The Battered Suitcase

John Brewster

In my mind they were the ruins of an ancient temple; tumbled-over stones half-buried by the sands of grass and weed. I could be a Jason there; fighting a skeleton army; or a Hercules overcoming lions. But the stones were only broken homes; the abandoned decay of another age, another people.

It was a summer's evening, as it always is when you are nine. I was a golden-haired boy running through the streets of Methil, zooming from Turner Crescent to Byron Park. Teatime over, I was enjoying those few precious hours before the sun curled up into bed.

Reaching the edge of the park I surveyed the green metal fence that defined its shape. There was an entrance at the very top, with buildings and a paddling pool. There was probably an opening closer to me; but the fun was to scramble up on to the fence, balance precariously like Blondin on a tightrope, and then leap on to the grass.

That evening, though, I realised that I was not alone. From another part of Methil a group of youngsters was approaching. They clambered over the ruins of my ancient temple, which lay to the right of Byron Park. I steeled myself, Jason-like, as they marched upon me. I measured all distances around me and calculated how fast I and they could run. I took into account the fence and how much time it would buy me.

A leader emerged from the pack: a taller boy who wore his torn jersey and hole-ridden trousers proudly, like a uniform. He eyed me up and down.

'Whit are you daein here?'

'I'm just playing,' I said.

'Ye want ti come wi us an play on the dump?'

'Ok,' I said, knowing that the dump they had just crawled over would take me nearer to home.

They watched me intently as I climbed over the fence, as if I was on trial. A mixed bag of boys and girls stood before me, straight out of the pages of a 1940s Beano annual. The leader came up to me.

'Ye hiv ti go thru a test first before ye can jyne oor gang.'

'Right,' I said, with no intention of joining any gang.

We walked over to the dump, and through their eyes I saw the wheel-less prams, burst tyres and twisted bed-frames scattered over the rubble like fallen soldiers. They stopped, crowding round an object that they wouldn't let me see.

'Ye've ti open this,' the leader said, 'and if ye dinnae dae it we'll kick yer head in.'

They withdrew to reveal a battered suitcase.

'He's faird,' one of the younger ones said.

'No I'm not,' I said.

I knelt before the suitcase, taking in the frayed straps and rusted locks. I opened it up. The first thing that hit me was the unholy smell. The second the mad laughter of the children behind me. The third the golden-haired body of a Labrador puppy. But only half a body. The back half was a teeming mass of maggots, a writhing mockery of the front half; the silent golden sleeping head half.

'Let's get him,' the leader cried out.

I ran like the wind, through streets they didn't know, until I reached home. I washed and washed myself that night. Washing out a stain that would never shift; shutting a lid that would never close. I still played on and grew up. But only half of me. Only half.