The Lucky Jumper

 

 

'Take that jumper off, please, David.'

I looked down at it and held my arms tightly across my chest.

'I don't want to.'

'David, please go upstairs and change that jumper.'

'But it’s my lucky one.'

Mum sighed and crouched down in front of me. She had her coat on already and was trying to fasten the last button with cold fingers.

David, it’s got a hole in the elbow.'

'No it hasn’t.'

'It has. Look!'

I looked at my elbow. There was a little bit of fluff sticking out, but that didn't count as a hole. I pulled my arm behind my back.

'It’s lucky.'

'We’re going to see your dad, David, not to a football match.'

'That’s why I need it.'

She stopped and looked at me.

'What do you mean?'

I didn't really know how to explain it. The jumper had always been lucky. I'd worn it the day I scored three goals for the school team. I'd worn it when I won the spelling competition, even though I couldn't spell half the words without Mum helping me practice. I'd worn it when Dad took me fishing and I caught a fish bigger than his.

'So Dad can come home.'

Mum's face changed a little.

'Your jumper can't make your dad come home, David.'

'It might.'

'No, love.'

'You don't know.'

She looked away for a second and rubbed her eyes.

'You need to change it.'

I shook my head.

'Please, David. We don't have time for this.'

'I don't want to.'

'Put the blue one on, David. You'll look much smarter in that one.'

I knew I couldn't win, so I went upstairs and pulled the blue one over the top of it and came back down.

Mum looked at me suspiciously.

'Did you change?'

'Yes, look.'

She nodded, satisfied, and reached for my coat.

I think she might have guessed what I'd done, but she smiled as she buttoned my coat up for me, and then kissed me on the cheek.

Dad didn't have to see me wearing it, because he didn't know it was lucky. But I knew, and that's all that mattered.

I can still remember how cold it was that day when mum and I went to visit dad. I was seven years old and we went on the bus and the heaters weren't working and the windows were steamed up and our breath turned to mist inside the bus. Mum put her arm around me to keep us both warm and the floor was sopping wet from the melted snow that fell from everybody's shoes.

When we approached our stop, I rubbed a hole in the window to see out, and there in front of me was this huge black castle. I wasn't sure what Strangeways was, but whenever mum mentioned it at home I certainly never imagined a huge castle with turrets and a gateway. She just said that dad was there until things were cleared up and I thought it must be a hotel or something. When the bus pulled away we looked across the road and it scared me. This huge castle with really high walls looked even colder than the weather. I gripped mum's hand as tight as I could as we crossed the road.

When we got through the main gate we had to stand in a queue with lots of other people and it took a while before I realised that they were all ladies and children like me and mum, and we all stood shivering in a yard for ages. Mum put her arm round me again.

When they let us in there was a funny smell, a bit like school dinners and a bit like the school toilets and it wasn't much warmer than it was outside. We were shown into a big room with lots of tables and chairs, like a cafe, and mum and I chose a table and sat looking at the blank green walls and listening to the noise echoing around the room. Mum looked really pale and nervous, as if she was going to cry. I asked her where dad was and she said he'd be along any minute. She wiped a tear away from her cheek and I felt frightened because I didn't know why she was crying.

Suddenly, a bell rang and a door opened and lots of men walked into the room and they were all wearing the same clothes; grey jackets and trousers and blue shirts with stripes on them. I asked mum who they all were, but she didn't answer. She just stared blankly at the men, until suddenly she smiled and her face lit up and dad was standing in front of us. He looked smaller than I remembered. His face was pale, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes. He had a bruise on his face that I hadn’t seen before. I thought he would hug me, but he kissed mum on the cheek and sat down at our table. I stared at him, willing him to look at me and speak to me, but he didn't. He just started chatting to mum about how she was and how things were at home and I remember wanting to cry. I didn't, but mum did.

As she and dad chatted, I looked around the room and some ladies were chatting and some were chatting and crying at the same time. The other children were looking round the room just like me, and some started to get up and mess about and their mums shouted at them to sit down.

After a while the bell rang again and all the men stood up and started saying goodbye. Dad kissed mum on the cheek again and then he turned towards me and looked at me for the first time and his eyes were full of tears.

'Look after your mum until I come home,' he said.

I wanted to ask him when that would be. I wanted to ask him why he couldn't come home with us, now. But before I could say anything, he turned away. He walked through the door with the other men all wearing the same clothes, and then he was gone. I wanted to tell him I was wearing my lucky jumper, but I didn't get the chance.

Back out in the courtyard some of the other boys started throwing snowballs and laughing, but I didn't. I didn't feel like throwing snowballs, I just wanted to go home and ask mum all sorts of questions.

When the bus came, the floor was wet and the heaters didn't work and the conductor said there was nothing he could do about it. We sat upstairs and mum began crying softly into her handkerchief and put her arm around me. There were so many things I wanted to ask, but she said this wasn't the time. People were looking at us and some asked mum if she was OK and she said she was, but I wasn't and I knew she wasn't and I knew dad wasn't either, but I didn't know why. I put my arm on the window sill and watched as my sleeve slowly soaked up the water running along the gulley.

When we got home mum made beans on toast and she told me that dad had been accused of things at work that he hadn't done and that until things were cleared up he would have to stay at Strangeways. Strangeways she said, is where people have to stay until things are cleared up.

When I'd finished eating, mum said I could watch the telly, but I went to my room and curled up into a ball on my bed and pulled the eiderdown over me. Every time I closed my eyes a picture of the big black castle appeared and I had to open them again.

I think dad was crying in there because he was a prisoner and he couldn't tell us. That's what castles are for, to keep people locked up, so he must have been a prisoner, otherwise he would come home. I'll tell mum tomorrow and she'll know how to get him out of that Strangeways and back home again where its warm and not smelly. When he's home, he'll look at me and give me a hug and he and mum will stop crying. It won't take long, because I've got my lucky jumper on and I won't take it off until dad's back home.