Cornflower Blues

Cornflower Blues

I'd known Graham most of his life. First as a neighbour to the family, and then my son Jonathan began to get to know him better and they'd have sleepovers. I used to think only girls did that from what my friends told me about their daughters, except Emma that is (Emma's my eldest - she's ten) thought the whole idea ridiculous from a young age, especially if the sleepover was conducted between people living in the same street, let alone the next house. Emma tended to dismiss things and people very quickly, had done from an early age. I suppose she got that from me. Ralph (my husband) never dismisses anyone or anything, which makes getting a decision from him like squeezing blood from a stone. Anyway, let's get on with the story.

Graham was Mr and Mrs. Bridges' only child, the apple of their eye. They were ten years older than Ralph and me, the Bridges were, which put them into another generation really. Certainly their ideas about child-rearing were old-fashioned. No television until all homework done and none at all on Sundays. Not out of religious feelings from what I could gather, but because they liked to do things as a family on that day. They said 'they' liked, but I used to see Graham's face as he was reminded to put his seatbelt on in the back of the car as they went off on another jaunt: Whipsnade, Blenheim Palace or wherever. Not much fun for an eight year old. Then they started asking Jonathan to go with them, or rather Graham asked Jonathan to ask me, and I wasn't keen, but said he should ask his father, which he did and of course, Ralph said it was all right with him if it was all right with me. So that was it. He started going.

Anyway, it was on one of these outings on a Sunday that they stopped for a picnic in some woodland, backing onto farm fields or something. That's how Jonathan explained it to me anyway, and Graham and the parents and him were walking through this cornfield and suddenly, Graham stopped and crouched down to a blue flower, growing in clumps along the hedgerow and exclaimed they were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

'Neat colour, Mum,' Jonathan enthused, his cheeky little dimpled cheeks reminding me of when he was a fat little baby and I used to squeeze his cheeks into dimples then. It gave my heart a pang to think that, so I couldn't hear everything he said, but I did catch that Graham had talked about these flowers all the way home and was going to look in their encyclopaedia when they got home.

'It was this gorgeous blue flower, really pretty. You'd have liked it Mum,' he said.

'Why didn't they just pick it, for goodness' sake?' I asked, exasperated. Sometimes, the Bridges seemed unnecessarily coy to me, always being environment-conscious and being upright citizens and all that. And showing it. You know the type. I mean they certainly never did anyone any harm, but they were boring and it looked to me as if Graham was following in their footsteps. I didn't want Jonathan to be too influenced by them. I could imagine Mr. Bridges sitting with his stamp collection or his pressed flowers and going through albums and suchlike.

'Mrs. Bridges said it might be a rare flower,' Jonathan said.

'Yeah, yeah,' I replied. 'Right, you're home now. What do you want for tea?'

The next day Jonathan came home and said that the flower they'd seen was a cornflower. Apparently he'd seen some in Farmer Jones' field up the road, but hadn't taken any notice. So all this fuss about a cornflower, honestly! Apparently, he'd talked about it for Show and Tell that morning in school, which I thought was hilarious, as he'd nothing to show for it, but apparently his teacher, Miss Cross, had found a picture of it on the internet and downloaded it and printed it off so he could show it to his classmates. Who weren't particularly impressed, from what I could make out from Jonathan. Anyway, after school on Monday, there's always lots of homework for Jonathan to do and it's my night out with my friend Alice down the road. We've known each other from secondary school. Ralph gets the tea when he gets in from his job (he's a daytime security man in Hodgkins, the jewellery megastore on West Street) and I look forward to a night off anyway..

Ralph was in the kitchen and Jonathan was sitting at the table doing his Maths homework. I was just putting on my eyeliner in the siting-room mirror when he asked me a weird question.

'Mum?' he said, looking up from his work, his pencil-end in his mouth. 'What's a poofter?'

I nearly rammed the eyeline-stick in my eye. As it was it smudged all down my cheek and I had to rub really hard with some tissues, which made my cheeks go even redder than usual, and I realised I'd have to start all over again from foundation upwards.

'Now look what you made me do, Jonathan!' I said annoyed. I paused, tissue in mid-stroke and looked over at him. 'What makes you ask that?' I asked, stalling for time. Good God, the child was only eight years old! What was I supposed to say to him?

'Some of the boys said it to Graham after his show and tell!' Jonathan replied, looking up at me, his eyes wide with puzzlement. I nearly snorted with laughter. That'd be right, I thought to myself. Wait 'til I tell Ralph.

'Really?' I said out loud, trying to disguise my amusement.

'What's funny?' Jonathan asked me then. He always could see right through me.

'Poofter, well, it's when a boy likes a boy a lot, I mean a lot more than is normal, and does a lot of cissy things like playing with flowers and things like that.' I stopped, not knowing what else to say. 'It's not something you need to know about at your age.'

'So, a poofter's someone who likes flowers. Like Graham?' Jonathan asked, frowning. 'So Graham is a poofter, then. I don't get it. Why did they…?'

'Look, love, I'm going out,' I said, gesturing to him with my makeup bits and pieces to emphasise my words. 'Just drop it, eh. You're too young to know about stuff like that.' To myself I realised though, that as a responsible parent I had to stop the sleepovers. I wouldn't make a big fuss about it (I'm not prejudiced) but I am a responsible mother and that's what responsible mothers do. They make responsible decisions for their children when their children are not old enough to make responsible decisions for themselves. He's my son, after all. It's my job to protect him.

Jonathan sighed.

A couple of days later, it was early lunchtime and I was expecting Jonathan and Emma any time now, when there was a frantic knock on the door. I looked at my watch. What was someone doing calling at this time? I huffed my way into the hallway and saw the familiar pattern of Mrs. Bridges behind the frosted glass. She didn't seem to have the same attitude to calling on someone that other people did. She seemed to think that because she was a neighbour, our time was her time. I opened the door abruptly.

It was Mrs. Bridges. She stood there, on the doorstep, eyes red with crying, her usually neatly tied back hair in wisps round her face (I mean I must be fair, she usually looked after herself really well and was always neatly turned out, as was Graham, but then there might have been all sorts of reasons for that, come to think of it now).

'Mrs. Connor,' she started immediately, her voice frantic and high. 'You've got to come down to the school. There's been a fight. Between your Jonathan and my Graham. The headmaster says it's serious. Please come now, please. He's been trying to reach you.'

Yeah, right, I'd not heard the phone. What was going on?

'But Emma's coming home for lunch,' I said stupidly. It's understandable, though. I was shocked. We don't always talk sense when we're shocked. I don't think anyone could expect me to. Jonathan fighting? Impossible. That Graham's a dark horse. What had he done to start the fight, I wondered.

'You go on, Mrs. Connor, I'll be along in a moment,' I said, calming myself down. 'I'm going to leave a note for Emma and Ralph if he comes home today. You go on without me!'

The woman had no option. She turned on her heel and walked off, rapidly, her sensible shoes plopping more and more softly down the street and towards the school.

I pushed the door to and scrabbled around on the hall-table for a pen and paper, then wrote a note for both of them. I can't remember what I wrote, so I don't know whether it made sense, but I had to do it quickly. I grabbed my handbag from the bottom of the stairs where I always put it, checked I'd got my keys and slammed the front door shut behind me.

I reached the school just as the children were being let out for lunch, or to go to the canteen. I spotted Emma and called her over to me.

'I already heard, Mum,' she said coolly. My daughter never let anything fluster her. Again, she didn't get that from me, obviously. I wear my heart on my sleeve. Not a bad thing for a mother, I always think. I was really worried if you want to know the truth. I felt sick. Actually, her calm was making me feel worse.

'I've left everything ready for you. Got your keys?' I asked her.

'Yes, Mum,' she replied, as if I really didn't need to ask. I suppose I didn't really.

'Go on, then!' I cajoled her. She widened her eyes at me in a rather sarcastic expression and then turned away to walk home.

I followed the main building round to the Reception area, as the pupils milled about me, shouting and hollering. How do the teachers stand it, I wondered. Teachers were calling them to order outside the canteen. Fat chance. That's almost a pun, isn't it? Fat chance. Oh, never mind. Anyway, I approached the automatic doors, leading into the Reception where there were lots of bright photographs and artistic paintings draped around the walls, with titles and awards and newspaper articles blown up, praising the school for this and that. The usual stuff in a school these days. They all make out they're the best school since sliced bread or whatever the term is. Half the time the teachers are on holiday it seems to me.

It was Mrs. Oakley on duty today. She lived round the corner from us. We usually said hello if we met on the street.

'Ah, Mrs. Connors, you're here. Mrs. Bridges said you were coming soon. Could you wait over there please? The headmaster will see you as soon as he's available.'

She indicated a row of padded upright seats in black plastic adjacent to the headmaster's office.

'Where's Mrs. Bridges?' I asked, turning back to her. 'And where's my Jonathan?'

'Jonathan is in with Mr. Travers at the moment.' (Travers was the headmaster.) 'So is Graham. Mrs. Bridges is having a cup of tea. I think she's rather upset.'

'Oh really?' I said as sarcastically as I could without being rude. There's no reason to be rude I always think. Rudeness just takes you down to their level and I pride myself on knowing how to treat other people. 'Well, I can't say I'm feeling particularly happy myself, actually.' I walked over to the chair nearest the head's office and sat down squarely. I would show her I wasn't afraid.

I was actually. However old you get (and I'm thirty six) I don't think you ever get used to sitting outside the headmaster's office. I mean in my day, you only ever got called there if you knew you'd done something terrible and you were going to be punished for it. Girls got a stern talking to. Boys got the strap. Never did them any harm. Yes, well, it might be outlawed these days, but it obviously wouldn’t do that Graham any harm.

Suddenly, to my right, the door opened and Travers stuck his head round the corner.

'Ah, Mrs. Connor, good to see you. Please come in.'

His jolly tone didn't fool me for a moment. He was a short, balding man with a bit of a paunch. It's true what they say about little men: they've always got something to prove. Mr. Travers was always jolly and smiling. After a while it could become a bit wearing to be honest.

I obediently rose to my feet, though, and followed him into his office. It was a smallish room, lots of framed pictures on the walls of the school and newspaper clippings, and the school motto - Courage and Honesty on a banner behind his desk with the school crest. Supposed to be swans or something. You know that ugly duckling story where the one ugly duckling grows up to be a swan. Hardly likely, is it, when you think about it. Ducks ever growing up to be swans, but that was the miracle that PearTreePrimary School promised for all its pupils. Ha ha.

Anyway, that's really beside the point. Graham was sitting at one end of a long sofa, nursing a very nasty-looking black-eye, and Mrs. Bridges, who I thought was too distressed to be here and sitting somewhere having a cup of tea, was sitting closely next to him and every now and again, she held the child's hand. His eye and a cut below it had clearly been treated by the school nurse. To be honest, I was beginning to think this whole thing was a storm in a teacup. At least, I have to admit thinking, Jonathan's enough of a boy to defend himself. Jonathan was standing facing the headmaster's chair, almost standing to attention. Not a mark on him, as far as I could see. He didn't turn round and look at me, though. That was a bit suspicious. I frowned. What was going on here?

He turned to me then and bit his lip, blushing to the roots of his brown hair. I couldn’t see any damage at all. He turned to face the front again as if he was on parade in the army or something.

'Please take a seat, Mrs. Connor,' Travers said, indicating the other end of the long sofa. Graham didn't look up at all when I went into the room. His mother did, though. She looked daggers at me. As if I'd done something. Yeah, right! Ashamed probably, that's more like it. I sat down heavily, as far away from her as I could, smoothed down my pleated skirt and placed my handbag on the floor neatly by my feet.

'What's going on?' I asked.

'That's what we're trying to find out, isn't it, boys?' Travers asked the two children. Graham looked up briefly then, but tears were rolling down his cheeks, and, obviously, not knowing how to defend himself for what he'd done to make Jonathan pay him back like that, he hung his head in shame. Jonathan opened his mouth to speak, but I had to rescue him.

'Jonathan feels a lot about things, Mr. Travers,' I started. I didn't really know what to say, but I had to say something.

'Mum!' Jonathan said, making my name into three syllables. I'd heard that tone before at home. I didn't expect him to use it on me here in front of his headmaster. This wasn't going to make a good impression, was it?

'Jonathan is a good boy,' I started again, defiantly.

'Really?' Mrs. Bridges snorted. I chose to take the higher road and ignore her. Of course, she'd be worried about her own son. He'd obviously come off worse. She was sticking up for him. I could understand that, I suppose.

'I'm sure he is, Mrs. Connor,' Travers went on, holding up a hand to ward off Mrs. Bridges' comment, 'but he is responsible for beating up a fellow pupil this morning. That's not the issue. What I mean is, we know that already. He's already admitted it. What he won't tell me is why.'

'Jonathan?' I asked, feeling my confidence ebbing away, willing him to turn and face me. 'What's he saying? What does he mean you beat him up?'

'Mrs. Bridges is within her rights to bring charges against your son for assault if she wants to.'

There was a stunned silence - for me, I mean - as the words sunk in. My boy a thug? No! Not possible. Charges of assault?

'You mean the police?' I asked, devastated. I avoided looking Mrs. Bridges in the eye. Surely this was taking everything too far.

'Jonathan?' I said again. He sighed.

'Boys fight all the time. It's normal!' I said, trying desperately to help the situation along.

'This wasn't fighting, Mrs. Connor. This was completely unprovoked.'

'Yes, your son hit, no, beat my son for NO reason!' Mrs. Bridges said, turning on me like a tigress.

'It wasn't!' said Graham. It was the first time he'd spoken and his voice sounded strained. As if he was about to cry and he was just holding it back enough.

'What do you mean, son?' asked the boy's mother.

'What happened, Graham?' Travers asked him as well. His voice had a completely different tone talking to him than talking to my Jonathan. Could this really be happening to me?