Amy is chewing her fists. Maybe she’s hungry? It is lunchtime and she did vomit up most of her breakfast. ‘Do you want lunch?’
‘Blunch!’ she squeals.
Then the doorbell rings. Just what I need.
On the doorstep, I find a cheerful-looking man in a smart green boilersuit. ‘Mrs Rutherford?’ I still can’t get used to being called that. ‘I’m Trevor, I’m here to log your energy meter.’
‘This really isn’t a good time, I’m afraid,’ I say, jiggling Amy up and down on my hip.
‘Right.’ Trevor shifts his weight between his feet, his smile slipping ever so slightly. ‘It’s just, you’ll be charged a call-out fee if you choose to reschedule.’
‘Fine, come in. But I have amnesia, so I don’t remember booking this. Can you find what you need by yourself?’
‘Sure.’ Trevor eyes me warily. ‘Do you know where your meter is?’ I shake my head. ‘Have you got an appliance cupboard? There’s usually a panel.’
‘Blunch!’ squeals Amy, and I put her down for a minute because she’s pulling my hair and I need to show Trevor where the utility room is.
When I return, I find that in the thirty seconds I’ve been away, Amy has managed to take off her nappy and wee all over the hall carpet.
‘Amy! No!’
She wails.
‘Your panel’s not in there,’ Trevor calls, coming back and grimacing at the mess. ‘I’ll have a scout about for it, shall I? I can see you’ve got your hands full.’
Once I’ve cleared up the mess in the hall, I head to the kitchen and find a pouch of purée for Amy and a nut and seed energy bar for myself. Amy throws the pouch on the floor and snatches the bar out of my hand. The washing machine’s beeping feels like a woodpecker tapping at the inside of my skull. What if I can’t turn it off? What if we have to live with this sound for the rest of our lives? People will visit us and we’ll have to give them earplugs. It will come to define who we are as people.
Trevor’s grinning face appears around the kitchen door. ‘I found the panel,’ he says triumphantly.
Amy has demolished my nut bar and is now shouting, ‘NANA!’ at me.
‘Nana’s not here, sweetie,’ I tell her. But she holds out her fists and clenches them open and closed. ‘NANA!’
‘I think she’s trying to say banana,’ Trevor says. Right. Even Trevor understands my child better than I do. ‘Do you want me to turn that beeping off?’ he offers.
‘Yes please, Trevor! For the love of God, yes.’
Trevor looks scared. I find Amy a banana, and she grabs it in delight. Trevor fails to stop the beeping, though he does manage to open the washing machine so I can get Felix’s football jersey out.
Ten minutes later, Trevor is gone, and Amy and I are back in the car, with Felix’s damp jersey hanging out of my window
‘Baa sheep! Baa sheep!’ yells Amy once we’re driving.
‘Stan, play “Baa Sheep”，’ I try.
‘You want to drive to BAARLE-NASSAU in BELGIUM?’ Stanley offers.
‘No!’
My crush on Stanley Tucci is quickly evaporating. I’m starting to miss Trevor, short as our co-parenting relationship was.
‘Baa sheep!’ Amy wails insistently. I try singing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ myself, but I can’t remember the words, and now I have a pounding headache from all the washing machine beeping and crying and singing and intense multitasking. We lose ten minutes driving in the wrong direction because I realise Stanley is trying to take us to Belgium. Eventually, we arrive at the school gates and I unbuckle Amy and run inside with her. My arms are aching from carrying her around all day. Is this why I have biceps now?
‘Hi, I just wanted to drop off some football kit for Felix Rutherford,’ I tell the woman at the reception desk, eyeing the clock on the wall, as I try to catch my breath. She gives me a pitying look, and it’s only then that I realise what I must look like. I have baby purée in my hair, huge sweat patches on my shirt and God knows what else because I didn’t even look in the mirror before I left the house. Amy looks like a frazzled flamingo.
‘What class is he in?’ she asks.
‘Um. I’m not sure. He’s seven.’
‘You don’t know what class he’s in?’ she asks, narrowing her eyes at me. An older woman with brown curly hair walks through from one of the offices behind and now I feel doubly judged.
‘Three C,’ says the older woman. ‘Felix Rutherford is in Three C. While you’re here, Mrs Rutherford, I wonder if you have time for a quick chat?’
The receptionist reaches for the football kit and, on feeling it’s still slightly damp, gives me a pointed ‘Tut’。
‘Maybe you could put it on a radiator for a minute?’ I ask in a low voice, before following the older woman into her office. The sign on the door reads – ‘Mrs H. Barclay, Head Teacher’。
‘Take a seat,’ she says, picking up a book and handing it to Amy. It’s a hardbacked flap book about rabbits, and Amy paws it gleefully. ‘One of my favourites.’
‘Excellent,’ I say, simply for something to say.
‘Were you aware that Felix brought nuts onto school property this morning?’
‘Nuts?’
‘Nuts are not allowed, Mrs Rutherford. Allergies.’
‘Oh no, I’m so sorry, that was my fault. Is everyone okay?’
‘They were confiscated and disposed of.’ She pauses. ‘Felix didn’t have the right books this morning either, and he missed roll call.’
‘Yes sorry, we were late, we um . . .’ I try to think how I can word my excuses. Sam won’t be impressed if I’m left in charge for a day and both the children are taken away by social services.
‘I just wanted to check everything was okay at home?’ she asks, leaning across the desk towards me. ‘Felix told his teacher you’d disappeared.’ She pauses, knitting her hands and lowering her eyes. ‘If there are problems at home, it’s always best to let the school know – then we’re best able to help your children with any difficult transitions.’
‘Oh no, nothing like that,’ I attempt an overly cheerful smile. ‘Just some, um, health issues.’ I pause. ‘I’d rather not discuss the specifics, but they might account for Felix’s recent behaviour.’
‘I see.’ She nods slowly, then frowns as though she doesn’t see at all and would like me to elaborate. ‘He asked his teacher if he could build a space rocket in project time—’
‘How ambitious of him.’
‘– so that he could send his pretend mother back to her alien planet.’
A short, sharp laugh escapes my lips, which is met with a frown. ‘Children have such vivid imaginations, don’t they?’ I say.
‘I don’t want to pry,’ she says, though clearly, she does. ‘As long as you have everything under control, and you don’t send nuts into school again.’
‘I do, thank you, Mrs Barclay. Everything is under control. Got it, no nuts.’
At which point Amy throws up a soupy sludge of undigested nuts, all over the head teacher’s desk.