Children need looking after

25 weeks

Today I get excited. About a new washing machine. I must be getting
old.

The waiting-room at the surgery is full. It looks like we're in for a
wait. We are told to take a seat, so we each take a Hello! and try to
get comfortable against stiff chair backs. Between admiring glances at
the chandeliers and oils in the Essex home of the red haired one who's
not in Eastenders any more, I run an eye over the row of health
pamphlets on the wall, subject-by-subject piles of them soliciting
themselves from behind a wooden railing - cystitis, 'flu jabs, herpes,
that sort of thing. Above them, a pinboard is tapestried with yet more
notices and information. It is split into two halves by a white ribbon:
Women's Health and General Health, the two white cards explain.
Presumably there's more that can go wrong with women than men so they
get their own special section.

Almost an hour has passed. I have had enough of Posh Spice In Her Own
Words (well, it was an easy read). Calls for the doctors (a dalek
shriek from a speaker in the ceiling followed by a surname and a
surgery number) have been ticking over regularly. I am aware, however,
that I have not heard any calls for the midwife. H-J goes up the
receptionist. She is just wondering, she inquires
apologetically&;#8230;. the midwife?&;#8230;. does she realise we
are waiting? The receptionist looks puzzled. The midwife went home an
hour ago, she explains. Obviously didn't read her screen.

The midwife has gone home. And we have been sitting waiting for her.
And nobody thought to tell us. This is more like it! This the NHS I
have heard about. We follow the midwife's good example. We go
home.

There is an intercom buzzer on the wooden door, which is no more than a
fence panel with hinges on, and stands shoulder to shoulder with
others. I stand on tip-toes but cannot see over. I push the small
silver square and when the speaker clunks and hisses hello at me, I
tell it we are here to see Jayne. True to its name, the buzzer then
buzzes and I push. The door opens onto a deserted playground. A
tricycle lies limp-wristed on the concrete, with only a pair of car
tyres and a tiny football for company. These abandoned objects,
together with the multi-coloured chalk lines crawling wildly around the
play area, are the only indicators of what sort of new world it is we
have just entered.

Jayne, who is waiting at the door at the other end of the playground is
young, maybe only twenty. She is wearing a sweatshirt with a crest
across the front; I decide not to look too closely at it in case she
takes offence. As we reach her, she smiles and extends a hand. Welcome
to Bramwell Hall! And she leads us inside. I realise I am a little
nervous. I feel ultra self-conscious in my blue waterproof. I don't
think I can cope with being laughed at. Fortunately, it's ok. We only
attract a quick blank stare from the few pairs doey eyes that can be
bothered to take their attention away from the task in hand - guiding
giant paint brushes, which stick up out of the little people's fists
like huge blades of corn, slowly and unsteadily across grey poster
paper.

No longer will a Nursery merely be somewhere to acquire potting
compost. Those days are now behind me. The Nursery is now a land of
razor wire and multiple intercoms, glittery shapes hanging by coloured
string from the ceiling, of Home Corners and Messy Areas, and more
little people in wrinkled tights than I have ever seem in one place at
one time. The Nursery is where a changing-room is not a place for a
shower and all-over anti-perspirant body spray; it is a small, silent
room where piles of nappies sit on a shelf, like white tower blocks
waiting patiently to be dismantled storey by storey. Each of the
nappies will have a life-span of around two hours, then its Velcro tabs
will be ripped apart and it will be tossed into the neat nappy disposer
which stands obediently to attention in the corner.

'We do four changes a day,' Jayne explains, and she could be referring
to engine oil. 'You bring your own naps and creams.'

The room doubles as a sleeping area and seems like a cot showroom.
There are at least half a dozen of the wooden prisons jammed into the
tiny space. It's warm and peaceful in the changing-room. I fancy a kip
myself.

We move through the mobiles from room to room, each containing more
tiny replica grown-ups with branded shoes and ribbons in their hair. A
large woman with frizzy hair is reading a story about a hungry lion, in
slow, ar-tic-u-la-ted tones, to a dozen pairs of attentive eyes.

A girl in jeans and the same crested sweatshirt is sitting cross-legged
on the floor of a conservatory area overlooking a dishevelled lawn.
There are camping mats on the floor and a twin row of pigeon holes
along the end wall, each containing a plastic box inscribed with a
child's name in big feminine felt-tip letters.

The girl with the sweatshirt is stifling a yawn as she flies a wooden
aeroplane back and forth in front of the eyes of the pair of babies
sitting before her. 'Ee-ow! Ee-ow!' she goes, as half-heartedly as if
she has done this a thousand times today already. The plane makes
figure-of-eights across the children's virgin skies.

More small people sit around a table and are guided through a picture
book by another young woman. I'm amazed they're so well-behaved and
don't rush off. 'They're tied in,' Jayne explains
matter-of-factly.

In the Home Corner, a white girl and Asian boy are playing Mummy and
Daddy with a black doll. 'Processing their role-modelling skills,'
Jayne assures me. And I think this procreation thing must be totally
instinctive, until the boy hurls the doll onto the ground, and runs off
screaming.

Lunch is about to be served. It smells institutional. Exactly the same,
I imagine, as lunch in a old people's home. When you're checking out a
place for me, I silently pray to the child in H-J's tummy, for God's
sake make sure the food's good.

We decide to book a place.