“No, but I’m getting him on the pod to talk about how scared he was, and how sickening it is that Boris will be PM next week, et cetera.”
“I feel like other things he’s done have been worse. But whenwasall this, when was the secret tape from?”
“1990.”
“Oh.”
“News is news! Do you still have to go in early for the Feel Thing press thing?”
“No,” Coralie said. “I don’t.”
“Good, because I’ve got an early record tomorrow.”
And then his phone rang, and he answered it, and that was the end of that.
•••
Later,in the bath, she was glad he hadn’t followed up about her day. It meant she could carry out her plans without discussion.
•••
At first,she wondered if she’d come to the wrong place. Tucked around the Haggerston side of Broadway Market, it looked like any other community hall. Through the security grilles on the high windows, she spotted paper cutouts in the shape of children’s hands.This was it. She rang the bell. Not a sound came from inside. She knocked. After a full minute, a small woman (gray hair cut short like an acorn cap) came to the door, an expression of polite curiosity on her face.
“Sorry,” Coralie said.
“No need to apologize.”
“I just, sort of, urgently need to enroll my daughter in the school.”
“We don’t really do thingsurgently,” the woman said. “How old is your daughter?” She peered around, as if Florence should have come. Coralie hadn’t even thought to bring her.
“Three and a bit? She turned three in March?”
“And is she at a Montessori currently?”
“No?”
“Ha-ha! It’s not a test, you can’t fail. Come in. This is my horrible office, with my horrible computer, ignore the mess. Sit down. Tell me the story.”
“It’s just that I’ve wasted the past two and half years of her life,” Coralie burst out. “She’s in nursery nine hours a day, in the dark. She’s really loved there, she knows everyone, she can talk so well and point to the letters in her name. But it’s just not what I want, for her life and for mine.”
“I don’t think her life has been wasted. And what do you think we do here?”
“Um? Nothing urgent.” They both smiled. “I like the idea of doing things slowly, and the children having little tasks that they do by themselves, and the day being shorter. And you have a garden.”
“You’ve read about Montessori?”
Coralie had read about it on Instagram. But the woman didn’t need to know that. “I have.”
“I was just about to go home, you know. Term finished yesterday. The classrooms are all packed up. And now you want me to turn on my big, ugly computer?”
“Yes, please,” Coralie said. “And thank you.”
•••
At Daniel’s,the poodle sensed her approach. Coralie could hear her thin paws scrabbling at the back of the door. “Madonna,” she called through the letterbox. “It’s me!”
“She’s here!” It was Zora’s voice.
