i made myself sad thinking about arthur’s strawberry allergy because imagine gordon forgets about it. he knows he ought to remember, but he can’t really be expected to remember everything or to coddle the child, can he? the only time that carolyn was ever ill during the divorce was on arthur’s ninth birthday, and gordon had to look after arthur. it was the first time arthur had seen his father in a while, since before the divorce started, and he was nervous. gordon was in no way prepared for a child’s birthday, but he bought arthur some strawberry sweets and when arthur saw his father giving him a present he was so grateful, and really excited, because he’d been trying to be brave like carolyn had asked him but there weren’t any balloons or anything at his dad’s house and he had thought maybe he’d forgotten and then arthur ate the sweets and began to have a funny feeling and knew something was wrong, but he still tried to smile and keep chewing, because he didn’t want to disappoint gordon, he wanted so desperately to show that he was grateful for his present, really but it’s no good, he starts spluttering and gordon notices and there’s a fair bit of rushing around and then a jabbing feeling and he begins to feel better enough in time to hear gordon saying ‘oh, for gods sakes!’ exasperatedly and calling someone on the phone, and he feels awful because he really had been happy to get a present and now he’d ruined everything carolyn comes to pick him up, despite coughing a lot, and gives gordon a talking to, and they shout, and poor arthur thinks it’s all his fault if only he could eat the pink kind of sweets
