‘Someone called social services?’ I held out my hands. ‘I promise you that wasn’t me.’
Leanne studied me for a charged few moments, thoughts racing behind her eyes. ‘Well, why else did a social worker turn up on my doorstep, looking to investigate an allegation of neglect?’
‘Leanne.’ I had to sit back down again. ‘If I had concerns that serious, I would have spoken to you about them first. Offered more help.’
I might not have spoken to her – I couldn’t imagine confronting this fire-breathing monster about her parenting standards – but I would definitely have offered more help.
‘I had to wait while some old bag took my daughter into the kitchen and interviewed her about her mum!’ Leanne started pacing up and down the lawn, an anxious Nesbit trotting up and down alongside her. ‘Pretending it was just a normal thing, like all kids have someone randomly show up and start interrogating them on what meals they eat and whether Mummy ever drinks too much and starts acting funny. This is Joan, not some four-year-old. She knows that someone reported me for not taking care of her. How do you think that’s made her feel?’
‘It’s horrendous.’ I breathed an internal sigh of relief that I’d helped Joan clean up a few days earlier. The cottage was still a chaotic mess, but at least it wasn’t a health hazard.
‘I am hanging on by a thread here, Ollie. By a thread. One bad break away from snapping. And for someone to be that malicious, that spiteful…’ She stopped pacing and collapsed into a chair. ‘To go behind my back like that. I felt ashamed, at first. Guilty. And don’t get me wrong, I’m so angry I could spit. But most of all, I feel hurt.’ She blinked both eyes, hard. ‘I feel like someone I know – and if it’s not you then I’m sorry for calling you a bitch, I hope you understand I was raging – someone smiled to my face and then stabbed me in the back. Stabbed Joan in the back. I hate them for that.’
‘It wasn’t me. I promise you it wasn’t.’
‘Any ideas about who it was, then?’
‘No.’
‘Go on, then, ask me.’ Leanne stubbed her cigarette out on the arm of the chair, then dropped it into a plant pot, before immediately lighting another one. ‘I know you’re dying to hear the outcome.’
She was right, I was itching to find out.
Leanne let out a shaky sigh. ‘She’s not taking it any further. Whoever snitched on us can stick their allegations up their arse.’
‘Oh, that’s so good to know.’
‘Yeah. Also good to know that someone out there thinks I’m an unfit mother.’
‘Please believe that I knew nothing about this.’
She leant back, closing her eyes. ‘Yeah, well, I kind of have to, seeing as school summer holidays start tomorrow and I’ve just told that snotty cow you’re helping out with childcare.’
‘I’m so sorry this happened.’
‘Not half as sorry as whoever did it will be if I ever find out it was them.’
I looked at Leanne, face etched with fear, fury and devastation, knuckles white where they gripped the arms of the chair, and I knew this was no idle threat.
On Friday, seven families squeezed in the children’s corner for the Library Lady. Irene appeared stricken when one after another they jostled and hopped and skidded through the door, pushchairs knocking into bookshelves and children chattering, squabbling and in one case making continuous fart noises.
I wrapped up Trev’s second ReadUp session of the week and we both started moving chairs across to try to help create some sort of order. To my surprise, Irene intercepted us. ‘No need,’ she snapped, with a smug tilt to her chin, before striding over to the preschoolers’ book trolley, reaching behind it and bringing out a stack of carpet tiles.
She then pulled a whistle out from her beige blouse and gave a fearsome toot that stopped the chaos in its tracks. The gaggle of small children stared, waiting to see what would happen next while the adults looked on, equally as intrigued. Irene held out a carpet tile to the nearest child.
‘Sit.’
The little girl gingerly took the tile and sat on it. Within moments the others had joined her, all except for one girl crying in her mother’s lap because she wanted a yellow tile and they were all industrial blue.
‘This week, stories about animals. I shall make an exception to the silence rule, on one condition.’
‘If you ask a question or talk or make a noise then you have to go,’ a boy whispered to his friend, loud enough to have Irene glaring at him down her nose.
‘Questions, chatter and bodily sounds are still forbidden. However, the Library Lady shall permit the appropriate animal noises, as long as they are made at the right time.’
‘Ooh, can I do a donkey?’ someone asked. ‘I’m good at donkeys, listen…’ She then demonstrated her very loud, eerily accurate bray.
‘Sshhhh!’ various other children said anxiously – presumably those who had been here before, and knew the Library Lady did not make idle threats.
‘In case I wasn’t clear,’ Irene huffed, after a second toot. ‘You may produce the correct animal noise when I mention that specific animal in the story. If you make any other sound at any time, you must leave. Does anybody not understand?’
If they did, they weren’t admitting it.
‘Will you help us if we don’t know the right sound?’ a delicate-looking boy of about five asked. ‘I’m scared I won’t know and then I’ll have to go home.’
‘You could just keep quiet and make no sound instead,’ Irene replied.
‘But I want to make a sound. It’s more funner!’
‘It is more fun.’
‘Yes! So will you help me?’
Irene sighed as if already exhausted. ‘Yes. Now, if you are all quite finished, can we please get started?’
I left the Library Lady to it, unable to resist making a few animal noises as I left.
16
Saturday, I left Nesbit with Joan and drove into Nottingham to an outdoor shop. Drew had offered to lend me his camping gear, but I needed to carry everything on my back, so politely declined his offer of a three-man tent with porch awning, four-ring stove and gas fridge. Instead, he helped me pick out a pop-up festival tent, sleeping bag and a spongy bed roll. I also splashed out on a tiny, lightweight gas stove and a torch.
That evening, I had a practice pitch in the garden. The tent didn’t quite pop up in the promised seconds, but it only took a few minutes, so I was happy, and a shortish woman and a dog who was growing bigger every day could just about squeeze in. I made mugs of hot chocolate for myself, Joan and Leanne, who, having accepted my denial of any involvement with children’s services, had just borrowed my shower and oven again.
‘Can I come?’ Joan asked, eagerly peering inside the tent’s light-proof interior.
‘I’m not sure there’d be room,’ I said, completely sure that there wouldn’t.
‘That’s okay, I could sleep outside!’ She quickly lay down on the grass beside the tent. ‘I’m not scared. It’d be like Frodo and Sam. They didn’t need a tent.’