Free Bethany by Anita Mason Page B

there was no part for me and the other characters were not aware of my existence. The street in which Manuela lived, sunlit and dusty, was like a deserted film set. Then eight-year-old Ben came careering round a corner on his bicycle, scattering the pigeons and whooping with delight to see Alex.
    Ben was Manuela’s son by Jacques. She also had a six-year-old daughter by Jacques, Miranda. After Jacques’ death Manuela had married a beautiful, melancholy Hungarian, by whom she had a baby son. Jacques had also left in her care his son Justin by his estranged wife. Justin was now fourteen. The three eldest children, who had lived with us at Bethany that desperate summer five years before, were handsome, articulate and imbued with a contempt for conformity that would ensure them incident-rich lives. They all loved Alex, as most children did, for Alex treated them as equals.
    On this oppressive Saturday afternoon Manuela had gone to the shops with the baby, her husband had taken Justin fishing, and Miranda had gone to a friend’s house to play, leaving Ben to ride his bike at the pigeons. He was particularly unhappy because he had expected to go camping with friends that weekend, and the arrangement had been cancelled. I felt sorry for him, remembering the bitterness of such childhood disappointments, but I was not prepared to hear him say eagerly to Alex, ‘Can I come back with you? Can I come and stay the night?’ and Alex reply, ‘Well, I don’t know. We’ll have to see what Manuela says.’
    Manuela, when she came home, was entirely in favour of a proposal which took a child off her hands for twenty-four hours.
    â€˜Where will he sleep?’ I asked.
    â€˜I’ve got my tent,’ he burst in. ‘And a sleeping bag. I can sleep in your field.’
    He wanted it too badly, it was already too late, for me to protest. I felt it was a mistake. We were no longer on our own, Alex and I: we were part of a group, and it was a basic principle of the group that no decisions were taken without a full discussion. In any community, it was always a violation of that principle that led to injustice. We could not simply turn up with an extra child, an extra mouth to feed.
    Alex apparently saw no problems. ‘Don’t be silly, of course it’s all right,’ she said when I voiced my doubts. For a moment I was swayed by her certainty and decided that my reluctance to take Ben home stemmed simply from my own unease with children. In fact I approved of Ben, and if there had to be children around me I would have preferred them to be children of Ben’s sort; nonetheless I was much happier when there were no children around me at all.
    A moment later, seeing Ben let his bicycle fall with a clatter on to the path and rush off, shouting cheerful abuse at his mother, to collect his belongings, I knew my instinct was right. Ben’s arrival would disrupt the group on a day when there had been enough disruption already. Why couldn’t Alex see it? Simon and Dao’s children were quiet, pacific children: they did not fight, or shout, or drop things with a clatter, or even drop things and not pick them up. Watching Ben, I realised for the first time just how quiet they were, just how little Bethany resounded to the normal rumpus of children. Simon’s children had imbibed from their infancy a depth of peace which was not available to other children. Certainly it had not been available to Ben, his childhood dominated by a tempestuous Spanish mother. Ben would shatter the composure of Bethany. Ben wasan outsider, a rule-breaker. In fact, I thought, he had a great deal in common with Alex.
    The thought caused me a chill. It brought with it a perspective I had once had about Alex, but which over the weeks had shifted and faded so imperceptibly that I had hardly noticed the change. The contrast now was violently disturbing. I saw Alex, again, as someone who did not quite understand. She did