After the Party Read online

  Frankie’s tail thumped the ground appreciatively. ‘No, Frankie. No eating!’ She held a finger up and started to scoop the worst of the mess straight into the sink.

  The doorbell rang.

  ‘Scott! Scott! Can you get the door?’ But there was only shrieking from outside. He was needed out there.

  ‘Frankie, no eating!’ As Lisa waggled a finger at her tail-wagging dog, the doorbell rang again. Three angry jabs.

  ‘I’m coming. I’m coming.’ Lisa ran her hands under the tap, dried them on her trackies and scurried towards the front door, briefly checking her reflection in the hall mirror. The grey pants had been smeared by white streaks of icing and her hair was a sticky, matted monstrosity.

  I’m a homeless zebra.

  At the door, she smoothed her icing-crusted hair and pasted a smile on her face.

  She swung it open. ‘Hello and welcome to Ava’s party.’ Lisa knew she sounded like she’d been snorting icing sugar, and the woman before her confirmed it by stiffening and recoiling.

  ‘Hello,’ said the woman formally.

  Lisa knew her only as Mrs Glamazon—the mother who always looked immaculate at the school gate, and this morning was no exception. From the razor cut of her skinny jeans, to the fur-trimmed vest that hinted at perfect breasts, the woman was stunning and so was the little girl beside her, presumably her daughter, dressed in the biggest, frothiest tutu Lisa had ever seen.

  ‘Hi. It’s Savannah-Rose, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m Savannah-Rose Bingley-Peters.’ The little girl put out her hand and Lisa shook it.

  ‘That’s a big name for a little girl.’

  ‘And I can write it all myself.’ The little girl retracted her hand and primly held onto a handbag emblazoned with the words Baby Dior.

  Lisa had never been within touching distance of a Dior handbag, let alone one made for a child. ‘Savannah, all the kids are out the back, do you want to join them?’ She pointed down the hallway.

  ‘Yes thank you,’ and she took off at lightning speed, reminding Lisa of a bounding poodle as she tore down the hallway and called over her shoulder, ‘It’s Savannah-Rose. Not Savannah. Bye, Mum.’

  ‘Bye-bye, darling.’ Mrs Glamazon held up a perfectly manicured hand before turning her attention to Lisa. ‘Well, I’ll be off then.’

  ‘Wait. Won’t you come in for a cuppa?’

  ‘No, thanks. See you at twelve!’ called the exotic woman over her shoulder as she strode away down Lisa’s front path with her pert little bottom not daring to bounce behind her.

  ‘Wait, wait!’ Lisa scurried behind, slowed down by her ugg boots. ‘What about Savannah-Rose? Don’t you want to stay in case she, you know, needs you?’

  The glamazon pirouetted on wedge sneakers and removed her oversized tortoise-shell sunglasses. ‘Hon, Savannah-Rose is nearly six. She can more than handle herself.’

  I’ll bet she can.

  ‘But I’ve got sausage rolls,’ Lisa pleaded.

  The woman made a face. ‘I’m fully paleo, babe.’ She patted her thighs. ‘No carbs. No grains.’

  No fun.

  ‘All right then.’ Lisa stuck out her hand. ‘Well, I’m Lisa, by the way.’

  ‘I’m Heather.’ She quickly pulled her hand away from Lisa’s and wiped it against her slim thighs. ‘Hon, why don’t you just go inside, pour yourself a champers, sit back and let the entertainer do all the work.’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t got an entertainer,’ said Lisa airily. ‘I was just going to do it myself.’

  ‘You’re going to entertain thirty-two children, dressed like that?’ Heather looked Lisa up and down, sliding her eyes over the icing-smeared tracksuit pants. ‘Is there some hobo-clown craze I didn’t know about?’

  Lisa’s eyes were suddenly hot and itchy. She sniffed and rubbed at them. Everything had gone wrong. The cake was ruined, the kids were running riot and she looked like a total mess. This was Ava’s first party at St John’s! Her first chance to make a good impression. Lisa had to make it work or the kids would go home and tell their parents how hopeless it was and the Wheeldons would become the social pariahs of the school. Forever!

  Lisa rubbed her nose and sighed. ‘It’s been a bad morning,’ she said quietly. ‘The kids didn’t wake me, then my hair got stuck in the mixer and now there’s cake all over the floor and the kids will be scarred for life if I perform balloon tricks looking like this.’

  Heather peered at her. ‘You need to pull yourself together, hon.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can. I’m usually so organised,’ Lisa whispered, bewildered. ‘I just wanted everything to be perfect.’

  ‘It still can be,’ said Heather in an unconvincing tone. ‘Possibly.’ From a snakeskin tote, she whipped out an impossibly sleek mobile phone and tapped out a number, her black polished nails skimming lightly over the screen. ‘Arabella? Are you free, sweetie? I have a … a … an acquaintance who has a party emergency. We need you now … The Wonder Woman act … You can? Wonderful. I’ll text the address. Bye, sweetie.’

  Using her T-shirt, Lisa wiped her eyes. ‘Who was that?’

  Heather tapped out a text message as she spoke. ‘My nanny moonlights as a party entertainer. She’ll be here in fifteen minutes, dressed as Wonder Woman and armed with a bag of tricks.’ Heather put the beautiful phone back in her beautiful bag and strode through the door and down the hallway. ‘Now, let’s see this cake problem.’ As she marched into the kitchen, her nose wrinkled. ‘Something’s burning.’

  ‘Oh no! The sausage rolls!’ Lisa raced ahead to find smoke billowing from the oven. Fanning furiously she wrenched open the door to find her golden orbs of pastry transformed to nuggets of charcoal.

  Heather sniffed. ‘No loss there. Full of trans fats. Now, cake. What exactly is the issue?’

  Having dumped the sausage rolls in the bin, Lisa scanned about the floor for the remains of the cake. But all she could see was a staggering Frankie, barely able to lift his head.

  ‘How old is that thing?’ Heather recoiled as Frankie sniffed forlornly about her denim-clad legs.

  ‘He’s only two.’

  ‘Are you sure? Looks to me like he’s about to drop dead.’

  Lisa scanned the kitchen floor again. When she left, there’d been a huge pile of dropped cake right next to the bench.

  ‘Oh god, I think the dog ate it all,’ she whispered. ‘He’s in a sugar coma.’

  Heather sniffed, went to the sink and slowly leant her head over it. ‘I think a child’s been sick in here.’

  Lisa joined her. ‘No. That’s the rest of the cake.’

  ‘Ugh. Well, just as well it got destroyed I suppose.’ As the dog moaned and whimpered, Heather whipped out her phone again. ‘Pierre? It’s Heather, darling. Mwah. Mwah. I need one of your iced, flourless, dairy-free chocolate cakes immediately. As in, yesterday.’ She covered the receiver. ‘Dairy gives Savannah-Rose the runs,’ she whispered to Lisa before returning to Pierre. ‘You’ve got a spare? Fabulous … All right, darling. There in a jiffy. Ciao, my strudel superhero,’ she tinkled before hanging up.

  Before Lisa could say thank you, Heather was sailing back down the hallway while talking over her shoulder. ‘Arabella will be here in a minute and I’ll be back in half an hour with the cake.’ At the front door, she smoothly slid the sunglasses back over her eyes. Whenever Lisa did that, she always got a hair snagged.

  ‘Thank you for helping me.’ She clutched the doorknob for support.

  ‘Anything for the children.’ Heather pursed her lips. ‘I think Savannah-Rose quite likes your daughter.’ Her voice was baffled, like she couldn’t work out why Savannah-Rose would deign to spend any time in the company of a child with such incompetent parents. She gave Lisa a final look up and down and sniffed. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

  ‘Please! I mean … uh … thank you!’

  With the smell of Heather’s perfume still wafting through the hall, Lisa wandered back into the kitchen in a daze and pondered just how close sh
e’d come to disaster. A memory pinged in her brain. What was it that Jamie had said in her email—the one where she checked off Lisa’s party spreadsheet.

  The only problems you’ll face are the ones you never see coming, so just try to relax. It’s a five-year-old’s party. How bad could it be? Ha! Maybe Jamie understood corporate cocktail schmooze-fests, but she had zero clue about the complexities of kids’ shindigs. Speaking of which, where was her sister? She was supposed to come early to help. It was there in the spreadsheet that she’d ticked off. Jamie—arrive 8.30 am to help with set-up.

  It wasn’t like her to be late. Where could she be? Was she okay? Why hadn’t she called? It wasn’t like her not to call. Not a day passed without them talking at least twice a day, once in the morning and again at night, and it had been that way ever since the accident. After all, they were the only family each other had.

  Lisa collected her phone, and started dialling. By the third ring, her nerves had re-doubled. Jamie always answered by the second. The phone was like an extension of her arm, thanks to her job. At the sixth, Lisa’s stomach somersaulted into her throat. Something must be seriously wrong.

  ‘Yeah, hello.’

  Her sister’s voice was slurry, almost drugged sounding.

  ‘Jamie! Where are you? Are you okay? You’re supposed to be here for the party.’

  There was scrabbling in the background. ‘Shit, sorry, Lise. No, I’m fine.’ More scrabbling. ‘The stupid alarm didn’t go off. I’ll be there quick as I can.’

  ‘You only just woke up?’

  ‘Yeah, look, I don’t know what happened. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘As long as you’re okay …’

  ‘No, I’m good. Are you, though? You sound a bit strange.’

  Lisa sighed. Where to begin. Her own sleep-in? The ruined cake? The total disorganisation? ‘No, I’m good. Just wanted to check where you were. I’d better get back to the party.’

  ‘I’ll be there soon.’ Jamie paused. ‘I’m sorry if I made you worry. I’m really fine.’

  Lisa took a breath. Jamie was thirty-five years old. Well and truly an adult, and usually a highly responsible one.

  You’re her sister, not her mother. No guilt-trips.

  ‘Seriously, it’s good. Just come when you can.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Lisa dismissed the niggling sense of irritation that urged her to tell Jamie to hurry. Her sister was okay, that was the main thing. The party, on the other hand, sounded like it was getting wilder by the minute. Lisa returned the phone to her pocket and headed towards the shrieking.

  She stopped at the doors, the scene of utter chaos before her rendering her muscles immobile. In one corner of the garden, two little boys had armed themselves with plastic bats (meant for the piñata) and were smashing the heads off Lisa’s beloved roses. In another corner, a group of five was industriously constructing a completely precarious tower of little plastic chairs atop one another near the fence, as if staging a great escape. In the middle of the garden, Ava was locked in a tug-of-war style battle with two other children over the skipping rope. ‘It’s mine,’ she hollered. ‘And I’m the birthday girl!’ Near the BBQ, a small crowd had formed as one boy pushed desperately at the gas hob. ‘I can make fire!’ he boasted. ‘Just watch.’

  Where were the parents? Where was Scott?

  Finally, she spotted him, emerging from underneath a pile of children. He tried to stand, but it was virtually impossible, with no less than eight children trying to drag him back down to the ground, two attached to each limb. ‘No more jam sandwiches!’ he protested weakly. ‘Jam sandwich’ was a game he sometimes played with Ava and Jemima where they piled on top of each other, usually with Scott at the bottom, which was all well and good with two rather petite little girls, but almost deadly with the wild and oversized mob currently attacking him.

  Putting two fingers into her mouth, Lisa summoned the biggest whistle her lungs would allow.

  The effect was immediate. The kids were like statues. Thirty-two pairs of eyes turned to her.

  What now? Think, Lisa. Quick, or they’ll start killing each other again.

  ‘Pass-the-parcel,’ she called. ‘Everyone sitting here in a circle.’ She gestured to the grass beneath her and nearly got knocked off her feet by the immediate flood of children.

  ‘Get the music going, quick,’ she hissed to Scott as he passed her, still trying to re-tuck his shirt and smooth down his crazed hair.

  ‘Okay, everyone. Let’s start with you.’ She pointed randomly at a little boy with jet black hair and wide blue eyes. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Mummy says I shouldn’t talk to strangers.’

  ‘I’m not a stranger. I’m Ava’s mummy, Lisa.’ And if your mum is so worried about strangers, why has she dropped you and run? ‘But sweetie, you don’t have to tell me your name if you don’t want to. Just take the parcel and pass it on.’

  Scott started the music. For the first minute, it was fine. Calm even. It was like a tennis match, with the kids’ eyes glued to the parcel as if it were a ball. The music stopped. A little girl looked at Lisa with her head cocked to the side.

  ‘Yes, darling. It’s you. Open the first layer.’

  The little girl started tearing. The kids inhaled and leant in as one. The wrapping was off. The girl turned the parcel over, and over again. ‘Where’s the treat?’

  ‘Oh, there’s a few more layers to go until we get to the big prize,’ said Lisa gaily. ‘Let’s keep going.’ She made eye contact with Scott and nodded. ‘Ready please, Mr Music.’

  The little girl held tightly to the parcel. ‘But there’s supposed to be a prize,’ she said plaintively.

  ‘At the end, sweetheart. I promise.’

  Reluctantly, she passed it along. This time, the music stopped on a boy in a checked shirt, navy pants and what appeared to be some type of gel in his hair, given its unnatural spikiness. With gusto, he ripped, and kept ripping.

  ‘No, no, darling. Just one layer.’ Lisa moved closer. But what could she do? She couldn’t just wrench the parcel out of his hands. ‘Please. Just one.’ She got close enough to gently tug it away.

  ‘You mean there’s no prize till the very end.’ The boy stood and kicked at the ground. ‘This is boring.’

  ‘Yeah, this is boring,’ murmured some of the others.

  Ava caught her gaze. Her face was as sad and confused as Frankie’s in the sugar coma.

  ‘All right, then. Let’s do the piñata!’ Lisa clapped her hands together. ‘Everyone line up behind me.’

  A scrum quickly packed down behind her of jostling, pushing five-year-olds.

  ‘I wanna go first.’

  ‘No, me!’

  ‘You got the parcel first.’

  ‘Kids!’ Lisa raised her hand, the way she’d seen the day care teachers do when they wanted attention. One by one, Ava’s buddies followed suit until there were thirty-two raised hands, and absolute quiet. It was like magic.

  In front of them, Scott took a step away from the rainbow unicorn he’d just finished tying to the clothes line. ‘All ready to go.’ He nodded at Lisa.

  ‘You get one bash, then you hand it on.’ She handed a plastic bat to the first kid in the line, a little boy wearing a ninja T-shirt.

  He stepped up, eyes drilled into the unicorn, his mouth set in a determined line.

  ‘Go, Cooper! Get ’im,’ called another little boy from the line.

  Cooper nodded grimly, raised his bat, and what proceeded to unfold was the most frenzied and violent attack on an inanimate object that Lisa had ever seen.

  On and on he went. Thwacking and hacking. Beating and slicing.

  Lisa felt a little body throw itself around her legs.

  ‘Mummy, Mummy, why is Cooper hitting the unicorn? Make him stop. Make him stop,’ wailed Ava. ‘I don’t like this. He’s hurting the unicorn.’

  ‘It’s okay, honey. It’s just a cardboard unicorn. It’s not actually feeling anything.’ Lisa knelt down
to comfort her daughter while signalling frantically for Scott to do something! Halt the attack. Or no other kid would get a go at demolishing the mythical beast.

  But removing the bat from Cooper’s vice-like grip was easier said than done. Scott just couldn’t get close, not unless he wanted to risk losing an eyeball, or a hit to the genitals.

  Ava buried her head into Lisa’s thigh and sobbed harder, while Lisa admonished herself for not having thought to explain the concept of a piñata to her. But who would have thought it necessary? Hadn’t her daughter seen one before? Sometimes, it was the smallest, most unexpected things that most tripped her up as a mother.

  ‘Cooper, stop, mate,’ Scott called lamely, swatting at the bat as it swished past him. ‘Time to give someone else a go.’

  But Cooper had no intention of stopping, that much was clear, not until he’d dismembered the unicorn, which was now hanging at a very odd angle from the clothes line.

  HURRAY!

  The roar went up as the horned-horse fell to the ground and the kids descended on it like a pack of hungry wolves, intent on feasting off the carcass. All Lisa could do was stand back and shield Ava from the ensuing violence as shards of cardboard and bits of streamers emerged, flung out of the scrabbling mob in their desperate hunt for the inner treasure.

  Cooper stood up and looked at Lisa accusingly. ‘Where’s the lollies?’ He held up his hands, a rubber ball in one and an eraser in the other. ‘It’s just this stuff. My mum calls it junk.’ He made a face and dropped the offending prizes, as if they contained a deadly virus.

  ‘There’ll be lollies later. Plenty of them,’ said Lisa brightly. ‘But only prizes in the piñata. Too much sugar is bad for us, remember?’

  Cooper shot her a look that Lisa could only describe as pure disgust. ‘I don’t like this party.’ Jamming his hands in his pockets, the boy sloped off to the back of the garden.

  She felt her hand being tugged. ‘Mummy, I don’t like this party either.’ Ava looked up at her, eyes brimming and Lisa felt her heart shrivel a little. She wanted this to be perfect! Or at least, moderately enjoyable.

  ‘Oh, darling. Don’t say that. It’s going to get better, I promise. This is just the beginning.’