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Friday, March 03, 2006

No Return - Part 5

(Intro
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4)

A street light caught the blanket around my waist. It had slipped, and was sticking out under my coat. It was bright white. So much for dressing in black.

I didn't want to go. I felt... I don't know. A longing for something. A connection. I didn't want to let go. Didn't want to say goodbye. Wanted... something to happen. Something to feel.

Most of the wall which bordered the quadrangle had been dismantled, but there was one small section left, in exactly the right place. I had such a clear memory of it. This is where I stood, at the age of five. This was the vantage point from which I had gazed over at the junior side. "When I'm big," I had thought. "When I'm nine years old, I'll be all grown up, and I won't understand. I won't believe that I loved Richard Abbey. But I do. I really really do."

Here I was. Big. Growed up.

I crouched down so my head peeped over the top of the impossibly small wall. I gazed across at the junior side. And remembered. And understood. And was faithful to that small stubborn child, who never dreamt herself here, in this future place, thirty years hence.

It was all so unbearably sad.

Eventually I left. Reluctantly.

As I climbed back over the fence, I saw a man wobbling along the opposite pavement on his bike. He stared at me. I moved casually to my car and got in. As though I had every right to be doing what I was doing. As though it was no big deal. I started the engine, and he crossed in front of me and peered in. And looked at my number plate.

I drove around the corner, then stopped and took out pen and paper. It all felt so important. I couldn't lose it to the incompetence of poor old memory.

Fifteen minutes later, I turned the key in the ignition again, checked the mirrors, saw the blue flashing light...

The policeman pulled alongside and wound down his window. I did likewise.

He looked at me questioningly. I tried to think of a lie. I've never been any good at lying under pressure. I crack, and tell the truth. Like the time when my parents asked about the small black triangle on my top, and I told them it meant I was a lesbian.

"I was just..."

"Are you all right"?

"Oh. Yes. I'm fine. Thank you. I was just..."

"You haven't broken down?"

"No. I was just, er, I just had to write something down."

"OK then, we were just checking."

"Oh! No, I'm fine! Thankyou! Bye! Thankyou very much!"

The rest of the journey home was spent pondering on the weirdness of it all.

And wanting to go back. Wishing I could go back.



On the back of a letter from the headmaster, a letter picked up from the toilet floor, a letter reminding parents about cycling proficiency lessons, I wrote tiny crammed up notes.




The very last thing I wrote?

I WANT TO GO BACK.

 

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