‘Ring a ring a roses, a pocket full of posies…’
She heard Nick’s voice joining in. ‘Atishoo! Atishoo!’
She couldn’t help joining in herself, on the last line, but the others didn’t shout out what she did. They shouted:
‘We all JUMP UP!’
And they did, giving Hope’s shoulders a wrench as she tried to fall down as everyone else including Nick jumped up. She’d just sorted herself out from that when her arms were again tugged as the women and Nick all moved a few steps towards the school gate and then started again, side-skipping around in a ring. After a couple more rounds of this they were at the gate – Miss Petrie, and one of the fathers and two of the mothers who tried to intercept them, were brushed aside by the whirligig of bodies. The next time they stopped, Nick was standing right in front of the now open gate. Well done, Miss Petrie! Hope ducked and gave him a quick kiss on the top of the head, which got her an ‘I’m-too-old-for-that’ scowl.
‘In you go!’ she said.
Dizzy, and with a puzzled look, Nick ran in. He glanced back over his shoulder and gave a quick wave. Hope barely had time to wave back before her hands were snatched again and she was hauled into skipping along the pavement with the other women. She looked back, and saw Carolyn, Chloe, Sophie and the rest of the group of parents who’d tried to stop Nick going into nursery gazing after them with baffled looks. It had all taken about two minutes, though it had seemed longer. The line split and re-formed like molecules as it bypassed late-arriving parents and children and others on the pavement, and swung almost into the road as it swept around the nearest corner. Then they slewed to a halt, panting and laughing. Hope glanced around her unexpected rescuers. All six of them were women who looked a bit younger than she was. They were dressed for the weather and for running – jeans or short skirts with leggings, and trainers or Kickers. The rest of their clothing, in all its variety, had a craft-made or selective-vintage look: the sort of stuff, Hope thought with a brief pang, that she’d once imagined herself selling or making.
‘Thanks for that,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’
‘We just came together for this,’ said the woman who’d held her hand. ‘None of us know each other.’ She grinned around at the group. ‘Thanks, all. I’ll take it from here.’
The rest nodded, smiled, and walked off, up or down or across the street. Hope stared at the one who remained, still grinning at her out of a sunburst of blond ringlets. The woman stuck out a hand.
‘My name’s Maya,’ she said. ‘I did this.’
Hope shook hands. ‘Hope Morrison,’ she said. ‘You organised it?’
‘Flash mob,’ Maya explained, or rather, said as if it was an explanation.
‘Hmm,’ said Hope.
‘They all live around here,’ said Maya. ‘Bet you didn’t know you had so many interesting and supportive neighbours, huh?’
Hope felt patronised. ‘How would you know that?’
Maya didn’t seem fazed. ‘If you did, you could have done something like this yourself.’
Hope couldn’t think of a reply to that. Instead she asked, ‘How do you know about me? How did you know I was…’
‘ParentsNet,’ said Maya, looking away a little.
‘Oh,’ said Hope. ‘Well. That’s interesting. I start a thread and suddenly everybody knows my business.’
‘You know how it is,’ said Maya, sounding defensive for the first time. ‘It’s all out there. But the good thing about it is that you now have an army of flying monkeys.’
‘I didn’t ask for an army of flying monkeys!’
Maya looked abashed. ‘Well, sorry, at least we did help you there, and… Uh, do you have time for a coffee and a chat, maybe?’
Hope felt suddenly reckless. She deserved a bit of relaxation – not to mention explanation – more than she needed an hour’s pay.
‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Let’s do that.’
She expected Maya to ask her to suggest somewhere to go, but instead Maya nodded and smiled and set off down the street. Hope fell in beside her. On reaching the next junction, Maya put on a set of glasses and looked around. As she did so, Hope noticed what it was about the woman’s left hand that had struck her as odd a few minutes earlier. She wasn’t wearing a monitor ring.
Hope hadn’t seen a woman of childbearing age without a monitor ring since she didn’t know how long. It wasn’t compulsory, certainly not, but it was such a badge of adulthood – and indeed freedom, compared to the old system of monthly pregnancy tests and certification cards – that girls put them on long before they had the slightest intention or legal opportunity to drink alcohol, smoke or get pregnant. She’d seen ten-year-olds showing them off as if flashing engagement-ring rocks, though in these cases Hope rather suspected the rings were fake.
Maya led the way across the road, took a few confident steps onward, then stopped at the door of a small shop that didn’t at all promise coffee. Its faded sign still said Newspapers and Tobacco and it sold sweets, convenience food and emergency groceries. Maya strode inside, nodded to the Sikh woman at the counter, and asked for two coffees.
‘Real or instant?’
‘Real, thanks.’
The shopkeeper opened an airtight jar and scooped some ground coffee into a paper bag.
‘Milk?’ she asked.
Maya looked at Hope.
‘What kind would you like?’ Maya asked.
‘Uh, thanks, cappuccino, why not?’
‘Ah,’ said Maya. ‘I think the choice here is with or without milk.’
Hope shook her head. ‘OK, without, thanks.’
‘Just one,’ said Maya.
The shopkeeper measured a few mils of milk into a small plastic bottle, and popped a lid on it.
‘Five pounds,’ she said.
‘What!’ said Hope.
Maya grinned and raised a finger. ‘Wait.’
She paid, and then led the way through a plastic tape curtain to the back. Hope fought down a momentary apprehension and followed, out through a door to a back green with cracked concrete paths. Just ahead, in the middle of the green, was an area covered by a shallow roof of two sloping sheet-diamond panes, visible only from the drizzle-drops that misted them, and held up by four stout wooden posts. In its shelter were half a dozen tables with benches, and a scatter of small round tables with plastic chairs. There was a good and noisy crowd of twenty-odd people at the tables, eating, drinking, some of them smoking. It had been years since Hope had seen so many people smoking, openly, in one place. At the back, a young Asian guy sat behind a table, keeping an eye on people pouring water from electric kettles as they made their way past with cafetières and mugs.
Hope stopped dead.
‘I can’t go in here,’ she said. ‘I’m pregnant.’
Maya, a step or two in front, looked over her shoulder.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘You just take the ring off.’
‘But it’s dangerous,’ Hope said.
‘The smoke?’ Maya flapped a hand in front of her face. ‘Pffft!’
‘Well, no, I mean taking the ring off. It’ll get logged!’
‘The Health Centres look for patterns,’ said Maya. ‘Not odd incidents. Relax.’
Not feeling at all relaxed, Hope turned the monitor ring to loosen it, slid it slowly off her finger and stuck it in the bottom of her jeans pocket. She looked at the pale indentation around her finger above the gold wedding ring, and felt naked.
They found a table. Maya took the packet of coffee and the bottle of milk to the queue. Hope sat down. She could smell coffee, tea, bacon – rolls bought somewhere else, she guessed – and cigarette smoke. The crowd looked like a mixture of art students and building workers. Quite a few of both types were wearing glasses and obviously into some virtual scene. While Maya waited for the boiling water, Hope put her own glasses on. The overlay snapped into view, showing, as she’d expected, people posing as their online avatars: two of the art students looked like dragons, others wore strange strappy costumes or had features like manga characters, all big eyes and chiselled cheekbones. Four lads stooped intently over a tabletop football match on a pitch the size of two chessboards. Hope was amused to see that they kept their mugs and plates off the virtual field. In a far corner, Indian Air Force jets made repeated bombing runs on a forested mountain slope, red and black blooms rising above the green.