“Tuesday, my grandson and I have a date!”

THE ADDRESS ON the flyer is a low, unprepossessing municipal building. She walks quickly past, further up the hill, then curves back around the block, in sight of the hall once more.

She does not need to actually go to the playgroup at all. She could take Tom and go somewhere else, perhaps to a café, one with wifi, drink coffee and jitter through the morning, spending her finite energies on more fruitless internet searches, but it is starting to rain, and Tom is screaming and here she is. She crosses the street, over the threshold, coming into a hallway that is a chaos of strollers and shoes and coats. She lifts Tom from the sling and gives her name to the woman at reception. A tidal roar comes from behind double glass doors.

“It’s five pounds for the session,” says the woman, “but you can pay three. It started an hour ago.”

Cate pulls some money from her wallet and tosses it down. Inside she is greeted by a thrashing sea of children and plastic toys. She grips onto Tom, who grips back, his head turning this way and that. There seems to be no safe harbor anywhere. Her heart is thumping, sweat breaking out on her back.

“It’s circle time now.”

Cate turns to see a brisk, gray-haired woman standing beside her.

“There’s a baby mat over there for when we’re done.” The woman points into the far corner and claps her hands. “Circle time!” she calls in a singsong voice, and Cate watches as the hordes form themselves into an approximation of a circle. “Come on,” says the gray-haired woman to Cate, in a tone that tolerates no opposition. “Come and join in.”

The woman launches into a joyless version of “The Wheels on the Bus.” Larger children practice commando crawling across the space, and Cate shields Tom between her legs. Here, among the older children, he seems terribly small.

When do we get off the bus? Cate wants to ask, as the gray-haired woman grinds on. When does the bus actually stop? The last time she sat on a mat like this was when she was a child herself. Miss? Miss? Are we nearly there yet? Please, Miss, I want to get down.

Eventually the bus jerks to a halt, and after a few ragged rounds of “Twinkle, Twinkle” and “Wind the Bobbin Up” the woman claps her hands. “All right, children. It’s free play!”

There’s general screaming as the larger children dive towards racks of dress-up clothes. A girl emerges from the melee in a fireman’s suit; her hijab-wearing mother grins back at her and gives the thumbs-up. Superheroes twist and flail across the room. Cate retreats to the corner, to the baby mat, where a scattering of toys have been put out.

“Jesus Christ, it’s like World War Three in here.”