Jeremy Clarke
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To our great surprise little Oscar was also given a high-visibility jacket and a hard hat. Also gloves and wellington boots. Now Oscar, even at three and a quarter, is a bit of a dandy. The boots were miles too big. The boot tops came up to his groin; the gloves, blue rubber, up to his elbows. He looked absurd. And the poor lad knew it. His unhappiness at being the only small person in a room milling with self-important giants in hard hats was already threatening to overwhelm his reserves of fortitude. Now this. The lower lip started to wobble.
If the babe in arms was coming outside, he too would have to wear a hard hat and jacket, said this woman. I thought she was joking. ‘You are joking,’ I said. Actually, it was immaterial whether I thought she was joking or not because I wasn’t on her list, and didn’t qualify for an official permit in a transparent holder to hang around my neck, or a hat and jacket, and therefore wouldn’t be permitted to go ‘on site’.
The five of us — me, my boy, my boy’s partner, the baby and Oscar — stood in an inward-facing circle of confusion and consternation. My boy said that he wouldn’t suffer the baby to wear a hard hat and was taking him home. My boy’s partner had rushed from work to be there, badly needed a roll-up, and also looked overwhelmed by the whole business. A plate of sausage rolls passing ceremoniously between us tipped her over into a kind of mini nervous breakdown on the spot. ‘You go,’ she said, handing me her permit and ribbon. ‘I’m freaking out.’
Noting Oscar’s unhappy face and now lip wobble, the teacher suggested that she and I take him on site without delay and show him the digger to cheer him up. So the three of us went outside. The site was a level, fenced-in area of neatly mown grass. There was nothing to trip over, and nothing above to fall on our heads except the sky. The orange digger was safely parked on the other side of a strong fence. She drew Oscar’s attention to it, but he was too sunk in misery to acknowledge it.
A builder in a hard hat appeared to check that the teacher was satisfied with the preparations. She said she was. Then she paused and said, ‘I can hear singing.’ We listened. An unseen workman was singing about a broken heart somewhere on the other side of the fence. She now expressed a concern that his singing, if it continued, could interfere with the ceremony.
‘We don’t want any singing, do we?’ I said bitterly. Quickly warming to my theme, I added, ‘And why are we wearing vests and hard hats? What bollocks.’ And with that I lost my temper and went into a rant, the usual one, with swearing, about how we are ruled by fear and petty regulations. She looked at me calmly. ‘It’s all about image,’ she said. ‘Bullshit,’ I said. ‘Is that what you are teaching them?’ I was fuming. But as I say, I’d got out of bed on the wrong side. Afterwards I felt bad. I should have let it go and entered into the spirit of public celebration.
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