The Misadventures of a Playground Mother (9 page)

I shook my head in disbelief, it was typical of Penelope to tell me what Melanie had done, yet failed to tell me what she had done to make amends.

A
fter a couple
of months of fending for herself and the two children, Penelope was feeling more positive about life. Rupert was supporting her financially and appearing on demand to babysit whenever he was summoned. Life had been tough for Penelope when they first split up; the rumours of her new single status were circulated among the mothers in the playground, and she had become the talk of the village. Swamped with fake concern and constant sympathetic hugs, all anyone really wanted to know was if Rupert had another woman. I helped her with some of the necessary more mundane tasks such as changing the car insurance and opening a new bank account; a trip to the benefit office was also needed now she was unemployed, thanks to Camilla's overnight bunk.

Overall, she was coping brilliantly; her social life was practically non-existent due to the lack of disposable cash, but her domestic chores were organised and accomplished on a daily basis leaving her modest detached house on the estate looking like a show home. Her daily routine was becoming entrenched.

Penelope accepted this was her life; well for the time being anyway. At this moment in time, the only love of her life was the new Dyson vacuum cleaner she'd managed to purchase before Rupert sneakily shut down the joint bank accounts without her consent.

She needed a change, she told me, but she wasn't sure what that change was, except that having fun was, without doubt, at the top of that list. Her stance in the playground had already been decided; she had at present relegated herself back to her original position of standing next to me. For most of the day, Penelope would communicate with nobody; her only company was the unfortunate human beings that were exposed as liars and cheats on the Jeremy Kyle Show. Occasionally, she allowed herself to be distracted by the veneer of happiness portrayed by her cyber-friends when she scrolled through their family photos posted on their social media sites. On the whole though, she was coping well and was standing by her own tough decision to break up the family unit and dispose of Rupert.

The morning of March 3rd will be etched in my mind forever. I placed the children into their school lines and dropped the other two for their morning at pre-school, and had a pleasant walk home up the winding lane, listening to the birds tweet and observing the daffodils that were dancing in the light breeze. My walks around the village were more enjoyable and stress-free now that my pensioner stalker was no longer popping out from behind hedgerows.

The list of jobs that needed completing today was endless, but on arriving back home I began my usual routine – flicking on the kettle and retrieving my china mug from the dishwasher and making myself a cup of tea.

At that very moment there was a knock on the door. I glanced at my watch wondering who on earth would be calling at this time of the morning; it was too early for the postman. Picking up my mug, I wandered towards the front door.

‘Rachel, Rachel let me in, I have a plan.' Penelope stood breathless on the doorstep. Wiping her feet on the doormat and rubbing her hands together, she flounced straight past me into the living room nearly knocking the mug straight out of my hand.

‘Good morning Penelope, don't mind me,' I said, ‘come in why don't you.'

‘What are you doing?'

‘Having a cup of tea. The mug in my hand may be a little bit of a giveaway.'

Penelope looked more dolled up than usual. Not a hair was out of place, and she was proudly wearing a new purple shade of lipstick – it had been a few months since I had seen her wearing any lipstick.

‘I've decided I need to change my ways; it's time I began to enjoy life again so I'm going to take the bull by the horns, have more fun and let my hair down so to speak. It's time; I'm ready – I need to find a man.'

I sighed with relief at this announcement – there would be no input from me required! ‘And you're just the woman to help me.'

Sure enough, my sigh of relief had been released way too soon. There was no way I was going to chase, follow, or stalk any potential husband for Penelope. Life had been so much simpler before I met her.

‘Relax Rachel. I'm not going to ask you to go on any double dates or anything. Everything will be fine, I promise.'

I wasn't convinced. ‘Hmm, can I have that in writing?' I replied, thinking that would make Matt feel a whole lot better about the situation when I informed him of the latest goings-on in the mad world of mothers. Sometimes I really envied Matt, going to work every day, communicating with normal, sensible people with no need to ever visit the dark side of a playground.

She leaned closer towards me from the armchair, her face serious. ‘I know you're married but I've got the best plan ever; we are going speed-dating!'

Then there was silence. I felt the colour drain from my face.

‘Rachel, are you OK? You have gone a funny colour, a whiter shade of white to be precise, can I get you anything?' Penelope asked with concern.

‘A glass of whisky,' I instinctively replied, the standard response to the majority of Penelope's ideas.

I could see by the look on her face that Penelope was serious – deadly serious.

‘Really Rachel, it's only quarter to ten in the morning.'

‘If you are serious about speed-dating then yes, I'm serious about a whisky. I'm not sure if it has escaped your notice Penelope, but I'm married and I have four of those little people that are called children. I like being married and frankly, I'd like it to stay that way. You can't really expect me to pay money to meet and speak to blokes,' I patiently explained.

‘Ditch or date to be more precise,' she grinned.

I was completely flabbergasted.

‘Penelope, I cannot go speed dating with you,' I replied insistently.

‘But you must.'

‘No Penelope, it's a categorical NO.'

At that very moment the waterworks started.

‘Please Rachel you must. You will make sure I am OK, I've lost all confidence since my split with Rupert and I'm just getting back on my feet, you are the only one I can trust with this.'

Retrieving a tissue from her pocket, she blew hard on her nose.

I could see from the look on her face it didn't matter what I said. I actually felt a pang of guilt; maybe I had been a little hasty; after all, Penelope had trusted me with her plan. Maybe she did need a sensible friend to help her out on this occasion. The Playground Mafia would more than likely end up ridiculing her, and one thing was for sure, I wouldn't be gossiping about it in the school playground or anywhere else for that matter, she could count on that.

‘I can't wait,' I muttered sarcastically.

‘Thank you, thank you,' she said, suddenly throwing her arms around my neck giving me a quick hug and rather rapidly forgetting her tears in the process.

As plans go, this was not one of Penelope's painful plans – it was an excruciating one.

I urged her to change her mind – in fact, I begged her to reconsider, but her mind was made up and there was no way I could talk her out of it. The next Thursday night – to my utter shame – we were going speed-dating.

That evening when Matt returned from work, I got the distinct impression he was not thrilled with Penelope's decision for me to support her with her ditch or date plan. I think the way he slammed down of his bag and stormed into the kitchen rather gave it away.

He was seething and did not pull any punches letting me know that this was not one of my better ideas

‘You are doing what? Are you on a different calendar – or planet – to me? April Fool's day is still a month away.'

Willing the kettle to boil, I clinked the spoon in the mugs and after what seemed like a lifetime, the steam began rising out of the spout and it finally clicked off. I handed Matt a brew, which in his own words ‘is nature's cure for everything'.

He sat down at the kitchen table opposite me. With a half-hearted and sarcastic laugh, he begged me to tell him I was winding him up. Stirring my tea nervously, I was livid with myself; why didn't I stick to my New Year's resolution and just say no?

In my defence though, I'm not sure Matt was fully grasping the situation. It wasn't as though I was going to find a red-hot date, was it? Did he really think that the likes of Brad Pitt and Gary Barlow were hanging about in run-down village halls up and down the country or paying to chat-up women in the dusty back rooms of the nation's British Legions? Surely not.

Five minutes later, Matt reluctantly agreed. Unfortunately, on my part, the deal clincher was the promise of an early night. I was bloody livid with Penelope again. It wasn't even a dead goldfish's anniversary or a flippin' birthday and I had to put out. She owed me big time!

The following Thursday, I could hardly contain my excitement. There was a need for speed and I don't mean speed-dating – more along the lines of the narcotic type which could help me get through the evening. Penelope constantly drove me mad for most of the day, continually texting questions.

What time are we leaving?

What are you wearing?

Hair down or up?

Flats or heels?

I, on the other hand was not very enthusiastic about the whole situation and had already decided what my outfit would be; I would be wearing my dungarees and chicken-shit wellies. I was going with the firm intention of impressing noone. No make-up would grace my face and my hair would be scraped back and tied tightly in a ponytail.

Matt grudgingly kissed me on my cheek when it was time for me to leave. It wasn't as though I was actually going out on the pull – my attire didn't ooze sex appeal and I was stinking after cleaning out the chicken coops. I didn't even bother to shower. Penelope pulled up on the drive grinning from ear to ear. She looked like a demented Cheshire Cat. I climbed into the passenger side of the car being particularly careful not leave a trail of mud from my wellies.

Glancing across at Penelope I was astonished; she was the complete double of Bet Lynch. Not only had she dyed her hair a new peroxide blonde which was completely preposterous – her hair was naturally jet-black and those roots would be a bugger to keep under control – but she had pinned a beehive hairpiece to the top of her head. I wasn't aware there was a sixties theme for the speed-dating night but it definitely appeared that way. My eyes glanced downwards and stopped dead at the dangly gold fan earrings that hung from her earlobes. That was nothing in comparison to the gold spandex dress that clung to every bulge of her body. The outfit was completed with gold strappy high heels; she certainly had the gold theme going on tonight. I wasn't sure this was the appropriate dress code for a night of speed-dating but to be fair, she would look equally out of place in a salubrious Blackpool ballroom.

The scene was set; we were travelling to the dilapidated snooker hall a couple of miles down the road. Penelope thought this was an excellent venue, not too local but not too far and there was the double bonus of potentially meeting the man of her dreams while incurring minimal petrol expense!

In complete contrast, I was very sceptical; in my opinion, this was way too close to home. If there was a glut of hot singletons living a few miles from our place, where were they? The only single person I had regularly observed was Roger the one-eyed alcoholic hobbling up the road on his wooden leg to the local pub; all he was missing was a parrot on his shoulder. This latest escapade had disaster written all over it.

The cost of this exclusive event was twenty pounds. I was more than a little miffed when I realised this didn't include any kind of refreshments but as a goodwill gesture the snooker hall was offering a reduced price on membership – that said it all really. To add insult to injury, we'd had to pay in advance by credit card which I assumed was the organiser's way of ensuring they had the cash upfront in case no one showed up. Penelope explained that prepayment was necessary to ensure that an equal number of people and the correct distribution of men and woman would attend because if all participants turned out to be women, it could be a little tricky if you weren't a lesbian. She had a fair point. Bloody hell, they had thought of everything.

A strict age policy was also applied to the event, which I found quite reassuring, as it would be just my luck that I'd attract another frisky pensioner stalker who was partial to chicken shit. As we drove into the car park, I couldn't believe my eyes. This was a revelation for me; these people took these events seriously! If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought I was about to stand on the red carpet at a glitzy film premiere. All the women were dressed to the nines, with myriad shades of lipstick, sparkly dresses and clutch bags shoved under their arms. And the men? Well the men all stood in line with their beer-stained T-shirts that barely covered their rotund bellies.

We were now forming a queue shuffling forward; I was even amazed that people queued to enter these sorts of places. The ultimate challenge of the evening was yet to materialise – finding Penelope a date – but to be fair, if any of the blokes in this line turned her down, they had a bloody cheek.

T
here was
no turning back now. Our names had been checked off and we had been gestured inside. The room was unbelievably shabby; I wasn't sure if the lighting was dimmed intentionally for a romantic ambiance or simply because they couldn't afford to replace the bulbs. A couple of toilets were situated in the corner of the room, a unisex toilet and one for the disabled, both with handmade paper signs stuck to the front of the painted-over cream doors. I made a mental note that it would be better to burst my bladder than to empty it. Matt had been fretting over absolutely nothing, never mind making any romantic involvements with pot-bellied, stinky men. His main worry should be the risk of me contracting a disease from the lavatories.

This experience was surreal; I almost felt as if I was going back to my youth; I reminisced about that loitering moment on the edge of the dance floor, fiddling with my hair in the nightclub praying someone, anyone, would pick me for one of the slow dances at the end of the night.

I bounced back to the real world when I received a tap on my shoulder. Swinging round, I came face-to-face with the gentleman standing behind me – a gentleman in the loosest sense of the word – wearing an eye-watering psychedelic shirt. Above the dodgy music that was being piped through a prehistoric speaker fitted above the potted plastic palm tree, I faintly heard him.

‘Can you turn the heating up love, it's freezing in here?'' he asked.

‘I must apologise for my friend,' Penelope butted in, 'but she doesn't work here, she's come straight from the farm.'

‘Loony farm to be more precise,' I muttered under my breath.

The bloody cheek of it! The so-called gentleman mistaking me for the caretaker, and the feeling of being underdressed started to prey on my conscience, but I suppose I did look more like Worzel Gummidge than Aunt Sally. My immediate mission was to convince Penelope to escape now while she could still totter in those heels with a little dignity in tow. I kindly offered to pay back her twenty pounds, which I thought, was extremely generous of me, but she blankly refused.

Then the room fell into complete silence. The event organiser appeared from behind the door marked ‘Private'. The woman introduced herself as Marjorie. Proudly she announced to the wannabe daters that this was the fourth successful year she had run this event in the snooker hall premises on a weekly basis.

Everyone applauded. I on the other hand was bewildered.

People clearly measured success in numerous ways. I didn't see any accomplishment in turning up week after week. If all these people had been attending for four years, why didn't they have a date yet? Eyeing the area carefully, I quickly found my answer. More than half of them – well if the truth be known most of them – resembled zoo animals the way they grunted, snorted, and scratched.

Marjorie placed her long talons on the whistle draped around her neck and brought it up to her mouth. With one sharp gust of air, she blew hard. The applause stopped.

‘Right, are we ready? Do we all know the drill?' she enquired. ‘Collect your pen and paper from the hatch … men sit on the right and women on the left. Place a tick by any names you wish to date, a cross by those you want to ditch and I will email any compatible matches later on this evening so dates can be arranged.'

Who was Marjorie trying to kid? My guess was she hadn't fired up her laptop – if she had one – for the last four years and had never successfully fixed up any couple on a date in this room. She was no Cilla Black. Shooting Penelope uncomfortable stares, I collected my piece of paper and biro from the hatch. Penelope was already seated at a table with her head down, intently studying the line-up of names of potential suitors. I spotted a vacant table near the emergency exit, which would be handy, if I needed to do a runner. After reluctantly plonking my backside on the chair, I clasped the biro and meticulously placed a cross by every name on the list just so there was no confusion: I didn't want a date.

Marjorie blew the whistle again and we were off.

In a round-robin rotation style, we were allowed four minutes with each potential love interest. I glanced around the room and did the mental arithmetic so fast Carol Vorderman would have been proud of me. Twelve blokes, four minutes each, this could potentially be the worst forty-eight minutes of my life.

My mind was racing; even if I were single, I would never want to meet a bloke through speed-dating, especially this format. My guess was the majority of those taking part had more baggage than Penelope had during last year's mountain climb. I'm sure I was about to hear the words ‘my wife doesn't understand me', but then I reconsidered; there was no way on this planet any sane woman would have married any of these men in the first place.

The first bloke that squeezed into the seat in front of me was a sight for sore eyes. His podgy red face exhibited the most amazing hairy mole that appeared to have a personality all of its own.

Marjorie blew the whistle again.

'Your four minutes start now,' she bellowed.

'I'm Dwayne,' he announced, gruffly. Instantly, I moved my chair backwards trying to escape the halitosis fumes.

‘Rachel,' I managed.

Then he grunted. Leaning closer over the table, he continuously stared at me. His mouth opened again, so I braced myself for the next verbal masterpiece.

‘Your eyes are like spanners, every time you look at me my nuts go tighter and tighter.'

I shook my head in disbelief. My initial reaction was to slap him, but common sense prevailed; I didn't want any part of my body coming into contact with his.

Marjorie blew the whistle. ‘Your time is up. Please remember to mark down on your list whether you'd like to ditch or date.'

I couldn't believe it when Dwayne placed a tick next to my name with the word ‘chaleng' written next to it. I could only assume that meant I was a challenge; I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not. I suppose he must have had some education at some point in his life, how else would he have known the ‘ch' sound.

The women stayed in their seats while the men moved around and found new prey.

I looked over at Penelope; she had a wide grin on her face. She gave me a thumbs up. We'd see if she still felt the same after her encounter with Dwayne, who had now slid onto the seat opposite her.

Marjorie blew the whistle again. Another four minutes of hell was upon me.

The species opposite me spoke first without hesitation. ‘I'm Wayne,'' he grunted.

Déjà vu hit me like a slap in the face. Throwing my head up to inspect the person in front of me, there was no mistaking – Wayne was Dwayne's brother. I wasn't capable of speaking but my mouth fell open regardless and my jaw hit the table.

‘I'm Wayne,'' he grunted again.

In exactly the same routine as his brother, whom I didn't doubt for one moment had the same mother and father (who were possibly brother and sister), he began leaning closer over the table whilst continuously staring at me.

He leant over and whispered, ‘I'm no weather man … but I reckon you'll get a few inches tonight.'

I made a pact with myself; if I ever became single again I would stay that way until the day I died.

Marjorie blew her whistle again. ‘Your four minutes are up, date or ditch – make your choice now,' she hollered'

Wayne leant forward again. ‘I'm Wayne, you didn't said your name.'

‘Erm, Penelope. My name is Penelope,' I replied.

Clutching his biro he placed a tick next to Penelope's name with the word ‘def' in the margin. Puzzled by this I was tempted to enquire if he had written this because he thought I was deaf on account of me remaining silent for the four minutes or because Penelope was definite date material.

Thankfully, before I plucked up the courage to ask, the blokes swapped seats again. Lucky me.

I scanned the list of names on the sheet in front of me and was relieved to have survived eight minutes with Dwayne and Wayne. The excitement was becoming too much, I wondered what the next male specimen to park themselves at my table would be like. I didn't have to wait long to find out.

Marjorie blew the whistle again.

That was enough, I couldn't take any more. I stood up abruptly, scraping my chair across the floor and stomped over to Penelope who appeared to be listening intently to Wayne's chatter.

I held out my hand and demanded, ‘Give me the car keys now.'

‘Rachel you don't need the car keys, it's not that type of event. All you need to do is place a tick or a cross against the names on the list,' Penelope giggled.

‘I know it's not that type of event, I'm not stupid,' I retorted. ‘I've had enough.' I thrust my hand towards her again and pointed to her bag where the car keys were stored. ‘I'll wait for you in the car.'

'Are you sure you want to leave?' Penelope looked surprised.

I didn't dignify her question with a reply, just a furious glare. Obligingly she bent down to retrieve her bag from the floor. Wayne's eyes followed her; and he copped a look of what was potentially hidden beneath the gold spandex dress.

Hurrying out of the snooker hall, I overheard Wayne talking to the bloke on the next table indicating he thought that his conversations had gone well so far that evening. Was he serious?