HIS LITTLE HEART WAS BROKEN... AND HE WAS ONLY FOUR!

Read on for the concluding part of Ray Connolly's charming childhood story, Love In A Christmas Sandpit

- By Ray Connolly

She was already at the party when Tom was deposited by his father at Jordan’s flat.

As might have been expected, Maria was dazzling in new shoes and a lace-fronted blue party frock, but it was the birthday boy who was the star of that day.

Maria’s mother had bought Jordan a present in the form of a plastic dinosaur that roared when it was squeezed and the little girl was shrieking with delight as Jordan chased her around the room with it.

At first, Tom tried to join in the pursuit, but now his attempts to rekindle his closeness with Maria seemed to go unnoticed.

He was confused. But the more he tried to get close to her, the more she was distracted by Jordan. And at the birthday tea party when she licked all the icing off the fairy cakes, he was the only child present who didn’t find it funny.

Jordan, meanwhile, behaved like all small children on their birthdays. He went wild with excitement, was rude to his mother, jumped on the furniture and was eventually ignominiously shouted at in front of his guests.

Tom’s mum found a very different child when she came to collect her son later.

His brightness had gone. Once again, he was an outsider, and was sitting in a corner, watching Maria and Jordan as they rolled around on the carpet together.

On Monday morning Tom didn’t want to go to playgroup. Then, when his mother insisted, he cried and complained that he didn’t feel well. Finally, when he saw that there was no escape from joining the other children, he retreated mentally into a world of his own, refusing to take part in the group endeavour of putting the decorations on the Christmas tree.

And, all the time, his eyes rarely left Maria and Jordan.

When Judy suggested he should find another child to play with, he retorted that he didn’t want to play with anyone.