NEXT DAY I drive home in my lunch hour. I eat my baguette as I go. I tell Lavinia I’m going shopping.
My flat has a hollow feel without Sylvie. Mostly she’s such a quiet child, but I can always sense that she’s there, as though the atmosphere in the place is subtly changed by her presence. It’s so odd to be here without her—as though I am a trespasser.
I sit at my living-room table and look up nurseries in the phone book. The list is reasssuringly long, and I narrow it down to ten of them that I could easily reach. If I find a suitable place today, I won’t ever need to tell Lavinia what happened at Little Acorns.
I ring the first one on my list.
“I was wondering if you had any places. It’s just for a year, until my daughter starts school.”
“I’m afraid all our places are taken,” says the receptionist briskly. “Bumps-a-Daisy is a very popular nursery. We could put her on our waiting list, but really I don’t see her name coming up before she goes to school . . .”
I work through the rest of my list. They all say the same thing: nobody can take her.
The receptionist at the Leapfrog Nursery tries to empathize.
“You’re new to the area, then?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“Round here you have to get the child’s name down really early,” she says. She has a sibilant, sensible voice. She spells it out a little. “We have parents who do it at birth. Or even earlier, some of them, as soon as they’ve had the ultrasound. It’s very competitive, really. You need to plan in advance.”
“But sometimes you can’t plan like that. Sometimes things happen that weren’t meant to happen,” I say.
“Well, that’s exactly why you have to think ahead.” Her voice has a note of triumph, as though I have vindicated her.
The last nursery on my list is called the Mulberry Bush. I look out at my rainy garden, at my twisted mulberry tree and the tiny, tight knots of its new dark buds. I tell myself this name is a good omen.
The receptionist sounds effusively friendly. “I’m sure we’ve got places,” she says.
My heart lifts.
“Just let me check. Yes, here we are . . .” She’s pleased, like someone proffering a gift. “We could take your little girl for Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I say. “No, that’s not really what I’m looking for.”
I sit there for a moment longer, staring out at the garden. It’s all bare twigs, all dull and dormant, the rosebushes ragged and straggling, a few leaves scattered, sodden, dark as leather, on the lawn. My snowdrops are nearly over, and some primulas I planted have been ravaged by the frost, their leaves all withered and blackened. As I watch, a fox sidles over the grass. It’s limping, it must have hurt its leg. Everything seems broken.
I don’t know what to do now. Perhaps I could find a babysitter, but how long would that last when she found out what Sylvie was like? Perhaps I could choose a nursery that involved a lot more traveling, but why would they have a place when all these others are full? And how soon would they give up on her? My mind is full of little tracks that don’t lead anywhere.
I flick on through the phone book. I realize I am looking for the university number, looking quite casually, just to see if it’s there. It’s simple to find, and I feel a faint, stupid surprise that this is so easily done, that anyone can ring it.
Watching myself, a little detached, I dial. I don’t know the extension I want, and I have to hold for the operator. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is playing, the same chunk of it over and over. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Sometimes a woman’s voice assures me that my call is important. I rehearse what I would ask in my head: I’d like to speak to Adam Winters. He works in the Psychic Institute . . . But if I spoke to him, what on earth would I say? I can’t imagine it.
The music loops around again, bland, bright, impersonal. “Your call is very important to us.” I tell myself this is crazy. I put down the phone.