CONSTANCE AND TWO CHILDREN

Two children researching history for a school project give Constance cause to question her own childhood.

“Excuse me,” said a voice as Constance was bending down behind her counter to adjust a sheet in the paper shredder that she hardly ever needed to use, “is anyone there?”

Constance bobbed up and smiled.

There were two very serious-looking children, probably late primary school or early secondary by the look of them, a boy and a girl, standing there looking awkward, almost embarrassed.

“Yes?” she asked, smiling, trying to put them at their ease because the library was mostly the province of much older people despite the existence of a children’s section.

The girl, Emma, smiled a brief little smile and the boy fidgeted with his own fingers, nervously.

“We need a book,” said the girl.

Constance smiled again. “Well, this is a library,” she said lightly, “there are plenty of books here. Do you want any particular one?”

“We’re doing history at school,” put in the boy, apparently needing to contribute to whatever the question might be.

“Then you’d better think quickly or there’ll be even more of it,” Constance said.

“You what?” blurted the girl. She was Emma and took a very serious view of life.

“Every moment makes history that moment longer,” she explained.

“That’s clever,” grinned Emma.

“Kings and queens,” added the boy. He was Daniel, and took an equally serious view of life.

“The Tudors,” confirmed Emma. “King Henry the sixth with his eight wives.”

“No,” interrupted Daniel, “it was the eighth with six wives. That’s who it was.”

The girl paused for a moment before she nodded in agreement. “I got mixed up,” she said.

“It’s easily done with numbers like that,” nodded Constance, “Well, there are plenty of history books over there,” she pointed, “and some in the children’s section too. Do you want me to show you?”

“It’s all right,” decided Emma, “we can find what we need. Thank you very much.”

“Yes,” grinned Daniel, for once looking like a normal boy rather than a diminutive grown-up who took a dim view of life, “thanks.”

The two of them made their way to where Constance had pointed, and she sighed the deepest sigh of the day so far. Daniel was holding Emma by the hand.

Nobody’s ever held me by the hand like that, she thought, almost sorrowfully. She was already in her thirties and still single and she didn’t have the remotest idea how to change things.

She cast her mind back thoughtfully to her own schooldays. In the junior school, when she’d been, what, ten or eleven, their teacher had taken them to the small school hall where there was a record player and she had, smilingly as though it was a treat, announced they were going to do country dancing.

Country dancing! She might as well have called it the weekly nightmare!

Boys line up by that side, the teacher had said, pointing, and the girls on the other…

So that’s what they had done. A line of boys here and a line of girls there.

Now, gentlemen… the emphasis had been on the gentle part of gentlemen… Go to the girls and find one you would like to dance with and ask her nicely if you can be her partner, and, holding hands, walk into the dancing area together…

Holding hands! Okay, they had just been boys. Their hands had the same number of fingers and thumbs and if you were lucky they hadn’t been fiddling with something disgusting in their pockets like boys did. But still, holding the hands of boys!

Her mother had put the idea in her head, the idea that boys were untouchable. They meant trouble. Hadn’t her father been nothing but trouble? Hadn’t he let them down so very badly, like all men did? Wasn’t that why the two of them were on their own? With nobody to help in the trials and torments of life?

Her mother had been a kindly mother, that’s how she remembered her, but she had slapped her occasionally for no discernible reason, once, very hard, across the face so that her cheeks flamed for what seemed like hours.

It had been because of the unaskable question.

Wasn’t Jesus a man? she had asked in all innocence, and her mother knew full well that the man in the Bible had been just that, a man, but she had no rational answer to the question.

And when there was no obvious answer that supported that good mother’s prejudices she hit out.

Wasn’t Jesus a man indeed!

She couldn’t remember her mother’s spoken answer or even if there had been one, and suspected that it consisted simply of that vicious slap. But the lesson had been there. Men, and by men she included boys in the genre, were not to be touched. Not ever, and certainly not their hands. They were dirty, nasty things. Boys weren’t like girls, and not just simply physically. Boys were grubby. They were offensive. They only had pockets in their shorts for one reason and that was so that they could keep things like worms and frogs in them. Yes, her mother had said quite conclusively, boys keep disgusting things in their pockets and then they take their hands off those disgusting things and try to hold girls’ hands…

And, hidden in some of her more obscure rants, was a suggestion they could be more dangerous than bombs or bullets.

Constance looked at the two children in the library, in the history section, two very serious young people. They were sitting at a table, a large adult-size table, and were pouring over a book.

A history book. That’s what it would be. Probably the Tudor dynasty, and they had been mostly a disgrace on the face of the planet.

Anne Boleyn had been Henry VIII’s second wife and he had ordered that her head be chopped off. One minute he had proclaimed his love for her and the next, chop! He was a man with power and he could order, actually legally order, that heads be lopped off!

Ann Boleyn would have lived a great deal longer if she’d never met him, and didn’t the history books say she was quite pretty?

Mother had been pretty. Constance was sure of that. Pretty enough to have young men still interested in her, or so she had intimated, but she had got rid of all of them, sometimes spitefully. Constance could remember some of the things she had said… things that, she supposed, had been quite offensive, like you’re only interested in one thing like all men and there’s no way I’m going to give it to you…

Constance hadn’t known what the required gift might have been or whether her mother was in a position to give it or not.

And what was that about physical differences she had gone on about? Some boys had long hair too, didn’t they? Was that it? As false as a haircut?

She didn’t have a brother and steered clear of the dirty, grubby things at school or on the streets, though she was troubled how some boys grew their hairs longer than some girls.

And now she was in her thirties, her mother’s voice, in memory, came flooding back to her, and she was still unsure of things.

“It was Catherine of Aragon,” said a voice on the other side of the counter, and she jolted herself out of her reverie.

“Pardon?” she asked.

“Who was the first of his wives. And she didn’t lose her head either,” explained Daniel seriously.

“We had to find out,” explained Emma, “thanks for helping. Come on, Daniel.”

She led her friend out of the library and into the street outside where they rapidly mingled with the shoppers and were lost from sight in little more than moments.

He’s still holding her hand, she thought, and it never crossed her mind that maybe she, in the long ago of her life, might have let Stephen Jones hold hers.

She remembered that he’d tried, once, and in a way he didn’t seem as grubby as mum had said boys usually were. Maybe she should have wandered into the crowds hand in hand with Stephen Jones and his short hair.

Maybe everything would have been different after that.

© Peter Rogerson 17.01.18

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A very entertaining chapter my friend.
"Wasn’t Jesus a man? she had asked in all innocence"
So many statements stood out. The above line. Was my favorite. Thank you Peter for sharing the amazing chapter.
Coyote