May Contain Nuts by John O'Farrell Read Free Book Online Page A

to ring Ffion immediately and shout down the phone at her.
    â€˜You’re angry because Molly has done so badly. Don’t take it out on one of your best friends,’ said David.
    â€˜She’s not one of my best friends. She was just the first other mother I met. Do you think I should email everyone on the list and point out that Molly actually got 39 per cent?’
    â€˜No, it doesn’t matter.’
    â€˜I mean, if Ffion is going to put an exclamation mark after Molly’s maths score, then she ought to know that you round up from .66 recurring, not down. I mean, that’s basic mathematics.’
    â€˜Forget about the half a per cent.’
    â€˜Well, it’s a whole per cent the way she’s done it. From 38 per cent to 39 per cent, that’s a whole percentage point she’s been robbed of there. Do you not think I should just do a quick email to everyone to point that out?’
    â€˜She’d still be bottom.’
    â€˜Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize her methodology. I’m sorry, but who’s to say who is bottom here?’
    â€˜Molly is bottom,’ said David firmly.
    â€˜In how she scored in one test, yes … but that doesn’t takeanything else into account. I mean, Molly’s much better, well, she’s much better … at the violin than Bronwyn.’
    â€˜Great!’ he said sarcastically. ‘She’ll be the best violinist at Battersea Comprehensive.’
    I thought of little Molly carrying her violin into that rough inner-city school. You could never walk in there with a violin, it would make you stand out too much. You’d have to hide your violin inside a machine-gun case.
    That night I was sitting up in bed underlining passages in The Self-Confident Parent when David sprung his Plan B on me.
    â€˜We’re going to have to go for St Jude’s.’
    â€˜Boarding? No way.’
    â€˜She could get a music scholarship.’
    â€˜She’s going to Chelsea College with all her friends.’
    â€˜Alice, she’s never going to pass the entrance exam, you said so yourself. We’re going to have to put her down for St Jude’s and work on her music.’
    â€˜She’d never have got 23 per cent if she’d had that echinacea,’ I said, and David looked at me as if I was insane. I was adamant that Molly was not going to boarding school. I couldn’t bear the idea of her being taken away from me, but I didn’t dare give this as the reason. I feared that David would say I was putting my own feelings ahead of what was best for our daughter.
    â€˜She’s going to Chelsea College. That’s what we always wanted for her. That’s the best school. That’s where her friends are going. That’s where Molly is going.’
    â€˜And how is she going to get in?’
    â€˜I’ll think of a way.’
    â€˜Good. Well, while you do that, I’m going to sleep. I’ll phone St Jude’s for a prospectus in the morning’ – and suddenly everything was total darkness.
    My hand fumbled across to my bedside table and I found something to occupy my hands while I worried.
    â€˜Are you popping bubble wrap again?’
    â€˜Sorry. I’ll try and do it quietly.’
    I slipped the old padded envelope underneath the duvet and tried to pop the polythene air pockets as gently as possible.
    â€˜For God’s sake, how can I get to sleep with that racket? Pop! Rustle, rustle! Pop! Pop!’
    Then silence. Then one more pop for defiance’s sake and then I just sat there staring into the black nothingness of my daughter’s future.
    Anxiety had been my default setting ever since the children had been born. I remember when Molly and Jamie were little, there had been a feature on the radio about the risk of asteroids falling to Earth from outer space. The children couldn’t understand why I was suddenly calling them in from the garden. In the end I