‘I can’t go to school in a wet shirt. Everyone will laugh.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll have it dry by the time we leave.’
‘How?’
We both looked at the window, mottled with fat drops of rain. ‘I’ll hang it on a radiator, then finish it with a hairdryer.’
‘OK. Can I have breakfast? I’m starving?’
‘You’re always starving.’ We walked through to the kitchen and I filled a pan with oats and milk.
‘Can’t I have coco-pops?’
‘Not on a school day. You know what Dad says, porridge is brain food.’
‘It’s gross.’
‘Not if I put berries in it,’ I said, reaching into the freezer.
By half-past seven, the shirt was still damp to the touch. I crept into my bedroom to retrieve the hairdryer, although I could’ve stomped through in hob-nailed boots and not woken Rob, who lay sprawled on his stomach, snoring loudly.
I’d had the hairdryer going on full heat for ten minutes when Bertie appeared at my shoulder, making me jump. ‘Mum?’
‘What is it?’ I asked, blowing frizzy hair from my face and brushing a sheen of sweat from my forehead as the hairdryer blasted out hot air.
‘My tummy hurts.’
‘OK. What have you forgotten?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Bertie, we both know a sore tummy is code forI forgot to do my homework.’
Bertie had the good grace to look sheepish. ‘Maths.’
‘Sit at the kitchen table and get it done, then. You’ve got twenty minutes.’
‘But I don’t understand it.’
‘Fine. I’ll help you. Get set up and I’ll join you in a minute.’
Five minutes later, hairdryer in one hand, pencil in the other, I helped Bertie work through the endless list of maths questions even I struggled to understand. The school gave out a stupid amount of homework. Rob insisted on paying out a fortune for Bertie’s private education, but it seemed the school palmed off most of the teaching for parents to do at home.
‘What?’ Bertie yelled at me over the squeal of the hair dryer.
‘I said, subtract this number from this number and you’ll get the answer.’
‘What?’
I turned off the hairdryer. The shirt was still a little damp, but it would have to do. ‘Look,’ I said, writing out the answer to the maths problem on a piece of scrap paper.
‘But, Mum, that’s cheating.’
My free hand bunched into a fist beneath the table, and I clenched my teeth. It wasn’t even eight yet, but already the day felt unbearable. ‘Do you want to finish your homework before we leave in five minutes?’
Bertie let out a dramatic sigh and copied my answer down into his book.
‘What’s all the racket going on down here?’ Rob walked into the room stark naked. My husband had a fine physique, but his insistence on displaying it at the breakfast table baffled me. Beside me, Bertie rolled his eyes, waggling a finger in imitation of Rob’s genitals, and making a throwing up motion with his other hand. I suppressed a giggle.
