Cuddly Toys

By Gill Ainsworth

"Why, Joanna, why?  Why did you do it?" 

I lie in bed listening to Freddie shouting at me from the spare room.  Beside me is my bedtime mug of water,
and the jar I keep with me always.  My eyelids grow heavier with every question he asks, and a smile forms
on my face.  He may think his words haunt me, but I find our nightly ritual comforting.  My thumb sneaks
its way into my mouth, and I'm a child once more, as the Sandman comes to steal my consciousness. 

It hasn't always been like this.  I used to cuddle up with a soft toy.  The first, McDougal, was a parting
gift from my mother, thrust into my arms on her way to kissing the floor.  Somehow she clung to her
bottle--she always did--but liquid splashed onto the teddy bear.  I sniffed his fur, and then gave him a
big hug. 

"It's for you," she said, her words running together like the colours in my paintings always did. 

I christened him McDougal because he wore a pair of tartan trousers and, at the great age of four,
McDougal was the only Scottish name I knew. 

"There canna be any sugar and spice inside o' you, Lassie, if you've ended up here," McDougal-the-man
said, as he led me to my room in the home for rejected children. 

My tartan-trouser-wearing McDougal served me well.  He staved off the nightmares and kept the bogey-man from my bedroom.  In return, I lavished love upon him.  But poor McDougal met an unhappy end--I discovered
scissors. 

"What're you doing?" he said, as I attacked him along his middle seam.  "Why're you hurting me?" 

I had no answer except that I needed to know where he kept the love I gave him. 

I was disappointed.  Soft fluffy stuff bulged from the hole I'd made.  The sort of soft fluffy stuff little
girls like me were made of, I presumed, as I wasn't made of sugar and spice.  

After McDougal came Bluey--a rabbit.  Not an original name--he was blue--but he was an original rabbit.
He'd come from a market stall in Calais; another caregiver had bought him for me as a present.  To me,
at ten, that was original enough. 

Every night I said bonne nuit to Bluey, just as the caregiver had taught me.  Being French, Bluey couldn't
understand English.  He was so warm and soft I was sure he would have a loving heart.  Six months later
my curiosity got the better of me. 

Poor Bluey.  He had only rags inside him. 

The years passed, and welfare workers gave me toys.  Clifton came and went, as did Darwick and Pinella.
They were all fake, without guts or heart.  And they had all fooled me, crept into my own heart with their
cosy warmth and their loving words. 

At the age of fourteen I discovered boys.  They weren't as soft and cuddly as McDougal or Bluey, nor
were they warm and snuggly like Clifton, Darwick and Pinella.  But I could hear their hearts beating inside
their chests, and I thought they were real.  As real as anything could be in this world of pretence.  But,
like my cuddly toys, they whispered falsehoods into my ear. 

"You're sexy; you're beautiful; you're the only one."

And, like McDougal and my other bed companions, they didn't consider my love precious.  They deserted me. 
 
A chill fills my room, and I know Freddie is crossing the landing.  There'll be no more tantrums tonight,
not now he's coming for a cuddle.  Sleepy and contented, I smile.  He might be a little cold to snuggle up with, but he is real; he didn't have stuffing inside him. 

The lightest of touches brushes my cheek, and I turn towards him.  His strokes are pure ice.  They make my
heart go a-jitter, and I come willingly from the sleep that so nearly embraced me. 

I run my finger along his centre seam, and I'm happy.  It took me eighteen years to find a cuddly bed mate
who had a heart inside him, but I did find him, and I made him mine forever.  I look at my jar and my smile
widens.  His heart is so real, so big. 

About the Author
Gill Ainsworth wasn't quite grown in a test tube but did do a lot of growing up in a laboratory.  When they
finally unlocked the door, she had a string of scientific publications to her name and an undying determination never to write anything factual again. 

- Back to Fiction for the Month of January