The Drowning Girl

‘Sylvie’s in the story corner,’ she says. ‘Oh—and I think Mrs PB wanted a word—she told me to tell you.’

There’s a scurry of anxiety at the edges of my mind.

‘Has Sylvie been OK?’

Beth makes a little rocking movement with her hand.

‘So-so,’ she says. ‘You know—most of the time.’

I know she’s trying to smooth something over.

I go into the Garden Room. There are alphabet posters, and trays of toys in gorgeous fruit-gum colours, and the warmth is welcome after the chill of the streets. I always love to come to Little Acorns. Our life may not be perfect, but in sending Sylvie here I know I have done my best for her.

The children who haven’t yet been picked up are on cushions in the story corner: one of the assistants is reading them Where the Wild Things Are. It’s a favourite book of Sylvie’s, with its fabulous monsters at once predatory and amiable, but she isn’t paying attention. She’s hoping for me; she keeps looking towards the door. As I go in, she comes running across the floor towards me. But she doesn’t fling herself on me, the way another child might. She stops just in front of me and I kneel and she reaches her hands to my face. She gives a theatrical shiver.

‘You’re cold, Grace.’

I wrap her in my arms. She smells so good, of lemon, gingernuts, warm wool. I breathe her in and for a moment I am completely happy. I tell myself, This is where I should beliving—in the present, with Sylvie—not always looking behindme and longing for what I can’t have.

‘Ah. Ms Reynolds. Just who I wanted to see.’

Mrs Pace-Barden is at her office door. She has cropped, greying hair and dark conservative clothes. There’s something wholesome and vigorous about her; I always imagine her as a hockey teacher, urging recalcitrant young women to keep their minds on the game.

She bends to Sylvie.

‘Now, Sylvie, I need to have a word with your mum. Would you go and get your coat, please?’

Sylvie’s fingers are wrapped like bandages around my hand. I sense her reluctance to let go, after a whole day without me. I don’t know what will happen—whether she’ll do as she’s told, or instead just stand here, mute and clinging, with her opaque, closed face and her fingers clenched around mine. Karen once said to me—explaining why she likes to stay at home with her children: ‘The thing is, you know your own children inside out, like nobody else does—you know just what their triggers are. I mean, Lennie hates having her food mixed up and is horrible after chocolate—and Josh used to have this thing about heads apart from bodies… You always know how they’re going to react…’ Saying it with the certainty that I’d nod and say I agreed. And I thought, But I don’t, I don’t know, not with Sylvie.

But this time it’s OK, she holds on just for a moment, then heads off to the cloakroom. She must have been using pastels; her fingers have left a staining like ash on my hands.

‘Now, why I wanted to see you,’ says Mrs Pace-Barden. ‘I’m afraid we had a bit of a scene with Sylvie again today.’ She’s lowered her voice, as though anxious to save me from embarrassment. ‘It was when the water-play came out. Unfortunately Sylvie can be rather aggressive when she gets upset…’

I feel a hot little surge of anger. I’ve told them over and over.

‘You know she’s scared of water-play,’ I say.

‘Of course we do,’ says Mrs Pace-Barden. ‘And we took that into account, we were careful to see she was on the other side of the room. But, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, we can’t stop the other children from enjoying a full range of activities—not just for one child. I’m sure you can see that, Ms Reynolds.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Shame moves through me.

‘To be honest, I just can’t figure her out. I’m not often defeated by children, but this…’ Some unreadable emotion flickers across her face. ‘We need to talk about it. Wouldn’t you agree?’

It isn’t a question.

‘Yes, of course,’ I tell her.

‘I’d like to make an appointment for you to come in,’ she says.

‘But I’m not in a hurry. We could talk about it now.’

‘I’d really rather have a proper discussion,’ she says. ‘I think we owe that to Sylvie.’

Her seriousness unnerves me.

‘Perhaps a fortnight today?’ she says.

I know this isn’t negotiable.

We fix the time. She goes off to her room.

Sylvie comes back with her coat and slips her hand into mine, and we go out into the foyer.

‘Now don’t go forgetting your picture, Sylvie,’ says Beth. She turns towards us, holding out the drawing. ‘It’s one of her houses,’ she tells me.

I glance at it—a house in pastel crayons, precisely placed in the middle of the page. Just the same as every day. She’s been drawing houses for several months, and she draws them over and over. They’re neat, exactly symmetrical—four windows, a chimney, a door—and they’re always bare and unadorned. Never any people—though she knows how to draw stick people now, with triangle skirts for the women and clumpy big boots for the men—and never any flowers in the garden. Sometimes she draws blue around the house, not just for the sky, but all around, a whole bright border of blue, so the house looks like it’s floating. I said to her once, ‘It’s such a nice house in your picture. Does anybody live there?’ But she had her closed look, she didn’t tell me anything.

I hold the picture by its corner: pastel smudges so easily. We say goodbye to Beth and go out into the night.

In the middle of the night I wake, hearing the click of my bedroom door. I’m afraid. Just for an instant, a heartbeat, taking in the shadow in my doorway, dark against the crack of yellow light from the hall, I think that someone has broken in, that someone is looking in at me—a stranger. I can’t make out her face, she’s just a silhouette against the hall-light—but I can see the shaking of her shoulders as she sobs.

I’m drenched with sleep; I can’t get up for a moment.

‘Oh, sweetheart—come here.’

She doesn’t come.

I put on my bedside light and drag myself out of bed. My body feels heavy, lumbering. I go to her, put my arms all around her. Her skin is chilly; she doesn’t feel like a child who’s just tumbled out of a warm bed. Sometimes in the night she’ll kick off all her covers, however securely I tuck her duvet in around her, as though her dreams are a struggle.

She lets me hold her, but she doesn’t move in to me. She’s clutching Big Ted to her. Her face is desolate; she has a look like grief.

‘What did you dream about, sweetheart?’

She won’t tell me.

She moves away from me, makes to get into my bed. I slip in beside her, wrap her in my arms.

‘It’s all over,’ I tell her. ‘The nightmare’s over. You’re here with me now. Everything’s OK.’

But she’s still shuddering.

‘It’s not real, Sylvie,’ I tell her. ‘Whatever you saw, whatever happened in your dream… It didn’t really happen, it was only a dream.’

Her eyes are on me, the pupils hugely dilated by the dark. In the dim light of my bedside lamp, they’re a deeper colour than usual, the elusive blue-grey of shaded water. The terror is still on her. When she looks at me, it’s as though she isn’t seeing me. Nothing I say makes sense to her.

I try again, needing to say something, anything; hoping my voice will soothe her.

‘That’s what a dream is,’ I tell her. ‘It’s something your mind makes up—like a picture-show in your head. Sometimes a horrible one. But it’s gone now, it’s over. It doesn’t mean anything.’