Poo

I have a new pen and it makes me happy. When I click the button it illuminates. On-off. On-off. On-off. On-off. First pink then blue then yellow then red. Click again and the light changes colour by itself. I like the green best. It reminds me of a torch I received as a stocking-filler Christmas present from my parents when I was about seven years old.

This was the age when I knew that Santa didn’t exist and found it odd that my parents didn’t seem to. I’d try to please them, poor things, by pretending that I did believe; that Santa wasn’t a man in a bad outfit and rubbish beard at Debenhams, but actually came all the way from the North Pole to visit the town’s kids early, spreading festive joy and Christmas sparkle with every ho-ho-ho.

‘Look! There’s Santa! Shall we go and say hello?’ my mother would ask. Like, wow. Had she had a lobotomy sometime between the corner of the street by the bank, where Santa 1 was standing, past Santa 2 in Woolworths, to here - Santa 3, in the children’s section of the department store?

So. The torch was from my parents, not Santa no matter what they said. Either way I loved it. That £2.99 must have been the best spent return-on-investment they’d ever got involved in. I don’t know what the main present was that year, but I remember everything about that cheap torch.

It was metallic, faintly tinny but rather weighty for my girly hands. Next to the on/off switch were two additional buttons. Click one and the beam was lit with a halo of red light. Click the next and a specific shade of green joined the circles. The three circles were distinct from one another – white red white green white. Mostly I’d keep the torch in the white green white position.

That beam of light pleased me more than I can say. There was something comforting in the way it lit the path as I walked with my older brother down the street on a late afternoon adventure. It was already dark and we were off up Southernwood Drive towards the wasteland between our house and the path that led us to school. I felt snug in my big coat and winter mittens, thick socks poking out from my Wellington boots that protected me from the snow. Everywhere felt silent and still, the way snow does. It was perfect for exploring through the raggedy grass on the slope back down towards our house.

I felt peaceful there, hanging with my brother, wrapped up all toasty even though my mittens were already getting soggy and my toes felt bitten off. My torch was a hit. At three years older than me, if my brother was into it, then that was the only seal of approval required. We took turns in lighting up the path before us, making the light rings whip and shudder as we swooped the torch back and forth. Go close to the ground and the outlines were firm and crisp; pull the torch back and the light became softer, hazier.

We returned home exhilarated from the cold, fingers and toes damp, red, stiff and throbbing. Sock tops matted with clumps of melting snow clinging to the wool. As I stood in the kitchen on one leg, balancing precariously with my hand on my mother’s head as she stripped me of outer layers, I was content. Soon I’d be in the bath making beardy faces on the black tiles with the bubbles, cleaning them to a shine with soapy water.

This was not the time that I did a poo in the bath. I was younger then and still shared bath times with my brother. It had been an accident and it just sort of slipped out. Not a big poo, but a poo nonetheless. I panicked and leapt up, water swirling around my calves. Not because I thought what I’d done was disgusting but because any minute now my brother was coming to join me and it just wasn’t polite to leave a turd lurking under the bubbles. He’d flip out and then I’d be in trouble.

How to catch a poo, though, especially when it’s a race against time. I stooped over and chased it with my hands, trying to catch it as it buffeted against this side of the bath-tub, then the other, ducking and diving in its avoidance tactics. My mother was calling my brother: ‘come on! It’ll be getting cold. It’s nearly time for bed.’ I was aware of sullen plod-steps up the stairs as I scooped inefficiently under the surface, killing the bubbles in my efforts to remove the misdemeanour.

As I heard him at the top of the stairs I managed to scoop water and the not-so-intact poo into my cupped hands. I wobble-jumped towards the toilet and threw the lot into the bowl. Flushing, I then sploshed back into the bath. When my brother walked into the bathroom, the water was still sloshing gently up against the shallow end.