Snapshots
Originally published in the London Independent Short Story Prize: LISP
I’ve had this new hobby now for a few months. I go to car boot sales, charity shops, auction houses, anywhere people go to dump their old crap nobody wants anymore. I search through the rubble of their discarded past, their raggedy old stuffed toys, their board games with half the pieces missing, their coffee stained old books with dog ears on every page and dog bites on the hardback covers. There must be something about Dickens that’s nice to chew. I sort through the lot. Meticulously. Laboriously. But not at random.
See, I’m actually looking for something very specific. For whatever reason, people like to write on their stuff, or at least they did when people still used pens; they write their names, the date they bought the thing, and sometimes there are even little messages. “For Sally, with love, from Mum”, “Happy Christmas Richard, from Jude”, “Get well soon Billy xx”. This is my favourite kind of find. You can’t wash the ink off these things, you see, and you can’t wash off the feeling that produced the ink either. Those previous owners, they linger, in a way. So, when I buy, say, a ladybird picture book from 1998, I’m not just buying a bit of old tat, I’m buying my way into someone else’s life, someone else’s history. Makes me feel part of something bigger. Like religion, or patriotism. Not that I believe in that sort of thing.
Sometimes, I like to add a little something myself, before I pass it on. Way I see it, the little messages are like the start of a story, so I try to keep them going. Like that game we played at school, with all of us in a line, adding bits to the tale as we go. I don’t remember what that one’s called anymore. But it makes me wander. What if, for example, Richard liked his Christmas present, and what if he didn’t. Likewise, I don’t know if Billy ever got any better, and I don’t know how much Sally’s mum paid for that My Little Pony colouring book. Were they tight on money at the time? Was it a happy day anyway? It gets to me sometimes. The uncertainty. So, I carry on the tale: “Thanks Jude, hope you enjoyed the Christmas cake!”, “Don’t worry about me. When I’m better, we’ll all go to the park”, “Thanks for the colouring book mum, but I’m 25!” I don’t know why, but thinking that these stories can now continue, with me as a part of them, it makes the world feel a closer place.
Well, it did. I’ve stopped my little hobby now. I’m not sure if I’ll ever go to another car boot sale, or see another one of those little messages, ever again.
It began (or ended) in this antique shop in [scribbled out] just near [scribbled out]. Poky little place it was. If dust mites were customers, the place still wouldn’t pull a profit, as I’d imagine they’d have better taste, or just more sense. More than me anyway. The only reason I was even in there was because I’d just had some bad news, and more than ever I needed to feel a part of the world, share in other people’s lives, feel some presence other than my own. So, there I was. I browsed the shelves, the glass cabinets, the old knickknacks and curios. Nothing special, and not what I needed. The shopkeeper was a nice enough kid though, she’d recently taken over running the store from her dad, who had fallen ill. Nice of the girl to do that, to guard her father’s little kingdom for him, but she wasn’t much interested in the stock. Even if she had been, the place was so chocca block that I doubt she’d have been able to inventory even half of the junk all by herself.
Just as I was about to give up hope, I spied an old suitcase which was opened up like an oyster in the corner of one of the darker rooms at the back. I hadn’t noticed it when I’d done a sweep of the place and, come to think of it, I’m certain there hadn’t been anything like it there before at all. Anyway, I took a look inside. Well what pearls I did find. Photographs. Old ones. Dozens of them, maybe even hundreds. All black and white with a thick colourless border around the image. They ranged in size from about half the size of my palm to bigger than the span of my fingers. There were landscapes, from all around the world, of nature and great buildings. And there were people, oh, the people. Wonderous they were, all-in old-fashioned dress like they were in this gigantic elaborate costume party, and all doing these amazing things, these wonderful, ordinary things. A family, at the beach. A couple of school girls about to leave for their first day. A young lad kicking a ball around with his dad. A Mum, in her curlers and fluffy dressing gown, on Christmas morning. I couldn’t believe my luck then. The privilege of sharing those moments. I had the biggest family, and the widest circle of friends, in the world in those moments. The times I shared, the things I did, the places I went, all with a full bill of health. Fit as a schoolboy. Without a care in the world, with all my family around me. It was beautiful.
But then it got better.
I turned one of the photographs over, and there it was. A letter, delivered to me, here, from so many years ago, and from so far away. “Family trip to Blackpool. May 1929”. Nineteen twenty-nine. Spring. A family holiday. Blackpool. My heart ached. I felt the love of that day seep into my fingernails, swing along the hairs on my arm, fly through the dusty air into my nostrils. The sand. I felt it on my fingertips. The salt from the sea. I tasted it on my tongue. The waves, the children playing, the husband and wife laughing, I heard it all. I picked up another picture, and there was another message. “Tommy’s first football match, September 1936”. The leather of the football on my boot. The scent of the cut grass. The cheers from the side-lines. I picked up another. “Julian and Martha’s wedding day, April 1899”. The incense in the church. The suit I was wearing. The bells.
I picked up another. And another. Most detailed the place, the date, the occasion. Some were more. “Yours, always”, “My darling”, “I love you”. The last one I picked up, the last I would ever pick up, was an image of a little girl in hospital. She smiled at me from her bed, as her hair invaded the pillow behind her, and the needle spread into her arm, releasing some fluid from a bag suspended above her little head. I turned it over, and I sank. Nothing. There was nothing. I had nothing. I had been wrenched away from them all. Who was this girl? Was she not deserving of love? Like all the rest? Like everyone? Like me?
I felt into my jacket pocket and found, like I always did, my inscribed pen. I gripped it tightly and wielded its exposed point in my hand. I levelled it at the blank white space and wrote: “Get well soon. We can get through this together. Love, [scribbled]”. I felt relief in that moment. I felt peace, peace alike which I’d never felt before. They were all back with me again. We were all complete. I set the picture back down into the suitcase, but as I turned away to leave, I stopped dead in my tracks. I was frozen. Slowly, I turned back around and faced the suitcase. I picked up the picture, the last picture I had touched or ever will touch. My ink was still wet. I looked below what I had written and read, in a delicate, slanting cursive unlike my own, “Thankyou”.
I bought that photo right then. It was 10p. I knew then that it was the last of its kind that I would ever need. Then I went outside, back into the world, and walked to the hospital. When I found my room again, the room I had left so soon after my diagnosis, I saw them. They were all there, all standing in front of me. All together. They had tears in their eyes, but smiles on their faces, and they were all looking at me. Pretty as a picture, my friends, my family.