Chapter 81
EIGHTY-ONE
Lorna had been up since six after another sleepless night. Despite her recent financial successes, her grand plan just wasn’t possible without her mother’s help. She’d been counting on it, but Carol wouldn’t budge. After everything Lorna had sacrificed, the risks she had taken!
She had lain awake, her mind going round and round.
Desperately trying to find a way to forge her children’s future.
Railing against the unfairness of it all.
Why should people with money have access to a better education for their children?
They got to send their kids to schools where supply teachers were non-existent, where small classes meant that every attention was paid to their child, where they mixed with other children whose parents had equally entitled views on what opportunities their offspring should be offered.
And after that? With the contacts they had made and the school on their CV they got the best places at university, which led to the best jobs – often offered by a friend or a family member of a school ‘chum’.
Jobs that paid the most money, so when those children were grown up and decided to have kids of their own, they could afford to send them to the best schools where they would get the best education.
It was a closed circle. One that was guarded by the few, and Lorna was finding it impossible to break into.
She was enraged with it all. Enraged with Carol, who could change their destinies but refused to.
As she poured herself a third coffee, she heard Phoenix and Pepper thunder down the stairs. It was only seven thirty but she knew why they were up early – it was a Saturday morning and there was fresh snow. She could already tell by the shouts that they were beside themselves with excitement.
She smiled as they burst into the kitchen and she insisted on hot Ready Brek before they went out to the garden in the freezing cold.
As she spooned it into their bowls, she wondered how she was going to break it to Phoenix that he couldn’t go to Kingsgate.
Her heart cracked at the wasted opportunity – he was such a talented sportsman, he deserved to go.
Simon came into the kitchen, yawning and still in his pyjamas.
‘You’re up early,’ he said.
Lorna gave a half smile. He didn’t know the half of it.
Sometimes his obliviousness irritated her so much.
Now she had to tell him too, about the change of plan with their children’s schooling.
Make up something about how Carol had decided not to contribute after all.
He wouldn’t outright say, ‘I told you so’, but he’d say that was how it was for people like them.
He would simply accept their lot and forget about it.
‘Don’t get upset about the things you can’t control,’ he would say, but that was exactly what the elite wanted.
To take away your control. They wanted to reserve the cherry-picked parts of life for themselves and quietly look down their noses at the rest of the population who were so browbeaten they no longer rose up against what they had no control over.
God, she was fuming this morning. Probably because she was tired. Being tired made her extremely tetchy.
Maybe she should tell Simon first. The kids had finished their breakfast at record speed (why did they never eat this fast when she was rushing to get them ready for school?) and were already dragging on coats, wellies and gloves.
Better to let them go outside and have some fun.
She opened the back door and they bolted, barely giving her a second to pull Pepper’s hat down over her ears.
She smiled as she heard their shrieks of joy and as she looked out of the kitchen window, saw them running around in utter delight, lifting up great swathes of snow and throwing it at each other.
She loved them so much. She’d do anything for them.
Yet she felt as if she was failing her children, standing by and watching as they fell further and further behind in society, in life.
What was the saying? Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.
Well, Phoenix was eleven – did that mean his blueprint for prosperity in life was already set?
She felt a cold sweep of panic wash over her.
‘Maybe we could . . . you know,’ said Simon, putting his arms around her from behind and nuzzling her ear. ‘While the kids are occupied.’
She didn’t want to. She was tired and frazzled and her mind was far too occupied with the epically proportioned disappointment she had yet to fully accept.
If only Simon cared a bit more about these things, if only he could see what destiny they were setting for their children by not breaking the cycle.
If only she could think of a way to raise more money.
A crowd-funding page? She dismissed it with a silent sigh.
It was unlikely that total strangers would fork out for private school fees for a child unknown.
No, these kinds of things were generally only successful if the kid was sick or needed urgent medical treatment abroad – usually somewhere diabolically expensive like America.
She’d heard in the past of mothers faking children’s illnesses just to get the cash and the stories made her skin crawl.
She didn’t understand the cruelty of inflicting an illness, fake or otherwise, on a perfectly healthy child.
If only Simon earned more, she thought. If only he were one of those wealthy investment banker types, a trader or something. Or even a doctor who owned his own practice. Or anything more than a data analyst who loved to play football.
‘Did I tell you I have to meet up with the rest of the Ripton Rhinos at lunchtime to talk over the arrangements for the Straw Bear Festival?’ said Simon, still with his face buried in her neck.
Lorna pulled away and turned to face him. No, you did not. ‘You know you didn’t.’
‘I’m sure I did.’
‘How long for?’
‘A couple of hours.’
‘What?’ Last time the all-male charity group, the Ripton Rhinos, met ‘for a couple of hours’, Simon didn’t come back until late afternoon and he was stinking of beer.
Why did men never seem to carry the weight of family worries?
Why was it always up to the women to sort and organize, make plans and change things for the better?
Only she wasn’t doing too well at that at the moment.
She could do with a shoulder to lean on. Lorna felt completely abandoned.
‘It’s the meeting we do every year,’ said Simon. ‘Same as always. And you know what a big deal the festival is for everyone. We raise a load too – don’t forget some of it goes back to the school.’
Lorna ignored the irritation she felt at Simon trying to cajole her into letting him go to the pub with his mates, in order to benefit her PTA, because she had just had a realization. A significant one.
The Straw Bear Festival raised an enormous amount of money.
Simon had been on the committee for three years now and he always told her what they had taken.
It ran into several thousand. They didn’t charge for tickets, just had people out with donation buckets throughout the village on the night itself.
And seeing as almost the whole village turned out and there was a sense of pride about this ancient festival that marked them out from all the other villages, they liked to show their appreciation through their wallets.
Even better, Simon was the treasurer. He took the money home with him at the end of the night and got it ready for banking.
Could she?
A plan was worming its way into her head. It was so simple it was almost irresistible. She tried to fight it off, knowing it wasn’t right. But the more she thought it through, the more she realized it was easy and foolproof and really quite low risk.
There were no ticket sales, no records of anything. It was just cash in a bucket.
Lots and lots of it.