Open Writing

"You're always under my feet," Mrs Munro complains. "Why don't you take the dog for a walk and come back when it's tea-time?"

Mr Munro is not a happy man. He feels unloved and unwanted. His children are all grown up and very busy, so he hardly ever sees them. His wife is accustomed to him being at work and having the house to herself. She finds it hard getting used to him being there all day long, now that he's been forcibly retired.

"What shall I do?'' he thinks to himself as he clips the leash to Fergus's collar. "I can't keep mowing the lawn.'' Fergus looks up expectantly. He knows what he wants to do.

Mr Munro and Fergus walk slowly down the street. Some little kids are on their way back to school after lunch. He nods and smiles to them, but they're in too much of a hurry to notice.

"You unemployed?" the boy demands.

Mr Munro has bought a newspaper. He sits down for a brief rest on a bench outside the store. The boy, who would be about 9 or 10, is already sitting there, kicking his feet about in the gravel and playing with a yo-yo.

"Well, I am in a way," Mr Munro smiles. "I was made redundant."

"Okay. Well then, what are you doing? Taking the dog for a walk?"

"You're full of questions." Mr Munro looks at the boy. "Tell me, shouldn't you be at school?" He glances at his watch. "Or have they let you out early?"

"I wagged off, didn't I. Felt like a bit of a change." The boy continues to scuff his shoes in the gravel. "Do you live round here? I haven't seen you before."

Mr Munro sighs. Then, oh well, why not? He tells the boy about the job he has just left.

The boy sits there, listening intently. "You coming to our school?" he says, suddenly. "We get people to tell us about their lives and what it was like when they were kids. Then we do a project. It's called local history."

Mr Munro looks down at the gravel. The boy has stopped making lines with his shoes. "I 'm not sure I'd want to do that," he says to the boy.

"Okay." The boy gets up and turns to go. "Well, see ya then."

* *

"Well, thank you for coming, Mr Munro. How are you?"

The teacher-librarian, Irene Ramsden, hands Mr Munro a cup of tea. She reminds him of the friendly receptionist at his old place of work. Knew everyone. Knew their hang-ups. Knew how to talk to older members of staff. He liked that kind of sensitivity.

"Now, Mr Munro," Irene continues. "Have your tea. Then I want you to feel free to have a look at the library. I think it'll surprise you."

Mr Munro finishes his tea and begins to wander through the library. There's colour everywhere. Books of all shapes and sizes fight for his attention. His gaze is caught by a large polar bear on a poster. Then he sees a small group of books that seem familiar. He picks one out. Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales and Legends. He opens the book and smiles in recognition. There's a colourfully-illustrated picture of a beautiful white swan, admiring its reflection in a mill-pond. There once was an ugly duckling, its feathers all stubby and brown, he sings quietly to himself, recalling the old Danny Kaye 78.

* *

Mr Munro sits on a chair under a tree in the school yard. It's a sunny spring day. The kids in the boy's grade sit cross-legged in the soft warm sand and wait.

"It was an ordinary sort of childhood," he begins, hesitantly. He doesn't know how to tell his story. He isn't sure what to put in and what to leave out. He looks round at the group and takes a deep breath. "Well, I had a father and a mother. Pause. We lived in a small house. Pause. And when I left school I got a job . . . "

He sees their faces mask over with boredom. Already?

"Tell us a story, mister. A real story."

Mr Munro squints into the sun at the source of this suggestion. A girl, looking up expectantly. He glances at Mrs Ramsden. She smiles, shrugs her shoulders.

"There were once five-and-twenty tin-soldiers," he begins, confidently. "All brothers, for they had been made out of an old tin spoon."

© Alan Wheatley