The Mummyfesto (8 page)

‘Good. That’s something. It’s amazing what a decent night’s sleep can do for you.’

It helped, of course. Having Oscar. Gave me a keyhole to look through into the world of the people we were caring for. Most of the time I didn’t mention his condition to the parents who came here. It was like telling someone your child had gashed his knee when theirs had just had his whole leg amputated. That was one of the weird things about working here. It made me feel lucky. I spent so much time outside with people feeling sorry for me that it was quite refreshing to come here and feel lucky.

‘By the way, there’s a quick staff meeting in fifteen minutes,’ Marie said.

‘Oh. Do we know why?’

‘Funding situation.’

‘Ah. I take it Simon’s heard, then.’

‘Yeah. I don’t think it’s good news, though.’

‘Right. I’d better go and stick the kettle on. I’ll see you in there.’

We gathered in the committee room as requested at ten. Mugs of strong coffee at the ready on the table.

‘I’ll keep this brief,’ said Simon. ‘Suffice to say we’ve heard from the Department of Health, and it is as we feared. Our grant will be cut by 10 per cent from April.’ The news was greeted with resigned nods from around the table. We’d been expecting it but it didn’t make it any easier to stomach.

‘And it’s not to be replaced by any other pots of money from the government?’ asked Marie.

‘No.’

‘That’s outrageous,’ I said. ‘They only give us two hundred grand a year anyway. How the hell do they think we’re going to make up the shortfall when there’s a recession on?’

Simon looked at me. I was well aware that I was preaching to the converted. I was simply unable to contain my anger.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But we’re going to have to find a way.’

‘We should go to the media with this,’ I said. ‘We could get together with the other children’s hospices. Make a big noise. Shame them into a U-turn. I’m sure the public would support us.’

There was an awkward silence around the table. I suspected they thought I was being wildly idealistic and far too confrontational. But they had also heard the catch in my voice so they didn’t like to say so.

‘I understand your frustration, Sam,’ said Simon. ‘And I’m not saying we shouldn’t make our voice heard on the matter. But we’ve also got to be careful not to appear to be politically motivated, especially so close to a general election.’

I nodded, although I didn’t see what was political about wanting the best for dying children.

‘How much are we down on fundraising this year?’ asked Chris, one of the nurses.

‘We haven’t got the exact figures yet, but it will be in the region of 5 to 10 per cent.’

Another silence. We’d broken all records on fundraising
the previous year. To come up with any increase on that was going to be difficult. Especially at a time when everyone was so stretched.

‘I’ll schedule a meeting next week to discuss the fundraising situation in more detail,’ said Simon. ‘I’ve asked Alice and Denise to present us with a report and some suggestions, but the more ideas anyone can bring to the table the better. Thank you all. And sorry to be the bearer of bad news.’ Simon rose and left the room. He was as gutted as anyone, I knew that. He was simply a damned sight better than me at remaining dignified and composed in such situations.

I walked back along the corridor with Marie.

‘Oh well, it could have been worse,’ she said.

‘Could it?’

‘No, not really but I thought I’d better do the British stiff-upper-lip thing.’

I smiled at her. ‘As opposed to my hysterical ranting, you mean?’

‘I guess the rest of us are just resigned to the fact that there’s nothing we can do about it.’

‘I don’t agree. There’s always something you can do.’

Marie stopped outside her office. ‘Were you like this as a teenager?’ she asked, still smiling.

‘Like what?’

‘Believing you could make a difference. Make the world a better place.’

‘Yeah. That’s what comes of having hippy parents, I guess. I suppose it’s why I wanted to be a journalist as
well. Although it took a while for me to work out that the people running local newspapers weren’t interested in challenging stuff like that. But look where I ended up working. Look at what goes on here. How you guys make such a difference.’

‘In a small way, yes. But only in the lives of the people we touch. Outside that we can’t change anything. We’re the little guys who get kicked. We can’t kick back.’

‘That’s why the politicians get away with all this crap. Because people don’t understand the power they have.’

Marie shook her head. ‘I guess the rest of us were brought up to toe the line.’

‘Well I’ll have to teach you how to kick ass sometime.’

‘That,’ said Marie, with her hand on my shoulder, ‘might come in very useful.’

I carried on along the corridor, past the glass memory wall, each block engraved with the name of a child who was no longer with us, and on to my little office.

I switched on my computer, the screensaver photo of Zach and Oscar making me smile as it always did, but making me angry as well. People shouldn’t have to fight for their children to have somewhere comfortable and dignified to die. They just shouldn’t. I opened up the spring newsletter I’d been working on the previous week. That was the only trouble with working school hours, you never seemed to actually get anything finished in a day. Half past two had a habit of coming around very quickly indeed.

I’d been working on the fundraising page: tales of people sky-diving, shaving their heads, running half-marathons,
all to raise some precious extra pounds for us. It suddenly struck me as ridiculous. People wouldn’t have their operations cancelled because not enough people had shaved their heads to pay for it. And yet here we were, possibly having to reduce the amount of respite care we could offer for the very same reason. It was obscene. Actually obscene.

My mobile rang. I fumbled in my bag and pulled it out. I felt my body relax as I saw it wasn’t the school’s number. It wasn’t a number in my address book.

‘Hello. Sam Farnell.’

‘Oh, hi. It’s Georgina from Calendar. I just wanted to congratulate you on your victory.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Haven’t you heard? The council backed down at their meeting last night. They voted to scrap the plans to make the school crossing patrol people redundant. Said they’d try to find savings from elsewhere instead.’

‘But that’s fantastic. I can’t believe it.’

‘Sounds like your protest had quite an impact. Everyone seemed to have seen it. And the petition too. Two thousand signatures was amazing.’ I was glad Georgina couldn’t see me as I danced a jig of delight around the office.

‘Thanks for letting me know. And thank you so much for coming to film us.’

‘Glad to have helped. Actually, the reason I called was to see if you could come on the programme tonight.’

‘What, outside the school or something?’

‘No, here in the studio. The producer would like Fiona
to interview you. You and your two friends who organised it all. And Shirley, of course. Would that be OK?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I mean I’ll have to ask the others and we’ll need to sort out childcare and everything. Well, obviously not Shirley, but …’ I was aware from the silence on the other end of the phone that I was blithering like an idiot. ‘I’m sure it will be fine. We’ll make it.’

‘Great. Can we send a cab to pick you all up for 4.30? Is outside the school OK?’

‘Yes, that’ll be fine. Thank you.’

‘Brilliant. I’ll see you later then.’

I put my mobile down, shut the door and did the ‘woohoo’ bit from Blur’s ‘Song 2’ very loudly indeed.

It felt rather like an Olympic homecoming when I arrived at school that afternoon. Fortunately they had stopped short of laying on an open-top bus procession but there was a crowd of cheering parents and someone had hung a ‘well done’ banner across the school gates.

Shirley was the first person who came up to me. She took me by the hand and started patting it. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. So she threw her arms around me and gave me an enormous hug instead. I understood then why Oscar liked them so much. She was a particularly good hugger.

‘I can’t begin to thank you enough,’ she said eventually, looking up, her eyes moist and glistening.

‘Don’t be daft. You keep our children safe. It was the least we could do.’

‘Well, I’m touched. I really am. I never thought anyone would do owt for me like this.’

‘And are you all set for your TV appearance tonight?’

‘I went straight to hairdressers after school rang me. Do you like colour?’ Shirley stroked her short wavy hair, which now had a golden tint to it.

‘You’ll knock them dead.’ I smiled. ‘Now I’d better let you get on with your job. Can’t have you slacking after all this effort, can we?’

Shirley trotted off with her lollipop stick, accepting the congratulations and good wishes from other parents as she went. I turned around to see Anna standing next to me. The normally super-cool, demure Anna looked fit to burst.

‘We did it,’ she said, her voice at least an octave higher than usual.

‘I know,’ I said, giving her a hug. ‘I still can’t quite believe it.’

‘Why not? You masterminded the whole thing.’

‘Don’t be silly. You’re the one who got half of those signatures on the petition. It was teamwork, that’s what it was.’

We were almost knocked off our feet as Jackie bowled into us.

‘Group hug,’ she shouted, attempting to bounce us up and down in some kind of football team-style celebration dance. Anna looked horrified for a second then appeared to decide to go with the flow.

‘It was the loudhailer wot won it.’ Jackie grinned.

‘No. Mum power,’ I said. ‘Nothing as scary as a bunch of women fighting for their kids.’

I squeezed Jackie’s shoulder, sensing how deeply she was feeling this.

‘Are you sure Paul’s OK to have the kids?’

‘Absolutely no problem. He’s going to be home by four at the latest.’

‘Rob will come straight round to get the boys after work.’

‘And Will’s going to pick up Esme on his way home,’ said Anna.

‘Brilliant,’ said Jackie. ‘Sounds like we’ll have time for a celebratory drink when we get back from Leeds.’

‘Now that is being optimistic,’ I said.

The main doors opened and the children streamed out into the playground. Judging by the looks on their faces, they’d already been told.

‘You did it,’ said Zach, running up to me and jumping up and down. ‘You saved Shirley’s job.’

‘No,’ I corrected, as Oscar zoomed up to us, ‘you did. You and Oscar. It was your idea after all. And all the other children who took part in the protest and signed the petition. It was a team effort.’

‘Is it because of what I said on TV about not wanting to get splatted like Flat Stanley?’ Oscar asked.

‘Yes, love. That helped. You all helped. You made the people in charge at the council realise that it wasn’t a good idea at all.’

‘Will we get medals?’ asked Oscar.

‘Yes, like in
The Railway Children
,’ said Zach. ‘They got medals for saving people’s lives.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ I said. ‘The council don’t give out medals.’

‘They could give us a Lego set instead,’ said Oscar. ‘I wouldn’t mind.’

I smiled and shook my head. Thinking how much Rob would laugh when I told him later.

We sat in the green room at Yorkshire Television with a local businessman who was bucking the trend by doubling his workforce and a teenager who was going to be playing the ukulele on
Britain’s Got Talent
. I guessed it was that kind of a news day.

‘Ooh, it’s right posh, in’t it?’ said Shirley, stroking the plush chair seats.

‘Would you like a drink?’ I asked her. ‘They’ve got still and sparkling water.’

‘I’ve never had sparkling water. I think I’ll give it a whirl. Live it up a bit.’ I smiled at Anna as she passed the bottle.

‘I’m wishing I hadn’t told people on Twitter and Facebook I was going to be on TV now,’ Anna said. ‘It’s bad enough trying not to think about everyone at home watching, let alone all the mummybloggers as well.’