Blowing It by Judy Astley Page B

she didn’t feel at all better just because she’d gone into school. But yes, why
had
she got a phone with her in school at her age? Her little brain would fry and, worse, every child in her class would be demanding one, starting with Sophia.
    ‘Quick, let’s get out of here before Mrs Thing comes out of the class and sees I’m still within catching distance. I can really do without Poll around me today – I’ve got
loads
to do.’ And Mary-Jane was round the front of Clover’s car and in through the Touareg’s passenger door before Clover had a chance to go through the polite motions of offering her a lift. Clover looked back across the playground as she started the engine in case Polly was actually there, standing on the main-door steps, in pain and weeping. How awful it would be for the poor child to see her own mother being driven away at bank-robber speed rather than rushing back in to scoop her up and take her back home for a day’s sympathetic cherishing.
    ‘You don’t mind dropping me off back at mine, do you, sweetie?’ Mary-Jane settled back in her seat. ‘We’ve got a new nanny coming for an interview. I’ve got a little job starting in a few weeks – chauffeuring Wimbledon tennis players around. It’s for three and a bit weeks, including training. So, cross fingers, this new girl absolutely needs to be The One.’
    ‘You said that last time!’ Clover laughed. Mary-Jane’s nanny-disasters were well known: the cheery one from Newcastle had been arrested for shoplifting (how useful Jakey’s fancy three-wheel stroller had turned out to be, equipped like a Barbour jacket with enough pockets to hide half the John Lewis cosmetics counters), the posh Cotswold one had had sex with the Fed-Ex delivery man in Mary-Jane’s bed and at least two idle souls had quit after a mere week, finding that the care of two small children in a terminally untidy household was simply too much hassle.
    ‘I don’t know why you don’t have a nanny too, Clover. It would free up so much of your time.’
    What
did
Mary-Jane do with all this time? Clover wondered. It certainly wasn’t housework and she didn’t have a regular job to go to or even a dog to walk. She was quite scruffy too, albeit in an attractive, jeans-and-quirky-tops sort of way. It was one of the things Clover liked about her. A lot of the other mummies seemed so positively hell-bent on achieving personal yumminess that you’d think their skin would be exfoliated to bone level. Clover slicked ruinously costly Crème de la Mer across her face and indulged a passion for having her nails done but didn’t spend hours having hot-stone massages or hay-wraps or Restylane treatments. She kept her blonde hair at convenient shoulder-length so it could be tied back or piled up or scuzzed about for maximum sexiness if Sean needed reminding that she was the one he was supposed to fancy but it didn’t take much hairdressing effort beyond the usual four-weekly trim. Mary-Jane’s hair was spiky, as if she had had a bad fright. Clover had heard she cut it herself. So it certainly wasn’t pampering that took up all her time. Perhaps Mary-Jane climbed back into bed and read trashy novels till it was time to collect Jakey from pre-school. How lovely to do that, Clover thought, imagining the guilty bliss of a daytime duvet. How wonderful to have so little conscience. Clover was amazed Mary-Jane had found herself a job at all – even for just a few weeks. She didn’t seem to need the money. No one with children at St Hilary’s
seemed
to need money. This job’s appeal couldn’t have anything to do with sharing closed-in car-space with staggeringly fit champion sportsmen, could it? Surely not. Or was school-hours sex the time-consuming little hobby of Mary-Jane’s that Clover didn’t know about?
    ‘I don’t really need a nanny,’ Clover said. ‘Not since Elsa’s been at Toddle-Tots. What would the poor girl do all morning? What does yours do?’
    ‘Children’s