by H. A. Nicola
Around 40 children, ranging in age from four to twelve, were running around in various groups, some kneeling in corners sorting through buckets of toys whilst others were sitting colouring and making full use of the stationary laid out on the tables. A couple of the older boys were tossing a basketball around with one eye trained on Clive, hoping that the lady they hadn’t seen before in the black uniform would keep him preoccupied for a little longer.
“This is the main area where we will be working most of the day,” Clive was showing Cayenne the general routine. She noticed that he was almost well-spoken, and there was a slight effeminate edge to his voice.
“This is where you will sign in when you come in each morning,” he pointed at a blue felt register with a pen wedged into one of the pages. “This is the children’s register.” He picked up an A5 ledger with the children’s names listed, and several columns where they were to be ticked present or absent when the register took place twice a day. It seemed some of the children were dropped off at 8:00 a.m. and others arrived later at 10:00 a.m.
“When the children come in, direct them over here where they can take their coats off and put their bags down.”
He wandered towards two rows of low-level benches which already had a stack of coats and scarves thrown in a heap in no particular order. She wondered quite how they were supposed to keep track of which coat belonged to who, but it was a great example of why lost property was such a large part of primary school life.
“We have a snack break at 11:00 a.m. and then break for lunch at 2:00 p.m. We always remind the children that it is snack time first, so they should only grab a small snack.” Clive covered his parched lips with his hand conspiratorially, “We’ve had a few incidents where we’ve turned around, and some of the kids have eaten all their meal during break, and then at lunchtime they’ve had nothing left,” he chortled heartily making a snorting noise and revealing teeth caked in days’ worth of plaque and a thick furry-coated tongue. His eyes crinkled in the corners where yellow crumbs resembling cornmeal gathered in clumps.
He continued to run through the routine. “I’ve taken the liberty of assigning you to a group. There are four of us coordinators, and we are all responsible for a group each. I’ll show you your group in a moment.”
It was all Cayenne could do to stifle her excitement.
“We generally swap around. In the morning, your group might be inside, so you will be leading them in an exercise. I’ll give you some ideas. Then in the afternoon, after lunch, you’ll most likely be outside where you’ll do a fun outdoor game with the children. There’s no formal routine though, so sometimes we will all go out together and do a large group exercise.”
Cayenne tried not to let the surprise show on her face. She had only just walked in the door barely 15 minutes before, and now she was responsible for a group already? She had expected to perhaps shadow for a day or so and casually assist with a more experienced coordinator until she found her feet. It seemed she was expected to find her feet almost immediately. She didn’t even bother to ask Clive to give her some ideas for the exercises. She got the distinct impression that he could hardly wait to offload the stress he was obviously experiencing himself. As they sat in the prop room, a kind of staffroom-come-abandoned-accessories room with a row of wooden cupboards that looked like the result of a woodwork experiment, and a dirty sink in the corner which was covered in hard dried paint and clearly used to wash paint and glue utensils from the arts and crafts classes, Clive removed a stack of files from one table making room for them to sit and talk. “I’ve got all that paperwork to do later,” he sighed rolling his eyes towards the removed pile and looking heavy with disdain.
“You’ve got some paperwork to do as well I’m afraid. As I pass them to you, just read through them quickly and sign at the bottom. Sorry about this, but the head office will expect me to have it done today.”
“That’s okay,” she smiled pleasantly and sat opposite him taking one of the biro pens that were strewn across the untidy table. She deliberately took the seat slightly to his right on the opposite side of the table, as she knew that sitting any closer to the permeating odour, that she suspected was coming from the beneath his bulging jumper, would arouse a bout of acute nausea. She rested her forehead against her hand, as she leaned on the table, partly to shield the horror on her face that this young university student had been appointed a manager of a children’s out-of-school programme, when it was clear looking after himself was a constant, precarious challenge. Either that or the sadness in his eyes spoke of a deeper issue to such an extent that he had lost any interest in his day-to-day care.
Pen poised over her paperwork as though she was pausing to think of an appropriate answer for the numerous mundane questions that lay before her, she screwed up her face in confusion as to how his appearance had gone unnoticed. This wasn’t simply a case of bad odour or bad breath or the usual traits that one would come across in a work environment. As far as was completely evident to her and any normal person, this guy was seriously neglecting himself. Particles of food had hardened onto his work jumper that had the audacity to boast manager on the back. It was as though he had fallen asleep somewhere the night before, perhaps the last two nights, and simply woken up and ran out of the door in the way one would expect a student to behave or at least someone with a less responsible position, such as collecting glasses in the local boozer for extra cash. Not a representative of a reputable children’s company that was subsidised by the local government.
Before she could finish her list of autographs, he was openly confiding in her about the pressures of his position. He had been promoted the previous year from senior coordinator to manager of the St Edwards Primary placement which ran several programmes throughout the year.
“How long have you been doing this now?” She looked up at him and smiled, deliberately attempting to soften her eyes and not alert him to the way in which he was startling almost all of her senses at once.
“Three years now. I’m studying business management at Coventry University, but I’ve been doing this in the holidays to earn extra money.” He rested his head on the heel of his hand and closed his crusty eyes momentarily.
“It’s getting too much now. All this paperwork for one and the area managers don’t help. They just turn up and expect me to have it all done.” He was gazing towards the other side of the room with a faraway look in his eyes. She knew he wasn’t focusing on anything in particular. She wondered why he seemed so lost.
“There was supposed to be someone else here as well. There was supposed to be two new people starting today. You and someone else. But they haven’t turned up, and the two people that were here last term,” he snorted and wiped the end of his nose in an upwards motion exposing two caked nostrils. “Gone,” he flicked his hand to suggest they had disappeared into thin air.
“It’s not that bad, is it?” she laughed thinking how she could lighten the mood.
“It’s alright. Some of the kids are a bit…” He screwed up his face as though suddenly catching a bad smell. She wondered whether he had finally gotten a waft of his own armpits.
“Some of them just don’t want to listen and are such hard work.” It was clear to Cayenne that Clive wasn’t exactly following his passion with this job. She was prepared to hazard a guess that even without the perceived pressures from senior management, that Clive would not be the most motivated, energetic person to be around. She could certainly understand his lack of enthusiasm, as she wasn’t exactly drawn to the prospect of working with children either. She often found it amusing that people presumed that she enjoyed working with children, or that she would be suited to it. Most of the time she barely thought she was even suited to parenthood, and that was with her own children. There were aspects that she enjoyed. The responsibility of guiding them through the challenges of life and preparing them for the obstacles that lay ahead; helping to cultivate the mindset that a good foundation will see you through almost anyth
ing—that was her forte. That was where she felt she thrived. The day-to-day routine, not so much. She was enjoying that her children were mostly of an age that they could engage in great conversation, and their own personalities were showing through—obviously it was different with Ocee. The conversation was limited, although she often questioned whether she had helped set that limitation herself and perhaps should have challenged him more. All of the children had been late developers with their speech. More than likely because she was always in her head and should have been more vocal with them from an early age. Most expectant mothers began their dialogue with their child the moment they knew of their existence. Cayenne barely saw the point until they were at preschool age. The age where she could expect a decent response. Perhaps therein lay the problem. Obviously, she hadn’t divulged this during the interview process for this job.
She certainly hadn’t been honest about the fact that she would much rather rake over 50 acres of land and dig up weeds with her bare hands than spend eight hours with nose-dribbling, whining children whom she suspected had parents that hadn’t much fancied it either, which is why they dropped them off at the earliest opportunity and picked them up ten hours later. She was prepared to bet that many of them weren’t at work at all but rather sitting at home with a good book.
Shortly after, Cayenne had the opportunity to observe the opening session when all the children were gathered around to sit in a circle with Clive perched on a brave, spindly, wooden chair in the middle with the other two coordinators on duty that day, looking on with bored expressions. Both of the women were of a similar age to Clive. Joanne was a white, wild-haired girl in a stretchy striped jumper, with her E-Quip uniform over the top and holey jeans and purple Dr Martens. Vanessa was black, short and round and looked much older than her 22 years; and again, she was relying heavily upon the generosity and imagination of the E-Quip uniform department.
“Hello everyone.” Clive sang with a deliberately cheery voice. “Welcome back. I can see that some of you have been here before. Who hasn’t been here before?” Clive looked around, to see if there were any hands in the air, taking note to glance at Cayenne to see if she was paying attention. Two little hands were raised, and she later found out that there were a few more in the crowd that had obviously wanted to remain anonymous.
“Can anybody tell me who else is new in the room?” A few cheeky fingers pointed in her direction.
Cayenne obliged with what she hoped was a friendly winning and engaging smile. A smile that said, ‘Yes, I really want to be here, and I can’t wait to spend time with you all, and I don’t mind at all that you may wipe snot on me and tap me on the arm with no regard for the combination of paint and glue wedged between your fingers.’
“This is CAYENNE. Can we all say a friendly ‘hello’ to Cayenne and make her feel welcome.”
“Hhheeeeeeelllllllloooooooo,” came the loud chorus. She waved at a few faces that caught her eye and wondered how long she could keep up this smile without her cheeks aching.
Clive proceeded to invite the children to say their names and to tell everybody something about themselves. Whether they had a brother or sister, what their favourite cake was, what sweets they hated, how much they couldn’t stand vegetables etc.
Several group activities followed until snack time, after which Cayenne was thrown into her first assignment. She had been assigned to the blue group according to Clive’s programme, which meant that she would have to take 15 of the children outside and entertain them for 45 minutes.
She tried to ignore the panic threatening to build-up inside. “Come on, it can’t be that hard,” she scolded herself and took a quick look in the store cupboard whilst the children were eating to see what was available to her. She looked longingly at the tennis and badminton racquets but immediately ruled them out, as most of the children in her group were too young to grasp the game with such short notice, and they weren’t exactly team sports. She spotted a leather bag, with what looked like plastic hockey sticks inside, perched in the corner of the room behind a sack of basketballs. Managing to climb over an assortment of objects to reach for the sack, she rooted inside and found some plastic balls. She quickly formulated a plan in her head. Something simple and straightforward. She would need some plastic spot markers, which luckily, she found behind the door; and once she led her team out of the double doors at the end of the hall, she noticed there were dozens more scattered and abandoned around the large enclosed playground looking decidedly worse for wear.
“Okay children, follow me.” Cayenne elevated her voice injecting as much enthusiasm as she could muster. Raising her arm in the direction of the large playground, the children filed along behind her.
Clive followed shortly afterwards to see how she was getting along. If he was displeased at all, it didn’t show.
She lined the children up along the wire mesh fence whilst she demonstrated what she wanted them to do. They watched with excited anticipation as she placed the spot markers to form two long lines, one for each team, spacing them out with enough room for a little person to meander around, long stick in hand.
She then retrieved two sticks from the leather bag and two plastic balls. Placing one of each on the floor, she held the other stick in front of her poised next to the ball. Nudging the ball gently with the stick, weaving in and out of the markers right to the end of the line and then back again.
“Once you’ve managed to get back to base, you then hand your hockey stick carefully to the next person in your team, and then it’s their turn. The first team to finish is the winning team. Okay? Does everyone understand?”
“Yeeeeeaaaaaaah.”
She divided the group into two teams, soon realising that they were one team member short. “I will have to join your team,” she exuded pointing to the team with one man down.
She was surprised to see that the children grasped the game very quickly and were remarkably skilled with the ball, even with south-easterly winds to contend with.
Clive looked pleased with what she had done, and Cayenne was relieved when the time was up, and they gathered up all the materials and marched back to join the others in the hall. She was even more relieved that when she looked at the clock, there were only 15 minutes to go until she could leave. All thoughts of wanting to work maximum hours, when she had first considered the job, were quickly abandoned at the end of her first day. She tried her hardest not to literally run out of the door when the clock struck 4:00 p.m.
Retracing her steps from her journey to work that morning, she returned with none of the gusto which had carried her there, skipping over the morning dew. She stumbled home almost in a daze feeling as though she had had the life force sucked out of her. She hadn’t expected young children to be so demanding. She certainly hadn’t remembered her own children being this hard work. Despite the fact that she had seemed to career through the day with relative ease, it wasn’t until she had walked out of the door that immense fatigue hit her. She felt the effects of every last call of her name which had ranged from Caym to Caymen, whilst some gave up using her name altogether and simply tapped her on the arm to get her attention for the slightest concern that they had, ranging from broken or missing toys to detailed descriptions of the contents of their lunch box.
When she finally walked through the door of her apartment, she couldn’t remember ever being so appreciative of her own children and their self-sufficient stages in life, confirmed by Sugar removing her coat and bag and beckoning for her to sit, so that she could assist in removing her trainers; and Diego putting the kettle on, reaching for the Jamaican Wray and Nephew 100% proof rum to infuse her Earl Grey after folding his tired mother into a warm embrace.
Cayenne lay down in the middle of the living room floor, still fully clothed in the E-Quip uniform. The last thought she could remember when she awoke the next morning was the sensation of a quilt being thrown over her and vaguely listening to the sound of the kettle boiling and hearing the children pottering ar
ound to prepare her hot beverage.
She could have sworn she heard the cheeky giggle of her daughter in the kitchen whispering, “A little bit more rum.”
Chapter 34
“You’re back then?” Clive seemed genuinely surprised when he buzzed her in via the intercom the following morning.
The first part of the day was spent playing with the children in their chosen activities. Cayenne knew that this was going to be the hardest part. Structured play she could handle. Having to sit and engage into their four-year-old minds whilst they played games or drew pictures suddenly seemed like an uphill struggle.
She was relieved when Clive called her into the staffroom again to complete some additional paperwork. She would quite happily spend all her time in there completing all of Clive’s paperwork, as long as it kept her away from anybody under 11.
Cayenne glanced discreetly at Clive whilst he rifled through the pile of files in front of him.
It was obvious, and not only by his stale odour, that he was wearing the exact same uniform that he had worn the previous day minus the washing machine cycle in between that it so desperately needed. The same embedded stains in the same places. His hair still hadn’t been terrorised by a comb, let alone any form of moisturisation. She could have sworn the crumbs in the corner of his eye sockets were the exact same ones as the day before, and she daren’t inspect the teeth. How could this happen? Where does he live? Didn’t anyone happen to mention over breakfast that it might be an idea to glance at the shower? Surely he wasn’t homeless. Was he? He reminded her of those black children in the ’70s who were adopted by white families—families with the best of intentions that had all the love in the world to offer this child but with absolutely no foreknowledge of the child’s heritage and culture. The ones Cayenne came across always seemed to boast National Health Service glasses, displayed dry skin and uneven hair, in a unisex but slightly boyish and doubtless, manageable style. After several years in their adopted environment, you could almost identify them in a crowd. They were black on the outside, but it was as though someone had sucked the very soul out of them leaving an overall impression that something was missing.
