A Friend Indeed

The knock at the front door announced a visitor. The erraticness of the knock and the absence of a shape through the glass panes which made up the top third of the door suggested that it was a little visitor.

Phil Radcliffe and his wife Molly had lived in this crescent for almost three decades. When they had first moved here, their son and daughter were children and there were many other kids around, all of them happy to play in a street which had no through traffic and all of them knowing that they could call on any house for a friend or advice.

All these children were now grown up. Phil's son had graduated and was starting his career, while his daughter was now away at university. A new generation of families - much more ethnically diverse and with even more children - had moved into the crescent, but the geography of the place meant that the new kids also had fun in the street (although the bicycles were now more expensive) and the families still all knew one another so that the youngsters bounced from home to home looking for friends and entertainment.

Even Phil and Molly were regularly visited and, since all the parents knew and trusted each other, sometimes the youngsters would come in for a time. In the school holidays, Molly and Phil had even been known to take a couple of the children at a time to the local cinema to give some of the parents a break.

The knocking was repeated. It was half term and it was probably one of the kids. Phil didn't mind - it was just that he wasn't quite ready to receive visitors. Molly was already at work but, as a consultant often working from home, he could take things more easily and he was still having breakfast and hadn't even put on his glasses (he was seriously myopic without them).

Phil opened the door, looked down, and found a small boy of about 10, head down and face hidden, nose sniffling, obviously in some distress.