Ailsa Craig was named after a memory from her mother’s honeymoon. Catching a glimpse of a solid island in the middle of an estuary, the woman had asked for its name. Ailsa Craig, meaning fairy rock. Caught by the romance of it, she quickly conceived, and poured the name on her daughter’s head. Ailsa Craig was both rock-like and island-like, with not a trace of fairyness about her. She ran her nursery, ‘Miss Ailsa Craig’s Romper Room’, with rallying cries of ‘routine, regularity and responsibility.’ The playtimes, storytimes, snacktimes and naptimes, were carefully regulated and controlled.
A high fence surrounded the garden, bright with a mixture of wattle and lavender. Red-and-blue painted horses, on long rockers, were lined up in a perfectly straight cavalry next to the red metal climbing frame. The large Federation house had been painted a clean white inside and out, and the partition walls knocked down to make two large rooms, with a tiny kitchen at the opposite end of the building to the inside toilet. Pots of paint were lined up neatly on Laminex benches, higher than the reach of four-year-old children. ‘Okay, everybody sitting up straight, hands on knees.’ They were well trained for school life at Ailsa’s Romper Room. ‘We’ll have Blue Group going quietly. QUIETLY thank you, to their worktable please.’
As Ailsa boomed her voice out, a small cluster of three- and four-year-olds stood up, hushed up, and crossed the room to a low hexagonal table covered in a blue plastic cloth. A tin pot, covered in daisy-printed plastic, was set in the middle of the table, filled with thick paintbrushes. ‘Very good. Blue Group. Yellow Group, your turn. Tina will be helping you, and if Red Group will go to their work table, Felicity will collect your paints for you and help make your masks.’ Felicity nodded her new, bobbed haircut and waved a paintbrush at her group.
‘Blue Group, Tina will be taking care of you for the time being.’ Ailsa Craig (never merely Ailsa, always Miss Craig or Ailsa Craig), tilted her head in Tina’s direction. ‘Tina. Come over here. That’s a good girl.’ Her voice was deep and raspy like sand. ‘Tina, keep an eye on the blues for the next session, I’m interviewing for the rest of the morning. Good girl.’
This was Tina Dolan’s first job. Her dark freckles were a legacy from years spent on the beach in Conoundra, where the Queensland sun had also burnt into her mother’s face. Margaret Dolan had been operated on just the year before. The sun had bored so deep that Margaret Dolan’s nose was removed. Tina left Queensland two weeks after her mother returned home with an artificial nose conspicuously powdered brown and the rest of Margaret looking somehow worm-like without her tan. Tina wanted somewhere cold, somewhere wet and hostile to the sun. She decided on Melbourne and caught the morning Smith’s bus to the coach station in Gympie. The bus to Melbourne broke down, so she settled for Sydney instead. She read The Sydney Morning Herald on the coach, and Miss Craig’s advertisement for qualified and unqualified workers jumped up and smacked her in the face. She’d been the first one to work with Ailsa Craig in the brand new nursery, which had a waiting-list of sixty before the doors were even opened. Tina always wore a hat and carried a bottle of Baby Blockout in a black cloth beach bag. After three months, Tina knew the routine of Miss Ailsa Craig’s Romper Room.
‘So. Miss Sarah Sweet, is it?’ Miss Ailsa Craig held the heavy wooden door open for Sarah. ‘My office is this way.’
Sarah held her breath and watched the wide back of Ailsa Craig, rock woman. Her heels left marks in the purple carpet. Sarah held tight to her straw bag, gripped it in front of her like a shield. A splash of laughter dribbled out from the front room as she passed, a girl with high red pigtails ran past the doorway. ‘Did you have trouble finding the place?’ Miss Craig held the door open for Sarah, stood aside so she could enter.
‘No, no problems. Well, I got a taxi, that made it easy.’
The door swung shut as the rock woman stared hard at Sarah, a crease across her forehead. ‘You don’t drive?’
Sarah gripped the straw bag tighter, only five minutes in the door and she was blowing it already. ‘I don’t have a car at the moment.’
Miss Craig pulled a vinyl-covered straight-back chair out from the wide desk. ‘Have a seat.’
Sarah could feel her legs shaking, could see the black cotton of her skirt moving. She gripped her thigh muscles, tried to breathe, tried to relax.
Ailsa Craig sat opposite her, separated by a long expanse of desk, and rustled through the papers in front of her. ‘Right.’ Finally, the woman looked at Sarah. ‘You didn’t finish your Certificate, so it would be an unqualified post, you do understand that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’ The fabric in Sarah’s skirt was jumping up and down now. She held her bag firmly on her lap and looked at her hands. Veins sticking out, long fingers. Freckles.
‘And why?’
‘Well, I am unqualified. I didn’t finish.’
‘No. Why is it that you didn’t finish?’
Sarah squeezed her leg muscles harder, harder and harder. ‘Personal problems. It was very difficult to study, it seemed wiser to withdraw.’
‘Were you ill?’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose I was. Yes, I was.’
‘Family?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You stay with your family.’
‘I don’t really have any family.’
‘First Aid?’
‘Yes. St John’s, Red Cross and Bronze lifesaving.’
‘I see. Why did you leave the Surry Hills Nursery?’
‘To do the Certificate. To get myself qualified.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘No. I want to work with children. Very much.’ Thinking: do I? I must be frigging mad. But smiling anyway, teeth tight.
‘Have you worked on a group system before?’
‘Yes. At Surry Hills.’
‘How many?’
‘Six per group.’
‘I see. What do you see as the most important aspect of this work? For the children I mean.’
Sarah looked at the neat lines of the woman in front of her. ‘Discipline. Children need to be clear about who’s in charge.’
An almost-smile slipped over the woman’s face. ‘Routine, regularity and responsibility. That’s our motto. It’s never too early to start. Do you agree?’
‘Yes. Absolutely.’
Ailsa Craig scraped her chair back. ‘Fine. Start on Monday.’ She held the door open. ‘Yes or no?’
Sarah wobbled as she stood up. ‘Yes.’
‘Fine. Come and meet your group before you leave.’
Sarah held the slit on her skirt closed as she walked towards the door. Her head was swirling and her stomach was full of something like sick. She pushed her hands against her legs while she smiled, lips together. Breathed deep. ‘Lovely.’ The sick in her stomach twitched.
‘Straight ahead, first right. You saw them as you came in.’
Sarah smiled again, opened her palms outward. Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.
The room was large, airy. The hexagonal tables were covered with paint, sheets of paper splattered with colour were spread across the walls, held with thumbtacks. ‘Right, that’s Tina, you’ll meet properly on Monday, don’t chat now, she’s busy on the floor. Felicity is a qualified worker. We don’t have chat on the floor, we keep busy and we keep to the routine. Snacktime is next. The blue group will be yours. Come with me.’ Miss Craig half-pulled at Sarah’s arm, leading her to the small blue table
Sarah knelt down, got herself close to the five small faces sitting about the table, sending away the ache inside her. Be good. Be kind. That’s an exciting painting.’ She pointed to a yellow spot on a blue page and looked at the blond boy painting around it. His arms had the soft roundness of infancy, his skin was still luminous. Sarah wanted to touch his skin. See if her finger left a dent. She touched the page instead. ‘That’s lovely and bright.’ Keeping her voice low, like with the horses. Soft and low and calm. She touched her face, recalling loud voices, only yells and shouts. The ache again, inside. No. Quiet. She pointed to the edge of the page. ‘Is that the sun?’
The boy looked at her, affronted. ‘No, that’s my cat.’
The dark-skinned girl next to him pushed her page in front of Sarah, pointing to a blob of green and red. That’s my mum. She’s dancing. Are you our new lady?’
‘Yes I am. That’s lovely dancing.’ Sarah leant across the table, turning the picture around.
‘What’s that on your arm?’
Sarah looked down at the top of her arm, exposed by her jacket slipping away as she leant across. Her hands felt sticky, her face hot. She glanced up at Miss Craig. ‘Oh, that’s a bruise. That’s from bumping into walls. Aren’t I silly?’ She pulled her sleeve down and felt her face burn.
The girl painted a blue spot on the wild red dancing, she looked up at Sarah, ‘that’s my mum bumping into a wall, isn’t she silly too?’