Perfect People

63

Naomi had lunch with Rosie, and was so engrossed with discussing what had happened she forgot the time. She was now ten minutes late. Shit.

To her relief as she drove into Caibourne, in torrential rain, she could see she wasn’t the last. Two large off-roaders were pulling up ahead of her outside the homely, slightly dilapidated-looking detached house close to the village church that hosted the twice-weekly playgroup, and there was a line of cars stationary in front of those.

She parked untidily, one wheel on the pavement, battled the driver’s door open against a strong gust of wind, then as an afterthought hastily popped a chewing gum in her mouth to mask the alcohol on her breath. She didn’t like being late – punctuality was one of John’s Swedish traits that had rubbed off on her.

She shouldn’t have drunk anything, because she was driving, but, hey, she thought, these last two and a half years, since well before Luke and Phoebe were born, I’ve had no life. Now they’re getting a little older, I’m damned well going to have one again. And anyhow it was just two glasses, with food, over a two-hour period. Not exactly reckless.

The path to the front door of the house was a chaos of lashing rain, hurrying mothers, tangled children and tangled umbrellas. Muttering brief hallos to a few familiar faces, Naomi hurried through them, head bowed against the elements, and made it into the sanctuary of the building.

The hall walls were covered in children’s paintings, stuck up haphazardly, and a row of framed certificates. Squeezing past a bunch of mothers trying to get their children into coats, Naomi went through an open door into the main playroom. A tiny girl, wearing Walkman headphones, was bouncing up and down on the very beat-up-looking sofa. Another girl sat at one of the tables, engrossed with an assortment of plastic creepy-crawlies and prehistoric monsters. Two small boys, one in a green hard hat, the other in a baseball cap the wrong way round, were arranging vehicles in a multi-storey car park on the floor.

No sign of Luke or Phoebe.

As she squeezed her way back into the crowded hall, Naomi saw one of the mothers she had met before, who had been very friendly to her. She was busy wrestling her small boy, Nico, into a red coat.

‘Hi, Lucy!’ Naomi said. ‘Horrible weather – September is usually such a-’

The woman, in a plastic rain hat and drenched Barbour, gave her a cursory nod, then dragged her child out towards the front door. Before Naomi had time to react, Pat Barley, who ran the playgroup, a tubby, jolly-looking woman several inches shorter than herself, with a pudding-basin hairstyle, was standing in front of her.

‘Hallo, Mrs Klaesson,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if we have a quick chat?’

‘No – of course,’ Naomi said, a little surprised at her sombre and formal tone. ‘Where are Luke and Phoebe?’

Instantly, she detected awkwardness in the woman’s face. ‘Just in the small playroom, through there,’ she said, pointing through another doorway.

Naomi peered in. Luke and Phoebe were sitting side by side on a settee in total silence, staring blankly ahead.

‘Hallo, Luke, darling, hallo, Phoebe, darling,’ she said.

There was no hint of acknowledgement from either of them.

She exchanged a glance with Pat Barley, who signalled Naomi to follow her.

They went through into the kitchen, where there was a long table covered in paint-spattered paper, Styrofoam cups of paint, and dumpy little dough figures covered in paint and glitter. A helper was sponging vivid red and yellow streaks from the face of a small girl in a blue plastic apron.

‘Look, Mrs Klaesson, this is rather awkward for me,’ Pat Barley said. She was wringing her hands and staring evasively down at the floor. ‘I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, please. But I’m afraid there have been complaints.’

‘Complaints?’ All Naomi’s positive cheer suddenly evaporated.

‘I’m afraid so.’ Pat Barley seemed to be trying to wring water from her hands. ‘You see, my problem is that parents are so sensitive these days. This really isn’t anything personal-’ She hesitated. ‘Oh dear, I don’t know how to break this to you. I know you are newcomers to this part of the world and we really should be trying to do all we can to make you welcome. But the problem is that I’ve had – well – not just one or two complaints, you see – but about half a dozen, actually.’

‘About Luke and Phoebe?’

‘Yes.’

‘What sort of complaints?’

There was a long silence. The helper, a tall, reedy-looking woman with an inane smile, was evidently listening, which was fuelling Naomi’s discomfort.

‘Well, I suppose it’s the way Luke and Phoebe interact with the other children here. They are among the youngest in the group but they don’t look or behave that way. For their age they seem quite a bit older, physically – and the way they behave is really quite out of character for children this young. For want of a better word, they are – terrorizing – the others.’

‘Terrorizing? That’s ridiculous!’ Naomi said.

The playgroup coordinator nodded. ‘Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’ve been watching them myself all the time today, and I have to say that their behaviour is rather antisocial. They went straight to the computer the moment they arrived here, and they wouldn’t let any of the other children near it. Whenever another child tried, either Luke or Phoebe snarled at them so fiercely it made most of the other children cry. I’m afraid it was the same last time. They simply won’t share, or seem to accept that other children have a right to play with everything, too.’

‘I’ll speak to them,’ Naomi said. ‘They’ve got to learn not to be selfish – I’m really sorry about this, I’ll-’

Pat Barley shook her head. ‘I’m sorry – the situation is that two mothers didn’t bring their children in today because Luke and Phoebe were going to be here. Several of the other mothers have said they will have to stop bringing their children.’ She looked very embarrassed, suddenly. ‘I’m really very upset about this, I know it’s a terrible thing to do, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to remove them from this playgroup. Perhaps you should try them in an older group – really, they’d fit in with five- or even six-year-olds. I’m awfully sorry, but they won’t be welcome here again.’