Ken MacLeod - Intrusion

‘No, it wouldn’t,’ his father said. He stabbed a finger at Hugh’s phone, magnifying the map. ‘The culvert wasn’t finished, see? It doesn’t have a lower opening. It’s probably flooded at the bottom already. So you stay out of culverts in future, got it?’

‘OK, OK,’ said Hugh.

‘Promise.’

‘Yes, Dad, all right.’

‘Now help your mother with the washing and then go to your room.’

He didn’t sound angry, or anxious, and Hugh left with some relief that he wasn’t in as much trouble as he could have been.

He didn’t go up that hill again.

After Hugh had gone to work on Monday morning, Hope took her time over breakfast and found herself running late. She skipped the usual ten minutes of talking Nick into his clothes, and just picked him up and started inserting him in them. Underpants, warm vest, shirt, trousers… at that point he kicked – not deliberately at her, but walking his legs in midair and landing an occasional random heel on her shins.

‘Stop that!’ Hope said.

‘I’m not I’m not I’m not.’

He was drumming his heels on her now, squirming in the elbow she had around his waist.

‘That bloody hurts,’ she said. ‘Stop it!’

Instead of doing what she instantly expected and gleefully repeating the bad word that had slipped out, Nick acquiesced in sudden sullen silence, stepping into his trouser legs one by one as she set him down and held them out in front of him. He even buttoned the waistband and buckled the belt, in a belated display of independence.

Then, as she held out his cagoule, he put his arms in one by one and said as he turned away to zip up the front: ‘This is such cack.’

He said it in such a weary, resigned voice that Hope was more shocked by the tone than the content. His accent on the last word was like Hugh’s, with a long vowel and a guttural: caachck . And he didn’t say it in the defiant way he usually repeated naughty words, or as if said to provoke her. It was an aside, a remark.

So she didn’t reprove him.

‘What is cack, Nick?’ she asked.

‘It’s what comes out of people’s bottoms,’ he said, without so much as a giggle, then added: ‘You know – poo.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she said, getting into her own cagoule. ‘But what is “such cack”?’

Nick pouted. ‘The weather,’ he said. ‘Everything.’

‘Surely not everything?’ Hope said, holding out her hand.

‘Not you and Max and Dad,’ Nick allowed.

‘Or nursery?’

‘Nursery’s all right,’ he said.

They went out the door and into the rain.

‘Well, I’m glad to hear that,’ Hope said, locking the door. ‘Off we go!’

Nick went up the steps. To him, they were high. His legs swung out to the sides as he clambered up.

They walked down Victoria Road, rain rattling on their hoods.

‘Who did you hear saying that word?’ Hope asked.

‘What word?’

‘You know,’ Hope said.

‘I don’t know.’

‘All right, “cack”.’

‘I meant I don’t know who said it.’

‘Was it your dad?’ Hope asked, in an amused tone.

‘Oh, no!’ Nick looked up at her from under his hood.

‘So who was it?’

‘Don’t know, don’t care,’ Nick sang.

That wasn’t like him, either.

His hand tightened on hers as he swung over a puddle.

Oh well, Hope thought. Probably one of the kids at nursery. She’d have to have a word with Miss Petrie about language.

Miss Petrie, as it turned out, was outside the nursery gates when Hope and Nick arrived. She was standing talking to – or being talked to by – three mothers. One of them – Carolyn Smith, an Adventist faith-kid mum whom Hope knew well enough to nod to – saw their approach and pointed. Four heads turned. Miss Petrie looked worried, Carolyn a little embarrassed, the other two tight-lipped.

Hope marched up.

‘Good morning, Miss Petrie,’ she said. ‘Hi, Carolyn.’

‘Good morning, Miss Petrie,’ Nick said.

Miss Petrie gave him a brief smile. ‘Be a big boy and go in by yourself today, Nick,’ she said.

She glanced at Hope, as if getting permission, then stooped and pushed the small of Nick’s back with one hand while waving her phone at the gate with the other. The gate began to slide open. Nick seemed taken with the idea.

‘Bye, Mummy,’ he said.

But one of the two angry-looking mums blocked his path. He looked up at her, and then back at Hope and Miss Petrie. Finding no guidance there, he dodged to one side, lunch box swinging, and nipped past the woman’s legs. She reached out and snatched at his shoulder.

‘Oi!’ Hope shouted.

The angry mum’s fingers slipped on the wet cagoule and Nick darted away, through the gate. He’d disappeared and the gate had begun to swing shut behind him before Hope managed another word.

She stepped forward, getting in the woman’s face. ‘Don’t you dare grab at my child like that!’

The other woman didn’t back down.

‘Your child’s endangering my child,’ she said.

‘No, he is not,’ Hope said. ‘And that’s not the point. Endangering is statistics. Grabbing is battery. I could report you to the police.’

‘Now, Hope,’ Miss Petrie interposed, ‘that’s not very helpful, is it?’

As Hope turned to reply, she saw that the other angry mum was holding up a phone, recording the confrontation. This made her more angry and more restrained at the same moment.

‘Maybe it would be helpful if you could tell me what’s going on.’

‘Well,’ Miss Petrie said, wiping rain from her eyebrows, ‘Chloe and Sophie here were just raising their concerns about your little boy bringing in infections…’

‘Look,’ said Hope, gesturing in a vague way so it didn’t look like pointing, ‘there’s Philippa Kaur going in with her kids, and they sure haven’t had the fix. Why don’t you have a go at her?’

Sophie, the one who was recording, clicked her tongue at this.

‘What?’ Hope said.

‘Oh,’ said Chloe, the one she’d just had words with, ‘so you want us to single out the Kaurs, do you?’

‘No!’ Hope snapped, outraged at the unspoken imputation. ‘I just don’t see why you should single out me.’

‘Because you’re just doing it out of selfishness,’ said Chloe. ‘We’re doing it and Philippa’s doing it because of conscience.’

The penny dropped.

‘Oh, your kids are faith kids too!’

‘That’s right,’ said Chloe. ‘So they’re in danger of any infections your kid brings in.’

‘Oh, Christ!’ said Hope.

Sophie tutted again, and Carolyn, who’d been hanging back until now, assumed a pained look and said: ‘Please.’

‘OK, sorry,’ said Hope. She took a step back, feeling crowded, and tried a different tack.

‘Why can’t we stick together on this? I know we all have different reasons for not wanting the fix, but let’s be honest, our kids give each other germs no matter what our reasons are, and they’re not giving or getting germs from the rest. So it’s only us and our kids this affects, right? Can’t we, you know, live and let live about it?’

‘You don’t understand, Hope,’ Carolyn said. ‘It’s our live and let live that you’re putting in danger. You and people like you, all over England.’

‘What d’you mean, people like me?’

‘Oh, you know,’ said Carolyn. ‘Those Iranian atheists or whatever they are.’

‘Nearly all atheists are absolutely up for the fix,’ Hope said. ‘Believe me, I checked. Anyway, I don’t see how what I’m doing puts you in any danger. I’d have thought you’d, you know, sort of welcome it that we agreed on this point at least.’