THANKS BE TO UNCLE
In the late winter early spring of that year I was visiting my parents who lived in a house in a small town looking across the valley of the old town. There were two churches in the old town and you could see the tops of the two churches from the window of my parents’ house. There was a stream leading down from the house through the valley to the old town. The stream was lined with trees. Hazelnut trees mainly. The trunks of the trees were dusty from the crusty leaves that had fallen in the winter. The new leaves on the trees had grown early that year and a slight breeze rustled the green leaves.
He lay flat on the brown ground alongside the stream. He was surrounded by the dusty trunks of the hazelnut trees and he was swiping his feet through the old brown leaves on the ground. The ground where he lay sloped gently. It was a kind of bank just up from the stream which flowed on into the old town where the churches were.
The rain had stopped as I turned the bend and saw him lying there on the bank next to the stream. I could just make him out through all the leafy trees. I was wearing an overcoat. The overcoat was thick and grey. It was warm too and I needed it for the cold. The cold weather had surprised me. I’d expected it to be a lot warmer now spring had arrived.
He looked different to when I last saw him. Three and half years ago he was already very skinny and looked old, with his wrinkled and tired skin, his bald head with white hairs above his ears, and his hunched over back. But now, as he stood up when he saw me approaching, he looked close to death. He didn’t only look tired in his face but he looked tired of life. When he stood up, he struggled to balance and leant against the trunk of one of the trees to steady himself. I think he wanted to run but age prevented him.
He wasn’t old. Maybe sixty-five he was now but boy did he look old. His wrinkled face was now pale and purple at the same time. His puckered nose was worn out from a life of whiskey and he was really very skinny and his clothes swamped him and his posture was defeated.
‘Hi Uncle,’ I shouted.
‘Alright?’ he replied as though he didn’t like talking.
He wasn’t looking at me in the eyes. He had this habit of looking to the side and twisting his face away from you when he spoke to you.
‘What you doing out here?’ I asked him.
‘I fancied some fresh air,’ he told me.
‘It’s a little bit chilly to be lying on the ground isn’t it?’
‘I suppose it is a little cold yeah.’ He scratched the side of his head where the white hairs still grew ever so thinly. ‘I better be getting back anyhow,’ he went on, ‘Charlie’s on his own at home.’
Charlie was his dog and he was the only thing which gave uncle purpose.
‘I’ll walk with you,’ I said, ‘I need to come up to yours.’
We arrived at his house which was just the other side of the valley to the old town. It was the opposite side to where my parents lived. His house was a flat really. A first floor flat. The steps up to his front door were steep and dangerous. Uncle had already had two accidents on those steps. The accidents were why he wasn’t quite there in the head. At the top of the steps there was a new light which turned on when it sensed movement after dark. My parents had installed it for him a couple of weeks ago he told me.
Inside the house was tidy. All the furniture was stuff my parents had given him. It was all okay really and I was surprised. Charlie was locked away in uncle’s bedroom to the left as we went in and I could hear him scratching at the door. My parents had told me Charlie was badly behaved and my uncle let him get away with murder.
He took me into the spare room. The spare room was damp and cold and I grew a little nervous. There was a double bed which uncle hated and a wardrobe in one corner and a small table in the other corner. The window was moist and the wooden windowsill looked rotten. Beneath the table was where my boxes were.
I’d taken the boxes there three years ago before I’d left. I went over to them. There were five boxes. Three were plastic and two were cardboard boxes. It was the cardboard ones I was worried about with all this damp in the back room. The room was north facing and never got any sun. I opened the cardboard boxes slowly. I was relieved. Everything was okay. I had a quick look inside but it wasn’t there. Then I opened the three large plastic boxes in turn, calmly searching each one until I found it. And there it was. Three years I’d waited. It was purple. Across the River and into the Trees.
