My Baby Brother Runs Away From Me and I Chase Him Laughing and Falling Over in the Grass

Like a reel of film playing in my mind, it just goes on and on. It seems to be in sequence but not everything is showing on screen.

I’m back to being a little girl and my whole life is before me – like a story book where only the first few pages have been read.

I had a good childhood.

My baby brother runs away from me and I chase him laughing and falling over in the grass. “Come on you two” mother shouts “tea time” and I pick myself up, grab Tommy by the arm and we go inside the house. The aroma of dinner makes me feel really hungry and after washing my hands I sit down at the table.

Tommy sits next to me and across from us is Aunty Julie. At the head of the table sits my father, tall, distinguished looking with a rather big moustache. His teeth are white and as he smiles at me they stand out against his tanned face.

“How was your day at school?” he asks me and I tell him all about it while he listens looking interested, as good dad’s would.

“Well it sounds as if you had a great day Lizzie, and tomorrow you have an excursion to look forward to. What a lucky girl you are?”

By now dinner had been served and mum sat down at the opposite end of the table to my dad. “Ok my turn to say Grace” she said to us and then recited a few words of thanks for all we had.

Tommy loved his food but every night at the dinner table he got told off for eating too fast, shovelling his food into his mouth, and making too much of a mess on the table – tonight was no exception. “Honestly Tommy” mum said in exasperation “You would think you hadn’t eaten for a week. For goodness sake slow down”. Her tone was meant to be cross but she was just too soft!

He looked over at me and I winked at him as if to say “Never mind Tommy, you must be used to it by now!”

Meal times were quite fun in my house because Dad always had some sort of quiz going and we always ended up laughing -  usually at Aunt Julie’s expense as she was quite deaf and never really understood her question fully.

Every Saturday night when we were children we had a ‘treat night’ and we were allowed to go to the local deli in the afternoon and choose a bag of sweets so that when we were watching a movie on television after dinner we could sit curled up on the couch and crunch away. Tommy would have chosen ‘Dumbo’ the movie every Saturday if we had let him, but we didn’t!

In my mind’s eye I’m standing and looking at our house - a semi-detached brick place -  red with white mortar in between them with matching tiles on top of the roof. The television ariels in the early days were really big and some of the black crows must have thought it was a bird stand. Now and then in the middle of a television programme the tv would go all fuzzy, dad would race outside to shoo the birds away muttering ‘bloody birds’!

The back garden was really big and dad had made a tree house for Tommy and me to play in. He had patiently cut all the logs with a hand saw and for a long time everyone got shown the scars from all the blisters he had got! He was a great dad. I thought of how many hours had I spent with friends getting out the tiny cups and saucers and having tea parties with all of our dolls – the milk was water, the tea was water, and the sugar was sand, but we all raised our tiny cups to our lips and told each other what a lovely cup of tea it was.

At some stage I considered myself far too grown up for that sort of play and would just go and sit up in the cubby and read a book. Looking out of the window you could see for miles, green fields with horses and cows grazing heads down. Hearing a heard a noise they would look up and around, and then get back to the task at hand.

I could see down into the back lane, and watch Mr. Pilcher one of our neighbours working in his garden or just relaxing in a garden seat with his cup of tea, paper and cigarette! His wife would call out to him “Jack, where are you?” and he would quickly stub out his cigarette and waft the air around him with the newspaper to hide the smell of smoke. But it never worked. “Smoking again I see” his wife would say.

I loved just sitting in the cubby house, it was peaceful and nobody bothered you, except when Tommy realised where I was and up he would come, demanding I play some sort of game with him, and spoiling the quiet! I would yell at him and then feel bad knowing he was just a little boy.

I think he knew how much I loved him - As he got older we laughed a lot together, played tricks on each other and then usually ended up arguing! Even when he moved away in his early twenties we would ring and chat and then meet up for a drink. Should I have told him more just how much I loved him? I remember when he passed away in his late twenties, and at the funeral I realised it was too late to change anything.

The years were passing quickly in my thoughts, or so it seemed, but they lingered at when I went to high school. We still lived in the same house. The cubby house was almost never used, except if the little girls from next door came over to visit. Dad had put up a netball post for me and made a mini cricket pitch for Tommy, where he would play for hours with his friends, then come inside all sweaty and smelly, hungry and thirsty - still eating his food too fast and making a mess!

My mind pauses at when I was fourteen and Aunt Julia died. She was really my mum’s aunt, so quite old when she went, but that didn’t stop us from missing her presence in the house, her comforting hugs just when you needed one or her generosity at birthdays and Christmas. The bedroom she had occupied for quite a few years stayed empty until mum thought the time was right to turn it into a craft room…..Oh the craft room…..

I could see and hear mum, animated and enthusiastic, teaching me different crafts. I recall feeling pretty pleased with myself at learning how to crochet but when I got told to stop by family and friends as they had nowhere else to put another place mat or toilet roll doll -  I knew it was time to give it up and find something else to do!

My thoughts were interrupted by loud beeping noises had started to pierce the quiet room and people were talking, quietly, whispering. I tried to open my eyes, not sure if I had or not as it was still dark. Then the voices began to fade away, the whispers turned to silence and I seemed to float back to the film of my life story.

 I was starting University. I felt grown up and very independent, and maybe a little scared. The day before I was due to leave home for the boarding house I sat staring out of the cubby window at the rain drops falling down from the sky. The branches from the huge tree in front of me were weighed down with the heaviness of the water. It was chilly outside and I watched as a bird tried to find shelter under the eve of our shed, shaking its feathers as it squeezed itself in. “I’ll miss this” I could hear myself saying out loud and feeling quite sad at that moment, but it was a long time ago.

I could see my car packed up with enough food and ‘things I might need’ as if I was never coming back. We all had tight hugs, and big tears from mum.  I backed out of the drive way in my heavily laden car and drove off. Tommy pressed something into my hand as I got into my seat and as I was driving down the road I remembered, so opened it up. It was a Saint Christopher pendant in a little box sitting on some soft cotton wool. It didn’t look new, but wherever he got it from, I knew it would always mean a lot to me.

I’m in my car, still dented on the passenger side of the door, driving home from University for the holidays – I had always missed my family and looked forward to seeing them each time, and it felt as if I had never left home. My bedroom was always the same and nothing else had ever changed in the house. The purple quilt on my bed looked faded, and each time it seemed smaller but I could still have a comfortable sleep in it. The soft breeze would blow the lace curtains in and out of the windows, my mobiles that I hung paper figures from whizzed around in a frenzy, the little people getting tangled and twisted with each other.

My parents always looked a bit older and Tommy always looked a lot taller. My dad still had quizzes at the dinner table and he was quite surprised at what his grown up children actually knew!

The last lot of holidays before graduation I had decided to clear out my bedroom and sort through all of the toys, books and rubbish that I had packed away in boxes at the bottom of the wardrobe. The one thing I couldn’t give away was the tea set. I hadn’t washed it very well before putting it away as some on the tiny cups had sand in them, the sugar!

I thought then that if I ever had a little girl she would love it like I did.

The silence seemed loud; a buzzing sound like a swarm of bees had descended into wherever I was. With an indescribable sensation I was all of a sudden conscious of the chain around my neck and could feel the little round Saint Christopher medallion on it. It felt reassuring. I had no fear. I felt that I wasn’t alone, even though I didn’t know who the people were in the room with me were.  I didn’t have the energy to find out and a part of me didn’t care to know.

On every journey I had been on since Tommy gave me the medallion, it had kept me safe. I always came home.

Once when I had lost it after swimming in a hotel pool I just wanted to pack my bags and go home straightaway. Tommy had passed away a few months earlier and I felt as if I was letting him down by losing it. The pool staff had searched everywhere but to no avail. I remember feeling empty and sad each time I touched my neck and realised it wasn’t there anymore.

Just as I was leaving and paying at the front desk, I looked down on to the lower desk to see my St Christopher on its chain just sitting there. “I think that’s my necklace” I blurted out almost reaching over and grabbing it. The girl on the desk handed it to me and I looked on the back of the medallion. There inscribed was the date Tommy had given it to me which I had gotten engraved. The receptionist told me it had been handed in just that morning by the pool attendant. It felt as if I was complete once again.

The beeping noise returned again and now there was a kind of ‘whooshing’ sound too. I felt chilly but didn’t seem able to move my arms to pull any covers up to warm me. One of my eyes opened a tiny slit and I saw yellow light but the heaviness was too much and I must have shut it again as darkness folded in.

I don’t know how long I lay in the dark but my mind seemed to switch on again – and there I was in my beautiful white dress and standing next to me, tall and handsome was Lindsay. His hair was very dark and shiny. As he turned to me I held out my left hand and he slipped a simple gold band onto my left finger.

He was twirling me around the dance floor and the lemon dress I had changed into floated all around me and as I spun around you could hear laughter, happy loud voices and the clinking of glasses. Our faces were close and I smelt his aftershave, spicy and sweet. When his dark brown eyes looked into mine they melded together and we were one. His soft red lips mouthed the words ‘I Love You’ and I mouthed it back to him. I wanted to touch his face, the soft smooth cheeks. But I couldn’t move my arm. I was trying to, desperate to feel his skin as I remembered it but just gave up.

Then HER face came into view and I tried to call out ‘witch, husband stealer, marriage wrecker’. Her dark red flowing hair was close to me, I could smell the perfume, the same fragrance that I smelt in my house. She had taken the love of my life, the only man I had ever been with.

I could never have children. They had two children together, one big happy family.

I could feel my body stiffening, tense and jerking. Sensing urgency in the room I tried to move but couldn’t.  I floated off again but to nothingness, no time, no thoughts.

The movie is coming to an end as I touch the flowers. They feel soft and delicate on my skin, white and fragile. I’m kneeling down in front of their grave. Mum and Dad. He went first and less than a week later Mum passed, so they got buried together. I knew it was from a broken heart – being together for over sixty years and still in love til the end. Now that was true love. That’s how I thought I would be with Lindsay. I could have been if it wasn’t for her.

‘Please don’t finish my movie yet…I need to see what my children would have looked like if I was able to have any. Tall and dark like their dad , and handsome too? Lindsay was so handsome. I wanted a girl and a boy. She would have had my eyes, blue, and blonde hair. I can never picture them though; never see them.

There’s that noise, beeping, rushing…..what’s happening? I can’t breathe.

“CLEAR” is all I can hear – loud.

“Clear” again, softer this time. I feel nothing. Am I supposed to?

Then a “clear’ that is hardly audible and some mumblings.

I don’t know what that was all about but I am up and standing now. No more lying around for me.

I see a beautiful sky, blue, purple with a tinge of pink. I feel a cool breeze all around me and it blows through my hair.

I look straight ahead to the horizon, a new beginning awaits me. The green fields meet the sky and I wait for a few seconds scanning, and then I see them. Through my tears I can make out four figures coming towards me. Running to me with outstretched arms are my parents, Tommy and my Aunty. I feel for my Saint Christopher and know I am home.