.

THE CHANGELING

“Mum, Mum…he wont get off my bike, and he keeps hitting me!” Rebecca didn’t need to look up from her book, she knew it would be Simon. It wasn’t that he did not have an understanding of property and ownership it was just that he thought that everything should be his. She went over and separated Simon from the bike, apologised to the boy’s mother and then started Simon off on the slide, which was, just for once, gloriously empty.
            Unfortunately it was clearly going to be one of those days and she was pretty sure she’d get no more book today. She was right, by the time she’d even sat down again Simon was off the slide and stood in front of a girl so she couldn’t swing. He then tried it with a boy, who simply cannoned into Simon, knocking him over. Simon was in tears and she comforted him, although part of her thought his tumble, as per-usual, was more than well deserved.
            It wasn’t that she didn’t love her son, it was just that after her daughter Maria, who was thoughtful, quiet and gentle natured, Simon was not a rewarding child. Rebecca told herself he would grow out of it, but she wasn’t sure he wasn’t simply self centred, bad tempered, belligerent and bullying – simply Simon.
            David her husband thought his antics were funny, said it showed he had character and was an ‘alpha male’. Rebecca sometimes despaired, he couldn’t be trusted to play with anyone or anything much, so she found herself Simon’s handmaiden, following him about and rescuing him from the many social and physical scrapes that made up his day. Perhaps she should get a nanny or take him to a childminder? David’s business was doing well, they could easily afford it.
            As for today, since Simon was clearly now in a mega-sulk she took his hand and led him out of the iron- gate of the playground and across the park. There he began to run about in a rather uncontrolled way on the newly cut grass with his strange, stumbling but effective run. So she sat on a bench beneath the cherry blossom and watched. She tried to stop herself looking at his short heavy legs and big knees,  that David said meant he’d make a fine prop-forward - for recently Rebecca had found herself looking at Simon’s physical features far too often and she wasn’t really at all comfortable with this.
            Rebecca’s parents were country folk and it was her mother who had first set her mind working. Rebecca had come to collect Simon from her parent’s farm. It had only been a short visit that had allowed her to go out for a brief shopping trip and have lunch with a friend. It had however clearly been a very bad visit, for when she pulled up she found her mother at the door holding Simon firmly by one hand and her father hitting something metallic with a hammer in the tool-shed, something he always did when he was particularly upset.
            “I reckon the fairies took yours and left you this one!” her mother had said as she ruffled Simon’s hair and handed him over - and somehow this had got to Rebecca. She found herself ever since noticing how different Simon’s features were from the rest of the family. She didn’t do it deliberately. She’d just find herself, whilst she watched him play, making comparisons. Of course he didn’t have pointy ears or anything like that - although they did have funny lobes. No, it was the way he stood or held his head or even how he’d pick something up. He had a bit of a look about him of David’s Grandfather, who she’d seen in family photographs, but otherwise Simon wasn’t quite like anyone else in the family on either side and over several generations.
            “He looks like he’s enjoying himself, you probably don’t remember me though…we met in the maternity ward?” said a girl who had suddenly appeared and was standing beside her. Rebecca looked up, vaguely recognised her as the pretty girl who had been in the next bed. Then the girl pulled her own child from behind her skirt, where he was hiding, and unable to stop herself Rebecca gasped out, “David!” For this little boy was a small version of her husband in every way. He had the same hair, same eyes and mouth, same build. Bizarrely he was wearing clothes of the same colour that David liked to wear and when he set off after Simon, he even moved like David. The two boys, so different, careered around on the grass and in and out of the trees together,  in some kind of boy’s game that only they could understand.
            “How nice that you remembered his name… I’m Naomi by the way, I’ve seen you before, in town, in the park - remembered you, thought it was time to say hello. It’s nice here isn’t it? And it’s so convenient for the shops…” But Rebecca wasn’t really listening, instead she was staring at little David.
            When Naomi offered, Rebecca quickly accepted an invitation to go to Naomi’s house for a cup of coffee. The house was in a terrace just across the road from the park and, as she waited whilst Naomi made coffee, she looked out of the French doors into Naomi’s garden, watching Simon, who was just for once playing nicely with another boy.
            She found her self biting her nails. For whilst Naomi was in the kitchen Rebecca was trying to work out how she could possibly tell her that they had been bringing up each others children. For she was sure by now that their babies had got mixed up in the hospital. They had been born at almost the same time and if Simon did not look like Naomi, Rebecca had no doubt that David was her husband’s child, none at all.
            Perhaps that was a photo of Naomi’s husband on the mantelpiece? Could Simon look like him? She went over. No, that was almost certainly her brother standing beside Naomi. But behind the clock Rebecca noticed an envelope with handwriting on it that she recognised. She hesitated, then reached for it, looked inside and took out a cheque for a thousand pounds signed by her husband David. She didn’t need to turn - she knew that Naomi was now standing behind her in the doorway, watching her.