The Gift of Storytelling

The beauty of the tiny corner of the town was lost on most modern-day citizens. So many were lost in their own worlds, glued to social media, stuck in their own bubble of Twitter of Facebook, hungrily scrolling through Instagram the very second they didn’t need to concentrate on the world around them. Whether a five-minute wait at the bus stop, or an hour to kill waiting for a friend... the younger generations of the day simply lacked the mental resilience to enjoy being disconnected from the Internet.  

It was no surprise, then, that so few of them ventured east, outside the city ring, to where the birds still made nests, and where foxes and rabbits roamed freely. Even the seasons in that small little corner seemed to move independently of the city – springs were delightfully pastel-coloured, summers bright and vibrant, autumns varied in their red and orange hues, and winters were mini-wonderlands.  

Down one particular old street, silence reigned as it always did. A narrow thoroughfare, stuck in the time long-forgotten, cobbles neatly-laid, dating back to a time where only the sounds of horses’ hooves and the shouts of ‘Good day!’ from the neighbours polluted the air. Today, the air was quiet, only the sounds of local wildlife, because there were no main roads carrying umpteen cars to unknown destinations. The birds wheeled happily in the sky, gossiping in the trees. Foxes curled up in shady corners, waiting for dusk when they’d go scavenging berries and slugs. Trees creaked and swayed in the gentle summer breeze... the only mechanical sound came from a single open window in one of the cottages, the only sign of human life.  

Tic-tic-tic-tic – brrrrrrrrr-ping! 

Down the lane, a solitary figure walked. His hands in his pockets, a smile on his face as the sun bathed him in a healing glow. The light shone off his richly-orange locks, which bounced as he walked. He paused as he approached the low wall of the garden which the open cottage window overlooked.  

Tic-tictic-tic-tic-tic-tic – brrrrrrrrr-ping! 

The man rolled his eyes and smiled. Eschewing the closed gate and path, he hopped over the low wall, landing just shy of the edge of the somewhat unkempt flowerbeds. The grass needed a cut, and the flowerbeds weeding, but that wasn’t a job he knew his friend would do. He could see the hunched-over figure of his friend in the window, the curve of his back dictating the terrible posture he regularly had when lost in a world of his own. He didn’t need to bother knocking; the door wouldn’t be locked. No-one ever locked the doors around there.  

Stepping into the cool interior of the cottage, he looked around. The walls were covered in portraits, some sketched, others photographs, of beautiful people. The odd watercolour landscape permeated the swathes of humanity, providing a brief respite from the gazing, often stern looks of relatives long-dead. A grandfather clock which stood imposingly at the end of the hallway tick-tocked its way towards midday.  

Tic-tic-tic-tictic-tic-tic – brrrrrrrrr-ping!  

A tap in the kitchen dripped every now and again. An annoyance to most, but a welcome sound in such a setting. The house was otherwise silent. The man moved into the small study to his left, and smiled.  

“Bear with me, Tristan.”  

“James.” The man, Tristan, moved into the kitchen and set his bag down. He’d brought sandwiches, some fruit, and a bit of cake from his mother. He kept the sleek, thin laptop in his bag, though. That was for later. He plated up the food and put it into the fridge for the time being. “Tea?” he called. “Never mind!” he noticed the freshly-made jug of iced tea in the fridge. An American concept, for sure, but somehow it made those humid summer days a little more bearable.  

Tic-tic-tic-tic – brrrrrrrrr-ping! 

It was pointless trying to speak to James Harrington when he was writing. Tristan poured himself a small glass of iced tea, leaning against the counter top. He heard a final ‘ping’ from the study and the shuffle of papers, and made his way back in. “Good story?” 

“Of course,” James smiled, his eyes lighting up as they usually did. He leaned back and stretched his body out of the curve he’d been slumped in. “How are you?”  

“Doing well. How about you?”  

“I’m well.” James stood and stretched again. His button-up shirt was baggy, made, Tristan noted, of creased linen. The way his hair held the ridges created by repeatedly running his fingers through it reminded Tristan of James’ beloved Rupert Brooke. Tristan voice these thoughts.  

“You know, you could always just go all the way and change your name to Rupert Brooke.”  

James chuckled and shook his head. “What do you mean?” 

“Come off it! Every time I see you, it’s like staring at a picture of him. The hair, the clothes, the bloody type-writer!” Tristan felt himself laughing. “Do you have any idea how obsolete those things actually are now?!”  

“Clearly not very, seeing as mine has worked since the sixties.”  

“Yes, and since the sixties, we’ve had a lot of technological advances, mate.” Tristan wandered through the cottage to the kitchen. “I’ve brought some food for us. Figured we could sit outside and have a picnic and discuss the latest chapter. Molly made them, of course. And she baked you some lemon cake.”  

“She’s an angel,” James grinned. He returned to the study while Tristan took care of the food, and returned with a leather folder of papers. “How is she?”  

“Oh, she’s coping. Although she finally admitted she’s getting too big now to be making bread at six in the morning. She’s really missing her running, too. I feel awful for her.” Tristan referred to his wife, who was expecting their first child. James laid a blanket out on the soft grass of the back garden, and threw his leather folder down.  

“Poor thing,” he replied, going back to the kitchen to fetch drinks. Molly was often a sore point for James. He’d once been in a relationship with her years ago, when he’d met Tristan in sixth form. When they’d moved up to University, all three of them attending Lincoln College in Oxford, Molly and James had naturally broken up; James’ English Language and Literature course hadn’t coincided so nicely with Tristan’s Law course, nor with Molly’s Biomedical sciences course. The three of them retained their friendship, though, and Tristan and Molly had ended up gravitating naturally together. James, however, had been happy for them to become a couple. He had, in any case, had found a new love in the Creative Writing and Classics society, where he spent a disproportionate amount of time proclaiming his love for Rupert Brooke rather than actually writing for himself. It had been Molly who’d reminded him of his love for writing, and who’d supported him through his first highly-successful novel. But Molly’s now-mature heart was firmly Tristan’s. Seven years after they’d graduated, they married, and another four years later, at the age of 33, they were expecting their first child. James, by contrast, was still married to his fictional worlds, with barely any time to find a kindred spirit he could love.   

When James returned outdoors, Tristan had already started on the folder of papers. The neat lines of text already had him hooked, the pencil in his hand resting against his thigh. Tristan’s role in James’ novels had been pivotal to James’ success. Tristan had a keen eye for detail – which was why he was an excellent barrister – and therefore spotted mistakes and plot holes in James’ work, as well as grammar and spelling errors. The only issue was the fact that James still lived in the Stone Age, and Tristan’s MacBook was neglected until the final write-up by Tristan himself.  

“What do you think?” James asked, after a couple of minutes of silence too long. Tristan circled something in, and shook his head.  

More time passed. The sounds of the world around them were a welcome reprieve. James and Tristan lived vastly different lives. Tristan turned the final page and read the last paragraph of what had turned out to be four chapters and the end of the book. James had been awake early with the sunrise. James was perhaps the most healthy-minded person of their generation.  

“Well?” James asked, plucking a grape from the vine Molly had packed for them both.  

“It’s astounding, as always,” Tristan smiled. “Good arc, fits well with the start of the book. A really nice ending, actually. I’m impressed.” He pulled out his MacBook and opened it. “Just a shame I now have to spend fifty years typing it up into a publishable format.” 

“Tristan, the ways of the past were perhaps far healthier than they are today.” 

“Meaning?” Tristan didn’t look up.  

“Meaning, the world seems to pivot itself around social media -” James shuddered imperceptibly “- and what the latest trend is. The latest thing is mental health. Why is it so hard to disconnect every now and again? I went into the city the other day, actually -” 

“Oh my god, you mean you left the perimeter of Little Golding?” Tristan laughed, mocking him. James smiled and rolled his eyes. “Now, the four-wheeled things are called ‘cars’.” 

“You’re rotten. I actually took a bus. That’s what got me thinking about it, actually. I was on the bus, and I realised that most people on it needed a form of entertainment. I wondered actually how many of them have ever been alone with their thoughts? How many write without distractions of the internet? How many read books without looking at their phones?”  

“Not many people get to live in an idyllic cottage, built God knows when, which they don’t need to pay for, with enough money coming in from royalties from an excellent and successful book series, mate. Most people commit suicide because of the endless problems they have with rent payments alone. Not many people can afford the time you can to type a fucking novel on a typewriter!”  

“I appreciate that,” James began, but Tristan cut him off.  

“See, I don’t think you do. But I admire that you still keep this up because most people haven’t got a clue what a typewriter even is nowadays, outside of what they see on Call the Midwife or those flashbacks to the forties in Captain America. The fact that you manage to do all this on a typewriter is amazing, but it’s a huge pain in the arse!” Tristan typed in his password and loaded up a new Word document in the folder he kept for this book. “And honestly, I’m not sure how efficient my editing skills are going to be when Molly has the baby. She’s only got another month, mate.”  

“I know,” James said quietly. “It’s my hobby too, though, Tristan. I love the permanent nature of mistakes when they’re instantly on paper.” 

“Well, I think you maybe need to keep that for specific things... maybe that non-fiction thing Oxford Uni Press asked you to write? That would be a really nice touch if those letters were in typewriter format. It’s an admirable skill to have, but come on... every book you’ve written...”  

“Well,” James murmured. “Technology replaces everything eventually. But I don’t have to accept that.” 

“James, your phone is still literally from the fucking Victorian era.” Tristan despised the contraption James held dear – a landline attached to something straight out of Downton Abbey. You actually had to hold the earpiece and the mouthpiece separately! “And no WiFi connection? Really?” 

“I have data,” James muttered.  

“I know you do, and I know that’s alright for you. But you need to plan for the future.” Tristan batted the sheaf of neatly-typed pages. “This is not the future you can sustain when I am a father. I can assure you of that.”  

“Alright then,” James growled. He stood. Tristan, for a moment, as James stalked into the house, thought he’d upset his friend a bit too far. But when James returned with a strange-looking case in his hands, Tristan felt his heart swell. “I know you think I’m a technophobe, but I already knew you wouldn’t be able to handle my books and a newborn. So...” he opened the case and slid out a thin laptop. Not the Apple MacBook Tristan had, but a similar model and obviously brand new.  

“Oh my god, he’s finally joining the rest of us!” Tristan laughed. James shook his head.  

“Shut it,” he said, grinning. “I’ll type that up myself. I still like having paper copies of my first drafts, though. It won’t stop me. I like seeing where I was before you get your teeth into editing it.”  

“I’ve no doubt it won’t. I’m just so proud of you for finally stepping fully into the twenty-first century!” 

Four years later, James stepped off the bus and made his way along the beautiful suburban street towards the detached house Tristan called home. There were already the sounds of play coming from the garden, a child laughing, a woman crying out lovingly. Birds chirped a little louder, and the distant sound of cars provided a gentle humming backdrop to the nature James himself preferred. James eschewed the front door and made his way along the side of the house, through the unlocked back gate. He stood and watched for a bit, aware that Tristan and Molly would have heard him coming. Little Lucien, however, was lost in his mother’s game of chase.  

“Bear with me, James,” Tristan murmured, scanning through a document on his laptop screen. After a moment, he realised James wasn’t remotely interested in what he was doing. Suddenly - 

“UNCLE JAMES!” The cry sounded out, and the little boy ran full-pelt at James’ knees. James swept him up and cuddled him.  

“Hello, little man! Look how big you are! My goodness, you’re bigger and bigger every time I see you!” Little Lucien beamed from ear to ear.  

“It is my birthday!”  

“Is it your birthday today?!” James asked, shocked. “No!” 

“My birthday! I am four!” Lucien grinned.  

“No. No, I don’t believe that for one second! You can’t be four already!” 

“Come now, Lucien, let Uncle James put you down.” Tristan closed the lid of his laptop and palmed his eyes. Molly came over, too.  

“Hello, James,” she smiled, letting him kiss her cheek.  

“Molly, you look lovely,” James smiled. He turned to Tristan. “You, on the other hand, look beaten up and done in.”  

“Child molesting case,” Tristan muttered. James gave him a sympathetic look. “I hate working on his birthday but the hearing is next week and I want to make sure he goes away for a long, long time.” James nodded.  

“I understand. Don’t worry about it, I won’t stay late.” He smiled, putting Lucien down. “But, I have a surprise for this little monster! IT should have been delivered today.”  

“Yeah, we’ve been wondering what the hell that huge parcel is.” Molly gave him a look. Neither of them could have guessed.  

“Well, I had to order it in my name otherwise you’d have opened it before I got here,” James grinned. “And I didn’t want to miss the looks on your faces.”  

“Please don’t tell us you got him a drum kit,” Tristan groaned. At 37, he was looking more and more handsome yet stressed. Still, he smiled.  

“Absolutely not,” James laughed. “Something better.”  

“Alright, it’s through here. Come on, Lucien, let’s go and see what Uncle James has bought you for your birthday!”  

The family moved inside, James checking his sleek new smartphone for the text he’d heard. His long-term partner, Rosie, had sent him a photo from her working trip in France. Missing you, it said. He fired a quick one back. Missing you more! Call you tonight. Lucien was sitting politely on the floor beside the large box as Molly opened it up with a pair of scissors. Another box was inside, gift-wrapped in a lovely cloud-print paper, tied with a white bow. Molly lifted it out and groaned at the weight of the thing. The dead giveaway for what the gift was lay at the bottom of the box, but Molly didn’t notice it.  

Lucien pulled the paper off, and frowned. “What it is, mama?”  

“Oh, you absolute tool,” Tristan hissed, but he found himself grinning. “You are not turning my child into a copy of you!”  

“It’s a typewriter,” James grinned, pulling a face at Tristan. “It’s so that you can write stories and they’re immediately published. Your papa told me you love telling stories. Well, now you can write them all by yourself and share them with your friends, like I do.”  

“I will be just like my Uncle James?” Lucien stroked the keys and smiled fondly.  

“Exactly!” James grinned. Molly had noticed the package of paper at the bottom. Each page had been embossed at the top with ‘Lucien P Smith’, a nice touch. “The gift of storytelling. Happy birthday, Lucien.”