July 2010
Stephen had not had a happy childhood. Often ill because of a weak chest, he had been confined to bed for weeks at a time and seldom was allowed to play outside with other children the rough and tumble games that fill a normal young child’s hours. But he had been allowed to go to the birthday party on the strict understanding that he was not to exert himself: and he had gone, spending much of the time looking wistfully at his older brother and sisters and his cousins as they ran about the garden and down to the lake, but nevertheless pleased that he had seen something of the delightfully warm summer outside of the walls of his bedroom with its mustard coloured paint and dark floral wallpaper. And as a going away present, he was allowed to take home one of the coloured balloons that had decorated the tea room, a yellow balloon on which someone had drawn a smiling face.
The yellow balloon now rested on a shelf opposite the bed Stephen was lying on to recover from his exertions and go off peacefully to sleep at the end of this unusual, happy day. It was a warm evening to follow the heat of the afternoon and the windows of the bedroom stood open to let in the cooling breeze. The sun was setting on the horizon and the light in the room had almost gone when surely the balloon winked. Stephen blinked and looked at the darkening yellow sphere on the shelf and as he smiled surely the balloon winked again. No, this could not be possible: after all, he had read an awful lot of books for a nine year old and he knew positively that balloons do not wink unlike his great-uncle George whom he had seen winking at the nurse as she moved noiselessly in the manner of servants about her business.
‘You didn’t wink at me, did you?’ Stephen asked of the yellow rubber face, feeling really silly and glad that none of his brothers or sisters were there to hear him, or Nanny Brown who would have told him he was ‘Going crackers’ in her thick Scottish accent.
‘Of course I did,’ the smiling mouth replied. ‘Do you want to go out for a ride?’
Stephen was silent: stunned. This was unreal. He pinched himself to ensure that he had not unknowingly passed into the heaven that he had been reliably informed awaited all good little boys who didn’t tell lies or pull their sisters’ pigtails. ‘Do I want to go for a ride?’ he said, half laughing, half amazed.
‘Well, it’s not such a silly question, is it?’ said the still smiling mouth. ‘After all, most children of your age love adventures and it is rather boring if I am just going to be sat here on a shelf in this dreary room rather than outside having the occasional bit of fun. Balloons are supposed to be fun, you know: that’s our reason for existence!’
‘I don’t have much fun,’ said Stephen, mournfully remembering all the times he had been prevented from joining the others on excursions by his cough and his ‘poor weak body’ as Nanny always described his underdeveloped frame. ‘But what sort of fun can we have?’
‘Whatever you like and wherever you want to go and see,’ said the mouth.
‘I’d love to see the Taj Mahal. I’ve seen pictures of it in a book and it looks wonderful,’ Stephen said excitedly.
‘Ah, that’s in India you know and it is a bit out of my reach. You would need one of my new fangled long haul helium cousins for that. I could do the seaside. Margate’s nice, you know.’
‘Yes, the seaside, I’d really like to see the sea again.’ Stephen sounded as enthusiastic as he could, hoping to hide any disappointment, but secretly wishing that the party present had been a helium cousin of this yellow second rater. Obviously all was well as instantly the words were out of Stephen’s mouth, the yellow sphere started to drift across the room in the direction of the bed. ‘Grab hold of my string and hold on tight, close your eyes and don’t open them until I give the word.’
Stephen always the obedient child, held the string hanging down from the balloon as it floated towards the bed, closed his eyes and took a large intake of breath. No, it was not possible. He could not be floating and moving away up from the bed. ‘Keep those eyes closed and hang on!’ came the repeated instruction.
And they were off. Moving, slowly at first and then more quickly. Stephen felt or thought he must have felt the curtains of the room brush his pyjama jacket, but he still could not really believe what was happening. It seemed like hours that he floated, obediently keeping his eyes tight shut, feeling the cool air on his face and through his hair, but was probably only a few minutes later when he heard clearly the command,
‘Now, open your eyes!’ Stephen did and looked in disbelief at the wondrous sight that greeted him. He was sitting on a high cliff on the grass, still holding the balloon in his hand, looking out over what he knew from his picture books and past experience was the sea and beneath the cliff between it and the blue sea, a strip of yellow that he knew was sand.
‘Would you like to go down and make a sandcastle,’ said the mouth. ‘I like sandcastles, especially when you watch the sea coming in and washing them away!’
‘Yes, let’s,’ said Stephen eagerly. So they did: the balloon’s string fastened by a large stone in the beach, watching, whilst Stephen made a series of castles with a bucket borrowed from another child playing happily on the beach.
Stephen had no sense of time as he worked away and then lay back and watched as the tide came in and the castles crumbled down, leaving only hillocks of wet sand, but all too soon he heard the mouth say,
‘It’s time to go. Hold me tight again and close your eyes.’ Stephen so much wanted to look, but dare not. The voice had that commanding tone that children instinctively obey and he was soon moving through the air and when the order came to ‘Open his eyes’, there he was, back in his own room, staring at the florid wallpaper and the yellow balloon on the shelf.
‘That was fun’, said the mouth. ‘Would you like to do that again?’
‘Oh, yes,’ yawned the contented child. ‘Can we go tomorrow and this time, can we go to the pier and have ice creams and go on the helter-skelter?’
‘Go on the helter-skelter and eat ice creams! Whatever nonsense will you think of next, you with your poor weak body.’
It was Nanny, not the mouth that replied. Stephen reddened, said sorry and supposed he had been dreaming. He looked across the room. There was the yellow balloon: and it winked!