Coming Home

This story was written for the first assignment of my Open University creative writing course, for which I earned a distinction. Please feel free to comment.

Coming Home

by David Thorne

The street was much shorter than he remembered. The prim red bricked terraced houses had always seemed to stretch forever as he trudged home from school, hauling his satchel of brown paper wrapped books. There were a lot fewer cars then too. When he'd lived here not many people owned cars. Mr Rutter from number 52 had a Wolseley. Of course he could afford it, he was something important at the tank factory. He'd once taken the two families to Whitley Bay for the day. If he closed his eyes Tim could still recall the smell of the polished leather seats. Feel the overworked springs, as eight of them crammed into that tiny motor car. James hadn't been born yet, of course. They'd had ice creams that day. A rare treat back then, before wartime rationing came to an end.

The bitter October breeze curled around his legs, causing his cotton slacks to ripple and bulge. He pushed his hands deeper into his coat pockets and struck out towards the top of the street where the pit heap had loomed over the entire village. A four lane bypass cut through it now.

He played a game of trying to put the names of families to the numbers of houses as he approached the crossroads. Quite a few of the residents at this end of the street must have bought their homes. Some had put in upvc double glazing and doors, or hung pretentious name plaques. Most had unsightly satellite dishes fastened to the walls. Tim chided himself for thinking how common they looked. He paused at the corner where the shop belonging to Mr Lawson the butcher had stood. It was a combined tattoo and tanning parlour now.

A telephone box marked the spot where he had been knocked down by one of the Kelly boys on his bicycle. A rueful smile creased Tim’s lips at the thought of that wild haired figure whizzing around the pavement corner, scarecrow legs frozen out wide to avoid the flying pedals, bell ringing frantically.

'I've got no brakes!'

Then there was a blank. No recollection of pain, just the doctor putting the finishing touches to the plaster cast on his left ankle before ruffling his hair.

He reached number 67 and stared. The peeling, faded front door might have once been red, perhaps brown, he couldn’t tell. It might be the same one that had been there when he was a child. The lacy net curtains which his mother had washed and pressed religiously every fortnight long gone. He couldn't tell if there were even any curtains at all hanging at the grubby, sightless windows. Inside, the dull jaundiced glow of a naked lightbulb revealed stark magnolia walls. In the gloom he could make out a psychodelic poster of a marijuana leaf hung haphazardly over the chimney breast, one corner ripped away.

A tattered and bulging black refuse sack teetered on the top step, oozing the stench of rotting vegetation and soiled nappies. Tim covered his nose with a sleeve to prevent himself retching. His throat stiffened and ached as he pictured his mother on her knees scrubbing those stone steps. Hair tied up under an ever present headscarf, rheumatic hands raw from the icy water in the galvanised bucket at her side.

The door burst open with a shuddering crash that threatened to shake it from the hinges. For an instant Tim expected his father to step out in his thick woollen trousers and threadbare brown jacket, crisp white shirt, collar all freshly starched and ironed. How had his mother managed to keep those shirts so white? Every evening Dad would arrive home black with the grime of the coal face, and every morning Mam would send him out looking like he'd just stepped out of a Saville Row tailor. Well almost.

A shaven headed mountain of a man dressed in filthy denim jeans and black bomber jacket lurched out, accompanied by the sound a child howling.

'...and ye better shut that bairn up or I'll stot both your heeds off the wall', he roared. Tim caught a brief burst of a woman's harsh voice hurling abuse before the door once again slammed shut.

'What the fuck are ye gaupin at?' The man shouldered past Tim, knocking him into the gutter. His Pierre Cardin shoe avoided a fresh dog turd by a hair.

A smouldering tear percolating down his cheek, Tim crossed the street. Without looking back he walked towards his car.