The Golliwog

Where was it? It was in her room somewhere? Wasn’t it? Hiding. She could hear it’s little black boots scampering around the foot of her bed. She could hear its quick breathing. No. Don’t be ridiculous Moira, she thought, how can a dolly possibly breathe? But she had definitely seen it, out of the corner of her eye, as she was getting into bed.

Only yesterday she had been telling her old pal, Irene McCrindle, over tea and biscuits, “Och, Golliwogs aren’t racist! They’re cute. I used to play with my little Golly when I was a wee wean, oh those were the days, and I loved it as much as all my other dolls with its spiky hair, its big googly eyes, its wee jacket and bow tie and its stripy troosers. Och! It was just innocent fun, that’s all”.

“Oh aye”, concurred Irene, sipping some lapsang
souchong and dipping a chocolate hobnob, “Its political correctness gone mad, is what it is”.

Or was it her who was going mad. Perhaps it had heard them talking, somehow but how could it have? They’d been in a tea shop in the high street and it had been locked up in her dusty old toy box but, for some reason it was angry with her, hated her and the look in its eyes; not big wide, staring, innocent eyes now but narrow, shifty, wicked rat-like eyes full of cunning and cruelty.

Or perhaps it knew about the things her father had done in Africa, as a policeman, before the war. Oh, hadn’t he looked so smart in his uniform. Her daddy! So handsome! But mother had told her later, long after her father had passed away, that he was a cruel, vicious, brutal man who used to drink too much and beat her and frighten her with stories about what he’d done to those poor darkies in those dark jail cells, all alone.

Och, she wasn’t to blame for that, was she? And she certainly wasn’t going to let some wee upstart of a doll scare her!

“Come on then!”, she said, narrowing her eyes, grimacing and trying to look fierce the way that she imagined the Scots must have looked fierce at Bannockburn. “Come on. You wee Darkie! You wee Sambo! You wee Nigger!”.

But there was something else that was black, wasn’t there? Someone dark who ruled over all people, both the inferior races and the whites. Death! Perhaps, it was he who she’d seen hiding and scampering amidst the shadows of her room, his gargoyle face that had been grinning at her from the darkness, perhaps even an imp of old Satan himself?

But why? She’d always been a good christian, hadn’t she? Always been courteous and kind. Why, she’d even bought a teapot from that shop in the highstreet that sent money to the starving colored weans in Africa. No! It should have been wee fair haired angels in white robes for her, not some black, grinning dwarf.

“No!”, she shouted in fear, “No! I won’t go like that. I won’t!”.

But the Golliwog didn’t care what she wanted. It just wanted to see her die and…what was that in its hand? Bright and shiny. Something it had stolen from her sewing box. Naughty Golly! Snip snip, it went; its little boots running through the darkness; its little hands climbing her bedclothes, snip snip; its big eyes glowing white in the gloom as it leapt like an animal onto her, her sewing scissors in its little white gloved hand.

It didn’t need to stab her. Her heart was weak anyway, that young African doctor from the clinic had told her. Witch Doctors! What the hell did they know. But he was right. She clutched her heart through her night gown as it gave way. She screamed for help; her old voice, frail but no one heard, no one.