2. Playground Grief

REMEMBERING THE FORGOTTEN THINGS (2)

“Make yourself comfortable,” invited Professor Dingle, “this might take me some time to tell you properly.

It was still raining outside, so “take your time,” I invited him.

“I will,” he nodded, sipping his coffee. “Let me outline a memory I’ve had for donkey’s years.”

“Say on,” I murmured.

“There’s me, sitting on a stone kerb in the school playground aged about seven or maybe eight,” he began, “a pathetic little boy, head in hands and crying softly to himself. The teacher, a matronly and kindly woman called Mrs Appleton, comes up to me and asks me what’s wrong, and I can’t tell her, so she goes away. That’s it. That’s the memory. Simple as that. But it’s there in my head, always has been, and I wanted to look more closely at what might have been going on in my head all those years ago.”

“And you did?”

“I sat in that chair,” he nodded, “and switched it on. Now before I go any further let me stress that it’s not a time machine. I can’t go back and meddle with the past, though I did discover one little thing. I might be able to send a tendril of my thought from the me of today to the mind of the me of then. Just a nudge, maybe, a hint, a suggestion, nothing that’s likely to change history. At least, not public history, though it is possible in a small way to modify your own history, working on the supposition that the least of nudges can have long-lasting consequences.”

“I get that,” I told him.

“So I sat in that chair with the gubbins inside it switched on, and brought the recollection of the me of that distant day to the front of my mind. And there it was, all fuzzy with age and forgetfulness, but the chair was doing its work. The picture in my mind began clearing so beautifully I wish I could have videoed it so that I could relive it time and time again, but I couldn’t because I’ve no idea how to. I was sitting there, though, of course, and as I closed my eyes I couldn’t see much more than the hem of my grey school shorts and my knees! But I could see the rest of the playground, and there were faces, long forgotten, boys and girls, running or skipping or playing or gathered in small groups examining this or that little treasure like young kids do.”

“I know,” I said, “rather wonderful play times.”

He nodded. “But we only remember the best and the worst,” he said, almost sadly, “there are lots of other more mundane play times that are probably gone for good in the chaos of forgetfulness.

“Anyway, I was crying, and suddenly, over the chasm of time, I found out, or rather was reminded, why.”

“That must have been something,” I commented.

“I saw the teacher, Mrs Appleton, a matronly and rather motherly woman as seen suddenly through my older eyes with seventy odd years of experience behind them. And she came up to me, a look of compassionate love on her face. That’s what it looked like, yet I was just a child out of many in her class and running like beasts around her in the playground, and to complete the impression she had a tail of three little girls all of whom wanted to clutch her hand or even hold on to her rather voluminous skirt!”

“That’s little girls for you, all over,” I agreed.

He smiled at me. “I know,” he said, “that experience in the chair brought an awful lot of detail like that back into sharp focus. But back to my story.

“’What’s making you upset, Josiah?’ she asked me, and I felt myself trying to withdraw into myself.

“‘Nothing miss,” I replied, but I knew what it was, just couldn’t put it into words. Mum at home was sick and I’ve overheard my father discussing her health with the doctor, who had sai something along the lines of give her a week or two and I had immediately assumed that within a week or two I wouldn’t have a mother any more. I knew back then about death and coffins and graveyards. I suppose most kids pick an awful lot up by the time they’re half way through their first decade!”

“True enough,” I agreed, “even quite young kids can be very perceptive.”

“Exactly. And I’d whispered to Mrs Appleton that there was nothing wrong! And in that memory that was the whole scene over and done with, leaving me to sit quietly and cry. Mrs Appleton looked at me through he big kindly eyes but I guess she thought there was nothing she could to help an upset child who, after the manner of upset children would probably be running and jumping with his friends before you could say goose!”

“Funny thing to want to say, is goose,” I quipped.

He grinned at me. “I guess I was a funny sort of kid,” he told me. “Now listen.

“The me of his seventies, the me who was horrified of what he’d seen his little self refuse to face up to, used a reverse circuit I’d constructed and hoped would work (though I had no proof at the time that it would) and tried to send a tendril of my thoughts down the years to a weeping little me, and, lo and behold, it worked.”

“You could communicate with your little self?” I asked, hardly believing it.

He nodded. “I know it seems impossible, but I found that I could, though not communicate exactly. I was the child. We were the same person, remember,” he said, “and therein lies the magic of it!”

I nodded, not quite sure what to think.

“I found myself to be the child that was me,” he whispered, “after all, we had the same brain albeit mine was old and wrinkled and the one that I’ll call, for the sake of clarity, his, was young and flexible. That’s how it seemed, any way. And I could see, suddenly, with huge clarity the sorrow of a boy believing his mother to be fatally ill. But I knew better because I attended that good woman’s funeral many years later and knew via the gift of fresher memories that she’d probably had nothing worse than flu and the doctor had been saying how long she might be in bed before she was up and well. So as Mrs Appleton came up to me and asked me what was wrong and why I was upset, instead of saying ‘nothing, miss’, I said ‘my mum’s poorly’.

“And that was all. The arrival of an older mind, the same basic brain and intelligence, but geriatric, had changed two words into three.”

“Not earth shattering,” I commented.

He shook his head. “probably not,” he said, “and most likely the great swathe of time after then was unaffected, but Mrs Appleton must have known something because she reached out and took me by one hand so that I had to stand up, and said ‘look here, Josiah, come and talk to Ricky Weston. His mother’s been poorly and even been to hospital for an operation, but she’d much better now and he’ll tell you what it’s been like.’

“And that, really, was that. I was taken to where Ricky was playing on his own, and Mrs Appleton said something quietly to him, something I couldn’t hear but that made him put one arm round my shoulder and walk away, across the play ground, with him.”

“That was decent of her,” I said.

“And may or may not have happened had I not sent those three words from now to then,” he sighed, “who can tell? Anyway, my mum recovered, was healthy for years to come, and Ricky and I remained friends from that day onwards.”

“And all because you gave your little self a nudge from today?” I murmured.

“Who can tell? We may have formed the same friendship without that nudge because I genuinely believe the only meddling you can do to the past is so insignificant it has no long lasting consequences. The past is over, done with, the dead past.”

“Yet you gave yourself the strength to say three words to your teacher,” I pointed out.

“And start a life-long friendship with young then old Ricky,” he said sadly. “You see, Ricky died, well stricken with age, about a year ago, and when the rain stops I’m going to the cemetery to bid him one of the regular farewells that I do. He became a bit of a cranky old man, and many said he was a bit on the odd side, but he and I were always the friends we started out as. We looked out for each other and even now that he is gone I believe I look out for him still.”

“And all that courtesy of your chair,” I murmured.

“Indeed it is,” he smiled, “and I’m wondering if you’ve got any faded memories you want to bring back to life? You in your rather florid shorts would make quite an impression on the unfolding drapes of time!”

I grinned at him. I liked my shorts! But there had been a time when I’d worn school grey shorts, rather horrible things when they got wet in freezing rain, and something, a tag from yesterday, entered my mind.

“Maybe,” I said, “if you don’t mind...”

© Peter Rogerson 09.06.20