Trembling With Fear 06/05/2022

From Little Acorns by Sam Dawson

“Come on, sweet. Come to Story Corner. Then you can tell me how it all started.”

Another teacher is pulling away the other girl, the one she’d been fighting with. Angry tears streaming down her unwashed cheeks, five year-old Brittanee looks up and into the face of Miss Swakeham (“call me Carol”), who gently places her hands on her shoulders, steering her away from the playground confrontation with long-nailed Stacey-Mae, and its goading spectators, to the calm that is the story garden.

It’s a treed patch of green, retained when the local big house was knocked down in the 19th century as the metropolis overran the area and a new school was needed. An unsuspected fragment of nature, a bower with high, honey-coloured brick walls, smelling of blossom and bloom rather than wee and weed, an oasis alongside the tarmac and brickwork of the school, the terraced houses that grew up around it, and the 1960s concrete estates which replaced them.

For most of the year it remains securely locked. But when the summer sun gets past the obstacles of the high walls, and if the teachers are prepared to risk complaints of hay fever, asthma and allergies, they may bring the Reception class here for an hour once a week, (if it’s warm enough to sit on the grass) and read a story to them: a moment of peace and nature and the power of imagination.

Brittanee stops, hanging back. “Do I have to, Miss? I don’t like it there.”

The teaching assistant is surprised. She thought everyone liked the walled garden. “Whyever not, pet? And I’m Carol, remember, not ‘Miss’. I’m a TA, not a teacher. I’m like you, just a bit bigger.”

And that’s sort of true. She kind of sounds like Brittanee’s mum, without the swearing. She could almost be her big sister, except that she’s nice and soft and caring, which none of the real ones are. That’s why she feels bad about not wanting to go into the garden, which she knows all the grown-ups think is lovely. She pulls her hand from the other’s reassuring grasp.

“Jus’ don’t wanna,” she pouts, turning her back on the gate and crossing her arms.

Carol kneels beside her, putting her head near to hers, gently takes her hand again, and asks her to explain.

Brittanee feels silly to admit it, but somehow – since it’s her and not one of the other teachers or grown ups – she does. “It’s where The Bad Trees are.”

Carol doesn’t laugh at her. In fact she’s impressed by the little girl’s imagination. It appears she is the exception, the apple that actually did fall far from the tree – especially if you’ve met the heavyset, tattooed, monosyllabically threatening woman who is her mother.

“You’re a very clever girl, Brittanee. Children so rarely pick up on something like that.” The bell rings for the return to class. “Tell you what. You decide. We can go back to class with Stacey-Mae and the others, or we can take a little time out in the garden and I’ll tell you the tale of how the trees came to be the way they are.”

And so it is that, hand in hand, they enter the locked garden, with its fringe of tall trees, the immature saplings struggling to grow between them, and the warmly comfortable lawn.

Carol sits in a shady spot, with her back against one of the trees and motions for the girl to join her. “Come on, poppet, this is a nice bit. Plant yourself here.”

*

It’s pick-up time. Carol looks out for Brittanee’s mum. This is the tough part. Separating the parent from the other adults without them all noticing.

Mind you, she’s done it before.

But in the end the mother makes it easy, swanning up late when all the other children have been collected, appearing in a cloud of vape smoke and the same ketchup-stained pyjamas she had on at drop-off this morning. 

Carol approaches her. She doesn’t dare call her by name, as she knows its second barrel changes with whatever going-nowhere cousin or thug she has temporarily taken up with. 

She screws up her courage, tells herself that Brittanee was always a lost child, but that with her mother removed there’s a small chance that she might just survive, might transform, grow tall and straight, reach for the sun. One day, the girl might bloom.

“Ms….” She puts on her best how-lovely-to-see-you face and mumbles the second of the surnames, just in case. “Have you got a minute? It’s about Brittanee. She did something really bright and lovely today. I must tell you about it. Why don’t we go somewhere quiet?”

You don’t need to be an expert in body language to recognise that the mother’s head-down, feet-planted stance, is signalling: I’m not going nowhere, bring me my effing girl now. 

But Brittanee was right, Carol has come from the same environment as she and her mum did. The appeal to maternal duty having failed, she moves closer, gives a conspiratorial look around, lowers her voice and speaks.

“I don’t know about you but I’m dyin’ for a fag. I confiscated a packet off a Year Six today. I’m meant to’ve give up, but one won’t hurt. Only thing, I mustn’t be seen smoking. Fancy going somewhere quiet for just one quick one, then you can have the rest of the packet?”

It works. The mother nods grudgingly, follows her as she moves towards the locked gate at the far edge of the playground. As they approach it, Carol keeps up a coaxing, reassuring commentary: “Bet you didn’t know we’ve got a story garden here. With trees. No one’ll see us if we stand among them. Like Brittanee did today. Ooh she’s special that girl. Sweet as a nut.”

She takes the key from her pocket. “Here we are. Come on in and meet the elders.”