THE harrowing part of the first day at school is not the wailing infants, but their mothers.
The annual task of detaching them with difficulty from their children, talking them out the door and being haunted for the rest of the morning by tear-stained maternal faces at the window used to drive me potty.
And in September 1985 I was cast in the part of `emotional parent'. I did not care for the reversal of roles one bit.
My psychological reluctance manifested itself in strange ways. The `kitting out' of Sarah was left till the last minute. I rushed round the town buying three of everything. "Isn't she big for her age?" marveled all the shop assistants. And wasn't the bill for it all big for her age too.
I signed cheques recklessly in mounting horror. I took it all home and put it all on her. There she stood, like a little Confederate Army officer in her slightly-too-long grey pinafore and her slightly-too-long grey socks and her great big black shoes, a mouse-like anonymous figure with my baby's head poking out the top. The Loving Spouse took one stricken look at her and disappeared upstairs for a long time. I put the uniform away till D-day.
The night before (D-day minus one,) the uniform was ironed and hung up, the big black shoes polished and everyone ordered early to bed, for no better reason than it's what my mother would've done. I lay for hours in the dark thinking, as every mother does, that it was only yesterday she was born, remembering all her pretty babyish ways and knowing everything would be changed irrevocably from tomorrow. A deep sigh from my right alerted me to the fact that the Loving Spouse wasn't asleep either. "What are you thinking about?" I asked. "I'm wondering if she'll pass the 11-plus," he said.
The great morning came with all its attendant trauma of getting Sarah out to school and Sarah's mother out to a different school. The Loving Spouse left for work - eventually - after returning three times to hug the daylights out of his little new schoolgirl. He was in a tizzy of anxiety about her ability to cope with life in the raw jungle of the reception class. "For heaven's sake, go," I said. "If she meets any problems she'll talk her way out of them." "Just like her mother," he muttered and went.
Sarah and I drove the short distance to her school. Out we got, Sarah skipping happily ahead while her mother lagged behind murmuring "take your time…" Inside, she hung up her coat, put her bag on the back of her chair, sat down with folded hands and asked, "when am I doing my writing?" The bemused teacher looked at me. We engaged in a brief conversation. I checked my wristwatch. On the other side of the city 29 other mothers' children were waiting - for me.
"Goodbye Sarah," I called. She didn't turn her head. "Goodbye Sarah - be good," I called again, lingering by the door. She was utterly engrossed in play. I hovered outside the window for a while. She didn’t look up. I drove all the way across the Foyle bridge with the windscreen wipers flailing furiously on the only dry morning we'd had in weeks.
I'd regained my composure by the time she had to be collected. "Well Sarah, what happened today?" I asked as she emerged, cardigan trailing, tie under her ear and socks concertinaed about her ankles. "A wee boy strangled me," she said in aggrieved tones. "Yes, but what did you do to him?" I countered with the infant teacher's conditioned response. "I hitted him," she said with great satisfaction. There was a long silence. Finally, she leant over and asked, "mummy, will I be a schoolgirl for ever and ever?" "No, Sarah," I said, "it'll just seem like it."
