And the Rest Is History(45)

Matthew stared, first at the window, and then, discarding the rest of us as unimportant and irrelevant, at Dr Bairstow. He had gone very pale, his eyes huge with fear. He was ready to drop the bat and run. Anywhere. Away from whatever punishment he thought was coming his way. None of us moved. In just one second, all our good work had been completely undone.

I was about to go to him – for all the good that would do – when Dr Bairstow said calmly, ‘A good shot, Matthew, but you should watch those elbows. Try again.’

Another ball was produced. Evans bowled him an easy one and he hit it straight into Markham’s waiting hands. Markham fumbled artistically, dropped it, and then fell over for good measure.

There was a torrent of good-natured abuse.

Dr Bairstow shook his head and moved on. No Deductions form was ever received.

In the evenings, we would watch a little TV. In my role as bad cop, I wouldn’t let him watch much because I didn’t want to overload him. He did like doing jigsaw puzzles, though. We would all sit together at the table while he frowned over the pieces. He never smiled much, but I suspected he hadn’t had much to smile about. He liked books and stories as well, and every night Leon would disappear for a tactful hour while I read to him in bed. I kept the stories simple, because his knowledge of our world wasn’t great, and we would look at the pictures together.

We introduced women into his life very slowly.

First up was Mrs Mack. She let him help make jam tarts for us to eat in the evening as we read together. He never greeted her with wild enthusiasm, but he tolerated her – I think he’d worked out that she was the source of all food. He politely avoided Mrs Enderby because of her tendency to cuddle, but the real breakthrough was Miss Lingoss.

He took one look at her blue-tipped hair and was her devoted slave. He trotted after her whenever she would allow him to. She was very good-natured about it all, promising faithfully not to engage in anything too hazardous when he was around. I was always catching glimpses of the pair of them disappearing around a corner somewhere, laden with dubious-looking equipment that could, in the wrong hands – i.e. Miss Lingoss’s – lay waste to most of the surrounding countryside for miles around, cause near-earth satellites to drop from the sky, and possibly start a small pandemic as well. As a caring and concerned mother, I should probably investigate their activities. As a short and harassed historian, I would pretend I’d seen nothing.

With everyone else cherry-picking the good stuff, I seemed to be stuck with hair-washing, ear-cleaning and badgering him to eat broccoli. The three things he disliked most in the world. A mother’s lot is not a happy one.

He didn’t talk much but he wasn’t unfriendly. Not even distrustful. He was just watchful.

I forced myself be patient and tried not to think about the little baby holding out his arms for me to save him. It was slow, but we were making progress and it was possible, said Dr Stone, that given a little time and patience, everything might be all right after all. And how about that eye test while I was here?

‘I’m very busy,’ I said, backing away. ‘Some other time, perhaps.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I quite understand. You’ve a lot on at the moment. Tell you what – how about a quick preliminary, and if you get through that then there’s no need for the full test. It’ll only take a few minutes and we could get it out of the way now.’

I indicated that this might be acceptable. It was beginning to dawn on me that this eye test thing wasn’t going to go away.

‘Won’t take long,’ he said cheerfully, sitting me at a table. Not a lightbox in sight. This might go well.

He handed me a sheet of paper and a pencil. ‘Let’s see how well you do at this easy test, shall we. Draw me a house.’

I drew a tiny house.

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘No problems there. Now, draw me a garden.’

I did a few scrappy flowers and a lollipop tree in front of the house.

‘Yes, that seems OK. Last one – draw me a snake.’

I rather went to town on the snake. I drew a giant python, all curled around the outside of the picture, rather like a reptilian picture frame. I drew a dramatic diamond pattern on his body and coloured it in. I gave him a flickering, forked tongue, big eyes with huge curling eyelashes and a wicked expression, and a giant rattle on his tale. When I was satisfied, I handed the paper back.

He looked at it for some time.

I got up to go.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Well, I’ve passed, haven’t I? Look at the detail on that snake. Nothing wrong with my eyes.’

‘Yes,’ he said, shifting in his chair. ‘I might have ever so slightly misled you about the true purpose of the test.’

‘In what way,’ I said, moving ever so slightly into fighting stance.

‘Well, let me show you. Firstly, the house represents your nesting instinct which, as we can see here, barely exists. The garden represents your desire for gentleness and peace which, as we can see, is no greater than your stunted nesting instinct.

I sighed. ‘What has this to do with…’

‘The snake, on the other hand – this easily three-hundred-feet-long, beautifully drawn, exquisitely detailed, all-encompassing snake, represents your sexual urges which, apparently, appear to be quite massive.’

I snatched up the paper, demanding to know what this had to do with an eye test.