Open Writing

I remember Pamela. In our first year of school she sat at the desk in front of me. Her bright blue eyes dazzled me. Her mother always plaited her long, blonde hair into twin pigtails tied with ribbons. I would try to dip the tips into the ink well. She would toss them out of reach, ribbons flying. Red and pink, yellow and green, and sky blue, a different colour for each day. She wore light, summer dresses and buckled, patent leather shoes with short white socks. We where friends but when the next school year began she wasn’t there.

Rosemary was the first girl I kissed. We were seated together on the bus for the end of school excursion. We held hands in secret but when I leaned over to kiss her on the lips on the way home, everyone on the bus caught us. Rosemary blushed and turned to hide her face. We went to different high schools and I never saw her again.

I remember Rob. He was my best friend in High school. He and I and Tom were the three musketeers. Rob was dating girls long before anyone else. I thought he could teach me how to be with girls. Tom was very tall: he only ever wanted to be a policeman. It was all he talked about but when he found out that if he joined up his mother would lose her pension he didn’t even apply. I was rejected because I was too short. I was so relieved, how could I have faced Tom in my uniform? When school ended we took three separate paths.

My mother rode off to work one day on her black bicycle with 'sit up and beg' handle bars. It was a day just like any other, I thought. When I came home for lunch to find the front door locked our neighbour saw me and took me into her house. My father came home then and he never comes home at lunchtime. He told me that my mother would not be coming back again. When I asked him where she was he said he didn’t know, maybe heaven. I asked if I could go there too, he didn’t answer.

My grandmother came to look after us after my mother’s accident. She told me the man driving the truck had not seen her riding the bicycle. She told me he was probably very sorry for what he had done. I did not ride my own bike for a long time. My mother had taught me to ride. Gran was a marvellous cook. She baked huge, hollow Yorkshire puddings and little cakes with raisins. You could eat both with butter and jam. I can still smell her baking from the kitchen but she’s not there. They put here in a nursing home after grandfather died. They pulled down the house where they had lived all those years and where I was born.

Where is my father? I recall he was here only yesterday fixing the washing machine, showing me how to change the bands that spin the bowl. So I would see how it was done and be able to do it myself next time. My hand slipped when I tried to help and he shouted at me. We both know I won’t be able to fix the machine when it breaks again, so why does he keep shouting at me when I make mistakes? I still see his shadow whenever I go walking in the sun.

I remember them—they remember me?

© Derek Smith