The Playgroup

by Janey Fraser

  Gemma glanced around to check that everyone else had left. The coast was clear apart from the cleaner who was clanging away in the downstairs loo, far enough away to be out of earshot.

  ‘Great. Fine. I mean, she settled in without any trouble.’ She paused. ‘Her mother dropped her off yesterday.’

  ‘Really?’ Joe’s very dark blue, almost black, eyes flickered with interest. Nice to see he was human, deep down, thought Gemma. Talk had been rife amongst the staff, and she’d had to warn Bella to keep off the topic. Now it seemed that Joe was as curious as the rest of them.

  ‘She looked very elegant.’ Gemma couldn’t help it. After all, it wasn’t as though she could share this juicy piece of information with anyone else. ‘Just like the magazine pictures, if you read that sort of thing.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Me neither, apart from old copies,’ she added hastily. ‘Anyway, we only spoke briefly. Lily’s nanny picked her up as arranged and brought her in today.’

  Joe nodded. ‘I can’t tell you how important it is that a) this is kept private, and b) you make sure that no one picks up that child apart from the designated carer.’

  As and Bs? What kind of a man spoke like that?

  ‘Of course!’ Gemma felt righteously indignant. ‘We are always careful about security, regardless of whether a child’s mother is famous or not. By the way, I thought you might be interested to know that Lily’s very bright – got a great ear for language. She was incredibly quick in our French game this morning.’

  ‘French?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I didn’t realise you started so young here.’

  Was that criticism or praise? It was so hard to tell with this man, who seemed approachable one minute and almost hostile the next. ‘We just count to ten and do hello and thank you,’ she said casually, making to put away a clutch of crayons that had sprawled over the desk. ‘That sort of thing.’

  ‘I see.’ His tone was grudgingly admiring. ‘By the way, have you got any ideas for the banking competition?’

  Give her a chance! ‘I’ve given out the handouts but it’s early days.’

  Joe’s head was nodding. ‘Of course.’ His hand was in his pocket, as though fiddling with the mouse gift. Gemma only hoped her stitching would survive. ‘Listen, I didn’t mean to sound prickly early on. I wonder . . . would you like to have a quick cup of coffee down the road?’

  Not another work meeting! ‘Sorry. But I’ve got a date.’

  He was nodding again. ‘Of course you have. Well, thanks for the update. You look as though you’re doing a pretty good job.’

  How condescending! ‘Thanks.’ Gemma returned his look. ‘Brian always used to think so.’

  ‘Ah yes, Brian.’

  A silence hung between them. ‘The thing is, Gemma,’ said her boss in the voice he had used before suggesting a working coffee, ‘things are very different from Brian’s day. And the sooner we get to accept it, the better.’

  He put his hand in his pocket again. ‘By the way, I spotted this by the gate as I came in. Maybe one of the mums has lost it.’

  Gemma’s heart soared as she saw her silver chain lying in the palm of Joe Balls’s hand.

  ‘It’s mine,’ she cried. ‘Thank you.’

  For a minute she felt like hugging the man, but stopped herself just in time. Instead, she started to fasten the chain around her neck.

  ‘Want me to help you?’ asked Joe, his tone indicating that he would really rather not and was only issuing the invitation out of politeness.

  ‘It’s all right thank you.’ Gemma wanted to burst into song, but at the same time she couldn’t help wondering why she was so happy. Didn’t the chain stand for everything that she had given up? ‘I can do it myself.’

  If only Joe had known that her date was with a can of baked beans and a baked potato, thought Gemma lightly as she flew up the stairs, looking forward to getting into her cosy bedsit at the top of Joyce’s warm Victorian terrace home.

  ‘Had a good day, love?’ called up her landlady from the kitchen. Joyce, who always enjoyed a natter (rather too much of one, at times), made a habit of keeping her kitchen door open so she could have a chat with her lodgers. At the moment, Gemma was the only one left on the top floor now the woman next to her had saved up enough money for her own deposit, and so far no one had responded to the ad that Joyce had put in the local newsagent.

  ‘Yes thanks.’

  Joyce’s smiley face popped out from behind the door. She was a woman in her early fifties who looked much younger, and she happened to have a son who was working abroad at the moment but was coming home in a month. It was clear from the way she always spoke about him that she thought he and Gemma would make a perfect couple. If only she knew!

  ‘Had another postcard from Barry, I did. Want to see it?’

  Not wishing to disappoint her landlady, Gemma made admiring noises at the picture and appropriate noises as she read the scrawled message about diving in South America, where Joyce’s son had just spent some of his leave from the army.

  ‘Sure you don’t want a bite with me, love? I’ve made more than enough macaroni cheese.’

  ‘No thanks.’ Gemma thought with longing of the packet of chocolate raisins she had treated herself to on the way home and the romantic DVD she’d borrowed from the library to play on her laptop after she’d done her lesson-planning for tomorrow. ‘It’s really kind of you but I’ve got some work to do.’

  Joyce shook her head as Gemma departed to her bedsit on the top floor. ‘I don’t know, dear. All work and no play. You teachers work so hard, even nursery teachers.’

  Talk about damning with faint praise! Slipping out of her skirt and into a nice comfy pair of jeans, Gemma became aware of her phone bleeping with a text message or as Johnnie’s au pair would have said, ‘sext message’.

  ‘How did it go?’

  The text popped up just as she lay down on her bed, allowing herself to stretch out and finally relax. Dear Kitty! The two of them had met on the first day of uni. ‘I’m going to be a singer or actress,’ her new friend had announced. ‘Not sure which, yet.’

  When she had, after a rather chequered career, got to the semi-final of Britain’s Best Talent, Gemma hadn’t been at all surprised. Kitty was always doing crazy things, and appearing on a reality show in an evening dress, a bright scarlet bow in her hair and a recorder that she managed to play like a flute, was exactly what she’d have expected of her. The only pity was that she hadn’t been selected to go through to the final. Still, it had led to all kinds of bookings, including a stint at Puddleducks Playgroup which she’d kindly promised to do without charging.

  It was typical of her that even with all her showbiz commitments, Kitty hadn’t forgotten Gemma’s troubles.

  ‘OK,’ Gemma texted back.

  ‘Did u get that stuff done?’

  ‘Still wtng.’

  Gemma shivered. Kitty was the only one who knew her secret. The only one aware how important this December was to her.

  Sometimes she wondered if she was doing the right thing. On the other hand, surely she’d waited long enough? It was time to finally accept that there was no hope. The only way forward was to move on.

  Chapter 10

  NANCY SAT IN her car outside the playgroup. This was the fourth day she’d been keeping watch all morning to make sure that Danny didn’t escape.

  Frankly, it was getting boring.

  A woman with her dog had been giving her odd looks. I’m not one of those perverts, she wanted to say. I’m making sure my son is safe. Danny was all she had left. If anything happened to him, she just couldn’t cope. Oh dear. Now she could feel her eyes filling all over again.

  ‘Nancy!’ Someone was knocking on the car window. ‘Blimey, Nancy, are you all right?’

  Lifting her head off the steering wheel, she gazed through the blur at a short, smiley mother wearing clear braces. Brigid. A chill ran through her as she recalled the last time they’d met, when she’d run out
of the coffee shop without picking up the check. This was awful.

  ‘Got a bit of a cold,’ she sniffed, gesticulating through the closed window.

  ‘I can’t hear you!’ Brigid was mouthing back.

  Reluctantly, Nancy wound down the window. ‘I said I’ve got a bit of a cold. Look, I’m sorry about the other day. I didn’t mean to be rude.’ She sniffed again. ‘It’s just that I was feeling a bit low.’

  Rummaging in her handbag, she found a five-pound note. ‘I think I owe you this.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Brigid crisply. ‘I bawled my eyes out, believe it or not, when Billy started playgroup, even though he can be a real pain in the you-know-what. It’s a weird feeling going back to the house and not having anyone there, isn’t it?’

  Her unexpected kindness made the tears well up in Nancy’s eyes again.

  ‘But it’s not for long!’ Brigid was patting Nancy’s arm as it rested on the window. ‘You’ll be collecting him in a few hours’ time and then before you know it, your bloke will be back and you won’t have had time to cook tea – at least you won’t if you’re like me. Nancy? What on earth is wrong?’

  It was no good. No good pretending that Sam’s cool email messages were normal, or that she believed him when he said it wasn’t always easy to ring because the phone lines could be dodgy. No good pretending that she could cope by cleaning the house from top to bottom just as her own mother had done when Dad had left, in order to have control over something.

  ‘I think,’ said Brigid quietly when she’d finished listening to all this, ‘you’d better come with us to the coffee shop again. Don’t worry. It will only be me and Annie.’ She grinned. ‘And it goes without saying, that coffee is on you!’

  For two pins, she’d have made an excuse and shot back home. But Brigid’s kind insistence made it impossible, and somehow Nancy found herself sitting at a round table in the café. Break and Flake was full of other parents whose faces she vaguely recognised from the playgroup. Brigid and Annie were ordering lattes at the counter, and the former was doubtless filling the latter in on what had happened in the car park.

  So embarrassing! Yet when they came back and sat down opposite her, it seemed comforting that she too, like all the other customers, had ‘friends’ to talk to.

  ‘It can’t be easy being so far from home,’ began Annie with a concerned look on her face. ‘Where did you say your mother-in-law lives again?’

  ‘Norwich. But I don’t think she likes me much. She’s very horsey and doesn’t seem to think very much of her son having married an American. Apparently Sam had a girlfriend before me whom she got on really well with, and I just don’t match up.’

  Brigid’s brace seemed to glint with sympathy. ‘My mother wanted me to marry my first boyfriend too. Took her ages to warm to my partner, but now she thinks he’s great.’

  She raised her voice to be heard above the grind of the coffee machine on the other side of the counter. Nancy was actually grateful for the noise; together with that and the crescendo of chatter all round them, there was more privacy. ‘What’s this about Sam leaving you, then?’

  Nancy stiffened. ‘He hasn’t left me!’

  Annie tutted in disapproval. ‘Don’t mind Brigid. She says what she thinks and we all know that isn’t always publishable, especially in the Puddleducks newsletter!’

  The two women smiled at each other and Nancy felt the pang of being an outsider.

  ‘He might not have left you, Nancy, but it didn’t sound great from what I’ve heard. What was it he said again? Something about giving you space for you both to think?’

  Nancy shot Brigid a look of accusation.

  ‘Hope you don’t think I’ve betrayed your confidence,’ said Brigid briskly, ‘but Annie’s a good person to run things past. Blimey, she was halfway through her counsellor’s course before she got preggers again.’

  Annie nodded ruefully at the sleeping bundle in the sling round her neck. ‘Worth every waking night, she is, and as soon as she’s old enough for Puddleducks I’m finishing the course. Well, probably anyway, although I’m also rather interested in photography.’ She beamed. ‘Who knows?’

  Brigid took a slurp of latte, leaving a large white moustache on her upper lip. ‘Meanwhile, she’s practising on the rest of us. That’s both the counselling and the pornography. OK. That’s a joke. You know what I meant.’

  She leaned forward as though about to spill another confidence. ‘You see, Nancy, you’re not the only one to wonder what’s left when our kids go to playgroup and then school. There are loads of us in the same boat. I wanted to be a dentist. In the end, I trained as a dental assistant but as soon as my kids are at full-time school, I’m going to think of something else. Not sure what exactly, but I’ll work it out. Maybe when you have more time, you’ll be able to pick up your science career. Meanwhile, we’re all sort of casting around for something that fits in between the hours of 9 and 11.30 a.m. The question is, what can we do?’

  Annie was nodding madly. ‘She’s right. In fact, I’ve just had a brilliant idea. You know, when we were up there ordering lattes and Bridge was filling me in on your life – sorry about that – I saw this poster on the wall. Look over there.’

  They all looked.

  ‘Can’t read it,’ grumbled Brigid. ‘Forgot my new reading glasses again.’

  Annie grinned. ‘Sign of approaching middle age. Well, I can read it and I’m only a year younger than you. Can you read it, Nancy?’

  She could.

  Taster creative courses at Church House. Not sure if you want to do Hatha Yoga; T’ai Chi; Handbag Design; Sew and Crow; Mosaic Marvels; or Early Morning Tango? Then investigate our taster courses. You can try them out and then sign up for whichever one takes your fancy.

  Brigid’s and Annie’s faces were shining. ‘Remember us saying we were looking for a course? These sound great, don’t you think?’ smiled Annie.

  Nancy hesitated. Sam was always saying she ought to do more but somehow, with everything going on, it seemed too self-indulgent.

  ‘Come on,’ chorused the girls. ‘Register now with us before you change your mind.’

  Chapter 11

  IN THE END, Nancy had gone along with them. By general agreement, they all signed up for Handbag Design and a few other taster courses. Somehow, by the time they’d finished, it was almost picking-up time. ‘Our lot love Puddleducks so much that they’re going to be staying two afternoons a week,’ said Brigid cas ually as they left Church House. ‘Billy even goes to the After-School club at the main school. It’s good preparation for next year when he goes up.’

  Annie giggled as she unlocked her bike with a bucket seat on the back that looked, to Nancy, highly unstable. ‘Bet you send him even more now that that dishy first-year head has taken over. Have you seen him? A slightly stocky northerner with definite attitude. Gorgeous! Take a good look, Nancy. If he’s like dear old Brian he’ll be coming down quite regularly to Puddleducks, so the children have a familiar face when they go up to his year.’

  Nancy felt awkward, as she always did when she heard women admire other men who weren’t their husband. Sam had been her first real boyfriend, which had possibly accounted for Danny’s rapid conception only a few months after they’d met.

  The others were peeling off now. ‘There’s a great second-hand designer shop down that street, Nancy. Want to check it out? We’ve got at least five minutes before pick-up time.’

  No way was she being late! Instead, she walked briskly up to the playgroup, crunching through the yellow and gold leaves that Danny liked to toss up in the air when she allowed him out of his pushchair to stretch his legs.

  She’d intended to be early but she was bang on time. To her shame, there were four other parents in front of her, which meant she wasn’t first through the security door which one of the helpers was holding open.

  Heart thumping, Nancy searched the circle of bright-faced children in blue Puddleduck sweatshirts, sitting cross-legged on the
carpet which had – oh dear – some glue stains on it. There was Danny, holding hands on one side with an exquisite little girl, like a china doll with jet-black hair and a flower-like pale complexion. Danny had a girlfriend already?

  Next to him, Brigid’s Billy was wriggling around with what the British called ants in his pants. Then he picked up a plastic hammer which had been lying on the floor and began banging his own shoe. Danny and that lovely child were giggling as though they thought it was funny, but surely he might hurt someone?

  ‘Calm down, Billy,’ said Gemma. Nancy had to admit that she did have an authoritative edge to her voice, which was good.

  ‘What is wrong with that child?’ demanded one of the other mothers in piercing tones. Exactly what she, Nancy had been thinking. Poor Brigid, who was just arriving now, clutching a carrier bag from the designer shop and muttering something about being caught up. She must be so embarrassed. But no. She was saying something now. Really loudly, as if it was the other woman who had a problem and not her.

  ‘That’s my son Billy you’re talking about. He’s just lively, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it. It’s like being born with different-coloured eyes or,’ her eyes narrowed as she stared at the woman, ‘with your kind of red hair.’

  Nancy could hardly believe her ears. Gemma looked as though she was about to try and smooth things over, but before she could say anything a very tall, elegant woman, wearing a pashmina draped over her shoulder and part of her head, swooped in. Without saying a word, she nodded graciously at the group of parents, including Toby’s dad whose jaw had virtually reached the neck of his egg-stained T-shirt, picked up the china doll with the jet-black hair and pale complexion, and glided out again.

  ‘Could someone please tell me,’ said Toby’s dad with a catch in his voice, ‘if that was who I think it was?’