jmgoyder

From the ages of about two to four, Ming wore a tail. At first it was a skipping rope with one handle missing. I’d get him dressed and tuck one end into the back of his shorts and off he’d go. The rest of the rope would drag on the ground as he walked, ran and played. The tail became so much a part of Ming’s identity that if we couldn’t find it there would be a frantic search.

Anthony I got used to shouting desperately, from opposite ends of the house, “Have you seen Ming’s tail?” This became our morning routine!

During this period, even though he didn’t always wear it at home, there was absolutely no way Ming would leave the house without his tail attached. “Where’s my tail?” he would wail. Once, when we couldn’t find it, and then I remembered it was soaking in the laundry sink, I had to ring the pre-school teacher to say he’d be late because his tail wasn’t dry yet. This happened a few times so that even she began to see this as a perfectly normal excuse for being late. She told me once that she’d had to speak to the whole class about not touching Ming’s tail after it had been pulled out once too often and he’d dissolved into furious tears.

Inevitably, the skipping rope split and we had to find another tail, before the trauma of not having one left long-term psychological damage. Not to Ming – to me! I just couldn’t imagine him without his tail.

Ming was surprisingly mature about the disintegration of his old tail after I said that, of course, we’d get him a new one. “I’m sad but I’m okay, Mummy,” he said stoically. “I’m gwowing up, so I jus’ need a black furry one now,” he reassured me.

This happened on a Saturday, so I left Ming home with Anthony (well Ming wouldn’t come to town tail-less anyway). I searched the toyshops all morning in vain. Each time I asked, “Do you stock tails?” I’d get a bewildered response. I could have bought another skipping rope or any sort of rope, but Ming had graduated to black and furry and I respected that.

I rang Anthony who told me that Ming had been weird all day – not himself at all, quite moody, in fact. “He says he doesn’t feel good without his tail,” Ants said, laughing quietly.

We made the quick decision to give him a black woollen tie of Anthony’s that he had only worn once before anyway. “You’ll have to run out to the car when I get home so he thinks I found one in town,” I said. And that’s what we did. When I got home, Anthony and Ming raced to the car but Anthony won and secretly tucked the tie into my bag while we both told Ming to close his eyes and open his hands.

I put the tie into Ming’s hot little hands and he opened his eyes. He stared at it for what seemed like ages before he looked up at me, tucked the narrow end into the back of his pants solemnly and said, with serious joy, “It’s sooo wicked; look, Andony. Isn’t Mummy awfulsome!”

What a relief, and I took all the credit even though it should have gone to Anthony.

I wish Ming remembered these days.