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‘I won’t go to school without Harry. I want to be with Harry.’ She began to weep, loudly, painfully.
‘Chris, stop this nonsense! Stop it!’ I struck her sharply on the arm. Her crying ceased immediately. She stared at me, her blue eyes wide open and frighteningly cold. She gave me an adult stare that made me tremble. Then she said:
‘You don’t love me. Harry loves me. Harry wants me. He says I can go with him.’
‘I will not hear any more of this!’ I shouted, hating the anger in my voice, hating myself for being angry at all with a little girl – my little girl – mine –
I went down on one knee and held out my arms.
‘Chris, darling, come here.’
She came, slowly. ‘I love you,’ I said. ‘I love you, Chris, and I’m real. School is real. Go to school to please me.’
‘Harry will go away if I do.’
‘You’ll have other friends.’
‘I want Harry.’ Again the tears, wet against my shoulder now. I held her closely.
‘You’re tired, baby. Come to bed.’
She slept with the tear stains still on her face.
It was still daylight. I went to the window to draw her curtains. Golden shadows and long strips of sunshine in the garden. Then, again like a dream, the long thin clear-cut shadow of a boy near the white roses. Like a mad woman I opened the window and shouted:
‘Harry! Harry!’
I thought I saw a glimmer of red among the roses, like close red curls on a boy’s head. Then there was nothing.
When I told Jim about Christine’s emotional outburst he said: ‘Poor little kid. It’s always a nervy business, starting school. She’ll be all right once she gets there. You’ll be hearing less about Harry too, as time goes on.’
‘Harry doesn’t want her to go to school.’
‘Hey! You sound as if you believe in Harry yourself!’
‘Sometimes I do.’
‘Believing in evil spirits in your old age?’ he teased me. But his eyes were concerned. He thought I was going ‘round the bend’ and small blame to him!
‘I don’t think Harry’s evil,’ I said. ‘He’s just a boy. A boy who doesn’t exist, except for Christine. And who is Christine?’
‘None of that!’ said Jim sharply. ‘When we adopted Chris we decided she was to be our own child. No probing into the past. No wondering and worrying. No mysteries. Chris is as much ours as if she’d been born of our flesh. Who is Christine indeed! She’s our daughter – and just you remember that!’
‘Yes, Jim, you’re right. Of course you’re right.’
He’d been so fierce about it that I didn’t tell him what I planned to do the next day while Chris was at school.
Next morning Chris was silent and sulky. Jim joked with her and tried to cheer her, but all she would do was look out of the window and say: ‘Harry’s gone.’
‘You won’t need Harry now. You’re going to school,’ said Jim.
Chris gave him that look of grown-up contempt she’d given me sometimes.
She and I didn’t speak as I took her to school. I was almost in tears. Although I was glad for her to start school, I felt a sense of loss at parting with her. I suppose every mother feels that when she takes her ewe-lamb to school for the first time. It’s the end of babyhood for the child, the beginning of life in reality, life with its cruelty, its strangeness, its barbarity. I kissed her goodbye at the gate and said:
‘You’ll be having dinner at school with the other children, Chris, and I’ll call for you when school is over, at three o’clock.’
‘Yes, mummy.’ She held my hand tightly. Other nervous little children were arriving with equally nervous parents. A pleasant young teacher with fair hair and a white linen dress appeared at the gate. She gathered the new children towards her and led them away. She gave me a sympathetic smile as she passed and said: ‘We’ll take good care of her.’
