Shades of the Prison-House

The glossy postcard from Australia depicted a lazy-looking town of empty roads, deserted pavements, and rows of identical little houses, each within a small square garden. To Simon Platt’s eye, it looked like a place for old-age pensioners and their fat constipated dogs. He flipped the card over and re-read his father’s short ‘miss-you mate’ message which was almost identical to the one he’d received a few weeks ago.

Simon’s mother, Sylvia was exasperated at his disdain for their plans, “Your father says every day is like a summer Sunday. It’s a very nice and quiet place, not like our England nowadays. He says we’ll have our own place, a bungalow with its very own garden and off-street parking”.

For Simon, no, it did not sound nice at all, conjuring up in his mind the prospect of sitting around at home, bored stiff, watching cricket games on a black and white TV, or worse yet, dressing up in scratchy clothes and visiting old people in homes that smelled of boiled cabbage and mothballs. “Nice and quiet” was precisely what he did not want. He wanted to live in a noisy colorful place filled with people of all sorts living topsy-turvy in a big jumbled up confusing mess.

“Your father says it’s just a matter of days now” said Sylvia, “meanwhile, why don’t we do something exciting? How about we go for a walk and get you a good book to read?” she suggested, plucking his library card out of her handbag, and presenting it to him, “don’t lose it”.

At the door of the small flat, Simon pulled on the yellow anorak they’d bought at a church jumble sale, and his mother buttoned up her tartan wool overcoat. They set off for the park.

“Simon, please get out of the gutter”, said Sylvia, “We don’t want you tripping into traffic like you did the other day”. The “other day” was months ago. Simon thought this reputation for clumsiness was unjustified, but complaining only made the idea stick in his mother’s head. “And mind you don’t trip on tree roots; they’re pushing up everywhere” she said. Dark unseen perils were apparently concealed in everyday things and threatened to upend an otherwise bright and brisk autumn morning. “Don’t get too far ahead”, she called out to Simon.

Later that morning, on the way back from the library, retracing their route through the park, Simon and his mother happened upon Mrs. Cokely, the hair stylist, who was tarted up like she was going out for a night on the town: her mascara was a hot mess, and her face was blotchy. Loitering nearby stood her son David, primary school bully and neighborhood menace, a football tucked under his arm.

“Hello Linda, funny seeing you on a Saturday morning. Have you got a day off from Kay’s salon?” asked Sylvia.

“Not really, Mrs. Platt”, said Linda, grabbing a handkerchief from her pocket and wiping her nose, “it’s me old man, Jimmy. Drunk and disorderly, again”, she said, sounding a bit slurry herself, “He’s being held at the Wood Green Police Station ‘til he’s sobered up proper”. 

Sylvia waived Simon away, “Go play with Linda’s son for a while, will you, dear?” and the two women sat down on a nearby park bench. Sylvia gave Linda one of those awkward side-on hugs, and in no time, they were yakking away.

David Cokely had cropped hair, a chipped front tooth, and he looked mean and hard, as if Simon was an insult to his senses. He wore a dark blue Harrington jacket, faded Levi jeans, and the latest Adidas training shoes, which contrasted with Simon’s bargain-basket clothes and the stupid anorak. David scowled at Simon, hawked a loogie, and spat it at the ground between them.  “Do I know you?”, asked David Cokely, as if forcing an errant jigsaw piece into the wrong puzzle. He dropped the ball and fizzed it at Simon on the half-volley, and it skidded past the smaller boy, who ran after it, eager to impress. “Fuck me, you’re a clumsy sod”, said David.

“My name is Simon Platt and we’re in the same year at Haselbury”, said Simon, hoofing optimistically at the ball with his left foot; it bobbled along for a few yards, then rolled to a halt without reaching David.

“Did you say Prat?”, sniggered David unpleasantly. “You’re one of those quiet gits what sneaks around the corridors licking the walls, aren't you?” Simon wasn’t sure what he meant. “Try again, Prat”, David kicked the ball which bounced off Simon’s shin, and spun off past him again.  “You got any money, Prat?”

“I’ve got a little bit, not much, my dad’s not living with us at the moment”.

David’s tone changed, “Is your dad in trouble with the law too?”, he asked. There seemed to be a small spark of mutual understanding in the question that Simon did not want to extinguish with the truth, so he said nothing. David picked up the ball and beckoned Simon to follow him back to the park bench. “You’re a Spurs supporter, right?”, asked David. Simon nodded, another lie.

“Me and Prat, we’re going to Rawlinson’s. We’ll be back in fifteen minutes”, he announced to the two ladies, whose conversation seemed to have petered out. Simon stood behind him, trying to look like he didn’t really care, but his heart was beating hard in anticipation.

“Oh, no. I don’t think so”, said Mrs. Platt, “Simon’s only ten, he’s too young to go into town without an adult”.

David looked disgusted and Simon looked embarrassed, but then Mrs. Cokely interjected. "Nonsense, Sylvia. I think it’s good for them, teaches independence, you know”. She flicked her cigarette butt into the grass.

“Oh, I don’t know about that at all”, said Mrs. Platt, eyeing the difference in height between the two ten-year-old boys, “Simon’s not very mature for his age”. Simon visibly wilted.

“Don’t worry Mrs. Prat”, said David, “me and Simon will be okay. We’re only going to the sweet shop, and we’ll be back in a jiff”, he dropped the ball, placed his hand on the shoulder of the smaller boy and squeezed tightly, “I promise I’ll look after your boy”, and before she could object, he yanked Simon off in the direction of town.

Simon felt superhuman next to this big fearless kid. “Thanks for letting me tag along, Davey” said Simon, as they walked to the North side of the park.

“For fuck’s sake, don’t call me Davey, and don’t you fucking dare tell anyone at school that we hung out. I will break your nuts, Prat”.

The traffic on the busy High Street was moving fast in both directions and the roar of a big red bus disorientated Simon, who hesitated at the curb. David shouted, “come on, wanker”, and ran across the road spurring David to follow a second later, but he only got halfway across and froze at the divider line as speeding vehicles rushed at him from both directions, whooshing front and behind. A van braked sharply and honked. Simon ran to the safety of the far curb. David looked at him as if he were an insect, turned, and walked on ahead. 

When they reached Rawlinson Confectionery, the two boys stood outside evaluating the window display which was crammed with cheap plastic toys, out-of-date wall calendars, and stationary supplies that were bleached and faded owing to constant exposure to the sun. “How much cash have you got?”, asked David.

“I don’t have any money on me” apologized Simon, “I didn’t bring any with me cos I was with my mum”, he sounded nearly tearful.

“Fuck! You’re a useless twat, aren’t you? I thought you said you had some money?” David looked like he would belt Simon right there and then on the crowded pavement, but decided instead to improvise, “we’re going to nick some stuff, so just copy what I do, right?” David jostled Simon into the store before the smaller boy could object.

Sweets of every kind were laid out in a giant tray on the counter. A psychedelic starburst of gums and boiled sweets, a kaleidoscopic sparkle of foil-wrapped chocolates spread in front of Simon like treasures beneath the surface of the ocean, drawing him forward against his will until he thought he might fall in and drown. 

The shopkeeper, Mr. Dickson, was a lanky, sullen, balding man with a permanent pout that suggested petulance and irritation. Customers, half a dozen or so, were browsing around, including a grizzly old man in a dark overcoat standing next to the magazine rack, and a tubby young woman who was pointing at jars that lined the shelves behind the counter. “And I’ll take two ounces of nonpareils, a mix of black jacks, wine gums and pear drop. I’ve only got twenty pence”, she said.

Mr. Dickson tut-tutted and fussed around with the jars with his back turned to his customers. David sidled up to the left side of the counter, nearest the window, next to the man in the overcoat who was flicking through the hobby journals but actually peeking at the dirty magazines at the top of the rack. David’s eyes darted around as he shuffled random candies into his jacket sleeve, then stepped back from the counter and spilled the plunder into his pocket. He gave Simon an intense glare, urging him on. 

Simon's gaze fell upon a basket of lustrous chocolate crème eggs.

“And some lemon sherbet”, said the tubby lady, and as Mr. Dickson turned back to grab an overhead glass jar, Simon clawed at the basket of foil-wrapped chocolate eggs, which each slid easily into the crook of his sleeve, and that’s when Mr. Dickson, turned on him. “Oy! Stop that now, you thieving little bugger!”, he shouted, startling the other shoppers. Fueled by a surge of adrenaline, Simon ran to the door, vaguely aware of open mouths, horrified faces. Green, purple, and yellow eggs fell from his sleeve, thudded on the wood floor. Mr. Dickson started to move around the counter toward him. “You little fucker, you are going to pay for this”, he growled.

Meanwhile, David opened the shop door, darted outside and started legging it toward the park. Simon escaped behind him and ran like hell, zigzagging between the morning shoppers, skirting the gaggle of smoking men outside the betting shop, he flew past the railway station and toward the receding figure of David.  He dare not look back, but if he had done so, he would have seen Mr. Dickson hobbling along on his one good leg, pointing at the fleeing boy, and shouting at the top of his lungs, “Stop, thief”, but Simon couldn’t see anything but the narrowing tunnel of safety in front of him, couldn’t hear anything except a pounding in his ears. There was no space for thought, only the raw fear of being caught, and the burgeoning nucleus of permanent shame and regret that would lodge in his heart, and fester there forever.

In the relative safety of the park, Simon tried to suppress the sobbing, which triggered hiccups and desperate gasps for breath. It was therefore in a distressed state that he stumbled into the presence of his mother, who rushed to him, scooped him up like a toddler, carried him to the bench, and sat him on her lap, checking for bumps and bruises while he wailed away, tears flowing, snot bubbling from his flaring nostrils. And it was under cover of this dramatic lament that Simon’s febrile mind found sanctuary of a sort in a hastily concocted and incoherent story consisting of partial truths and fabrications, which he delivered in breathless incomplete sentences, and in which he depicted himself in Dickensian terms of victimhood, exploitation, and injustice.

Until now a passive observer, Linda Cokely rose from the bench, aggrieved at the way in which her son, Davey, was being portrayed by this weepy, pathetic child and the uncritical reception to it by the over-indulgent mother. She flicked another cigarette butt into the grass, picked up David’s abandoned football and muttered something about “needing to grow up”. As she walked away, Linda Cokely's face suddenly as hardened and mean as that of her son.

Simon and his mother walked home, Simon was twitchy, jumpy, half expecting Mr. Dickson to leap out of an alleyway, or for a police car to screech to a halt alongside them, or - worse still - a vindictive David Cokely to appear from around a corner, bruising for a fight.

Mrs. Pratt opened the front door with her key, and Simon jumped in ahead of her. “I still don’t understand what happened?” she said, but she was deterred from further inquiry by another bout of sobbing. They hung their coats up in the hallway. “Well, you’d best sit down, I’ll make a cup of tea”, she soothed, handing him the library book, Oliver Twist, which he placed on the hall stand next to the glossy postcard from “nice and quiet” Townsville, Queensland.

“Ooh, by the way, you’d better give me back your library card”, she said from the kitchen.

David rooted around in the right pocket of his yellow anorak, but the card was gone, probably lying on the floor at Rawlinson’s, he guessed, or already in the possession of the police. He reached into the other pocket and touched something unexpected, that made his face flush hot. Hidden behind the folds of his mother's coat, he furtively examined the chocolate egg, which glistened in its colorful foil like a poisonous fruit. 

“Do they still send convicts to Australia?”, he asked. slipping the pilfered object back into his jacket pocket.