Summer holidays done, here Miriam stands. Finally. Behind her desk, waiting for her assigned class to potter in for registration. Waiting for that one little face that will make or break her heart. Not wearing peach today. Baby blue silk (OK, viscose) shirt with a pussycat bow, and a blue tweed skirt. It looks professional, approachable, maybe a bit sassy. She hopes.
They start to arrive. Dribs and drabs at first. Little poppets in their burgundy uniforms. How lucky their mummies and daddies are; how much she wants one of them for her own. The boys in little ties and caps, the girls in pretty pleated skirts. They are meant to have just turned five, but some of them are tiny. One girl, she’s far too small for the chair. She brings her knees up to her chest, and sits there, curled, thumb in her mouth, Peppa Pig lunch box clutched to her. But then you have the boys – big enough for a rugby team, some of them. Could overpower the little girls in an instant, get them into a scrum tackle. Maybe they are already in kiddy rugby teams; they’re in North London after all. It’s never too early for stretching your children.
‘Good morning, class,’ Miriam says, in her best Miss Honey voice. Try not to let it shake. Try to smile the words. Remember the lesson plan. Remember you’re in control, this time. Kids trust adults who assume authority. And that’s what she wants. Their trust. That’s central to her plans. To get close.
‘Welcome back to school, everyone. My name is Ms Robertson, and I’m delighted to be working with you all. Let’s go through the register. Stand up when your name is called, please – it helps me learn who you are.’
Miriam had their photos already, of course. She’d studied them over the summer. But it looked like some of them were about two years old when they registered; nothing beats seeing them in the flesh. So she calls the roll. And they’re away. Names fly by, some the latest crazes (we have several Olivias), some more traditional (welcome, Peter). They’re nearly at the end when she stands up. The girl. And Miriam knows, instantly, that this is the one. She squeaks her name: Harriet White. Doesn’t even meet Miriam’s gaze at first, just fiddles with her messy plaits. But then she looks up and Miriam sees those beautiful hazel eyes.
And there she is. Miriam’s vocation. Miriam catches a breath. Because it’s a big moment, isn’t it? When your life’s purpose is suddenly right there in front of you. Tantalisingly close already. But so much work required to get there. Little by little, she’ll secure it. She’ll secure her. She must.
Chapter 3 (#ulink_bd5e5cd8-07fd-5b86-aeda-231fec26a283)
BECKY, JULY 2012
Becky rubs her eyes and puts her maths textbook down. She needs a break from calculus. Besides, they’re done with exams for this term, so why bother really? She throws herself onto her bed and looks into the full-length mirror at the end of it. She pulls her glasses down on the end of her nose, and pouts into the mirror. ‘Pretty Geek.’ That’s how people know her. She could live with either of the labels separately. But together – well, it’s sort of like she’s not good enough to be one or the other. She’s only an acceptable geek because she’s pretty, and only acceptable for her prettiness because her IQ is higher than average. Try to devote herself to being either one of them? Wouldn’t work. She’d be even more of a social outcast.
Her middle sister never seems to have that problem. Quite the opposite. Becky hears, sometimes, about the boyfriends and parties at university, somehow juggled with first-class marks and doting tutors. She wishes she could be more like her.
And yet … Becky doesn’t mind her own image as much as she should. Leaning over to her desk again, she pulls out the leaflet for drama summer school. Her parents were amazed when she signed up for it. She knows, she’s not stupid – she overheard all those conflicting conversations downstairs. They went like this, basically:
Mum: Oh, our little darling is finally getting some social skills.
Dad: But drama makes people stupid. What if she fails her exams?
Both: We only want her to be happy (as long as she gets good grades and doesn’t have S. E. X., of which God might not approve. And as long as she doesn’t catch Acting, distracting her from a good career as a doctor or a teacher or something Solid – which she and her sisters must do).
Then there’s some disagreement – it escalates into a row and Becky tunes out.
OK, Becky was summarising the part she listened to, but that was the gist. And she kind of understood, because yes, she was surprised with herself too. If it weren’t for Caitlin, she wouldn’t have agreed. And Caitlin wouldn’t have pressured her if they hadn’t both caught Andrew Carmichael staring over at them in Maths. (Becky was busy concentrating on finding what n equalled, so Caitlin had to nudge her.) Becky assumed he was looking at Caitlin, because Caitlin is gorgeous, in a way that is the opposite of everything about Becky (blonde to Becky’s mousy brown, long-limbed to Becky’s wiry petiteness, twenty-twenty blue vision, compared to Becky’s black-framed myopia). Becky isn’t totally sure how they managed to become friends. But they seem to be, and it doesn’t do to prod the proof under the microscope, or it might burst.
Besides, apparently the timing worked out well for her parents because Becky’s other sister, the boring one, was coming to stay with The New Baby. The baby had been new for the past, what, year? And it hadn’t learnt to sleep, or was it swallow, or had forgotten while it got its teeth, or something, so Becky’s sister needed Help and everyone had to make way for the invasion. Becky just hoped she didn’t come back to find her room full of nappies.
So anyway, at school, Caitlin had been convinced Andy (divine Andy) was staring at Becky, and vice versa. Unlikely. But later, by the notice boards, it seemed like Caitlin might be right. Becky was looking for the algebra club meeting, when she heard a voice behind her. A male voice.
‘Are you signing up to the drama summer school?’
She’d looked round to see Andy just there, almost kissing distance away. Could smell the minty intrigue of the gum he was chewing. Pulling her gaze away from him momentarily, she followed it to where he was looking. A sign-up sheet for drama summer school, with a few flyers in a little plastic folder pinned next to it.
There were two spaces left on the sign-up sheet. Under Andy’s name.
Becky had smiled shyly. ‘Oh, it’s not really my kind of thing,’ she said, and made to turn away.
‘What she means is,’ came a loud, springy, female voice behind her, ‘she’d love to go, and so would I!’
Caitlin. She grabbed a pen from her ponytail and filled in her own name first, then Becky’s.
‘I went last year,’ Caitlin said. ‘It was amazing.’
That was six weeks ago. Now, the course was only four weeks away. A two-week summer school, with gorgeous Andy. And Caitlin.
‘Get some contact lenses,’ Caitlin had advised her.
But the optician had said there were none suitable for her eye type. Pretty Geeky Freak. Or at least, none that she could comfortably use to look at computers with. So Mum said no. The drama course was expensive enough, and she wouldn’t have Becky ruining her eyes over it.
Still, she could take her glasses off if she ever got close enough to Andy to warrant it. Or he could take them off for her. Caitlin said Becky was still in with a chance – said that’s what she was giggling about with Andy in the cafeteria. Seeing them together had sparked something in Becky’s chest. But Caitlin was a good friend, wasn’t she? So it must be true. You had to trust your friends.
Chapter 4 (#ulink_df55a244-6a6e-5beb-b5f1-1b668d788307)
KIRSTEN, 4 SEPTEMBER 2018
‘Jess, you’re a legend!’
Kirsten takes a sip of the green tea that her PA has put on her desk. She secretly wishes it was coffee, but she’s trying to be more Zen. Come on, brain, arise calm, clear, out of befuddled mummy mode, please.
‘How’s Harriet?’ Jess asks Kirsten.
‘Oh, she’s great – thank you,’ Kirsten says. She knows there’s a blush spreading over her cheeks. She can’t help it – even now, when she talks about her, it happens. It’s like you’re in love, permanently, isn’t it? When you have a kid? And now they know that Harriet will, sadly, be their only child, their little empress, so she gets all that love. After the baby that didn’t … work out. Every day, Kirsten tells her: ‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to us.’ Ian, he always raises an eyebrow when she says that. But despite everything, it’s true. See the silver lining; that’s the motto.
‘It must be tough leaving her all day,’ Jess continues. ‘I know when I have kids …’
She trails off. Kirsten raises an eyebrow. Maybe her PA has remembered Kirsten is her boss, so this is forbidden territory: do not discuss any plans for fertilisation with the one who pays your wages. First female rule of the workplace. Or maybe she remembers that this is the same passive-aggressive ‘why do you work rather than stay at home?’ bullshit that mums put up with on a regular basis, and decides to shut her mouth for the good of the sisterhood.
This is Kirsten’s bugbear. First day at nursery, the keyworker had said to her in front of a teary Harriet: ‘Oh, you must feel so guilty, leaving her here like this.’ Well, thank you, Ms Judgemental. Thank you so much. Kirsten had gone back to her car and cried, more than Harriet ever did. Until they invent a self-paying mortgage, Harriet is going to have to be dropped off in places that emotionally blackmail Kirsten. Good, safe places that will broaden Harriet’s mind.
They did a study, didn’t they, that said girls who go to nursery, and then to school, while their mothers go to work, actually do a whole lot better than those whose parents stay at home? Yes, it got a whole bunch of ridicule in the press. But maybe Kirsten could bring copies to hand out at the school gates (or get the au pair to do it – looks like they’re going to have to get one: she can’t start offering 7.30 a.m. appointments if she has to do the school run).
‘So, are we fully booked today, Jess?’ Kirsten asks.
‘Right up to the brim,’ Jess reports. ‘And the first patient is waiting outside now!’
‘Good. Give me a couple of minutes, and send him in.’
Kirsten needs that two minutes. Because as much as she loves Harriet – and she does, she loves her, she loves her – it takes more than one sip of green tea to go from desperately cajoling: ‘Harriet sweetie, get back in the car, come on now, you know you want to! You don’t need the second purple pencil. One is enough! No, honestly, no one’s going to judge you. We’re going to be late – please, come on!’ to her best calm bedside-manner-infused: ‘Now, what seems to be the matter today?’
But she’s got to. Because it’s a business, this private practice GP surgery. She can’t just rock up like at a NHS practice each morning, with the attitude that people should be so lucky that they’ve got an appointment, and she’ll do what she can but hey! she’s no brain surgeon. Yes, NHS GPs are the front line of medicine. Some surgeries are brilliant. And many GPs are fantastic. But some are struggling. Over-run with patients and paperwork, having to lay down ridiculous rules to reach even more ridiculous targets (Six minutes late? You’ll need to rebook your appointment!) and then giving advice in a rush – it’s tough. Sometimes she’d felt like she was just a gatekeeper for prescriptions, rather than providing meaningful advice. Which was why she left. Set up on her own. Maybe a bit earlier than some people – she could have waited a good decade – but if you have a dream, why delay?
And now, people are paying for a service with more than their tax. They are investing in their health, investing in Kirsten personally, as a service. So she needs to put her mummy service to one side. Not be the nice, slightly harried, always doting but ever failing mummy. She has to be polished, professional Dr White. She puts on her glasses. Slips on her jacket. Lines up the blood pressure monitor neatly on her desk. The desk she herself built from an IKEA flat pack at 1 a.m. the day before the surgery opened. And, of course, makes sure Harriet’s picture is tilted to where the patients can’t see it.
There are pictures of her and Ian too, in the montage Ian had put together for one of their anniversaries. Kirsten and Ian together back when she was a student – how young she looks, particularly next to Ian, who always crashes through the important birthdays long before she does. Then Kirsten and Ian in their climbing gear. She doesn’t angle that frame away. A young, fresh, physically bold couple. A good advertisement for a healthy outdoor lifestyle, if nothing else. What she doesn’t have is a picture of her niece, the one she can’t see anymore. It makes her too sad.
Then the first patient of the day comes in.
And Kirsten is glad she had that calming hot drink. Because it’s a special gut-wrencher, a tear-jerker: the sweetest couple, with fertility problems. Can she help them? And can she prescribe the wife some mild anti-depressants? Because now it’s really starting to affect her sleep. And her ability to function in the world without crying.
Kirsten risks a look at her lovely Harriet’s picture. Beautiful Harriet. Safe and happy at school, now. What a big girl – hard to believe she’s turned five. Someday, the bubble will burst; the picture will shatter, won’t it? The dream of Harriet is too good to be true. She experiences a sudden urge to run out from the surgery, away from this couple with their traumatic failure to conceive, and to go to school and gather up her own gorgeous child.
She doesn’t, of course. Because although Harriet might be the most important thing in the world, this is Work Kirsten. So she stays put, sits, listens, empathises and prescribes, while a little part of her brain rejoices in Harriet, her girl.