Bigger-Picture

Windows on the world

Short Stories & Other fiction

Black Bolly   
(first published at www.write-away.co.uk June 2000)
 

This is not how it is supposed to be.  My whole life should be passing before me, but all I'm getting are a few unconnected images.  Images from my life, all right, but what about the rest?  I mean ~ that first one, sitting in the garden, grand-children running about and laughing, looking across at Geoffrey's big ostentatious place, bar-b-queing steaks for all his golfing cronies.  Why should that come back to me?

Of course, if only I'd got that promotion I might have been able to afford that house myself, bid against Geoffrey at the auction.  And with a decent P.A. I would have had time to play golf.  As it is, they're the ones drinking beer and having a whale of a time, and I can't hear what they're talking about for those bloody children.

That image faded into the office.  Back in time, but it seemed quite natural somehow.  People told me how lucky I was to sit in that office, with my name on the desk: 'Branch Manager'.  But all I could think about was the office in town and a desk with 'Area Manager' on it.  "Next year" I kept telling myself, but next year never came.

Then the hospital.  Must be back again, because Melanie is giving birth.  What an experience that was!  "Here's your beautiful little girl" the doctor said.  "Someone to watch Neighbours instead of Match of the Day" I thought.  The scene changes are getting faster.  What's that place?  The Youth Club?  That's me, with my arm round Sarah.  Wonder what happened to her.  Chirpy little thing, even with a brace on her teeth.  And there's John with his hand up Gail's jumper, and Simon with that blonde - long legs, big bust.  Can't remember her name, but I remember being really pissed off because I never got to date anyone like that.

God, did I really look like that?  Short pants, short hair, on my knees in the school playground.  Playing marbles with Dennis.  He had a crew-cut and a posh accent, and lived in a semi-detached house.  Not that I noticed things like that in those days, but my mother did.  "Why don't you talk proper like 'im" she used to shout at me in our scruffy back-to-back terrace house.  Anyway, Dennis had a marble that was envied by all ~ big, black, heavy.  'Black Bolly' we called it.  He always beat me with it, and I really wanted it.  I got it in the end, as well. Swapped him fifty coloured glass marbles for Black Bolly.  It was weeks before he agreed to it; ten minutes before he won it back off me.

Forward, now.  The familiar sick room, the familiar pain.  Is that it?  The meaning of life reduced to Black Bolly? I suppose I should have made the most of what I'd got.  My bag of marbles was one of the biggest in the entire Infants' School.  But what's that got to do with the rest of my life?

© Harvey Tordoff 
May 2000

~~~<>~~~

A review of  Black Bolly

This poem gathers pace gradually making you feel more at home with the author.

As you get the hang of spinning back through his life you realise that all the incidents may be pointless, but it makes a great story.  We see how the author wishes he was Simon and then Dennis, both times hoping for size!  

It is a great lesson to us that each incident is seen, and written, so vividly we can feel the significance it had at the time.  The big bag of life's experiences we never get to exchange for Black Bolly, just for the hospital bed.  Savour them as you have them and keep their memories - thanks Harvey!

Paul Fox
9.8.00