Fingers And Thumbs

The Head of Year seemed a nice enough man,
youngish friendly not too tidy office.
Girls and boys knocked at the half open door,
"forgot my tie, sir" and that sort of stuff.

"Ah, yes, Jeffrey. No problems most of the time,
but then things blow up out of nowhere.
If there is a rumpus in the corridor,
that will be Jeffrey. Not the brightest but
pleasant enough. Nothing I can
put my finger on."

He went to get Jeffrey, couldn't find him.

The Head of Year phoned again the next week.
"Things have taken a bit of a turn here,
Jeffrey would like to visit you."
"What's happened?"
"He'd better talk to you himself - and
his father is in full agreement."

Jeffrey came to see us, relaxed, friendly,
happy to chat away but not about himself.
"Yeh, I like it here - relaxed and friendly
and I like the girls." And they liked him
going by the odd squeal.

Jeffrey popped his head round the office door,
"Can I leave this here? - I have to go out".
Well it was lunchtime.
"But you mustn't look," with a grin,
putting his carrier bag over by the wall.

So of course someone looked: a long shiny
silvery dress, a pair of silver high
heels and a Diana Ross LP.

Jeffrey's father was smallish, nice,
friendly, more Irish than his son. A bit
beaten down looking. "Oh Jeffrey's all right.
We get on better now. We talk about
this and that. He'll be all right."

I tried chatting with Jeffrey as we walked
near his house by Stamford Hill. He said
he had a good friend, Connor, a dustbin
man. I pictured Eddie Yeates. Sometimes
they went to the pictures. "Sometimes we just
talk." He looked directly back at me, "It's all
OK - I'm all right, really."