Out of Step (13 page)

‘I don’t like this table,’ Josh interrupted. ‘I want our one back.’

‘Milk,’ Nell said, putting a mugful down on the table in front of Rosie.

‘My cup!’ Rosie demanded. ‘Want it in my cup!’

‘It’s not here,’ Rob explained patiently. ‘None of our things is. We don’t live here any more. I know it’s hard to accept but we’ve all got to make a big effort.’

Josh fixed Nell with a baleful look. ‘Why’s she here?’

‘Because it’s Nell’s cottage now. She’s bought it from us.’

‘It’s
my
house,’ Josh insisted, covering his ears and speaking loudly, ‘my house, my house, my house …’

‘Tea,’ Nell said, giving Rob a mug. ‘So, how’s the caravan then?’

‘Josh! Please be quiet.’ Rob sighed. ‘It’s perfectly adequate, but fairly cramped, especially at weekends.’ He looked across at Rosie. ‘Are you drinking that milk then, pudding?’ Rosie picked the mug up clumsily and spilt some on to the table. ‘Careful!’ Rob warned her.

‘It’s my fault,’ Nell said, ‘don’t worry. I must have filled it too full.’

‘It’s all
your fault,’
Josh said, sotto voice.

‘I’ll get something to wipe it up.’ Nell went over to the sink, and got the dishcloth from its hook. She understood the children’s confusion and felt sorry for them – sorry too for Rob, and almost guilty at her own good fortune. Joshua is a very beautiful child, she thought, looking at
his profile – lovely dark eyes and lustrous curly hair. Pity Rosie didn’t take after her father too.

‘Is the stove behaving itself?’ Rob asked her.

‘Well, it smokes quite a lot when I first light it.’

‘Cold chimney,’ Rob explained. ‘No proper draught until it heats up.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. And it seems to get through mountains of wood. Good thing you left me a decent pile.’

‘I reckoned about ten tons a year,’ Rob said. ‘You want to buy it in the summer as cordwood, and stack it to season for eighteen months or so, otherwise it’s too green and the whole system tars up inside.’

‘Goodness!’ Nell exclaimed. ‘It sounds like a full-time job.’

‘Don’t want this,’ Rosie said, slopping her milk again.

‘Clumsy!’ Rob reproved her. ‘Perhaps Josh will finish it for you.’

‘I want a bag,’ Josh demanded, ‘like you said.’

‘Oh yes,’ Rob said, ‘a carrier bag would be very useful if you’ve got a spare one.’

Nell went into her utility room under the stairs, and came out with several.

‘Rosie wanth one!’

‘We’d better go,’ Rob said, getting to his feet. ‘Here you are, Rosie, a bag for you, and one for Josh, and one for me. Let’s go and collect up all your treasures, shall we, and then go back to our caravan.’

‘I want us all to sleep
here,’
Josh said.

‘Well, that would be difficult, wouldn’t it?’ his father said reasonably. ‘Without enough beds?’

‘Thilly willy, thilly willy, thilly willy…’ Rosie mocked him.

‘It ISN’T,’ Josh retorted furiously. ‘And anyway, you haven’t got one, so na na-ne NA nah!’

They were still niggling each other as they climbed into
the Land Rover, and didn’t even look back at Nell as Rob turned it round and drove off with a brief wave, shutting his door only as they disappeared from view.

‘Ah well,’ Nell said to the empty air. ‘What a surprise, eh? Nice meeting you.’

Cassie reckoned she could talk most people into doing what she wanted, most of the time. Mic had now applied to the local authority to become registered as a child minder, and today a social worker was due to come to inspect both them and the proposed premises. He arrived only ten minutes late, looking, Cassie thought, a bit too smug for her liking.

‘Oh, it’s Mrs Hayhoe, isn’t it? My colleague thought she recognised this address,’ he said to her at the door. ‘And how are things with you?’

‘Fine,’ Cassie said rather brusquely, ‘but never mind all that. It’s Mic you’re here to vet, and the wonderful room we’ve got ready specially. You’ll be amazed when you see it.’ She led the way upstairs, and stood proudly in the doorway, ushering him and Mic through.

She could tell at once that he was impressed. He looked all around him at the terracotta ceiling, the severalcoloured walls: orange, cream, beige and brown, and at the gleaming primrose-woodwork. The sofas and chair were grouped together for story-telling. The table had paints and paper and brushes laid out on it. There was a bookcase full of picture books, a box of bricks, another of Lego, and six teddy bears. And discreetly on a corner shelf there was a baby-changing mat with a disposable nappy bin underneath.

‘We’ve made it into a sort of den,’ Cassie explained, ‘so the children will feel warm and safe. That’s why we’ve used all these lovely earth colours. There’s also a carpet coming, and we’re planning to get some beanbags for them to loaf around on. The whole ambience is calm and
loving and yet stimulating, don’t you agree?’

‘So, how exactly would
you
be involved with the child-minding?’ the social worker asked, frowning.

‘Oh, I won’t be,’ Cassie cried, laughing gaily. ‘Perish the thought!’

‘So it will just be you, Ms Potton, or may I call you Michaela?’

‘Mic’s fine.’

‘Right. And you’re… what… a tenant here?’

‘Oh, no,’ Cassie said at once. ‘We’re friends.’ She smiled brilliantly at Mic, who for once didn’t respond. Poor little thing! Cassie thought. I hadn’t realised she’d be so nervous. You have to stand up to these bloody social workers or they think they’re God. I should know. I’ve had them on my back from the moment Josh was born…

‘So,’ the social worker said to Mic, beginning to jot down notes on a pad, ‘you have no security of tenure then, is that right?’

‘No it most emphatically isn’t!’ Cassie said. ‘She’s going to be minding my daughter, so I’m hardly likely to throw her out, am I? I’m not that capricious!’ She thought, I bet he doesn’t even know the meaning of that word, and he’s sitting in judgment on us!

‘It’s OK, Cassie,’ Mic said. ‘I can handle this.’

‘That’s quite all right,’ Cassie assured her. ‘I’d like to help. I’ve got plenty of time this morning, and of course I’ve had loads of experience with the social services. Yes?’ She threw him a challenging glance. He ignored it.

‘So where are the children?’ he asked. ‘I believe you have a little boy, Mic?’

‘Yeah, Gavin. He’s six. The three of ’em are round my mum’s.’

‘I thought we could discuss things better with a bit of peace and quiet,’ Cassie explained. The social worker looked pained.

‘Well, I do need to see you all together,’ he said, ‘to
assess your interpersonal skills, and the way the children relate to you …’ He took a deep breath. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘for the time being then let’s concentrate on the technicalities, starting with the electric wiring …’

‘Oh, there are plenty of sockets,’ Cassie said. ‘I think they’re on a different system from the rest of the house, but Rob used to run his heater and his lathe and stuff off them, so I know they work.’

The social worker was bent double, inspecting one. ‘Good God! They’re the old round-pin sort!’ He hauled himself upright again, his face pink with the effort.

He’s a bit unfit! Cassie decided, smiling but critical.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s a bore. You can’t get the plugs to fit them any more, but if we need to use anything electrical in here, I can always make Rob send us his old ones. I’m sure he won’t have thrown them away; he’s a dreadful hoarder!’

The social worker again wrote in his notebook. He was shaking his head. ‘Must be nearly fifty years old!’ he said, partly to himself.

‘Is that a problem?’ Mic asked.

‘I should say! Whatever you do, don’t use any of them, OK? They could be lethal!’

‘Well, we’ve turned the radiators back on, so the whole place is centrally heated, so we don’t actually need them anyway,’ Cassie said. ‘Just as well really. We wouldn’t want all the mess of a rewiring job, especially now when we’ve finished doing the decor –’

‘Fire exit?’ the social worker interrupted. ‘Is there one?’

‘Well, not exactly,’ Mic said. He wrote more in his notebook. ‘But there’s a toilet through there,’ she added quickly. ‘Ever so handy, look.’

Cassie thought, I really must remember to ask Mic not to say ‘toilet’ when she means ‘loo’. That’s an abomination I absolutely do
not
want the children to pick up.

The social worker finished writing and looked at Mic.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘and how about you? Are you in good health?’

‘Oh yeah,’ Mic said eagerly. ‘Strong as an ‘orse, me.’

‘Do you smoke?’

Cassie and Mic answered this question at exactly the same time, but Cassie said, ‘Yes,’ and Mic said, ‘No.’

‘Sorry?’ The social worker looked confused. ‘Mic?’

‘Well, I do smoke,’ she admitted, ‘but only in the evenings, like, so it don’t count, yeah?’

‘We’ll have to arrange for you to have a chest X-ray.’ He wrote another note.

‘There’s nuffink wrong wif me chest!’ Mic was getting rattled. Cassie put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

‘No, I’m sure it’s quite all right. It’s just regulations. And whilst we’re on the subject,’ the social worker looked apologetic, ‘I’m afraid I’m obliged to ask you whether or not you have a criminal record.’

‘Not bleeding likely!’

‘Good. And can you provide us with at least two character references?’

‘Well, I dunno …’ Mic looked up at Cassie.

‘In this instance,’ the social worker said, ‘I think one from Mrs Hayhoe would be inappropriate. It needs to be from someone professional; a doctor, a solicitor, or a vicar maybe?’

Mic snorted. Cassie tightened her grip on her shoulder. ‘I’m sure we can sort something out,’ she said. ‘Mic’s brilliant with children. She’s certainly saved my sanity.’

‘Right!’ the social worker said, snapping his notebook shut. ‘Well, I think that’s about all we can accomplish today. I’ll come again soon, to see you with the children. Right?’

Cassie and Mic showed him out, and after he’d gone they stood in the hallway staring at each other. Again, they spoke simultaneously.

Cassie said, ‘Well, that went off fairly satisfactorily, didn’t it?’

Mic said, ‘That’s it. We’ve fucking blown it!’

Rob read the letter from Cassie and marvelled at the ineptness of her timing. In truth it was not so much a letter, more a statement of demands: a long list of all the household things she had left behind in the cottage and claimed still belonged to her with, at the bottom, orders that the children should no longer be taken anywhere near the cottage because it was causing them psychological damage. Rob curled his lip, and glanced again at the list of things. Eighty per cent of them he had already put into store, and were therefore unreachable. Most of the rest he had thrown away. All that remained was the sitting-room carpet, which he had left behind for Nell to take over.

Could he ask for it back? He had no idea if she particularly liked it or not. He would have to tell Cassie that it had been sold with the house, but would she then immediately demand a new one? He was damned if he was going to buy her one, but he really did not want all the hassle involved in refusing to do so. He wished yet again that he could simply tell her to sod off, but he knew that if he upset her she would inevitably take out her rage on his children – he called it her
Look what you made me do!
syndrome. It seemed that this was the hold she would always have over him; a never-ending form of moral and emotional blackmail.

At the bottom of her letter Cassie had written: ‘I’m not going to discuss the above in front of the children, so give me a ring on Friday evening.’
Please
, Rob added sarcastically to himself.

He went to collect the children on Saturday morning, after trying several times the night before to telephone Cassie and then (on finding the line constantly engaged) giving up.

‘You never called me!’ she accused him, as she opened her front door. ‘Was it too much trouble just to lift the phone?’

‘If you must know I tried for bloody hours, but all I got was the engaged signal.’

‘Well, of course I left it off the hook while the children were going to sleep. I can’t have them disturbed. You
must
know that?’ Rob raised his eyes to heaven. ‘And there’s no need to sneer,’ Cassie went on, ‘or pull stupid faces. I can quite see where Rosie gets it from!’

‘Daddy!’ Rosie came running out of the kitchen and flung herself at him. Rob hoped she hadn’t overheard them.

‘Hello, pudding.’ He bent and gathered her up in his arms and kissed both of her apple cheeks. ‘You look good enough to eat! Which bit shall I begin with?’

‘Feet!’ Rosie cried, cackling.

‘Mmmmmm mmm mmmm …’ Rob mouthed his way over one sturdy red shoe, and up one thickly trousered leg, smacking his lips and doing a pretend burp on her tummy. Rosie laughed louder.

‘There’s such a thing as child abuse, remember,’ Cassie said sourly. ‘The spare things are in that bag over there.’

Rob ignored the implied threat. ‘I hope they aren’t all Josh’s clothes this time.’

‘Of course not. Don’t forget Rose’s medicine, will you? And she’s not allowed out in the cold; she’s not well.’ Cassie turned to go.

‘So, where is Josh?’

‘Playing wiv Gav,’ Rosie said helpfully, pointing to the stairs.

Rob swung her down and steadied her before saying, ‘Run up and tell him I’m here, there’s a poppet.’ When she’d gone, he asked Cassie, ‘Who’s Gav, presumably Gavin?’

‘Just a little friend.’

‘Well, he’ll have to go home now, won’t he?’

‘Depends.’

‘On what?’

‘Josh might rather stay here and go on playing with him.’

‘Oh, come on, Cassie. Don’t start messing me about again.’

‘Don’t you threaten me! Josh has a right to make his own decisions.’

‘He’s only six years old!’

‘So?’

‘So it’s cruel to ask him to decide between us. He’ll be so torn.’

‘Oh, I think you’ll find Josh knows very well where his loyalties lie.’

‘That’s not true, and it’s also not fair, Cassie!’

‘Perhaps you should have considered that before you walked out on us.’