School portraits / The first fortnight of an August term
Three Gates, One Car
Three children at three Thao Dien campuses of the same school, one mother, one car, and the driver who solved the morning.
Sophie Henderson had three children, three school gates and one car, and all three gates belonged to the same school. The British International School in Ho Chi Minh City keeps its Early Years campus at 101 Thao Dien Street, its Junior campus at 225 Nguyen Van Huong and its Secondary campus at 246 Nguyen Van Huong, which on the map looked like a short, charming walk and in Sophie’s imagination was already a triathlon.
She planned it the way she planned everything in the first month, with the confidence of a woman who had not yet met Thao Dien at 7.25 in the morning. Secondary first, because Noah, thirteen, was the only one with a form tutor who would notice. Then across the road to Junior for Ava, eight, who would be fine as long as nobody used the word “fine”. Then Milo, four, to Early Years, with his dinosaur, which was non-negotiable, and his water bottle, which was. Jae, her husband, said it looked very achievable. Jae left for his office at 6.40.
On the first morning the short, charming walk between 225 and 246 turned out to involve a road full of motorbikes moving as a single organism, and Sophie stood on the kerb holding Ava’s hand and Milo’s dinosaur while a man with a crate of ducks on his scooter went past at a speed she had not thought ducks could survive. Noah had gone in without saying goodbye, which she counted as a success. Milo was late. The teacher at 101 Thao Dien Street said this was very normal in the first week, in the voice of a person who has said it to a great many mothers holding a great many dinosaurs.
On the second morning she tried it in reverse. On the third she tried it with Jae, who discovered within four minutes that “very achievable” had been an opinion offered from a position of safety, and who by the Junior gate was the one holding the dinosaur. On the fourth morning they hired Mr Tuan.
Mr Tuan had driven for two other expat families in Thao Dien and regarded the three-campus drop as a known problem, like the weather. He did not consult the map. He knew which side of Nguyen Van Huong to pull up on so that nobody crosses it, which Sophie had taken a week to learn with her body. He knew that 101 Thao Dien Street was a left turn that looked like a right. He knew the ducks. He greeted Noah in Vietnamese, which Noah pretended not to enjoy, and on his first day he had all three children through all three gates in eleven minutes, and then, in the silence, asked Sophie where she would like to go.
She had not thought about that. She had planned the morning to the gates and no further, as though she herself evaporated at 7.45. “Work,” she said, giving the address, and was twenty minutes late, the only member of the family to miss a start time that day. Mr Tuan did not comment. He simply adjusted, and the next morning, without being asked, dropped her first.