A couple of years later, when I was about eight or nine, I was still following my older brother around like a puppy (see Joy of the Tomboy) and he seemed to have got into some altercation with some boys I didn’t recognize and they didn’t seem to be local.
There was also something very serious and grown up about them. They seemed much older than us. They were after my brother for some reason and were not happy. I’m not sure what he’d done, or if he’d done anything or why they were so angry. When I looked around, my brother was gone from my side, he’d disappeared and I was left with five menacing boys, who, after being unable to find my brother, set their sights on me instead and were glowering darkly at me as one force. One of them said ‘That’s his sister.’ Another ordered, in a sinister whisper, while never taking his eyes from mine, ‘Get her.’
My intuitive and instinctive senses told me I was in danger. I don’t think I even waited for them to start running, I was already off down the hill and had passed the park by the time they started coming after me. The thing that sticks in my mind the most is the speed I seemed to be running. I was running like the wind but I could hear them so close behind me, I could hear their feet pounding on
the concrete flags, their flailing arms and hands flicking and brushing against mine as they ran. I could feel their breath on my neck. The blood was pounding in my head. My heart was thumping as if it would burst. I knew I could not let them get me. The entrance to the park was about two hundred yards from my
home. I didn’t have that far to go, so I suppose it was a quick spurt kind of thing. I don’t think I’ve ever ran like that before or since. I sped up the path to my house, got to the front door and when I looked back, the boys had done a U-turn and were gone. I’d outran all five boys. I’d reached a place where they couldn’t
follow. I’d reached sanctuary. I felt such relief. The joy of escape I’ll never forget. Whatever they were going to do, I don’t want to know and I’m glad I didn’t find out because I ran for my life. I’d been in survival mode. It’s not often we escape by the skin of our teeth. It seems that is one of those things you only see in movies and there were so many times before then and after then when I
didn’t escape, or couldn’t escape and that seems to be most people’s reality. But this was one time, just this one wonderful time, I did escape and because of that it really sticks in my memory. And we need to remember those times when we did escape and celebrate them. Needless to say, that was the moment I
stopped following my big brother around.
Tag: Nostalgia in Waves Volume Two
The Golden Scales
When I was twenty, many, many years ago, I waited for a while at the bus stop to get the bus to take me to my theatre training course (the buses were every hour and I never could quite time it right)
The bus stop was by a factory which was surrounded by deep and wild undergrowth, trees and bushes. While I stood there, I spotted some tiny golden scales in between the netted wire and the undergrowth. That evening when I got home, I casually mentioned the scales to my
dad. I’d captured his imagination and
before I knew it, under cover of darkness, (6p.m) me and he were at that
bus stop in question and busy fishing out these cute little
golden scales from underneath the netting/wire. I can’t remember
how exactly we got them out from the entanglement of all the weeds and thorns and wire but we did.
Jubilant, we took them home. My dad secreted the
special golden trinket into his wardrobe and that is where they
stayed, for a time. I thought maybe we
should at least have joint custody. Although, to be honest, he was
the one who took the time, effort and trouble to get them out from
behind that netting and by the time he got them home I think I’d
lost interest, or decided I should just let my dad keep his latest
favourite thing. He was more obsessed with them than I was.
I happened to mention the delightful scales to a colleague at the theatre training course and he told me that scales of that description were used by
drug dealers to measure out drugs. He had in his youth dabbled in drugs, so he knew about these things.
I casually mentioned this to my dad that evening.
The next day, when I passed by the kitchen, I saw him sitting on the linoleum
floor, newspaper spread underneath him. He was hacking away furiously at the Golden Scales with a manual saw.
Later on in the week, he casually told me that he’d managed to
break up the beautiful Golden Scales into tiny pieces and had put
each piece into a separate bin bag. He said this with the air of a
Drugs Baron who had got away with the execution of a major
international drugs haul, and that as long as he lay low for a
while, he might be okay.
I wished at that point that I’d kept the discovery of The
Golden Scales to myself. After all, they were probably just brass.
Things In My Head 