More brand new fiction in today’s post

They talked about him at the gate, huddled in groups as they waited. Sometimes I’d be on the fringe of a group, listening but contributing little as the gossip continued- anecdotes on the latest atrocity, hearsay over infringements and the ensuing punishments, intrigue about the family; how cruel it was, how unfair.

Often, Marcus and Callum would emerge together, entwined like lovers, grinning and yelling in spite of Mrs Ennicot’s admonishments. On those occasions I’d shrink and skulk towards the edges of the waiting parents as though, by my child’s association with Callum, I was somehow tainted.

Callum’s mum never arrived until the last minute, dismounting from an old, brown bicycle with a basket and wheeling it into the playground, past the chattering groups, craning her neck for a sight of her boy then reaching up in a vigorous wave. She was an older mum, a modest dresser in her habitual, long brown skirts and sensible shoes. Marcus would have run to me before she arrived.

‘Callum’s mum’s not here yet. Can we play until she comes?’

I’d nod and they would chase around, whooping, with no discernible organisation of a game, until the brown bicycle appeared, curtailing their play. A few of the mums’ heads would turn and glance at the boys, at me, and they would resume their discussions, melting away at last.

Callum’s mother never acknowledged our existence, Marcus and me; never looked in our direction, even when Callum turned to wave at his bosom buddie and shout ‘see you tomorrow!’

Marcus was always a quiet, timid boy. As a toddler he was frightened of his own shadow, shrinking into corners at parties, tongue-tied with strangers, preferring my company or his own to his peer group. He’d attended pre-school under sufferance and now he tolerated school but rarely participated in shared activities. At parents’ evening, Mrs Ennicot described his reluctance to join in, to put his hand up, to talk. With Callum, he was a different child- loud, gregarious, lively.

‘I don’t like assembly,’ Marcus told me, on the way home. ‘It’s boring. Callum doesnt have to go to it. Why do I have to, Mummy?’

Callum was part of a small group who were kept out of such gatherings because his family were Jehovah’s Witnesses.

‘What would you like to do for your birthday?’ I asked him. ‘How about a party? Shall we do that? You can choose some friends and make invitations.’ The birthday was the following week.

‘I want Callum,’ he replied, smiling up at me. ‘I only want him to come. He can come to our house and we can play Zombies.’ Zombies was the favourite game of the moment, involving leaping around with arms outstretched and trying to catch others.

I’d spent many nights awake and wrestling with the idea of Callum as Marcus’s friend. On the one hand he’d brought my son out of his shell, given him confidence and companionship. On the other, he led him into trouble and was not the best role model a small boy could have- especially a fatherless boy. But Marcus adored him. The play date posed a conundrum. Callum’s family was Jehovah’s Witness and they didn’t celebrate birthdays. How was I to get round this?

I tackled the question next day, after school, as she wheeled the bike in, approaching her as she drew to a halt and attracting an interested, collective gaze from the playground gang, whose eyes I could feel on my back.

‘Hello, I’m Marcus’s mum,’ I blurted. ‘Marcus was wondering if your Callum would like to come to ours to play and to have tea next Wednesday. He could come home with us after school.’ I paused, breathless and hot. The woman stared, unsmiling.

‘Is it your son’s birthday?’

I attempted my best, friendly grin and launched into my pre-prepared speech that the following Wednesday was not, in fact, my son’s birthday [which it wasn’t, the birthday having been on Monday] and it was simply a play date with a meal. She responded to this with a sceptical frown and said she would let me know the next day, presumably having dicussed it at home.

We each gathered our offfspring, prizing them from ‘Zombies’. Marcus skipped alongside me in excitement. ‘Is he coming, Mummy?’

‘We don’t know yet, my love. She’ll tell us tomorrow.’ I wondered if I should try and explain about Jehovah’s Witnesses to him, but it was a philosophy I didn’t understand myself, so I couldn’t find a way to make a five-year-old see it.

She stopped by me on Friday afternoon. ‘Callum will come on Wednesday’ was all she said, before moving on to call him. Marcus ran to me, wired with the news and shouting, ‘He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming! all the way home. ‘You can help me plan what we’re going to eat,’ I told him, ‘and tell me what he does and doesn’t like.’

‘Pizza! Can we have pizza? The other day, Mummy, he ate his rubber!’

‘What?’

‘He ate the rubber from the pencil pot and then he was sick; it went all over the table and sick got on my spelling book. It smelled nasty!’

I was accustomed to hearing tales of Callum’s exploits; how he’d climbed on the radiator, thrown wet toilet paper on to the lavatory ceiling where it had stuck, clipped paper clips on to the collar of Oliver Meaks’ shirt, punched the fire alarm glass in the corridor so that the entire school had needed to be evacuated. This child would be coming to our house next week.

‘I’ll fetch him at eight.’ she’d said.

‘I can bring him home if you like? Save you coming out?’

‘I’ll fetch him.’

As I left school with the two boys, I thought I heard a ‘good luck with that’ emanating from the gossip group, though I didn’t turn or acknowledge it. As soon as I opened the front door they darted, hooting, in and up the stairs, slamming the bedroom door. The next hour or so, thumping, thudding and shrieking drifted down, punctuated by eerie silences, then they exploded out, into the hallway and through to the garden where they chased around with arms outstretched, trampling in and out of flower beds, hanging from branches or rolling on the grass while I pondered Callum’s mum’s attitudes to cleanliness.

I managed to get them inside and supervise hand washing ready to eat. I’d made sure there was no evidence of Marcus’s birthday; no cards on display, no remains of birthday cake or shreds of wrapping paper. There was a lot of running around the table backwards and forwards before I was able to settle them on chairs, where they wriggled and shouted- Marcus barely recognisable as my quiet child who sat demurely to eat each day. The pizzas were eaten in gung-ho fashion, slices waved around and displayed in open mouths.

This being a playdate meal, I’d cast healthy eating out in favour of child-centred tastes, so I produced chocolate ice-sream sundaes once the remnants of pizza were cleared. I placed Callum’s dish in front of him, whereupon he took a spoonful, climbed on to his chair and pulled the spoon back, catapult-fashion before pinging it across the room, where it stuck to the wall for a moment before sliding down leaving a brown and white skid mark. Marcus sat in open-mouthed admiration then loaded his spoon and began to clamber up.

At this point I intervened. I swept up the two dishes and took them out, returning to find them once more chasing round, arms out, shrieking. As Marcus neared me I grasped his arm, stopping him. His face was flushed, eyes wide and he was panting, almost in a trance as his small chest heaved in and out. Callum continued running and whooping until he reached us and came to a halt.

‘C’mon Marcus!’ he yelled.

I stood holding on to my boy. ‘That’s the end of that game,’ I said, maintaining a smile. ‘We’re going upstairs to play another one now.’

‘Yaaaay!’ Callum screamed with pleasure and ran out of the room and up to the bedroom. I held Marcus’s hand and led him up. He’d come to and was sporting a subdued expression.

‘Don’t come, Mummy,’ he murmured, realisation spreading through his veins and inducing anxiety. ‘It’s alright,’ I said.

The entire room, of course, resembled a bomb site, all of Marcus’s belongings strewn across the carpet or heaped on his bed, which was concealed under a mountain of books and toys, some of which were broken. While Marcus hung back, clinging to me, Callum bounded across the sea of destruction, gathering items and tossing them into the air until I called him.

‘Callum! That’s enough now. It’s time to tidy up. We’re going to do it together’

He began to make for the door but we were standing in front of it. I put my free arm out and stopped him escaping. I allocated jobs- one to pick up books, the other to collect toys. At last, even Callum seemed to have calmed.

‘Mummy- my transformer broke.’ Marcus held up some pieces of his toy as tears welled up. Callum took one of the bits of plastic and waved it. ‘Get a new one!’ he grinned; and Marcus sobbed.

After a time, some areas of carpet and bed appeared. I relented and allowed them downstairs to wait for Callum’s mum, telling them they must sit still and not move until the doorbell went, which it did a few minutes later.

‘Thank you for coming,’ I said, as he descended the steps to where she stood. She spoke nothing- not a ‘thank you’ or a ‘did they have a good time?’ or ‘alright?’.

‘Goodbye then,’ I said, as she gripped his hand and walked him away towards her bike.

Marcus hadn’t moved from the sofa and sat looking mournful. I joined him and held him tight until he began to yawn, then we went upstairs and he got ready for bed.

‘I don’t want a story tonight, Mummy. I’m too tired,’ he whispered. ‘I’m going to choose a different friend to come next time.’ I nodded.

‘Of course,’

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com