She's Leaving Home

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Why didn’t you go when I told you, before we left the house?” The question is aimed at a small, short-trousered boy, moving angrily down the pavement. Nanny, hair wild in the October wind, drives the huge Silver Cross pram with her right hand and drags the little boy along the pavement with the left. Baby has abandoned Nee-Noo, her felt elephant, and is grizzling under the yellow blanket. They had gone to the park. None of the other nannies had been there. It was too cold, but the children’s mother insisted they go for a walk every morning before their elevenses. Mother believed in fresh air and exercise, though she herself preferred to stay home, sucking Park Drives and talking for hours and hours on the phone like it doesn’t cost anything and playing patience.

“I told you to go, didn’t I?” Nanny struggles onward, crab-fashion, each arm extended, one pushing, the other pulling. “Didn’t I?”

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