School Run (42 page)

‘ParcelForce? Brilliant. I’ve been waiting for this.’
Squeeze. Squeeze. Up to the third floor and down, one by one. YES!
‘No, Bruce, you can’t open it – it’s my college stuff – but you can sign for it. Heavens, is that the time? I don’t suppose you’d like to drop off the children
en route
, would you? Don’t worry. Only joking.’

Tales from the Heart bonus stories

Enjoy these two short stories from Sophie King's short story collection
Tales from the Heart
, which is available now exclusively as an ebook.

No Presents Please

She saw it first! Before her father or any of the other families peering through old Mrs Moore’s frosty shop window, hoping to buy something cheap. Something practical too, of course, because there was a war on and there weren’t enough pennies for anything ‘frivolous’ as mother called it. That’s why Rebecca was there right now, her small gloved hand tightly wrapped inside Papa’s, not just because there was an autumn chill in the air that could seep right into your bones but because he’d taken to holding her hand very tightly ever since explaining he might have to go away.

Mother had sent them here while she packed. ‘You’ll need a new pair of shoes to keep you warm and dry,’ she’d sniffed because she’d had a bit of a cold ever since the news had come. ‘Better get there fast before everyone else does the same.’

Rebecca loved going to Mrs Moore’s shop. It sold everything! Shoes, saucepans, books and some things that were too odd to have a name, like this strange box with a picture of a flower carved into the top and a key that stuck out underneath.

‘What’s that Papa?’ she asked, rubbing a wider circle on the window with one of her gloved fingers so she could see more clearly.

‘It’s a music box,’ said Papa in the voice he used when he pointed out the stars in the sky at night. ‘Shall we go inside and ask Mrs Moore to show you how it works?’

His hand tightened around hers and nervously, Rebecca followed him in. Mrs Moore was like the toad she had once found at the bottom of the garden. All wrinkly and croaky! But today, she shook Papa’s hand and said that yes, of course Rebecca could open the music box right here on the counter – make sure you turn the key just the once or it will break! – while she found a pair of shoes for her father. Nice sturdy ones that would see the Germans off, no doubt about that.

Open the box! Fingers shaking, Rebecca lifted the lid and as she did so, a tune filled the air. Everyone else in the shop stopped chattering and stared. It was the same song that Papa played to her every year on the piano! Such a pure high sound like the little blackbird that had sung in their garden in the spring, begging for bread crusts that Mama said they couldn’t spare.

‘May we buy it?’ she begged. ‘Please!’

Papa looked down at the new pair of sturdy black shoes on his feet and shook his head regretfully. ‘We can’t have both. Not when there’s a war on.’

Sadly, she closed the lid as though saying goodbye to an old friend even though she and the music box had only just met.

‘You won’t beat the Germans with that,’ wheezed old Mrs Moore. And then she laughed, showing a big gap in her front teeth, and everyone else in the shop laughed too which made Rebecca feel rather silly.

Only Papa understood. ‘There’s a time for everything,’ he said, as they walked home with his new shoes, leaving the music box behind in the window. ‘And one day, my dear, you will understand.’

‘Anyone else you want to add to your list?’ asked the rather pretty girl on duty that day. At least, she would be pretty if she didn’t have that silver nose ring which must be terribly uncomfortable when she blew her nose!

Rebecca shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, dear, thank you very much.’ She’d spent weeks going through her faded and somewhat tattered red address book, compiling her guest list. At times, she’d wondered if she might be ‘called up’ before the invitations were sent out. But now there were only four weeks left and it looked as though, despite her gammy hip and intermittent pains in her head, she might get the Queen’s telegram after all. Incredible really! Especially when you thought of all the people she’d known and loved who had deserved to get this far but somehow hadn’t...

‘Are you sure about the ‘no presents’ bit?’ persisted the silver nose ringed girl worriedly.

‘Quite sure, thank you dear.’ Rebecca’s eyes grew misty, which was against the rules since she’d decided years ago, that it was pointless weeping for what had been and gone. ‘There’s nothing I need at my age.’

‘But is there anything you want?’ demanded the girl who was doing a part-time degree in sociology at the local college. Rebecca patted her hand, still smooth and unwrinkled, unlike her own which resembled a tortoise she had once owned.

‘Only things I can’t have,’ she replied softly.

‘Want to tell me about them?’ asked the girl gently.

Rebecca shook her head. ‘Not really dear. But I will tell you about the very first birthday present I remember. Might come in useful for that thesis of yours.’ She leaned back and closed her eyes in order to concentrate. ‘Now let me see. I was born in 1911 so it must have been in 1916. That’s right. I was five years old and my father had just received his papers...’

It was his smell she remembered. Coal tar soap her mother called it, in a voice that pretended she didn’t like it but that couldn’t be true because her parents had just had a big hug.

‘I’ll be back soon, my little princess,’ said her father in that lovely deep voice which told her stories every night. Wonderful magical stories about a boy called Peter Pan who could fly, just like Papa was going to fly big planes to teach the Germans a lesson.

Then he handed her a small brown parcel tied up with string, with her name on it, clearly printed in capital letters  – something she still couldn’t get right at school because her ‘bs’ just wouldn’t behave themselves! ‘Don’t open it yet,’ he said gently, watching her fingers itching to undo the string. ‘It’s for your birthday, just in case I’m not back in time.’

But her birthday wasn’t until nearly Christmas! ‘It might take me a long time to get home.’ Papa’s voice was strong and certain just like it was when he told her to hold his arm when they crossed the road in case one of those ‘new-fangled’ motorcars ran them over. Then her mother began to cough as though she had a fly in her throat again. Papa gave Mama another hug, although he didn’t give her a present which was probably why she looked so upset as he walked down the garden path, waving goodbye with that lovely cheery smile that always made her feel better if she fell over or couldn’t get those horrid ‘bs’ right.

‘Don’t worry, Mama,’ she said worriedly because the fly was still there. ‘You can share my birthday present if you like.’ Then her mother had wrapped her arms around her and they’d stood there for a few minutes until the clock on the mantelpiece chimed nine times and Mama suggested that she might like to do her piano practice while she had a little ‘lie down’.

That’s when it had happened. Even now, Rebecca shivered when she thought about it! She’d placed the birthday present that couldn’t be opened on top of the piano but as soon as she heard her mother going up the stairs, she stopped playing and picked up the brown paper parcel. First she shook it but rather disappointingly, there was no sound. Then she smelt it but all she could get was a sort of woody fragrance. Then finally, with trembling fingers, she untied the string to have a little peep. As she did so, a sharp thrill shot through her and she gasped out loud.

‘Rebecca!’ called out her mother from upstairs.’‘You’re not looking at your birthday present, are you?’

Her mouth went dry and her heart began to thump. ‘No, Mama. Of course not.’ But she had! It was the music box from Mrs Moore’s frosty shop window.

‘Are you sure?’ Mama’s voice floated down the stairs. ‘Because it’s bad luck to do it early!’

Another shiver shot through her; colder than the last. Bad luck? What did that mean? Five weeks later, the postman knocked with a telegram and then Rebecca knew, beyond doubt, exactly what bad luck meant. If she hadn’t unwrapped the parcel early, the Germans wouldn’t have knocked Papa’s plane out of the sky. And after that, or so it seemed, birthday presents never brought anything else but trouble.

You are warmly invited to attend a special birthday tea party...
Bex read and re-read the invitation which had dropped onto her mother’s beige hall carpet, together with a brown envelope and the words ‘Final Reminder’ peeping through the see-through window on the front. A special tea party! That meant that Gran, even though she’d sworn never to call her that again, must be a hundred! Had all that time really gone past since she’d seen her last? Part of Bex felt wobbly with regret, and the other part was still hurt and angry.

‘You ought to go,’ said her mother, glancing at the invitation. ‘Dad might be there and it would mean a lot to Gran. She can’t have long to go now.’

‘That’s blackmail, Mum! And I’ve told you. After what she did, I’m not going to any stupid family gathering.’ Bex could feel herself getting crosser and crosser inside just as she had done when Dad had left. ‘Besides, I don’t trust people who put ‘no presents please’. Isn’t that the whole point about birthdays?’

Only three weeks to go now until her party! ‘Are you getting excited?’ asked the pretty silver nose-ringed girl as she sat down beside her, to steady the coffee cup. Rebecca put her head to one side as she had done when Norman had asked her to marry him on her eighteenth birthday. ‘Yes and no,’ she said, which was exactly what she had said to him then. It was 1929 and they’d just returned from visiting a waxwork museum which had opened up the year before, called Madame Tussauds. She’d been wearing a pretty blue and white spotted dress, a hand-me-down from a cousin, and even now she could remember the satisfying swish of the silk above her ankles which, Norman confessed rather daringly, were the first thing he’d noticed when they’d met at her coming out dance.

‘Yes and no!’ he’d repeated, a slow smile spreading over his face. ‘That’s what I love about you, Rebecca. You’re not like any other girl.’

‘Just as long as you realise that!’ Over the years, Rebecca had built up an invisible armour as protection from the dreadful secret that she had hugged to herself; the certain knowledge that she’d been responsible for her father’s death.

‘While you decide whether you will marry me or not, you might care to open your birthday present!’ His eyes twinkled as he brought out a small parcel from his jacket pocket. Rebecca’s blood froze as it always did when someone gave her a gift. Not that there had been that many. After Papa had died, money had been tight and she and mother had relied on their uncle for support. ‘You open it for me,’ she said. ‘Please. My hands are too cold to undo that pretty ribbon.’

‘Very well!’ He chucked her playfully under the chin. ‘There we are. What do you think of that?’

Entranced, she stared at the diamond stone glinting in its box. It was beautiful! Really beautiful! At that moment, the door opened and her mother came into the room. She took one look at the ring and gave a little gasp. ‘Darling! Your father would have been so pleased!’

And then somehow, almost without Rebecca knowing how it happened, she found herself walking down the aisle with Norman some six months later, promising to love him for better or worse.

‘Changed your mind yet?’ Bex’s mother asked, nearly three weeks before the party was due to take place.

Bex looked up from the cooker where she was stirring a cheese sauce. She and mum took it in turns and tonight it was macaroni cheese. Nutritious and inexpensive. Her mother, who was looking a lot younger now she had started her new job and had begun wearing make up again, gave her a knowing glance. ‘You know perfectly well!’ Pulling up a chair, she sat down next to her. ‘You must miss her. You two were so close until...’

‘Please Mum.’ Bex gave the cheese sauce a vigorous stir so that it slopped over the side and hissed on the gas flame. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

And then the phone rang...

She was lucky, Rebecca told herself, examining the acceptances that were beginning to trickle in. She and Norman had been well-suited. In those days you worked hard at marriage, not like today.

‘Sounds like another story,’ prompted the girl with the silver nose earring.

You could say that again! Life wasn’t easy at that time. England was in a depression which had nothing to do with the weather girl on television. But they were ‘all right’, Norman had assured her. The bank would never go under. It was a big name. Secure. Not like the others. Mind you, he had added, they might not be able to afford the big family they’d always wanted. Just one baby perhaps.  Yet somehow, even one wasn’t happening. ‘It will happen when it’s ready,’ said her mother with a slight frown on her face.

Rebecca began to dread each birthday. Twenty four years of age and still she wasn’t expecting!

‘Perhaps we ought to see the doctor,’ suggested her husband after presenting her with a bottle of perfume and a pretty card. But they never got that far. The following month, when the ‘safe’ bank collapsed like all the others, her husband failed to come home. They said he had fallen out of a window at work but Rebecca wasn’t fooled. Norman was a good man but proud. Carefully, she placed the perfume bottle at the back of a drawer along with the matinee jackets she’d been secretly knitting and decided it was time she went out to work.