JOSIAH PYKE AND THE FRIEND

More time has past and now Josiah is a sixth form student with a very nervous eye on a girl...

It was summer, approaching Josiah’s seventeenth birthday. He was in the sixth form at the local comprehensive school, studying English, which was mainly a journey through English Literature BUT included a nod to classical Greek poetry, which he found confusing.

“I’ve something to tell you,” said Mildred over breakfast. “I’ve got a fella.”

He grinned at her. “As if I didn’t know!” he said, chirpy, though he didn’t feel it, what with a self-imposed hour of Aeschylus before he could pop down to the river with his rod. Being a lonesome kind of teenager he found that fishing for anything that swam in the barely adequate stream that ran past Henstooth and which was forced underground for part of its journey, almost therapeutic. He had developed a fondness for his own company way back in a previous life at the Vicarage, and he hadn’t properly shaken it off yet. He thought that maybe he never would.

“You know?” she asked, surprised.

“You’re the sort of woman who needs someone,” he told her as though he had a world of experience in his young head, “and I’ve seen the roses on your cheeks this past few weeks, and the length of your skirts!”

“The length of… Josiah! How dared you!” she protested, but so half-heartedly he knew she was really pleased that at least somebody had noticed. “Of all the assumptions! I’ll be seventy soon enough, and ladies of seventy don’t go about flashing their legs at anybody.”

“There’s young seventies who might and older seventies that wouldn’t,” he told her. “And anyway, I happen to know you won’t be seventy for three years yet.”

She looked at him affectionately. “I’m so glad you came to live here,” she told him, “anyway, I want you to meet Malcolm. That’s his name, my fella. Malcolm. He’s popping in this morning.”

“I was going fishing...” blurted out Josiah, not really wanting to meet anyone he didn’t already know. He liked Mildred, possibly even loved her in the way a lad might love a caring mother, and he even liked the idea of her having a male friend (though he had reservations about her having a lover, not that she was really old, he didn’t think of her as that, but then, she wasn’t young, was she?)

“Malcolm’s bringing his rod,” grinned Mildred, “And he’ll go with you if you like. To the river, for a quiet bit of fishing.”

Josiah didn’t particularly like. In fact, he felt a bit annoyed. His time down at the river (or stream, it might even have been a stream it was so minor) was precious to him. He didn’t even like it when others came along with their rods and sat perched over their keep nets close enough to want to talk to him. But what could he say? The last thing he wanted to do was upset Mildred, the woman who had saved him from… he hated to remember the past and what she had saved him from.

“Okay,” he said resignedly.

“I’ve mentioned you to him,” she said, quietly, “though I haven’t spilled too many beans! But Malcolm’s not the kind of man to poke his nose into other people’s lives unless they want him to. He’s a good man and for a change he’s not older than me!”

Josiah grinned.

“Won’t you miss him if he’s off with me for the morning?” he asked.

“Not really,” she sighed, looking slightly uncomfortable, “I was going to explain to you. He’s moving in with me. There’ll be a third round the dinner table and a third to help with the washing up! I just hope you’ll like him, Josiah. I mean, you’re as good as being a man yourself, getting really big and strong, and I’m fed up with the way people look when they see us together, as if I was your fancy woman!”

He grinned at that. “And you my fancy man,” he joked.

“Well, you’re all grown up now. Your father wouldn’t recognise you if he passed you in the streets.”

“He didn’t know me when I was face to face with him in a classroom, and still eleven,” Josiah reminded her.

“I want you to know that you’ll always be first,” she said unexpectedly. “As far as I’m concerned you’re my boy, and you’re the important one in this house.”

“No, you are,” he said quietly.

Mildred felt warm tears start to prick the back of her eyes when there was a knock at the door. Not a firm or decisive or even confident knock, just a gentle one, the sort that means the knocker means no harm.

“That’ll be him now,” she sniffled, and after checking her hair in the mirror she drifted off to open the door.

Malcolm wasn’t the kind of man that Josiah had expected, not that he had particularly expected any type in particular. Malcolm was short, sturdy, bearded (though Josiah had long wondered why men with grey hair thought a beard made them look younger) and his complexion was flushed. His eyes, behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, were brown and the lenses of those glasses made them loom large and gentle. He was dressed casually in knee-length shorts (it was, after all, summer and men were beginning to expose their legs) and a flamboyant tee-shirt that might have been more appropriate being sported on the beach of an exciting Caribbean island than in a village like Henstooth. But, decided Josiah, he looked okay.

“This is Malcolm, Josiah,” said Mildred quietly, “he’s a very good friend already and I’d like you to get to know him.”

“Nice to meet you,” mumbled Josiah, wishing himself anywhere but where he was. Why, he asked himself, was he always like this when he was meeting new people?

He was like this with Penny. She was in the English class at school, another six-former, and she seemed to want to go out of her way to speak to him. But it wasn’t that so much as the way she looked. He wasn’t much good when it came to deciding whether girls at school were pretty or plain. To him they were a mystery, and he wasn’t too keen on encountering new mysteries when life itself still confused him despite the past six years living at Tom’s Playground with Mildred. But, despite the girly mystery surrounding Penny, he felt attracted to her in an awkward sort of way. He particular liked her long hair which she made drift over one shoulder and down the front of her body until it almost reached her waist, brushing against her obvious (he blushed whenever he thought this) bosom on its way. Something inside him wanted to touch that hair, run his fingers through it, smell it, feel it’s softness.

But, of course, he couldn’t. He couldn’t even say hello without stammering.

“So we’re to go fishing?” asked Malcolm, “two lads together, eh?”

“I suppose so,” he said, “after I’ve started my essay. I’ve got to write about Aeschylus before I go back to school.”

“Ah, the Greek poet chappie?” nodded Malcolm, “you know, I studied him once, a long time ago, and even though it was translated into English I couldn’t maker one iota of sense out of it!”

“Maybe he’s a kindred spirit,” flashed through Josiah’s brain, and he grinned. “I know how you felt,” he said.

“Anyway, will an hour be enough?” asked Mildred, “there’s one thing I want to do with Malcolm, and it never takes more than an hour.” Her eyes sparkled when she said that and even though Josiah hadn’t a clue what she meant he knew, deep down, that it might be something particular between two people when they’re alone and special to each other.

He thought, momentarily, of Penny, and nodded.

“One hour. I’ll be with Aeschylus in my room,” he said, and actually smiled.

© Peter Rogerson 11.03.18