The Misadventures of a Playground Mother Read Online Free Page A

meant I could set up home with Camilla and move out of my childhood home.’
    â€˜Did you see much of your parents after you had moved out?’
    â€˜There was the odd Sunday lunch, or special occasion like Christmas. This one Christmas, seven years ago, was when all communications halted. I remember it like it was yesterday.’ The Farrier looked down at his drink and paused.
    â€˜I noticed Camilla had been gone for a while after lunch. I was chatting with my mother when I was aware my father wasn’t in the room either and both of them had now disappeared for some time. I went in search of my new wife and entered the study to find them both in what seemed like a rather compromising position. Camilla swore blind that her frisky father-in-law had made numerous passes and that he was very domineering and she told me she felt intimidated by him.’
    From what I had seen of Camilla Noland in the past year, I was very much surprised that that woman would feel intimated by anyone.
    â€˜Camilla was very convincing, we were still in our honeymoon stage of marriage and I knew my father could be very persuasive and somewhat scary so I believed her, I stood up for my wife and ultimately this led to the complete breakdown in the relationship between me and my father.’
    Nooo! He was kidding me; I was sitting there believing Camilla had played a blinder.
    â€˜What was your mother’s take on all this, if you don’t mind me asking?’
    He shrugged his shoulders.
    â€˜She blamed Camilla and supported my father. There was no love lost between the pair of them due to an argument that took place on our wedding day. Camilla’s stubborn nature refused to take on the family name of Fletcher-Parker; she wanted to keep her maiden name.’
    I gasped in astonishment and gave a tiny shake of my head. Ah ha, I thought to myself, no wonder it had never crossed my mind that these people were related.
    The Farrier continued for a while longer explaining that his mother had also had to contend with the reputation of her own husband; she wasn’t daft and knew her husband was a serial womaniser, but she lived in fear of his temper and his manipulating ways, and so divorce simply wasn’t an option. Bert would have made life so difficult for her that in order to keep a roof over her head for the next thirty years; she chose to grin and bear her husband’s antics and to take his side in the rift with his son, the Farrier.
    However, Iris had often threatened that she would disappear one day, and years ago, the Farrier had discovered numerous bank statements in his mother’s name with regular deposits of money. He had no doubt she had been planning her escape route for some time and had secretly been scrimping, saving, and siphoning off her house- keeping money without his father’s knowledge. Her best friend Jean had upped and left the village a couple of years ago to begin a new life in Spain and had successfully started up her own café business and he knew his mother had kept in touch with her by email. Jean had often tried to persuade his mother to run off and join her, and start a new life in sunnier climes.
    It was now approaching late afternoon; there didn’t seem much point in my getting dressed today, and the Farrier didn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon. By this part of the story we had moved into the living room; the Farrier was beginning to make himself at home, plumping up the cushions around him then sinking into the leather bucket chair while he continued his tale. I heard the front door open and the chatter of the children; Matt’s rosy-cheeked face peered around the living room door ‘Anyone for a cuppa? I’m parched.’
    In sync, the Farrier and I nodded our heads.
    The Farrier’s plan was to move into his father, the Frisky Pensioner’s house. Well, I suppose that made sense now his mother was gone too, the property was standing empty. Since