Sunday Best by Bernice Rubens

decided to let it pass.
    â€˜But at the same time,’ I said, rising to a standing position as my sympathy waned, ‘there is no need to be rude, to anybody, that is, not only to your form teacher. Do not forget, Tommy, that I am, after all, your teacher, and though I am willing to help you in every way, and to make allowances for you in your work and behaviour, there are no, and never will be, allowances made for insolence. Now do you understand?’
    He scuffed his toe-caps with his heels. ‘My father isn’t dead,’ he challenged me, ‘and I wish ’e was.’
    â€˜Were. Subjunctive,’ I corrected him, and I heard the echo of my own childhood wish and wondered whether he could wish it hard enough, as hard as I had myself, to bring it about. I am a firm believer in the evil eye, but it is unnerving to think that the eye may be focused on a mistaken identity, and the need to clarify my position, as far as Tommy was concerned, became more and more urgent. I squatted down again. ‘Look, Tommy,’ I said, ‘I am not your father. Get that absolutely clear. You know Mrs Verrey Smith,’ I said. ‘You know we’ve been married for seventeen years. That’s a lot more than your mother and father. Yet we have no children. And d’you know why, Tommy,’ I whispered, hoping thereby to gain his sympathy. ‘Between you and me, Tommy, I cannot have children. It’s as simple as that.’
    He stared at me with disgust. ‘It’s ’er wot can’t ’ave them,’ he said. ‘Mrs Verrey Smith. Everyone knows that.’
    I wanted to strangle him. There was I, squatted, offering my infertility to a ten-year-old kid, and he threw it back in my face. Moreover, his logic told him that my wife’s sterility was reason enough for me to sire elsewhere. ‘That’s why,’ he continued, ‘you ’ad it off with my Mum.’
    I was horrified more at his language than at the matter of his words, and all I could do, short of killing him, was simply to deny it. ‘It’s not true, Tommy,’ I said. ‘Your mother and father had a quarrel. You heard it. And your father accused your mother of certain things, and your mother got so angry that, just to annoy him, she told him he was right. But she only did it because she was angry,’ I pleaded, and the whole sorry talesounded so hollow and lacking in truth, I couldn’t really expect Tommy to believe it.
    â€˜Anyway,’ he said, and I caught the sob in his voice, ‘I know ’he wasn’t my Dad, but I miss ’im.’
    I took his head in my hands. To hell with how he construed it. The boy was in pain, and no one could have done less than simply to acknowledge it. ‘I’ll go and see your mother,’ I said.
    Mrs Johnson was alone. It seemed that she had not moved from the position in which I had last seen her. She looked up as I came in and smiled weakly. I went straight over to her. ‘How are things?’ I said.
    She shrugged her lovely shoulders. ‘I was wondering why you haven’t been,’ she said. ‘Tommy keeps talking about you. He knows. He heard everything. And he won’t believe it when I tell him it isn’t true.’ Then, as a complete non-sequitur, ‘The cremation is on Thursday.’
    â€˜You have to forgive me for my absence,’ I said. ‘But we have Mr Parsons away from school, and I’ve been saddled with all his work. I’ll come and see you in the evening. Will Tommy be going?’
    â€˜No, he’ll be staying with his aunt, Jack’s sister,’ she added.
    I wondered how that lady fitted into Tommy’s new family tree.
    â€˜It’s best for him to get away,’ I said limply. ‘What are you going to do? After the funeral, I mean. Are you going to stay here?’ I tried to hide the persuasion in my voice, but she’d caught it.
    â€˜D’you think I