I have always had a fear of losing or damaging new things. A sense of guilt when wearing a new coat, a deep distress when my camera went wrong. When I was 10 I bought my first pair of trainers. They were from Woolworths. I liked that bit of the shop, the smell of the rubber plimsolls, the bright colours of the more expensive shoes. Plimsolls were for school, for kids. Trainers were for boys, like big wheeled bikes, hideaways and gangs.
The grip was superb- big and chunky. I climbed up the clothes poles until I could reach the top. I had never managed that before, I could jump higher, due to the extra bounce, I suppose.
We had driven to the car-park at the top. It was that time, about mid-August, when it seems like it’s ages since you were at school and it’s getting boring, but you know all too soon that you’re going to want to start the holiday again. Cameron is five years older than me, although it never seems that much because my other brothers are even older. His friend normally wore an anorak and thick glasses. He works at a garage now. He was a real creep. I only liked him because his sister would play strip poker with us, although sometimes my brother would send me home before she’d even taken her shirt off.
We ran down the steep face of the hill. In winter it was too steep even to sledge down. About half way down was a small chalk pit. When you stood at the bottom you felt that excitement at being somewhere you shouldn’t. I had my trainers on and started to scramble up. It wasn’t steep, but it did seem big. My brother’s friend was at the top, jeering, but I think he had cheated by climbing up around the side. It’s the sort of thing he would do.
The smell of the gorse had gone. I was isolated in the middle of a broken chalky wall. Tough green weeds had forced their way through cracks in the chalk. It broke off quite easily. I put some in my pocket to take back to school. When you returned in September it was important to have something special to take back. Something to make people want to talk to you, to respect you. With chalk I could draw on the blackboard, write something rude.
I moved up. I was much higher than I wanted to be. It had become steep now and there was no way off sideways. I wanted to go down but I couldn’t. The creep was throwing small stones down the wall. My brother shouted at him. I don’t know why he was friends with him, perhaps he fancied his sister. After all, she was already old enough to wear a bra. If she’d been a boy she would have worn an anorak as well and everyone at school would have been mean to her.
I slipped. Fingers scrabbled at the rock, but it slid past, hitting my knees. It seemed an age before I stopped, somehow upright. I was shaking, although I hadn’t really hurt myself. My knees were always out anyway. That’s why my parents wouldn’t buy me long trousers, even though everyone else at school had them.
My brother ran down, looking concerned. The creep kept a distance, looking guilty but smug. I was beginning to feel better. I mean, I could make quite a thing of it- my big fall, how I survived.
My left trainer had split, barely a week old. I began to cry. My feelings of loss could never be forgotten.