.

Louise shook her head to herself – if that had happened these days, Nigel would have been thrown out of school on his ear, not elevated to hero status amongst his peers. He’d refused to reveal the truth, claiming he had just brought the rifle in to practise his aim in his own time. The other lad got away without punishment. It was his loyalty regarding the air rifle incident that had earned him the interview at Citi Bank – bloody old