I always asked for him first, before they even took my coat. I would search for his face, his gait, the red lace-ups that caused him so much trouble.
That morning, I must have watched the door and, each time it swung open, expected to see him, pink cheeked from the cold outside, expected to hear those lace-ups thumping on the carpet as he came over to not quite greet me. I imagine I waited through the morning as the room filled. I imagine I grew anxious. I must have asked for him, called his name or muttered it under my breath.
I picture myself approaching someone and hearing the truth and shaking my head, or losing my temper, stamping and scowling. Perhaps I shouted for him, perhaps I cried, ‘Oliver, my Oliver!’ Maybe I threw myself on the floor, banging my fists, kicking my legs, and rolling over and over, until my hair was wild, and my cheeks streaked with snot. I imagine some kind firm person taking me in her arms, bearing the brunt of the kicks, speaking calmly, applying tissues and a tight grip.
‘It’s not like he’s died,’ she might have muttered.
‘And where’s my red fire engine?’ I probably said.
Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps they fobbed me off with some tale of illness. Perhaps I thought he was away on holiday and got on with my day without a second thought for Oliver. It bothers me that I don’t remember.
We were the best of friends, enjoying the best time together. Long days stretched before us, longer than any we’d live later in our lives. The seasons hardly changed. I’ve never forgotten the first time we noticed when they did. Something as daft as autumn leaves falling from the trees. I don’t see it now. One day the trees are in full leaf, the next the branches are naked, and I only realise it’s autumn because I’ve had to unpack my heavy coat and take a scarf. Back then, leaves belonged on trees. It was unthinkable that they might go their separate ways at a certain point in the year. What were years to us then?
It was the first time Oliver and I were together. I had the idea of gathering the leaves in the garden that day. We were both wearing woollen mittens with all the fingers joined together and just the thumb loose and free. It made the task that much harder. Oliver’s were attached to a long string that wound through his coat and we heaved the thread out through one sleeve. Then we dropped them in the mud and forgot them until home time when our grownups asked questions.
We were so sad for the trees.
‘The trees are all naked,’ said Oliver. ‘They’re all cold and naked.’
‘What did happen?’ I asked.
‘They forgetted to hold their leaves on,’ he said.
‘How can they get warm and toasty again?’
We gazed at the leaves heaped around the trunks and hatched our plan. We couldn’t reach far, but we tried our best. At first, we tried to reattach leaves to a low hanging bough and stick them to the trunk with spit. They slipped off and floated to the ground. Then we tucked a few into a crevice, but they fell out and blew away. We picked up all the leaves, great armfuls of them, and threw them up at the higher branches. They dropped back into our faces and gathered in our hoods. We despaired. There were tears.
In the end, we consulted the grownups. I still remember the disappointment of learning that our project wasn’t viable. The grown-ups distracted us with woodlice in another corner of the garden and we forgot the leaves, but our friendship was cemented. We had shared a common purpose that brought us together, or at least side by side.
From then on, Oliver and I were inseparable. I never imagined that one day he would vanish. He was as much a part of the nursery as the walls, the carpet, and the plastic kitchen. Every morning, when I arrived, I knew I’d find him there, frying a teapot or building an Eiffel Tower or burying socks in the sandpit. I’d run over, without a word of greeting, and settle down beside him to join in with his task.
Our favourite game was racetracks. We played it every day, setting out long looping tracks using connecting sections from the track basket, raising bridges over stacking blocks, building in slopes and cliff drops where the cars could zoom and crash. The best tracks womped all over the room, round the legs of the plastic kitchen, under the book selection and off into the quiet corner. Our cars went faster than the sound of light. I always raced the red fire engine. It was mine and no one else was allowed to play with it. Oliver had the green car because green was his favourite colour. He was good at making lines of cars. It was a quality that I appreciated in him. Sometimes lining the cars up was better than zooming them. Then the others came and broke the track or took the cars and we had to snatch them back.
One thing I can say about my friend Oliver is that he never hit me, never even bit me, not once. I’m certain of it. Oliver wasn’t a biter, not like Sophie; she was the worst biter of them all. Robert was a naughty boy and Thomas used to kick. Thomas kicked so hard and so often they took away his shoes. I remember him, in his socks, hovering near our race track, poking at it with his toes.
I remember Oliver saying, ‘Go away Thomas. This is our track.’
‘I’ll shoot you with a cannon,’ said Thomas. Then he wandered off, kicking his shoeless feet and muttering, ‘but I don’t have a cannon.’
I don’t remember if I ever bit back, but I doubt it. I was trembly in the teeth and I hated the taste of other people’s clothes, preferring to chew my own sleeves soggy. Was I a whiner or a scowler? Was I one of the weepy ones? I no longer know. At that time, my sense of self was as nebulous as my long-term memory. Oliver was calm and had a gentle manner, but he defended me on occasion. Yes, that seems to me like something he would have done. He always returned my red fire engine when someone snatched it away.
After Oliver disappeared, I checked for his face each morning, hoping that he’d come back. When I did see him again, it wasn’t in the room where we’d played together. I was at the supermarket, trailing after my grownup on the weekly shop. What a bore that was. All those hours, all those aisles, while I was boiling hungry and had only breadsticks for comfort.
I saw him in the bakery section, far down next to the birthday cakes. It was a spot I knew too well to mistake. I had my eye on the stegosaurus cake, the one with marzipan spines. I usually visited it on the weekly shop, to check that it was still there. This time, when I looked, I saw Oliver. I recognised his coat and his red lace-ups. I called to him, but he didn’t hear me, and I was just going to run over when my grownup dragged me away to choose eggs.
I called for Oliver. I shouted. My grownup shushed me and pointed at pictures of hens on the egg boxes. I cried for Oliver. My grownup showed me a real feather stuck to an egg with chicken poo. Even then, I remembered my Oliver and there were tears. Strange grownups frowned at me, frowned at my grownup. I was strapped into the trolley and made to pace the aisles, further and further from the birthday cakes and my dear friend.
Later, at the check-out, I believe Oliver walked right past my trolley, looked up at me, strapped in and still sniffling, and walked on as though he didn’t even recognise me.
Perhaps that happened, it’s hard to say now.
I still remember the shock of seeing him next to the birthday cakes. I remember the jarring realisation that Oliver existed outside the nursery, where we’d spent our lives playing together. Oliver and that place were not one and the same. And if he existed outside the nursery then he might exist still, today, somewhere out in the wide world.
After I saw him at the supermarket, I searched for Oliver with greater resolve and greater hope. I still looked for him when I arrived each morning, in case he’d returned from the birthday cake aisle. But I started to look for him outside the room as well, checking for his red lace-ups on every pair of feet. I searched on the walk home, in the park, at the playground, in the library, in the woods, at the playgroup, at other friends’ houses. I searched in all the places where I’d never seen Oliver before. The next year, I looked for him on my first day at school, convinced I’d find him there, in school shoes and a blue jumper. I didn’t find him. He wasn’t in my Beaver pack, or my football team, or my music class. He wasn’t in McDonalds or the Chinese take-away, in Welsh castles or on Spanish beaches. He didn’t visit my Granny or shop in her supermarket for birthday cakes.
As the years passed, I kept on looking, searching the face of every boy my age. I still checked for his red lace-ups, even though he must have outgrown them, just as I’d outgrown pair after pair of small and less small and bigger and large shoes.
I still look for him now, search old men for the slant of Oliver’s brow. I notice Olivers and Ollies, check their eyes for a shade of brown that I think I remember. How would he have grown, my friend? Tall and stooping, or stocky and broad-shouldered? Would he wear a beard or be an early balder? Sometimes, when I’m queuing in the post office or waiting to see the neurologist, I think that this stranger sitting next to me, standing in front of me, could be my old friend. Here he is with his milk teeth long lost and a wrinkled brow and his own grandson biting his hand as he tries to hold him still. Here is Oliver, I think, and I feel warm to see him again.
Sometimes I’m so convinced I’ve found him that I’m about to open my mouth and start winding back through the tangle of memories to our common starting point, when his wife turns to him and says ‘John…’.
Even after all these years I long to see my friend Oliver again. I know exactly what I’ll say to him the day we do meet. I’ll ask him for my red fire engine back.
C S Mee grew up in Birkenhead and now lives in Durham. Her short stories have won prizes from Galley Beggar Press, the Northern Writers’ Awards and Wasafiri and have been published in anthologies, journals and online. She is working on a collection exploring the perspectives of babies and children. She can be found at www.csmeewriter.com.
