There’s a reckless part of me that I struggle to contain whenever I arrive at Tadpoles. It’s the same sensation I used to get when the opening chords to a brilliant track boomed through the speakers and I would slop my pint in the race to the dance floor. The same excitement, the same burst of energy where I don’t know what to do with myself. You could say I’ve swapped partying for parenting, and I’m more than happy with that. Look what I’ve gained.
Turning off the stereo, I jump out of the car, locking it over my shoulder. I can see Beau waiting for me behind the wooden gate, holding up a single red rose, and it’s all I can do not to run to him.
On my way across the car park, I catch up with a mum whom I see most days, wearing a velvet blazer and ballet pumps, even in a frost. She probably knows me as pink hair, Doc Marten boots.
“All right, me duck?” I’m thirty-six and haven’t lived in the Midlands since I was twenty-one, but sometimes I still talk like we did at school: terms of endearment like me duck, me cocker. It’s not something I seem to have much control of, breaking into it like a nervous comedy routine.
“Hi there.” You can tell she’s itching to get away—eyes already fixed on the other blazers queueing to collect their treasure. She’s probably worried I’ll try to make friends and is making a mental note to come five minutes earlier tomorrow to avoid me.
I’m at the wooden gate now, at the back of the queue. Ballet Pumps has slipped away. “Hey you,” I call to Beau, waving at him.
“Hello, Mummy.” He holds the rose higher so I can see it.
This is the bit where I struggle the most to rein it in. I want to grab him and throw him up to the sky and catch him again.
“Nippy, isn’t it,” I say to the dad next to me. “Wish I’d brought me cardy.” He’s on his phone and looks at me in surprise as though he didn’t know I was there. He doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing here or which child is his. I’m not like that. Even when I’m not with Beau, I’m with him. I won’t have to use a GPS tracker when he’s older; I’ll know where he is.
I’m at the front now. The day care staffer introduces me to a new colleague who’ll be looking after Beau from now on. She’s petite—on my eye level—and her name’s A-na-ees, although it won’t be written like that. As a teacher, I have to come up with quick ways to remember names. Spelling it phonetically helps, so long as I don’t write it that way on school reports.
“Is this for me?” I bend down to talk to Beau, who glows with pride as he hands me the rose.
“It’s chocolate,” he whispers, tapping his nose to indicate a secret.
I inspect the rose. It really is chocolate: red foil on a green stick.
“My boyfriend works for a chocolatier,” A-na-ees says.
“Well, lucky you. What a result!” I lift Beau and kiss him, propping him on my hip. He’s only three, but it won’t be long before he’s taller than me; no joking.
“I love your hair,” she says.
“Thanks. I do it myself.”
“Really? It looks so professional.” She clocks the butterfly tattoo on my wrist, her gaze falling to the neon laces in my Doc Martens.
“Mummy colors her eyes too,” says Beau, touching my nose stud. He always presses the emerald as though he thinks it’s going to fall off.
She looks confused. “I wear colored contact lenses,” I explain. Today, my eyes are violet, one of my favorites.
“Oh.” She clasps her hands together. “That’s so cool.” I can see that she doesn’t know what to make of me.
“I like to mix things up. Keep everyone on their toes. Isn’t that right, Beau?”
He nods. “Mummy knows if Daddy hasn’t looked at her today.”
We both laugh, and I can see Ballet Pumps watching me out of the corner of her eye. I set Beau down because he seems to weigh more than he did this morning. And then we go, Beau skipping alongside me, telling me about finger painting and sausages for lunch.
In the car, I strap him in and turn the music from Kiss FM to “Wheels on the Bus.” Beau kicks his feet and gazes out of the window with his big brown eyes, curls catching the sunshine. Sometimes, I can’t believe that he almost didn’t make it. He’s the most beautiful boy on the planet, and I’m so lucky to have him.
“Hello!” I call out, setting Beau’s day bag and my pile of schoolbooks on the table. There’s a letter in the rack, sitting there on its own. It’ll be from one of my nieces in Leicester.
I push it into the pocket of my tunic and call again for Andy. “We’re home!”
He’s going slightly deaf and says it’s because he’s fifteen years older than me, but I think he’s too young for it to be age-related. More likely, he gets absorbed in what he’s doing. He always seems to hear me when I say I’m in the mood for sex, or can’t manage the rest of my chips.
Deaf or not, he can surely feel Beau, who’s thundering down the hallway, floorboards shuddering. Anyone would think they’d been separated for years, not a handful of hours.
I poke my head around the study door. Beau is perched on Andy’s lap, telling him about the chocolate rose and how much his new teacher likes my pink hair. “Well, what’s not to love?” Andy says. “Everyone loves Mummy... We do, don’t we?”
“Aww, stop. You’ll make me blush.”
In truth, I can’t get enough of hearing things like this, as the only woman in the house. Growing up, I was the youngest of five—little Pree—and I’m used to being the one who everyone looks out for. Of course, the flip side is that no one thinks you can cross the road without supervision. My mum still rings to ask if I’m eating properly and when I’m coming home.
“So, how was it with Saffron?” Andy asks, setting Beau down.
“Not great. He’s permanently expelled.”
His face falls. “Oh, I’m sorry, my love.”
“It’s okay.” I reach my hand out for Beau, who trots forward happily. “He kept pushing his luck. It’s like he wanted it to happen, but I didn’t even get a chance to say ’bye.”
I teach RPE—Religion, Philosophy and Ethics—plus PSHE—Personal, Social, Health and Economic education. My parents think that because I teach subjects consisting of letters, they aren’t substantial, like math or science. It’s a running joke in my family. They also think I teach in a rough school and have to wear a ballistic vest, just because it’s a state school and all boys.
Yes, we have our challenging students. Saffron was one of them. Yet, somehow, I always managed to get on with him. He used to say that I was one of the few people who didn’t talk down to him. To be honest, it’s difficult to talk down to anyone when you’re five foot one.
“Have you got much more to do?” I ask Andy. He looks so tired—his hair stuck on end where he’s been ruffling it, his eyes sunken and dark. The light in here doesn’t help. I click on a lamp.
He shrugs. “Just an hour or so.”
He works from home most days, only goes into the office when necessary or if he feels like it. It’s his company after all, so he gets to choose.
I turn to go. Beau has already taken off, running upstairs to start the bath.
“Wait a sec.” Andy taps a computer key, then moves stiffly toward me. “Sorry about Saffron.” He draws me to him, my head reaching the middle of his breastbone. I sigh, inhaling the comforting scent of stale cologne on his sweater.
“It’s fine...really.” My mind moves to Beau. I don’t like him running the water on his own. “Tea will be on the table for six,” I call over my shoulder, and then I’m gone, bounding up the stairs.
Beau has steamed up the bathroom. He’s pouring in bubble bath as though we have an endless supply and has emptied his entire plastic bucket into the water. There are animals and Lego everywhere, bobbing in a primary-colored stew. I crouch down to undress him, something crunching in my pocket, and I remember then: the letter.
I set it on the windowsill and help Beau into the bath. And then I sit down on the closed toilet seat to open the envelope. It’ll be from Surina, my sister’s little girl. She’s always sending me adorable notes like this. The day she grows up and stops will be a sad one.
As I read the note, I’m so certain it’s from Surina I don’t even absorb the words. I’m still wondering why she’s writing like this.
Then I start to skim-read, racing ahead. Everything’s getting confused and a strange dislocation seems to be happening, as though I’m watching myself and Beau from a great height.
“Mummy, look!” He’s standing up, pouring water from a cup in a torrent, droplets spraying over the side of the bath.
I read the letter again, slower this time. I don’t know who any of these people are. I’ve never heard of them. The blood rushes to my ears, making them buzz so loudly I can’t hear Beau’s water cascading. I grip the towel rail and the floor tiles start to shimmer beneath me: a black-and-white chessboard.
The bathroom handle turns then, making me jump, as Andy enters the room. Hastily, I crumple the letter into my tunic pocket.
“Thought I’d finish early and help with the bath, so you can—” He breaks off, looking at me in concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Just Saffron,” I say, catching my breath.
“I knew it would be bothering you.” He holds open the door, ushering me out. “Go. I’ll see to Beau. Get yourself a cup of tea, and then we’ll make dinner together.”
“Okay.” I hope I don’t sound as unresponsive as I feel. Leaving, I glance back at Andy, who is carefully crafting Beau a large bubble beard.
Downstairs in the kitchen, I pull a bottle of vodka out of the freezer and pour myself a tumbler full, staring at the butterfly tattoo on my wrist.
I take the letter from my pocket, smoothing it flat on the table, thinking for a few minutes, and then my mind is made up. I don’t know what kind of sick person would write a thing like this, but it can’t stay here. Creeping through to Andy’s study, I feed the letter into the shredder, which gives a conspiratorial whir as it swallows it whole.