could hope was that in some way I might bring something to him in return.
On the last Thursday of term I was expecting Timothy to tea as usual. I was half looking forward to his coming and half saddened by the awareness that I would not be seeing him again for four weeks over the Christmas break.
I had made a special cake as a concession to the Christmas season and was ready for tea at least half an hour before Timothy was due. Toasted, buttered crumpets were being kept warm in the oven. I hoped they would not dry out.
For some reason I felt hot and flustered and inexplicably nervous. Perhaps if I went upstairs and brushed my hair and powered my nose, I might feel a little calmer. It had been a long term. The Autumn Term was always the most trying so I suppose that what I really needed was a well-earned rest.
I peered at my face in my bedroom looking-glass. I was in my mid-fifties at the time – seven years have passed since then – and my hair was not white as it is now. I had always thought that I bore my years well and that, as is often the case with spinsters and childless women, I had retained a certain youthful vigour. Suddenly I looked a hundred years old. Timothy's mother, I realised, was probably young enough to be my daughter. To Timothy I probably seemed like a very old woman.
A surge of panic welled up inside me. What on earth did that matter? Of course Timothy could see exactly how old I was – to within a year or two. And what did Timothy's opinion of my age have to do with anything so long as he liked the cake and the buttered crumpets?
I brushed my hair neatly and put on a little lipstick. My face looked grey, there were bags under my eyes and the skin under my chin was beginning to sag noticeably. I dabbed some lavender water behind each car and decided to change my fawn shirt and brown cardigan for a new, raspberry pink jersey which I had bought only a few days earlier. In fact I hadn't yet worn it as I had half a mind to give it to Patricia for Christmas. But I definitely needed brightening up so I put it on. I would find something else for Patricia.
My nerves were hardly any calmer by the time Timothy turned up, but when I saw his eyes brighten at the sight of the cake, I relaxed a little.
Apart from being pleased by the cake and the crumpets, Timothy was a little on the glum side. He was not looking forward to the Christmas holidays at all.
I knew from our former conversations that Timothy's parents were in the process of divorcing. He didn't talk much about the divorce, but it was clear that his father had 'another woman' to whom Timothy occasionally referred with a sneer as 'her' or 'she'. As for his mother, he said nothing about her private life, but merely complained about the smallness of the mews house into which she was moving. The approach of the holidays seemed to have cast him into a terrible gloom.
What, I wondered, could be done to help him.
"I hate Christmas," Timothy said with venom as he helped himself to a third crumpet. He had long tapering fingers. Like mine, I thought.
It was sad, I felt, to hear a child saying that he hated Christmas.
"Perhaps your mother will have arranged something nice for you," I said brightly.
Christmas Day itself would be spent with his grandparents in Hampstead. They were all right, but terribly boring. There would be nothing to do for the rest of the holidays but hang around.
I felt disconsolate. It was a shame that a boy who didn't like school should feel even more negative about home.
Suddenly I had a bright idea. Leo, who was then eighteen and had just started acting school, would certainly not be spending the entire holidays with his parents. Of that I was sure.
Leo was a kind and amusing boy and I would introduce him to Timothy. Of course Timothy was much younger than Leo, but I didn't see why that should prevent Leo from being occasionally kind to him. I would go to London next week and arrange for the two to meet.
Joan, one of my
On the last Thursday of term I was expecting Timothy to tea as usual. I was half looking forward to his coming and half saddened by the awareness that I would not be seeing him again for four weeks over the Christmas break.
I had made a special cake as a concession to the Christmas season and was ready for tea at least half an hour before Timothy was due. Toasted, buttered crumpets were being kept warm in the oven. I hoped they would not dry out.
For some reason I felt hot and flustered and inexplicably nervous. Perhaps if I went upstairs and brushed my hair and powered my nose, I might feel a little calmer. It had been a long term. The Autumn Term was always the most trying so I suppose that what I really needed was a well-earned rest.
I peered at my face in my bedroom looking-glass. I was in my mid-fifties at the time – seven years have passed since then – and my hair was not white as it is now. I had always thought that I bore my years well and that, as is often the case with spinsters and childless women, I had retained a certain youthful vigour. Suddenly I looked a hundred years old. Timothy's mother, I realised, was probably young enough to be my daughter. To Timothy I probably seemed like a very old woman.
A surge of panic welled up inside me. What on earth did that matter? Of course Timothy could see exactly how old I was – to within a year or two. And what did Timothy's opinion of my age have to do with anything so long as he liked the cake and the buttered crumpets?
I brushed my hair neatly and put on a little lipstick. My face looked grey, there were bags under my eyes and the skin under my chin was beginning to sag noticeably. I dabbed some lavender water behind each car and decided to change my fawn shirt and brown cardigan for a new, raspberry pink jersey which I had bought only a few days earlier. In fact I hadn't yet worn it as I had half a mind to give it to Patricia for Christmas. But I definitely needed brightening up so I put it on. I would find something else for Patricia.
My nerves were hardly any calmer by the time Timothy turned up, but when I saw his eyes brighten at the sight of the cake, I relaxed a little.
Apart from being pleased by the cake and the crumpets, Timothy was a little on the glum side. He was not looking forward to the Christmas holidays at all.
I knew from our former conversations that Timothy's parents were in the process of divorcing. He didn't talk much about the divorce, but it was clear that his father had 'another woman' to whom Timothy occasionally referred with a sneer as 'her' or 'she'. As for his mother, he said nothing about her private life, but merely complained about the smallness of the mews house into which she was moving. The approach of the holidays seemed to have cast him into a terrible gloom.
What, I wondered, could be done to help him.
"I hate Christmas," Timothy said with venom as he helped himself to a third crumpet. He had long tapering fingers. Like mine, I thought.
It was sad, I felt, to hear a child saying that he hated Christmas.
"Perhaps your mother will have arranged something nice for you," I said brightly.
Christmas Day itself would be spent with his grandparents in Hampstead. They were all right, but terribly boring. There would be nothing to do for the rest of the holidays but hang around.
I felt disconsolate. It was a shame that a boy who didn't like school should feel even more negative about home.
Suddenly I had a bright idea. Leo, who was then eighteen and had just started acting school, would certainly not be spending the entire holidays with his parents. Of that I was sure.
Leo was a kind and amusing boy and I would introduce him to Timothy. Of course Timothy was much younger than Leo, but I didn't see why that should prevent Leo from being occasionally kind to him. I would go to London next week and arrange for the two to meet.
Joan, one of my
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