For our second week’s assignment we were asked to write about a gift.
“A gift is given. However, it is not immediately appreciated (or perhaps understood) by the recipient?A third party sees the value in the gift and shows this negatively (perhaps they are jealous, or want to steal it)” [Thanks to Emma for recording this]
After writing a bit of slapstick for the first week’s assignment I decided to go for something different and more affecting (I hope) for this piece.
The Gift
It’s late August, early 70s. The sun is shining and the shop windows in town are full of ?Back to School? signs. Robert and me are walking either side of my mum. We are both excited. I’m excited because I’m going to start school in a few weeks; Robert because mum is going to buy him some new school clothes for when he goes up to Juniors this year
Robert doesn’t have a mum, or a dad. My mum taught him when he started at Boulton Road School, and when she found out he was on his own she asked if he’d like to visit us at weekends.
We go to Clark’s and get to put our feet in the giant measuring machine that squishes right up to your toes. Then to Marks and Spencers for knickers and socks. Next we’re onto Oasis market where, next to a hot dog stand oozing out the smell of fried onions, we each get a duffel coat. Charcoal grey with toggles and great big hoods.
Last stop is Midland Ed for a pack of coloured pencils each. Robert beams a great big smile at me and performs a victory lap around the stationary aisle, waving his pencils over his head.
The next afternoon, towards dusk, we take Robert back to his latest house. It’s a big place just off Primrose Hill. I try to count the number of windows on all of its four floors, but I’m too slow. We walk into a smell of disinfectant and damp children. A boy comes out and sees Robert with his presents and I see Robert open his Clark’s bag wide so the other boy can see his new shoes.
The house is quiet. The hall is enormous and has its own fish pond set in rockery. It even has a waterfall, and there is a soothing, tinkling sound all the time we are there.
I think that Robert is really lucky to live in such a magical place.
I don’t remember what happened next. I know that I didn’t see Robert for a long time after that weekend. Apparently we went to call for him for the next four Saturdays but were told that he had gone out with some other children, although one time dad said he’d seen Robert’s duffel coat hanging up in the hall.
The last time we went we were told that he’d moved. The owner said he didn’t know where Robert had gone to. Mum said he stared at her really hard when he said it. Frightened her a little, she said. After that Robert didn’t go to mum’s school anymore. Change of house, change of school.
It must have been five years later that we found Robert again. Another visit, this time at night, to a large, unfriendly building at the end of a dark pot holed road. Walking through the drizzle behind my parents I splashed unenthusistically in a puddle. Neither turned round.
The building was half admin block, half residential unit and me and my brother had to sit out in the cavernous reception area while mum and dad went in to see Robert. Once the doors closed behind them we were left alone. It was dark outside, with just a pool of yellow light around the front door.
Nervously, we played on a full sized snooker table while we waited, although we struggled to reach and didn’t really know the rules. It wasn’t long before our parents came out, dad shrugged and we left.
Despite that snooker table, this place didn’t feel magical.
Another seven years and Robert turns up one day, out of the blue. He draws a sketch of me in charcoal and talks to us about Bob Marley and Ras Tafari. He tells us about Adams Hill. About the owner’s lad who was given his shoes, his coat, even his bloody coloured pencils. How on Saturdays after that he was taken out or locked up in the loft; told that he’d been naughty and that he wasn’t going out with us that weekend.
Finally, the accusations came. Somebody had urinated in the fish pond and the owner’s son started calling him ?Bo-bby Piss-stain?, until he snapped. And so, conveniently for them, he left the home; without his gifts from us but with a new label, marked trouble.
He reassured us that from the loft he’d seen us come and go on those Saturdays. It was important to him that we knew he didn’t think we’d let him down, although by then, it really didn’t feel that way to us.