Round and round the garden

‘Come on Sam, we’re not going out until you put your hat on, it’s too cold out there. If you keep being silly we won’t have time for the swings because baby Agnes will need her feed’.
She knew she would relent; seeing the scrunched up face of her little boy which would be the precursor to a full blown tantrum which would then result in the baby waking and joining in the general howl of despair. She would never get out at this rate. Sam would cry himself to sleep on the sofa and she’d have him awake all night.
‘Well ok, just this once, but if it starts to rain you must put your hood up and do as mummy tells you, we don’t want Agnes to see a big boy like you making such a ugly face’.
Sulky looks were instantly transformed to a beaming smile and a race to the front door.
Wigan Tech had not prepared her for the exhaustion she would feel being a mum of a two year old and childminder to a baby. She knew she should never give in to temper tantrums, that she was making a rod for her own back. ‘Children need structured guidelines and established codes of behaviour’, she had written in her portfolio under the heading ‘Discipline and the under fives’ followed by 10 bullet point suggestions. Now, six months into her first job, with her own toddler as well, the naughty step and firm voice had been replaced by the bag of gooey sweets and blatant bribery.

She was glad and very grateful that Agnes was such a placid and pleasant little girl, she felt she sometimes took advantage of her good nature; while she chased the more petulant Sam round with the white plastic potty or a spoonful of unsavoury looking baby food, Agnes seemed quite content to play with her cot mobile. She tried not to show favouritism towards her own child but Sam was so demanding at times.
Agnes was such a sweet little baby, when Sam had his afternoon nap she would scoop her up in her arms and cover her with kisses until she cooed and giggled and her soft pink skin blushed with delight.
Sometimes she felt a slight resentment when she heard Sam stirring as he snivelled awake and his head, with its mass of blond tangled curls, turned towards her for attention.
Katie was glad to feel the sharp north wind on her face and leave behind for a short while the stuffiness of the playroom with its smells of scented nappy bags and dried milk powder. She hoped Sam would be a good boy on the swings and not make a scene when they had to come back.



As she picked the dead baby up she was amazed at its perfection. It reminded her of the porcelain babies’ advertised sometimes in glossy magazines, ’unique, handcrafted each baby is accompanied by their own wrist tag and baby birth certificate with the name of your choice’ She had once seen a channel 4 documentary where some childless women collected these babies, had them ‘made to measure’ with their own choice of hair colour, freckles, even individual customised birth marks. Some of the babies you could feed, wind, even hear breathing.

This baby had been thrown over her garden wall and had landed on a bed of snowdrops. She still smelled of her last feed and by the corner of her mouth a tiny finger print of milk had congealed and dried.
Her white babygro and knitted pink hooded coat were unmarked apart from a sharp twig which had caught in the hood and snagged loose one of the stitches. She unhooked the twig and then carefully placed the baby back on its grass resting place.
A young woman, presumably the mother, was running round and round her garden, howling, her hands blindly clawing at the air. A small boy sat crossed legged in the centre of the garden as though he were a lost boy in a fairy tale, captured by a wicked witch. Blood was oozing from a large graze on his forehead and he was holding one ear and whimpering.

She let the woman continue to run her frenzied circuit of the lawn and quickly broke through to pick the child up and comfort him as best she could. The small boy clung to her and from the protection of her arms he looked across at his mother as though she was some terrible mad woman.

Where had this horror scene sprung from? She had been upstairs changing the bed sheets when she heard a loud thud and the splintering of glass and had gone to glance out of the window never expecting the scene which she was confronted with.
A blue car was concertinaed into the lamppost just outside her front garden wall and inside a young man lay slumped against the wheel. The pram which he had hit had been catapulted over her wall and now lay in the bushes as though it had been in a scrap yard compressor. On the opposite side of the road there was an empty parked car.
To begin with she could not see the driver and then realised she must be the tangled heap of blood soaked rags lagging the base of the speed camera sign. She knew it must have been a woman because one dainty black high heeled shoe was still in the middle of the road.

For a moment she sat on her front doorstep rocking the whimpering child and closing her eyes on the scene before her. Her eyelids were a soft gentle veil drawn momentarily over the carnage which faced her. She knew that soon she would have to open them. Neighbours and passers by would come to help, soon she would hear the sound of the ambulance and police sirens as they arrived to cover and carry the dead.
Later on reporters would be here with their flash lights and intrusive notepads. There would be headlines about this tragic ‘freak’ accident which claimed three lives and devastated families. The mother and childminder would revisit the scene of their loss and talk to her in whispered trembling voices. Tributes of flowers cards, soft toys would gather against her wall until it took on the semblance of a holy shrine which she dare not disturb out of reverence for a trio of people she never knew.
But for a few minutes she wanted to sit with her eyes closed and feel the early spring sun on her face.



Hi Amy, it’s me……………………………..
I’m just on my way to make a delivery in St. Helens, should be able to finish about four………………………….
Yeh, I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have been so late back, I won’t do it again, really, I promise. It’s the lads fault, everyone was getting so pissed I couldn’t just walk out… Wouldn’t have looked very sociable…………….
Joanne? …………..Nah… don’t remember her being there…anyway………...you know I’m not interested in any one else………
Do you want me to pick up an Indian on the way back? We can have a quiet night in…. watch that soppy DVD you keep on about…….
What? OK.
What the fuck is that car doing in the middle…………….?

It’s Katie, poor cow, look at her saddled with two kids and she’s only my age. I remember her at college, she was in my class. Thought she was a bit of a swot, always got her homework in on time and got the best placement report of the lot of us. Then she got in with that wanker Mike; he just used her and then when she got pregnant he didn’t want to know. Still she managed to complete the course; we used to joke that she’d be the first to put into practise all those boring lessons with the real thing. Perhaps I should stop, ask her if she wants a night out with the girls, she looks as though she could do with cheering up.

‘Hi Katie, how you doing? What lovely kids, are they both yours?’
‘Hi Amy, I didn’t recognise you. like the fancy new car. No I’ve only got the one, Sam he’s mine, will be two next month. The baby’s called Agnes, I child mind her for my neighbour Teresa. Just started three weeks ago. It’s quite a handful with the two of them. Still she’s a good girl, aren’t you sweety?
Ok Sam we’re going to the swings. Say hello to Amy, stop kicking the buggy wheel or you won’t go anywhere. What you doin now, are you still goin with Jason?’
‘Na, dumped him months ago. Bin goin with Josh 6 weeks now. He’s manager of pc world in Wigan. What about you, have you got a man in your life? Does Sam ever see his dad?’
What that loser? No chance, he couldn’t even remember his way home, he’s a dead loss. Meant to pay me 30 quid a week maintenance but while he’s still unemployed I’m lucky if I even get a tenner in the post. Still; we’re doin ok, we don’t need him, do we Sam?’

‘If you can get a baby sitter, we was planning a night out with the girls, you remember Becky and Ruth, she’s got a little girl now. She got engaged last week and she’s invited us out for a……………



The pink woollen jacket my grandma knitted tickles my nose. It’s not that cold outside and yet she’s wrapped me up like one of those babushka dolls which sit on my dressing table. Katie means well though, not like the last childminder I had. She would let me sit in my pram all morning, a damp nappy chaffing my skin while she sat painting her nails. And then when mum came in make such a fuss of me, all smiles and tickles as if she hadn’t taken her eyes off me all day.
I know this one cares; even though it’s difficult for her with that pesky little boy of hers. Once when we’d had to go back early from the swings he spat in my face when she wasn’t looking and then made out I’d sneezed. I felt his saliva slowly dry on my skin. He’s not above giving me the occasionally nip too, I’m sure she must notice but turns a blind eye sometimes rather than have to deal with his terrible two’s tantrum. He goes blue in the face and his eyes spark like a little demon.
It’s lovely when he has his afternoon nap: it’s our special time. She scoops me up and pretends she’s going to ‘eat me all up’ because I taste so gorgeous. The way she nuzzles and kisses me on my neck just under my chin makes me squeal with delight.



She knows I’m so ticklish under my arms and I love it when she plays round and round the garden on my outstretched hand:

‘Round and round the garden like a teddy bear
One step a’ two step
A’ tickle Agnes under there…’

Sometimes she sings to me one of the top twenty hits and she disco dances me round the room and then we collapse in an exhausted bundle on the sofa.
Then there are the quiet times when I feel sleepy and she sits and holds me, gently stroking my skin, she stares out of the window with tears in her eyes as if she is waiting for someone or something.

The car came out of no where. I heard the screech of brakes and the smell of burnt rubber stung my nostrils. Then my world began to spin.

My name is Agnes Mary Evans; I am 6 months, two weeks and five seconds old.


UNBEARABLE
Mother tells of her grief after tragic death of 6 month old daughter.

An inquest has been opened following the tragic death of two adults and a six month old baby in an accident along Wigan Road in February………
Prosecutor, Alan Watkins read out a statement from Agnes’ mum, Teresa Evans in which she described the impact her daughter’s death has had on her:
‘I was so proud of my daughter and as a mother I loved her more than life itself. She was a happy, beautiful baby and the pain of losing her is unbearable. She brought joy into the life of everyone who knew her; she was our little treasure. Agnes is my first thought in the morning and my last thought at night. Every child
in a pram is a constant reminder of what we have lost. I suffer from nightmares and have been unable to return to work.
The impact of Agnes’ death cannot be put in a statement. Unless you have had the terrible experience of having to choose your child’s clothes to wear in her coffin you can never understand and I hope you never will…..’

Wigan Reporter 14th April 2007