“Under Supervision” by Andy Carter

“Under Supervision” moves between probation work, new fatherhood and the comic exhaustion of being required in two places at once.

“So, just to clarify, you stole a double-decker bus?”

“Correct.”

“Why, Darren?”

“It was cold, and I couldn’t afford a taxi.”

“How do you know how to drive a bus?”

“My dad used to be a bus driver.”

“Oh, well in that case…”

I have to say, I was quietly impressed. In the middle of the night, Darren had successfully stolen the bus from a depot and driven it 10 miles, without crashing, while under the influence of alcohol, heroin, and crack. He was arrested the following morning after a neighbour noticed it parked in the middle of the cul-de-sac and called the police.

“Can I trust that you’re not going to steal any more buses now you’re back in the community?”

“I’ll try my best.”

“And how about the drugs?”

“Um…”

“Have you taken any drugs today, Darren?”

“I’m not going to steal any more buses. That’s the main thing, right?”

This appointment was on my first day back after paternity leave. The previous night, a bawling Joshua had kept us up all night and I’d had, I’d estimate, 45 minutes of sleep and 7+ hours of being very stressed indeed.

Being sleep-deprived is a tricky one – you can mention it to colleagues and get a sympathetic smile but, let’s be honest, nobody really cares. You’re not ill, stop moaning. You are absolutely expected to just crack on for the next 8-9 hours even on days like this where I had a throbbing headache, felt like I was living outside my body, and every time I blinked, had to remind myself to reopen my eyes.

As much as becoming a dad was wonderful and I couldn’t love Joshua anymore if I tried, it turns out babies are really, really hard work. Who knew? I feel guilty/a bit of a shit guy admitting this but, after two tumultuous weeks of poo, vomit, and tears (from me), there was a small measure of relief about getting going back to the office. Also, the opportunity to have a conversation with adults who weren’t berating me for putting a nappy on backwards or forgetting to sterilize a dummy was a welcome one.

Even if some of them were stealing modes of public transport.

“So, same time next week, Darren?” I said, stifling a yawn.

“Sure, can I have some bus fare?”

Come on now?

After Darren left, a man called Anton threw a table at me.

I’d asked him about his accommodation – there was a certain house he wasn’t allowed to stay at because he just kept stealing from the other person who lived there – and it lit the touch paper. He stood up, fists clenched, wild-eyed.

“I’m not listening to this shit.”

Then, in a show of strength belying his wiry frame, Anton picked up the table and chucked it at me, cracking me on the knee before storming out of the room and slamming the door behind him. I took a breath, rubbed my knee, and tried to compose myself. Was there anything to be gained from following him? I didn’t want anything else thrown at me today. I was too tired.

I got up and opened the door but couldn’t see him in the corridor, so hobbled down to the foyer and asked the receptionist if a very angry man happened to have walked past.

“Not in the past 20 minutes or so, no.”

Where was Anton? The corridors in a probation office are a maze and it dawned on me that he may have taken a wrong turn. After checking various interview rooms to no avail, I found him in a tiny room containing little more than the staff vending machine. He had shut, likely slammed, the door behind him and managed to lock himself in. By now, he was beyond furious, veins popping on his neck, pacing around. A caged animal among the Cup-a-Soup. I gingerly opened the door.

“Um, the exit is the other way…”

“Just fuck off, you lanky prick!” He shouted, storming past me with a firm shoulder brush.

What followed was a meeting with my manager where I called the police, and was advised that Anton would be transferred to a more senior colleague to consider if a prison recall was needed (it was. Throwing a table at your probation officer = risk cannot be managed in the community.)

This was music to my ears, but I was shaken up, and, following a sapping afternoon of wall-to-wall appointments, I was delighted when the day was finally over. Only the day is not over when you have a baby at home.

It is never over.

On the way back, I put on Desert Island Discs and willed I would hit a traffic jam for some respite before my impending parenting shift. Infuriatingly, a Google Maps search indicated that traffic was moving freely around the city, and I was home before Tom Daley had got to his book choice. I remained sitting in the car in the drive and took a deep breath. The next thing I knew, there was a tap at the window, and I looked up to see Louise holding a red-faced Joshua.

“What the hell are you doing, Andy?”

“Umm, nothing, I’ve just got back?”

“Why were your eyes closed?”

“I’ve had a table thr…”

“Honestly, right now, I don’t care. Take Joshua, please.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. The builders next door woke him up from his nap and he’s been in a terrible mood all afternoon.”

“Wonderful.”

The moment Louise handed him over to me, he burst into hysterical tears.

“Wait, where are you going?” I asked, noticing she had her coat on.

“For a walk.”

“Come on then, son. Looks like it’s me and you for a bit.”

A now manic Joshua’s response was to scream, scratch me down the side of the face, then start hitting me repeatedly. The second time I’d been assaulted that day. This time, though, my attacker couldn’t be passed on to a more senior colleague.

Not until she returned from her walk, anyway.

*

“So, how come you missed community service yesterday, Martin?”

“Well, it’s kind of a long story.”

“Go on…”

“My uncle ate some poisonous berries when he was hiking in Macedonia. He started hallucinating and had to be rescued by a helicopter.”

Martin reminded me of Tiddler, a fish in a book we read to Joshua, who “blew small bubbles but told tall tales.” I hadn’t shared this comparison with him as I’d deemed it unlikely that a prolific Eastern European burglar would be familiar with the books of Julia Donaldson.

“Is your uncle okay?”

“A bit sick, but he should be ok,” he said. “It’s been a difficult time for my family.”

“Right. Sorry to hear it. Can you do community service tomorrow?”

“Absolutely. 100%.”

He didn’t show up. When I called him, I could hear violently loud techno music. It was 9 a.m. on a Wednesday.

“HELLO?” he shouted. “WHO’S THIS?”

“What happened, Martin?”

“Andy, my friend. I’ve got no bus fare. I couldn’t get in.”

“Really?”

“Also, can I take a few weeks off to go to Macedonia? I want to see my uncle.”

“If you can’t afford bus fare, how will you pay for flights to Macedonia?”

The line went dead.

I texted Louise to see how her day was going. She sent a video of Joshua rolling around on the floor wearing a nappy and said they were getting ready for baby sensory class.

Despite being at home less than two hours ago, I missed them. I wasn’t enjoying work today, even less so when I received a text from Darren saying: Can’t make appt this aft. Got shits. On toilet now. Men on probation appear to be disproportionately affected by sickness and diarrhoea.

I had an instant coffee, then drove to a home visit to see Paul, a man who was on a suspended sentence order for punching a Tesco’s security guard in the head. To mitigate the risk, I was provided with a panic alarm which I’d forgotten to charge.

The curtains were drawn so I rattled on the door. After a while, I heard footsteps approaching.

“Who’s that?” a voice snapped through the letterbox.

“Hi, Paul, it’s Andy from probation.”

“Have you got some ID?”

“Um, no. Could you not just look through the window?”

“No chance. ID or fuck off. You could be a murderer for all I know.”

I went back to the car, got my driving licence, and posted it through the letterbox. Following an anxious wait where I considered the horrors of DVLA form filling, the door handle turned.

“Andy!” he said, as though the past two minutes had not happened. “How you doing, mate?”

“Fine, thanks.”

The flat stank of cannabis with an elaborate bong set up in the corner of his living room and several empty cans of Carling strewn around. He invited me in where I sat on a pleather sofa in front of an enormous widescreen TV. One of those shows was on where a middle-aged couple from the Midlands open a bar in Spain but it’s much harder than they’d envisaged because the local mayor won’t allow them a late-night licence.

“Nice TV,” I said.

“Thanks, I got a back payment.”

“Sure. So how are you today, Paul?”

“Not good at all, mate. They are after me. All of them.”

“Who are they?”

“Who do you think? My neighbours. They are all talking about me, they’re plotting something.”

“Have you considered cutting down on the weed?”

“I don’t smoke it anymore, Andy. I gave up ages ago.”

“Hmm…”

It was a long appointment, and I was drained when I left.

In a parallel universe, three miles up the road, Joshua’s baby sensory class was starting soon. I remembered Darren’s afternoon cancellation and, for the first time since becoming a parent, made a spontaneous decision: I was going to take a long lunch and surprise Louise at the church hall. Wild.

I was late and arrived, flustered, as “Say Hello to the Sun” was commencing. A circle of 15-20 mums beamed and waved at their babies. No dads. I noticed Louise sat with her NCT friends and caught her eye. I expected a hero’s welcome, but she just looked puzzled and mouthed, “What are you doing here?”

I sat down next to her, greeting her friends with raised eyebrows. As they shuffled around with their babies and rattles, I had a sharp sinking feeling. Was I encroaching?

I shouldn’t be here, I thought. Also, quite literally, I shouldn’t be here. I should be at work.

I explained I’d been on a home visit in the area and, following her initial shock, Louise seemed satisfied with my efforts. Baby sensory class, it turned out, is an absolute blast. Lights, music, and glitter, it was the closest I’d been to a nightclub in years. When the lady put on technicolour disco lights while we held a parachute and bounced inflatable animals into the air, I felt quite a lot like I was on drugs. That said, it’s possible I was feeling the effects of my visit to Paul.

I took the lead in the final activity which involved giving the babies light-up bubble wrap while we sang “Five Little Speckled Frogs.” I couldn’t figure out how to flick the switch and, as the activity started, every baby was gleefully gazing at their lights apart from Joshua who was crying. Louise took over and sorted it out instantly.

“Right, I’d better get back to work,” I said as she was putting an exhausted Joshua in his pram. “What’s your plan for the afternoon?”

“We’re going to the pub. Pizza and Prosecco while the babies nap.”

I got back to the office where nobody commented on my lengthy home visit. However, after glimpsing the maternity high life, my motivation had waned, and I embarked on a negative trail of thought. I was missing a lot of time with Joshua. And for what? None of these guys on probation respected me. They just lied. Was I helping anybody, really? Perhaps I should have stayed in my former job at Jack Fulton’s Frozen Foods?

I wished Louise and I had discussed shared parental leave in a bit more depth, rather than just:

“Have you considered it, Andy?”

“No. You?”

“No, not really.”

“I guess that’s that then.”

At 4 p.m., I received a call from our receptionist informing me that Martin had come in.

“I walked here, Andy,” he said when I got downstairs. “I want to show you proof about my uncle.”

This should be good, I thought, while he scrolled through his phone before handing it over. On the screen, a foreign news station was playing grainy footage of someone being pulled up into a helicopter while indecipherable text rolled across the bottom of the screen. It then cut to a short interview with a disorientated-looking middle-aged man.

“That’s him!” Martin said, taking the phone back. He then navigated to his photo gallery and showed me a photo of himself with his arm around the middle-aged man, looking considerably less disorientated, in a bar. “This was on holiday last year. We are very close.”

I was astonished. He’d been telling the truth. The narrative arc from Tiddler was complete. Martin did respect me after all.

“So,” I asked him. “Can you do community service tomorrow?”

“Definitely. 100%.”

Obviously, he didn’t show up.

*

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