The Playgroup

by Janey Fraser

  Nancy’s first instinct was to deny it, but she knew deep down that Patricia had a point. ‘That’s because of Sam and me. We were the problem. Neither of us were good at coping with the responsibility of a child – or each other.’

  Her fingers tightened over the rubber so her nails dug into it. ‘I tell you this, Patricia. If my prayers work and Danny gets through this, I’m not going to be a fussy mother ever again. I’m going to let him have his own life without worrying so much, and I’m going to do something for myself so I’m a more interesting person.’

  Patricia nodded in agreement. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, I’ve always thought that was important in a marriage. An interesting wife will keep her husband interested too.’

  Nancy jumped up off her chair. ‘That’s not the point. Don’t you get it? If Danny survives, I’m going to make myself a more exciting person for me, in order to let him be his own man. I’ve realised now. It’s not healthy to live my life around being a mother.’

  She glanced towards the bed previously occupied by the daughter of the woman in pink slippers. The poor woman had quietly and tearfully gone home now, without her daughter. ‘And if Danny doesn’t survive, I’m still going to do the same thing. Just for me.’

  That night, long after Patricia had gone, leaving a box of home-made chocolate-chip cookies that she couldn’t eat, the doctor came.

  Sam was there by then and they sat, holding hands, as he gave them the news.

  * * *

  A week later, Nancy and her mother were in Joe’s flat, tidying everything up before Nancy and Sam returned home. As Christabel had said, it was a good deal cleaner than it had been. ‘Not that your Mr Balls is a dirty man,’ she added hastily. ‘Indeed, those piles of music magazines by his bed have been filed carefully in chronological order. Did you notice that?’ She nodded approvingly. ‘Shows a very orderly mind, in my opinion.’

  As a thank-you, they had filled Joe’s fridge with all kinds of nutritious goodies. When they’d arrived it had been totally empty, apart from an eye-cooling pack in the freezer. ‘Rather strange, don’t you think?’ Christabel had said. ‘Not really the kind of thing you’d expect from a man. Maybe he’s not that way inclined, if you know what I mean.’ She threw the pack into the bin before Nancy could stop her.

  Nancy had chosen to ignore the innuendo. Frankly, she didn’t care if Joe was gay or not. All she knew was that it had been very kind of him to lend them his apartment. He must be looking forward to getting back to it now they no longer needed it.

  ‘By the way,’ said her mother as she put away the Hoover, ‘I’ve found this amazing book in the hospital charity shop. It’s called The Joy of Living and trust me, Nancy, it really helps to put life in perspective. I’ll lend it to you if you like.’

  Please, Nancy wanted to say. The last week had all been too much; she needed time to think now. Time alone.

  Her American parenting magazine had, by some freak coincidence, run a piece on post-traumatic stress. It had been accompanied by haunting interviews with a mother whose eight-year-old son had died of cancer, and a dad whose ten-year-old daughter had survived the disease. The man still got stressed because of the ‘what might have beens’.

  One of the signs of PTS, as it was called, was a reluctance to speak. So too was not being able to form words properly. Sam said his mother had started getting her words wrong after his father had walked out unexpectedly. Nancy resolved to be more accepting of the woman in future.

  ‘Sorry, dear,’ said Christabel, as though reading her mind. ‘Am I talking too much again?’

  Stepping towards her, she gave Nancy a big hug. Nancy felt as though she was being suffocated. She didn’t want to sound ungrateful but she really wished her mother would go home now, to her real home in the States, and let her get on with her own life. Maybe, she thought with a jolt, that was how Danny had felt when she kept hanging behind at playgroup instead of leaving him to have fun with his friends.

  ‘Hadn’t you better get going now, dear?’ Her mother spoke gently, as though she was a child, which made Nancy feel suffocated all over again.

  ‘I’ll go in my own time, thanks.’

  Christabel looked hurt. ‘Up to you, dear. I’ll be getting off now myself, if it’s all the same to you. Patricia and I have arranged to meet back in Hazelwood. See you later. And don’t worry about dinner; we’ve got that under control!’

  Nancy stood at the window of Joe’s sitting room overlooking a narrow street with cars parked on either side, displaying permits. Three streets away, she could see the market where she’d bought some fresh oranges that morning, and a cake from the bakery over the road. If she stood here for ever, she could freeze her life so that nothing would ever go wrong again.

  On the other hand, her life might never go right if she didn’t allow it to move, taking her along for the ride. There was, after all, that ad for Birkbeck College that she’d seen on the Tube today. It was offering exactly the kinds of courses she could be interested in if she made herself move on.

  The question was, could she?

  Her pocket began to hum with the vibration of her mobile, but she ignored it. It stopped and then rang again. Sam’s signal. She picked it up.

  ‘Nance? We’re almost ready. Are you coming over now?’

  Chapter 56

  IT HAD BEEN the nurses’ idea. It was, after all, Danny’s fourth birthday. Carefully holding the small bakery box in one hand containing the cake (chocolate had always been Danny’s favourite), Nancy took the lift to the fourth floor where she’d spent so many weeks in the children’s ward.

  She’d got some small presents too for the nurses, who had been so selflessly devoted to Danny, and with whom she was on first-name terms.

  ‘Nancy, that’s so kind of you!’

  No, she told Deirdre and Chris and all the others. It was they who had been kind.

  Now up to the bed where Danny had been for so long. The curtains were round it. Gingerly, she opened them. Sam was sitting on the chair by the bed where she had left him in order to help her mother and get the cake.

  And there, in the bed itself, was Danny! Not the pale Danny who had gone in for the operation. Or the over-rosy-cheeked Danny who had had a temperature. But the Danny she remembered before any of this had happened.

  ‘Mum!’ He reached out his arms and she nestled into his neck, breathing in his own smell, which, according to her American parenting magazine, was unique to each child. ‘You were ages!’

  ‘I had to get some surprises,’ she teased and then looked at Sam, hardly daring to believe their son was there. When the doctor had come to them to say that the transfusion had been completed and now they could only wait and maybe pray if they felt able to, they had slept in each other’s arms on the narrow hospital camp bed that someone had found for them, clinging together for comfort.

  During the next few days, Danny was definitely looking better. He was brighter than he had been after the first transfusion, too. And now he was well enough to be eating his birthday cake. Just a small slice, said the nurses, and yes, they wouldn’t mind a piece themselves. Thank you.

  ‘Can I have my present now? asked Danny.

  Nancy looked across to Sam. Usually it would be him telling Danny off for being impatient, but now she would do it. She needed to take a firmer line. That was another of her resolutions. ‘Small boys shouldn’t ask for their presents. They should wait until they are given them.’

  Sam was already reaching into his pocket. ‘But since you haven’t been well, we’ll make an exception, won’t we, Mummy?’

  He beamed up at her and Nancy felt that warm glow which had started to develop between them in Vietnam and had grown even stronger during Danny’s illness. She’d heard the nurses say that when a child’s life was threatened, parents either split up or got closer.

  ‘If you say so!’ She watched as Sam took the white envelope from his pocket and handed it to their son, who was now jumping up and down with excitement.
Nancy felt her heart quicken as she watched Danny pull the photograph out of the envelope.

  ‘We weren’t allowed to bring him with us,’ said Sam, ‘but he’ll be there waiting for you when you get back.’

  Danny looked as though he had seen the five wise men, the three wise women, the star and Baby Jesus (plus his understudy) all in one. ‘Pongo?’ he said in a voice that was laced with magic. ‘You’ve bought me Pongo? My dog with the funny tail?’

  Not so much bought, Nancy almost said, as given him a good home. Toby’s dad had originally sold the puppy along with the others in the litter, but Pongo had gone to a couple who had recently split up and could no longer have him. Toby’s dad had then texted Nancy soon after Danny’s successful transfusion to ask if she’d be interested. He didn’t want to sell Pongo. Instead, he just wanted a commitment that the puppy would go to a good home and a loving family.

  She’d talked it over with Sam, but they both knew the answer already.

  ‘Pongo won’t be coming to live with us until you’re home and properly better.’

  Danny’s face fell a bit.

  ‘And you’ll have to help us look after him,’ she warned. ‘That means taking him for walks whatever the weather.’

  Danny was still jumping up and down on the bed. ‘I will. I will.’

  Sam and Nancy shot each other a look that said we’ll see about that. ‘He seems better all the time,’ whispered Sam as they watched Danny unwrap his other presents. There was a pair of pyjamas from Granny Christabel and a book called Happy Children: How to bring up confident kids, which was clearly designed for her rather than the birthday boy. A small toy train from Granny Patricia. A DVD from Billy which Brigid had dropped round. And a colouring book with crayons.

  ‘That’s from Gemma,’ pointed out Nancy.

  Sam’s face seemed to change. ‘You know, I’m actually quite glad that Danny has someone else’s blood. It might have seemed odd if he’d had his playgroup teacher’s blood inside him, mixing with ours.’

  ‘Really?’ Nancy didn’t feel that way. Personally, she didn’t care whose blood it was so long as it worked, and so far, according to the doctors, all the signs were good.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes darling,’ they both said at once.

  ‘Can you help me write a letter to Father Cwismas?’

  Danny never used to lisp like that! The nurses said that was something that could happen after a serious illness. The recovering child learned that he or she had been in danger, and often began acting younger in order to continue getting attention. That was one she needed to watch.

  ‘Of course I’ll help. But it’s Christmas, not Cwismas.’

  Danny was already getting out the crayons that Gemma had given him. ‘I want to write it now.’

  Sam laughed. ‘OK, son. What do you want to say?’

  ‘I want to ask him for one present.’

  ‘Another one?’ joked one of the nurses.

  Danny nodded solemnly, suddenly producing the pink and blue striped rubber which he must have had in his pyjama pocket. ‘I want to ask Father Cwismas to bring Lily back.’

  There was a short silence. ‘You know, son, Father Christmas can’t always do everything,’ said Sam quietly.

  ‘Yes he can, Dad! He’s magic. He can do whatever he wants!’

  Nancy went back to Hazelwood on the train. Now Danny was so much better, she and Sam had felt it was only fair to give Mr Balls back his flat. They no longer needed a London base. Instead, she and one or other grandmother would come up daily, and Sam, who had gone back to the London office, would visit at lunchtime when he could.

  It would be so nice to be back in her own home, she thought as she walked up the hill from the station and put the key in the front door. Putting down her bags in the hall, she looked around disbelievingly. Where was the desk? Where was the stool which had stood in the space under the stairs?

  Shocked, Nancy went into the kitchen and then into the back room which had acted as Sam’s study until he had gone away, and then as her mosaic room. None of it was recognisable. At first she thought they’d been burgled, but then realised that everything was all there. It had just been changed around.

  ‘We both thought it needed a bit of a sort-out,’ said a voice from upstairs. ‘Much better now, don’t you think? The sofa is less obtrusive where Christabel and I put it and as for your room at the back, it took us ages to sort out all those bits of glass and stone. You don’t mind, do you? We followed Christabel’s new feng shui book: amazing what a difference it makes!’

  The old Nancy would have swallowed hard and said nothing. But Danny’s illness had changed her. In fact, so had lots of things. ‘You had no right,’ she said as her mother came down the stairs looking slightly shamefaced, as though she knew she had gone too far. ‘You had no right to move things about. It’s my home. Sam’s and mine. I wouldn’t do this to your place!’

  Her mother took her arm and led her into the sitting room, which didn’t seem like her sitting room at all with that horrid maroon throw over a rocking chair that she’d never seen before. ‘Talking of Sam, my dear, there’s something I think you ought to know. Something that Patricia told me about his past.’

  ‘Christabel!’

  There was the sound of someone running down the stairs. Patricia appeared. ‘I don’t think that Nancy needs to be bothered with all that stuff now, do you?’ To her surprise, Nancy saw Patricia look daggers at her mother. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing, dear,’ said her mother hastily. ‘It’s just that we might have done something we shouldn’t have done.’

  ‘We found some old papers and photographs from when Sam was younger.’ Patricia was looking really shifty now. ‘And I’m afraid we threw them away.’

  ‘By mistake,’ said Christabel quickly.

  They shouldn’t have done that. But in the scheme of things, it wasn’t really important. The only thing that Sam and she were concerned about was Danny getting better.

  ‘I know you meant well,’ she said, pulling the maroon throw off the chair, ‘but please don’t rearrange my home. I wouldn’t do that to yours.’

  ‘What are you doing, dear? Patricia and I spent ages choosing that.’

  ‘I’m getting my own house back in order.’ She turned round to face the two women. ‘Don’t get me wrong. Sam and I are really grateful for your help. But we think it’s time you went back to your homes. Both of you.’

  Chapter 57

  JOE WAS IN a grumpy mood. This was obvious to everyone both at the main school and at Puddleducks, where the impending nativity play and of course the good news about Danny had resulted in a permanent high.

  The worst thing, Joe told himself grimly as he tried to instil some order into Reception by giving them a fun maths quiz before the final rehearsal, was that his grumpiness was obvious even to him. He could not discount the fact that his mood was not unrelated to Gemma Merryfield’s recent engagement.

  Ridiculous. He hadn’t even found her attractive back in September. Then again, it hadn’t been her face he’d been looking at when they’d first met. It had been his bike. The whole silly incident had got them both off to a bad start. It wasn’t as though his Harley had even been damaged. But he’d spoken sharply, instead of thinking first.

  Brian’s help and advice had softened Joe. Over the months, he had inexplicably found himself drawn to this girl who somehow managed to combine a sense of fun at Puddleducks with good organisational skills.

  Then, when she’d started seeing that oaf of a paratrooper with his baby face and lithe body that could bound up the staircase like an over-eager puppy, he began to see Gemma in a new light. Gone were the brown trousers and cardigans that she tended to wear during the day at Puddleducks. He watched her leaving her room at Joyce’s in knee-length dresses and slinky tights with long black boots, and looking at Action Man as though she was star-struck.

  Yes, of course it was admirable that the man was fighting for his country, a
s Joyce was always reminding everyone.

  And yes of course he was a heel to loathe him. But, thought Joe, as he collected in the fun maths quiz answers from a highly energised Reception, he realised now that he had been a fool to dismiss Gemma so easily at the beginning. She had, he could see now, all the traits he admired in a woman. She was feisty, kind, honourable, fun to be with (mostly), and stubborn just like him. If they hadn’t got off to the wrong start over his bike and if he hadn’t still been licking his wounds over Ed, it might have been very different. Now she’d gone and got herself engaged and it was too late.

  ‘Mr Balls, Mr Balls!’ shouted Elsie, her face shining with excitement as she jolted him back into the present. ‘They’re coming.’

  So they were. Joe looked out of the window along with thirty pairs of eyes and saw Gemma and Bella, her rather aloof assistant who wore heels that were too high for the classroom. She spotted him, waved and nearly dropped the box of costumes she was carrying.

  Joe had never flushed in his life, but felt he was in danger of doing so now. Unless he had caught Joyce’s menopausal symptoms, which she was all too ready to discuss, this was one more piece of evidence that he was no longer in control of his feelings.

  Not good. Something had to be done about this.

  ‘No one,’ he said in that quiet ‘I mean business’ tone which had usually worked on even the most unruly kid in his inner-city school, ‘I repeat no one is to move until they have tidied up their table. Only when I have inspected them will you be allowed to line up at the door to go down to the main hall where we will be having the rehearsal.’

  Who’s in a bad mood then? He could almost hear Ed’s voice in his head. OK. She was right. And maybe she was right about that other thing which they’d been talking about almost every evening this week. Had Lynette been right, too, to say he should give his ex-wife one more chance to prove that she wasn’t so bad after all? Only time would tell.

  ‘So the thwee withe women followed the thtar until they found Baby Jeeeethus.’