May 1984
‘Are you going in then, or what?’
Joanne jumped, her heart pounding again, in the violent way it kept doing these days. Behind her was another woman pushing a buggy. Joanne had not heard her coming, the wheels gliding across the dark green lino. In a moment of panic she realized she could also not remember anything about how she had got here herself, how she came to be peering through the little reinforced glass window in the door of the church hall, her hand gripping the handle of Amy’s buggy. Had she been here long? She had no idea.
The woman behind her was white-faced and plump. She wore glasses in big red frames and had jaw-length hair that she obviously had not got around to brushing. Her baggy purple T-shirt was hanging out over a long denim skirt. In the buggy, a dark-haired boy of about two was wrestling to get out.
‘Sorry – yes, I’m going in,’ Joanne went to push the door. Weak with nerves she found it hard to open. Sound blared out. The toddler group was well under way.
‘Only we’re already late – he’s so difficult in the mornings…’ The woman was trying to unfasten the straps to release the squirming boy. ‘Oh Josh just wait a minute…’ Joanne thought she heard a sob in her voice.
The hall was strewn with toys and chaotic with the movements of small children. Some were pursued by their mothers while other women stood talking in clusters at the edges.
The first time Joanne had come, a fortnight ago (she had had to miss it last week, the state she was in) she had mistaken the time, come just after ten and found the hall almost empty. Only Tess was there, the woman who ran the group, carrying out toys from the storage cupboard at the back and arranging them round the hall while her little boy ran up and down. It was Tess who had given Joanne the courage to come back. Tess, freckly-faced with curly, straw coloured hair tied up in a ponytail had a kind, naturally friendly way with her. She was carrying six months of pregnancy around in a pair of bleached denim dungarees with a bright orange T-shirt underneath and purple desert boots. She seemed to sense how nervous Joanne was and spoke gently to her.
‘It can be quite hard at first ’ she said, then laughed. ‘As if everything about being a mother isn’t hard at first! But I sometimes tell people it might be better not to come until their children are already sitting up. There’s a mother of twins comes, both crawling now and she’s run ragged. But I suppose it gets her out. Your little one’s already on her feet though isn’t she? So that’s fine.’ She had smiled at Amy, sitting sucking on a bottle of juice in her buggy, watching everything with her huge blue eyes.
‘She’s beautiful,’ she said, warmly.
This kindness brought Joanne suddenly close to tears. She had almost felt an adoration of Tess in that instant. Together they had set up the rest of the room and it had felt good to be involved. She had wanted to come back last week, but her mouth had been so swollen and the cut he had given her kept splitting open. She had been too ashamed to go out.
Today though it was all already in full swing – the toys in full use, a corner for painting, another for play dough (made at home by Tess) and even a little plastic pool on a table for water play. Amy was squeaking with excitement.
‘Out!’ she insisted, tugging at the straps.
‘So – you remember all this, don’t you?’ Joanne said. She was glad to have Amy to deal with, as she felt shy and awkward among the other women. Some of them seemed so confident, as if they’d been mothers all their lives.
Unstrapping Amy she kissed the top of her head, feeling her warmth through the cap of blonde hair. But Amy was in a hurry and jerked her head, banging against Joanne’s lip where it had almost healed so that her eyes filled. Faintly she tasted blood again. For a second it felt unbearable, like the last straw.
Amy headed straight for the painting table where one of the helpers, a cheerful young woman called Mavis put a plastic overall on her.
‘There you are love – you can go and paint your masterpiece now can’t you?’ she said, in warm Jamaican Brummie.
‘Thanks,’ Joanne mumbled. Amy looked lovely in the bright yellow overall. She had met Mavis last time.
‘She’s loving it isn’t she?’ Mavis observed. She stood watching Amy, arms folded, neat in a short sleeved grey top and black skirt. Round her neck she wore a little gold cross on a chain. Mavis must have been younger than Joanne – only about eighteen - but she seemed very mature. And Mavis was the sort of person beside whose neat slenderness, her smooth brown skin and tidy, clinging hair, Joanne felt like a wayward scarecrow. Joanne was quite tall, five seven, thin and long-legged like her father. She had good sized breasts – that was good – but otherwise she felt gangly and as if everything was bulging out in all the wrong places, especially now she’d had Amy. In the past Dave had always told her she was imagining it – ‘You’ve got a great figure. That’s the trouble with you girls – you’re never satisfied.’ That was old Dave, who had loved her body, her pink cheeked complexion and wavy brown hair – that was before he turned sour and critical. Now everything about her seemed to be wrong. These days she nearly always wore jeans, her hair hoiked back in a loose ponytail. She hadn’t had it trimmed for months – since before Amy.
‘You want to do summat about yourself.’ Dave kept saying, in between cross-questioning her about where she was going. ‘Get back in shape.’
Instead she just felt like staying in.
‘She’ll be fine,’ Mavis told her. ‘I’ll watch her for a few minutes if you want to go and get yourself a coffee? You know where the kitchen is?’
‘Oh yes, ta,’ Joanne said, trying to sound relaxed and confident. ‘I won’t be long.’
Crossing the hall she saw the stressed looking woman who had arrived with her squatting beside a pile of Duplo, pleading with her son to stop whacking another child’s head with his latest red and yellow creation.
‘I’m warning you – I’ll have to take you home,’ she heard shrilly, in passing. ‘Look at Tom – he’s not hitting other children…’
There was a gaggle of young white mothers in one corner. One she had met last time was thin and pale with long black hair and a baby whose father was obviously black; another, dumpy and competent, was pregnant with her third child. With them was the mother of the twins who was thin as a railing with piercings round her ears and nose which caught the light like a pin cushion. There were a few nervy, educated women who were already fretting about primary schools, something Joanne had not given a thought to, a group of black mothers who tended to hang out together, a couple of volunteers like Mavis who were hoping to move on to careers in childcare and Tess, who sailed like a calm, reassuring ship between each of the groups, spreading goodwill.
A couple of the West Indian mothers were in the kitchen, one arranging biscuits on a plate, the other pouring squash into little plastic beakers. They were busy chatting so Joanne made tea for herself. Drinks were to be kept in the kitchen away from any risk of scalding the children. Joanne took a few sips of her sweet tea, leaning against the kitchen doorframe, hugging the warm mug to her chest. Amy was still deep in her picture. Toy cars skittered across the floor. She watched the others all talking. Part of her longed to be included, to be part of all these groups, but she didn’t know how to begin. She used not to be like this – a bit shy maybe, but not with this feeling of being separate and shut off from people behind a wall.
I must make sure I get home on time, she thought. Her heart began racing again, that sick thumping. He might come home to check up on her. It was never far away: every few minutes the thought of home came to her, and Dave. Always now, she was waiting for something to happen. Even in her sleep.
The main door opened and in came another buggy, pushed by the Asian girl who she’d seen here last time. Joanne had been surprised. She didn’t think Asians would come to these groups – not in a church. Wasn’t it against their religion? She hadn’t spoken to her and the woman had seemed a bit left out. She looked very young, was fine boned, delicate, and had a tiny daughter with huge eyes and a head of thick, wavy hair.
The Asian girl was lifting her daughter out. Joanne thought frowned, narrowing her eyes. It was the same girl, wasn’t it? She certainly recognized the child. But there was something very different about her mother. It took her a moment to realize. Last time the girl had been wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Joanne remembered how its bright yellow had flattered her, her long plait swinging darkly against it at the back. But this week the back of her head was covered by a thin scarf. She was dressed in one of those Asian suits, baggy trousers and long shirt, all in a pale mauve, edged with gold thread. It made her look quite different and Joanne found it puzzling. Wasn’t she expected to wear one kind of clothes or the other? The Muslim girls at school, like her friend Mevish, had always dressed much the same – trousers under skirts and scarves.
She rinsed out the cup and returned in time to find Mavis lifting the overall off over Amy’s head.
‘We’ve had enough of painting,’ she said. ‘There now – and what a lot you’ve done – look, three pictures! I’ll peg them up on the line.’
Along the wall behind her, exhibits with paint running down them were pegged along a piece of string.
Amy was already trotting across the room towards the pile of Duplo and Joanne followed and knelt beside her glad to feel useful at last. The right knee of her jeans was torn and she snagged her knee on the sharp corner of one of the bricks. Beside her was the mother with the long black hair who glanced at her. They were silent for a while, then the girl nodded at Amy.
‘How old is she?’ Her own daughter, dark, plump and lovely looking was gazing at Amy as if mesmerized.
‘She’s sixteen months,’ Joanne said proudly. It was nice to be spoken to, even if the woman had a faintly hostile manner. ‘Well, and a half now. What about yours?’
‘Oh – she’s only just a year.’
‘Big, isn’t she?’
‘Yeah.’ The woman smiled and shrugged. ‘She’s heavy I can tell yer. You should see her Dad.’
A moment later Joanne felt something pushing in between the two of them. A pair of tiny brown hands appeared, then a face, as if the little girl was tunnelling her way in to get to the toys. Joanne leaned over to let her pass and a moment later she was absorbed in building something. She was wearing pale blue trousers and a sugar pink shirt.
‘Sorry – did she push in?’ Joanne heard a high, soft voice and turned to see the young Asian woman.
‘Oh – no, she’s all right,’ Joanne said. ‘She just wants to play.’
Just then a voice called across the hall, ‘Dani – come over ‘ere and see this!’
The black haired woman heaved her daughter off the floor and disappeared. The Asian woman sat down in her place in a shy, almost tentative way and as she did so, Amy leaned over and snatched a little Duplo fireman out of her daughter’s hands. The other child gave a loud squawk of protest and held on for grim death.
‘Amy – stop that!’ Joanne said, breaking it up. ‘You can’t just take toys from someone like that – now you let…’ She glanced at the mother.
‘Priya – but don’t worry about it…’
‘No – Amy, you let Priya keep it… I’m sorry.’ She said. Amy looked as if she was about to cry but she let go, seeming bewildered. ‘She hasn’t been with many other children. She’s not learnt how to share yet.’
‘Oh that’s all right. Priya’s got cousins so she’s used to it.’ The woman sounded amused. She seemed friendly, her face thin and pretty in a gentle way, with lively eyes which seemed to hold a hint of mischief.
‘That must be nice,’ Joanne said wistfully. ‘The cousins I mean.’
‘Hm – sometimes it is. But they’re a bit older and they do push her about quite a lot.
She’s had to be tough, even though she’s small.’
‘How old is she?’ Joanne asked. The girl looked so little and fragile.
‘Just eighteen months – tomorrow.’
‘Is she? I’d never‘ve thought she was older than Amy – two months!’
‘Amy – that’s pretty. What’s you name?’
‘Oh – Joanne. What about you?’
‘Sooky. My name’s Sukhdeep but it sounds a bit rude in English isn’t it, if you say it the wrong way, so everyone calls me Sooky.’ She gave a surprisingly full-throated laugh and the mischief in her eyes increased.
‘Well I suppose – if you think of it that way!’ Joanne found herself laughing too, and it was a nice feeling.
Sooky looked as if she was about to say something else but then Tess called from the kitchen door, ‘Children’s drinks are ready!’ Everyone got up and headed for the squash and biscuits and afterwards there was no chance to talk.
As they were all gathering up their children to leave at the end though, Sooky pushed her buggy over to Joanne with Priya already strapped in. Shyly, she said,
‘See you next time, maybe?’
Joanne found a smile breaking across her face. ‘Yeah – probably. See you.’
Walking home she popped into the shops to by bread and a bunch of bananas. She felt suddenly cheerful.