Page 85 of Sex Ed

‘You’re shitting me, they actually rhyme?’ I exclaim a little too loudly.

‘I’m not sure how much I trust Jenny. She lives for the gossip and the passive-aggressive Facebook posts.’

‘Oooh, I like me one of them.’

‘Penny once drove into a lamp post at school because I suspect she day drinks.’

‘These are all excellent factoids, Rachel.’

‘Melanie does a lot of charity work with hedgehogs, Nancy has a company selling overpriced sweet cones, Paulina has run six marathons, Vivien does pole dancing.’

‘Vivien sounds like friend material,’ I say.

Rachel laughs. She still remains clamped to me, arms linked in a way we’ve not done since we were kids. I can’t quite tell if this makes me happy or sad, that it’s taken some majorly horrible life event to bring us closer, but there is something that flows heavy through me, some need to defend her and ensure she can undergo no more harm.

‘They all knew… I think that’s the problem. It feels so hard to rebuild that trust knowing that they all knew,’ Rachel says, fiddling with her necklace.

I look over at all these mums gathered in their mini cliques and sense some sadness that Rachel doesn’t know how to stride over to them anymore and just chat, ask about the weather and the price of Pimm’s.

‘How do you know they knew?’ I ask.

‘One actually told me at the school play. She said no one knew how to say anything.’

‘Yikes.’

‘So, for six whole months, I was at that school gate chatting to them about homework and school discos when really all they were thinking was, hey, your husband is fucking George T’s mum.’

‘Why do you call him George T?’

‘Because there are three Georges.’

‘And George T’s mum is not here?’

‘Jane? No. Jane is not here… yet,’ Rachel says, eyeing the crowd closely. Jane. George T’s mum was the woman that Rachel caught in her bed that fateful morning. Rachel had been set to go for a haircut but instead came home as she thought she’d left the iron plugged in. Instead, she found her husband. Plugged into Jane. On their bed.

‘So, what do all these women know then?’ I ask, putting my hand into some complimentary wasabi peas on the counter.

‘Well, it depends who you talk to. They know of the affair and they know that Gareth and I are divorcing. People put different spins on it. I’ve heard all sorts of rumours… I heard someone say that we slept in separate bedrooms and that I withheld sex from him.’

‘Did you?’

‘I did not. We did it at least once a week. I used to have lingerie.’

‘Those are decent averages, sis. Well done. Did you let him do you up the–’

‘MIA!’ Rachel shrieks, and her cheeks flush. ‘Yes.’

I choke on a wasabi pea that I suddenly realise are not free but belong to a person next to us. I push the bowl away as Rachel steadies me.

‘Drink some Pimm’s, you buffoon,’ she says to me in amusement, patting my back. As she does so, children start to filter onto the stage and a teacher picks up a microphone as we all recoil from the feedback. Parents wander to picnic blankets and camping chairs and I notice one family have brought a basket of goods that includes smoked salmon and crostini. I wonder if they’d like to adopt me.

‘Well, hello everyone, and thank you for supporting the Kingsley House Summer Bazaar today. Have we all petted the llamas? I have, aren’t they lovely?’

There are llamas. To ride? For free, I hope.

‘So we are going to kick off today’s talent show event with a lovely musical piece from Tabitha and Prudence in Renoir Class. Please can we give them a round of applause?’

I process everything that was wrong with that sentence and watch as two girls approach the stage with matching pigtails and the nemeses of musical instruments, the recorder. I am sure I’ve seen a horror film that started like this. They start playing and I laugh as subtly as I can through my nose at the quality of the sound.

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