May Contain Nuts (15 page)

‘Right, of course. Finish your fries, Molly. Um, do you like the little toy?'

‘What, a plastic Disney figure? I'm eleven years old; not a
loser
.' And I made a letter ‘L' with my thumb and index finger and stuck it to my forehead in the way that Molly and her friends did. On a nearby table sat a slightly bewildered-looking
father of teenage children, who looked like he had just picked them up for his occasional weekend of legal custody. He gave David a look of long-suffering sympathy, as if he recognized a fellow divorced dad making the best of it.

By now I was enjoying this role of the hypercritical preteen exasperated by her dozy father. ‘Daa-addd!' I moaned as he got up to leave. ‘You're supposed to empty your tray into the bins!!!'

David apparently wasn't sure whether to enjoy my satirical impression of Molly, or whether his wife had just found another voice in which to tell him he was doing everything wrong. ‘Oh well, not everyone does, though, do they?'

‘No, right, just leave it for your slaves to clear up all your disgusting mess
as usual
…'

‘All right, that's enough now, Molly!' he said firmly as the other father looked on. ‘Or I'll hide your zit cream again, you spotty little ball of pus …' and the empathetic smile of the other dad suddenly dropped away.

I felt a flutter of nerves as we approached the church hall and pulled the brim of my baseball cap lower over my face. Other children were arriving in twos and threes, excitedly chattering about what had happened that day at school, swapping gossip and catchphrases that were unfamiliar to me. At this moment part of me would have happily turned round and walked back to the car, but for Molly's sake I forced myself to go on. I realized that my nerves were completely appropriate. I was a weird-looking geeky new girl with a skin problem being sent into a youth club full of strangers. Of course, I would let my greasy hair fall in front of my face and bite my nails and stare at my sandals.

‘Hello, this is Molly Chaplin …' David told the young man who met us at the door. ‘She's not been before. I spoke to the
vicar on the phone about her coming along tonight …' The young man's smile almost didn't crack when he looked across at me and saw this strange-looking child. ‘Hello, Molly!' he chirped enthusiastically. He was about twenty years old with an irritatingly contrived friendliness. This must be where they train the
Blue Peter
presenters, I decided.

‘She's very shy …' David explained, when I mumbled some inaudible reply.

‘Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on her.' My ‘dad' paid my 50p, left a contact mobile number and then I was alone. I fiddled with the grubby Elastoplast on my glasses. ‘My name's Simon,' said the
Blue Peter
presenter, ‘and I've got a very important job I need you to help me with, Molly …'

Oh pur-lease, I thought, not that old chestnut,
make child feel important by giving her a task
. We stopped doing that with our kids when they were about seven. I followed him through to the kitchen, picking my way past children playing board games or table tennis, who didn't even notice my arrival.

‘I really need you to help me set out these paper cups for when we all have some squash, Molly.'

Great, we were going to have some squash. Next time I'd bring a couple of vodka miniatures to help get me through this.

If I say so myself, I made a pretty good job of setting the paper cups out on the sideboard. Disappointed that this job had not taken the new girl more than about forty seconds, Simon then sat me down with some craft materials. ‘This is Molly, everyone.' The other children looked at me uncertainly. ‘Molly doesn't know anyone here, so will you look after her, Ellie?'

‘Er, OK …' said Ellie, rather reluctantly I thought.

‘What school do you go to?' said Ellie.

‘You wouldn't have heard of it, it's not round here …' I mumbled. She shrugged and got on with attaching pipe cleaners to her bit of cardboard, while inside I felt a triumphant euphoria that she hadn't added, ‘Yeah, but how come you're still going to school when you're so obviously nearly forty?'

I had thought I should avoid getting into extended conversations, but the occasion didn't seem to arise. The boys ignored me completely, and though one or two of the kinder-looking girls attempted a friendly question, they soon gave up when I failed to give them anything but one-word answers. But I was getting away with it. No one questioned my right to be there. They may not have wanted to be my best friend, but I was tolerated in their midst: a child. A strange one, but a child.

My efforts at artwork were ‘abstract' to say the least, but Simon praised them with the patronizing dishonesty that a care worker might use to applaud a senile old lady who'd finally managed to get a spoonful of trifle into her mouth. There were, in fact, two play leaders at the club, both about twenty, but although I guessed they were supposed to work separately in the two rooms, Simon seemed to be needed far more in the other hall where the attractive female worker was preoccupied. It was so transparent; Simon must have thought I was born yesterday. Or eleven years ago, anyway.

It was around then that I heard Ellie groan and say, ‘Oh no …' as a younger boy came into the room. I was used to Molly taking an automatic dislike to boys but this seemed stronger, this was the level of loathing reserved for extra maths lessons or taramasalata.

‘He's horrible …' she whispered. It seemed a harsh summary of a child's entire personality, though it rapidly proved to be right on the button. The boy started to grab bits
of cardboard that other children were already using. He said his was the best model; he boasted that his parents had the biggest house and that he was the best skier at the youth club – a difficult claim to disprove in the middle of Putney.

‘And I'm the best ping-pong player at my school,' he bragged. ‘I could beat you twenty-one nil, Ellie. Come on, who wants to play me at table tennis?'

The other children were unattracted by the proposal of getting thrashed by the precocious champion and then being endlessly reminded of it ever after. ‘Come on, losers, who'll take me on?' he repeated. The defeated silence was embarrassing to behold.

‘I'll give you a game of table tennis,' I heard myself say. I don't know what made me volunteer. I suppose I was just irritated at the way he was dominating the other children. Deep down I think he reminded me of Ffion. I must stay in character, I said to myself as I picked up the frayed and peeling bat; I must play like a nervous, unconfident child. He announced that he'd serve first and smashed the ball over the net five times in a row, while I did my best to look nervous and overwhelmed on the other side of the table.

‘Yes! Five nil to Danny!' he broadcast, telling me that this meant it was my turn to serve. I patted a pedestrian, high-bouncing ball over the net to him and he smashed it back at a hundred miles an hour. ‘Yes! Six nil to Danny!' he said loudly, looking round to check that everyone else had heard. Seven love, eight love, nine love – his delight increased with each point. Until I became too irritated to tolerate him any more and decided to hit a shot back. He launched a fast low smash to the end of the table and I sent it hurtling back to the other side with a little backspin just to throw him. He missed it completely. There was a pause.

‘Lucky fluke!' he said, leaving me to pick up the ball even though it was nearer to him.

What young Danny didn't know was that I was an extremely good ping-pong player. We had a table at home and only last summer I had reached the dizzy heights of the Corfu Club Med final. I could have beaten this spoilt arrogant little boy twenty-one love if I had wanted to. Except now I had decided to beat him twenty-one nine.

‘Ellie, hold my glasses, would you?' I said solemnly.

It was his serve again but my return shots whizzed to the edge of the table, sending him jumping from side to side. A crowd started to gather.

‘The new girl's beating Danny Shea,' I heard someone announce when I went ahead, and I saw him start to really sweat. It was then that I suddenly broke off.

‘Danny Shea?'

‘Yes?'

‘From Spencer House school in Clapham?'

‘Yes. Why?'

Here he was, the boy who had ruined my son's school life this term. Standing on the other side of a table-tennis table actually looking a little bit pathetic. The boy I had imagined as a huge muscle-bound thug was not particularly big or scary, just massively over-confident and aggressive.

‘Oh, no reason. I just wondered why you don't go to a youth club in Clapham?'

‘Because I don't live in Clapham any more, stupid. We moved to Putney. It's twelve nine to you.'

‘No, thirteen nine …' corrected Ellie.

‘I'm not bothered.' I shrugged. ‘Twelve nine is fine by me …' and the other children looked as if they had never encountered a child like this before.

‘You've got the best bat,' he announced with the scores at fifteen nine to me.

‘OK, you can have this one,' I said, showing, I feel, a confidence and maturity well beyond my eleven years.

‘Go on, Molly …' whispered Ellie to me as I passed her. I saw she had her fingers crossed.

Danny might have been quite a decent player if he hadn't been so determined to go for a dramatic macho smash every single time it was his shot. It was as if all this child's anger and frustration were being vented on this table-tennis table. Where did all this rage come from, I wondered. Perhaps it was important for his development that I allow him to continue to be the best table-tennis player. Perhaps he should be permitted to continue to excel in one legitimate pursuit so that he might be less inclined to bully and torment the other children like mine. And then I thought: Sod that, I am going to smash the vicious little bastard right off the table.

With the score at twenty twelve, Danny was now serving to stay in the game, when suddenly he put his bat down.

‘I don't want to play any more. It's boring.'

‘That means you lost,' said Ellie.

‘Shut up, Smelly Ellie,' said Danny. ‘And go and play with your spotty new friend.'

‘You lost. Molly beat you …' said Ellie.

‘Smelly Ellie loves Molly. Smelly is a lesbian,' quipped Danny.

‘Don't call Ellie Smelly, Danny,' I said, calmly putting my glasses back on. ‘And whether people are gay or not isn't something they can be expected to know or understand until after they have reached puberty. Then if Ellie decided she was a lesbian or you realized you were homosexual, there would, of course, be absolutely nothing wrong with that.'

This made the others laugh at him and I felt that my rejoinder should have closed the society's debate on ‘Whither Sexuality?' but the erudite young man opposing my motion had another rhetorical trick up his sleeve. I felt a sharp tug at the bag of my hair.

‘You calling me a gaylord, you spotty lezzy?'

‘Let go of my hair, Danny …'

‘Why's your face like that? Have you got AIDS?'

‘Let go of my hair, Danny, you are actually hurting me now …'

‘Stop it, Danny … someone get Simon …' said Ellie.

‘Ow, you little bastard, I'm warning you – let go!' I said, but he tugged harder, pulling my head down and nearly causing me to topple backwards. In a flash of anger my elbow flew back into Danny's stomach, probably harder than it should have done, and he yelped in pain and doubled up. Then I span round, grabbed his arm and forced it right up his back till he cried out in pain.

‘And listen carefully, Danny Shea,' I whispered into his ear. ‘If you ever, EVER, EVER, lay another finger on Jamie Chaplin in your class at Spencer House, if you so much as say something horrible to him, let alone hit or kick Jamie Chaplin, I swear I will come and knock your teeth into the back of your fucking skull, do you understand?' and I shoved the arm further up his back for good measure.

‘Yes, ow, yes, please let go …'

‘Molly, get off him!' shouted Simon sternly, striding into the room.

Danny was openly sobbing, crouched down on the floor. I think his arm was hurting, though I hadn't really pushed it that far.

‘I will not have you bullying people in my youth club.'

‘He was pulling my hair.'

‘Don't tell tales, Molly.'

‘I'm not telling tales. I'm explaining the context. He was pulling my hair and refused to let go.'

‘I'm not interested in who did what to who.'

‘Whom.'

‘What?'

‘It's who did what to whom,' I said, perhaps stretching the characterization of my chronically shy eleven-year-old. But I was angry that he was taking Danny's side, and perhaps I was angry at myself for having lost control in the way I did. ‘And these children should not have been left totally unsupervised. The Childcare and Children's Supervision Act of 1994 specifically includes youth clubs and summer camps in subsection two, stating that children under fourteen may not be left without adult supervision, and what is worse your absence was a transgression of the trust placed in you by these children's parents,' I barked. Ellie and her friends stared open-mouthed at me.

‘How old are you, Molly?' said Simon.

‘Er, eleven?'

‘Come on, what's your game? What are you, some kind of undercover reporter or what?'

‘I'm eleven, really. I was born in, er, 1994. You remember – that really hot summer? Oasis, Blur, um … Live Aid?'

‘Either you leave now or I am calling the police and informing them that you have assaulted a child.'

David looked surprised to see me half an hour before he was supposed to come and pick me up. He was sitting in the corner of the pub, reading a newspaper and sipping a pint when I dejectedly plonked myself down opposite him and announced that it hadn't worked.