Chapter Seven

JENNY HAD NOT told dave that she was going to see the new nursery this morning. They had barely discussed it since that horrible row when they had shouted at each other about money.

She dropped Vicky off at the camp nursery and then drove the five miles to the Magic Cottage. It was situated in the grounds of a big house, up a private road and surrounded by fields and woods. The building itself was a converted barn of timber, brick and flint and one wall was solid glass so that the children could look out on to a green world.

‘The other day we watched a fox trotting past and last week we saw an owl in the daytime!’ said the teacher as she showed Jenny around. ‘Of course, the animals vanish when we go outside. And we do spend a lot of time outside. We think it’s healthier for the children, even if it’s cold, as long as they’re wearing the right clothes. That’s our play area.’

Jenny watched a small group of children climbing on beautiful wooden equipment. Two staff joined in, talking to some, holding the hands of others. The children were laughing together. Inside, there was a lot of light and more wooden toys and art equipment. The atmosphere was one of quiet industry. All the children seemed calm and happy. Jenny wanted to sign up Vicky then and there.

As she left, the teacher warned her: ‘We only opened three months ago but we’re almost full already. If you’re really interested, you’d better move fast.’

‘I will,’ Jenny assured her. She strapped Jaime into the car and threw the bundle of literature she had been given on to the front seat. When she reached the camp nursery she was twenty minutes early and Jaime was fast asleep. She reached for the information pack.

The more she read the more she wanted Vicky to go there. Until she saw the page headed Schedule of Fees. There was a hefty and non-returnable deposit which added up, with other deposits, to about eight hundred pounds. Eight hundred pounds! There was no way Dave would agree to that. Because if one child went there, Jaime would have to go as soon as she was old enough, and that would be sixteen hundred in deposits alone. Then there were the fees, which were substantially higher than camp nursery fees.

Other mothers were gathering now. It was the usual scrum until the automatic gates swung open, when mothers surged forward, a tide of coats, hats and scarves, into the play area. But the nursery doors were still firmly shut.

The mothers regrouped, talking and laughing together. Adi Kasanita was at the centre as usual; you could hear her laugh ringing over everyone else’s. Jenny sneaked to the window and looked in.

A circle of children sat around one staff member who was reading to them. Another circle was at the play-dough bench but the children were throwing the play dough instead of modelling with it. Behind them boys were running wildly around, a teacher shouting at them over her shoulder to stop. Other staff members were busy clearing up pots of glue and small, brightly coloured pieces of paper. Where was Vicky?

Then Jenny’s heart stopped. A throng of children, Leanne’s boys among them, had been colouring an enormous picture on the floor but they were finishing now and were hurling crayons. Specifically, they were hurling them at one child. Vicky. Who sat hunched in the middle of the group as if she could not make herself small enough, her face pinched with misery, clutching at her hair in a strange, cowed gesture which seemed to bring her comfort.

Jenny’s heartache was rapidly annexed by fury. She banged on the window. A couple of the mothers outside paused in their chatter to stare at her. But no one inside heard over the commotion.

As soon as the doors opened, Jenny found Vicky standing by her coat hook waiting anxiously. She wasn’t howling, but tears fell silently down her small, pink cheeks.

‘Darling, I saw them!’ cried Jenny, scooping her up despite the fact that she was already holding Jaime. ‘Why didn’t you tell a grown-up?’

Vicky clung to her mother, sobbing. Jenny cuddled her and looked around for Shona, who was in charge of the nursery. She was locked in conversation with another mother.

‘Right. We’ll get your things and as soon as Shona’s free we’ll talk to her about what happened. Mummy is very angry,’ said Jenny, letting go of Vicky in time to swing Jaime out of Tiff Curtis’s way.

‘Sorry,’ said Tiff, grabbing her daughter’s scarf. ‘Didn’t see you were carrying the baby.’

Leanne arrived, steaming through the crowd of mothers to the twins’ coat hooks.

‘I’m late, I’m late! Where’s those boys? Causing havoc as usual?’

She was right. Ethan and Joel were currently shelling the play house with pretend mortar.

‘STOP THAT AND COME HERE!’ roared Leanne. The boys looked up at her briefly and then mortared the Quiet Corner.

Jenny wanted to tell Leanne angrily that the last bombardment had been aimed at Vicky but Leanne did not pause for breath.

‘Guess what, Jenn, guess what, Rose. Tiff! Adi! Just guess.’

The mothers did not stop gathering their children and putting on their coats and gloves but their focus was now on Leanne.

‘You got the job at the garden centre?’ suggested Rose.

‘Nah, I was shit at the interview.’

‘What then?’ asked Tiff Curtis.

‘Steve’s going to Afghanistan with everyone else!’

For a moment Jenny forgot her fury with the nursery and that her small daughter was crying.

‘To Afghanistan? On spearhead?’

Leanne grinned widely. ‘Yup!’

‘Not … not with 1 Platoon?’ asked Rose.

‘No, he’s a storesman. Until he sneaks out to the front line, that is.’

‘He’s going to be fighting!’ said Jenny in amazement.

‘Well, not officially. But you know Steve. He won’t let them keep him in Bastion.’

‘But a P3 can’t go to Afghanistan at all, let alone out of Bastion!’

Dave had told Jenny that. He had said that no matter how good Steve was on his metal leg, it wasn’t safe out of Bastion for him or the other lads who would have to support him.

‘Yeah, well, that’s my Steve! He doesn’t care two hoots about your P3s!’

Jenny glanced at Rose in time to catch the concern on her face before the other woman looked away, saying loyally: ‘I’m pleased if you’re pleased, Lee.’

Leanne must be the only wife in camp who was delighted that her husband was going back into theatre, Jenny thought. Leanne, who seemed to read her mind, blushed.

‘Well, I know I used to be against it but I am pleased, girls, because it’s what he wants more than anything else. And I don’t think he’s going to settle until he’s done it.’

‘How did he persuade them?’ asked Jenny.

‘It was all thanks to Dave!’

Jenny stared at her.

‘Dave?’

‘It was his idea!’

Jenny was incredulous. ‘For Steve to fight with the platoon?’

‘Sort of. After that woman from the local paper came and wrote the article about him. Dave said he should go the MoD press office about doing more interviews and publicity and promotion and stuff …’

‘So what’s he promoting?’

‘He’s showing people how losing a leg doesn’t stop you living and doing your job. They’re going to take pictures of him at Bastion and he has to do interviews when journalists visit … Major Willingham wasn’t too keen, but they overruled him.’

There was no time to talk further. The room was thinning now and Jenny could feel Vicky’s tiny hand clutching more tightly at her leg. Shona, across the room, was free. She was picking crayons up. Rose rustled out of the door, Tiff took her daughter and Leanne neatly grabbed one of her twins by the scruff of the neck as he ran past her.

‘See you later!’ the mothers called to each other as Jenny marched across the room to Shona.

‘Don’t slip on the crayons. They’re all over the floor,’ warned Shona. She was a relaxed and smiling Australian whom Jenny had liked until she had started to notice how badly supervised the nursery was.

‘They’re all over the floor because a bunch of kids were throwing them at Vicky!’ said Jenny, her own words generating a new surge of anger.

Shona stood up. She did not look concerned.

‘Is that what Vicky told you, Jenny? I don’t think it’s true.’

‘She didn’t tell me anything. I saw them through the window.’

Shona looked pained. ‘Well, Vicky can sometimes antagonize the other children.’

‘Antagonize them! They were antagonizing her!’ exclaimed Jenny.

‘She’s a lively child who’s beginning to learn how to develop relationships but she does have issues with some of the boys.’

‘Issues! With boys! She’s three!’

‘She needs to assert herself more,’ said Shona, shaking her head. ‘Vicky tends to burst into tears before they’ve even done anything.’

‘Just because you didn’t see them, it doesn’t mean they didn’t do it,’ Jenny retorted.

Shona’s face was serious. ‘Well, Jenny, I think we need to look at why Vicky cries so easily. Maybe we should ask ourselves if perhaps that’s how she gets attention at home? Or maybe we should look at whether we’re incentivizing her to cry in some other way.’

Jenny’s anger was checked. It was all her fault. She was a bad mother. The other kids were picking on Vicky because her own mother had turned the little girl into a pathetic, sobbing victim. And didn’t Dave always tell her not to mollycoddle the child?

‘You see, Jenny,’ said Shona, smiling kindly because Jenny’s discomfort was obvious, ‘everything a child does here at the nursery is a reflection of her home life. We can pick up the pieces but you mothers have to work on the fundamentals at home.’

That did it. Afterwards Jenny thought the expression ‘pick up the pieces’ had been the trigger, as if Vicky experienced anger or violence or neglect at home when all she got was love. But it might have been Shona’s patronizing tone. Jenny knew then and there that Vicky was not coming back to this nursery. So there was no point shouting. There was no point telling Shona that she should stop blaming mothers when their children were unhappy in her badly run nursery.

The last child was being wrapped inside a coat, hat and scarf. In a moment everyone apart from the staff members would be gone and several already had their coats on. One was jangling her car keys loudly in her pocket. Jaime squirmed in Jenny’s arms and began to gather her body up the way she did before she cried.

‘I’ll give that one some thought, Shona,’ said Jenny carefully. ‘I can see you’re all in a hurry to get home. But after what I saw today I have to tell you that I’m finding another nursery for Vicky.’

Shona’s face contracted. Her eyes narrowed.

‘I’m sorry you feel like that. We got a ninety-two per cent approval rating from parents in our last survey.’

Jaime was crying now and Jenny was forced to shout to make herself heard: ‘Well, when I see kids bullying my daughter and no one stopping them, you can put me in the other eight per cent.’

The staff stared at her in hostile silence as she helped Vicky with her coat, her arm aching from holding Jaime. No one moved to assist her. She could feel that her face was flushed. Vicky’s was swollen from crying and Jaime was wailing miserably. Jenny did not look at anyone or say goodbye as she left the nursery.

Outside, the shock of the cool air stopped Jaime’s tears and she opened her big eyes wide. Jenny paused for breath. Shit. She felt the first twinge of regret, the way she usually did after a row with Dave. Had she been hasty withdrawing Vicky before she had found anywhere else for her to go? Although she had, of course, found somewhere else. Unfortunately, the Magic Cottage cost an arm and a leg and Dave would never agree to it.

Jenny decided, as she lifted the children up to the car and strapped them into their seats, that she would not tell him what had happened today until she could also tell him that she had found a job which would help pay for the new nursery. She had made several applications and had received one very encouraging acknowledgement, from the Market Street Bakery. Maybe she would even have a job by the time he went away.