The School Gate

I did my best acting at 8:47am in a car park full of women who were all doing the same thing.

The school gate is a stage. Every morning. Hair done enough. Face done enough. Smile done enough. Voice pitched at the exact frequency that says I’m fine, everything’s fine, we’re all fine, isn’t this weather something.

Nobody says the truth at the school gate. Nobody says I haven’t slept. I cried in the car on the way here. My husband told me I was worthless last night and this morning I made his packed lunch because the alternative was worse. Nobody says I’m barely holding it together and this smile is costing me more than you will ever know.

We say: how are you. And the answer is always: good, thanks, busy, you know how it is.

I know how it is. I know exactly how it is. It’s standing in a car park performing okayness while your nervous system is still vibrating from whatever happened before you left the house. It’s chatting about the nativity while calculating whether you can afford milk. It’s laughing at someone’s joke while thinking about whether you’ll still be in this marriage by Christmas.

I looked at the other mothers and I wondered how many of them were doing what I was doing. How many of them had a version of him at home. How many of them were performing a version of fine that would collapse the second they got back to the car.

Statistically. A lot.

One in four women. That’s the number. One in four. So in a playground of sixty mothers, fifteen of them are carrying something that smiles can’t cover. Fifteen of them are doing their best acting at 8:47am and going home to a house that doesn’t feel safe.

I don’t do the school gate any more. My kids are home educated now. But I drive past it sometimes. And I see the women. Standing. Smiling. Holding coffees and conversations and everything together.

And I want to stop the car and walk over and say: you don’t have to be fine. Not here. Not anywhere. You can put the smile down. I’ll hold it for you.

But I don’t. Because that’s not how it works. Not at the school gate. Not at 8:47am. Not in this world where fine is the only acceptable answer and the truth is something you save for the shower and the car and the 2am ceiling.

I hope they’re okay. The ones who aren’t fine.

I hope they find their phone call.