‘Leanne, I genuinely don’t know what you mean. I haven’t gossiped to anyone about you.’
‘No? No secret little calls to social services from a concerned Bigley citizen?’
My stomach shrivelled into a cold, hard lump.
Certain that the guilt of all the times I’d thought about doing exactly that must be showing on my face, I jumped to my feet, flailing about for a response that conveyed the truth, but perhaps not the whole truth.
‘Someone called social services?’ I held out my hands. ‘I promise you that wasn’t me.’
Leanne studied me for a charged few moments, thoughts racing behind her eyes. ‘Well, why else did a social worker turn up on my doorstep, looking to investigate an allegation of neglect?’
‘Leanne.’ I had to sit back down again. ‘If I had concerns that serious, I would have spoken to you about them first. Offered more help.’
I might not have spoken to her – I couldn’t imagine confronting this fire-breathing monster about her parenting standards – but I would definitely have offered more help.
‘I had to wait while some old bag took my daughter into the kitchen and interviewed her about her mum!’ Leanne started pacing up and down the lawn, an anxious Nesbit trotting up and down alongside her. ‘Pretending it was just a normal thing, like all kids have someone randomly show up and start interrogating them on what meals they eat and whether Mummy ever drinks too much and starts acting funny. This is Joan, not some four-year-old. She knows that someone reported me for not taking care of her. How do you think that’s made her feel?’
‘It’s horrendous.’ I breathed an internal sigh of relief that I’d helped Joan clean up a few days earlier. The cottage was still a chaotic mess, but at least it wasn’t a health hazard.
‘I am hanging on by a thread here, Ollie. By a thread. One bad break away from snapping. And for someone to be that malicious, that spiteful…’ She stopped pacing and collapsed into a chair. ‘To go behind my back like that. I felt ashamed, at first. Guilty. And don’t get me wrong, I’m so angry I could spit. But most of all, I feel hurt.’ She blinked both eyes, hard. ‘I feel like someone I know – and if it’s not you then I’m sorry for calling you a bitch, I hope you understand I was raging – someone smiled to my face and then stabbed me in the back. Stabbed Joan in the back. I hate them for that.’
‘It wasn’t me. I promise you it wasn’t.’
‘Any ideas about who it was, then?’
‘No.’
‘Go on, then, ask me.’ Leanne stubbed her cigarette out on the arm of the chair, then dropped it into a plant pot, before immediately lighting another one. ‘I know you’re dying to hear the outcome.’
She was right, I was itching to find out.
Leanne let out a shaky sigh. ‘She’s not taking it any further. Whoever snitched on us can stick their allegations up their arse.’
‘Oh, that’s so good to know.’
‘Yeah. Also good to know that someone out there thinks I’m an unfit mother.’
‘Please believe that I knew nothing about this.’
She leant back, closing her eyes. ‘Yeah, well, I kind of have to, seeing as school summer holidays start tomorrow and I’ve just told that snotty cow you’re helping out with childcare.’
‘I’m so sorry this happened.’
‘Not half as sorry as whoever did it will be if I ever find out it was them.’
I looked at Leanne, face etched with fear, fury and devastation, knuckles white where they gripped the arms of the chair, and I knew this was no idle threat.
On Friday, seven families squeezed in the children’s corner for the Library Lady. Irene appeared stricken when one after another they jostled and hopped and skidded through the door, pushchairs knocking into bookshelves and children chattering, squabbling and in one case making continuous fart noises.
I wrapped up Trev’s second ReadUp session of the week and we both started moving chairs across to try to help create some sort of order. To my surprise, Irene intercepted us. ‘No need,’ she snapped, with a smug tilt to her chin, before striding over to the preschoolers’ book trolley, reaching behind it and bringing out a stack of carpet tiles.
She then pulled a whistle out from her beige blouse and gave a fearsome toot that stopped the chaos in its tracks. The gaggle of small children stared, waiting to see what would happen next while the adults looked on, equally as intrigued. Irene held out a carpet tile to the nearest child.