Free Divas Don't Knit by Gil McNeil Page B

up, getting on with my jobs, and what with Martin being home now there’s always plenty to do; I don’t know what he does with his shirts, I really don’t. They take a lot of starching to get them right; people don’t seem to bother nowadays, but I like to do them properly. But Saturdays can get very busy though, so you just call me if you need any help.’
    I’m not quite sure why she thinks I might need back-up. I’ve even been practising opening the till when she’s not looking, and I’m really counting on a nice session in the shop without her breathing down my neck and tutting, so I can finish moving things around. Which is probably why she’s so keen to come in.
    ‘I’m sure I’ll be fine, but thanks.’
    The beach is very hot and crowded when we arrive, and we have the usual sunscreen tussle, with Archie having a mini-meltdown when some goes in his mouth, before they’re off with their buckets and I’m left trying to find the plastic top which has somehow managed to vanish again; it’s vital I find it so I don’t end up filling my handbag with another layer of sun cream like I did last week. I’ve just found the bloody thing when Jack comes back with a bucketful of shells.
    ‘Look, Mum, my bucket’s nearly full and I’ve got some really good ones. Do you want to see?’
    He tips them, along with half a bucketful of wet sand, allover my legs, which I suppose will save me exfoliating if I try the fake tan thing again; although the last time I tried Nick said I looked like I had a vitamin deficiency or was recovering from terrible burns.
    ‘Well done, sweetheart, they’re lovely.’
    ‘Are we going home for lunch?’
    ‘I thought we could get some rolls from the baker’s and have a picnic’
    I’m hoping to give Vin and Lulu a few hours’ peace, especially after their rude awakening earlier.
    ‘Can we have chips then?’
    ‘Maybe later, when it’s lunchtime, we’ll see.’
    He runs off bellowing Archie, Archie quick, she says we can have chips, and mothers with far more nutritious lunches in mind turn and give me disapproving looks. Damn. I’m starting to recognise a few of them, and was hoping I might get to talk to some of them before we’re all standing in the playground at school doing the vague smiling thing you do when you don’t know anybody’s name but want to look friendly. They’ll all know me as Chip Mum now, and I was hoping for something slightly more upbeat.
    I never really managed to crack the school gates routine in London. It was all very cliquey and I never got beyond the cheerful nodding stage; probably because I’m crap at making new friends, unlike Ellen who’d be our best chance of a gold if it ever becomes an Olympic sport, which it definitely should be because it’s a lot more useful than bloody pole vaulting or cycling round in circles wearing weird helmets. I didn’t fit in with any of the groups in our old playground; the working mums were the nicest, but they were always racing to get to work, so we never got beyond the occasional birthday party tea. And the nannies and au pairs who used to meet in the café in the park and do impressions of their employers didn’t like mums joining them. So that left the posh mums, who werefrighteningly glossy, but brittle-looking, chatting into tiny mobile phones and driving massive jeeps with lots of tinted glass, really badly, causing mini traffic jams wherever they went, and I simply didn’t have the right sort of clothes for them: not enough Boden, and far too much Tesco.
    There was a brief flurry of interest when one of them spotted me with Nick in Sainsbury’s and promptly invited us round to supper; I think she quite fancied having a real live Television Reporter sitting at her dining table, which would have been fine if he hadn’t been on a flight to Jerusalem while we were starting on the rack of lamb in a herb crust. But she was persistent, and asked us again a few weeks later, when Nick was just back from