Duplicity Read Free

mother usually called it ‘that child’. So that’s why they were always crying - no one had remembered to give it a name. Whoopee! He would give the baby a name for a Christmas gift; what a wonderful idea. Nobody had thought of it and it wouldn’t cost anything. He would pick a really magnificent name and make all the family proud of him - and of the baby.
    When Mary came back, he went up to his own room and thought over all the girls’ names he knew. What about the girls in his class at school? One of their names might do.
    Lynne? No, she had a spotty face.
    Susan? She nipped you when you weren’t looking.
    Lorraine? He liked Lorraine, and thought she was pretty, but lots of girls were called Lorraine, and he wanted something special.
    This was much more difficult than he had imagined. He looked at his books to see if he could find a better name there.
    Alice in Wonderland? The name Alice didn’t seem to fit the baby.
    Hansel and Gretel? He quite liked the idea of Gretel, it was unusual, but he didn’t think his mother and Mary would like it.
    ‘Tea’s ready, William,’ called his mother.
    After teatime, he went back to his room and lay down on his bed. He wondered how babies ever got names if it was so difficult to choose them. By the time he went to bed, he still hadn’t hadn’t found a name, and he tossed and turned for what felt like hours before he fell asleep.
    He dreamed of that first Christmas, of how the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she would have a son, of how the Angel told the shepherds in the fields when the Baby Jesus was born, of all the gifts the Three Kings brought.
    When he woke in the morning, he knew that somewhere in his dream was the name he was seeking, but he couldn’t think what it might have been. Then he remembered! The Angel Gabriel! That was it - what a perfect name for the baby! ‘Angel Gabriel.’ He said it slowly, letting it roll round his tongue and savouring the beauty of the sound. He could bet that no other baby ever had a name like that.
    He froze, suddenly. How could he make a proper gift of a name? It wasn’t something you could wrap up in Christmassy paper or put in a fancy box, and he did so want to make it a good gift. A gift card! He had seen them in the shops with pretty pictures on them, and they just had to go in an envelope. He couldn’t buy one, of course, but he could try to make one. He could write the name on a piece of paper in his best, joined-up writing, the kind they were learning at school.
    He rummaged about in his toy box, looking for his drawing book, and at last he found it - luckily with a few empty pages. Tearing them out carefully, he searched for his packet of felt pens. A red one was all he could find, but it would do. Red was a nice, cheerful colour. He went down on his knees and laid the book on his bed, putting one of the blank pages on top.
    He made a mistake on the first page, and it wasn’t until his third attempt - on the last page - that he was satisfied that he had done his best writing. He studied it critically. It didn’t seem much for a gift of such importance, but he could draw something on it to brighten it up. What would a baby like? He drew a little butterfly for a start and it looked quite good, so he drew a few more. Then he decided it needed a fancy pattern around the edge, so he spent the next half-hour making little squiggles all the way around. He propped the card against the mirror on his dressing table, and stood back to admire the effect. It looked really good, he thought, and all he needed now was an envelope.
    He took the strongest white envelope he could find in his father’s bureau, slipped the card inside and licked the flap. Thumping it vigorously to make it stick down properly, he let out a long sigh of satisfaction. All that remained to be done was to write on the front, and it didn’t matter so much about that. The card was the real gift, the special gift.
    With love from William , he