I looked at one of the landscapes again.

'You seem to be seeing things in quite a different way.' I remarked.

'Yes,' Matthew agreed. Hopefully he added: 'I expect it's something to do with growing up.'

His eyes pleaded with me. After all, it was I who had advised him to be discreet.

'It's quite all right, Matthew. We're only interested to know who really did them.'

Matthew hesitated. He darted an unhappy glance at Mary, looked down at the carpet in front of him, and traced one of the patterns there with his toe.

'I did,' he told us, but then his resolution appeared to weaken. He qualified: 'I mean — sort of — well, I did do them ...'

He looked so miserable and contused that I was reluctant to press him further. It was Mary who came to his rescue. She put an arm round him.

'It doesn't really matter a bit, darling. It's just that we were so interested in them, we wanted to know.' She reached down and picked up a painting. 'This view. It's very clever. I think it's very good — but it's rather strange. Did it really look like that to you?'

Matthew stayed dumb for some seconds, then halfblurting he told her.

'I did do them, Mummy, really I did. Why they look sort of funny is because that's how Chocky sees things.'

He turned an anxious look on her, but Mary's face showed only interest.

"Tell us about it, darling,' she encouraged him.

Matthew looked relieved. He sighed.

'It happened one day after Art,' he explained. 'I don't seem to be much good at Art,' he added, regretfully. 'Miss Soames said what I had done was hopeless. And Chocky thought it was pretty bad, too. So I said I did try, but it never seemed to come out at all right, and Chocky said that was because I didn't look at things properly. So I said I didn't see what "properly" meant; you either see things, or you don't. And she said no, it wasn't like that because you can look at things without seeing them, if you don't do it properly. And we argued a bit about that because it didn't seem sensible.

'So in the end she said what about trying an experiment — me doing the drawing, and her doing the seeing? I didn't see how that could work, but she said she thought it was worth trying. So we did.

'I couldn't do it at first because I couldn't think of nothing. The first time you try it's awfully hard to think of nothing. You sort of keep on thinking of not thinking of anything, but that isn't the same at all, so it doesn't work. But that's what Chocky said: just sit and hold a pencil and think of nothing. I got pretty fed up with trying, but she kept on wanting to have another try. And, well about the fourth time we tried I half-managed it for a minute or two. After that it got easier, and then when we'd practised a bit more it got quite easy. So now I've only got to sit down with the paints and — well, sort of switch-off me, and the picture comes — only the way it comes is the way Chocky sees it, not the way I do.'

I could see Mary's fingers fidgeting, but her mask of impersonal interest remained unaltered. I said:

'I think I understand what you mean, Matthew. You sort of hand over to Chocky. But I should think that feels a bit funny, doesn't it?'

'Only the first time or two. Then I felt a bit like — well, no brakes. But after that it gets more like ...' He paused for some moments searching with furrowed brow for a simile. His expression cleared slightly, '... it gets more like riding a bicycle, no hands.' He frowned again, and amended: 'Only not quite, because it's Chocky doing the steering, not me — sort of difficult to explain,' he added apologetically.

I could appreciate that it would be. To give Mary some reassurance I asked:

'I suppose it doesn't ever happen when you don't want it to? By accident, I mean?'

Matthew shook his head emphatically.

'Oh no. I have to make it happen by thinking of nothing. Only now'- I don't have to keep on thinking of nothing all the time it's happening. The last few times I could watch my hands doing the pictures — so all the real doing them is mine. It's just the seeing what to do that isn't.'

'Yes, dear,' Mary said. 'We understand that, but ...' she hesitated, searching for a gentle way to make her point, '... but do you think it is a good thing to do?'

Matthew glanced at the pictures.

'I think so, Mummy. They're much better pictures than I do when they're all mine — even if they do look a bit funny,' he admitted candidly.

'That wasn't quite what I ...' Mary began. Then she changed her mind, and looked at the clock.

'It's getting late,' she said, with a glance at me.

'That's right. It is,' I backed her up. 'But just before you go, Matthew, have you shown these to anyone else?'

'Well, not really shown,' he said. 'Miss Soames came in one day, just after I'd done that one.' He pointed to the view of the play-ground through the window. 'She said whose was it, which was a bit awkward because I couldn't pretend it was anyone else's, so I had to say it was mine, and she looked at me, the way people do when they don't believe you. Then she looked at the picture, and then back again at me. "All right," she said, "let's see you do a — a racing car, at speed." So then I had to explain that I couldn't do things that I couldn't see — I meant that Chocky couldn't see for me, but I couldn't tell her that. And she looked at me hard again, and said: "Very well, what about the view through the other window?"

'So I turned the easel round, and did that. She took it off the board and stared at it for a long time, then she looked at me very queerly, and said did I mind if she kept it? I couldn't very well say I did, so I said no, and, please, could I go now? And she nodded, and went on staring at it.'

'It's funny she said nothing about it in your report,' I told him.

'Oh, it was right at the end of term; after reports,' he explained.