Stepmammy

"Step-mammy, Step-mammy, let down your hair!"
(Jeff, aged five)

There once was a young boy who lived far, far away inside his head,
although he might have lived just down the road from you or I. This
little boy was extremely unfortunate, in that his Mummy had died a
long, long time ago, just as he was born, and so as he passed from her,
she passed from him, and he never saw her face. Alone with his father
as a baby, he dreamed of maternal smiles from the curved reflective
surface of an incubator, the only thing to hold him since birth. His
father could not bear to look at him - although a good man, he could
not bear the tragic sight of his beloved wife in inherent in his son's
innocent face - and so kept the baby in a cradle in the corner. He
hired a young nursemaid to attend to the child's cries, and so the boy
was fed, and grew.

When the child came to be the age of two years, his father remarried a
young woman, much much younger than himself. And so the young boy
became, through fate's juggling hands, unlucky enough to have, in place
of a loving mother, a wicked Step-mama.

His Step-mama, more often than not, took no notice of the young boy,
preferring to ignore his pitiful pleas for hugs and kisses. Young
children had no place in her world - it was as if they did not exist.
Hers was a reality of diamonds, lipstick and parties. Despite the fact
that his Step-mama never even so much as looked at him, the child began
to love her, as the only female presence in his life. He rejected the
nursemaid, and raged and wept if she tried to come near him as she was
employed to do, so that in the end, the father dismissed the girl and
the young boy was left to himself. His curls became long, and ragged,
and split - his fingernails grew too long. And every night, he dreamed
of and coveted the love of his Step-mama, imagining the stroke of her
fingertips wiping away his tears.

By the age of six, the boy had secretly, to himself, declared his
eternal ("forever and forever and ever") love for his Step-mama, and
promised himself that he would never wed another. He grew jealous of
his father, and began to dislike the man intensely. The seeds of hatred
were planted. This was but a taste of things to come.