Piff must have been with us the best part of a year – and it seemed a great deal longer – but in the end she somehow got mis1aid during our summer holidays. Polly, so much taken up by several more substantial, and much more audible, new friends, dropped Piff with great callousmess. Her absence came as a great relief – even, one suspected, to Polly herself. The idea that we might now have acquired another such was by no means welcome.
`A grim thought,’ I said, `but, fortunately improbable, I think. A Piff can provide useful bossing material for a member of the younger female age-groups, but an elevenyear-old boy who wants to boss seems to me more likely to take it out on other, and smaller, boys.’ (*)
`I’m sure I hope you are right,’ (*) Mary said, but dubious1y. `One Piff was more than enough.’
`There’s quite a different quality here,’ I pointed out. If you remember, Piff spent about eighty per cent of her time being scolded for something or other, and having to take it. This one appeared to be criticizing, and coming back with opinions of its own.’
Mary looked startled.
`What do you mean? I don’t see how…’
I repeated, as nearly as I could recall, the one-sided conversation I had overheard.
Mary frowned as she considered it.
`I don’t understand that at all,’ she said.
`Oh, it’s simple enough. After all the arrangement of a calendar is just a convention…’
`But that’s just what it isn’t – not to a child, David. To an elevenyear-old it seems like a natural law – just as much as day and night, or the seasons… A week is a week, and it has seven days – it’s unquestionable, it just is so.’
`Well, that’s more or less what Matthew was saying, but apparently he was being argued with – or he was arguing with himself. In either case it isn’t easy to explain.’
`He must have been arguing with what someone’s told him at school – one of his teachers, most likely.’
`I suppose so,’ I conceded. `All the same, it’s a new one on me. I’ve heard of calendar reformers who want all months to have twenty-eight days, but never of anyone advocating an eight-day week – or, come to that. a thirtytwo day month.’ I pondered a moment. `Besides, then you’d need nineteen more days in a year…’ I shook my head. `Anyway,’ I went on, `I didn’t mean to make heavy weather of it. It just strikes me as odd. (*) I wondered if you had noticed anything of the sort, too.’
Mary lowered her knitting again, and studied its pattern thoughtfully.
`No – well, not exactly. I have heard him muttering to himself occasionally, but nearly all children do that at times. I’m afraid I didn’t pay any attention – actually I was anxious not to do anything which might encourage another Piff. But there is one thing: the questions he’s been asking lately -‘
`Lately!’ I repeated. `Was there ever a time when he didn’t?’
`I know. But these are a bit different. I mean – well, usually his questions have been average-boy questions.’
`I hadn’t noticed they’d changed.’
`Oh, the old kind of questions keep on, but there’s a new kind, too – with a different sort of slant.’
`Such as …?’
`Well, one of them was about why are there two sexes? He said he didn’t see why it was necessary to have two people to produce one, so how had it got arranged that way, and why? That’s a difficult one, you know, on the spur of the moment (*) – well, it’s difficult anyway, isn’t it?’
I frowned not knowing what to say. `And there was another one, too, a bout “where is Earth?” Now, I ask you – where is Earth? – in relation to what? Oh, yes, he knows it goes round the sun, but where, please, is the sun? And there were some others – simply not his kind of questions.’
I saw what she meant. Matthew’s questions were plentiful, and quite varied, but they usually kept a more homely orbit: things like `Why can’t we live on grass if horses can?’
`A new phase?’ I suggested. `He’s reached a stage where things are beginning to widen out for him.’
Mary shook her head, giving me a look of reproach.
`That, darling, is what I’ve been telling you. What I want to know is why they should widen, and his interests apparently change, quite so suddenly. This doesn’t seem to me like just development. It’s more as if he’d switched to a different track It’s a sudden change in quality – quality and approach.’ She went on frowning for the pause before she added: `I do wish we knew a little more about his parents. That might help. In Polly I can see bits you and bits of me. It gives one a feeling of something to go on. But with Matthew there’s no guide at all… There’s nothing to give me any idea what to expect…’
I could see what when we lost all hopes to have a baby of our own. He was a month old when he entered our family bringing peace and consolation to Mary. A year later there had come the first signs that a new baby was on the way, and so, Matthew was about two, he had a new baby sister – little Polly. I could also see where we were heading. In about three more moves we’d be back at the old unprofitable contest: heredity versus environment. To sidestep I said:
`It looks to me as if the best thing we can do for the present is simply to listen and watch carefully – though not obviously – until we get a firmer impression. no good worrying ourselves over what may easily be an insignificant passing phase.’
And there we decided to leave it for the time being.
It was about ten days after that we about Chocky. It might well have been longer had Matthew not picked up the flu at school which caused him to run quite a temperature for a while. When it was at its height he rambled a bit, with all defences down. There times when he did not seem to know whether he was talking to his mother, or his father, or to some mysterious character he called Chocky. Moreover, this Chocky appeared to worry him, for he protested several times.
On the second evening his temperature ran high. Mary called down to me to come up. Poor Matthew looked in a sorry state. His colour was high, his brow damp, and he was very restless. He kept rolling his head from side to side on the pillow, almost as if he were trying to shake it free of something. In a tone of weary exasperation he said: `No, no, Chocky. Not now. I can’t understand. I want to go to sleep… No … Oh, do shut up and go away… No, I can’t tell you now… He rolled his head again, and pulled his arms from under the bedclothes to press his hands over his ears. `Oh, do stop it, Chocky. Do shut up!’
Mary reached across and put her hand on his forehead. He opened his eyes and became aware of her.
`Oh, Mummy, I’ m so tired. Do tell chocky to go away She doesn’t understand. She won’t leave me alone…’ (*)
Mary glanced questioningly at me. I could only shrug and shake my head. Then she rose to the occasion (*) Turning back, she addressed herself to a point slightly above Matthew’s head. I recognized the technique she had sometimes used with Piff. In a kindly but firm tone she said:
`Chocky, you really must let Matthew he quiet and rest. He isn’t at all well, Chocky, and he needs to go to sleep. So please go away and leave him alone now. Perhaps, if he’s better tomorrow, you can come back then.’
`See?’ said Matthew. `You’ve got to clear out, Chocky, so that I can get better.’ He seemed to listen. `Yes,’ he said decisively.
It appeared to work. In fact, it did work.
He lay back again, and visibly relaxed.
`She’s gone,’ he announced.
`That’s fine. Now you can settle down,’ said Mary.
And he did. He wriggled into a comfortable position and lay quiet. Presently his eyes closed. In a very few minutes he was fast asleep. Mary and I looked at one another. She tucked his bedclothes closer, and put the bell-push handy. We tiptoed to the door, turned off the room light, and went downstairs.
`Well,’ I said, `what do you think of that?’
`Aren’t they astonishing?’ said Mary. `Dear, oh dear, it does very much look as if this family is landed with another Piff’.
I poured us some sherry, handed Mary hers, and raised mime.
`Here’s to (*) hoping it turns out to be less of a pest than the