Casey Watson - Mummy’s Little Soldier - A troubled child. An absent mum. A shocking secret.

As well she might. As well might everyone else. Which everyone else did. Yes, it was definitely going to be that sort of day. Because what they could hear was some kind of rap-like singing … a ringtone my phone didn’t have last time it rang but which I knew, I just knew , it had now. With the volume set to maximum.

Flipping Kieron.

‘I’ll kill him,’ I growled, albeit to no one in particular, as I plucked my handbag from the floor beside my chair. ‘I’m sorry. Hang on. I’ll have my hand on it in just a minute … just got to … hang on. Nope … ah, maybe it’s here …’ I burbled on, realising I couldn’t actually remember where I’d put it, and cursing the day when I’d set the number of rings before it went to the answerphone, on the basis of the length of time it always seemed to take for me to find it in my bag. Oh, the bitter irony.

And that’s when the day got even worse . ‘Hang on,’ I said, snatching my satchel up and then, realising it was pinned under my chair leg by the strap, giving it a tug that was a little too much on the forceful side of tugging, meaning that when it suddenly came free, my arm shot in the air at precisely the moment when Gary, beside me, had lifted his hot tea to his lips.

His roar of pain as our forearms connected and the mug left his hand probably lifted the ceiling panels. ‘Jesus H!’ he yelped, leaping from his seat as the tea cascaded over him, and the chair he’d vacated toppled backwards onto the floor.

Jim was up on his feet too, and being closest to the tea things in the corner, grabbed a bottle of mineral water that had fortunately been left there by someone, popped the lid off and sprayed a jet of that over Gary, it being one of those sports types you can squeeze.

‘You okay, mate?’ Jim asked him, once all the water was gone.

Gary looked down, his whole front now a mass of sodden, dripping clothing. And then at me. ‘You know those days?’ he said, as I struggled with a packet of tissues that had – oh, second cruel irony – come immediately to hand. ‘Those days when you get out of bed,’ he went on, ‘and think – hmm, you know what? I suspect it’s going to be one of those days? Hmm,’ he finished, wiggling his sopping tie towards me. ‘ That . Or, there’s a thought. Do you think it might have been a poltergeist?’

Autumn for both me and Mother Nature, I decided gloomily, as, back down in my classroom, I checked both the radiators. With its position at the periphery of the main school building, it was always chilly after a school holiday, and the six weeks of the summer break meant that, whatever the weather, it had the chance to really cool down good and proper. So although outside it was still bright and sunny – almost Indian summerish – inside it was positively Arctic.

Well, perhaps not Arctic – we weren’t quite in fur coat and boots territory just yet – but I was happy to remember that I’d left a chunky cardigan in one of the store cupboards at the end of the previous term. I went to fetch it, reflecting that perhaps it wasn’t that cold – perhaps it was more to do with the hot flush I’d both created and suffered up in the meeting room. I grimaced, remembering poor Gary’s astonished face and his obvious discomfort; had it not been for the thickness of his trousers I could have badly burned him. What on earth was wrong with me? What with ructions at home, and now school as well, I had a powerful wish to rewind the day and start again. No, scrub that – rewind most of the last three weeks.

Conscious of the ticking clock, I sat down at my desk and opened up my phone, intending to ring Kieron and give him a ticking off about altering the ringtone; he was getting way too old for such infantile stunts. But there, on the screen, sat a second text from Riley. Sorry, Mum! Love you! it said, followed by a row of kisses, which for some reason, rather than having the desired effect of making me smile, as it would normally, made me want to cry.

I hated rowing with my kids over anything. I was no soft touch – quite the opposite – I was big on boundaries and discipline. So being unpopular on occasion was a fact of parental life. But these last few weeks I’d apparently swapped my rhino hide for a skin made of porcelain. Which was as much a surprise to me as it was to the rest of the family.

It had started early in August, when Mike had suggested we go and spend a long weekend in his boss’s caravan in North Wales. And with the kids being of the age where they could think of better things to do with their respective weekends, he had also made the monumental decision that just the two of us would go.

‘What, leave them home alone for the whole weekend?’ I’d spluttered, when he suggested it over tea. I could already see it in my mind’s eye; me in panic mode for the duration. How could there possibly be any fun in that?

‘Please, Mum!’ Riley had pleaded, correctly sensing from her dad’s expression that she was probably onto a winner. ‘All of my friends have been looking after themselves for years ! I swear I’ll keep the house clean,’ she added for good measure, knowing what might be my main worry after either of them being murdered in their beds. ‘And I promise I’ll look after our Kieron properly.’

‘I can take care of myself!’ Kieron replied indignantly. ‘In fact it’ll probably be me looking after you , Ri! We all know how scatty you are. I’ll probably have to show you how to turn the cooker on.’

If the fact that they were already at each other’s throats hadn’t already had me in a cold sweat, the thought of them being involved in using the cooker definitely would have done. And if Mike hadn’t stepped in I’m quite sure I’d have cancelled everything right then.

‘Casey, love,’ he said calmly, ‘me and you are going and that’s that . If we have to leave money for takeaways every night, then that’s what we’ll do, but we’re having a few days away by ourselves and these two will have to figure it out. They’re old enough to manage, and’ – he paused, to fix them one by one in his sights – ‘we know we can trust them not to throw any wild parties while we’re gone.’

My jaw had dropped. I hadn’t even thought about parties yet, which sent me into another panicked spin. But Mike was right, however much I flapped and fussed and fretted. There came a time, I supposed, when you just had to trust your kids to do the right thing; trust that you’d brought them up to be independent enough to look after themselves. Even so, our few days in Wales included many phone calls home, despite Mike trying to dissuade me from checking up on them all the time. But the snippets of reassurance I got from both Riley and Kieron did nothing to prepare me for the bombshell that was to hit us when we returned, and Riley had us gather once again around the table.

‘Now, before you start,’ she said, looking at me more than her father, ‘I’ve given this a lot of thought, okay? A lot . It’s not just a whim, and I know what I’m doing.’

‘What are you doing then? Spit it out,’ I said, my heart already lurching. The house was still standing and all seemed okay. So what was she about to announce to us? Was she pregnant?

Apparently not. ‘Well, I’ll just come right out and say it,’ she continued. ‘David and I have decided we’re going to move in together. Just as soon as we’ve found a nice flat.’

I stared open-mouthed at my pretty, young daughter. And then at Mike, just to check he was as horrified as me.

Strangely, he didn’t seem to be. And Riley looked positively indignant at my expression. ‘ What ?’ she demanded. ‘Why do you look so surprised? We’ve been together ages ! I’d have thought you’d have been happy for me.’