Once the party gets going there’s no time to worry about David’s text because we are all too busy organizing games and herding any child seen trying to leave the kitchen back inside or into the garden. Fifteen is a large number in terms of crowd control. They slip through our fingers in their shimmery satin and lace, evade our outstretched hands with squeals as they scuttle into the banned zones, namely our bedroom and Tom’s study. They are like a pretty virus, getting everywhere and bringing chaos and giggles with them.
I watch Tom charging around outside, pursued by a dozen little girls in Disney finery, all of them oblivious to the cold. He turns back on himself and roars, arms outstretched, and they scatter screaming to the four corners of the garden. He is hyper-energetic, limbs all over the place, face contorting, eyebrows leaping, eyes widening and mouth gurning; not caring that he is going ridiculously, superbly over-the-top. The children love being frightened by him, adore being chased by this whooping monster. Our poor neighbours. Amber joins in, squealing as loud as any of the kids; high-fiving Emily when they both evade capture. I stand with my hands on my hips watching her, thinking how incredible she is, how vibrant and charismatic. And then I notice Tom. He’s bending to catch his breath, hands on his knees, his head raised, and he’s watching her too.
Princess Daisy-Petal vanishes in a puff of sparkly smoke dead on five, by which time the fairies and princesses are running wild, rampaging around the house and garden and I’ve long since given up trying to bar the stairs. It’s pick-up time and the first parents begin to trickle in and I go down to the cellar to bring up more bottles of wine. It’s the one area of the house we didn’t throw money at and is used as a depository for various items: suitcases and holdalls, Tom’s skis, the guitars he no longer plays and my tools. I take a couple of bottles of white out of the fridge and am halfway back up the stairs when the doorbell rings. I assume it’s someone’s mother or father and I’m smiling, words of greeting at the ready, a chilled bottle in one hand, the other tucked under my arm, when I open the door, but the man and woman standing on the step do not look like parents. Their clothes are wrong and their demeanour is wrong and the fact that they are both carrying official-looking files is wrong. For a moment I think they might be Jehovah’s Witnesses and am about to politely refuse them entry when the woman speaks and I remember that we’ve met before.
‘Mrs Seagrave?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. I don’t remember your name.’
‘Don’t worry. You were having a stressful morning when we last met. I’m Miriam Cornwall and this is my colleague Ian Banner. We’re from the Lambeth Child Protection Team. May we come in?’
19
MIRIAM IS ALREADY looking over my shoulder. Beside her, Ian, in a brown V-neck sweater and blue cords, waits patiently. He has a beard; not a neat goatee, but a modest Hagrid. He appears junior to Miriam, following her lead. Weirdly, they both have blue eyes. Miriam has thick, wiry black hair that sits in a stiff cloud around an oval face.
‘You’d better come in,’ I say.
They step past me and wait politely while I close the door with my shoulder. I’m still holding the bottles, my hands getting colder, at a loss to know what to say. Ian looks around inquisitively and I feel judged for having too much. I want to tell him that my blood, sweat and tears have gone into this place; that I scraped, filled, sanded and painted every inch of it. But what’s the point? I’m sure he’s already pegged us as middle-class and entitled.
It’s funny how having the wrong people in your house can change the atmosphere. What was a riot of children’s laughter and jolly, gossiping parents, now sounds like the mad chatter of geese. If I could wave a wand or point a remote control and conjure instant silence I would do so. There’s a shrill cry as a child with an elf’s green face races out of the kitchen and stops in her tracks, her eyes widening. She’s holding a magic wand in one hand and a crushed pink Fondant Fancy in the other.
‘What are you after, Isabel?’
I see myself from outside; a woman who wants to come across as caring and hopes that by raising her voice to an unnatural pitch, no one will miss the point.
‘I want my mummy.’
Isabel transfers the cake to her mouth and with her free hand picks her nose, wiping the result of her excavations on the sparkly net skirt of her dress. Beside me Ian can’t resist a tiny wrinkle of his smooth brow. I guess he doesn’t have kids of his own yet.
‘Mummy should be here in a minute. Go back and find the others, sweetie. I’ll come in.’
Isabel chews at her thumbnail but she pushes open the kitchen door on a blast of ‘I Wan’na Be Like You’. I must have given my visitors a wild-eyed stare because I finally get what I interpret as an apologetic smile.
‘Birthday party?’ Miriam asks.
‘Yes. My oldest daughter. I’m sorry, but you can see this is a really bad time. Perhaps we could reschedule? I don’t like to be uncooperative but I’ve got fifteen little girls running amok in my house.’ I make an effort to temper the note of panic in my voice. ‘I need to be with them.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Miriam says. ‘It’s the nature of surprise visits, Mrs Seagrave.’
So few people address me this way. Even at school I’m Miss Vicky. On Grayling’s lips it sounds respectful, but coming from these two, it feels like an attempt to establish authority.
‘How long will it take?’
‘That depends.’
We gaze steadily at each other.
‘Could you at least give me five minutes to get our guests out of the house. I’m not having this conversation in front of my children’s school friends and their parents. It isn’t fair on them, or me and Tom for that matter.’
‘Take your time,’ Ian Banner says. ‘We aren’t in any hurry.’
Tom is lounging against the counter talking to Amber, a tousle-haired Polly wrapped around his legs, a bottle of lager in his hand. I stand there, watching them, then the doorbell rings again.
‘Magda, get that will you,’ I say.
She looks at me, noting the strain in my voice, frowns and nods.
Three more sets of parents jostle into my kitchen. The very fact that most of the women have brought their husbands makes it clear that they see this as a social event and expect to be offered a drink. And of course they would be if I didn’t have two vultures waiting for me in the front room.
Their offspring groan with disappointment. No one wants to go. They are having way too much fun. And it has been fun, I tell myself. I’ve laid on a great party.
‘Tom, could I have a word? In private.’
He unpicks Polly’s fingers from his legs, scoops her up and plants her down next to Amber. We go out into the garden and I slide the doors closed behind us.
‘We’ve got to get everyone out.’
He makes a big thing of looking round. ‘So where’s the fire?’
‘Tom, I’m serious.’
He registers that I’m not smiling. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’
I lower my voice even though no one can possibly hear us through the triple-glazing. ‘There are two social workers in our sitting room and they’re refusing to go away until they’ve spoken to us.’
He doesn’t get it, so I’m more explicit. ‘Child Protection.’
‘You have to be kidding me.’
I shake my head.