Nine

I'd established a kingdom of caterpillars and secret places and I
had a queen. If I'd still known her ten years later we might have
married. She lived about five doors along from us and when not at
school we were constant companions. We had what seemed like our own
field with cows at the top and a stream at the bottom, though it was
really part of a farm. If it snowed you could sledge down the slope
from freezing animals to frozen water. The stream disappeared into a
pipe, three feet in diameter, under the road and when it was dry we'd
disappear into the pipe too and talk for hours about our nine year old
world in this special secret place.

We went everywhere together, so when it came to Christmas Eve that year
and she suddenly broke off from playing in the street to go to the
local shop I naturally assumed I'd be going too. Being the na?ve child
that I was, I didn't realise that she was going to buy me a present.
She finally went off having persuaded me that she had to get something
for her mother. After she'd gone and I'd kicked about on my own for
what seemed like ages, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to
go to the shop on my bike to see if I could find her.

By the time I got there she'd already gone, so I got back on my bike
and turned to go home. To this day I don't really know if it was my
fault for not looking properly or that of the woman who was driving the
car for speeding. The result was that she hit me sideways on, smashing
my lower right leg and leaving me and a mangled bike in a heap in the
road.

It wasn't too bad at first, I was made such a fuss of on Christmas day
by everyone. All the surgeons were on holiday, so they couldn't do much
else. My mangled leg was in plaster not to set it, just to stop it from
giving me excruciating pain. I remember the first time they changed the
plaster - they washed my leg with cotton wool which felt like they were
stabbing it with red hot needles.

Then came the operations. No-one ever said anything, but after the
third, I started to see strange looks in people's eyes that in
retrospect must have been saying 'amputation'. My Dad lost several of
his considerable tempers at once and a top London surgeon was found. As
I went down for the fourth time it wasn't just my leg that was broken,
my spirit was too. Fortunately they finally managed to piece my leg
back together with the aid of pins that are still inside it, but pins
couldn't repair my youthful confidence. Everything seemed much more
serious from then on.

My queen came to visit me of course, sheepishly handing me the present
that she knew was the cause of my downfall. It was the beginning of the
end. It wasn't really her fault, but why couldn't she just have told me
she was going to the shop to get me a present. I wouldn't have minded,
really I wouldn't. Such is the furnace in which a young man's
psychological problems with women are forged, not to mention shopping.
And I still have the scars to prove it!