I don’t fancy the odds, but maybe I’ll give him the option and see if he surprises me.’
‘That’s the spirit.’
An hour later they were all lined up at the hotel kids’ club reception, ready to sign the children in, and Nancy was feeling more anxious than she had done since they’d got on the plane to come here. It wasn’t just that Jack didn’t like things like this, but over the last year everything had been that little bit more difficult and his behaviour had become more unpredictable. She felt like everything she knew about her son had been turned on its head. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was more anxious about it all being on her own or whether Jack was reacting to the changes happening at home, but either way, she was on edge constantly, swimming against the tide.
‘Good morning!’ said a cheery voice from the desk. ‘And who do we have here?’ she looked at Isla who was performing her best ballet routine for the lady.
‘My name is Isla and I do ballet!’
‘I can see that, it’s beautiful. And will you be joining us today?’
‘Yep! I’m going to draw a goat!’
The woman at the desk smiled and looked to Harriet.
‘I don’t know the relevance of the goat.’
The lady laughed. ‘That’s fine, we can draw some goats and maybe some other animals too. Can you fill in this form for Isla? And will little man be joining our baby club?’
Harriet nodded. ‘Yes please, he’s just had his breakfast so will probably go for a nap soon.’
‘No problem, when you go into the baby room just tell the ladies in there, so they know.’ The woman’s attention now moved to Nancy and she instantly felt her panic levels rise. ‘And will this handsome young man be joining the party too?’
Nancy looked at Jack who was still kitted out in his headphones, but he was now noticeably hiding behind her legs pretending to be looking at his iPad. ‘He’s a little unsure,’ she said, placing her arm around him which he promptly shrugged off – he didn’t like to be touched.
‘That’s OK, some children are a little nervous. Why don’t you take him in with your friend and her little ones and he can have a look around and if he wants to stay, you can just come back and grab a form – how does that sound?’ The woman’s smile was so comforting, Nancy instantly relaxed a little. Childcare professionals seemed to have this natural talent of being a walking smile on legs.
‘Thank you,’ Nancy said and followed Harriet into the club entrance. She chose to ignore the voice in her head that was screaming at her to prepare for disappointment. Maybe today would be different…
Nancy followed the others into the club, taking in the colourful surroundings as she did. It was very bright and busy, and she didn’t have to look at Jack to know that his little heart would be racing. Toys were strewn about all over the floor and the volume levels were loud. Nancy had no idea how these women worked in it every day. She could almost feel the clock ticking, waiting for a reaction from Jack. She had that awful sick feeling in her stomach, the feeling when you just know something is coming and the anticipation of waiting for it makes you feel queasy. She had the urge to turn around and march out of there with Jack, but her head was screaming at her to just try. How was Jack ever going to move forward if she kept stifling him and wrapping him in cotton wool? How was he ever going to learn to cope if she always managed situations for him? She needed to let him at least try these things, but she really struggled with the knowledge that she felt like she knew it would end badly anyway. She didn’t know what the answer was, what the right thing to do was. She tried to not let the angst show on her face and turned to Jack, plastering on a smile.
‘Isn’t this lovely, look at all the toys to play with!’ His little face looked terrified and pale, and she could see the little white marks on his knuckles as he clutched the iPad to his chest, headphones still on but she knew there was no sound – it was just the comfort of the pressure on his ears.
Harriet came over to where Nancy and Jack were standing, a huge smile spread across her face as she adjusted her sunglasses on her head. ‘Right, Tommy’s in the baby room and Isla has run off already to draw her goat – you ready?’
Nancy looked back to Jack and then to her friend. ‘I’m not sure Jack is going to stay.’ She couldn’t shake off the unease but equally, Harriet was the one paying for her holiday and she felt pressured to make sure Harriet had a good time – and her ideal day didn’t involve having Jack tag along with them.
‘What?’ Harriet knelt down to Jack’s level. ‘What’s up, little man? Don’t you want to play with all these amazing toys?’
Jack shook his head.
‘You’ll make some friends and have such a good time.’
Nancy knew how wrong this statement was. The reality was, Jack wouldn’t be playing with these children. He would, most probably, be sitting with his iPad, stressed, counting the minutes until Nancy returned. He would hate the other children screaming and shouting, he would feel out of place and he would struggle with communicating with the staff, too. The more she thought about it, the more ludicrous this seemed, and Nancy was surprised that she had even entertained the idea of kids’ club for Jack. Jack was different, she knew that, and it was times like this that she found herself overwhelmed with feelings of helplessness and sadness. As his mother, she so desperately wanted to make it all better and take away the sad feelings for him, but she couldn’t. As a parent, that felt devastating. If she truly thought about it, she knew deep down that Jack wouldn’t cope here. Now she just needed to work out a way of telling Hari without letting her down.
‘You can do some painting or play some games and Mummy and I will be back in a few hours.’
Jack noticeably tensed up and grabbed onto Nancy’s skirt, gripping it hard enough that his knuckles returned to their white colour. Nancy crouched down as Harriet stood.
‘Do you not want to try, sweetheart?’ The words had no conviction; she had already known they were leaving. She said the words to show Hari she was trying, to lessen the blow of potentially ruining her idea of a perfect afternoon without the children.
‘It’s too noisy – I don’t like it.’
He looked like he was going to cry and Nancy’s heart broke. Whilst she was getting used to the fact that he now had an autism diagnosis, sometimes it was still really hard to accept that he was different to other children. Harriet’s children had strolled straight in without a care in the world – she had it so easy. Nancy had to second guess everything. She could never just leave anything to chance, she always needed a plan B (and often a plan C and D too). When Jack was born she’d prided herself on taking to motherhood really well but then as the years went on, her parenting technique suffered, and she went into survival mode. Some weeks were better than others and now that Jack was seven, there were certain elements that they had under control and Nancy was proud of herself for getting to that stage with these parts of his personality – but they still had a long way to go. Pete leaving was the spanner in the works that she just didn’t need. She was determined to show him that she was doing fine without him, but it was hard, and she struggled, a lot. Every day was a new learning curve for her and Jack and she quite often went
