The Playground Hunter

By Tony Brickley

The Playground Hunter is a work of historical fiction set in 1967-68. It tells the story of four pre-teen children, their friends, family and surrounding township.

It is a tale of shattered lives which graphically describes the effect that lies and deceit have on three families, and how they and the community discover, and then must confront, what has happened in front of their very eyes.

Relationships entwine to a dramatic conclusion.

When something is hidden, it is hidden so as not to be found.

When something is stolen, it is stolen so as not to be returned.

But when something is wrong, it is wrong, and all bets are off.

Thunder began to rumble in the distance as lightning danced across the streets of our town; the last storm of autumn was carrying us to winter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley
• Release date: Nov 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463281154

Tony Brickley

This is the author’s second work, the first being The Playground Hunter. He lives with his wife and family on Australia’s southern coast.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Friday May 19th, 1967

Autumn was coming to an end and it had been warm and unusually humid. Three months of good rain had helped everything to green up a little after what had been an especially hot and dry summer. The yellow tinged grassy nature strips that separated the footpaths from the roads in our town had begun to grow back a little, following the months of street football and cricket matches played on them by children who had now returned to school in their freshly ironed uniforms and polished shoes, carrying bags full of books saved for by hard working parents who strived to ensure some sort of education, better than theirs, was the lot of their offspring.

I was in my last year at Lauriston Primary School (Armstrong Street as it was known by all) and together with my friends, school band drummer Charlie Pyke, grade six school comedian Dave Charman and football captain Steve Pyne, we were enjoying being the top of the school’s pecking order.

Our turn had finally come. Nothing but students under us in age and grade to control, as we walked around the now familiar school grounds after having put up with older students controlling us for five years. More importantly, we were all looking forward to our school trip in June to a place called Korumburra. None of us had any idea where it was, only that it was a farming community somewhere in North Eastern Victoria. We would all be heading there in a bus and staying for two nights.

Korumburra was in fact a farming community that was originally an old mining town about seventy-five miles east of Melbourne, and around about a three hour bus trip, in the foot hills of the Strzelecki Ranges, our history teacher had told us. Its origins were in rural Wales, the Queen of which we still sang our blessing to every Monday morning at school. All that aside, Pioneer Bus Lines would be picking us up at 8 am Tuesday and we would be gone for three whole days. We could talk of nothing else; such was the excitement of this very first trip away from our homes for almost every one of us.

Overnight, adventures to a faraway town just didn’t get any better. Of course at year’s end, we would no longer be scuffing up the concrete footpaths of Armstrong Street, but instead would be heading off to Lauriston High School; the brand new school currently being built for the next stage of our education. Its first year of operation was being attended by the year six pupils, who we now replaced at Armstrong Street. We would be the second year intake, possibly in portable classrooms, as construction of the new state of the art High school was behind schedule and not thought to be completed before we would cross over in February 1968.

I was, head down, re-reading my English essay of which I had become increasingly proud of, as the last of the autumn sun warmed the classroom through the un-curtained windows and thinking of Korumburra, when my mathematics teacher, Mr Graham, bellowed at me and asked, Do you intend to participate Harrison?

Yes sir, I panicked and replied.

Well then, queried old man Graham, all six foot three inches of him standing, shoulders back and with deep lines now appearing along his forehead made more pronounced by his receding brown hair. You might like to enlighten us as to exactly what you are reading.

Nothing sir, I lied, hopefully but stupidly.

Come up to me Harrison, he spat angrily, …with your essay!

Getting Mr Graham for the first class of the day was known by all to be no good.

The whole class knew what ‘up to me’ meant, and I dutifully walked slouching to the front as the teacher fetched the leather strap that lay across his desk next to his prized gold pen.

A truly unimaginative way to keep eleven-year-olds in line.

I stood facing my peers, a sea of giggling skinny girls and curly haired freckle-faced boys, glasses, pigtails and pimples, tiny beads of sweat forming on the skin between my upper lip and nose, hoping to just get strapped on the left hand; my right hand was my bowling hand for cricket and needed to be protected whenever possible. Better still, the teacher said the strap can wait.

Now perhaps you would like to share your little story with us all.

No sir, I pleaded.

It wasn’t a request Harrison, the teacher snarled, now go ahead and read to us.

With no choice, I wiped my sweating hands down the side of my well-worn school pants, held my prized essay up and began.

Not all waves make it to shore, I quivered, but they all try. Some far out to sea are sent in raging storms to crash across the bows as freezing captains watch under clouded moonlight, hurled high in to chilling winds, they fall back only to try again; some much closer…

That will do, that will do, the teacher’s voice bellowed and then silence. Mr Graham stood upright and asked. What makes you think that anyone would want to listen to that drivel, Harrison?

I… I don’t, I stuttered.

Shut up! the teacher interjected. Exactly which Grade 3 rubbish bin did you find that in?

He strode the couple of paces that separated us, took the pages from my hands and in two quick and exaggerated movements tore them into half then half again, handed them to me and instructed me to put them in the bin on my way back to my seat.

Whispers from behind hands placed over mouths followed me down the aisle that separated the three lines of desks in our class. I spent the next forty-five minutes broken hearted, pretending to be the best pupil ever placed in front of Mr Graham, in the naïve hope of impressing him so much that he may forget or forgive. Sweat ran freely on my palms – and then the bell rang out. The bell that told us all that this math class had ended and we could rise and politely scurry to our next lesson. As the first of the students reached the doorway that exited into the hallway and in my case to safety, Mr Graham yelled stop, and even though I was the third person from the front and only feet away from that door, my heart pounded in my chest.

Class will wait until Mr Harrison has received his punishment.

The class began to laugh and snigger and Mr Graham had achieved his purpose fully. I sauntered head down to the desk that faced the now empty seats of room 6B. I looked at the line of classmates that stretched from the doorway like a snake to the end of the windows at the rear of the class – all watching until my persecutor had exacted his due.

I placed my hands out in front of me and received six cuts, three on each hand. I didn’t flinch, nor cry, nor show emotion as best I could. Finished, we were all free to go, which we did quickly. Order maintained, fear continued and Mr Graham happy with his ability to think up yet another way to not only punish but torment and execute his powers. This was 1967 and how true that the world was a different place.

The pain of the cuts dissipated as, along with Dave and Steve, I walked the corridor to Room 6C to Miss Hadad’s English class. She told us about what we needed to pack for our trip to Korumburra, which was leaving from the school on Tuesday at 8 am and returning on Thursday afternoon. This was Friday and only this weekend stood between us and that bus trip. This was our first real school excursion and certainly first nights away from home for every excited eleven, some soon to turn twelve, year olds.

I sucked a small trickle of blood from the broken skin at the join of my left hand ring-finger and my palm, and spat it out in the hallway bin while looking over my shoulder to ensure no further indiscretions would stand between me and day’s end.

Saturday morning was in no way different to the start of any other weekend. My three brothers and I were in the kitchen of our parents’ three bedroom rendered, concrete-housing commission home, making a breakfast of cereal and toast and waiting for the Kevin Dennis Holden sponsored TV cartoons to start.

My youngest brother, Peter, sat in a highchair in front of the sink and to the side of the stove, on which Mum and Dad’s freshly brewed tea stood. We were allowed to pour before our parents were up, as Saturday was their sleep-in day and a standard instruction of You kids can look after yourselves for breakfast, was called from their bedroom.

I remember Kevin yelling that Deadly Ernest had started and to hurry up. I don’t recall how the teapot was knocked over, only that I saw it spill and I pushed Peter’s highchair away toward the end of the sink.

The teapot fell to the side of the stove and the contents poured down my left leg running between my hip and halfway to my left knee and across my backside. It soaked up in my flannelette pyjama pants that were now being torn from me by my father, who had appeared ashen-faced in the shortest possible time that it would take for any man to cover the distance from bedroom to kitchen, having heard the ungodly screams that came from my mouth and were continuing as the flannelette peeled away most of the skin on my leg. My father had by now grabbed a pound of butter from the refrigerator and placed it on the open wound and deep crevasses that had formed at my hip.

My screams continued.

Running cold water over the wound until it soothed was in those days not the recognised way to treat burns…so my poor father was doing what he thought was best. Mum was with us now and was holding the large black receiver of the telephone calling the ambulance. Kevin, being the second eldest of the four boys in my family behind me, had been sent scurrying to get Aunty Kitty from two doors up.

‘Aunty Kitty’, really named Kathleen McEvoy, wife of Chef John and mother of four, had arrived in Lauriston with her family as 10 pound immigrants just like us; only a few weeks prior to our scrawny mob setting foot on the concrete footpaths of this small west suburban town. Our families had become friends. They not only shared the common interest of raising fairly large broods, but were from Ireland and my parents had joined the migrant settlers from England. Both these families were a long, long way from their homes and were looking to start new and, hopefully, better lives than they had left behind.

Kathleen McEvoy was forever, as far as I can remember, called Aunty Kitty and her husband was called Uncle John, not just by the Harrison boys but by a good portion of the other kids that inhabited Maher Road. She may have been known as Aunty Kitty, but her official title should have been Saint Aunty Kitty. She was slightly older than my parents and this I’m sure was a great comfort, certainly to my mother. Kitty McEvoy was a woman that stood only four-foot-eight inches and carried the weight of a fasting jockey. Her fingers were thin and freckled, her legs so pencil-like that I would wonder how they kept her upright as she walked everywhere and complained about nothing and dispensed common sense solutions to all problems. She was a devout Catholic and even to this day I miss her arms being around me whenever things are not quite going as well as they could.

Kevin made great time hurdling the fence across Jack and Vi Kelt’s home, which stood between the Harrison’s of 20 Maher Road and the McEvoy’s of 16. By the time Aunty Kitty walked through our front door, I was lying on the lounge on my right hand side with my burnt and stinking left leg, with its charred skin and muscle, facing the roof, my mother kneeling in front of me and my father urging Kevin to go out to the street, as if by having him there it would help the ambulance make better time. My ‘aunty’ gasped and said something that involved Jesus and I think a few of his disciples. She urged my crying mother away and, lifting my head, sat on the couch placing a pillow between her knee and my screams.

No tears or great emotion, just soothing hands against my cheeks. I remember her smiling and looking down on me, gently urging me to wake up and touching my head with a cold cloth. The pain was now unbearable, the smell was putrid and the muscle of my hip continued to burn away.

Again, I drifted off and again my eyes opened at the urging of this tiny Catholic, Irish mother. I was crying, perhaps sobbing and did not know how to cope. Why couldn’t all these grown-ups stop this pain?

Sirens sounded far away, this seemed to lift the spirits of those in the room. Jack Kelt, RAAF Pilot and owner of the house that Kevin had just finished flashing across the front lawn of, hurried in with his wife Vi and stated firmly that the ambulance was only a minute away. I fell asleep again, not for long. But this time Aunty Kitty was shaking me and again touching my cheeks. Don’t sleep me little angel, ye look at me now, she stuttered in her heavy Irish accent and I did.

A man with an enormous moustache, dressed in a white shirt with a blue collar, put something over my nose and mouth and I panicked and pushed it away screaming. My hands were held by his mate in the other white shirt and blue collar, and again this plastic object was placed over my nose. I screamed and Aunty Kitty grabbed it from him, glared, turned my head toward her, and showed it to me by placing it over her own nose and mouth. Condensation formed and made it look even more evil. My Aunty smiled at me and said it would take the pain away and she placed it on my face. I sucked and blew and she managed to keep it on me. The pain did not go away.

Ambulances in 1967 were noisy and nerve wracking. I assume they aren’t much different today for those unlucky enough to have to avail themselves of one – I have been fortunate enough to never see the inside of one since. I was ordered to stay awake and jabbed with numerous needles on our trip to Footscray hospital, uncomfortable, terrifying, but the pain was easing a little. Aunty Kitty travelled in the ambulance with my mother.

An agonising time, that seemed like hours, was spent lying face down on a trolley surrounded by plastic shower curtains as numerous nurses and others came and went, and asked me to swallow various tablets and encouraged me to be brave.

Dead skin was peeled from my leg and hip and fluid washed over the open wound, which now exposed my hip bone and smelt awful. It was certainly causing the nurses a great deal of concern, even though I was starting to feel a little better, the pain was going away. My mother explained that the nurses had given me some tablets that would help the pain go and I was glad she was telling me the truth.

The public transport system that serviced Lauriston was not well established; in fact, it was fairly primitive as some might say. Not a lot has changed, but somehow for the next three months my mother missed very few days of getting to the Footscray Hospital to visit and sit for many hours. In fact, my Aunty Kitty only missed a few herself. Both these women had husbands and families to look after; I can’t imagine how tiring it must have been for them. But their visits were appreciated; the small gifts of chocolates and books making the long days bearable.

Lauriston was generally a quiet place, a few fights here and there. Vandalism didn’t exist; no one carried guns or knives. Nearly everyone knew each other and the local football and cricket clubs were entertainment for the youth of the day. The tennis club got the occasional visitor with tennis players, generally regarded as kids not good enough to make the football or cricket teams.

Tragedy had not visited our small community very often. Unfortunately as the autumn sun was setting, winter would bring more than cold weather and frozen puddles to our town.

Three months in hospital, two of them in isolation to avoid infection, teaches you tolerance and, in my case, also how to sleep on my right hand side and stomach.

Sometime in August, six of my classmates, accompanied by Mr Graham, of all people, arrived at the Footscray General Hospital to visit and brought with them hand written get well cards and small gifts from Korumburra from my other classmates who could not come in. A blustery south easterly wind blew dust and leaves around the car park and up around my second floor window.

For nearly two hours, my fellow students and mathematics teacher entertained me with stories of half-year results and the trip to Korumburra and in Mr Graham’s case, a few stories of who had received the strap in my absence. Fiona Walker explained how all the pupils who had been lucky enough to make the trip had been balloted to different homes of families with similar aged students in the area and how a beautiful river ran around the township. The students had been treated to horse riding and fishing, BBQ’s and visits to the town hall and other old buildings in the area. They all were very impressed with the town’s bakery and the fresh pies and sausage rolls, cakes and treats that were served there. Peter Walsh gloated how he had eaten three pies in one go on the second day they were there; he went on to tell me sympathetically how I had missed a really great trip. The visit by my classmates seemed over as quickly as it had begun. They all wished me well and Peter called out, See you when you’re back, as he exited the glass door to my room. See you soon, Mary Alderson added. Mr Graham took the time to leave last and stood by my bedside and assured me that all would be well upon my return.

Chapter 2

A Storm of Coincidence

I arrived home in September of that year and was still required to do walking and stretching rehabilitation for a few months, but the chances of returning to school before the Christmas break were good and that suited me. Three months of hospital will change the outlook of even the most disinterested student and I was certainly not that.

I looked forward to seeing my friends and worked hard at my exercises. Steve and Greg Pyke and Dave Charman all called and visited me in the lock up, as I had come to call my isolation room, but it was good to see them again in the real world. The cards that my classmates had given me with their well wishes and messages were read often in the months that followed. And so I did my rehab and strove to make it back to school before the big summer break.

Aunty Kitty would call in every other day and always brought me a treat that she would have Uncle John prepare; slices of Lemon Meringue Pie, small fruit tarts – all individual and wonderful.

Jealousy raged in the bones of my brother Kevin as the world seemed to revolve around my well-being and little else. For him, school still needed to be attended, jobs done around the house. Whilst Patrick, for all intents and purposes now walking and even occasionally running, continued to be fussed over by all and sundry. Neighbours would drop in for tea and cake and long conversations about hospitals and nurses, recovery and medication.

Kevin grew a not-unnoticeable hatred of all things Patrick.

September and football finals had come and gone; the weather was warming during the day, even though it was still chilly at night. Grass on front lawns and nature strips had begun to spring ever so slightly as the four months without ‘R’s were behind us. Those months, of course, being the ones in which nothing grew. Richmond had won their sixth premiership by nine points beating Geelong, Bartlett and Brown kicking three each. The Aussie cricket team was preparing to take on India in the summer and Red Handed was the early favourite for the Melbourne Cup; it had to be, according to my father, because it was trained by Bart Cummings. His knowledge of such things was ever increasing since he had found himself a second job cleaning the local TAB every Saturday morning up in Aviation Road that sat next to Bruce Cravens Food and Grocery Store.

October was now upon us and the events of early May dissolved in my memory, just as the dried and cracked skin on my leg and hip dissolved with each and every warm salt bath that had become part of my life since returning home.

And so, on the 22nd day of October 1967, my friend Les Cunningham from four doors up whose father was also a ‘Harold’, just like mine, called in at 20 Maher Road and we walked together to Armstrong Street Primary School, my slight limp still noticeable to others but not apparent nor uncomfortable to me.

Through the small, already rusting self-latching iron gate, we walked past the rows of stainless steel water taps that thirsty pupils leant over and drank from like cattle at a dam during summer, up the four steps and into the corridor, lined with children’s coats and scarves that led to 6B, our ‘home room’ and meeting room for all 6B students before each day could commence with the ringing of the bell at 9 am. About half of the class, together with Mrs Jenkins, were in the room when Les and I walked in and slung our bags from our shoulders to our desk tops. Dave Charman spotted us first and called out, Hey Harro, Hey Les, and with that most informal and innocent of greetings, I was back at school.

Principal Elliott commenced assembly as the last ring of the school bell drifted across the assembly area and, as was the norm each Monday, we all stood tall and proud and sang, ‘God save the Queen’. He then made a few announcements of detention notes that needed to be signed by parents and then, with no warning at all, announced that it was my first day back at school. Embarrassing, yes, but appreciated. I had become used to attention and affection and found the well wishes easy to accept gracefully.

The euphoria of approaching Christmas and the expectancy of a hot summer occupied the minds of the school children. Other matters altogether occupied the minds of some adults. My Aunty Kitty still dropped in at home with the occasional treat, but all in all things were returning to normal and we all went about our business and looked forward to 1968.

The first time I faced Ian Campbell in the cricket nets after my burn, I put a pad on my left leg as normal and took strike, to the urging of my friends for Ian not to ‘let one go’ first up. Ian Campbell was the school cricket team’s left arm opening bowler and he was by any standard very, very quick with a cricket ball. He was genuine. And even though I batted at four and was competent, it was still daunting after such a long time away, having my burnt hip facing directly toward the charging Ian Campbell. The ball was delivered not much quicker than half pace. I saw it early enough, but had no timing or co-ordination and the worn leather ball smacked me directly on the soft re-growing skin of my left leg, just above the flap of the thin worn out cricket pad that was supposed to protect my hip.

I think the bat hit the ground just before I did. Either way it didn’t matter, we were both face down, the only difference being that I was screaming and silently swearing as the gravel on the concrete pitch tore at the palms of my hands. My left leg burning. I could hear a fight break out.

Lying in the school medical room some thirty minutes on my back, something I had become an expert at, only confirmed that the soft re-growing skin of my left thigh was torn and certainly bleeding. The school librarian, Mrs Johnson, who also doubled as the first aid officer, had torn my school pants away and was washing the blood from around the wound with cold water. No butter in sight, I smiled to myself, for sometimes when I bathed I am sure I could still smell burning butter on my scrawny thigh.

As I lay there looking at the peeling white paint that sat in two of the four corners of the ceiling, it occurred to me that Mrs Johnson was one of only a few other people apart from my parents, who had seen the full extent of the damage that had been caused by that boiling teapot. The bad news was not so much the mistiming of the Ian Campbell delivery, but the realization that sport of any sort would now be off the agenda for me for a while. ‘How long?’ I thought, ‘how long before I will be able to play in a team again?’

No Korumburra, now no sport, things weren’t coming up roses in ’68. Mrs Johnson drove me home after calling Mum at her work and we waited a short time in her car out the front of number 20. Not talking, just sitting. Mrs Johnson only once asked if I was OK. I continued to reassure her that I was, whilst trying to sort out in my mind where I would now stand in the school order.

Society to me was about the classrooms and playgrounds of Armstrong Street and to not be able to participate in the latter made me vulnerable to non-acceptance by peers when high school commenced next year. Scorn and ridicule would surely be my life; I sulked to myself in a fit of over-reaction. ‘Where to from here?’ I thought, as the top of Mum’s head peered over the steering wheel of her white Torana as she pulled alongside us and swept up the driveway.

The school librarian and I walked slowly to greet her. How has this happened? my mother begged of the teacher, the words hardly leaving her lips when, as if by magic, my Aunty Kitty walked up the footpath to our left. Placing her tiny soon to be sunburnt hand on my mother’s shoulder, she asked what had gone on.

He’s alright, ladies, Mrs Johnson reassured the two women. He has just tried to get back into things a little too quickly.

Typical eleven-year-old, I heard the librarian/first aid officer offer my mother, as Aunty Kitty and I walked into the house.

My special aunt and I had been sitting inside at the kitchen table for five minutes before my mother appeared. Cups of tea were made and orange cordial poured into a cold glass taken from the fridge. I sat and picked at the last of the gravel from my hands, before starting on my right knee which of course did not have a pad to protect it, left legs only got padded as was the school yard rule.

Tossing and turning at night wasn’t something I was used to, as my three and a half months in hospital had taught me to lie still and quietly on my back or right hand side. Hospital sleep was also assisted in the first few weeks by a pill after dinner. I rolled side to side that night, my thoughts darting back and forth to the very ordinary shot that I had played and missed.

If I couldn’t play cricket, then as sure as the sun rising, I would not be able to play footy. ‘Does it ever end?’ I thought as I rolled over and lightly rubbed the dry itching skin of my left leg. I had learnt over many months, how to rub the itch without breaking the re-growing skin.

My father usually arrived home around 5.30 at night, depending on whether it was cleaning night at one of the numerous factories that he toiled at in his second job as a part time cleaner up on the Boundary Rd industrial estate. By this stage we would have our homework completed, be washed up and ready for dinner.

Kevin and I were kicking a plastic football, carefully in my case, about four o’clock and having Michael fetch it to keep him out of Mum’s hair while she put dinner on, when Dad’s car appeared at the corner near Lohse Street. We quickly grabbed Michael who had run onto the road, fearing Dad’s belt would be taken to us older two if he should see him there. Kevin tucked the ball under his arm and ran up to open the driver’s side door of the old Toyota Troop Carrier. Puffs of cigarette smoke blew out of the open window and Dad smiled through his five o’clock stubble, his forehead sweaty under his curly black hair and his teeth slightly yellow from the thirty-five a day unfiltered Camels he so enjoyed.

You’re early, Dad, Kevin yelled.

Bring Michael and come inside you two, our father ordered.

‘Dad home early and an instruction to follow him inside? Someone’s in trouble!’ I thought. The fumes from the old car were still swirling around us as Kevin reminded me it was his turn to start the car in the morning and have it idling to warm up for Dad, one of the many jobs distributed to us all and the one which we most enjoyed. Dad strode ahead of us and up the three steps to the back door, a rectangular cardboard box about three to four foot long and six inches thick tucked under his left arm. I remember it being his left arm because since my accident I had taken a lot of notice on which sides of their bodies’ people used for different tasks.

There was no look of surprise on our mother’s face at Dad being home early, which was unusual. It had obviously been pre-arranged, because there was no doubt that Dad was expected home early this day. As if meant to be, Vi Kelt knocked on the door and let herself in and was warmly greeted. We had become used to neighbours’ dropping in daily with offers of help or just for an update on how the scabs on my leg were healing.

Hello Vi, Mum smiled, come in, tea for you?

Thank you, Julie, always so polite and well-mannered was the neighbour whose house sat beautifully presented between us at number 20 and the McEvoy’s at 16.

Hello Harold, said Vi.

Vi, our father acknowledged and proceeded to plonk the rectangular cardboard box onto the cleared kitchen table. Even this seemed unusual as the kitchen table at this time of night should be cluttered with knives and forks, salt and pepper shakers, ready for dinner. This was a strange afternoon and about to get stranger.

In a park only two streets from 20 Maher Road, an eleven year old girl named Colleen White was begrudgingly accepting an ice cream from an old man who taught her music lessons from his house just across the road. Her twin brother Glen accepted one also, just as he had done reluctantly many times before. The man’s own two children of similar age were playing in a sand pit just ten steps away from Colleen, who sat on the slide her left hand holding her yellow and purple floral skirt between her legs and her right hand extended to accept the treat from the music teacher.

The man called to his sons that it was time to cross the road to their home, the front door of which sat facing the slide that Colleen now sat on, licking at her ice cream. The man bid the White children goodbye and commented that he looked forward to seeing them punctually at 9 am on Saturday morning. He crossed the narrow bitumen road quickly, bounding up the steps to his home.

Colleen slid down the slide, her skirt blowing upwards in the breeze and she thudded both feet into the sandy pit at the bottom of the slide. Across at 23 Baker Street, a hand moved away from a dusty brown curtain to let it fall gently back into its normal position. The boy’s mother entered the room and closed the lid on a piano and requested her sons to clean up before dinner.

Bill Shannon kissed his wife on the cheek and asked what they were having. It was 4.30 pm and in the park the White twins knew they would be in strife if they did not head home themselves. The two ice cream sticks lay on the grass next to the sand pit. Ants had almost fully covered them by the time the eleven-year-olds made their way to their home in Charlseworth Street.

We all stood around the brown cardboard box that now sat on the kitchen table. My father must have had a sense for the theatrical without even knowing it.

What is it, Dad? Michael asked eagerly.

Nothing for you this time son, the answer stabbed at second youngest. Sadness crept over Kevin’s face as he realised it probably wasn’t for him either. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he thought to himself.

Patrick, open the box, my father instructed.

Me? I gushed.

Yes, was the stern reply.

I moved closer to the mysterious box, noticed it wasn’t fully rectangular but instead narrowed at one end to about half the size of the other. I lifted the side of the coffin shaped box, flipped the lid open and stood over it peering inside. Inside was a light brown, wooden, six string acoustic guitar with the name ‘Selene’ on a