Lemons

Lemons

Jessie sits on her bed, legs swinging, singing a loose rendition of Oranges and Lemons. Mummy is brushing her hair, dragging the brush through her smooth, dark curls, preparing them to be French plaited for school. Jessie has always favoured plaits over ponytails due to the sheer weight of her thick hair. Mummy, being a hairdresser, says it ‘distributes the weight evenly' so that she doesn’t get ‘hair-aches’.

Once Jessie’s hair is neatly pinned and tied in all the right places, Mummy strings small yellow ribbons to the bottom of both plaits and ties them in neat bows.

‘Yellow will match your summer dress nicely, what do you think?’ Mummy says.

‘Lellow like lemons,’ Jessie replies.

‘That’s right, they are yellow, it’s a yuh.’

Mummy slides from the bed and collects up Jessie’s uniform from around her small, bright bedroom. Jessie repeats ‘lu-le-le-lu’ in the backround of Mummy’s thoughts.

‘The school said… yellow summer dress with white socks and black school shoes…’ Mummy mumbles, ‘grey cardigan; optional.’

A summer dress, delicately checkered and slightly faded, appears from the back of the wardrobe.

‘…oranges and lemons, says the bells of st Clements…’ Jessie sings.

‘Right, pop this on. Arms up.’

Jessie throws her arms up, white vest top clinging to her frame. Mummy tosses the wealth of fabric over her daughter and Jessie’s head pops out of the top. It is copiously loose.

‘Ah,’ Mummy says, planting her hands on her hips, ‘arms up, wear your white polo shirt and grey shorts today. I’ll take this in whilst you’re at school.’

Jessie raises her arms and the dress slips off easily, draping over Mummy’s arm limply.

‘…when I grow rich…’

‘When I grow rich you won’t be in your sisters hand-me-downs,’ Mummy mutters.

All she seems to do, these days, is mutter. Jessie rolls her eyes, as if all-knowing. She hops down from her bed and drags out a clean white polo shirt, embroidered with the Primary School’s logo the ‘C’ of ‘Church of England’ starting to look more like a shallow bowl than a ‘C’. Mummy sighs.

‘Mum,’ Katey calls from the bottom of the stairs, ‘Mum,’ she repeats.

‘Yes, Katey,’ Mummy sighs.

‘Where is my PE kit?’ she whines.

‘Under the stairs, in the blue draw string bag.’

The cupboard opens and there is some shuffling.

‘It’s not here.’ Katey calls.

The shuffling continues. Mummy waits.

‘Oh, wait,’ Katey sheepishly mumbles, just loud enough for Mummy to hear, ‘found it!’

‘You’re welcome!’ Mummy calls.

‘Sorry, thank you!’ Katey’s school shoes clip clop against the faded laminate flooring of the hallway.

‘When I go to big school can I have clippy cloppy shoes?’ Jessie asks, pulling her socks on with far more difficulty than required. She wobbles on one leg, ignoring the small plastic chair strategically placed next to her.

‘When you go to big school you can do lots of things. Like being ready on time,’ Mummy replies, checking her watch, ’Katey, let's get a wriggle on, I need to drop you both to school in the next 20 minutes.’

‘We won’t make it,’ Katey’s voice cascades up the stairs as she zips up her backpack.

‘But we can try,’ Mummy replies. ‘Come here, Monkey,’ she says, hooking her hands under Jessie’s armpits as she sings ‘when will that be’ and takes over the dressing of the socks at shoes, twisting the white(ish) fabric around so that the heals fit to Jessie’s heals.

Moments of rushing, huffing and chop chops’ pass and they are all in the car. Jessie and Katey are belted up and Katey’s array of school bags are splurged out in the foot-space of the front passenger seat.

‘Mum we are gonna be late, again,’ Katey says, hardly glancing up from her phone, twirling the white cable of her singular left headphone around her little finger.

‘I know, love, tell them to blame me,’ Mummy replies.

A bus pulls out in front of the car and stalls.

‘Come on!’ Mummy thumps the steering wheel with the palm of her hand.

Jessie giggles.

‘…here comes the candle too light you to bed…’ Jessie rings from her booster seat.

‘Jessie, shut up!’ Katey leans behind her seat and pokes her sisters permanently grazed knee.

‘Leave her alone, Katey, she’s just singing.’

‘She’s being so -’

Jessie sings louder, ‘here comes the chopper to -’ she shouts, ‘- CHOP OFF YOUR HEAD!’ kicking the back of her sisters seat with enthusiasm.

‘I’m going to chop your head off in a minute, Jessie.’ Katey mumbles out the window.

‘Girls,’ Mummy interjects, firmly. Only one word is needed and they are both fall still and silent.

The indicators click, tick, tock in the absence of singing.

‘What sort of song is that, anyway?’ Katey asks.

‘What?’ Mummy replies. Her head leaning towards the window to try and see around the dreaded blind corner before the secondary school.

‘Teaching kids about someone coming in at night with a candle to chop…’

‘…chop off your head…’ Jessie helpfully whispers.

‘Right, yeah, I don’t know.’ Mummy shrugs before pulling into the schools ring road.

‘Just seems a bit, I dunno, aggressive.’

‘Yeah, I guess so.’

‘Chop!’ Jessie yells.

The car slows to a stop and the child locks click.

‘Right, see you at 3.35, love you.’ Mummy kisses Katey on the cheek and Katey wipes it away with her blazer sleeve.

‘Love you too.’

She hops out and waves momentarily before running to catch up with a group of girls in identical uniforms and varying up-do’s.

‘One down, one to go. Ready, Jessie?’

The child locks click back into action and Mummy briefly inspects Jessie in the rear view mirror. Jessie giggles, nodding.

‘School!’ Jessie yells. Her tiny fist hits the air with such zealous that Mummy could only dream of.

‘What are you doing today, Jess? Do you remember?’ Mummy asks, jerking forward as she tries to join the flow of late parent traffic all too familiar to her morning routine.

‘Uh, learning?’ Jessie replies, perplexed.

‘Yes, what are you learning today? Pho- Pho…’ Mummy says, slowly, hoping that Jessie will finish the word.

‘Phones?’ Jessie guesses.

‘Nope.’

‘Ffff’

‘Phoni-’

Jessie interrupts.

‘- Phonics! Phonics!’ Her legs flail with excitement. Perhaps the shorts were a good call, Mummy thinks.

Jessie sings Oranges and Lemons right up to the reception building gate. Her book bag swings alongside her, occasionally clapping against her skipping legs.

‘Right, Jessie.’ Mummy stills Jessie by placing her hands on the small shoulders and crouches down to meet her gaze.

‘Yup,’ Jessie responds, clasping the book bag in front of her.

‘Be a good girl today, okay? I will come and get you at 3 o’clock. Here is your lunch.’

Mummy hands a Paw Patrol lunch bag to Jessie and she clutches it to her chest, loaded up like a tiny little cart horse.

Mummy spots Jessie’s teacher waving from the key stage one playground. They smile and wave at one another. Mummy straightens the yellow bows in Jessie’s hair, knowing they will be upset as soon as her daughter reaches the classroom. At least she arrived at school presentable.

‘Have a good day, love you!’ Mummy says, patting Jessie’s back gently as she starts to run towards the teacher.

Jessie returns a, ‘love you, Mummy!’ whilst running.

Mummy, formally known as Louise, takes a breath and watches the bright red gate close behind Jessie.

She turns on her heals, spins her car keys around her finger and heads to work.

A small lady with thinning grey hair chatters as Louise trims ageing locks and shapes short curls.

‘- and of course, my granddaughter, Florence, has been potty trained, but if the teachers don’t let them go to the toilet during classes, then what do they expect?’ the lady rambles.

Louise nods along.

‘So, my son went to the school to discuss the situation and the teacher says that the children need to ask to go to the bathroom, they don’t get toilet breaks. Obviously, they are too young to be managing their own toilet habits, don’t you think?’ Her head bounces around and Louise steadies it gently with her hands before continuing.

Louises’ phone buzzes from her back pocket.

‘I’m really sorry,’ Louise pulls out the phone to check the caller ID, ‘look, it’s my daughters school, do you mind if I take this?’ She smiles apologetically in the mirror.

‘Of course, Dear!’ the lady smiles, her bright blue eyes glimmering in her reflection.

‘Thank you!’ Louise mouthes, accepting the call with a swift swipe.

‘Hello, Louise speaking.’

‘Hi Louise, it’s Mrs Marks, from Jessie’s class.’

‘Is everything okay?’

Panic rises in Louise as her client lifts a magazine, pretending not to listen.

‘Jessie is fine. We have had a small incident and was wondering if you would be able to meet with myself and another parent after school?’ the phone crackles and Louise can hear children’s voices buzzing in a nearby playground.

‘Yes, of course, what is it about? Is anyone hurt?’

‘No one is hurt. But Florence, one of Jessie’s new friends, thought she would borrow Jessie’s yellow ribbon. Long story short, during arts and crafts, Jessie somehow managed to chop a little of Florence’s hair off to reclaim the ribbon while yelling ‘chop, chop, chop’.’

The teacher laughs a little, in spite of herself. Louise blushes.

‘Oranges and lemons,’ Louise mumbles.

‘Sorry? I didn’t catch that,’ Mrs Marks asks.

‘Nothing, I’ll meet you after school.’

‘Perfect, see you then.’

They exchange ‘goodbye’s’ and hang up.

‘Sorry about that,’ Louise returns her phone to her back pocket and attempts to pick up where she left off.

‘All okay, love?’

‘Yes, but, your granddaughter doesn’t happen to go to the village primary, does she?’ Louise snips and shapes a piece of hair, pulling it down towards delicate, rosy cheeks to assess length.

‘Yes, she’s just started reception.’

‘I think my daughter may have given Florence a complementary haircut.’

They both pause with heavy breath. Then begin to laugh.