Lucy Gordon: This Is My Child

“Yes, it is. Everyone says so.”

Mercifully memory came to her rescue. “I was bad, too,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “One of my teachers told my parents I was on my way to becoming a juvenile delinquent.”

“What’s a ju…ju…?”

“Juvenile delinquent? Someone who causes chaos. I did things that made that duster trick look like nothing.”

“Brenda was really mad,” he said with satisfaction.

“Yes, it’s no fun if they don’t get mad,” she agreed.

A glimmer of appreciation appeared in his eyes. “What sort of things did you used to do?”

“There was a boy in my class who used to bully anyone smaller than himself,” she recalled. “He made people’s lives a misery. I sat behind him one day and painted his hair with glue.” She chuckled. “It wouldn’t wash out. He had to cut the hair off. Of course his parents complained to mine, and I was in trouble. But it was worth it. There’s a lot of fun to be had with sticky stuff.”

He didn’t answer this, but she was pleased to notice that he was looking more cheerful. When she asked him to show her around the garden he got up at once. He was knowledgeable for a boy of his age, and talked to her about his surroundings in a way that made her start to feel hopeful.

But her mood was short-lived. After lunch she had to return to her old flat to collect a bag she’d overlooked. Brenda agreed to look after David and take him shopping with her. David too seemed happy to go shopping, which puzzled Melanie slightly, as it seemed odd for this activity to appeal to a small boy.

But she returned to find a message that she was to see Giles immediately. In his study he turned exasperated eyes on her. “You’ve only been here a day,” he snapped, “and already you’ve shown David new ways to make life hideous for the rest of us.”

“I beg your pardon?” she said blankly.

“It was you who told him how much ‘fun’ could be had with ‘sticky stuff,’ wasn’t it?”

“Oh, heavens! What’s he done?”

“Ask Brenda.”

“He didn’t glue her hair, did he?” Melanie asked, horrified.

“Not her hair. Her purse. She went to pay the paper bill and found her purse stuck solid.”

Melanie gasped and caught her lip between her teeth. “That was wrong of him, of course,” she said in a shaking voice. “Very naughty.”

“Then you can be the one to tell him so.”

“I’m sure you’ve already told him.”

“But he needs to hear it from you, since you seem to be his partner in crime,” Giles said grimly.

“David!” She’d spied him lurking in the hall, and called to him. He came nearer, watching her closely, as though waiting for the storm. “Come here, you wretch,” she said cheerfully. “Now see what you’ve done to me.”

“But you said—”

“I did it to a boy in school who’d been bullying people. He was a fair target. Brenda isn’t. It wasn’t kind of you to make her life hard. Come on, let’s go and tell her you’re sorry.”

“But I’m not sorry,” he said innocently.

“Then fake it,” she told him, leading him away with a hand on his shoulder.

Brenda greeted them frostily but received David’s mumbled apology in astonishment. “And I’m sorry, too,” Melanie said before the housekeeper could recover. “I put the idea into his head, but I didn’t mean to. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

They came out of the kitchen to find Giles in the hall. “I only came home to get my things,” he explained. “I have to fly to New York. The plane leaves in a couple of hours.” He was shrugging on his coat as he spoke, and Melanie saw his bags standing by the front door. “It’s lucky you’re here or I’d have had a problem about leaving.”

“Will you be away for long?” she asked.

“I’ve no idea, but it’ll give you a chance to get to know David. You’re in sole charge.” He turned to David. “I’ve got to go now, son. You’ll behave yourself, won’t you? Don’t give Miss Haynes any trouble. I shall expect good reports of you when I return.”

To hell with good reports, Melanie thought crossly. Tell him you’ll miss him.

David hadn’t spoken. He stood next to Melanie in silence, but as Giles headed for the door he suddenly dashed forward and clasped his father, hiding his face against him. Melanie tensed, ready to hate Giles if he pushed his son away, but he didn’t. To her surprise he dropped onto one knee and put an arm around David. “Hey, come on now,” he said in a rallying voice. “It’s not for long.” David didn’t answer in words but his arms went around his father’s neck. “It’s all right, son,” Giles said in a softer voice than Melanie had heard him use before. “I’m coming back.”

Then he enfolded David in a fierce hug, burying his face in the child’s soft fair hair. When he emerged, his voice was a little husky, but that might have been the effect of being half strangled. “Goodbye,” he said quickly, and went away, leaving Melanie wondering just what sort of a man he really was.

Giles was away for a week, and it was a happier week than Melanie had known for a long time. She was in David’s company every day. It was she who took him to school, collected him, had tea with him, put him to bed. It was what she’d dreamed of for years, and at first it was enough.

She was free to slip into his room at night and watch him sleeping, hugging her joy to herself like a miser brooding over rediscovered gold. She’d often wondered how the reunion would be. Would her heart still recognize him as her son?

But all was well. On her side the bond held, true and strong, and along it streamed love as fierce and protective as the love he’d once drunk in with her milk. She instinctively knew that this was the child she’d held in her arms so long ago. When he wasn’t looking her way, she would watch him in secret, inwardly whispering words of wonder, “My son. My son.”

But as the days slipped past she knew that she hadn’t made the breakthrough she wanted. David spoke to her politely enough, but he didn’t give her the eager confidence she longed for, and she could sense that he was still wary of her. She was inching her way along, always alert to seize the moment that might bring them closer, but such moments were painfully slow in coming.

One morning she heard Brenda grumbling inside David’s room. “…think I’ve got nothing better to do than change sheets every day.”

“Is anything the matter?” Melanie asked, entering.

“He’s done it again, ” Brenda declared bitterly. “Look at that!” She held up a sheet with a large damp place. “It’s time he pulled himself together instead of acting like a baby.”

David’s face was scarlet and he was fighting back the tears. Melanie put a hand on his shoulder. “Go down to the garden,” she suggested gently. “And don’t worry. It’s not important.”

She shut the door behind him and faced Brenda. “From now on if David is unlucky enough to wet his bed, you tell me and no one else. I won’t have him made to feel bad about it.”

Brenda was up in arms, her heavy face mottled with anger. “He’s not the only one who feels bad. It’s me who has to do the extra washing.”

“Aided by a state-of-the-art washing machine,” Melanie said, her temper rising. “If putting a few sheets in it is too much for you, I’ll do it. But the important thing is that you are to say nothing to David. Do you understand?”

Brenda seemed, about to argue but then fell silent, alarmed by a fierce gleam in Melanie’s eyes. She wasn’t to know that she was dealing with a tigress defending her cub. She only knew that something in the other woman’s look quelled her. She sniffed and hurried out of the room.