The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life by William Nicholson

Author:William Nicholson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: McArthur & Company Publishing Limited
Published: 2010-01-16T22:00:00+00:00

30

Friday, last day of the school week. Alice trotting off so bravely to her classroom, smiling for me to show I don’t have to worry, but I do. I’ve not forgotten what it’s like, God knows school can be torture, I want to tell her it’s not the whole world, only one tiny corner of the world, but it’s not true. It’s the whole world all right. And these laughing running children in their bright blue blazers designed to convey an image of order and privilege are wild animals just as we were, forming packs, asserting dominance, demanding submission. Why must it be like that?

Oh my baby how have I failed you? No one in all of history has ever loved their child as much as I love you. I love your funny long face and your skinny legs. I love to feel you close to me, holding on to me, not because you can’t bear to be parted from me, you run off smiling, but because we just belong together, you and me. I never want to let you go, want to be with you always, I’d come to all your lessons with you if I could, sit by your side and pass notes when the teacher’s not looking, but I know I have to let you go. Only why must there be so much unhappiness?

‘Ah. Hello there.’

There he is, the one I have to talk to, and blushing because he wept in front of me. He’s not sure what to call me, he knows I’m an unmarried mother, the unmarried mother. In the upper economic zone there are many single mothers but all comfortably divorced.

‘Mr Strachan. I was hoping to catch you.’

‘Is everything all right with your mother?’

‘Yes, she’s fine, thanks. No, actually, she isn’t. Her dog was killed. It’s all a bit of a tragedy, in fact.’

All Mummy can think about is that bloody little dog, you’d think she could have picked up a phone, but I knew nothing till the teacher called. A child surely has a higher claim on the attention than a dog, especially a dead dog.

‘How did it happen?’

‘We don’t really know. She found him dead in a field.’

Poor old Mummy, I mustn’t be too hard on her, that little dog was her child, more than me really. At least he didn’t go off and produce a bastard, though he might have done, no I think he’d been neutered.

‘But you were wonderful with Alice. I haven’t had a chance to thank you properly.’

‘It was good to get to know her a little.’

‘Well, whatever you said to her she’s totally in love with you now.’

I wonder what his name is, I can’t go on calling him Mr Strachan, he has to be younger than me, only a boy really. He has a sweet face, hard to think of him as a teacher. The truth is even we parents can’t help relating to teachers as power figures, we become children again, stand up tall, don’t shuffle your feet, Elizabeth, what’s that you’ve got in your mouth.

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