The Perfect Mother by Margaret Leroy Read Free Book Online Page A

her legs are hurting.
    My confidence of last night is still with me: I’m sure I can solve this. I do all the things on my list. I ring the GP and make an appointment for this afternoon after school. I spend the morning cleaning Daisy’s room, moving all her cuddly animals out, as you’re meant to do if your child hasasthma, and taking away her rug in case it’s been treated with pesticides, and steam-cleaning the mattress to immolate the dustmites. A sense of virtue opens out in me; I know her room is safe and pure and clean.
    At lunchtime I ring Nicky.
    ‘I’ve got just the guy for you,’ she says, when I tell her about Daisy. ‘Helmut Wolf. He’s a kinaesiologist—you have to hold these little glass bottles and he tests your muscle strength to see if you’re allergic. It’s weird but it works. He was wonderful with my migraines. Trust me, he can help Daisy.’
    I write his number down.
    ‘Neil thinks he’s nuts, of course,’ she says.
    Somehow this makes me less sure about Helmut Wolf, though that’s certainly not her intention.
    We talk about her boys. Max is doing brilliantly with his reading; his teacher is starting to hint he may be gifted. And Callum came downstairs last night wearing nothing but Nicky’s silver sandals and announced he was Postman Pat. Nicky herself is feeling rather smug: she’s given up smoking again and is on a detox diet. She says I wouldn’t believe the things she can do with a chickpea.
    ‘And how are—things generally?’ I say then, using one of those carefully vague phrases we use to hint at that separate, secret part of her—which for now means Simon at Praxis, and the illicit e-mails.
    ‘Fantastic.’ Her voice is lowered, with a whisper of risk. ‘But, look, I can’t talk now.’
    We fix a date for a drink at the Café Rouge.
    At three-thirty, I park down the road from the school gate. I open the car door and the rain comes down. I don’t have my umbrella. At first I fight against it, turning up my collar, but soon I’m soaked, so I lift up my face and let it fall on me, and it feels surprisingly pleasant, drenching me through. The whole street is musical with water, and outside the church on the corner the daffodils that are just opening around the war memorial are beaten down and ragged from the storm. The church noticeboard is advertising some course they’re running till Easter, enticing you in with the promise that you will discover life’s meaning. The wet air smells seductively of spring.
    I join the group of parents at the gate, their open umbrellas like a flock of bright-winged birds alighting. Toddlers in buggies fight against the transparent rainshields spread across them, angry fists distending the plastic, wailing with red open mouths. Daisy was always like that: she’d fight and fight, she couldn’t bear to be shut in. Well, I can understand.
    The bell rings, the caretaker opens the gate. Inside, the paving stones are slick with wet.
    People around me are talking about their children.
    ‘Yeah, well, we’ve had them a few times, girls have this long hair and they put their heads together and whisper…My mother used to put malt vinegar on my hair…’
    ‘Ellie was off with a sore throat, and it was really expensive because I had to buy Liam some Lego to bribe him to go into school. It was five pounds, I ask you…’
    One of the teachers is leaving already—Mrs Nicholls,who sometimes takes Daisy for music. She sees me there, half smiles in my direction, comes towards me.
    ‘Mrs Lydgate. I’ve heard about your troubles with Daisy.’ Her face is close to mine, she’s speaking in an undertone, as though this is something of which I may be ashamed. ‘I did want to say—I really do feel you’re doing the right thing in making her come in.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I say.
    ‘It’s awful if your child’s unhappy at school,’ she says. ‘I had a lot of trouble with my daughter once—she wouldn’t go to school. We found it was