Crappily Ever After (5 page)

‘Come in,’ says a friendly woman with a smile in her voice.

I open the door, which creaks on its hinges, and nervously sit down opposite Miss Jamieson.

‘You must be Lucy,’ she beams proudly at me. ‘Our latest protégé.’

‘Nice to meet you Miss Jamieson,’ I squeak politely.

‘Now let me tell you all about our little nursery and adorable children.’ I smile and nod, trying not to notice her black eye and chipped tooth.

An hour of induction later and I am sitting in front of twenty little upturned faces. With a shaky voice I begin to introduce myself.

‘Can’t hear you,’ taunts a small grubby boy with gelled, spiky hair and a smudge of mud on his cheek. I take a deep breath and begin again, louder and with what, I hoped, carried more authority. Grubby boy stands up and introduces himself.

‘I’m Billy and this here is my sister.’

‘Lovely,’ I smile, looking from one to the other in confusion. Billy, blond and sickly pale with freckles, his sister, dark-skinned with a mass of curls.

‘I’m not finished,’ stated Billy, indignantly. ‘This is also my sister, and this is my brother. He pointed to two other equally grubby-looking kids.

‘Good grief! Did your mother have quads?’

‘Er, no,’ Billy says patronisingly, and rolls his eyes at me. ‘We all got different Mums.’ ‘OK.’ I exhale loudly and smile around at the children, now gigging at my stupidity. Shall we sing some songs?’

A chorus of ‘yessssss!’ Am I mistaken or did they sound sarcastic? I rack my brain to think of a song. We haven’t done this module yet. I must know one.

‘
Old MacDonald
,’ I burst out in relief. ‘Let’s sing
Old MacDonald.’

‘OK,’ says a small, pretty blond girl, ‘but we always get to choose the animals.’ She nods seriously at me. I hear a chuckle from Miss Jamieson’s desk.

‘That’s fine, sweetheart. Of course you can.’

We begin to sing and as we reach . . . ‘
And on that farm he had a…
’ I point to the little girl.

‘Hedgehog,’ she states defiantly. Half a minute passes until I eventually carry on my   ‘
ee-ii-ee-ii-oooo, with a snuffle, snuffle here, and a snuffle, snuffle there.
’ Ha! Got you, you little bastards. They look at me in disappointment. Each time I manage to think of some absurd thing that silent (or perhaps I just don’t know the sound they make) animals could possibly do.

Giraffe, easy; munch, munch. Worm; wiggle, wiggle. Tortoise; plod, plod. And so it went on ‘til Miss Jamieson clapped her hands in delight.

‘Oh, the little beggars, that’s their favourite trick. Well done you, Lucy.’

Having exhausted my repertoire of one children’s song, I cunningly suggest they take turns to come up and sing. Billy urgently puts his hand in the air.

‘Come on then Billy, up you come.’ He leans against my knees and informs me:

‘I’m gonna sing
Twinkle, twinkle
but diff’rent, OK?’

‘Fine.’ I scratch my head nervously as he begins.

‘
Stinky, stinky, little fart, how I’m glad you’re not a shart…’

Twenty cackling little voices fill my head.

‘OK, let’s stop there, Billy. I don’t even know what a shart is?’ I wonder aloud.

‘It’s when you think you need a fart, but it’s really a shi…’

‘Right! How about a story?’

‘Aww, my Daddy teached me that last year when I see’d him.’

‘Me too,’ squeaked another three little voices.

‘Yes, very nice. Thank you, Billy.’

Miss Jamieson stands and says she is off to make a few calls as I seem to be coping. This is so unfair. I’m a student. Both room teachers are off on stress leave and Miss Jamieson is supposed to take the class. She arrives back twenty minutes later with a frantic Jemima, who had run screaming to the office telling Miss Jamieson that I couldn’t cope.

‘You left her alone. With
us!
’ Jemima shook her head in disgust at Miss Jamieson on their breathless arrival back to the classroom. One page into
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
all hell had let loose. I had since been frantically trying to regain control as they tipped out boxes of Lego and painted the curtains, while one of the better-behaved children sat thoughtfully chewing a page from a book.

‘
Enough,’ 
screamed Miss Jamieson. Where did that voice come from? ‘Now sit down ‘til I bring Mrs Gowan from next door to mind you. Lucy! Office!’                     

I sat shamefaced on the squeaky
faux
-leather chair. Imagine – being sent to the headmistress’s office on day one.

‘OK, let’s cut the crap,’ she announced as she walked into the room, slid behind her desk and took off her glasses. ‘You know now that these kids can be a bit wild.’ She pinched the bridge of her nose. Understatement of the decade.

‘But they’re basically good kids, just not had the same opportunities in life that some kids get. Take our twisted little Brady Bunch through there. All four mothers find out within months of each other that their partner is having an affair. He pays nothing for any of them, it all goes on his – ahem – habits, and he rarely sees any one of those kids. That’s just one example. Now, the College assured us that you had childcare experience and could cope. I don’t usually advocate shouting at children, except in extreme cases, but you need to find a way to keep control of the class. I trust you won’t let me down, Lucy.’

I walk back to the classroom, stopping only at a two-sided easel with chalk in the tray. I rub my hand with pink chalk and carry on back to class. I’m playing hard-ball now.

Break time, but not for me it would seem. I’m on playground duty. Fifteen children surround me and stare in wonder at my hand.

‘Ten of the belt,’ Billy shakes his head in awe and admiration, ‘and we all thought you was a wimp, di’nt we?’

Fifteen nods. We reach an agreement that day. I’d bring in sweets tomorrow and we’d start over. Miss Jamieson did not mess around. They didn’t want to be next for the belt, it was the first time she’d ever done that. I didn’t feel the need to inform them that the belt had been banned before I’d even left school.     

After stressful weekdays of College and nursery, I’m shattered when I head into work at the supermarket every weekend. It’s a good laugh, as I said, but I really could do without it. Tim, the nineteen-year-old nightshift supervisor, knew where we could smoke and not set off the alarms and he got the grocery boys during the week to write-off and then hide various alcoholic beverages. We’d look at the Write-Off book occasionally and laugh. ‘Aisle three: one litre of vodka dropped by customer. Item discarded due to Health and Safety reasons.’

We would then get stuck into said vodka with a bottle of written-off coke.

‘Past sell-by.’

The button of the tannoy in Customer Services was held down by a carefully placed can of Kestrel Super Strength, blaring the sounds of The KLF and The Urban Cookie Collective all around the store.

This continued successfully until 13th of February of that year. The Head Grocery Boy was caught with two hundred stolen Woodbine in his locker and struck a deal with the Manager that if he tipped him off about the night staff‘s antics, the police wouldn’t be involved. So, at three o’clock on a Sunday morning, in the middle of a ‘price gunfight’ with Tim and some

frozen chickens, the tape switched off. An announcement, in the form of our Manager’s voice, came over the tannoy for all staff to meet by the Customer Service desk. Despite a gin, tonic, cider and Martini Rosso stupor, we knew we were in the shit. Ashamed, we made our way to Customer Services, only to be unanimously fired on the spot. We were stripped of our tabards and informed not to ask for a reference. We made our way
en masse
outside. Tim was really ticked off when he spotted that the ribbon had been pulled from his tape and discarded on the floor; he was seemingly unconcerned at the loss of £60 per week in wages.          

I arrived home at 3.20am with a cheery, ‘I’m back.’ I am met by silence. I take off my boots and creep into the living room. Looking for signs of a Valentine’s surprise. No card, no flowers. He wasn’t expecting me home yet, I reason.

I tiptoe into the bedroom and immediately step into a discarded, half-eaten doner kebab. I pull off my sock, now covered in a combination of chilli and garlic sauce. My eyes grow accustomed to the darkness and I can make out the snoring figure of Sean. I smile and walk towards my side of the bed. My foot catches something. A stiletto-heeled shoe. Confused, I strain my eyes in the darkness and make out another figure. Blonde, heaving bosom like a Sumo wrestler deflated. Charmaine! On my side of the bed – naked! I observe the scene for a second. The power I wield. Then I notice Dillon, our cat, curled between them. This is the worst moment of all for me. The traitor! I gather up my few belongings from around the comatose trio. Luckily, I never moved all my stuff in. Just a few outfits, tapes and the like; something must have held me back subconsciously and made me keep the majority of my belongings at my Mum’s. I pause in gathering mode only to pick up the card I bought Sean for Valentine’s Day. I pick up a pen and write:

‘Roses are red,

Violets are blue.

You treat me like shit.

So I’m leaving you.’

I place the card in its envelope, calmly lick and seal it, and slip out into the mild winter’s night.

                                     
Chapter Four
   

I move back to Mum’s for a month with the intention of looking for a new job. Almost immediately, I am driving everyone crazy and really not coping with being at home again. It makes me feel a complete failure, as if I’ve backtracked to childhood and couldn’t make it on my own. Mum and I are far too similar in nature. Two adult Taureans under one roof does not bode well. One bull to a field, I reckon. I can’t deal with rules any more. When I lived in my own place, if I wanted to leave my dinner plate on the table until the next morning, I could. Well, it was Sean’s place, granted, but I paid enough towards his bloody mortgage to gain the right to claim part ownership. At least in my mind, if not on paper. I also hate sharing a bedroom again with my excessively tidy sister. Mary, used to her own space, seems to hate it even more than I do. I’m certainly not the neatest person to live with. I suddenly go back to finding items of my clothing missing, which, of course, she has never seen. Amazingly, they turn up in my washing basket the day after I enquire of their whereabouts. It’s time to move on.     

I decide to head to Edinburgh on the coach and I move in with some old school friends who are studying at the University. This way, I figure, I can be a rich working woman while still being signed into all the student unions. My wage will go much further like this. I apply for a position in a Care Home for the elderly. I’m more used to looking after the opposite end of the age scale, but I figure that wiping arses is wiping arses, regardless of size. Fortunately, I am very good at interviews, embellishing as I go. I do, however, have a genuine love for elderly people and I think that shines through. The day of the interview dawns and I arrive at the Home. After my college placements nothing can faze me, so I’m not particularly nervous.   

Interviewer
: ‘So, tell me, er… (looks at my CV)… Lucy. What makes you want to work with people redundant from society?’ 

Anti-discriminatory trick question, handle with care.  

Me
: ‘Well, Mr… er…. (I glance at my job specification)… Roberts, I find it very unfortunate that elderly people would be considered as no longer a valuable member of society. Are you familiar with the phrase, “you can’t teach your Granny to suck eggs?”’    

Point taken. Mr. Roberts laughs and relaxes into the interview. I am aware my comment could have backfired badly on me, but I was willing to take the gamble. Discrimination is not something I tolerate, having worked with some of the poorest, but nicest families with a variety of problems. I don’t judge a book by its cover.

‘So, Lucy,’ he smiles. ‘I see that you normally work with children, apart from a position of a nightshift worker at Safeway. Why do you think you are suited to Care Home work?’