Chapter 37 Max
Max
Isteer Molly into the hall of Toby and Daisy’s primary school for Toby’s class’ nativity.
It’s a bog-standard state school hall: climbing apparatus flattened against the walls, some kind of tissue-paper-stained-glass efforts adorning the windows, and that impossible-to-remove smell of school dinners.
It’s dark outside, and someone has strung fairy lights over the gym apparatus.
It’s so stereotypical I may as well be on the set of the movie Nativity.
The stage at one end has a backdrop crafted from coloured paper, with a big North Star suspended in front of a navy sky.
There are a couple of cardboard palm trees and an apex constructed of corrugated cardboard, presumably to denote the manger.
It’s seriously low budget, but very sweet.
Daisy’s in my arms in her school uniform, fully recovered and back to her usual mouthy self, thank God. She was so docile when she was ill, which should have been a relief, but in fact felt deeply wrong. The reception class did their adorable nativity yesterday, and boy, was it cute.
Having her little arms around my neck, and my hand lightly but persistently touching the small of Mol’s back, says family to me.
These gestures tell me I belong.
That I’m accepted.
That, even if we haven’t gone public with our relationship yet, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, and the only people whose opinion matters want me right here.
With them.
We’re early, thanks to Mol, so we weave our way into the second row of interlocked plastic seats.
Molly says hi to a few parents, and I clock that dreadful woman, Cassandra, smiling her creepy smile at me from across the aisle.
I give her a tight nod of acknowledgement and slide my hand further around Molly’s waist, pulling her to me.
I don’t need protection from her, but I don’t want her in any confusion about Mol and I being together.
Daisy insists on sitting on my lap, which is one hundred percent fine with me.
I proceed to annoy her by blowing her curls away from the back of her neck.
She twists around, an amused grin on her face.
She has the tiniest, pearliest teeth, despite a sugar habit that could only come from being the daughter of a pastry chef. She’s adorable.
‘Ma-ax,’ she sing-songs in rebuke. ‘You have to be a good boy.’
‘Do I?’ I screw up my nose. ‘That sounds very boring.’
She laughs and pokes me. ‘You’re so cheeky.’
‘He certainly is,’ her beautiful mother agrees on a sigh. I give Mol a wink. She loves it.
As the pianist strikes up a jaunty intro to Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Daisy twists around and puts her tiny finger to my mouth. ‘Shh,’ she tells me sternly.
I stick out my tongue, and she yelps as it collides with her finger.
‘Behave, you two,’ Molly says sternly. I squeeze Daisy’s waist and turn her so she’s facing forward, planting a kiss on the back of her head.
I tense as the kids file onto the stage. Beside me, Molly entwines her fingers with mine and lays our joint hands on the seat between us. I shoot her a look I hope conveys both my gratitude and my adoration.
‘It’ll be fine,’ she mouths.
It had better fucking be fine. I gave Mr Pratt a piece of my mind the other morning, and he assured me that he’d have another chat to Tristan, he’d keep an eye on the two of them, and he’d make sure they weren’t standing anywhere near each other at the show.
Let’s see. I have to say, the guy inspires zero confidence in me. He seems totally clueless.
Bloody hell. Tobes looks seriously tiny next to some of the boys in his year group as they shuffle in in a quiet line.
His headdress is already askew, the front bit flapping over one lens.
All the shepherds are dressed in a mix of muddy brown and some kind of teal.
It’s possibly the most revolting colour combination I’ve ever seen.
I keep an eye out for the dreaded Tristan. There look to be up to twenty shepherds. Two kids behind Toby is a tall boy shuffling in a particularly oafish manner. I lean in towards Molly.
‘That Tristan? The tall one?’
‘Yeah,’ she says.
‘He’s fucking massive.’
‘He stayed back a year, I believe, so he must be going on ten if he hasn’t had his birthday so far this year.’
I nod grimly and straighten up. So he’s been kept down a year and thrives on making life miserable for the smaller kids like Tobes whose quiet, unshowy, and completely fucking harmless form of intelligence makes him feel threatened.
Figures.
The shepherds and angels belt out Santa Claus is Coming to Town with impressive volume and little regard for pitch as the leads strut onto stage. It’s not the most obvious theme tune for the birth of Christ, but whatever.
Mary and Joseph take their places by the manger as the Three Wise Men jostle self-consciously for position behind them.
They’re not as tiny and inadvertently amusing as Daisy’s peers were yesterday, but they’re still cute as fuck.
Toby’s singing his little heart out, arms flapping, glasses shining, and my heart expands behind my rib cage.
This is what I was most afraid of when it came to parenting—the uncontrollable, overwhelming rush of emotions about which fuck all can be done. What I hadn’t factored in was that it’s as joyous as it is terrifying. I suppose nature has to give you some perks.
Aside from the actual act of procreation, that is.
It’s when the shepherds go to sit that my bullying little shit radar starts beeping. The action moves to Mary, Joseph and the innkeeper, while the shepherds sit cross-legged on the stage behind them. They go from a line to a cluster, and fucking Tristan plonks himself down right behind Toby.
I can’t help it. I shoot Molly a worried look, and she meets my eyes and squeezes my hand like she’s already ahead of me. The stilted dialogue, more panto than nativity, washes straight over me as I lean forward, cheek to cheek with Daze, and watch.
The first sign something’s wrong is a flinch from Tobes that coincides with a smirk from Tristan, but I don’t see anything else. WTF?
It happens again a moment later. Toby full-body recoils from something I can’t see. What the actual hell is that little turdbag doing behind him? My best guess would be that he’s poking him in the side or something else equally pesky.
Toby’s little face is panicked, and he’s looking beseechingly at someone who I know is Mr Pratt.
I can’t see him through the bodies of the front row, because he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the kids, but I’m guessing his pea-brain is focused solely on making sure the lines are flowing smoothly and not remotely on any insidious efforts at bullying that are going on in front of his fucking eyes.
‘Are you seeing this?’ I mutter grimly to Mol from the corner of my mouth.
‘Yep,’ she says.
The shepherds are clambering to their feet now, and the entire cast launches into one of those godforsaken modern, made-up-sounding and totally discordant carols that schools somehow find for these occasions. The shepherds stand in a tight cluster, Tristan still loitering right behind our boy.
A smirk forms over Tristan’s face—one I want to slap away with my open palm—and I watch in horror as Toby’s specs jiggle on his face before falling right off.
That oversized fucker must have pushed the arms over his ears.
I grip Daisy’s waist so tightly that she jumps on my lap.
Toby ducks, momentarily out of sight behind the front few shepherds, and I glance left and right in outrage. Is anyone else seeing this?
When he surfaces again, he has his specs on, but he looks like he’s on the brink of losing it. Move away from him, I urge him silently. Come on, mate. I’m getting twitchy. A look at Molly tells me her eyes are wet with tears.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she says.
‘I know,’ I reply grimly, sitting up as straight as I can to see if Mr Pratt is showing any sign of doing his fucking job. This is a bloody outrage.
I sit, braced for I’m not sure what. But then I spot a meaty hand coming around over Toby’s shoulder. It grabs his ear and twists, and poor little Tobes bucks in agony and tries to pull away, but the hand stays.
Toby’s mouth forms an O, a silent scream making its plea to be heard. Because, if I know Toby, the last thing he wants to do is cause a fuss.
And that is when I lose my rag.
This ends now.
I pull my hand away from Mol’s so I can grab Daisy around the waist and plonk her on Molly’s lap.
I vaguely process Mol’s shocked intake of breath as I get to my feet and push my way through the people sitting between me and the aisle.
There’s an audible murmur from the parents behind me, whether at my interruption or at what’s going on on stage, I have no idea.
I’d put money on the former because, as far as I can tell, no one seems to give a shit that a kid’s being bullied by an ogre twice his size in plain sight.
I stomp my way to the stage, managing not to punch Mr Pratt, who only seems to notice me as I loom over him on my way past. His reedy excuse me goes ignored as I jump up onto the stage and storm over to the cluster of shepherds.
The kids are all staring at me, their mouths agape, and for a second I have a pang of guilt that I’m interrupting their little performance.
But it’s only fleeting, because none of the adults tasked with safeguarding these kids in this building seem to be capable of doing their job, so it’s not like I have any choice in the matter.
The shepherds part like the Red Sea as I approach, and Turd-ball Tristan lets go of Toby’s ear pretty damn smart. I stoop and gather Tobes up into my arms, pressing his face into the crook of my neck.
‘It’s all right, mate,’ I croon. ‘I’m so sorry he hurt you. I’m so sorry. I won’t let it happen again.’ He nods against my neck and hugs me more tightly. His legs are around my waist like a koala.
And then I get in Tristan’s space. I hold up a finger and shake it as close to his face as I dare.
‘You,’ I shout, with zero desire to keep my voice down. The entire play has stalled, in any case. I suspect I’m putting on one hell of an alternative show. ‘I saw what you were doing. You keep your hands to yourself, you pathetic little shit, or I’ll make your life a misery. You hear me?’
He shrinks back, all semblance of swagger wiped clean away, and nods his head in a blind panic.
His eyes are wide. The violent feelings welling up in me right now are fucking terrifying.
He’s just a kid, and yet I swear to God I’m barely responsible for my actions.
I pull myself the hell together and leave him with as disgusted a sneer as I can while I shake my finger uselessly at him one more time.
‘Stay away from Toby,’ I say in a voice that would have put the fear of God into nine-year-old me, ‘or I’ll get the police involved and slap you with a restraining order. Got it?’
I have no clue if minors can be served with restraining orders, but from the fact that this kid looks to be seconds away from shitting himself, I’d say my threat has hit its mark.
There’s a tentative hand on my arm. I peer around Tobes. It’s the odious and utterly incompetent Mr Pratt.
‘I really need you to leave the stage now, Mr…’ he says in a patronising tone that I can just tell he’s honed for uncooperative children. I’m marginally mollified by the look of fear on his face. Either he thinks I’m unhinged or he knows he’s fucked up. I’ll take either.
‘And you,’ I shout, jabbing the air in front of his chest for good measure, ‘need to do your fucking job. Toby was being bullied up there by that little shit, in front of everyone, and you didn’t intercede. You’re a fucking joke.’
He stands there, open-mouthed and looking so fucking gormless that I want to punch him in the face.
‘Move along, fucker,’ I growl at him instead.
And with that, I jump down from the stage and stride down the aisle, a sea of horrified faces and illuminated iPhones flanking me on both sides.