Every Woman for Herself

by Trisha Ashley

  Okay, that’s all working, I admit.

  She also does a little magic and fortune-telling, too, when asked, but she doesn’t take money for that, just trade goods.

  ‘Off you go; Inga’s expecting you,’ she said firmly.

  ‘That Inga’s a miserable bugger,’ said Gloria, now giving the kitchen floor a sort of third-degree water torture. Frost, sighing deeply, got up from his rug and jumped onto the safety of the settle, where he sat looking resigned.

  ‘She’s Scandinavian,’ said Em excusingly. ‘They all sound like that, even when they’re telling jokes. It’s to do with only having two hours of daylight a year, or something.’

  ‘Couldn’t you come with me, Em?’ I whined cravenly.

  She sighed. ‘I suppose I could walk down there with you. We’ll take the dogs, and I’ll bring Flossie back for you.’

  ‘Flossie’s still asleep. She doesn’t usually get up until lunchtime.’

  ‘She’s not a dog, she’s a cushion on legs. Go and get her, it will do her good.’

  Flossie was disgusted, but consented to accompany us down the long, winding road to Hoo House, though whether she would walk back up it again was a moot point. Perhaps Frost would pick her up in his long jaws and carry her home like a puppy?

  We were the only walkers; a series of immaculate four-wheel-drive vehicles passed us, all converging on the nursery, each giant petrol-eater containing one adult and one mutinous infant.

  Em strode through the decanted parents and offspring, grunting at anyone who dared to wish her a good morning, and dragging my reluctant self and the dogs with her.

  Our resident Luvvie, exiting too hastily from the doorway, fell over the entwined dog leads, gave me a look of surprise and then, collecting himself, strode off with a nod and a grunt as brusque as anything Em could produce.

  ‘Morning,’ said Em affably. I stared at her in amazement.

  A small, bun-faced woman in riding breeches and hunter wellies cantered out in hot pursuit, crying shrilly: ‘Oh, Mr North! Hef you got a minute?’

  ‘He’s incognito,’ I said to her helpfully.

  He was certainly fit – he was halfway down the drive already. And he didn’t come in a car, though I wouldn’t put a four-wheel-drive past him.

  ‘Incognito? He’s gorgeous!’ muttered bun-face, drooling after the retreating actor. (Tall, broad-shouldered, expensively hacked hair – no jester’s hat today.)

  ‘You can’t call someone wearing a bright red duvet gorgeous.’ I objected.

  ‘It’s vintage Kenzo,’ she said absently.

  ‘Is that sort of like judo kit?’

  ‘Judo? No,’ she said, getting a grip on herself and really looking at us for the first time. ‘Ah, Emily, is this your sister?’ she said graciously. ‘Inga said she was going to be the new helper.’

  ‘Charlie,’ Em said shortly, ‘this is Elfreda Whippington-Smythe. Bought that half-ruined farmhouse up by the Donkers. Husband looks like Monet on a bad day. One sprog.’

  ‘Er … yes, Satchel,’ agreed Mrs Whippington-Smythe nervously, but then, Em often has that effect.

  ‘Satchmo? Good name!’

  I’d have expected something more stolid, like John or Charles, or even Ethelred or Wolfbane.

  ‘No, not Satchmo,’ she corrected me. ‘Satchel – like Woody Allen’s son.’

  ‘I thought Woody Allen’s aura was a bit tarnished round the edges these days?’

  ‘Oh no – he’s such a genius! You simply can’t believe all those fairy tales Mia was putting about; she’s the jealous, unbalanced one.’

  Genius? Enough people seem to think so, although I’ve never been a fan. Maybe I just don’t have an ear for that sort of thing, like understanding classical music, or opera.

  ‘Satchel…’ I mused. ‘It’s pretty odd as a name when you think about it, isn’t it? I mean, I wonder what made him think of Satchel? Why not Handbag? Or Portmanteau if he wanted to be posh: “Come on, our Portmanteau.” Or even Bumbag.’

  There were limitless possibilities to luggage names.

  ‘Tea Bag?’ suggested Emily, interested.

  Then I noticed Elfreda’s fixed stare of offended incomprehension and got the giggles, which offended her even more.

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’ asked Em, as the small figure strode away in her green wellies like an outraged plum duff.

  ‘I expect the thought of Tea Bag Whippington-Smythe was too much for her.’

  It had made me feel better, though.

  It was a bright, cold day, the kind I like best, the children were all milling about in a non-threatening sort of way, and anyway they were all even smaller than me. So when Em said a brief ‘See you,’ and loped off, I didn’t feel too bereft.

  Flossie gave me a look of entreaty as she was towed along behind. Bet Em ends up carrying her.

  Resolutely I passed through the portals to the sound of small voices raggedly singing.

  Chapter 9

  Nature In The Raw

  How good it was to see Bran again, even if at the moment he is more one with us rather than of us. Were any of us able to speak in Amharic, I’m sure we could have many interesting conversations, but I expect he will descend to our level soon, even if only through the translation skills of Mr Froggy.

  He has brought his manuscript and reference books, which took up most of the car, and refused to come down to breakfast this morning until he had rebuilt them into a wall of Frantic Semantics across the floor of his bedroom, in exactly the same order as they were in his college room.

  Tips for Southern Visitors, no. 2: Lancashire

  Contrary to popular belief, a Coronation Street-style conurbation does not cover the entire county.

  After breakfast I went down to the nursery alone, trying to convince myself that it hadn’t been too awful yesterday. I could survive it.

  Resolution – that’s what I needed – and money. I’d put melons on Em’s shopping list again, and they’re dear just now, although I’m sure I’ll hit on the right one soon – literally.

  Walter is kindly making me a pole on a stand, exactly five feet ten inches high, to impale them on. If I can just get the sound right, as well as the relative heights …

  ‘Good morning, Inga! Isn’t it a lovely day?’ I said, coming into the light, sunny classroom.

  Inga was kneeling, trying to coax a pencil from between the floorboards with the pin of her edelweiss brooch.

  The sun seemed to have leached the colour out of her so that her sad, beige hair dripped down her shoulders like a frozen waterfall, and her pale eyes reflected dully back like a dead fish.

  ‘Ja,’ she agreed mournfully, with a voice that held the long, dark despair of centuries of Scandinavian winters. ‘It is a beautiful day. The sun is shining, but you can nevew be suwe. Later it may wain, and the stowms come, and the big, black clouds, heavy, heavy! And the lightning and the big wolls of thunder – and then I must get into the cup-bowd.’

  ‘In the cupboard?’

  ‘Ja. Always, since I am a little giwl, I must go in the cup-bowd.’

  ‘Any particular cupboard, Inga? Just so I know where to find you if necessary?’

  ‘Is the cup-bowd under the stairs – dawk and safe. When the lightning stwikes and the house falls down, the staiwes will stop the big stones fwom falling on my head.’

  ‘Right. And Gunilla? Does she go in the cupboard, too?’

  It was only my second day, and already I was wishing that Gunilla would go in the cup-bowd on a permanent basis.

  ‘No-o,’ sighed Inga heavily. ‘She will not go in, though I plead with hew and say it is the only safe place. But she is excited when the thunder sounds and the lightning cwackles, so she likes to wun about, scweaming.’

  ‘Sounds like fun.’

  ‘Ja. It is her natuwal way of expwession. And when the wain is heavy she must take off hew clothes and wun outside.’

  ‘Must?’

  ‘Must.’

  Since Gunilla w
as supposed to be modelling her behaviour on that of the adults – The Group – around her, it poses the question: which members of the community run about in the rain, naked? And surely not in the winter?

  ‘Is that a good idea, Inga?’

  ‘Ja. If you twy to stop hew she bites. Sometimes she does not put hew clothes on again for the west of the day, because she must be as one with Natuw. In the summew,’ she added heavily, ‘we awe all at one with Natuw, but only when school is finished. Some of the pawents, they do not feel the need to be at one with natuw.’

  ‘No, I can imagine.’

  Mrs Whippington-Smythe, for instance, is only at one with large, hairy, four-legged creatures that neigh.

  ‘The childwen come now,’ she murmured unnecessarily, as a tide of shrieking banshees raced towards us.

  ‘Stop!’ bellowed a male voice from the hall. ‘Sing!’

  Sudden silence was followed by the ragged, reluctant, voices of fifteen children droning something unintelligible.

  ‘What is that song?’

  ‘It is the Wainbow song – to inspwire them for the wowk.’

  ‘Funny, it sounds a bit like Japanese.’

  ‘Ja. that is so. They awe singing: “Build the wainbow, bwidge the world with coluw, and walk acwoss into the clouds of happiness. Go fwom flowuw to flowuw, and sip the knowledge of life thwough natuw.”’

  The roar began again and the door bounced back on its hinges with a crash.

  ‘Here they come for a taste of that, then, Inga.’

  Gunilla, predictably, was first in. Snot streamed from her nostrils like twin green pennants as she made for the easel and paints. Or rather, paint: only pots of liquid black were supplied, and big bamboo brushes.

  ‘Aren’t they supposed to start at one side of the room and then move around in a big arc, from task to task?’ I said, baffled by the milling tots. Yesterday I’d observed rather than joined in, but hadn’t managed to make a lot of sense of it.

  ‘Ja – see, Susie has them beginning with the thwee discs of logic now.’

  Indeed, some of the children were slapping multicoloured discs onto a pole, with the fierce concentration of those desiring to progress quickly to something more interesting.

  ‘But Gunilla is—’

  ‘Gunilla is mowe at one with Natuw than the othews; she is beyond this stage and must be allowed her fwee expwession. Besides, she is being bwought up puwely thwough Natuw.’

  ‘I think she has a cold.’

  ‘Ja, it is because she wuns awound naked in the wain in winter, as in Natuw,’ agreed Inga.

  Nature in the raw. ‘Right. Er … what do you want me to do?’

  ‘I think today you can help them to build the Wainbow of Happiness. That they always find hawd – always it falls down befowe the Key of Enlightenment is insewted into the Hole of Stability.’

  ‘My whole life’s been like that,’ I said, and she nodded a sad agreement.

  That morning was the first time that I felt almost glad that I hadn’t got any children, although one or two were quite appealing in an untrammelled sort of way.

  En masse, of course, they were all monsters; but none more so than poor, natural Gunilla. (Or Godzilla, as I kept accidentally saying.)

  Gunilla was everywhere, pinching the other children, screaming with rage if she couldn’t get her own way, and shoving in anywhere she wanted.

  ‘I want to put the Stone of Enlightenment in!’ she declared, using her elbows to break into my group, who were laboriously constructing the rainbow, eyes crossing with concentration.

  I smiled at her: ‘Sorry, Godz—I mean Gunilla, this is Josie’s turn. But then you can help to build the rainbow back up and put the stone in.’

  Gunilla stared at me incredulously. ‘I’m putting the sodding stone in this time!’ she declared, stamping her foot.

  ‘No, Gunilla,’ I said patiently. ‘It’s Josie’s turn this time, but you can do it next – we will build a very special rainbow just for you.’

  ‘Do it fucking now!’ she screamed, trying to shove the large, stolid, Josie aside.

  ‘No, Gunilla. Why don’t you go and find a hankie and blow your nose, and then it will be time to build your rainbow?’

  Josie inserted the central stone of the arch while Gunilla stared at me with a sort of malevolent incredulity.

  Goblins are alive and well, and living in Upvale.

  Then, turning, she bit Josie, who overbalanced, screaming, onto the rainbow arch, which collapsed.

  Gunilla threw herself to the floor and went into a paroxysm of rage, and Inga hurried over to snatch her infant to her bosom, which instantly became smeared with viscous green.

  She rocked, crooning in lightly fractured English: ‘What is the matter with my baby? Tell Mama, and she will make it all wight again.’

  Gunilla darted a glance at me, as I tried to comfort poor Josie, who now sported a crooked circle of bite marks on one hand.

  ‘Horrible cow wouldn’t let me put the stone in the rainbow!’ she whimpered.

  I looked up. ‘No, because it was Josie’s turn – she’d built the rainbow. Gunilla could have had her turn next.’ I turned back to Josie worriedly. ‘Inga, Gunilla’s teeth have pierced the skin – I think I’d better put some antiseptic on the bite, if you’ll tell me where the first-aid stuff is.’

  Inga rose to her feet, cradling her four-year-old to her chest like a baby. ‘Nevew, nevew must you cwoss Gunilla! How could you? She is lewning thwough fweedom to be one with Natuw.’

  ‘But surely during the Rainbow Nursery sessions she must fit in to some extent with what we are doing with the other children? With the Rainbow ethos? Is it fair to teach them a rigid structure, and then let Gunilla come in and disrupt everything by doing just what she wants?’

  ‘I want my mummy!’ sobbed poor little Josie. ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘I want the nasty lady to go away!’ screeched Gunilla.

  ‘Mamma will build the winbow for you, and you can put the stone in now,’ soothed Inga, pushing her jumper up to reveal a breast like an elephant’s ear. She proceeded to breastfeed her hysterical child, ignoring both the wounded infant and the small circle of watchers, one with a thumb in her mouth and a couple noticeably damp round the edges.

  ‘Big baby!’ Caitlin commented critically, standing stolidly on the bylines watching play, with her hands thrust into her dungaree pockets, rather like a miniature Em.

  ‘Quite right,’ I agreed, picking Josie up and going to look for the antiseptic.

  Gunilla’s little yellow teeth gave promise of tetanus if not rabies, and I only hoped the little girl’s inoculations were up to date.

  When I returned her to the class later (much happier, due to the fortunate discovery of a rather strange tin of biscuits and a story book, which I’d read to her three times) Gunilla ran up and kicked me hard on the shin.

  With a gasp of pain I picked her up so that she was nose to nose with me and said furiously: ‘Don’t ever, ever, do that to me again!’

  Her eyes were two startled discs – Discs of Enlightenment, I hoped. ‘Mama!’ she screamed.

  But Mama had already flown to the rescue like a virago. Not to my rescue, though: frothing at the lips she seized Godzilla and pointed at the door.

  ‘Go!’

  ‘Go?’ I bent down, hitched up my skirts and peered at a promising bruise. It was unfortunate that my assailant had been wearing clogs with wooden soles when she’d committed her onslaught. ‘Yes, you’re right. I’d better put some antiseptic on this, too. I’ll be in the kitchen when Gunilla is ready to apologise, Inga.’

  Susie popped her head into the kitchen a few minutes later and winked. ‘Good for you! But they won’t let you come again, you know, if Gunilla’s taken against you. Keith will be in soon to tell you, in a deeply understanding voice, that it’s all your fault. Make sure they pay you for the two days before you go.’

  ‘Right. Thanks, Susie,’ I said.

  Keith, a tall, skinny man w
ith a head like a lightbulb, duly informed me in hushed tones of reproach that Gunilla’s behaviour that morning was entirely due to my own aura of hidden aggression, which the poor sensitive creature had sensed, and therefore he unfortunately did not feel that I should work with the children any more.

  ‘I’m not aggres—’ I began indignantly, and then stopped. Maybe I was? Maybe I’m wearing a permanent aura of Frying Pan Murderess? But aggressive … I don’t think so. And certainly not towards children, even poor little Gunilla. Firmness isn’t aggression, and the other children seemed to like me.

  ‘I don’t agree with you.’ I said politely. ‘I think Gunilla is simply confused by being allowed total freedom, while attending a nursery with a very rigid structure that the other children have to stick to. It isn’t fair to her or the others.’

  ‘The lesson that life isn’t fair will benefit them all,’ Keith said deeply.

  Little twerp.

  ‘It’s a pity Gunilla hasn’t learned that one yet, isn’t it? Still, if you’d like to pay me for the two mornings I’ve worked, I’ll be off.’

  He looked taken aback. ‘But surely after what’s happened you don’t expect—?’

  ‘The labourer is worthy of her hire. And look on the bright side: I won’t claim any money from you for this top, which Gunilla ruined by wiping her paint-covered hands up the back. It’s got poor little Josie’s blood over the sleeves, now, too.’

  He stared at me, chewing his moustache, then grudgingly dipped into his pocket and counted out my measly wages in small change. ‘There. Now, perhaps you could go to Gunilla before you leave and make peace with her? Her sensitive nature has been troubled by your aggression, and—’

  ‘No,’ I interrupted firmly, ‘but if Gunilla would like to come to me and apologise before I go, you could fetch her now?’

  ‘Apologise? Gunilla?’

  Seeing we had reached an impasse in understanding I left the house, jingling my money and limping, and Inga and Gunilla glowered at me silently from the schoolroom door.

  For a moment as I turned away I felt like a horrible, evil, child-eating witch, but really, I don’t want to hurt anyone, and would never have struck Gunilla however hard she kicked me.