Advent Read Free

haven’t! I haven’t!’ so loudly that they must have realised the racket they were making because they stopped, leaving Gav sitting bolt upright in his bed, perched stiff as if trying not to fall.
      Even before that night he’d begun to understand that his parents didn’t like him talking about Miss Grey. It annoyed them that they couldn’t see her. That was fair enough once he thought about it, though they needn’t have felt bad since no one else could see her either, as far as he could tell; but then that had always been true, so he didn’t see why it should bother them all of a sudden. When he’d been smaller, he’d often listened to them laughingly explaining about his imaginary friend, if he’d happened to mention her to someone. ‘Oh, that’s his imaginary friend.’ It was, he learned, the proper term for someone like Miss Grey. Other children had imaginary friends, or at least some of them presumably did, although he soon found out that he didn’t know any. Also, none of the kids he did know liked being asked about the subject, though that made sense to him because he didn’t like being asked about Miss Grey either.
    It was a bit tricky explaining about her since she didn’t behave at all like other people. He guessed this was probably the point about imaginary friends. They were secret, special. The only person he’d ever known who really liked to talk about her was Auntie Gwen, and Auntie Gwen liked it so much Gavin found her eagerness a bit embarrassing, and usually tried to change the subject.
    ‘Is Miss Grey her real name?’
    Um, it’s just what I always call her, you know, like the people who look after you instead of Mummy at the school were called Miss Sandra or Miss Mara so I thought she was like that, except she didn’t say her name so I made up Miss Grey ’cos she’s quite grey.
    ‘What games do you like to play with her?’
    Um we don’t really play games, we just sort of—
    ‘Does she tell you stories?’
    Oh yes! Well, sort of.
    ‘What kind?’
    You know. Funny things. Um anyway it’s not really like telling stories. Can we get an ice cream before we go home?
    ‘Can you see her now?’ (Miss Grey smiled a little and shook her head.) No. I like plain Magnums.
    After the horrible night with the shouting and banging, Gavin became much more wary of mentioning her to anyone. He was angry with her, for the first time. He thought she’d lied to him about Mum, which made the shouting her fault, not his. It was weird and disturbing, anyway, because he was used to her being right about everything. Also, something had happened between his parents, not just the screaming. Even the next morning he could feel it wasn’t right. When they spoke to each other the silences between had a funny crackle to them.
      His mother sat him down the next day for one of her serious conversations. Did he understand that he couldn’t say things like that? Didn’t he realise that it upset people? Mummy and Daddy love you very much. And: ‘Gavin, you do understand that Miss Grey isn’t real, don’t you?’
      ‘Yes, Mum.’ Yes, he did. ‘Real’ meant the things Mum and Dad were interested in: newspapers and cricket and the carpet and money and all that. ‘Not real’ were the things they couldn’t see and didn’t really have any interest in, like stories and Miss Grey and the inside birds and the funny people he sometimes caught glimpses of. He’d learned this distinction early on and accepted it, like the difference between red and blue.
      ‘Well, then, do you think maybe it’s time to say goodbye to Miss Grey?’
      Gav was old enough to know immediately that Mum meant something more than what she’d said. Obviously her question was stupid, since you only said goodbye to someone when they were going away, but he didn’t say that out loud. As always with the serious conversations that you had to sit down for, she was actually talking about something completely different, some