Simon came into the kitchen, yawning and still in his pyjamas.
‘You’re up early,’ he said.
Lorna gave a half smile. He didn’t know the half of it. Sometimes his obliviousness irritated her so much. Now she had to tell him too, about the change of plan with their children’s schooling. Make up something about how Carol had decided not to contribute after all. He wouldn’t outright say, ‘I told you so’, but he’d say that was how it was forpeople like them. He would simply accept their lot and forget about it. ‘Don’t get upset about the things you can’t control,’ he would say, but that was exactly what the elite wanted. To take away your control. They wanted to reserve the cherry-picked parts of life for themselves and quietly look down their noses at the rest of the population who were so browbeaten they no longer rose up against what they had no control over.
God, she was fuming this morning. Probably because she was tired. Being tired made her extremely tetchy.
Maybe she should tell Simon first. The kids had finished their breakfast at record speed (why did they never eat this fast when she was rushing to get them ready for school?) and were already dragging on coats, wellies and gloves. Better to let them go outside and have some fun. She opened the back door and they bolted, barely giving her a second to pull Pepper’s hat down over her ears. She smiled as she heard their shrieks of joy and as she looked out of the kitchen window, saw them running around in utter delight, lifting up great swathes of snow and throwing it at each other.
She loved them so much. She’d do anything for them. Yet she felt as if she was failing her children, standing by and watching as they fell further and further behind in society, in life. What was the saying?Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.Well, Phoenix was eleven – did that mean his blueprint for prosperity in life was already set? She felt a cold sweep of panic wash over her.
‘Maybe we could...you know,’ said Simon, putting his arms around her from behind and nuzzling her ear. ‘While the kids are occupied.’
She didn’t want to. She was tired and frazzled and her mind was far too occupied with the epically proportioned disappointment she had yet to fully accept. If only Simon cared a bit more about these things, if only he couldseewhat destiny they were setting for their children by not breaking the cycle.
If only she could think of a way to raise more money.
A crowd-funding page? She dismissed it with a silent sigh. It was unlikely that total strangers would fork out for private school fees for a child unknown. No, these kinds of things were generally only successful if the kid was sick or needed urgent medical treatment abroad – usually somewhere diabolically expensive like America. She’d heard in the past of mothers faking children’s illnesses just to get the cash and the stories made her skin crawl. She didn’t understand the cruelty of inflicting an illness, fake or otherwise, on a perfectly healthy child.
If only Simon earned more, she thought. If only he were one of those wealthy investment banker types, a trader or something. Or even a doctor who owned his own practice. Or anything more than a data analyst who loved to play football.
‘Did I tell you I have to meet up with the rest of the Ripton Rhinos at lunchtime to talk over the arrangements for the Straw Bear Festival?’ said Simon, still with his face buried in her neck.
Lorna pulled away and turned to face him.No, you did not.‘You know you didn’t.’
‘I’m sure I did.’
‘How long for?’
‘A couple of hours.’
‘What?’ Last time the all-male charity group, the Ripton Rhinos, met ‘for a couple of hours’, Simon didn’t come back until late afternoon and he was stinking of beer. Why did men never seem to carry the weight of family worries? Why was it always up to the women to sort and organize, make plans and change things for the better? Only she wasn’t doing too well at that at the moment. She could do with a shoulder to lean on. Lorna felt completely abandoned.
‘It’s the meeting we do every year,’ said Simon. ‘Same as always. And you know what a big deal the festival is for everyone. We raise a load too – don’t forget some of it goes back to the school.’
Lorna ignored the irritation she felt at Simon trying to cajole her into letting him go to the pub with his mates, in order to benefit her PTA, because she had just had a realization. A significant one.
The Straw Bear Festival raised an enormous amount of money. Simon had been on the committee for three years now and he always told her what they had taken. It ran into several thousand. They didn’t charge for tickets, just had people out with donation buckets throughout the village on the night itself. And seeing as almost the whole village turned out and there was a sense of pride about this ancient festival that marked them out from all the other villages,they liked to show their appreciation through their wallets.
Even better, Simon was the treasurer. He took the money home with him at the end of the night and got it ready for banking.
Could she?
A plan was worming its way into her head. It was so simple it was almost irresistible. She tried to fight it off, knowing it wasn’t right. But the more she thought it through, the more she realized it was easy and foolproof and really quite low risk.
There were no ticket sales, no records of anything. It was just cash in a bucket.
Lots and lots of it.
EIGHTY-TWO
Wednesday 24 February
Nancy came off the phone to the hospital. Beth was still in ICU. There was no change to her unresponsive state, but she was what the staff were calling ‘stable’.
Martin had told her that Beth had decided to drive over to Ripton to see her in all the snow – the same time Nancy had been trying to get out. Beth had made it to the road into the village when she’d lost control of her car and smashed into a tree. The paramedics thought it had been almost an hour before another car had driven past and called for help. Beth had suffered a brain injury and was in a coma. The doctors were hopeful – she could breathe on her own – but she was showing no signs of awareness.
When Nancy had asked Martin why Beth was driving over on such a precarious day, he’d become evasive. Said something about how she had wanted to see if Nancy was OK. He didn’t need to spell it out – Nancy knew her friend had made the effort because of their last phone call, when she’d been so upset about the newspaper article. Martin didn’t say that because he didn’t want her to feel guilty.
