Lyndon Mallet

Shy Lyndon Mallet

SHY. Synopsis. An adolescent schoolboy on holiday with his parents strikes up a friendship with an 88-year-old woman. The mutual attraction is undeniable, probably because they are both the wrong age for the party. Cy - Cyril Morrison - is awkward in grown-up company. Fraulein Schmidt - who lived through WW2 - has seen everything. She teases him by calling him 'her little gigolo'. The phrase impresses Cy, who decides that a gigolo is exactly what he wants to be when he grows up - whatever that means. Disillusioned with school life, Cy runs away from home in search of his old lady, who lives hundreds of miles away in another country. As a missing person, he becomes the focus of a police search, but on the road he learns to look after himself, sleeping rough, stealing when necessary and relying on the protection of people he meets along the way. The story follows his adventures, the despair of his parents and the efforts of various agencies looking for him. In the three years he is on the run he takes a variety of casual jobs, absorbing a lesson from each new encounter. When he finally reaches Fraulein Schmidt, she is horrified at what he has done and insists he contact his parents. Cy now has to face the consequences of his actions, come to terms with the damage he has done to his own family and adjust to the reunion when they come to take him home. After a period of adjustment he enrolls on a journalism course at a local college. Full of extravagant stories about his travels, he finds his fellow students regard him as a cocky line-shooter. Confused by their rejection, he feels that three years of self-sufficiency must have given him insights they couldn't match, until it's pointed out to him that his experiences came at a price. Thus subdued, he is forced to recognize that self-interest is not the way to enlightenment.