A. L. Bird - The Classroom

‘May I see your picture, Harriet?’ Miriam asks her gently. Start soft; build the rapport gently. That’s the way to win them over.

She shakes her head vigorously, sending plaits flying out, the unicorns given wings.

‘But surely you want to show me where you went on holiday?’

She shrugs.

‘Well, I’d like to see,’ Miriam tells her. ‘Even if you don’t want to show me.’

Miriam leans slightly closer, and tries to prise one of Harriet’s little hands away from the paper.

Reluctantly, Harriet lets her, and lifts the other hand away too.

Miriam looks at the picture.

At first glance, it’s a playroom. There are lots of toys, and a low-level table. Miriam’s about to ask what her favourite toy is, but then she sees that there’s a little cross on the door, like the ones you see on ambulances.

Miriam’s heart lurches. Oh no! Is this lovely little girl ill? Has she spent the summer at a hospital? Her mind flits back to that summer, years ago. When they didn’t go to hospital when they should have done. After Miriam did what she did. The little girl she misses every day.

‘Where is this?’ Miriam asks her.

‘Mummy’s work,’ she says.

Miriam mentally readjusts.

‘Mummy is a doctor?’ Miriam says, like she didn’t know. Of course, the picture makes sense now. All the parents filled in their jobs on joining forms. And Miriam had read them all carefully. But you have to play the game, don’t you? Just like if you Google someone in the evening, looking for pictures of their kids, imagining being their child’s mummy, the next day you have to make with the questions to eke out answers you already know.

‘Mummy is very busy and I have to play with the toys,’ Harriet says. Poor little thing, thinks Miriam – if only I could give her a big hug, show her some love. Miriam had a teacher who’d done that with her, and she’d never forgotten it.

‘But surely you went away on holiday, too?’ Miriam asks. ‘What about Daddy?’

Harriet shakes her head. ‘Mummy can’t have a break because she works so hard. But Daddy was away, because he does school work all summer even though everyone else spends time with their family, Mummy says. Daddy says Mummy and Daddy would go away together if they could, but not me.’

Alarm bells start ringing. ‘They wanted to go away at the same time, without you? Would you be home alone?’ Miriam wouldn’t have thought at this school, with this child, her first thoughts would be about alerting social services.

Harriet shakes her head and gives her a grin. ‘I’m only five, silly. I can’t stay at home alone, and Mummy wouldn’t let me stay with Granny.’ Thank God. Miriam’s heart rate slows a little. ‘Daddy took me with him for a week, and I watched the big children play.’

Miriam’s heart rate increases again. It sounds like things are not being done right. This is why Miriam needs her own child – to show how things should be done.

‘Was that fun?’ Miriam asks. ‘Did Daddy make time to play with you too?’

But Miriam doesn’t hear the answer because the child on the other side of her announces he needs to do a poo. NOW.

The teaching assistant ushers him out of the room, and Miriam turns back to Harriet but the bell goes, and it’s time for break. The moment’s gone. Harriet, like the rest of the children, jumps up from her seat and rushes out of the room. Before Miriam follows them, she looks again at the picture Harriet has drawn. Fancy spending the summer at your parents’ work and no holiday! It’s not like they lack the cash. Unimpressive. For everything Miriam’s parents didn’t do for her, they at least gave her a holiday. Norway, Holland, France – abroad, but not far flung. Until they flung her out. But then, that was her fault. Or so they said.

Still, this isn’t about her. It really isn’t. It’s about Harriet. And the other children, of course. About making sure they’re all as happy as they can possibly be.

True, the happiest place would be at home with her. But you can’t have too much, too soon.

So for now, if they aren’t happy, then she’ll need to change things. One step at a time.

KIRSTEN, SEPTEMBER 2018

How is it always 5 p.m.? However much Kirsten asks Jess not to book in 4.30 appointments, it’s somehow always five when Kirsten’s running out of the surgery, slinging her bag in the back of the Lexus and revving like mad to pick up Harriet on time. First nursery, now school. Thank God for after-school clubs, and that she could choose to set up her practice only a ten-minute drive away from Harriet’s school. But really – how the hell were working mums supposed to do it? Could she pay Jess to collect Harriet? Probably, but also probably not. She needs her to help run the business, not her personal life, however much the two coincide.

Besides, Kirsten knows she always melts when she sees Harriet again. It’s a joy to pick her up from school, isn’t it?

And there we go. The switch from busy doctor-mummy to mummy-mummy. Of course she can make time for this. Yes, Ian should do more – it would be good to alternate. He keeps telling her it’s just a phase, while he gets his school over the Ofsted approbation. And yes, she admires his dedication to the failing school, his social conscience, his commitment to the kids from less advantaged homes. His quest for unimpeachable integrity. And she understands the particular source of his middle-class guilt. But you’d think he’d help more at home too, considering. You’d think that day-to-day, Kirsten would have more leverage.

But no. It’s like he can’t bear to spend the time with his daughter, sometimes. Kirsten’s seen him look at Harriet like he hates her. Oh, sure, he thinks he hides it well. But Kirsten sees him. A wife knows her husband. Leaving the room at strange moments, when Kirsten’s telling Harriet how much she loves her. That time he got disproportionately angry when Kirsten let Harriet play around with her make-up – she’s five for God’s sake, she’s not being sexualised, she’s playing at being Mummy. There’ll be a time for rules about that (of course there will, Kirsten isn’t stupid), but that time is not now. And the other day, when Harriet was messing round with his phone, Kirsten honestly thought he might hit Harriet. Well, OK, not quite that bad – because she’d never let him do that – but he stared at that phone with such rage, Kirsten was almost frightened.

Other times, though, he looks at Harriet like she’s the love of his life. Which maybe she is. The love of both their lives. Kirsten remembers when she and Ian were that precious to each other. Or were they? Can you ever truly love your spouse as much as you love your child?

Ah, parking space! Ian says if Kirsten got a smaller car she wouldn’t spend so much of her life worrying about where to put it. Her verdict is that he can play the ruffled headmaster turning up at his school in his Golf – it wouldn’t do to look too posh. It’s different for parents collecting their kids. Kirsten needs to show up at the school gate looking like it was worth being late. Like she earns as much as people think she does. Otherwise, they ask themselves what the point is. And she starts asking herself that too. Which is stupid, futile, dumb and a waste of dreams – because Harriet needs a role model. And Kirsten needs to provide one.

OK; mummy mode. Fine. Ready to jump out of the car. Go!

A woman calls out as Kirsten moves away from her car. ‘Hey, Kirsten!’

Kirsten panics. Is she a patient? Are they going to get into discussions of UTIs out here in the street? But no, she has a child attached to her, so she’s a mum. In fact, two children – one swaddled to her breast, one jumping along at the end of her arm.