May Contain Nuts (2 page)

‘No, any normal mother would
not
have done the same – I think that's the point,' said my husband.

‘Well, I say bravo that woman!' declared Ffion. ‘The roads have got so dangerous now that it's impossible to let the kids out of the front door. And then we're made to feel guilty for driving them everywhere.'

‘What happened to the headless model boy?' asked Sarah.

‘He went to Battersea Comprehensive,' said Philip. ‘He's top of the class, apparently …'

Ffion's husband Philip was never able to fully participate in any social gathering as his desperate need for a cigarette generally banished him to the other side of the French doors. From there he would do his best to lean in and offer the occasional comment between puffs.

‘Don't talk into the room, darling, you're letting smoke in,' said Ffion as the laughter died down.

I passed cups of coffee one way while the statement was passed the other and the assembled parents attempted polite conversation while remaining totally focused on the activities of their own children. Sarah warned her youngest to be careful with the wax crayons, while my little boy Alfie was quietly occupying himself with some Lego. Each of us watched our children play in the same way that a bit-part actor watches a film in which he features, seeing only one person in the scene.
David commented that Alfie's confidence with the plastic building bricks might suggest that he'd become an architect when he grew up.

‘Or a brickie,' said William. Sarah's husband had a habit of standing and surveying my bookshelves, making me worry that he'd notice there were no cracks in the spines of the highbrow classics that nestled between all the chick-lit novels and self-help books. David was putting a CD in the stereo.

‘Not
Peter and the Wolf
again, darling,' I groaned.

‘It's not my choice, it's Alfie's.'

‘What, our four-year-old requested Prokofiev, did he?'

‘No, when you were making the coffee I suggested the wolf music and he said yes.'

‘Anyway,' continued Ffion, ‘at the moment we're just letting Gwilym do as much painting and drawing as he wants, but there'll come a point when we'll have to impose a limit on it otherwise we might find we'd pushed him towards art college rather than university.'

‘He is only four, darling.'

‘Shut the door, your smoke's blowing in.'

‘Shh! Shh! Shh, everyone,' interjected David. ‘This is the string section. What does the string section represent, Alfie?'

‘Peter!' volunteered Alfie obediently, and there was an impressed murmur among the assembled parents before they resumed their conversation. Sarah agreed that it was difficult to know when to start structuring their play towards achieving specific goals when David interrupted again.

‘Shhh, this is the flute – which character is the flute, Alfie?'

‘The bird!'

‘Oh, that's very good, Alfie,' said Ffion. ‘Yes, you can't start them on music too early. When I was pregnant with Bronwyn,
I opened out a pair of headphones wide enough to fit over my bare bump and then whenever I was having a lie-down I played Shostakovich to her.'

‘Aaah, that's lovely. And does she like Shostakovich now?'

‘Um … well, about the same as any other classical music. I had been planning to play her all fifteen symphonies in order and then move on to the concertos but she was a month premature.'

‘I'm not surprised – I bet she couldn't get out of there quick enough,' said William, and Ffion's laugh didn't even attempt to be convincing.

I had been struggling to keep up with Ffion and Sarah ever since I'd volunteered to go into my daughter's classroom to listen to the kids read. I remember feeling slightly indignant when they had given me someone else's child to sit with. And while this child was obligingly reading away to me, I was craning my neck round the corner trying to see how Molly was getting on with this other mum who'd also volunteered that morning. In fact, there were so many mothers who had come in to spy on the teachers that there wasn't very much room left for the children.

‘G … good. D … dog. Said. Dad,' stammered Molly. ‘Good. Dog. Said. M … M … M …'

‘
Mum!
It's
Mum
, Molly darling,' I called across. ‘You know that word, don't you?'

The other helper looked a little annoyed by the interruption but I could hardly stand by and do nothing. Molly
did
know ‘Mum'. I mean, it was the first word she ever said; she just needed a bit of prompting, that's all. Unfortunately I discovered that being at school with Molly didn't stop me worrying about her. My daughter tortuously spelled out ‘good' and ‘dog' while the child I was sitting with seemed to
whizz through her chosen book effortlessly: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of …' Well, it felt like it at the time.

‘Yes, all right, Bronwyn,' I snapped, ‘that's enough reading. Go and play in the home corner. Or the second-home corner in your case. Hello! I'm finished over here so would you like me to take over with Molly?'

Five years later those other mothers and their husbands had become our best friends, and, like mine, their eldest children would soon be taking their entrance exams for big school. While our daughters were having extra tuition on Saturday mornings, we would meet up like this in my kitchen and debate the major issues of the day. How many secondary schools are you applying to? Is it true that you can only get in to Chelsea College if you can speak fluent Latin? ‘We looked at a lovely secondary school in Calais. The only downside is that Bronwyn would have to get up at 4.30 every morning to catch the Eurostar.' The regular Saturday morning gathering also gave us a bit of quality time with our younger children, ones who were stimulated and encouraged as they learnt the basic skills of life: writing, drawing and identifying all the characters in
Peter and the Wolf
.

‘Listen, everyone. This is the oboe now. Whose theme is the oboe, Alfie?' continued David.

‘The duck!' he shouted and our friends murmured their appreciation.

‘My Cameron likes to clap along to nursery rhymes,' said Sarah bravely but nobody bothered to respond to that.

‘Hang on, hang on, here it comes. This is the clarinet. Who does the clarinet represent, Alfie?'

‘The cat!'

‘Clever boy, Alfie! That's one of the wind instruments, isn't it? What other wind instruments are there?'

‘The baboon!'

‘Bassoon, that's right! And who does the bassoon represent?'

‘The grandfather!'

‘He's very musical, isn't he,' said Sarah, rather perceptively I thought.

‘The grandfather is a baboon!' Alfie repeated delightedly.

‘That's right, the grandfather is the bassoon,' said David firmly.

‘He is a clever boy, isn't he? Have you had him professionally assessed?' asked Ffion. I thought I'd already told her about how Alfie had scored at the institute but she must have forgotten.

‘Er, yes, we got the report back a couple of weeks ago; the institute said he was “approaching gifted”,' said David.

‘“
Approaching
gifted.” That's wonderful news.' Ffion smiled faintly.

‘Well, it's fine, yes, but I think they've underestimated him. Actually I think he's just straightforward “gifted”. Ideally I'd like him to be aspiring to “exceptionally gifted”.'

‘He's only four years old, darling,' I said, noticing that William was looking slightly incredulous.

At that moment there was a panic as Sarah leapt across the room like a presidential bodyguard and snatched a biscuit from her child's hand. ‘It's OK, everyone – I've got it. He didn't ingest any, he's OK …'

‘Sorry – is he not allowed biscuits, then?'

Sarah read solemnly from the side of the packet. ‘“May contain nuts.” Yes, I thought so.'

‘I didn't know Cameron was allergic to nuts.'

‘Well, we don't know whether he is or not, we've never exposed him to them. It's just not worth taking the risk, is it?'

‘Er … no, well, it is a worry I suppose …'

‘Oh dear. “May contain nuts.” He can't have these either,' she said, reading the warning on another packet from the sideboard.

‘Well, no, but then that is actually a packet of nuts.'

‘Oh yes, so it is. I suppose they can't be too careful.'

With the intellectual credentials of our ‘approaching gifted' son clearly established, Philip took his chance to counterattack by demonstrating the nascent genius of his own four-year-old who was bashing a plastic tyrannosaurus rex against a stegosaurus that had dared stray onto the wrong part of the coffee table.

‘That's very good, Gwilym,' said Philip, leaning in through the open French windows, holding his smouldering cigarette at arm's length outside. ‘The tyrannosaurus rex is the carnivore, isn't he?'

Gwilym made an exploding noise as the two dinosaurs collided.

‘And what is the stegosaurus?'

‘A herbivore!' lisped little Gwilym proudly and there was a light ripple of applause from the assembled adults.

‘And what is an oviraptor, Gwilym?' prompted Philip.

‘An ommyvore!'

‘That's right. An omnivore. Good boy.'

‘He certainly has a very good vocabulary for a four-year-old,' said Sarah.

‘Well, Gwilym's report from the institute singled out his particular aptitude for dinosaur-based play, so we are taking the opportunity to teach him about predators and the food chain.'

‘Yes, well, why not?'

‘Careful, darling. You blew some smoke in just then—'

‘No, Gwilym, the herbivore can't eat the carnivore, can he?' interjected Philip. ‘Play properly, darling!'

‘No, exhale outside, and then talk into the room,' ordered Ffion.

Gwilym ignored his father, and, turning the food chain on its head, he granted the plant-eater the power to savage the normally unassailable tyrannosaurus rex. ‘Grarrr! Grarrrr!' roared the veggy, who'd finally cracked after millions of years of never eating meat, not even at Christmas. Ffion tried to deflect attention away from the slightly strained atmosphere that had developed due to two differing male interpretations of prehistory.

‘Yes, well, of course, we're very lucky our children are “exceptionally gifted”. But you can't guarantee good news from the institute. The Johnsons had their five-year-old assessed and they were told that she was, er, “able”.' She whispered this word in case the children overheard.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't know,' said Sarah.

A shudder went round the assembled adults at the thought of such a heartbreaking misfortune befalling any parent. We all knew there was a statistical risk when we decided to have children; we all knew there was an outside chance of having a child that might only be ‘able' rather than ‘gifted' or ‘approaching gifted', but you just pray it's never going to happen to you. David glanced at me, but I quickly looked away. For five years we had kept the secret of our eldest child's assessment result. It wasn't fair, Molly was actually very bright – she just didn't do well in exams.

‘I'm just grateful that the institute said that Gwilym was “exceptionally gifted”,' said Ffion, forging on and finding an
opportunity to slip in the detail that her youngest had scored higher than ours. There was an embarrassed pause filled by an embarrassing husband.

‘Oooh, here it comes, the French horn! Who does the French horn represent, Alfie?'

‘The wolf !'

‘I think that Alfie is probably “gifted” really,' said David. ‘He had a cold on the morning of the assessment and so he only scored “approaching gifted”. I'm thinking of going back and having him reassessed.'

‘It's two hundred and fifty pounds, darling,' I pleaded.

‘Yes, but I think it's worth it, just so that we know where he is in his development and what sort of school and tutors we should be thinking of.'

Sarah glanced anxiously at her husband, who failed to make any reassuring eye contact. ‘So what is this institute exactly?'

‘Have you not had Cameron assessed yet?' said Ffion, frowning.

‘It's the Cambridge Institute for Child Development – I can give you the number,' I said.

‘Is it in Cambridge?'

‘No, that's just the name. It's in Balham. The lady who runs it specializes in testing brighter children,' I explained. ‘She talks to the child, watches him play and looks at his drawings and then sends you a comprehensive report and grading.'

‘It's just a posh woman in a house taking lots of money off gullible parents to tell them that their children are clever,' William sneered.

‘Well, I think it's vital that parents know how their children are progressing,' said David. ‘Even if she did get it a bit wrong first time.'

‘She assessed you as “approaching gullible”. If you go
back again, she re-grades you as “exceptionally gullible”.'

‘Shut up, William,' said his wife. She turned back to me. ‘He's only joking. Don't let me go without getting the number off you.'

‘And here's the timpani drum – who's the big drum, Alfie?' Alfie didn't respond.

‘Alfie!' said David slightly too crossly.

‘What?'

‘Who does the timpani drum represent?'

‘The hunter,' he said sulkily.

‘Er, Philip?' called William, a little mischievously. ‘I think the herbivores are forgetting their place in the food chain again' – and he gave a mock-concerned nod in the direction of the prehistoric landscape of our coffee table, where a Roman centurion came swooping in from the arm of the sofa and attacked with a sword.