‘You know, kids. I want that, one day.’
Anna felt a lurch inside her. He’d never said anything like this to her before, and anyway, wasn’t it too soon? But then she went over his words again and realised he hadn’t actually said he wanted those things with her. Was this just a general opening up about the future? Or was he just drunk? And did he know that she was forty-one and had probably missed her chance?
‘I don’t think I do,’ she said.
Marco seemed unfazed by her response. ‘You should think about it,’ he said. ‘We should think about it.’ And then he leaned in and kissed her and Anna forgot about everything other than the dizzy feeling that kissing him gave her.
24
YES
Tuesday 5 June 2012
While Miss Bright matched up the children with their adults, Anna held Sam’s hand, ready to pass him to the friend who’d offered to wait with him while Anna talked to his teacher.
It was the third meeting this school year. Last year, she’d been in four times. She felt like she was probably one of those mothers the teachers talked about, rolling their eyes. And Edward had made it clear, several times, that he thought she was overreacting. She didn’t care. She was the one who Sam came to, achingly sad. She was the one he asked why people didn’t like him. Who asked what was wrong with him.
‘Right, sorry about that, come in.’ Miss Bright ushered her into the brightly decorated classroom. ‘What did you want to see me about?’
Anna smiled tightly. ‘It’s about the bullying. It’s no better.’
Miss Bright sat down behind her desk on the only full-sized chair in the room. Anna was left with the option of sitting on one of the tiny kids’ chairs and feeling stupid, or standing. Shestood. ‘We try to be very careful about how we label these kinds of incidents,’ Miss Bright said. ‘It’s only bullying if it’s sustained…’
‘And it is,’ Anna interrupted. ‘It is sustained. It’s been going on for months. Years, even.’
Before she’d had children, Anna had never been an angry person. And she still wasn’t, on the whole. But a ball of rage had formed in her stomach along with swollen feet and fingers and milk-filled breasts. It could sit there, still and unnoticed, for months, but it could also flare up in a second if anyone hurt either of her babies.
Miss Bright held up a hand, as if Anna was being unreasonable and she was trying to get her to calm down.
‘I keep an eye on it,’ she said. ‘I make sure I catch up with Sam once a week on his own, but he usually says things are okay.’
‘They’re not,’ Anna said, feeling close to tears, willing her voice to hold firm. ‘They’re not okay. I don’t know why he says that. But at least two or three nights a week, at bedtime, he’s in tears. You can’t play that down. That’s not okay.’
There was a clutching pain in Anna’s chest. She felt it when Sam nuzzled into her shoulder and his hot tears slid onto her skin. She felt it when Edward dismissed it, said that all boys went through this kind of thing and Sam just needed to toughen up a bit. She felt it now, when this woman, who was tasked with taking care of her son for thirty hours a week, didn’t seem to grasp how serious it was.
‘Is it the same boys as last time?’ Miss Bright asked, her voice softer.
‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Jack, Billy and Harry are the names that he mentions most. Look, I know he’s not your typical boy, playingfootball and running around. He likes My Little Pony and having his toenails painted. He mostly plays with girls, as you know. And I love all that about him; I encourage it. But I also know it leaves him wide open for this kind of treatment. My husband thinks we should, I don’t know, encourage him to be more of a boy’s boy.’
Miss Bright frowned. ‘I’ve seen children picked on for all kinds of things. Wearing glasses, being overweight, even not watching the right programmes on TV.’ She put her hands up to make air quotes around the word ‘right’. ‘And yes, not conforming to gender norms is a big one, but we have to stand up to it. Getting Sam to change isn’t the answer.’
In that moment, Anna’s rage retreated. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s what I always say to him. This is who he is, and I think we should celebrate it.’
‘I completely agree. I’m sorry the measures we’ve put in place so far aren’t working, and I want you to know how seriously I take this. How seriously we, as a school, take this. I’ll talk to Sam again, tell him he needs to be honest with me for this to work. And I’ll talk to the boys involved, too. We’ll do some work as a class, about celebrating difference and being kind. We’ll get it sorted, I promise.’
‘Thanks,’ Anna said. She meant it. She stood up to leave, brushing away tears.
On the walk home, Sam was quiet and she left him to his thoughts. They were nearly home when he spoke.
‘Ella is having her birthday party at that trampoline place.’
‘Are you invited?’ Anna asked, silently praying that he was.
‘Yes! And not everyone is. Only ten people.’
‘What shall we buy for her?’
‘A game with a horse. She likes horses.’
