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uncomfortable, remembering he looked a fright when eating, and backed a little towards the table, but her eyes held him. Suddenly, she reached out her hand and stroked his cheek. So soft. He flinched and looked up at her in alarm. Just then, Michael burst through the scullery door with a jam jar in his hand. There was some jam on his face too.
    â€˜I tested all of them,’ he said earnestly, ‘and this is the best one.’ He looked from Gabriel to his mother. ‘Honestly, it is.’
    â€˜Is it, now? Well, that’s just splendid.’ His mother laughed. ‘Why don’t you two sit down and eat your pancakes before they get cold?’ She seemed normal again and Gabriel was greatly relieved.
    When they had finished their pancakes, Mrs Bradley asked, ‘Does your mother know you’re here today?’
    He shook his head. It was a strange question; he rarely told his mother where he went after school. ‘Where’re you going?’ Mother would sometimes ask. ‘Nowhere,’ he would answer, and it was usually left at that.
    â€˜Tell her you’re welcome to come here and play with Michael at any time, will you?’ she said, her eyes ablaze again.
    He was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Michael, who had such a strange mother, but then he remembered her warm touch on his face and the flash of the deer. ‘Thank you, Mrs Bradley, I will,’ he said, knowing he wouldn’t.
    *
    But of course, Mother found out anyway. Gabriel had just got back from Michael’s on a damp evening a few weeks later when it was made clear, as he had always dreaded, that Michael’s house, with its strange and yet familiar feeling and the soft, beautiful mother, was too private and positive an experience to last.
    â€˜You’re never to go to that house again, do you hear me?’ Her hands were hard on his shoulders and her face was too close; he could see the pores around her nose and smell the frustration on her voice.
    â€˜But why?’ For once, he felt he needed to assert himself. ‘Michael’s my friend.’ He was careful not say, ‘my only friend.’
    â€˜Your
friend
?’ A drop of her spit landed on his chin. ‘He cannot be your friend – it’s … unnatural.’
    This was an argument he had heard before, although never from her. Suddenly, he wanted to shout, ‘It’s all your fault – you’re the unnatural one, giving birth to a freak!’ But he didn’t; he had learnt to control his impulses and never blame anyone else for his shortcomings. Instead, he stamped his foot and bleated, ‘But he is! He is my friend – he has said so himself – I passed the test.’
    She sighed and let go of his shoulders to cover her face with her hands. ‘Have you met Mr Bradley?’ The anger had gone from her voice, but he could sense that this was somehow more important, and it frightened him.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Mrs Bradley?’
    He hesitated; she was the most private part of it all – he did not want to give her up.
    â€˜Answer me, Gabriel. What is she like?’
    Her body is still and her face is alive. She moves like a tree in the wind … or like a deer with the moon in its eyes. ‘She’s lovely,’ he whispered. How easy it was to betray under such threat. And still the blow, when it came, surprised him. She had never hit him before. His cheek burnt and he tried to swallow down the tears. He was trembling now and could not make sense of it all. In what way was he wrong
now
? He tore away from her and out of the house.
    As he turned off the road, it began to drizzle and the lane was soon muddy underfoot. He didn’t stop to open the gate on to the moor, but scissored over it, supporting himself with one hand. The turf and heather squelched as he ran. The wind that was blowing into the hole in his face resonated with his panting. Sheep huddled uselessly