Page 12 of The Sapphire Child
Stella put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Andy, you haven’t been nice to her since they picked you up from Murree. What’s she done to upset you?’
Andrew hung his head and said nothing. Stella withdrew her hand. Idly, she began to pick wild flowers, twisting a long grass around them to create a small posy. She waited.
Quietly, Andrew said, ‘I can’t get Gotley’s stinking words out of my head. They keep buzzing round and round...’
‘Oh, Andy,’ Stella said gently, ‘you know they aren’t true. Your dad’s never been a coward about anything. Soldiers like Major Gotley don’t like him because he turned his back on the army for a peaceful occupation – they look down their noses at box-wallahs like my father and yours. But our dads couldn’t care less what snobs like Gotley think.’
Andrew gave her a look of despair. ‘It’s not just that,’ he mumbled.
‘Then what?’
He shook his head.
‘Andy, you can tell me. I won’t repeat anything to your parents that you don’t want me to.’
He eyed her. ‘You promise?’
‘Of course.’
He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘George Gotley said terrible things about Meemee – disgusting things.’
‘About Esmie?’ Stella was baffled. ‘What things?’
Andrew’s head drooped further, his cheeks turning puce. ‘He called her a...a...whore.’
Stella gasped. ‘Why on earth would he say that?’
‘Said she wasn’t properly married to my dad – that she’s just his mistress – and not even a pretty one ’cause she has pancakes instead of breasts. He went on and on saying these vile things in front of the other boys—’
‘How dare he! No wonder you thumped him. I’d have done the same.’
Andrew looked back at her with tears welling in his large blue eyes. ‘But why would he say that? I can’t help worrying that he knows something I don’t know...’
‘Oh, Andy!’ Stella threw an arm around him. ‘Of course he doesn’t. He was just being cruel.’
‘I feel horrible for thinking badly of Meemee, but I couldn’t stop hearing those words—’ Abruptly he dissolved into tears.
Stella pulled him close and wrapped her arms around him, stroking his tangled hair as he cried into her shoulder.
‘I’m glad you’ve told me,’ she said softly. ‘It must have been terrible keeping that bottled up. But they’re just spiteful words from an unkind boy. None of it’s true.’
Andrew drew back and wiped his tears on the back of his hand. ‘I hate George for what he said – and the other boys too. They didn’t stand up for me, so I’ll never go back.’
Stella could see how unhappy he was. Perhaps the betrayal by the other boys was harder to bear than George’s taunting? They had believed the bully rather than Andrew.
‘Well, the best thing now,’ said Stella, ‘is to look forward and not back. By next term you’ll be at a new school and starting again, making new friends where the Gotleys can’t spoil things.’
Andrew tore up a handful of grass. ‘What if there’re army children at Biscoe’s? Sons of officers in the Peshawar Rifles? Like Dad said, word can spread. Perhaps I should go to school much further away...’
Stella tried to be reassuring. ‘They were lies made up by George, why should anyone else care?’
‘George said his father told him,’ Andrew mumbled. ‘Kept saying it was all true.’
‘Well, who would you rather believe – your dad or the Gotleys?’
Andrew gave her a cautious smile. ‘Dad, of course.’
Stella stood up. ‘Come on; let’s go home. You’ve missed tiffin and must be ravenous. And it’s time you made it up with Esmie.’
