Zoe knows when laughter isn't felt and she hears it now, coming into her home with tinkling silvery harmonics down the telephone line, and looking down at the cable snaking across the deep brown living room carpet it's as if the gray-white telephone wire itself has thinned out the tinny, sparkling sound, so that it rattles like a draining board of cutlery as she listens to somebody inviting herself to her house again.

"Just because I've got a free day," her friend says. "How about it, a coffee and a natter."

"And I've got nothing else planned."

A free Tuesday. A day circled in pink in her friend's diary. A day for jam doughnuts during spring holiday time as thoughts turn to chocolate and cherry blossom. Today being a spare day that her friend has found, that she can play with perhaps, go shopping, see a film, fill with something useful.

And Zoe knows she should feel grateful for the solicitousness, for the company, for the care and support being extended to her and her family, and also that she can't refuse not even politely, in case the assumption is that she must be felling stressed, or uptight, or that things are getting on top of her again. And anyway, she might yet find the relief that other people gain from caring and sharing, letting the talk wander in those neutral shades of people's living rooms that always accompany tepid shades of conversation, just because human beings are supposed to be gregarious and are supposed to choose to gather, given the chance. Except she knows this morning she is unlikely to crease up laughing, will not feel the weight lift with the irreverence and wickedness of not taking anything that seriously, but will rather exchange information about the diary plans and lifestyle choices, and be encouraged to wear something like hot pink, or bright orange, and perhaps organize a babysitter so she can look forward to a Friday night spent wearing high heels and drowning herself in gin.

And she had an early start this morning, getting up and dressed sooner than usual, with everything done, even if she's not exactly looking glamorous in her brown jeans and jumper, purple admittedly, which clashes slightly - the coolness of the wintry colors not really a match for the chocolate colors you can only find in the autumn - and trainers, moreover, and the shopping can wait - it is the Easter holidays after all - and in fact, if she spends the morning indoors drinking coffee and having a catch-up, she won't have to put little Ronnie in the car which he will find uncomfortable now that the weather's getting warmer. Since she is so organized, so used to thinking ahead, does it automatically and has done for years, the kettle is filled. two mugs are put out, one with a teaspoon in, and the chocolate digestives are arranged on a plate at least an hour before the visit.

The biscuits overlap in circles on white - if she'd thought about it or put any effort into it she could have found a hot summer eathenware artefact, some holiday-bought pottery - being picked up one by one in a neat, ordered way, as they talk, while Zoe fidgets, never knowing how she should arrange her hands when the two of them sit down to chat. She can't keep them still, starts with the back of her left hand resting in the palm of her right, but notices how dry her skin is before she begins twisting her rings, looking down, seeing the improvement now that she applies cuticle oil every morning, after spending so much time with her hands in water, in cream, washing them, drying them, starting all over again as soon as the last lot is done. Then she finds she has lifted her hands and is squeezing her right fingers tightly as she listens, and smiles, but frowns slightly with the effort of trying to sit still, and concentrate intently, and nod, before she places her hands back in her lap, turning one thumb around the other.

They are sitting at right angles to each other. Zoe on the long black leather sofa, which at least she can wipe clean, and which at least is smooth and less irritating to the skin, unless it's hot weather and it sticks and she closes her eyes briefly, imagining the pain of that, thinking though that perhaps the bandages might help, or even just a soft towel. Ronnie's towels, all bright colours made of combed cotton and bought specially from a department store, stay soft, even when they are dried in the open air, compared with the rough cardboard stiffness of the towels that the rest of them use.

The living room looks lived in, she thinks, as the conversation meanders through the usual subjects. She hasn't leaped around, hovering up every last piece of fluff, stacking the magazines, putting flowers in vases, not even daffodils from the garden. This is a friend, and this was supposed to be a casual coffee time, after all. But now the details stand up and announce themselves to her, as her gaze wanders. The CDs are all in the wrong boxes, she knows that without looking. And some have been flung in a chaotic heap by the side of the house plant that really needs more sunshine and needs to be moved. Her hands are folded on her knee, she realizes, and she is leaning forward uncomfortably with her legs crossed as if she is waiting at a bus stop. She leans against the back of the sofa and concentrates, except she notices the disorder of the red and purple cushions, and the faded throw slung over the back of the sofa that she must have flung there as she rushed past.

But when she speaks, when she tries to share experiences, tell stories that have something in common with her friend, the sentences jar, sound abrupt even as she speaks them, jam in her throat, these descriptions of events, parking in the town centre, shopping in High Street, a holiday in the sun for a week, the last time she went out, the last film she saw, what she had to eat.

And in turn, she offers her plans for the garden, the work she might do on her house, even though the jobs will be small, she's thinking brass or wooden curtain poles, and there's room for planting beneath the hedgerow at the back, the honesty and forget-me-nots, like wild flowers, already there, the later additions, the poppies grown from seed the contents of a cottage garden assortment in the corner nearest to the compost heap. And now she's wondering about something that might trail, might climb a bit.

She mentions Ronnie, once or twice, but those stories fall into a vacuum that seems to hang somewhere over the coffee table draining the talk of energy, usurping the meaning, so that all words vanish into nothing, and they sip coffee and smile uncertainly. And what would she be doing if not this. Concentrating on Ronnie. Kicking footballs - with her hands - towards him, probably, because he has already said he dreams of becoming a famous player, a team boss one day like his namesake, and because the weather's gentle at this time of the year, the sunlight not too harsh, the heat not too much, the cold more or less finished, he can run around, stretch his legs a bit like a five-year-old should, without scratching himself to pieces again.

-----------------------

What a relief to hear him coing down the stairs. She knows how he'll do it, gingerly, without looking, sometimes holding on to the banister with one hand like an old person should really, even though even since Ronnie began to tackle the stairs like that, it just became one his ways, just something that any little boy might do. Sometimes he limps, not that his bones hurt or his muscles, but just so he doesn't stretch is skin. Even so, he'll smile at her as if he's played a joke, won a game, as if he's done something special just by being in the room, a smile of amazement as if he's pulled a rabbit out of a hat, a string of knotted napkins from out of his sleeve, a marvel in red, yellow and green, her Ronnie coming towards the living room and about to brighten up her world and her morning, when in fact she is the mother and he is the child and she should be looking after him.

Hearing him, she knows she's stopped fidgeting, smiles at her friend, looks towards the door, so that both of them stop talking and wait for the grand entrance. She'll tell Ronnie they were planning summer holidays away. See what he says. Find out where he wants to go. He'll say the seaside and she'll try to sort it out for him, despite the salt water, the sand grains, the dangers of sunburn.

But now he's in the hall. She looks up again. Both of them turn. And there he is. Ronnie, framed in the doorway, with a batman cloak, socks on his feet and football boots under his arms which are still covered in bandages - she'll take them off soon - and with his hair standing upright as usual, like a newly-hatched dinosaur, she always tells him.

And it's not as if anyone can understand, the whole of it, the entirety of it, of what has become a list that she recites when called on.

The cream that must be applied several times daily, the largeness and coldness and clumsiness of her hands, the skin flakes that appear without it, and no-one realizes the significance of it, everyone thinking only of the small tubes in the pharmacy bags that everyone has left the chemist with at some time or another, whereas in their bathroom, the white plastic storage boxes with lids are stacked up with lorry loads practically of everything he needs, tubs of cream not tubes of it, their life of white cream, the off-white bandages that keep it on his skin for longer, the cotton wool, the towels washed and aired in readiness.

The work that's involved in always having twice as many clean clothes around because invariably the cream gets everywhere.

The logistics of sending spare clothes to school, when other mothers complain about having to organize the PE kit once a week. But having spare clothes is just another extra thing they have to do.

The endless washing of clothes and hands.

The teachers who insist on wearing gloves to apply it - she would go there and do it herself if she could - those gloves that could have irritated his skin - she takes them in herself now - and even though they've explained their position to her, still she feels none of them have stopped to think in their busy lives about what it must be like for Ronnie, although she can see they are always on their feet in the classroom and always dealing with dozens of children at one time, with probably the shortest of short breaks in the staff room when they probably convene to dump stress on one another. They're not going to want to take her little boy aside and put chemicals on their own hands, even if it eases his suffering for just half an hour.

The worry that they might stop looking after him at all, make them look for somewhere else, even though she thinks - course she would think it - he's clever, and bright, and should be treated just like any other child would be.

The cream itself, the worries about whether it is the right one in the first place, whether something better can be found.

The endless special baths at home. Having to clean the bath before he uses it, make sure there's no soap, no oil, no detergent that will make it even worse.

The upset of having to see her child unable to be in his own skin.

A list that she'll share with anyone who asks for it, and she is used to the nods and the expressions of glazed-over sad sympathy that are well-meant, except they never hear about the sheer indescribable joy of just knowing that Ronnie is there in the world, that he exists, and how, despite everything, he manages to be happy.

And she knows she talks about him so much, in that even if Ronnie isn't there - if he's at school, or somewhere else, camping in a friend's garden, playing, because he does have a life - people can still see him in her conversation, as she describes how he sits still and tentatively in one position if he's watching television, commutes efficiently between the hall and their small patio with train components, plays outside as much as possible, moving when he can, so far denied the pleasure of running, jumping, being free as the wind, being athletic, finding out what he can do, being allowed to roam.

But today, Ronnie's here. And not ill. It is not an illness. There's nothing wrong with how he is underneath, and his face full of energy. She's forgotten her friend is there, but now both of them watch as he tiptoes across the living room, balancing as high as he can on the smallest part of the soles of his feet so as not to flex his ankles, leaning forward at the hips slightly to compensate, so that he looks a bit like a bird - no, what was that song, no, he is walking like an Egyptian - and with every step forward, each foot is picked up with care and brought forwards through the air with his knee bent, like an elevated moon walk, or a slow-motion run. What they've always laughed at, privately, her and Ronnie, is how he points his toes, again, so as not to flex his ankles, so as not to move too much, or stretch the skin running down the back of his calves to his heels, and to keep the skin on the front of his foot immobile, which can be the bit that suffers during the night.

Ronnie, even when he's asleep and dreaming, is able to take off bandages and socks and hold on to his feet which must itch ferociously, skin getting worse the more he scratches it.

"Don't worry about it." she tells him, about his goose walk. Why they have called it a goose walk, nobody knows. It's more like a heron, or a stork. Something with long legs lifted with precision and clarity, the hip flexor speaking before the knee, the knee having its say before the shin even opens its mouth, and those stretched toes always with the punch line.

You'll be stronger, walking like that, she tells him. You'll be able to lift houses, move mountains. You'll have a metatarsal arch made of iron. And you'll need it when you're playing for England, she always says, which makes him smile.

His slow progression from the living room door to the French window is accompanied by quiet, a lull in the talk, and smiles between the adults.

She knows she feels it more than she should, as he slowly, carefully, lifts one hand to the door handle and turns it, making sure not to bend his elbow too much, turning his whole arm like a clock handle. But this is the worst it can get, she always tells herself. She has seen other children in exactly the same state and she knows they get better. She's seen them unable to walk. So she doesn't get up to help him, wants him to know he can help himself a bit. Offers another cup of coffee, absent-mindedly, realizing her friend's spare Tuesday has not yet been occupied with anything very much yet.

Getting up to organize the refill, she takes the chance to stand at the glass door and watch Ronnie heron walking on the lawn in the spring sunshine, and slowly picking up an old, mucky football. Her friend follows her.

Together they watch him place the ball on the grass on the left-hand side of garden, and then take two paces backwards to stand upright, feet together, as if he's waiting for a whistle, or for something to happen, as he has seen it in the playground, as he has seen it on the television. Her little Ronnie, acting like a grown man.

And then he picks up one knee, perfectly balanced, his calf and shin relaxed now, the foot in the air not flexed and not pointed, his other foot with the heel raised slightly off the ground, before he taps the ball probably only with his big toe and second toe. Football with the least possible contact. The ball rolls forward. And then Ronnie steps forward on to the sole of his right foot, still using his stork walk - that's what it should be called, she thinks, his stork walk - picks up his left foot, points it only slightly and sends the ball rolling again, progressing in slow, controlled, poised steps along the garden in a straight line, left to right, concentrating.

------------------------

Side by side, standing at the French windows, they watch, and the truth is that it is a perfect parallel attitude devant in ballet terms - leg lifted and knee raised in front - or possibly like the bit at the end of the karate film when he balances on a tree trunk or a bridge over a river, arms in the air, palms dropped, hopping from one leg to the other.

Her friend laughs, but not with her eyes, ribs or mind, and it's that slightly edgy, voice-only laugh again.

"How funny." The words pop out.

"He should be wearing ballet shoes, not football boots, " sed says.

"He's just playing," Zoe says, defensively, words she notices that she has to use in one way or another, every time her friend visits.

And it's not that Zoe minds, at all, whether Ronnie puts on the mantle of an army thug or a pilot or a train driver or a boxing legend, or whatever little boys conventionally want to be, so long as he doesn't want to go around beating the hell out of people for the fun of it, which he never would anyway, or whether she ends up sitting in the audience watching him perform under lights in a gold lame tutu. But for the moment, he wants to be a football hero, despite his eczema, and while she's standing there watching him practice his fledgling moves, anyone who thinks they can stop him will have to get past her first.

Of course, you feel for your son. And hasn't he already coped with people pointing at him, backing away, not wanting to go near him, laughing, assuming it is catching. Not that it's bothered him. And here is a grown woman, mocking a defenceless child.

"You look a bit tense," her friend says.

Zoe looks at her, smiles. From where they are at the French windows, the open plan kitchen leads out from behind where her friend is standing.

She takes the empty mug out of her friend's hands, looking into it, briefly, and thinks, there will not be an explosion, or any upset, this morning. But for somebody to visit this house and undo any of the work that goes into Ronnie, helping him continue to want to prove himself on the pitch, which is important, surely, even though his arms and legs remain alternately in wet and dry bandages, can't be tolerated, she thinks.

And so the decision is made. And the only way she can continue, because she is upset and angry, is to move slowly to the kitchen, stork-walking in her min

She doesn't do anything so rude as to find a way to push her out of the door, although, remembering earlier days, she knows she is capable of it.

Wasn't there the time she picked up an acquaintance's document holder, or artist's file, whatever it was, and flung it out of the door on to the pavement, but lacked the presence of mind, then, to close the door after him when he went to retrieve it, something she regretted for a long while.

And that other occasion, when a neighbor and his friend brought the wrong kind of talk into her living room and she picked up their jackets and held them out silently. How they stood up and put away their mugs almost immediately with their heads down, she remembers, and hurried to leave.

Now, however, she is older. And so the talk descends painfully into bus stop small talk, the new restaurant that has opened, whether the sunshine will last, and what are their plans for the afternoon, with Zoe becoming increasingly non-committal, and absent-minded, as if she is planning her shopping list, as if she is a hurried and harassed housewife, with responsibilities, after all.

And so Zoe waits, smiling and nodding and watching. She will not be the first to end the morning. In her peripheral vision, Ronnie progresses in a slow, wingless, measured Swan Lake to the end of the garden, where he picks up his ball and returns to the left side, to start again, and so he still has the sun behind him.

Still they talk, until finally, a meeting is mentioned in the future, and car keys are picked up, jangling with laughter.

----------------------

It's as the door closes that Zoe wonders why she agreed to a visit from a lonely friend at all, with all the polite interest, and all the talk of dressing up and getting out more.

Then it hits her, finally and after many years, with a lorry-weight impact, that how she views her friend, in fact, is exactly what her friend must think of her.

Ronnie wanders into the hall and she thinks she'll make him a self-assembly sandwich and put all the ingredients out on the table for him, so he can build it with whatever colours and tastes and shapes he feels like eating.

But he waits, leans with both hands on her leg, his expression apparently weighing up the balance of global politics, the significance of international borders, debt relief in developing countries, perhaps, something of world importance, undoubtedly.

Is it because he looks so wise and so thoughtful and so knowing in that moment, that she sits down on the floor next to him, crossing her legs to ask herself, silently, who feels sorry for who, in the grand scheme of things.

Normally, it's she who strokes Ronnie's head. Mainly because she can't hug him, or squeeze him, because of his skin, which prevents him from sitting with her for very long, as it wouldn't be good for him to be too warm. So usually, she strokes the top of his head, always thinking how baby-soft his hair still is, and even though she wants to fold her arms around him and protect him, and make a space where troubles fro the real world can't bother him or threaten him, she doesn't want to make him feel suffocated, or smothered by her, even though she has to keep him in cotton wool and cream and moisturizer and bandages.

Today, however, it is Ronnie who reaches his hand out to her. She thinks he'll stroke her hair, since he's as tall as her, as she sits on these polished floor boards which need a good dust, she notices.

But instead, he puts his hand towards her ear, smiles as if the biggest joke in the world is about to happen, and waits for just a couple of seconds - he has a talent for timing, she thinks, he has a talent for something, and perhaps indeed he is a performer in the making - before he closes his hand at the side of her head, so she can just about see it, and then circles his closed first in front of her face, his eyes wide and intent, to open his palm and show her a five pence piece that has suddenly, magically, appeared in her ear.

He smiles. She smiles

"It's not football boots you need. It's a magician's cloak," she tells him, loving him so much it hurts below her ribs.

And perhaps they will get out of the house after lunch, after all, she thinks. Perhaps get something special in for tea. Take the football to the park, if that's what Ronnie wants to do. Let him be whatever he wants to be. Do whatever he feels like doning. Practise the stork walk, maybe.