Out of Step

by Maggie Makepeace

  ‘It’s this bloody roller,’ Mic said, balancing the paint tray at the top of a step ladder. ‘I dunno how else you’re s’posed to do flaming ceilings?’

  ‘Looks good,’ Cassie encouraged her. ‘Keep going!’

  ‘I wouldn’t say no to a cuppa,’ Mic suggested.

  ‘Nor would I,’ Cassie agreed. ‘Oh I see, you mean you want me to make it?’

  ‘Well, I’m a bit mucky, like.’ Mic displayed painty hands.

  ‘Oh, all right then.’

  It’s all going pretty well, Cassie thought, as she boiled the kettle. Once Mic has finished the emulsion painting (and that should be later this week, all being well) then there’s the woodwork for her to do in yellow gloss… and then we can move in the two second-hand sofas we bought from the sale room … and maybe my rocking chair as well. I must buy a couple of lampshades – those paper ones that look like hot-air balloons – and maybe see if I can get something to cover that grotty lino …

  As she made the tea, the idea came to her. The shagpile carpet with the bound edges which had been on the sitting-room floor at Bottom Cottage … That was hers by right; she had paid for most of it. It probably wouldn’t cover the whole of the floor in the attic room, but it would be good enough. I’ll get on to Rob, she thought, and make him bring it back.

  She had last spoken to him at work only that morning – well, ‘spoken’ was hardly the word. She had yelled at him, and with good reason. Her interim maintenance cheque hadn’t arrived yet again. Rob had refused to get it organised (like any half-reasonable person) by direct debit, preferring instead to write one out when he felt like it, which was invariably long after it was due. I have a right to that money, Cassie thought. ‘Your children have a right to that money!’ she’d screamed at him. ‘But I suppose that thought’s never crossed your tiny mind.’

  ‘So what happened to the cheque I gave you last month?’ Rob had asked. (He must have been using that oh-so-reasonable voice on purpose, because he knew it drove her up the wall.)

  ‘That was then. This is now! We do have to eat every day, you know, or had you forgotten that?’

  ‘Why not try inconvenience food then?’ Rob had said. ‘It’s so much cheaper –’

  But she’d slammed the receiver down.

  That made things awkward now. She was reluctant to put herself in the position of having to make the next move or, worse still, appear to be a supplicant. She always tried to avoid asking Rob outright for (or about) anything; to do so would be an admission of dependency. She usually got her own way simply by reminding him of his duties and her rights. So she was damned if she was going to grovel to him now, but equally determined that he should feel the full weight of his responsibilities as the children’s father. If I demand the carpet back, she thought, he’ll then want his big table. He’s small-minded enough to make it tit for tat, and we need that table.

  She voiced her dilemma to Mic as they sat drinking the tea she’d just made.

  ‘Try sending him a solicitor’s letter,’ Mic suggested. ‘That’d sort him out.’

  ‘Just an ordinary letter might do…’ Cassie considered the idea. ‘Yes, why didn’t I think of that? Then I can get it all over in one go without him hassling me. You’ve seen how it is. If I try talking to him on the phone, he just bullies me, and then I get into such a state I can’t think what I’m saying. I’ve got to the stage where I can hardly bring myself to phone him at all, but of course I have to for the children’s sake.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mic said. ‘That’s really tough.’

  ‘Right then,’ Cassie said briskly, draining her mug, ‘that’s what I’ll do. You OK carrying on with the painting? I’ll go and get this letter off my chest, and then we’ll both be advancing the cause.’ She thought privately that her task was much the more arduous, but she refrained from saying so. Mic was doing a valiant job, even if she wasn’t the world’s best painter.

  On 22nd April the first orange-tip butterfly of the year appeared in Nell’s garden, and on the 28th the first cuckoo. She recorded them both gratefully in her diary. At least some things were still predictable. There was blossom too on the ancient apple tree, and polyanthus and honesty flowering by the back door, but the very idea of an April shower seemed laughable. They’d had only half an inch all month, and the ground was cracking up as though it were high summer. Not for the first time Nell prayed for rain, and marvelled at ever having taken it for granted.

  That Saturday she was busy rubbing down the door of her bedroom, preparing it for paint, when she heard the sound of a child’s voice outside and went to the window to look. In the garden below was a small boy with dark curly hair, going along her back wall, picking up the objets trouvés and stuffing them into the pockets of his coat, counting aloud as he did so. Nell was about to open the window to protest when she realised who he must be. She stopped and watched him instead. He was trying to collect them all up, but some were too big to fit into his pockets, and there seemed to be nowhere else to put them. He compromised by piling them into a heap on the ground, and then he turned to the garden gate and yelled at the top of his voice, ‘Dad!’ There was an answering call. ‘Dad? I’m having trouble!’

  Nell smiled, and waited for help to appear. Then when it did, in the form of Rob and a little girl, she opened the window and leant out.

  ‘Would you like a carrier bag?’ she asked.

  Both children gaped at her. ‘That’s my dad’s room,’ the boy said reprovingly. ‘You shouldn’t be in there. You’d better come down at once!’ It sounded as though he was reciting something recently said to him by an irate adult.

  ‘Hush, Josh!’ Rob said. ‘She’s every right to be there.’ He looked up at Nell. ‘Sorry about this,’ he said. ‘I forgot to take the things from the wall. I might have known that Josh here would…’ He looked round for his son, but he’d disappeared.

  There was a bang at the front door, and Nell heard the thunder of wellington-booted feet running upstairs. She dodged out to intercept him.

  ‘Is there something else you’ve left behind?’ she asked him, but he pushed past her without answering and ran into his old room, which was now full of cardboard boxes, with piles of canvases all over her spare bed.

  ‘Where’s my bed?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nell said. ‘I expect –’

  ‘And where’s my chair and my –’

  ‘I had to move them all out,’ Rob said, out of breath, appearing at the bedroom door and putting Rosie down. He glanced apologetically at Nell. ‘Sorry.’ And then back to his son, ‘Look, Josh, you can’t just burst in here willy-nilly. This place doesn’t belong to us any more. It’s Nell’s house, OK? This is the Nell who made you that lovely birthday cake, remember?’

  Josh shook his head. ‘Where’s my bed?’

  ‘I had to put it in store. Come back downstairs and I’ll explain.’

  ‘No,’ Josh said stoutly.

  ‘Yes,’ Rob said, equally firmly, taking him by the hand. ‘Come on now, I’m serious.’

  ‘Willy-nilly,’ Rosie began, giggling. ‘Willy-nilly, nilly-willy, willy…’

  ‘And you too, Miss Silly Nilly,’ Rob said, picking her up again and holding her on his hip with one arm.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea or anything?’ Nell asked, following the three of them downstairs.

  ‘Miwk?’ Rosie said hopefully.

  ‘Yes, I think I’ve got enough. You too, Josh?’ Josh shook his head vehemently. ‘Or orange juice?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Rob corrected him. ‘Look, I’m sorry about this invasion. We were only really going for a walk. The shelducks are back in the dunes, you know, nesting in the rabbit burrows. I always think when they’re first prospecting for their ideal nest hole they look so ridiculously conspic –’

  ‘I don’t like this table,’ Josh interrupted. ‘I want our one back.’

  ‘Milk,’ Nell said, putting a mugful down on the table in front of Rosie.

 
‘My cup!’ Rosie demanded. ‘Want it in my cup!’

  ‘It’s not here,’ Rob explained patiently. ‘None of our things is. We don’t live here any more. I know it’s hard to accept but we’ve all got to make a big effort.’

  Josh fixed Nell with a baleful look. ‘Why’s she here?’

  ‘Because it’s Nell’s cottage now. She’s bought it from us.’

  ‘It’s my house,’ Josh insisted, covering his ears and speaking loudly, ‘my house, my house, my house …’

  ‘Tea,’ Nell said, giving Rob a mug. ‘So, how’s the caravan then?’

  ‘Josh! Please be quiet.’ Rob sighed. ‘It’s perfectly adequate, but fairly cramped, especially at weekends.’ He looked across at Rosie. ‘Are you drinking that milk then, pudding?’ Rosie picked the mug up clumsily and spilt some on to the table. ‘Careful!’ Rob warned her.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Nell said, ‘don’t worry. I must have filled it too full.’

  ‘It’s all your fault,’ Josh said, sotto voice.

  ‘I’ll get something to wipe it up.’ Nell went over to the sink, and got the dishcloth from its hook. She understood the children’s confusion and felt sorry for them – sorry too for Rob, and almost guilty at her own good fortune. Joshua is a very beautiful child, she thought, looking at his profile – lovely dark eyes and lustrous curly hair. Pity Rosie didn’t take after her father too.

  ‘Is the stove behaving itself?’ Rob asked her.

  ‘Well, it smokes quite a lot when I first light it.’

  ‘Cold chimney,’ Rob explained. ‘No proper draught until it heats up.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. And it seems to get through mountains of wood. Good thing you left me a decent pile.’

  ‘I reckoned about ten tons a year,’ Rob said. ‘You want to buy it in the summer as cordwood, and stack it to season for eighteen months or so, otherwise it’s too green and the whole system tars up inside.’

  ‘Goodness!’ Nell exclaimed. ‘It sounds like a full-time job.’

  ‘Don’t want this,’ Rosie said, slopping her milk again.

  ‘Clumsy!’ Rob reproved her. ‘Perhaps Josh will finish it for you.’

  ‘I want a bag,’ Josh demanded, ‘like you said.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Rob said, ‘a carrier bag would be very useful if you’ve got a spare one.’

  Nell went into her utility room under the stairs, and came out with several.

  ‘Rosie wanth one!’

  ‘We’d better go,’ Rob said, getting to his feet. ‘Here you are, Rosie, a bag for you, and one for Josh, and one for me. Let’s go and collect up all your treasures, shall we, and then go back to our caravan.’

  ‘I want us all to sleep here,’ Josh said.

  ‘Well, that would be difficult, wouldn’t it?’ his father said reasonably. ‘Without enough beds?’

  ‘Thilly willy, thilly willy, thilly willy…’ Rosie mocked him.

  ‘It ISN’T,’ Josh retorted furiously. ‘And anyway, you haven’t got one, so na na-ne NA nah!’

  They were still niggling each other as they climbed into the Land Rover, and didn’t even look back at Nell as Rob turned it round and drove off with a brief wave, shutting his door only as they disappeared from view.

  ‘Ah well,’ Nell said to the empty air. ‘What a surprise, eh? Nice meeting you.’

  Cassie reckoned she could talk most people into doing what she wanted, most of the time. Mic had now applied to the local authority to become registered as a child minder, and today a social worker was due to come to inspect both them and the proposed premises. He arrived only ten minutes late, looking, Cassie thought, a bit too smug for her liking.

  ‘Oh, it’s Mrs Hayhoe, isn’t it? My colleague thought she recognised this address,’ he said to her at the door. ‘And how are things with you?’

  ‘Fine,’ Cassie said rather brusquely, ‘but never mind all that. It’s Mic you’re here to vet, and the wonderful room we’ve got ready specially. You’ll be amazed when you see it.’ She led the way upstairs, and stood proudly in the doorway, ushering him and Mic through.

  She could tell at once that he was impressed. He looked all around him at the terracotta ceiling, the severalcoloured walls: orange, cream, beige and brown, and at the gleaming primrose-woodwork. The sofas and chair were grouped together for story-telling. The table had paints and paper and brushes laid out on it. There was a bookcase full of picture books, a box of bricks, another of Lego, and six teddy bears. And discreetly on a corner shelf there was a baby-changing mat with a disposable nappy bin underneath.

  ‘We’ve made it into a sort of den,’ Cassie explained, ‘so the children will feel warm and safe. That’s why we’ve used all these lovely earth colours. There’s also a carpet coming, and we’re planning to get some beanbags for them to loaf around on. The whole ambience is calm and loving and yet stimulating, don’t you agree?’

  ‘So, how exactly would you be involved with the child-minding?’ the social worker asked, frowning.

  ‘Oh, I won’t be,’ Cassie cried, laughing gaily. ‘Perish the thought!’

  ‘So it will just be you, Ms Potton, or may I call you Michaela?’

  ‘Mic’s fine.’

  ‘Right. And you’re… what… a tenant here?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Cassie said at once. ‘We’re friends.’ She smiled brilliantly at Mic, who for once didn’t respond. Poor little thing! Cassie thought. I hadn’t realised she’d be so nervous. You have to stand up to these bloody social workers or they think they’re God. I should know. I’ve had them on my back from the moment Josh was born…

  ‘So,’ the social worker said to Mic, beginning to jot down notes on a pad, ‘you have no security of tenure then, is that right?’

  ‘No it most emphatically isn’t!’ Cassie said. ‘She’s going to be minding my daughter, so I’m hardly likely to throw her out, am I? I’m not that capricious!’ She thought, I bet he doesn’t even know the meaning of that word, and he’s sitting in judgment on us!

  ‘It’s OK, Cassie,’ Mic said. ‘I can handle this.’

  ‘That’s quite all right,’ Cassie assured her. ‘I’d like to help. I’ve got plenty of time this morning, and of course I’ve had loads of experience with the social services. Yes?’ She threw him a challenging glance. He ignored it.

  ‘So where are the children?’ he asked. ‘I believe you have a little boy, Mic?’

  ‘Yeah, Gavin. He’s six. The three of ’em are round my mum’s.’

  ‘I thought we could discuss things better with a bit of peace and quiet,’ Cassie explained. The social worker looked pained.

  ‘Well, I do need to see you all together,’ he said, ‘to assess your interpersonal skills, and the way the children relate to you …’ He took a deep breath. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘for the time being then let’s concentrate on the technicalities, starting with the electric wiring …’

  ‘Oh, there are plenty of sockets,’ Cassie said. ‘I think they’re on a different system from the rest of the house, but Rob used to run his heater and his lathe and stuff off them, so I know they work.’

  The social worker was bent double, inspecting one. ‘Good God! They’re the old round-pin sort!’ He hauled himself upright again, his face pink with the effort.

  He’s a bit unfit! Cassie decided, smiling but critical.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s a bore. You can’t get the plugs to fit them any more, but if we need to use anything electrical in here, I can always make Rob send us his old ones. I’m sure he won’t have thrown them away; he’s a dreadful hoarder!’

  The social worker again wrote in his notebook. He was shaking his head. ‘Must be nearly fifty years old!’ he said, partly to himself.

  ‘Is that a problem?’ Mic asked.

  ‘I should say! Whatever you do, don’t use any of them, OK? They could be lethal!’

  ‘Well, we’ve turned the radiators back on, so the whole place is centrally heated, so we don’t actually need them anyway,’ Cassie said
. ‘Just as well really. We wouldn’t want all the mess of a rewiring job, especially now when we’ve finished doing the decor –’

  ‘Fire exit?’ the social worker interrupted. ‘Is there one?’

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ Mic said. He wrote more in his notebook. ‘But there’s a toilet through there,’ she added quickly. ‘Ever so handy, look.’

  Cassie thought, I really must remember to ask Mic not to say ‘toilet’ when she means ‘loo’. That’s an abomination I absolutely do not want the children to pick up.

  The social worker finished writing and looked at Mic. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘and how about you? Are you in good health?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Mic said eagerly. ‘Strong as an ‘orse, me.’

  ‘Do you smoke?’

  Cassie and Mic answered this question at exactly the same time, but Cassie said, ‘Yes,’ and Mic said, ‘No.’

  ‘Sorry?’ The social worker looked confused. ‘Mic?’

  ‘Well, I do smoke,’ she admitted, ‘but only in the evenings, like, so it don’t count, yeah?’

  ‘We’ll have to arrange for you to have a chest X-ray.’ He wrote another note.

  ‘There’s nuffink wrong wif me chest!’ Mic was getting rattled. Cassie put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

  ‘No, I’m sure it’s quite all right. It’s just regulations. And whilst we’re on the subject,’ the social worker looked apologetic, ‘I’m afraid I’m obliged to ask you whether or not you have a criminal record.’

  ‘Not bleeding likely!’

  ‘Good. And can you provide us with at least two character references?’

  ‘Well, I dunno …’ Mic looked up at Cassie.

  ‘In this instance,’ the social worker said, ‘I think one from Mrs Hayhoe would be inappropriate. It needs to be from someone professional; a doctor, a solicitor, or a vicar maybe?’

  Mic snorted. Cassie tightened her grip on her shoulder. ‘I’m sure we can sort something out,’ she said. ‘Mic’s brilliant with children. She’s certainly saved my sanity.’

  ‘Right!’ the social worker said, snapping his notebook shut. ‘Well, I think that’s about all we can accomplish today. I’ll come again soon, to see you with the children. Right?’