Song at Twilight by Teresa Waugh Page B

they didn't like his face. It had become a habit.
    He had thought at first that if he tried at games he would be better liked, but the only result of his efforts in that direction was that he seemed to become even more unpopular. A group of two or three bullies had systematically rifled his locker in the changing room and peed on his Rugby shorts and even into his Rugby boots.
    I was appalled. Why hadn't he reported the incident?
    Such incidents, he said, staring at me gravely from under a lock of red-gold hair, always go unreported. The only thing to do is to keep quiet, mind your own business and hope to pass unnoticed. He consoled himself by writing poetry. He had always done that and now he was writing a short story. One day perhaps he would be a professional writer.
    He looked at me again and said,
    "You know, they even tease me for coming to see you."
    "That is ridiculous," I said sharply, and shifted uncomfortably in my chair.
    "It's just that here it's like a proper house," he said by way of explanation. "Not like school. It doesn't smell of disinfectant and school food."
    Well, that was at least something, I thought.
    I decided to take the plunge.
    "Did Leo bring you back to school on Tuesday evening?" I asked suddenly.
    "No," said Timothy frankly, looking straight at me. "Why should he have?"
    "I have no idea why he should have," I said, "But I merely thought that I caught sight of him in the car park."
    Timothy looked at his hands and picked at what was probably a wart.
    "If he'd been here," he said, still staring at his hands, "surely he'd have come to see you."
    "I would have thought so," I said tartly, and added, "What did you do with him in the holidays?"
    "Nothing much. We just used to hang around at his place quite a lot and watch videos. We went to a pop concert once."
    "Did you invite him to meet your mother?" I asked.
    Timothy looked straight at me again, almost suspiciously, I thought.
    "Yes," he said, "he met my mother."
    There was an awkward silence and then Timothy added,
    "I hate my mother."
    As he spoke he blushed and, for a moment, looked near to tears.
    "How can you hate your mother?" I wanted to know, and added feebly, "I'm sure she's very fond of you ."
    I had no idea whether Timothy's mother had any fondness for her son or not but I had certainly never pictured her, since that first day in the Secretary's office, as epitomising mother love. All the same this was the first time in my life that I had heard a child articulate such a terrible emotion. When I was at school no girl would have dreamed of expressing herself in such terms. And, of course, these are not the usual terms in which a pupil speaks to a teacher.
    "I've got to go," said Timothy, standing up suddenly. "But can I come again at the week-end?"
    "Tea on Sunday," I said firmly, glad to be back on safe ground.
    "Thanks a lot," he said, making for the door.
    "Bring a friend, if you want," I offered.
    He turned round and looked at me fiercely.
    "I don't have any friends. Not here anyway," he said, "and I hate my mother. She's a cow."
    I really felt rather relieved as I shut the door behind Timothy. What on earth, I wondered, had got into the boy that he should feel so much anger and resentment. He had always before given me the impression of a pained child who laboured certainly under some resentments, but nothing so extreme as this.
    How could I help him, I wondered. And why the lies about Leo whom it almost seemed as if he was protecting?
    It crossed my mind that there might be something between Leo and Mrs Hooper, but the idea seemed preposterous. She was a young and very pretty woman who could surely do better than to pick up an eighteen-year-old boy with purple hair, although there was no doubt about it that Leo was an extremely good-looking eighteen-year-old. But good-looking or not, he seemed like a baby to me; not at all grown-up. But then I had known him all my life and perhaps he managed to disguise his lack of sophistication