Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (41 page)

I rushed to the edge of the fallen chain-fence, more parents and teachers joining me now. Between us we struggled to lift the buckled metal, the three boys wriggling towards the edge, Billy the last one in line.

Firemen were jumping down, lifting the fence, pulling Bikram out – the metal ripping his shirt – then Jeremiah. Billy was still in there. As Jeremiah wriggled free, I reached forward and put my arms under Billy’s, feeling as though I had the strength of ten men, and pulled, sobbing with relief as Billy came free and the firemen pulled us out of the pit.

‘That’s the last one! Come on!’ yelled Mr Wallaker, still shaking under the weight of the car. The firemen jumped under to support him, stepping on the fence, their weight crushing it down into the space where, seconds before, the three boys had been cowering.

‘Where’s Mabel?’ yelled Billy dramatically. ‘We have to save her!’

The three boys charged off through the crowd in the yard, with the air of supermen with flapping capes. I followed, to find Mabel standing calmly beside a hyperventilating Nicolette.

Billy threw his arms round Mabel, yelling, ‘I’ve saved her! I’ve saved my sister! Are you all right, sister?’

‘Yeth,’ she said solemnly. ‘But Mr Wallaker’th bossy.’

Incredibly, in the midst of the pandemonium, the BMW dad again opened the car door, and this time he actually climbed out, brushing huffily at his overcoat, at which the whole vehicle started sliding backwards.

‘IT’S COMING DOWN!’ Mr Wallaker yelled from below. ‘GET OUT, GUYS!’

We all rushed forward to see Mr Wallaker and the firemen jumping clear as the BMW crashed down onto the steel pole, then bounced, rolled and smashed on its side, sleek metal cracking, windows shattering, broken glass and debris all over the cream leather seats.

‘My Bima!’ shouted the dad.

‘Time is money, dickhead,’ Mr Wallaker retorted, grinning delightedly.

As the paramedics tried to look him over, Billy was explaining, ‘We couldn’t move, you see, Mummy. We daren’t run because that post was wobbling right above us. But then we were Superheroes because . . .’

Meanwhile, chaos was breaking out around us, parents running crazily round in circles, hair extensions flying, enormous handbags lying forgotten on the ground.

Mr Wallaker jumped onto the steps.

‘Quiet!’ he shouted. ‘Everyone stand still! Now, boys. In a second you’ll be lining up to be checked and counted. But first, listen up. You just had a real adventure. No one got hurt. You were brave, you were calm, and three of you – Bikram, Jeremiah and Billy – were cut-and-dried Superheroes. Tonight you’re to go home and celebrate, because you’ve proved that when scary stuff happens – which it will – you know how to be brave and calm.’

Cheers went up from the boys and parents. ‘Oh my God,’ said Farzia. ‘Take me now’ – rather echoing my own sentiments. As Mr Wallaker passed me, he shot me a smug little look, endearingly Billy-like.

‘All in a day’s work?’ I said.

‘Seen worse,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and at least your hair didn’t blow up.’

After the counting, Bikram, Billy and Jeremiah were mobbed by the other boys. The three of them had to go to hospital to be checked out. When they climbed into the ambulances, followed by their traumatized mothers, it was with the air of a newly famous boy band from
Britain’s Got Talent
.

Mabel fell asleep in the ambulance and slept through the checkups. The boys were fine, apart from a few scratches. Bikram’s and Jeremiah’s fathers turned up at the hospital. A few minutes later Mr Wallaker appeared, grinning, with bags of McDonald’s and went over every detail of what had happened with the boys, answering all their questions and explaining exactly how and why they’d been Action Heroes.

As Jeremiah and Bikram left with their parents, Mr Wallaker held out my car keys.

‘You OK?’ He took one look at my face and said, ‘I’ll drive you home.’

‘No! I’m absolutely fine!’ I lied.

‘Listen,’ he said with his slight smile. ‘It doesn’t make you less of a top professional feminist if you let somebody help you.’

Back home, as I settled the children on the sofa, Mr Wallaker said quietly, ‘What do you need?’

‘Their cuddly toys? They’re upstairs in the bunk beds.’

‘Puffle Two?’

‘Yes. And One and Three, Mario, Horsio and Saliva.’

‘Saliva
?’

‘Her dolly.’

As he came back with the toys, I was trying to turn on the TV, staring at the remotes. ‘Shall I have a go?’

SpongeBob
sprang into life, and he led me behind the sofa.

I started sobbing then, silently.

‘Shhh. Shhh,’ he whispered, putting his strong arms around me. ‘No one was hurt, I knew it was going to be fine.’

I leaned against him, sniffing and snuffling.

‘You’re doing all right, Bridget,’ he said softly. ‘You’re a good mum and dad, better than some who have a staff of eight and a flat in Monte Carlo. Even if you have put snot on my shirt.’

And it felt like the aeroplane door opening, when you arrive on holiday, with a rush of warm air. It felt like sitting down at the end of the day.

Then Mabel yelled, ‘Mummee!
SpongeBob
’th
finished
!’ and simultaneously the doorbell rang.

It was Rebecca. ‘We just heard about the school thing,’ she said, clattering down the stairs, a string of tiny LED Christmas lights woven into her hair. ‘What happened? Oh!’ she said, seeing Mr Wallaker. ‘Hello, Scott.’

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Good to see you. Headgear unexpectedly understated . . . but still.’

Finn, Oleander and Jake came over and the house was filled with noise and chocolate and Hellvanians and Xbox, and everyone running about. I kept trying to talk to Billy, and help him process what had happened, but he just said, ‘Mummeee! I’m a Superhero! OK?’

I watched Mr Wallaker talking to Jake, both of them tall, handsome, old friends, fathers. Rebecca looked at Mr Wallaker and raised her eyebrows at me, but then his phone rang, and I could just tell he was talking to Miranda.

‘I have to go,’ he said abruptly, clicking it off. ‘You guys will look after them tonight, right, Jake?’

Heart sinking, I followed him up to the doorstep and started to gabble, ‘I’m so grateful. It’s you who is the Superhero. I mean are. I mean is.’

‘Are,’ he said. ‘And it was my pleasure.’

He walked down the steps then turned, added softly ‘. . . Superheroine’, and strode off towards the main road, the taxis, and a girl who looks like she’s out of a magazine. I watched him go, sadly, thinking, ‘Superheroine? I’d still like someone to shag.’

’TIS THE SEASON

Monday 2 December 2013

Everything is all right. Took Billy to the child psychologist who said he seemed to have ‘healthily assimilated it as a learning experience’. When I tried to take him for a second time, Billy said, ‘Mummee! It’s you who needs to go.’

Billy, Bikram and Jeremiah are enjoying a period of what can only be described as celebrity at the school and have been signing autographs. Their school celebrity, however, is as nothing beside that of Mr Wallaker.

And Mr Wallaker is friendly to me now, and I to him. But that’s as far as it seems to go.

Tuesday 3 December 2013

3.30 p.m.
Mabel just came out of school singing:

‘Deck de halls wid boughs of holly,

Falalalala la la la la.

’Tis de season to be jolly . . .’

It
is
the season to be jolly. Am going to be jolly this year. And grateful.

Wednesday 4 December 2013

4.30 p.m.
Oh. Mabel has now changed the words to:

‘’Tis de season to hate Billy.’

Thursday 5 December 2013

10 a.m.
Thelonius’s mother stopped me at the Infants Branch drop-off this morning.

‘Bridget,’ she said, ‘could you ask your daughter to stop upsetting Thelonius?’

‘Why? What?’ I said, confused.

It turns out Mabel is going round the playground singing:

‘Deck de halls wid boughs of begonias,

Falalalala la la la la.

’Tis de season to hate Thelonius . . .’

2 p.m.
‘That’ll teach you to plant such an unimaginative flower,’ said Rebecca. ‘How’s Scott? I mean, Mr Wallaker.’

‘He’s nice,’ I said. ‘He’s friendly, but, you know, just friendly . . .’

‘Well, are you “just friendly” to him? Does he KNOW?’

‘He’s with Miranda.’

‘A man like that has his needs. It doesn’t mean he’s going to be with her for ever.’

I shook my head. ‘He’s not interested. I think he likes me as a person, now. But that’s as far as it goes.’

It is sad. But mostly I am happy. It only takes a really bad thing to nearly happen to make you appreciate what you have.

2.05 p.m.
Bloody Miranda.

2.10 p.m.
Hate Miranda. ‘Oh, oh, look at me, I’m all young and tall and thin and perfect.’ She’s probably also going out with Roxster. Humph.

THE CAROL CONCERT

Wednesday 11 December 2013

The carol concert was upon us again, and Billy and Mabel both had sleepovers so there was wild excitement combined with the utter hysteria of trying to pack two overnight backpacks, get Mabel and me looking human and festive enough to go to a school carol concert, and get there before it had actually ended.

Was trying to put on my best front, as no doubt Miranda would be in the church cheering on her man. Mabel was wearing a furry jacket and a sticky-out red skirt which I’d got in the ILoveGorgeous sale, and I was wearing a new white coat (inspired by Nicolette, who is currently in the Maldives, where her sexually incontinent husband is begging her forgiveness while she tortures him in a luxury hut on the end of a long wooden walkway, suspended over the sea on stilts, sharks circling below). In the absence of any possibility of blowjobs, I had gone for a blow-dry – though the Disney Princess and Mario backpacks didn’t exactly add to the look. Plus Miranda would undoubtedly be wearing an effortlessly sexy yet understated outfit so edgily on-trend that even Mabel would not understand it.

As we came out of the tube station, the ‘village’ looked utterly magical, delicate lights casting shadows in the trees. The shops were all lit up, and a brass band was playing ‘Good King Wenceslas’. And the old-fashioned butcher had turkeys hanging up in the window. And we were early.

Out of a moment’s believing I actually
was
Good King Wenceslas, I rushed into the butcher and bought four Cumberland sausages – in case a poor man suddenly came in sight – adding a sausage bag to the two lurid backpacks. Then Mabel wanted to get a hot
chocolate, which seemed like the perfect idea, but then suddenly it was 5.45, which was the time we were meant to be seated by, so we had to run towards the church, and Mabel tripped and her hot chocolate went all over my coat. She burst into tears. ‘Your coat, Mummy, your new coat.’

‘It doesn’t matter, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s just a coat. Here, have my hot chocolate,’ meanwhile thinking, ‘Oh, fuck, the one time I manage to get it together, I fuck it up again.’

But the church square was so beautiful, lined with Georgian houses with Christmas trees in the windows and Christmas wreaths on the doors. The church windows were glowing orange, organ music was playing and the fir tree outside was decorated with Christmas lights.

And there were some seats left inside, quite near the front. There was no sign of Miranda. Heart gave a great leap as Mr Wallaker appeared, looking cheerful yet masterful in a blue shirt and dark jacket.

‘Look, dere’s Billy,’ said Mabel as the choir and musicians filed into the pews. We had been strictly instructed by Billy not to wave, but Mabel waved, and then I couldn’t help it. Mr Wallaker glanced at Billy, who rolled his eyes and giggled.

Then everyone settled and the vicar walked down the aisle and said the blessing. Billy kept looking over at us and grinning. He was so proud of himself being in the choir. Then it was time for the first carol and everyone got to their feet. Spartacus, as usual, was singing the solo, and as that pure, perfect little voice rang out through the church . . .

‘Once in royal David’s city,

Stood a lowly cattle shed,

Where a mother laid her baby

In a manger for His bed.’

. . . I realized I was going to cry.

The organ swelled into action and the congregation started to sing the second verse.

‘He came down to earth from heaven,

Who is God and Lord of all.

And His shelter was a stable,

And His cradle was a stall.’

And all the Christmases before came flooding back: the Christmases when I was little, standing between Mum and Dad in Grafton Underwood village church on Christmas Eve, waiting for Santa Claus; the Christmases when I was a teenager, Dad and I suppressing giggles as Mum and Una warbled overly loudly in ridiculous sopranos; the Christmases in my thirties, when I was single and so sad, because I thought I’d never have a baby of my own to lay in a manger, or more precisely a Bugaboo stroller; last winter in the snow when I was tweeting Roxster, who was probably at this moment dancing to ‘garage house’ music with someone called Natalie. Or Miranda. Or Saffron. Dad’s last Christmas before he died, when he staggered out of hospital to go to Midnight Mass in Grafton Underwood; the first Christmas when Mark and I went to church, holding Billy in a little Santa Claus outfit; the Christmas when Billy had his first Nativity Play at nursery school, which was the first Christmas after Mark’s brutal, horrible death, when I couldn’t believe that Christmas would be so cruel as to actually try to happen.

‘Don’t cry, Mummy, pleathe don’t cry.’ Mabel was gripping my hand tightly. Billy was looking over. I wiped the tears away with my fist, raised my head to join in:

‘And He feeleth for our sadness,

And He shareth in our gladness.’

. . . and saw that Mr Wallaker was looking straight at me. The congregation carried on singing:

‘And our eyes at last shall see Him.’