A: The first bit

It is convention to begin a tale with an opening designed to secure
attention, to grab the audience by the throat and say "Here, listen to
ME, listen to what I have to say.." A successful story will have a
beginning, a middle and an end and will have the perfect balance of
plot and characterisation. It's sentence structure will be varied and
it's language brilliant yet not too showy. All good writers know this.
I am not a good writer. I don't have to be. I'm not writing to grab
your attention and I don't really care if you finish my tale or not
because I'm not writing for you. I'm writing for me. I'm writing this
all down because I'm still trying to understand it myself, and I think
that setting it down on paper may help me do that. So my story begins
on a perfectly ordinary October day with a perfectly ordinary October
event, and everything that follows that event is just as it happened in
real life. There is no logical evolution from episode to episode, no
excellently rounded characters to give the tale depth. And there is no
nice, neat ending that ties up all the loose ends yet leaves open the
possibility of a sequel. Because life isn't like that. So if you're
looking for a classical work of fiction then stop reading this now and
go find yourself a Dickens or a Steinbeck or an Orwell, because this is
truth. This is life. This is my tale?.
It begins on that typical October day. Coloured leaves lying
everywhere, a cold bite to the wind and a sky the colour of granite. It
was 3pm and the streets were full of children scurrying home from
school in little groups of two or three, all bundled up in their navy
blue coats and with their rucksacks slung uniformly over the left
shoulder in line with current fashion. Little clouds of breath preceded
them up the road as they chattered excitedly about this and that, and
amongst the older kids these clouds mingled with real smoke from the
cigarettes that dangled, nonchalantly, from the mouths of the outwardly
rebellious. As always there was the odd child walking home by his or
herself, and it was these specimens that always fascinated me the most.
It seemed to me that you could tell the entire life history of these
loners simply by the manner in which they walked home. There was the
shuffling gait of the perpetually bullied, the confident stride of the
arrogant loner and - ahead of the whole procession - the stiff legged
speed walk of those who simply had to be home by 3.10 so that they
could watch their favourite cartoon whilst being pampered by indulgent
mothers. I could recognise them all.
It was a member of this latter group who particularly caught my eye
that day, and I guess that that was when it all started to go wrong,
although it's hard to say for sure. I was sitting in my armchair as
usual, cup of tea beside me as I watched the daily carnival work it's
way past my front window once again. Most of the kids had passed by
now; there was just the rag-tag collection of slowcoaches and
reluctant-letter-from-teacher pupils still to go. I was just finishing
my tea and raising myself to do the washing up when Marvin passed me at
a snails pace. I sat down again curiously.
Marvin wasn't his real name of course, just one I'd assigned him
because it seemed to fit his face and the way he walked. He was a fat
child, almost obese but not quite, and he was the undoubted king of the
stiff-legged pampered boys. Every day he goose-stepped past my window
at least 5 minutes before any of his contemporaries, his jowls flapping
and belly wobbling as he anticipated the cakes and sickly-sweet tea
that would accompany the day's cartoons. I'd come to quite like Marvin,
although I'd never actually met him, both because he signalled the
start of the day's procession and because he seemed a symbol of all
that was safe and peaceful about childhood. Warm fires, hot tea, the
simple innocence of losing yourself in an imaginary world where
teddybears talk and super-heroes really exist. All this seemed to shine
from his eyes and ample belly as he flew past my window each day. But
not today. I had noticed of course that he hadn't been in his usual
vanguard that afternoon, but I'd simply assumed he was off school sick
or on holiday. But here he was amongst the rabble at the back,
shuffling awkwardly and with tears running slowly down his flabby
cheeks. And so I sat down again in my chair and thoughtfully watched
him inch past.
He was about 11 years old, I figured. 5 feet tall, about 13 stone in
weight. He wore a blue, lightweight anorak with strings dangling down
below his chins and a cheap plastic zipper fastening the front. His bag
was the same blue rucksack that can be found on the shoulder of every
other child in his age group. Today he held it before him with both
hands dejectedly wrapped in the straps, and it bounced off each of his
knees in turn as he trudged along. Poking from the top of the bag was
what looked like the handle of a very old, wooden tennis racket. I'd
never seen this in Marvin's bag before and it jarred slightly with my
mental image of the kind of child he was. Boys who hurry home for tea
and television didn't generally enjoy sport. Especially very fat boys
like Marvin. To my mind such boys spent their lunchtimes comfortably
ensconced in a warm library reading comics, or hanging on to the tails
of an equally fat dinner-lady as she supervised the canteen. His
glacier like progress past my window allowed me time to study his bag
at leisure however, and it definitely was an ancient tennis racket
sticking out of it, so either my perceptions were very wrong or Marvin
was making a concerted effort to lose weight. Perhaps there was a girl
he liked and he knew in the way that children do that nobody loves a
fat kid. Perhaps he'd just got sick of being called lard-arse. Either
way the thought of Marvin losing weight saddened me a little. His
weight was part of that innocent-childhood aura that surrounded him,
and his awareness that the weight wasn't appealing seemed to signal the
end of such innocence and the coming of corruption, cynicism and
reality. Soon he would be smoking and swearing in front of adults and
stealing illicit glances at pornography found in parents' drawers. His
childhood was nearly over. He was just about past my window now and I
had a sudden urge to leap out of my chair, run out my front door and
ask him about the tennis racket. But then reality crashed back in. He
was a young schoolboy and I was a middle-aged man. He would look at me
distrustfully and - though he would stammer an answer because he was
still not quite grown into the disrespect of the teenager - he would
then scurry away in fear and perhaps walk home a different way in
future. And I would miss him. So I resisted the impulse and stayed
sitting in my chair until he disappeared from my view. Then I rose and
went to do the washing up, still pondering the mystery of the
tennis-racket. It wasn't until I had put the dishes away and was
contemplating my jigsaw that the other obvious questions struck me. Why
had Marvin been crying? Why had he been at the back instead of hurrying
home for his cartoon-fix? Thoughtfully I spun an edge-piece round in my
fingers and slotted it home. The picture of the tiger was taking shape.
But why had Marvin been crying? I resolved to study him with extra
scrutiny as he passed by the next day, and with that I put him out of
my mind completely and concentrated on my jigsaw.