Pip

Martha performed a cartwheel to signify her approval. ‘The best magic word of all,’ she declared with a nod to the cordon of parents, ‘a very pretty please from a very pretty young lady.’ Her hands worked this way and that, whilst her face contorted into a display of entertaining grimaces and pouts. ‘Voilà! No more spaghetti – a sausage dog instead! Oh! And another. Ah! And one more!’ She distributed the balloons carefully to the quieter children in her audience, thanked everyone for coming and gave a genuflection of prodigious proportions. ‘Time for you all to have a drink or a wee-wee,’ she proclaimed, crossing her legs as if that was what she needed to do, ‘before the puppet show. Ta-ta, ta-ra, toot-toot.’ Two flic-flacs and she was off the stage.

Tom made his way back to his father. ‘Did you see? Dr Pippity?’ Zac nodded and suggested they return to the goats now that there was no ice-cream to spoil. ‘No,’ said Tom firmly, ‘I want to go and say “hullo” to Dr Pippity.’ Zac tried to say she was going home, that she was only half Dr Pippity today. ‘No!’ Tom declared. ‘You can’t be a half. Let’s go and say “hullo”. She’s better than stinky goats. Come on, Dad, please?’

Why can’t she just bugger off quickly instead of meandering her way through the park, chatting and jesting with every child she passes?

‘We don’t have time,’ Zac tried to reason with Tom.

‘We only just got here,’ Tom protested.

‘She’s busy,’ Zac said, not looking at her, not looking at Tom.

‘She snot,’ Tom sulked. ‘All the other children get to talk to her – look. It’s not fair, it snot.’

You’re right. And why do I even care what she thinks of me? And why do I appear to care about it more than I care about Tom?

‘Go on, then,’ Zac said, ‘run. I’ll tell you how fast you are. Just say a quick “hullo”. I’ll catch up with you.’ Tom belted off. Dutifully, Zac timed him, to the fraction of a second. He’d never fob his son off with an estimate.

Pip was trying to extricate herself from a thuggish nine-year-old boy and his sidekick who were trying to pickpocket her for balloons.

‘Dr Pippity?’ Tom greeted her shyly.

‘Shove off!’ snarled the larger boy, pushing him. But then as he stared at Tom a look of horror crept across his face. ‘Yuck, look at him!’ His friend did. ‘His skin’s coming off – and I touched him!’

‘Flaky boy!’ his friend joined in. ‘I could puke!’

The larger boy wiped his hands with desperation on the grass. Pip was appalled. She’d worked with children with all manner of disabilities and afflictions for so long, frequently she no longer saw the physical manifestation of their illnesses. The boys were haranguing Tom whose eyes were smarting.

Don’t cry, little guy, Pip thought, it’s what they want.

Tom’s bottom lip quivered. The older boy suddenly pushed his friend against Tom. ‘Ha, ha, you’ll catch his manky skin!’

The younger boy burst into tears, genuinely distressed, rubbing his arm furiously, as if his sleeve was contaminated with germs. He was no longer actively attempting to tease and hurt Tom. He was now fearful for his welfare. ‘Mummy!’ he sobbed, running off.

‘You horrible little boy,’ Pip said in her own voice, the sound of which completely took the bully aback. ‘Go away or I’ll phone the police.’

‘I’ll tell my dad on you,’ he said, backing off nevertheless.

‘And I’ll tell your dad on you,’ Pip threatened, ‘picking on littler boys, trying to steal balloons. Who do you think you are? Sod off right now or I’ll start yelling.’ Standing there, hands on hips, multicolourful and made up to the nines, Pip still cut an imposing figure to the child who sauntered off, kicking turf and grumbling. ‘Horrible child,’ Pip reiterated. She turned back to Tom who was trying to wipe his tears away before she saw. With her thumb, Pip stroked the last of the wet off his cheek. And then she licked her thumb and smacked her lips. ‘Yum, yum!’ she cooed, in her clown persona once again. ‘You have the most delicious tears in London The World The Universe.’

Tom managed a smile. ‘You are Dr Pippity,’ he declared.

‘Sort of – I’m actually also Merry Martha today. Are you all right?’ Tom nodded. ‘Boys like him,’ Pip said, in a gentler voice, with a cursory nod of her head in the direction of the other children, ‘they’re just silly bullies. I bet he wets his pants and has no proper friends.’ Tom’s smile broadened. Pip glanced towards the entrance to the park. She had a party to do in a couple of hours. She really should be on her way. But then she glanced at Tom.

God. I can’t just leave him. Little mite.

‘Where are your parents?’ Pip asked.

‘My mum’s in the St Lucy Jalousie,’ Tom said, wondering if he had the word order correct, ‘in the Caribbean. But my dad’s over there.’

‘Come on, let’s go over there, then,’ Pip said – though giving her stalker the wrong idea, or the slightest encouragement for his perversion, was something she’d really rather not do. ‘I hope you don’t let idiots like that stupid boy upset you,’ Pip said as they walked.

‘I try not to,’ said Tom with a weariness Pip felt no child his age should know. ‘I just say “sticks and stones” to myself.’

‘“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”,’ Pip quoted back to him.

‘That’s right!’ Tom said, feeling he had a true ally. ‘My dad says it’s what’s on the inside that counts.’

‘Beauty comes from within,’ said Pip. Tom loved her even more.

‘And anyway, the doctor says I will grow out of my eczema when I’m older. And it isn’t catching at all,’ he continued, almost pleadingly.

‘Of course not,’ said Pip, taking his hand and walking on. ‘Why aren’t you and your dad in St Lucia, too, in the Caribbean?’ she asked conversationally, on their way over to the trees. Aware of the yarns children could spin, Pip had presumed the boy’s mother wasn’t truly away.

Mummy’s probably making all sorts of North London organic stuff for the kid’s tea. In a kitchen more suited to a Cotswold cottage, no doubt – Aga and gingham and scrubbed wood units.

‘My mum’s on honeymoon,’ Tom explained, ‘with Rob-Dad.’

Pip decided it was time to give the child’s imagination a break so she changed the subject to balloons instead. ‘If you could have a balloon that looked like anything you wanted it to, what would it be?’

And please God choose a cat, dog, parrot or tortoise.

Luckily, Tom procrastinated for so long that Pip had blown a balloon and twisted it into a parrot by the time he said ‘Giant anteater, actually’.

‘Will a parrot do?’

‘It’s brill! Thanks, Dr Pippity.’

‘Martha.’

‘Martha, then.’

‘Actually, you can call me Pip.’

‘Who?’

Zac, unaware of his son’s altercation with the bully, did not know where to look, let alone what to expect, on observing the clown and his son making their way towards him. So he pretended he was engrossed in his newspaper. But that seemed rude. So he watched them approach. But that seemed ruder. So he decided to meet them halfway.

‘Look at my parrot, Daddy.’

‘It’s lovely,’ Zac told Tom, thanking the clown without looking at her. Pip thought the man spent an inordinate amount of time displaying a bizarre level of interest in her balloon sculpture but it gave her a chance, however fleetingly, and however quickly she dismissed it, to see that, in the sunlight, away from the hospital, no matter how peculiar he was on the inside, he was clad in a most appealing exterior. Eyes the colour of slate. Handsome face with neat features. Dark hair, short and neat. Trim physique clad in nicely cut clothes. Though a slight preponderance of navy, Pip felt, considering the balmy weather.

I don’t know why I’m even noticing. He’s not my type.

Oh? What’s your type, then, Pip?

Don’t have one.

So how do you know this chap isn’t for you?