The Seaside

The Seaside

Earth and sky reversed. Solid ground beneath his feet? A
half-remembered dream. Arms and legs flailed: he was desperate to halt
his progress. Restore the status quo. Brambles slapped across his face,
naughty, naughty boy. A quick reflex, a blink, and blindness was neatly
avoided. Hot fire seared across his eyelids and blood ran down his
cheeks.

He'd forgotten about the bloody drop-off.

*
There was a ghost what lived at the seaside. Up there, with them at the
big house. Nobody played along that strip of sand and shale. Nobody
played with Simon. The ghost was his daddy.
*

Pain could wait: Simon still pondered the absence of solid ground.
Until he hit it. Perhaps he had been too hasty in his desires. A
crashing thud, his poor shoulder. Birds, disturbed by his sudden
appearance among their nests, shrieked up in his face in a bloody,
blurry whir of wings and errant feathers.

Again he hit the dirt and stones as he tumbled down the rocky slope. A
bang on his bruised shoulder. A cartwheel and his foot briefly touched
down at an ankle-snapping angle. Instantly he forgot about the sticky
blood smearing his vision. Instantly he forgot about this strange new
world that spun around him. Instantly he forgot why he had been
running. If pressed, he could not even remember his name because,
another snap! and his leg no longer held his weight as he fell, and
another snap! and his arm hung askew at the elbow.

White hot coals filled his head -- brilliant flares of light as his
bones snapped and ground against one another as he slid, slipped, fell,
skittered against rock and stone and rootless bush.

*

Daddy had been hurt. The war had hurt him. That's what Mummy said. You
mustn't bother Daddy; you must be quiet now. She said that a lot. He's
having one of his funny turns, now, Simon, you mustn't bother him. She
said that a lot, too. Simon didn't remember the war. It had ended two
years before he was born, and he was eleven now. Plenty of people
remembered it for him, though, so it was all right. He hardly
remembered their flat in London. He remembered mostly the seaside and
this big house, and he played along the surf's edge by himself every
day because none of the other boys in the village would come near.
Daddy frightened them.

*

Strange, but true: clear, isolated thoughts occasionally percolated up
through the haze. As if Simon were suddenly but a spectator of this
terrible abuse to his thin little body. Detached from the wreckage, as
it were. For example, he thought very calmly, very clearly, that he had
had enough, thank you, and what he would really like the most was to
sit down and think about all of this interesting pain. With a mug of
chocolate and a plateful of his Mummy's biscuits. Who needed the
coloured strip cartoons from the Sunday paper? Here he was, drifting
down this nice slope, a passenger only in this wretched, broken
bleeding scarecrow of a body. Mummy'd be displeased by half if she
could see his clothes! Also, he must tell Miss Pemberley that they
might dispense with his science lesson for the week as he had completed
his half-term project: Why observe the tidal pool? He was fascinated to
observe how his limbs flapped helplessly at all angles and how every
point of contact between his body and the grounds produced a very
interesting "uuummmph" sort of grunt. Was that coming from him?

*

Mummy was a seamstress, and she was a very good one. She made all of
her clothes, and all of Daddy's clothes, and all of Simon's, too.
That's how she had supported herself and her child while Daddy was away
at the wars fighting the bad men. Goods were scarce, but Mummy was very
good at making do and her son lacked nothing. Not Simon; David, Simon's
older brother. He was ten years older than Simon. David was dead.

Mummy was still a seamstress, but Auntie Lil brought all the goods and
measurements to the house. The customers were from the city; no one in
the village could afford a seamstress, and no one in the village would
have come to the house anyway. Even though it was frightfully girly,
Simon still liked to sit in Mummy's sewing room when she worked, and
play a bit with the scraps. He wasn't into daft things like dolls, Good
Lord, no! He did sleep with a bunny, a cuddly toy, not a real one, and
Mummy had made that for him when he was a very small boy, but that was
the extent of his affliction for soft things. He had a lot of friction
cars, and he liked to play with them on the short-napped carpet in
Mummy's sewing room, that's all. He liked her company. She didn't say
much, but she always favoured him with a smile when he caught her eye,
and she'd pet his long, reddish brown hair if he happened to crawl
close enough while fetching an errant car. Everyone said he looked like
David. But Simon didn't know; there weren't any pictures.

It was Auntie Lil's house originally. She had wanted David to come live
with her, during the war, when all the houses got bombed, but Mummy had
said no. With Daddy away, she was afraid she'd be lonely without her
son. Auntie Lil never said anything, but sometimes she would look at
Simon, sitting up properly to have his tea with the grown-ups, and then
she would glance at Daddy, and then she would sigh. Simon preferred to
play outside when Auntie Lil came to visit, even if he had to play by
himself and endure the shouted abuse -- from a safe distance -- when
the village boys got out of school and came to play in the tidal
pools.

Simon liked the seaside, and he didn't get lonely at all, not in the
least. He loved the sharp briney scent of the waves, the squeak of the
sand under his feet, and the ladies who came in the summer, all pink
and white, set up near the changing tents on their blankets. A lot of
rich people came to stay in posh houses at the seaside for the summer
and a lot of not-so-rich men had built holiday flat blocks in between
the posh houses. Simon found it fascinating that people would pack up
and haul all of their belongings and family to the seacoast every
season; he could not imagine packing up all his clothes and toys and
things and going to London every year. He lived here.

Other boys came in the summer, the ones who came to the seaside with
their wealthy mummies and daddies, but they didn't play with him,
either. They dared each other to run up to Simon's house and rouse out
the ghost. Simon chased them away, waving a stick. They ran down the
beach away from him, laughing, shouting abuse. They'd fling sand at
him.

The village boys made pocket money among the pampered, spoiled trippers
and tourists -- fetching and carrying. None made as much as Simon -- he
was a pretty little boy, slender, skin golden brown from the kiss of
the sun, too-longish reddish-brown hair flopping in waves about his
still baby-bepudged face, into his large sapphire eyes. The ladies
doted on him and gave him treats and coins and pats and pinches when he
fetched them cool drinks and parasols from the kiosks.

He smiled uncertainly at them, all these mummies who doted on him; he
didn't understand their comments, their demure giggles when they didn't
say anything particularly funny, the glances they exchanged when they
thought he didn't see.

"You are a pretty little boy, aren't you? Those eyes! Those blue
eyes!"

"What a quiet little thing he is, too. Do you have a girlfriend?"

"Oh, in a few years, I'll be your friend. Would you like that,
sweetness?"

He would nod shyly, and bite on his bottom lip, and scuffle his feet,
and they stifled their laughter behind tiny fists, and they touched
him, and stroked his hair and his cheek, touched his lips with their
soft fingers, and gave him chocolate biscuits.

*

All good things must come to an end, even falling down an unexpected
precipice when running for one's life. Simon fetched up against the
mossy bank of a little freshet. Most of him skittered to a stop,
anyway; his useless legs slid a bit further and landed in the water
with a splash.

Silence roared in his ears after all the crashing, tearing, snapping,
squawking. He had known this journey downslope all his life, and now it
had come to an abrupt end.

Cold water flowed merrily over his bloody feet and legs, numbing his
torn flesh and exposed bones. Ice. He was filling with ice despite the
heavy heat of the day. Topside, it had been hot and humid, but down
here, down along the stream, down in the stream, more precisely, under
the great canopy of linked boughs, heavy with rustling silver-green
leaves, it was chilly. Simon whimpered for his mummy.

*

Mummy didn't have any friends in the village. Simon always stayed close
to her to protect her when they went shopping. She was so quiet and
fragile and beautiful, and he could not abide the looks and whispers
and nudges. The doubling back in the grocer's aisles so they could take
a second look at her. Mummy would smile down at him, always hovering
close by her side, and she would stroke his hair and take his hand and
give it a squeeze.

*

Simon lay quietly for a moment. He was very tired. Exhausted. He was
never a lazy little boy. He played hard, worked hard. He even studied
hard, although he knew the other boys would laugh at him for being such
a little clever drawers. But he loved Miss Pemberley so, and he did
want to please her. Anyway, with Daddy -- with the way Daddy was, Mummy
needed a strong man around the house, and Simon gladly undertook the
job. In no way did he resent this burden, him so young. He had no use
for people who were lazy. He fell into bed at night, asleep before his
head hit the pillow, tattered bunny clutched under his chin, and he
leapt up in the early dawn light, alive, awake, and raring to go.

*

Simon didn't go to school properly; Miss Pemberley came to tutor him.
Since she came only three days a week, Simon studied year around. He
didn't mind. She taught him in the morning, and after his lunch, he
could go out to play in peace before the other school let out. He
adored Miss Pemberley. She was as old as Mummy, but she didn't act old
at all. She still lived with her parents, like Simon, and they were
actually very old. Miss Pemberley took holidays twice a year, and she
always went abroad to study at museums and art galleries. She would
send him coloured postcards and she brought back all sorts of
interesting things for him to look at.

The lady at the sweetshop had told Mummy about Miss Pemberley. Simon
had started out at the regular infants' school all right, but when he
was older, the other students made his life a living hell. Despite
Auntie Lil's imperious presence for decades in the house, Simon's Daddy
overshadowed any of her eclat, and he quickly became the local phantom.
The kids taunted Simon; they asked him odd questions about his daddy.
Poor Simon had been bewildered at first, smiling uncertainly in the
face of their terrible jibes, then became teary and frightened, which
only encouraged his tormentors, then he withdrew to the point of
catatonia, rocking on his heels, arms wrapped around his knees,
crouched in the corner between the wall and the bedstead. Mummy
couldn't send him back, but she couldn't very well keep him at home;
she wanted him to have an education. But Miss Pemberley had sorted
everything out.

*

The moss beneath his face was seductively soft, not that he knew that
much about seduction. Just enough, and he was surfeited.

*

The best part about the sweetshop weren't the chocolates, which Simon
did adore, but the sweetshop lady's daughter. She was called Lizzie,
the daughter, and she was twelve, and she was the prettiest girl Simon
had ever seen, not that he would ever tell anyone. He never said a word
to her although he was desperately in love with her. She was very nice
to him, and she always gave him a bit more then his Mummy asked for,
just for him. Despite Mummy's prompting, Simon merely darted desperate,
shy, longing glances at Lizzie, then his feet, then back, his blue eyes
barely able to take in the sight of her, when she slipped a peppermint
across the counter to him. She always smiled at him, then at Mummy. But
she smiled at him first.

*

Simon had no idea that he moaned -- a frustrated complaint more than a
pain-racked whine. Nothing worked properly! He wanted to move -- how
could he be hurt? He'd taken a tumble, so what? He'd fallen down plenty
of times before. Off his bike, just last week, for instance. When he
played with Richard. But he couldn't move. Not at all. Forget it.

His arms were pinned awkwardly under his body; he tried to turn his
head. Nothing happened. Had he fallen flat on his face, the nest of
moss would have suffocated him. Panic seized him -- this was like the
time he'd got under his bed, pretending it was a cave. And he'd got
stuck! And he'd howled for Mummy, and she'd pulled him out amid a cloud
of dust kittens, and he'd cried...Now he glared around wildly with the
one eye that as turned out to face fresh air. Not much to see -- blood
clotted his eyelashes, once so feathery and long and fine, now heavy,
sticky webs. His other eye was swollen shut -- not from the fall, but
from the beating.

He lay and listened to his heart beat. Blood oozed down the side of his
face.

Birds sang, unconcerned. A squirrel ran along a fallen trunk near the
edge of the stream, near Simon. It paused and favoured him with a look
of curiosity and wrinkled its nose as it sniffed him out. Unimpressed,
it continued on its way.

*

"What's your name, then?"

Startled, Simon glanced up from his toys. A boy stood there, looking
down at him, his face in shadow. The sun shone behind him, golden
yellow against his black hair.

"What're you called?" he persisted. He crouched down on his heels, and
Simon could see his face properly. All sharp lines and angles, cold
blue eyes appraising him, a sardonic smile tugging his mouth slightly
to the left.

With an awkward leap, Simon jumped to his feet, spraying the boy with
sand.

"Hoy!" sputtered the boy, brushing sand out of his mouth and away from
his eyes. "Hang on a minute!"

But Simon ran away to the house.

*

Simon jerked awake with a start. Bad dreams. He never had bad dreams.
Not like Daddy who shouted and screamed and sometimes ran about the
house, frantic, opening and shutting the wardrobes and the cupboards,
looking, looking, looking for something. This was a funny sleep,
anyway. Was he dead? Like David? Simon didn't think so. Dead people
didn't have to piss, and he did, despite everything else.

He leaped up -- well, in his head he leaped up. His body shuddered with
a pathetic little twitch. He accomplished nothing more than to reawaken
the pain. In his broken limbs, his cracked ribs, his smashed face. He
screamed for Mummy, a dreadful cry, although what escaped his throat
was little more than a high pitched squeal, as pathetic as that of a
rabbit caught in a trap.

Birds sang. The water gurgled about the dam made by his bluish legs.
The leaves rustled above him in the afternoon breeze.

*

Richard played with Simon. Richard was older -- he was thirteen, he'd
made jolly good scores on his plus-elevens, and he went to a posh
private school. He was clever, and his mummy told everyone he was going
to go on to university. Richard couldn't care less; he told Simon that
he planned to play for England one day, and that required no knowledge
of the passive periphrastic or what was the capital of Abyssinia or
what sort of feet had a spondee. He was with his parents at the seaside
for the holiday. He had no interest in the village boys, nor of the
others what came just in the summer. The beach bored him; the
end-of-pier amusements bored him. He was easily bored, being brilliant
and all. But he was extremely interested to learn that Simon resided
with a ghost, and he had asked the local boys a lot of questions, and
he trotted straight away over to Simon's house to see for himself if it
were true. Instead of a spectre, however, he found only silly Simon
poking about by himself in the sand, and then Simon had run away.

*

Simon was cold.

Pain dug its sharp knives into his breast and sides, and he couldn't
breathe deeply, but the cold was worse. Sweat poured down his back and
brow and the breeze dried it quickly into a cold scum on his body, and
he shivered uncontrollably. His legs trembled in the water. He had
tried several times to pull them out of the stream, sort of his newest
hobby, but every little movement brought on another stab of pain,
especially within his chest. He panted like a dying dog, short little
gasps.

That he himself might be dying never occurred to him.

*

Richard liked the sweetshop, too. He, unlike Simon, made a point to
speak to Lizzie, but she rarely answered or looked up at him. She never
smiled at him, and lately her smile for Simon seemed concerned and
worried. Richard said odd things to her, too, things Simon didn't
understand, and the older boy snickered when Lizzie blushed.

"Don't," said Simon, and he felt like crying, but he didn't know
why.

"Is she your girlfriend?" taunted Richard. "Do you want her?"

For what? Simon wondered, although sometimes he did wish he were brave
enough to ask Lizzie to play, even though she was older than he. He
blushed; he played baby games, and she might make fun of him, too. He
didn't want that, not at all. If Lizzie made fun of him, he would just
disintegrate with humiliation. But he didn't want Richard angry with
him, either, because he and Richard were mates now. He didn't know what
he was going to do when Richard went home.

*

Simon's back and legs felt cold and clammy, but he was warm where his
body pressed into the wet bank. A deep itch settled into his arms and
stomach and worst of all in his crotch, where the damp fabric of his
shorts chafed between his legs. Already the insects had found him and
crawled and crept across his skin, little bristly legs pinching and
prickling him as they scurried to and fro under his clothes. As the day
went on and on, and he became more and more a permanent part of the
landscape, more crawlies and creepies discovered him and found him to
their liking.

Simon had reassessed his long-range goals and had decided to
concentrate on the immediate future. Instead of going up the bank, he
resolved to roll over. He needed to take a deep breath so badly -- he
had never wanted anything more, not even the little friction cars
behind the glass at the sweetshop. At present he could barely inhale;
his arms tortured him lying warped and bent under his scant weight,
pressed into his injured chest. Anything, anything at all to relieve
that sharp pressure. All he wanted was a deep breath.

He lay thoughtfully for a while, planning very carefully exactly how he
would roll over and how much and what resources he needed to carry out
such a maneuver. He liked to plan; he liked to draw elaborate maps and
cross sections on sheets of white paper his mummy used when she needed
to draw a pattern. After a long time he came to understand, as the
sweat trickled a prickly path down the nape of his neck, that he was
never going to turn over if all he did was lie here and think about it.
The thing was to do it. Get it done. Hop to it. He had never wasted
time mooning about in the past.

Simon summoned all of his strength and managed to wobble slightly to
one side. No great endeavour, no medals or trophies on the way, but he
did manage to take the pressure off his sternum and chest. His newly
freed arm lolled uselessly at the shoulder, free and independent from
its socket; its mate still lay trapped underneath his body. But he
could draw in a bigger breath now, and he screamed loudly enough to
frighten away the birds again. But Mummy wouldn't come.

*

The lady who took him up to her cottage. That lady. The one who cuddled
him and stroked his hair. She touched him, and he had burst into
tears.

*

"Oh, Mummy, please, Mummy," he whispered. "Mummy."

The brush nearby rustled.

"Mummy? Mummy, are you there? Please, help me," he moaned. He was
almost blind from the crusted bloody muck dried on the side of his
face.

A shadow crossed before him.

"Can't you help me?" he pleaded. He whimpered shamelessly. Hot tears
rolled into his nose, squeezed out of the corner of his eye.

Something brushed against his hair.

"Please? Won't you please," he begged, and he began to cry.

Then a face appeared before him, scant inches from his own, and somehow
Simon found the strength to scream.

*

Poor Lizzie, lying there helplessly, skirt bunched around her waist,
sand on her face and her wet hair tangled up in the grass. And Richard,
lying on top of her, doing, what? Something very strange, thought
Simon.

"Come on, come on, I've got her broken in for you, Simon, what are you
waiting for?" Richard, panting, pinning Liz down, knee on her chest,
hand over her mouth.

Simon simply stood there, thinking of the lady, the lady in the house,
the one who had touched him. Lizzie stared up at him with frightened
eyes. There was blood. Simon stared, mesmerised. Then he knelt down.
She was warm and her skin was velvety soft. Richard crawled away in the
sand, he held her arms pinned down tightly over her head, and
Simon...

*

A flash of pain revived him from his swoon; his head had fallen to one
side and he'd fetched his broken nose up against a sharp stone. His
good eye was nearly sealed shut, teary mucus finishing off a job well
done. The world appeared through a gummy red filter as he struggled in
panic to part his eyelashes. There was no one there.

Still he could not move; his legs ached with the cold. He was so tired.
He wanted to go to bed; he wanted his bunny. Pain twisted and tightened
in his gut -- a thin leather belt wrapped about his middle pulling
tight, tight, tighter with every throb of the blood pulsing through his
head. Small prickles tormented his scalp; the crinkly itch between his
legs had grown unbearable. He fantasised that he had a knife, a great
huge carving knife, like Mummy used on Sundays when they had roast beef
-- or better yet, the shiny silver scissors she used to cut fabric --
and he took the scissors and he hacked and slashed and carved at his
groin.

*

"I'd like that one, wouldn't you? I'd like that one a lot. Come on,"
Richard had said. "Let's pull a bird."

"No," whispered Simon.

*

Daddy wasn't a ghost. That wasn't true. He didn't eat people. He didn't
go about and stand and stare in people's windows. He didn't do any of
the things people said. He stayed home all the time; he sat in his
chair by the window or he slept in the bed. He didn't howl at the moon
or talk to people that weren't there. He sat in his chair, and he
didn't look at anyone, and all he did was weep in silence.

*

"Oh, did they hurt you? Poor little boy!" exclaimed the lady. She
helped Simon to his feet and dusted the sand off his clothes. "Nasty
little boys. Knocking you down like that. You come with me. Come on."
She took his hand and led him up to her cottage.

*

Sharp pain cut across his abdomen; Simon tensed, his jaws stretched
wide in a rictus of agony. At last the kink loosened, and he shuddered.
The new movement tormented his broken bones and smashed glass clogging
up his lungs. Then the knife twisted in his guts again, and again, and
he realised that he still had to piss.

*

"Tell me," said the lady. "Do you have any sisters?"

"No, ma'am," replied Simon, his voice quavering.

He lay back amid the cushions and pillows on the lady's grand bed. He
wasn't hurt, but she insisted that he have a little lie down while she
made him a cup of milky tea.

"I see," she said thoughtfully.

*

He didn't feel like playing that afternoon when he got home. He didn't
want to do anything. He never wanted to go down to the beach again. He
found his mother in her sewing room, and he pressed up against her as
she sat at her machine. She stopped sewing and put her arm around him,
cuddled him close within her sweet softness and kissed his sun-scented
hair.

"You're such a good boy. Such a pretty boy. Beautiful like your
father," she murmured, petting him.

Simon snuggled against her; Mummy was safe harbour.

*

"I say, what is going on here?"

The lady reared back from Simon, startled, hands aflutter. Simon
goggled past her rumpled skirts and stared at the man who stood in the
doorway.

"Who is that?" the man asked. "What is he doing in our bed?'

"This is one of the little boys from the village. He's got himself
hurt," she replied. "One of those stinging things in the tide."

The man cast her a look. "Oh, indeed? Is this true? Been stung, have
you?"

"No, sir," replied Simon. He was only eleven.

"Poor little thing! He was simply raving!" said the woman.

"Are you recovered yet?" asked the man.

Simon decided that it was best if he were. He slid off the bed and
sidled furtively past the man. He ran across the slippery tiles and
into the scrubby garden as fast as he could, still fumbling with the
button flies on his shorts, but he could still hear the slap and the
shrieks from within the house.

*

"Simon! Simon, please, don't!" begged Lizzie. "Make him stop, Simon,
please." She wept as Richard lay atop her again. And Lizzie didn't like
it. He tugged at Richard's arm rather half-heartedly.

Movement caught Simon's eye and he whirled about, hobbled by his shorts
down round his ankles. There was someone there, someone in the shadows,
someone watching this play, too.

Richard rocked back onto his haunches, panting for breath, and looked
up at him. There was blood on Lizzie.

"You want it. You know you do," said Richard. "You did before." He
frowned. "What are you looking at? Is someone there?" he called. There
was a pause filled only by the waves along the shore and the far away
cry of a seabird. "Probably just your old man, spying again," said
Richard, glancing slyly up to see Simon's reaction. "Come on, then,
back to the salt mines for you," he chided.

Simon wanted to run, to turn and run, to fetch Mummy, but his body had
turned to lead.

Lizzie wept; her nose was running.

"Do it, do it, do it," chanted Richard and seized Simon and pulled him
down in the sand beside Lizzie. "Do it!" Each command punctuated with
another sharp prod into Simon's ribs.

"Stop it, please," he pleaded. "Please stop hurting me."

"Don't be such a baby," said Richard scornfully, and while he was
distracted, Lizzie clawed at him and raked his cheek with her
fingernails. Richard swore, and he sat on Lizzie's chest, and he put
his hands around Lizzie's throat, and he squeezed as if wringing out
his flannel after his bath like Mummy had asked Simon perhaps a
thousand times to do. Lizzie thrashed in the sand and grappled at
Richard's hands and her eyes were wide and terrified and horrid sounds
came from her throttled throat. Simon tried to reach for her, but his
hands wouldn't move.

"It's all your fault," said Richard conversationally as Lizzie's face
turned blue.

"Mummy!" screamed Simon, "Mummy!"

*

Helplessly Simon wet himself and the embankment, screaming in relief
and pain as his hips thrust and twisted into the moss. Why not, he
couldn't get any damper or miserable, and, frankly, he felt a bit
better.

*

Daddy'd found David. Nobody had told Simon this directly, but he knew.
One minute they'd all been on the terrace across the street, visiting
friends as Daddy was home on leave, then David had gone home to fetch a
game, a book, a toy, something, and then their house was gone. Just a
lot of smoking plaster and bricks and rubbish. Then Daddy, uniform
torn, fingers running with blood from scrabbling through the debris,
emerged with David lifeless in his arms, splattered with blood and
blackened from ash.

*

"She'd dead! Oh, she's dead! I think you killed her!" Simon stood
thunderstruck, his shorts still around his ankles, his fist jammed
tightly into his mouth like any silly girl who's just seen a mouse. Or
a little boy who's just seen a girl strangled. Why had Simon thought
they had ever been friends?

"You shut up! Or I'll split your face!" But Richard's voice had
quavered and his credibility was at an ebb.

Weeping, Simon yanked his shorts up, then fell to the sand and petted
Lizzie's hair and shook her. Richard had been contrite, shifting his
weight from foot to foot -- it was just a game! It was just a bit of
fun! His lip had wobbled a bit, and he looked very upset, and he said
he would fetch his mummy who would put everything to rights, and they
could all go have tea. And he ran away then, and Simon stayed with
Lizzie, and she had suddenly moaned and retched and opened her eyes and
looked at him and burst into tears. Relief washed over him, and he
heard Richard shouting and thought the bigger boy had returned with his
mum to sort things out. But he hadn't told his mum; he'd told the
village boys instead. And they came after Simon with proprietary
rage.

*

Something rustled in the brambles again. The boys, oh, it was the boys!
They'd come for him! Frightened, Simon screamed weakly for Mummy again.
But it was his daddy who found him and who brought the constable. It
was his daddy who knelt beside him in the muck and the moss, and his
daddy who stroked his filthy hair, and his daddy who muttered, "David,
David, David," over and over again, feverishly, as the constable
shouted and blew his whistle and acted in general as if he were very
important.

-- for a sweet schoolboy; I still love you lots, sweetness, and I'll
wait.