didn’t exist yet and whose direction couldn’t be guessed; we weren’t
allowed to teach them anything at all; the poor little things had to find
out their own rules of growing up. It wasn’t possible; how can you
guard your reactions when a baby hurts itself through not knowing
any better? I lasted five years; some girls didn’t see out their first
month but I had a sedate sort of personality, I suppose, and just looked
after them and kept my mouth shut.
My babies loved me. At least I think they did. It was hard to tell, but
I like to think I was loved. I had C Group.
And that is why I am interviewing you instead of some other, but that'sedate
personality’ bit is a barrel of laughs. Three husbands and a doubtful acquittal
of murder and ‘sedate she tells me! No wonder the psychs never understood
the children; we human beings don't even understand each other. And our
punishment for it is the world we deserve. Yet she looks the part - fattish, garrulous, the clumsy kind who knocks ornaments off tables but whom neighbours say is ‘marvellous with children; She probably is. Why not?
C Group were kept apart from A and B. Oh, you know that? They
were less developed physically and the A and B kids were apt to be
rough, besides which they didn’t like the Cs. Said they were snotty.
The Cs weren’t talking but we could tell they just weren’t interested in
the others, as though they didn’t matter enough to be recognised.
As for not speaking, they had a whole language of little signs
between themselves, so little that for a long time we didn’t recognise
communication. A shift of the eyes, the barest flick of a gesture, a
change of breathing, things like that. But with us nurses they used big,
extravagant gestures to tell us what they wanted; they’d throw their
little arms around our necks and nuzzle, tug the way they wanted to
go, mimic drinking a glass of milk or playing with a toy. The psychologists said they were bilingual, using theatrical gestures for us and a
On the nursery floor
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more subtle system between themselves.
Then you’d see them asleep, sucking their thumbs like ordinary
kids; at other times you’d catch them watching you with the most
peculiar expression, intent, as though you were a study that had to be
mastered. The look would go as soon as you caught it; they would
laugh and want to play and you’d wonder if you’d really seen anything
strange.
Anecdotes? Oh, lots. I can tell you one about Conrad — he was the
one who caused all the trouble later — that will show you what they
were like. You’ll have to excuse some of the words I use, which in the
normal course I wouldn’t, but I am only quoting, remember.
And loving it. You don’t get much opportunity to use them these days, what
with the neighbours and all.
It was the day he lost his temper with me. He was just four. He was
alone on the verandah, looking out through the wire, watching Derek,
the new gardener. I knew it was Conrad by the little tattoo behind his
ear. Not that it m attered because all four of them behaved exactly
alike.
I came from behind and he cert ainly heard me because their senses
were sharp, much sharper than ours, but the hunch of his shoulders
told me that his eyes would have that look, as if his mind was taking
Derek to pieces and putting him together again. Learning him. It could
be creepy. But it was mealtime and it had been one of those mornings
and I suppose I was a little sharp. Anyway, I said, ‘Come on, Conrad,
upsy!’
He didn’t let on that he heard me, and that was unusual. Normally
they would come to life and fall all over us with love and fun. ‘Keeping on the right side of us,’ the psychologists said, and it turned out there was something in that. This day I was in no mood for holdups,
so I said, ‘Dinnertime, Conrad! Come on, now!’
I took him under the armpits and lifted him and tossed him because
he liked that, and turned him to face me and found a little animal in
my hands, throwing its limbs about and struggling and screaming at
me the first words it had ever spoken.
‘Fuck off, Blaikie! Can’t you tell by now when I’m thinking!’
I don’t know whether it was shock or what, but I put him down on
the floor and my hands over my mouth and absolutely squealed with
laughter. It seemed the funniest, wickedest thing I had ever heard.
After a minute he saw the joke, too, but he saw it like an adult and
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George Turner
his laugh was intimate, as though we shared a secret. But we didn’t
and he knew it, because he toddled across to one of the bugged pillars
that he wasn’t supposed to know anything about and said right into the
microphone spot, ‘Now I suppose we’ll have to waste time answering
your bloody questions!’
And so they did, but it seems that what the psychs learned was Group C’s
ability to hear no question they didn’t see fit to answer. The teams were loath to
use coercion because they didn’t know what they were dealing with and might
have distorted the personalities. They learned just what the kids allowed them
to.
3 Derek, the
