The Mother Load E-Book

Katy Cox

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 471

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

'Funny and relatable' Heat Mishaps at work, mayhem at home... It'll get easier when he starts school... That's what Lucy was told, and she believed it. But now that her autistic son Stanley has joined Reception, his obsession with Africa and daily screaming fits at the school gates haven't exactly won him or Lucy any popularity contests. So for Stanley's fifth birthday Lucy plans an extravagant party to help him connect with his classmates. But her autistic husband Ed knows how his son's mind works better than anyone, so instead of a big bash, they travel to Wales to eat a Libya-shaped birthday cake with Lucy's family. And suddenly Lucy is faced with the truth about what her loved ones really need, and how they can finally find their tribe... Readers love The Mother Load 'Best thing I've read all year' ***** 'Funny, warm and touching' ***** 'As a mother of two autistic children so much of it speaks to me on a personal level' ***** 'Gavin and Stacey eat your heart out ... this is comedy gold and should be on the screen!' *****

Leseprobe

Also by Katy Cox

M is for Mummy

First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2023 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

This paperback edition published in 2024 by Corvus

Copyright © Katy Cox, 2023

The moral right of Katy Cox to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN: 978 1 83895 320 1

E-book ISBN: 978 1 83895 319 5

Design and typesetting benstudios.co.uk

Printed in Great Britain

Corvus

An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

Ormond House

26–27 Boswell Street

London

WC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

To Mum and Dad. My heroes.And to my sister, Helen.You’re not too shabby either.

1

The Final Countdown

It’s 6.48 a.m. I’m lying in a child’s bed, with cuddly toys wedged under my arms and legs and something sharp digging into my lower back. I reach down to remove the offending item, wincing as I peel it off my flesh. It’s a piece of a wooden Africa puzzle – no surprise there – and it’s Somalia, one of the pointier-shaped ones. God, it’s painful! I’m sure it’s left a mark. Maybe even drawn blood. Why couldn’t it have been a curvier one – Sudan, or maybe Nigeria?

Rolling over, I see that Jack is awake. He’s standing in his cot, his little hands clamped on the rail, staring at me in silence.

‘Good morning, sweetie,’ I croak. He smiles a gorgeously gummy smile, then slaps his hands on the rail excitedly, his way of saying hello.

He’s sweet, adorably so, which is the opposite of what I thought at two o’clock in the morning when he was screaming like an apparition from the underworld. He’s teething, or at least that’s what Dr Google led me to believe in the middle of the night, but I wasn’t convinced. His behaviour suggested that he’d been possessed by something wholly unholy, but without the number of a local exorcist to hand, I decided to treat the possession with Calpol and hope for the best.

I’m tired now; not just any sort of tired, but the real debilitating kind where your limbs feel as heavy as sandbags. The sort where your brain has turned to mush and you can’t remember how old you are. Where you’ve lost the ability to speak your native language.

Last night, I’d been working until late at Kensington Palace with my best friends Charlie and Jen. We’d been booked to perform string trios at a posh dinner, and although I’m not usually all that enthused about churning out Mozart for rich people as they shovel down caviar, our agent, Miguel, said that dinner would be provided for us during our break. It’s not every day that musicians get to dine out in a palace, especially with their friends by their side, so I’d eaten like a bird all day to save myself for it. But, in the end, we weren’t served the ‘Angus beef tournedos with mousseline potatoes’ as the guests were. Instead, we were each handed a brown paper bag which contained a squashed tuna sandwich wrapped in cling film, a packet of ready salted Golden Wonder crisps and a banana that looked like it had done ten rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson. Charlie, pregnant and emotionally volatile, was already foaming at the mouth with rage, but once we’d realised that Miguel had only allocated us two five-minute breaks, we were all positively murderous. Our brown paper bags of sadness remained untouched, and other than a glass of sparkling water, nothing passed our lips all night.

When I dragged my cello through the door past midnight and saw the state of the flat, I was categorically hangry. The kitchen was trashed, dirty pants and socks were scattered all over the floor, and the bin was bulging full of wet nappies that were exuding a dreadful stink. Worst of all was the discovery that Ed had taken himself off to bed without preparing Stanley’s things for school in the morning, so as usual, it was down to me to sort it.

Sighing heavily, I delved into Stanley’s rucksack and pulled out his lunchbox. I binned the carrot sticks coated in cheesy Wotsits dust, along with a ball of soggy bread and yoghurt-smothered grapes, then set about preparing the same food for the following day. Of course, it was a pointless task. Aside from half of the sandwich and the crisps, nothing else would be touched, but it was important to me that the dinner ladies knew I’d made an effort. Once the lunch was made and chilling in the fridge, I reached back into the bag to retrieve Stanley’s jumper and found a bit of paper soaked in orange juice at the bottom. I gently opened it, but it split into four bits, which I pieced together and laid out flat on the kitchen counter.

Dear Parent,

Tuesday is Fairy-Tale Day. All of the children are invited to come dressed as their favourite fairytale character. Time to get creative! Prizes will be given for the best costumes. Please contribute £1 per child. All funds raised will be invested in new equipment for the school playground.

Kind regards,

The Reception Team at Ealing Primary School

I quickly counted the days of the week with my fingers, but kept getting different answers. I tried again, only much slower, saying the words out loud to guarantee accuracy. Saturday, Sunday, Monday … Shit! It’s tomorrow! Okay. Think, dammit! Something with tin foil? An old bed-sheet? Binbag? Shit! Think!

Nearly seven full weeks of being a school mum had passed, and despite trying my best to hop, skip and jump over every obstacle that had been thrown in my path, I still hadn’t managed to get through one full day without falling on my arse.

Pinocchio! Shorts, T-shirt, braces, red lipstick circles on his cheeks, plus I’ll make him a long nose. Pinocchio!

By this stage it was almost 1 a.m. I was desperate to pull on my jammies and collapse in bed, but first I had to fashion a long nose out of thin air. I shoved two bits of bread in the toaster, and while I waited, I raided the fridge and stuffed my cheeks with whatever I could find (a few slices of sweaty salami, a handful of olives, two Babybels and a fun-size Mars bar) As I chomped, I washed out Jack’s bottles that were floating in grey dishwater in the basin, then made a start on the mountain of plates that Ed had left stacked on top of the dishwasher. I didn’t stop until the kitchen was gleaming – I couldn’t – and as soon as order had been restored, I abandoned my stone-cold toast and headed outside in the rain to rummage through my neighbour’s recycling bins. Returning with armfuls of damp Amazon boxes, I crept around the flat looking for glue sticks, felt pens and scissors, trying my best to keep the noise to a minimum and not wake Jack up. A while later, I had a passable (if a little wonky) cardboard nose and my work for the day was finally done.

Trudging down the hall, I pushed open the bedroom door and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. And there, I saw him … the impostor lying on my side of the bed. Stanley wasn’t tucked up in a little ball, but spread out face down like a huge starfish and taking up two-thirds of the mattress. The remaining third had been invaded by several large pieces of an alphabet floor mat, underneath which was buried a snoring husband.

Another night in a child’s toy-filled bed was upon me.

Now it’s 6.48 a.m. and I’m gearing up to face the long day ahead. Stanley must be dressed, fed and coerced through the school gates, then I have to battle London’s rush-hour traffic and make it on time to teach my first student. But crushing fatigue will not stop me, not today, because there is light at the end of the tunnel. Three days from now, I’ll finally be able to drop off the spinning hamster wheel and catch a breath. Because in three days’ time, I’ll be out of here, away from London and all the stress that it brings, cosied up with my gorgeous little family in a caravan in Cornwall.

It’s the final countdown to half-term.

2

Sixty, Fifty-Nine, Fifty-Eight …

‘Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy,’ comes my usual wake-up call from outside the bedroom door. It starts quietly, purring rhythmically like a washing machine mid-cycle, and I let it whir away, allowing myself some time to wake up a bit.

But the washing machine soon starts to crescendo, morphing rapidly from a gentle hum to a percussive racket. ‘Mummy! Mum-EE! MUMMY!’

‘Okay, Stan! Give me one second.’

‘One!’ He throws the door open so hard that the handle smacks against the corner of Jack’s cot. ‘I gave you one. Now, I want my apricot yoghurt, my chocolate pancake and my banana. In semicircles.’

‘In semicircles, please,’ is my automatic response.

‘In semicircles, please,’ he repeats, ‘and then I got to put on my pants, then my socks, then my …’

I wait for him to list every item of his uniform, as I do every morning without fail.

‘… then my jumper. And then, I have to go to school, or I will be late and I will not get 100 per cent, Mummy.’

Yawning deeply, I stretch my arms out as far as they can reach and feel the glorious relief of warm blood rushing down my veins to my fingertips. My aching joints slowly start to come alive, ready to face another long day ahead.

‘Mummy!’

‘Yes, I know. I’m coming.’

‘MUMMY!’ he yells again, grabbing my attention by the short and curlies.

‘Yes, Stan. Your clean socks and pants are in the usual place. Can you go and put them on, please?’ I avoid mentioning the Pinocchio costume. A strong coffee needs to go down the hatch before I can broach that topic. ‘Off you go. Quick as you can. I’ll come and get your breakfast in a minute.’

He starts chanting, ‘Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven…’ before swivelling around and stomping down the hall towards the living room. Instantly regretting my choice of words, I lift Jack out of his cot and take him through to Ed next door, then I dash to the kitchen to whip up breakfast in fifty-six seconds.

‘Three, two, one,’ I hear as I skid around the corner into the living room with a plate of pancakes and semicircular bananas. Stanley is standing naked in front of the TV, transfixed by a YouTube video about one of his latest passions, the continental drift. ‘Mummy, did you know that Africa and South America were stuck together in one big bit?’

‘Stan,’ I say with a sigh. ‘You haven’t put your pants on. Come on, now.’

‘And did you know that three hundred millions years ago, they had a really big super-con-tin-ent and it is called Pangea?’

I put his breakfast on the coffee table and grab the pants that have been tossed on the floor.

‘And then it got broken up into bits and now there are seven con-tin-ents,’ he continues.

‘Okay, pop your feet in here, please,’ I say, holding the pants out ready for him. ‘We don’t want to be late. You want your 100 per cent certificate, don’t you?’

‘The biggest bit is Asia,’ he says as he steps into his underwear. ‘Then the next biggest is Africa, and then the next big…’

Up until recently, human anatomy was the hot topic in this household. Our living-room floor was decorated with rows of miniature rubber organs, and the whole family was subjected to constant reruns of YouTube videos about gall bladders, pancreases and intestines. Nothing else was permitted to be played on our telly.

‘Have you seen the new series of Bridgerton yet?’ Charlie would ask, and my reply would be a flat-out no. ‘What about Normal People on iPlayer? There’s loads of hot sex in it, Luce. And the book is even better!’ And my response: ‘Of course I haven’t seen the hot, sexy BBC drama that everyone is talking about, Charls. And I definitely haven’t read the book. But d’you know what? I know the “Gallbladder Song” off by heart and I can tell you a helluva lot about hepatic ducts and bile storage.’

Just as I’d reached the point where I’d absorbed enough information to qualify as a lecturer in human biology, a trip to the pub changed everything. It was my mother-in-law Judith’s sixty-seventh birthday, and to celebrate, we took her out for Sunday lunch in a new gastropub in Ealing. The roast-beef dinner didn’t interest Stanley one bit, but the globe that was sitting on a bookshelf in the corner immediately caught his eye. He abandoned the table and spent all afternoon playing with it, and by the end of the following week, gall bladders were out and maps were very much in.

Ever since that roast dinner, the vacuum cleaner has barely left the closet. I daren’t disturb the fifty-four pieces of his favourite African-map puzzle that live on the rug in the lounge (all except Somalia, which, as I’ve just learnt, had the privilege of sleeping in his bed last night). The country-shaped pieces have been organised in order from smallest to largest and if moved, even by one centimetre, Stanley knows, and his reaction is usually explosive.

I pull up his pants then reach for his socks as he pauses the TV and redirects his attention towards his puzzle on the rug.

‘Africa is my favourite con-tin-ent,’ he says.

‘I know, sweetie. I know.’

‘Algeria is the biggest country in it, and he looks like paper that is ripped. And the next biggest is Democrapic Repabick of the—’

‘It’s Demo-cratic, Stan. The Democratic Republic of the Congo.’

‘Democra-tiCK Repub-LICK of Congo. And Mummy, she looks a bit like a fallen over Stegosaurus.’

‘She sure does,’ I reply as I wrestle the socks over his toes.

‘The smallest is Seashells and she looks like a leg and a foot.’

‘It’s the Seychelles.’

‘The Seychelles,’ he repeats.

I glance over at the Pinocchio costume hanging on the door handle. He’s distracted, so now might be a good time to casually mention that, after wearing his uniform for all these weeks, he’s now expected to dress in something completely different.

‘Um, Stan. I don’t know if Mrs Merryweather told you, it’s fancy dress at school to—’

‘SOMALIA!’

The volume of his outburst pierces straight through my eardrums. ‘Stan, please don’t shout like that.’

‘But he is gone! Somalia is GONE!’

‘I know where he is,’ I say calmly, but my words go unheard. ‘Wait one second and I’ll go and get him.’

Stanley bellows, ‘One!’ as I run off to his room to get the jagged little punk that almost severed my spinal cord during the night. As soon as it’s back in line between South Sudan and the Central African Republic, peace is restored.

Time to try again. ‘It’s dress-up day at school today,’ I say bravely. ‘And I thought you might like to wear a Pinocchio outfit that I made for you.’

‘No!’

‘But you just have to wear shorts and a T-shir—’

‘Shorts are for hot days, Mummy. Trousers are for cold days, and today is a cold day.’

If he won’t wear shorts and a T-shirt, then there’s no way that I’ll convince him to strap my cardboard creation on to his face. I decide to stick it in a bag and take it into school, so at the very least his teacher will see that I tried. Yesterday’s white polo shirt is retrieved from the dirty laundry basket – the collar wet and chewed to pieces. I lay it on the kitchen counter, plug in the hairdryer and set to work drying it out and making it wearable. Minutes later, Stanley is dressed and settled back in front of the telly with his breakfast. Result!

‘Morning, love,’ says Ed lazily when I zoom into the bedroom at a hundred miles per hour. He’s propped up in bed, skimming through a thick folder of sheet music, as Jack lies next to him whingeing. It hasn’t occurred to Ed to get Jack’s bottle of milk because he has a show tomorrow – his first ever performance of the new Michael Jackson musical in the West End – so, like a horse with blinkers on, that’s all he can see. All he can think about.

‘You didn’t check Stan’s bag,’ I say, panting like I’ve just run up twenty flights of stairs. ‘I’ve been up most of the night making a fancy-dress costume.’

He says nothing, so I snatch the folder out of his hands to get his attention.

‘What did you do that for?’ he huffs. ‘Give it back! I’m working here.’

‘I said it’s Fairy-Tale Day today, Ed, and I’ve been up all night making a Pinocchio costume for Stan.’

‘Pinocchio?’ He leans forward and tugs the folder out of my clutches. ‘That’s not a fairy tale, is it?’

‘It is now.’ I bite down on my lip to calm myself. ‘Did you at least wash his hair last night?’

His eyes drop, his silence giving me the answer I don’t want. ‘Well, that’s great. I’m going to have to dry shampoo him again now. You know how he hates the smell.’

‘But I was practising,’ is his defence. ‘I still haven’t nailed number forty-one. And the overture is really fiddly. What if I get “never-agained”?’

‘There’s no way you’ll get never-agained, love,’ I say, softening. ‘Have a little faith in yourself.’

His eyes suddenly widen. ‘Take Jack for a minute,’ he says, his stomach audibly gurgling. ‘I need the loo.’

‘I can’t. I’m running late and I’ve got to leave extra time for a probable Pinocchio meltdown. Can’t you wait?’

But the en suite door is slammed in my face, so the answer is no. His bowels can’t wait, but neither can I.

Lifting Jack, I hurry to the fridge to get his milk, and once he is content lying back on our bed draining his bottle, I throw on some leggings and a baggy black jumper that I find strewn on top of a mountain of dirty clothes on the chair. A quick smear of foundation and a squirt of drops into my bloodshot eyes later, I drag a comb through my knotted hair then call Stanley through to get his sorted. I spritz him with dry shampoo which, as expected, is met with resistance, but given that he’s squealing anyway, I go ahead and give his hands and face a once-over with a baby wipe while I’m there. Just shoes, coat and bag to do and then we’re ready to go.

‘Ed, are you done in there?’ No answer comes so I knock on the bathroom door with a balled-up fist. ‘Ed!’

‘Gimme a minute!’

‘I don’t have a minute!’ I push open the bathroom door and find him parked on the loo reading the back of a shampoo bottle. ‘For God’s sake, man.’

There’s only seventeen minutes to get to school before the gates close and Stanley loses his chance of getting a certificate for 100 per cent attendance. I cannot let that happen. I’ve managed thirty-something straight days of being on time, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to fall at the last hurdle.

‘Drop the bottle, buddy, and come take your son. I’ve got to run.’

3

The Run

‘Come on, Stan, as fast as you can,’ I say as I pull him along the pavement.

‘Mummy, I like Africa.’

‘I know you do. It’s great. Just keep walking. A bit faster, come on.’

‘I want to holiday in Libya because he is my favourite shape. He looks like a wonky heart.’

It’s late October, and although there’s a fierce chill in the air, thick drops of sweat are running down my cleavage. It’s so hot and greasy in there that you could crack an egg in it and it would probably fry.

‘Mummy, I want to go to Lib—’

‘I know, but we are going to Cornwall on Friday, remember?’

He stops in his tracks and writes the word ‘LIBYA’ in the air with his index finger – a silently delivered protest which loses us a precious forty-five seconds.

‘Don’t forget you want your 100 per cent certificate,’ I say calmly out loud, even though I’m screaming it inside my skull.

As we turn the corner onto Oxford Road, I see Marsha Dunn and her gang of mum friends waiting in their favourite spot directly outside the school gates. Marsha is at the centre of the huddle, nothing unusual there, but what sets her apart from the rest is the six-foot-tall, green papier-mâché sculpture that she is holding in her arms. It’s a striking piece – less of a kid’s costume accessory and more like something you’d see on display at the Tate Modern. She waves in my direction when she sees us, and Stanley’s grip instantly tightens.

‘What do you think, Lucy?’ she calls out as we approach. ‘We’ve gone for Jack and the Beanstalk.’ She gently strokes her masterpiece, then leans it in my direction, like she’s presenting her newborn baby for the first time. ‘I managed to whip it up last night … but only just.’

‘Very impressive,’ I say, but those two words are two too many. Stanley yanks my arm and drags me past the group towards the school caretaker’s white van that is parked several feet away. I turn back and smile apologetically but it goes unnoticed. ‘Wow!’ says another woman who has stopped to admire the work of art. ‘You should start a costume business, Marsh,’ says another. ‘I’d definitely pay money for something like that.’

Marsha’s son, Hugo, is swinging on the gate with a couple of other kids. He hasn’t acknowledged Stanley, who is standing quietly beside me squeezing my hand, but I can’t really blame him. He has never responded to Hugo’s countless efforts to talk to him over the years, so it’s not surprising that Hugo has stopped trying altogether. Unless Hugo suddenly develops a passion for Africa or the continental drift, then the two of them are unlikely to ever become friends.

Marsha’s attention eventually returns to us. ‘And what have you come as today, Stanley?’ she calls out. The eyes of all of her friends are on us, far too many eyes, and he ducks in behind me and tugs sharply on the back of my coat.

‘He’s a schoolboy,’ I reply. ‘But we have a Pinocchio outfit here in case he feels like wearing it.’

‘Pinocchio?’ An irritating giggle escapes her lips. ‘He isn’t a fairy-tale character, is he?’

I quickly wipe the sweat from my upper lip with my sleeve. ‘He is now,’ I say, smiling as I imagine my hands wrapped around her gullet.

‘Aren’t you going away this week, Lucy?’

‘Stop talking!’ shrieks Stanley, but I persist.

‘Yep, on Friday. We’re heading down to Cornwall for the weekend.’

‘On Friday?’ Marsha’s eyebrows spring up to the middle of her forehead. ‘And when are you back?’

‘Sometime on Monday.’

‘So you’re taking Stanley out of school for two days? Naughty girl!’

There’s no time to defend myself because something more pressing has caught her eye and within seconds, she’s up on her tiptoes, waving. ‘Heidi! Heidi!’

I turn around and see the head of the PTA approaching. She walks briskly, with her pregnant belly protruding through the gap in her raincoat and her three kids scooting closely behind her. Heidi’s twin girls look a year or two older than Stanley, but her son, Patrick, is in his class. Today, the twins are dressed in pink leotards and wear hairbands with glittery pointed ears attached, and Patrick has a brown feathery mask dangling off his handlebars. Three little pigs and a scary wolf, I’m guessing, minus one pig.

‘How ad-or-able!’ Marsha steps sideways and repositions herself directly in front of the open gate, forcing Heidi to stop.

‘Thanks,’ I hear Heidi say. ‘Look, I can’t stop. I’ve got a meeting—’

‘Let … me … guess,’ says Marsha, painfully slowly. ‘Hmmm. Two little piggies, and …’ She leans down to examine Patrick’s costume, whacking the woman standing next to her in the face with her beanstalk as she goes. ‘Hmmm … maybe a—’

‘He’s the wolf,’ Heidi interrupts. ‘Anyway, can we catch up later? I’ve—’

‘But where is the third little pig then?’ Marsha continues relentlessly. ‘I can only see two.’

‘Penny, show the ladies Percy, quickly!’ says Heidi, and the little girl delves into her pocket and pulls out a small plush pig toy.

‘It’s such a clever idea!’ says Marsha. ‘Simple, yes, but very effective.’

‘It’s not quite my usual standard. I’ve sort of had my hands full with this one lately.’ Heidi rubs her swollen belly. ‘The heartburn is keeping me up all hours.’

‘Oh, you must try my acupuncturist,’ suggests the redhead who Marsha has just assaulted with her sculpture.

‘No! There’s a wonderful homeopath on the Broadway,’ Marsha cuts in. ‘I have his card here if you like. Hold this.’ She shoves her beanstalk into the redhead’s arms, then drops to the floor and starts rifling through her handbag.

‘Don’t worry about it, Martha,’ says Heidi, clearly losing patience. ‘I really do have to dash. I’ve got a meeting with Mr Muhley.’ With the entrance gate now clear, she seizes the opportunity to escape, leaving red-faced ‘Martha’ on her knees.

Moments later, Mrs Merryweather appears on the far side of the playground to call the children into class. Hugo and Patrick run straight in without any fuss and Marsha follows, awkwardly dragging her sculpture across the playground like she’s on her way to dispose of a dead body.

I kneel down to speak to Stanley who, whilst my attention was elsewhere, has curled himself up into a ball on the pavement. I discreetly pull the nose out of the carrier bag. ‘I made this for you, little man. Do you want to see it?’ I say, but his head stays buried under his arms. ‘It’s Pinocchio’s nose. It’s really funny and I think that the other boys and girls might like to see it, and so will Mrs Merry—’

He lifts his head just long enough to bark, ‘P for Pangea! Not P for Pinochicko!’

I gently take him by the elbow and encourage him up onto his feet. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to take it? Just in case you change your mind?’

But his index finger comes out once again and he hurriedly scribbles ‘PANGEA!’ in the air. So that’s a firm no.

At a loss as to what to do, I wrap my arms around him and whisper reassuring words in his ear. I tell him that he’ll have a lovely time today, and once I’ve picked him up later, we can watch videos together and eat smiley faces and chicken dippers for dinner. But anything I say is met with a deafening ‘NO!’

Parents soon start to spill out of the gates with their heads down, afraid to make eye contact with each other, as they’re in a hurry to get off to work. Before long, the playground is mostly empty, except for Marsha, who is loitering behind to watch the show with whoever else has no place better to be.

I remain glued to the spot, waiting for a miracle. And eventually, she comes.

‘Hello, Stanley.’ Mrs Beard, the classroom assistant, approaches. She smiles at me, her finest ‘I’ve got this’ smile, and my shoulders unclench and fall to their normal position. ‘Do you want to come inside and do the weather chart?’ she asks him sweetly.

He ploughs his face into my belly, winding me instantly.

‘But you are the only one who knows how to do it.’

A muffled, ‘No! NO! Go away!’ follows, but Mrs Beard doesn’t break. She never does.

‘I know!’ she says. ‘How about if we both go inside and draw some more of your map?’

The pressure of his head nuzzled into my guts lessens slightly, so I take the opportunity to break free. Aware of Marsha’s close proximity, I bend down to speak to him in private. ‘Stan, you could even draw Pangea and tell Mrs Beard all about it?’

Thankfully, that does the trick. He shuffles towards her and reaches for her outstretched hand.

‘Say goodbye to Mummy,’ Mrs Beard says, but he won’t even look at me, let alone speak. He follows her in through the gate and I’m left behind holding the crappy cardboard nose, racked with such intense guilt that I feel the walls of my heart crumbling.

‘Have a good day!’ I call out.

‘No!’ he bellows vehemently. ‘I will not!’

He walks away, his hand in hers, and before I know it, he is gone.

It starts to rain on the way back, and by the time I reach the flat, I’m drenched to the bone. I dump the nose in my neighbour’s recycling bag, and with a heavy heart, I head upstairs to dry off and get ready for work.

4

The Jam

‘Did you get the money?’ Mum says over the loudspeaker. ‘Your father sent it on Monday and he’s worried the postman is going to pinch it.’

The North Circular is gridlocked and the chances of being late for my first student are growing higher by the second. The right indicator has been flashing for well over five minutes, and my eyes are glued to the wing mirror, patiently waiting for someone to let me pull out. I learnt to drive in the narrow lanes of a small Welsh village where herds of cows, gossiping joggers or runaway sheep blocking the road were all I had to worry about. But this is London, and unless you have the driving skills of Michael Schumacher combined with a turbo engine and a ‘fuck you all’ attitude, pulling into the fast lane of a major London A road is impossible.

God, I wish I’d had a wee before I left the flat.

‘Are you still there, love? Hello? … Roger, this bloody phone is playing up again.’

‘I’m here, I’m here. Sorry, I’m just—’ I roll down the window ‘—in, uh, the … car.’

‘Och, there you are. I can hear you now. So, did you get it? The money?’

‘I did. Thanks so much. And can you thank Dad for me too?’ I poke my arm out and start waving it around, hoping to up my chances of pulling out.

‘There should be enough there to buy yous a wee meal and some treats for the boys.’

‘Lush. Thanks, you’re a … JACKASS!’

‘Lucinda Wright!’ she scolds. ‘Wash that mouth out!’

‘Not you, Mum! Some motorbike guy just nearly took my arm off.’

Her tone instantly softens. ‘Och, you be careful now. You need that arm to play your cello.’

A silver Audi flashes its headlights to let me out. A miracle! I quickly spin the wheel, slam my foot down and manage to reach a speed of fifteen miles an hour before grinding to another halt seconds later.

‘Hello? Can you hear me? Roger, this phone is—’

‘Yep. I’m, um, I’m driving right now, Mum. Look, can I just call you guys later?’

A quick scuffle follows, and the next thing I know, Rachel is on the line. ‘All packed for Cornwall, then?’ she says, her voice muffled. She’s blatantly scoffing something – probably one of Mum’s home-made bacon and egg McMuffins.

‘Ask her if she’s got herself a new wee swimsuit yet?’ Mum calls out in the background amongst the sound of clattering dishes and Dad yelling, ‘Drop it, Poppy! DROP. IT!’ at their elderly Shih-Tzu.

‘Have you got a “new wee swimsuit”?’ Rachel says, mimicking Mum’s Belfast accent perfectly, and before I can answer, Dad butts in with, ‘Has she got the money? Those London posties are robbing eejits.’

‘Both of you shut up!’ Rachel snaps. ‘I can’t hear a word with you both yabbering. She’s just said she doesn’t need a swimsuit. She’s staying at a nudist campsite. And yeah, Dad, the postie has nicked your cash, and he’s cleared off to Benidorm with it.’

‘Rachel Byers, you’re so bad.’

‘I know, I’m so naughty.’ She laughs. ‘So go on, are you excited?’

‘Not really. It’s just Cornwall, Rach.’

‘A holiday’s a holiday, isn’t it? Four days sleeping in a posh tin box is still better than being in shitty London.’

‘Yeah, but I bet it’ll be pissing it down, and freezing.’

I’m downplaying it, but in truth, I couldn’t be more excited. Sure, it’s no five-star trip to the Bahamas, but for us it may as well be. Life has been hard lately – too hard – and I’ve been champing at the bit for us all to escape London for a while. Ed was away on tour for most of August, so instead of jetting off to an exotic destination to drink piña coladas by the side of a pool, my summer was spent stuck in the flat trying to get my head around some huge news that had hit our family.

At the end of July, a routine appointment with Stanley’s paediatrician ended with me being given an A4 piece of paper saying ‘Yes, your son is autistic’. Although the diagnosis came as no surprise, and was in many ways a relief, I was still left feeling very overwhelmed by it. I’d read so many articles about autism emphasising that ‘early intervention is key’ and how an official diagnosis is essential if your child is ever to be eligible to access support. But I left the children’s centre that day with no information whatsoever. Stanley was instantly discharged, not just from the paediatrician, but from the speech therapist and occupational health services too. It was literally a case of, ‘Yep, he’s autistic, now feck off and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’

No one was going to intervene, that much was clear, and any chance that Stanley had of succeeding in life would depend on me and Ed alone. This in itself was tough to digest, but to make matters worse, things between me and Ed had hit a brick wall. He was on tour in America when all of this was happening. I needed him, we all did, but despite my frequent attempts to contact him, he wouldn’t answer his phone. He didn’t find out about the diagnosis until he came home, and his reaction was so frustratingly underwhelming that a huge blowout between us ensued.

All of the things that had been niggling me in our marriage came to the surface – how I felt invisible, how I didn’t feel listened to or supported and how he seemed to care more about the order of his DVD collection than he did his own family. It was only when he packed his bags and went off to stay with his mother for a few days that I had the headspace to mull everything over. And that was when it struck me like a bolt of lightning: Ed was autistic too. Once I’d seen it, I couldn’t unsee it. Everything made sense – he made sense, as did our relationship, and all I wanted was to have him back home in my arms.

A few days later I sat him down and told him that I thought he might be autistic. It wasn’t an easy thing to say, far from it, but if we were to move forward I knew that I had to be honest. He reacted in the same way he always had whenever I’d delivered life-changing news: by saying nothing. But deep down, I knew that the cogs in his brain were turning and he was processing what I’d said in his own time. Sure enough, following a restless night a few weeks later, he came to me one morning and told me that he’d filled out several detailed questionnaires online. The verdict, he said, was unanimous: he is autistic.

It was impossible to know his true feelings about the outcome. Ed had never been one to pour his heart out, and when it came to anything even vaguely emotional, he was very much a closed book. The most he had to say was that it ‘sort of made sense’. He admitted that he’d always felt different to everyone else, that from a young age he’d struggled to fit in, but he could never pinpoint why. Other than that, he said little else. He was more of a thinker, I knew this, so I gave him the space he obviously needed to get his head around it. In the meantime, I took to the internet and poured all of my energies in to research. I read up about common triggers, sensory overwhelm and how to manage meltdowns, and I joined Facebook groups run by autistic adults to ask for their advice. I learnt that things needed to change, I needed to change, because if autism was in our lives to stay, I needed to know how best to support my son and my husband.

Rachel was my rock, and she assured me that everything was going to work out. She couldn’t possibly know that it would, but with me in turmoil about what the future held for my family, she promised that once Stanley started school things would get easier.

‘It’ll be a fresh start. And not just for Stan, but for all of you. You’ll meet new people, and you’ll find your tribe like I did,’ she said. ‘And you’ll have lots more free time on your hands. You can work through things with Ed, take on more gigs and get some more money coming in.’

I had no reason not to believe her. She’d been and done it all a few years earlier with my nephew George, and although he got off to a bumpy start when he started reception, he soon settled in after he made a few friends. She met tons of mums in the playground too, and her hectic work life really did get so much easier to manage with George being out of the house six hours a day. Time was what I craved more than anything – time with Ed, time with Jack, who’d always come second to Stanley and his complex needs, and time to work and help ease the pressure on Ed to be the main breadwinner. Time, I was certain, would fix everything.

But when Stanley started school, I realised just how wrong Rachel had been.

Life didn’t get easier, quite the opposite.

Our little boy, precious and vulnerable, was gone, and instead of relishing the peace and quiet, I was utterly bereft. He’d been glued to my hip for almost five years, and suddenly he was by Mrs Merryweather’s side every day – a woman who was a total stranger. The flat was quiet, eerily so, and when I wasn’t working, I couldn’t do anything other than mope around with Jack and obsess about Stanley. Was he okay? Did he stop screaming after I left him at school? Or was he standing alone howling for me to rescue him?

I yearned for him to interrupt me on the toilet to tell me the population of Ghana, or for him to shout at me for not cutting his sandwiches into the right kind of triangle. I even missed hearing the same Africa videos blaring out of the TV, and him relentlessly chanting the names of countries in Jack’s face in the hope that he would repeat them back. Most of all, I missed the stiff hugs which always came just after I’d helped him put on his T-shirt in the mornings. Stiff hugs that stopped the day he started school.

We didn’t meet new people either, nor did we make friends and embed ourselves in the centre of a warm and loving new community. Not even close. For Stanley, school was, and still is, terrifying. It’s noisy and busy, and it’s full of strangers who he still can’t bring himself to speak to. Even now, all these weeks since he started at Ealing Primary School, he doesn’t know the names of any of his classmates aside from Hugo, and I’m yet to say more than two words to any of their mothers because he won’t allow it. We haven’t found our tribe. It’s just him and us, and once I’ve dropped him at school and he has been lured from my arms, it’s just him. He’s all alone in there, day in and day out.

This mini break, low key as it may be, will be the first chance that we’ve all had to be together as a family in ages. I need it – we all do.

‘I didn’t shell out for the deluxe caravan in the end,’ I say to Rachel. ‘It was mega bucks, and I figured we won’t be in it much. I’ve settled for the standard two-bedroom one, and it comes with absolutely no frills.’

‘Well, in that case, you’ve got to pack the lot. Decent cutlery, a bottle opener, tea-towels and cleaning stuff. And don’t forget binbags.’

‘Seriously? I’m already taking the whole of Africa. Tea-towels and binbags will push me over the edge.’

‘Just get Ed to help you. Delegate, innit.’

‘That’s not happening, Rach. He’s got his first show tomorrow and he’s looking after Jack today too, so he’s a wreck.’

‘Poor fella.’ I hear her slurp a drink, then take another bite of what I’ve decided is definitely a home-made bacon and egg McMuffin dripping in butter and HP sauce.

God, I wish I’d eaten something before I left the flat.

‘Can you not eat down the phone, Rach? It’s minging!’

‘Shut up and listen.’ I wait for her to swallow and clear her throat. ‘I’ve got news. Guess who’s moved onto my street?’ A dramatic pause follows. ‘The Don!’

‘What? As in your Don?’

‘Yep. And d’you know what, Luce? He is looking g-ooo-d.’

Jason Donovan – known back in the day as ‘The Don’ – was the most beautiful boy that ever set foot in our village. He only joined Tref Y Glaw’s comprehensive school in year ten, but his jaw-length rockstar-esque hair, his cool demeanour and the fact that he could play the guitar propelled him to the status of ‘Most Wanted’ the moment he arrived. His mum had named him after the Jason Donovan (who in 2002 was considered prehistoric and borderline repulsive), but that didn’t matter. He was quite literally ‘too cool for school’ and every girl in the school was desperate to snog him.

The moment Rachel had clapped eyes on him, she was smitten. He might have been two years younger than her, but he was hot and, more importantly, he could play the solo from ‘Purple Rain’ on the electric guitar. They dated for six months before she dumped him for Rhys Jones who, despite being far less good-looking, was older, and this gave him a serious advantage. For starters, Rhys had a fake ID and could pretty much get served anywhere he went, so for Rachel and her friends, there was no shortage of Bacardi Breezers and bottles of Smirnoff Ice to be had. Better still, he had a driving licence and free rein to use his mum’s Corsa (cue lunchtime trips to the McDonald’s Drive Thru – the key to every teenage girl’s heart).

‘Oh my God! Is he married? Kids?’ I ask.

‘None that I can see so far.’

‘Had the binoculars out, have you?’

‘No need. He’s moved into the three-bed semi opposite Auntie Dilys, so she’s been keeping us all in the loop.’

Nothing gets past Auntie Dilys. By now, she’ll have his full relationship history, details of his job and financial status and, following a rummage through his recycling bins, she’ll be able to give us a full and accurate report of his dietary habits.

‘Have you spoken to him yet?’ I ask. ‘Or popped over with a “welcome to the street” crate of beer and a box of condoms?’

‘Hell no! I need to lose a stone first.’

The BMW in front slams on his brakes and I manage to do the same, narrowly missing colliding into his WE11 JEL number plate. ‘Jack ASS!’

‘What? You okay?’

‘Look, Rach, I need to concentrate on the road. My first student is at ten and I’ve still got to tackle the M1 and find a parking space. To be continued, yeah?’

‘Ask her what Stan wants for his birthday!’ Mum calls out just as I’m about to hang up the phone.

‘Just tell her that she can’t go wrong with a map puzzle,’ I reply, ‘or anything to do with the alphabet, colours or shapes.’

‘Cool. And what’s his favourite colour now?’

‘Cyan … which is a posh way of saying greeny-blue.’

‘And favourite shape?’

‘Squares. Four sides because he’s four, of course. But I’m guessing he’ll move onto pentagons the moment the clock strikes twelve on his birthday.’

She takes another bite of her muffin. ‘Okay,’ she says, squelching as she chews her food. ‘We’re on it.’

‘Stop eating, minger!’

5

The Ticking Clock

Three excruciatingly long hours later, I’m slumped over my cello in a cramped, dimly lit room watching the minute hand on the wall clock, which I’m convinced is moving backwards.

‘Oscar, do you promise me that you will practise every day this week for ten minutes?’

The boy doesn’t respond because he can’t. His mouth is packed full of the crisps which he has been surreptitiously slipping past his lips since the start of his lesson. I haven’t said a word about it. He must think that he’s got away with it, but the air reeks of pickled onion Monster Munch, and in a tiny room with windows that are nailed shut, you’d have to be severely nasally challenged to miss it.

I have no intention of telling Oscar off. I’m actually quite impressed by his mischievousness. Impeccable behaviour is expected from all students at all times here at this thirty-grand-a-year boys’ school, and sometimes it’s hard to believe that the students are just children. Any time I go to a classroom to collect a child who hasn’t shown up, I’m always a touch saddened when I peer inside and see the rows of little boys, all dressed in grey pin-striped suits like miniature businessmen, working in absolute silence as though they’re in an office. Any other teacher here would scold Oscar and confiscate his crisps right now, but I’m not that teacher. He is just a kid, and in my lessons, I let him behave like one.

‘Young man, your Grade 2 is really soon and you still don’t know your scales. You promise me that you’ll learn them?’ I say on autopilot because my brain is too busy making a list of everything I need to pack for the holiday.

Stan’s alphabet duvet cover, his tablet, extra chargers, nappies, armbands, rubber ring, swimming suits … where the feck am I going to find a swimsuit?!

Oscar swallows and quickly licks the salt off the tips of his fingers. ‘Yep, miss. I promise.’ He practically throws his cello down on the floor and trips over it as he makes his way over to me. ‘Pinkie promise,’ he says, dangling his little finger in my face until I’m forced to link mine with his. The deal is sealed, and the moment he leaves, I wash his salty saliva off my hands with sanitiser, then I grab my phone and quickly jot down the list that I’ve just spent the last half an hour compiling in my head before my next student arrives.

Print booking confirmation, fill up car, get snacks and toys for the journey.

I’ve spent the last year at home on maternity leave itching to get back to work, and now that I’m here, I just want to run home to be with my babies. If I could, I’d zoom back to the days when Jack screamed for five long hours – between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. every single night – and I’d tell myself to cherish it. By comparison, those days were far easier than suffering being here at work.

Arriving twenty minutes late this morning meant that I missed my first student’s entire lesson, so at some point, I will have to make it up on my own time. That already put me in a grump, but then Lenny Sayers, my next student of the day, failed to show up and I had to trawl the entire campus looking for him. By the time I’d extracted him from maths and escorted him the best part of half a mile back to the music block, there was only five minutes of his lesson left. Fergus Gallagher was next and spent his lesson describing in minute detail the new skin that he’d bought on Fortnite, and following him was Mahesh Kumar who didn’t play a single note. He absolutely had to go and see the school nurse on account of an agonising paper cut on his finger and never returned. Either he’d got lost or he’d been airlifted to Great Ormond Street Hospital for emergency surgery to save the digit, but whichever the case, I didn’t hear any of his scales. His pushy mother will probably put in a formal complaint about me when he fails his approaching exam.

Cutlery, binbags, tea-towels, bottle opener.

The clock is ticking, I have so much to do and I know that Ed isn’t going to chip in and help because he is practising all hours. I quickly text him to ask how it’s all going, then take a swig of cold coffee, force a smile on my face and head to the door to welcome my next student.

The corridor outside my room is empty. There’s no Louis Robertson-Wade in sight. Sighing, I venture to the shelf to find the book of student timetables, then brace myself to trek across the campus once again and coerce him back here to scrape through ‘The Can Can’ at the speed of a geriatric turtle.

My phone starts to vibrate just as I’m flicking through my monster file of timetables. On the screen flash the three words that parents most dread to see:

INCOMING CALL

School

Oh God! What now?

The first call came just one week into the start of the term, and I totally freaked out. Had Stanley had a meltdown? Hurt himself? Run away? But it was nothing nearly as extreme. I was told that he’d forgotten his book bag and he was ‘upset’ (which I knew meant hysterical) and I was asked to bring it down as soon as possible. The second call came on a Tuesday when I was here in the middle of teaching Oscar, twenty-two miles away from home. This time, my horrendous failing was that I’d packed orange juice in his lunchbox (a drink strictly reserved for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays). He wouldn’t touch his lunch until he had his apple juice (a must on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and I had to call Ed and get him to run down to the school with it. On another occasion, I’d forgotten his PE kit, on another his socks were hurting, and on another, I’d put the wrong-shaped sandwich in his lunchbox, and I had to wake up Jack from his nap and dash back out in torrential rain to deliver the right sarnie.

I answer the phone expecting to be informed of yet another fuck-up, and true to form, it’s the school receptionist, Mrs Abel, ready to rain down her judgement upon me.

‘Hello, Mrs Wright. Stanley has forgotten his fancy-dress costume for Fairy-Tale Day. He is the only pupil not wearing one and he is very distressed.’

I don’t waste any time trying to defend myself. I just say, ‘I’ll get my husband to bring it down, no problem,’ then get off the phone as quickly as possible and call Ed.

‘You’re kidding!’ he snaps. ‘Jack has been whingeing since you left and I’ve only just settled him and started practising. I’ve still got fifteen pages left to cover until I’m allowed a break.’

‘I know, love. I hate to ruin your flow but Stan’s freaking out. Just run down to number 24’s recycling bag and find the nose. And pray to God that the binmen haven’t been, or you’ll have a real problem on your hands.’

He mutters a few obscenities before reluctantly agreeing to do it.

I hang up the phone and head out into the corridor to find Louis sitting on the floor watching YouTube videos on his phone.

‘Louis, you’re here,’ I say. ‘Where’s your cello?’

Without looking up, he says, ‘Forgot, miss.’

I exhale sharply. ‘Well, I guess you’d better come on in and borrow one then.’

6

Bear Hugs

‘Wallet? Fuck’s sake, where is it?’ Ed mutters to himself.

The dreaded day has arrived, the day of Ed’s first show, and he has barely had a wink of sleep. An almighty bang woke us at three o’clock in the morning, one so terrifyingly loud that Ed was convinced we had an intruder. He grabbed a can of air freshener and bravely tore down the hallway to blast the baddie in the eyeballs, but found Jack. He had somehow climbed out of his cot and was sitting on the kitchen floor amongst the pots and pans with a cheese grater just inches from his cheek, poised to give himself some DIY microdermabrasion. There was no getting back to sleep, not after that.

‘And my charger? My battery’s 9 per cent.’ Ed dashes past me into the living room and starts tossing all the cushions off the sofa.

‘Relax, love,’ I say with the tranquil tone of the Dalai Lama. Having just returned from another distressing school run, I close the front door, shake the water off my brolly and kick off my shoes. ‘I’ve got it covered. It’s all in your bag.’

He skids back into the hallway. ‘Where?’ His bloodshot eyes dart around, failing to focus on anything. ‘Where?’

I pull off my coat and hang it on the back of the door before lifting the rucksack that’s sitting right beside his feet. ‘Here. You have to calm down, love. You’ll be great. I know it.’

‘What about my charger?’

‘It’s in there with your black shirt and trousers, in-ears, spare batteries and strings. I got it all ready for you last night. You just need your folder and you’re good to go.’

‘Uh, okay. Okay.’

‘And I’ve popped three bananas in – one for the journey, one for just before the show and one for the interval to get you through to the end. Make sure you eat them – they’re great for taking the edge off stage fright.’

He kneels down and starts rifling through the bag, the sweat running down his face.

‘Ed, hug.’ I reach over and tug the collar of his jacket. ‘Get up here.’