| A PROBLEM CALLED CHLOE
By Jenna Cleaton
‘What did you say?’ I sometimes had to remind
myself that Holly was my eleven-year-old daughter and not a foreign speaking
alien from another planet. For goodness sake I’m only twenty-seven,
I’m not that out of touch am I?
‘Oops, sorry Mum,’ Holly stammered, trying to hide her blushes
behind her blond hair. She’d gone into suspended animation, surreptitiously
trying to watch the TV instead of laying the table.
‘Mum, I’m going to grow my fringe out,’ Holly said,
as the titles signalled the end of the programme and a vague chance that
my daughter might, albeit briefly, visit the same planet as mine. ‘And
I need to have my hair done, it’s such a mess. Chloe says highlights
would make all the difference. And I’ll have to go shopping for
some new hair slides and things.’
‘You’ve got a whole drawer full of hair stuff upstairs,’
I replied, looking optimistically at the cutlery drawer.
Holly sighed and shook her head.
‘And you’re too young to have your hair dyed.’ I gave
up and laid the table myself. ‘And don’t do that, we can’t
afford to redecorate.’ Good grief, I sounded like my mother.
‘And who chipped it in the first place?’ Holly asked, trying
to hide the chunk of paint she’d picked off. ‘Mum, is that
supposed to be boiling over?’
‘Of course not.’ I discarded the saltcellar at such speed
that it overbalanced, a sea of salt spreading across the table. ‘It
wouldn’t have, if you’d laid the table like I asked.’
The dishcloth scorched and water hissed as I mopped up the mess, a cloud
of angry steam rising both from me and the cooker.
‘Ian, dinner’s on the table,’ I shouted, in the vague
direction of the living room, where my reappearing husband had parked
himself in front of the TV, without so much as a hello.
‘Hi Holly,’ he said, ruffling her hair.
‘Don’t do that,’ Holly snapped, trying to smooth down
her now frizzy hair. ‘See what I mean Mum? A total mess.’
She sat down sulkily, sighing and huffing. There were still days when
I could feel resentment towards her stepdad seeping from her.
Once Ian finished grumbling about the traffic on the ring road and the
idiot who’d double-parked the van causing him to get yet another
parking ticket, silence reigned over the dinner table.
‘Chloe’s got some of those new trainers. You know, the ones
I was telling you about. I have so got to have a pair, they’re in
all the magazines.’
I busily scraped up the last of my dinner and pretended not to hear.
‘And you should see the new phone Alice got for her birthday. One
of those picture ones, it’s so cool.’ Holly sighed. ‘Not
like my lame old phone.’
Ian growled into his forkful of food. He’d been the best, most wonderful
dad in the whole universe when he’d got his new phone and given
Holly his old one.
‘And I so need a new jacket. I saw the one I want in Chloe’s
magazine. She’s asked me up town after school tomorrow, I could
get it then. Mum? Mum? MUM?’
‘I thought you were broke,’ I said, unable to ignore her persistence
any longer. ‘And you’re not allowed up town on your own.’
‘Oh come on Mum, I’m not a kid any more. All of the others
are allowed.’
‘Well you’re not.’ I flinched; I was turning into my
mother.
‘I suppose we could go, then you wouldn’t have to worry about
me carrying the cash.’
‘What cash?’
‘So you’ll take me? Great. I could do with some new jeans,
and a jumper. And Alice got this amazing top, she said there was a blue
one too.’
‘We’re not made of money,’ I shouted, trying to make
myself heard over Ian angrily filling the dishwasher. Money was something
of a sore point at the moment, best not talked about.
‘I hate you,’ Holly snapped. ‘You want me walking round
in rags do you?’
I carefully took the plate off Ian and started to restack the dishes the
logical way, so that they had a fighting chance of coming out vaguely
cleaner than they went in.
‘And I’m the only one in our group without an iPod. Do you
know how that makes me feel?’
‘Have you finished your homework?’
‘We weren’t talking about homework.’
I could see easy tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. Please don’t
let Ian see them, he hates to see her upset.
‘Homework. Now.’ I fielded her quickly out of the room.
‘Don’t be too hard on her,’ Ian said.
‘She’s not a bad kid,’ he persisted, wincing as the
bedroom door upstairs slammed shut, the aftershock of an earthquake reverberating
through the house.
‘She’s a saint in disguise,’ I replied, kicking the
dishwasher door for good measure as it growled and rattled ominously.
Not again, I can’t face a flooded kitchen again.
‘And what were you like at that age?’
‘That’s not relevant,’ I snapped, feeling myself bristling
uncomfortably. Ian’s eyebrows rose up, “exactly” written
all over his face.
I was going to offer to take her to the hairdresser’s as a peace
offering, I could do with a decent trim myself, but apparently my hairdresser
was lame, she couldn’t be seen dead in there. She would be dead
if she carried on the way she was going, my mind said mutinously, but
I tried to smile.
‘You don’t have to have and do everything that Chloe says,’
I snarled, having just had “Chloe’s got this” and “Chloe
said that” chanted at me yet again.
I know that Ian said I can’t choose her friends, but I don’t
like Chloe. And I don’t like her perfect, wonderful, stinking rich
parents either. And no, I’m not jealous, well not much, but I do
know someone who is.
‘I don’t copy everything Chloe does,’ Holly mumbled,
brushing yet another tear from her eye. ‘But…’
But you do, or you’d like to; which is how I found myself being
summonsed into school the next day, and left sitting in reception feeling
like I was the naughty child, and remembering how little I’d liked
school when I was Holly’s age.
‘You’d best come in,’ Mrs Davenport said. I wished that
I’d had time to change out of my work clothes into something smarter.
Holly looked almost invisible, cowering in the chair in the head’s
office, her face red and puffy. I reached over and squeezed her hand as
I sat down next to her. Her fingers were icy cold. She looked as lost
as I’d often felt at school.
I felt as guilty as Holly looked as Mrs Davenport outlined what had happened,
sniffing disapprovingly between sentences. Apparently Holly had been caught
about to set off the fire alarm, which would have led to the entire school
being evacuated and the fire brigade being called unnecessarily.
‘Holly?’ I stammered, looking hopefully at my daughter. She
shrugged, unable to force her mouth into cooperation. I pulled a hanky
out of my pocket, tears were dribbling down her face again. She moped
ineffectively.
‘Please Holls,’ I whispered.
Silence.
‘She’s not a bad kid,’ I said, trying to look Mrs Davenport
in the eye and failing miserably, my eye repeatedly falling to the pen
she was tapping impatiently on the desk. I sounded like Ian. I wished
he was here, he was better at this sort of thing than me. I was suffering
from painful flashbacks and being rendered as incomprehensible as my daughter.
‘I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding,’ I pleaded,
but Mrs Davenport was not to be moved.
‘I have no alternative Mrs Bates, I have to suspend Holly.’
A stifled sob beside me stiffened my back. ‘And then the matter
will be closed? I’m sure that Holly will agree that this was a on-off
incident that will not be repeated.’ My firmness startled me. Holly
managed a nod.
‘My hands really are tied,’ Mrs Davenport said, placing the
pen down slowly and methodically, lining it up with the embossed nameplate
bearing her name. ‘If Holly won’t say anything to the contrary,
I have no alternative but to hold her entirely responsible for what happened.’
‘For what nearly happened,’ I corrected, taking all of us
by surprise as my words leapt out more harshly than I intended.
‘We’ll see Holly back in school in two days’ time.’
Mrs Davenport held out her hand. I deigned not to shake it, mine staying
firmly locked in Holly’s.
‘You mad at me?’ Holly asked, in a tiny whisper, as we headed
out of school.
‘Yes, no, I don’t know.’ Of course I was angry, I was
fuming, mostly aimed at Chloe Harding. Holly had let slip, as we were
shown out of the main door, that Chloe had dared her to do it.
‘I didn’t know Mr Peters was behind me, Chloe and the others
were supposed to be watching out for teachers. Then there he was, and
there was no sign of Chloe.’
‘I don’t suppose there was,’ I growled. I didn’t
blame her for not telling tales, I couldn’t.
‘You are mad at me.’
‘If Chloe had dared you to jump in front of a bus, would you have
done it?’
‘Of course not, don’t be stupid.’ Holly sighed. ‘You
don’t understand.’
Oh but I did. My Chloe had been called Melanie Foster. I’d thought
she was wonderful. I’d wanted her to be my best friend. I’d
have done anything. I did, and look where it got me: pregnant at fifteen.
The worst and the best thing that ever happened to me. My name became
dirt at school. Melanie wouldn’t even acknowledge I existed. I got
expelled. My parents barely spoke to me, accusing me of ruining my life.
But I had Holly. I squeezed my daughter’s hand.
‘Don’t worry Holls, we’ll get through this, I promise.’
After all we all make mistakes, we’re not so different, only her
problem’s called Chloe and mine was called Melanie.
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