The Good Stuff

Perhaps we should all take a moment to think how lucky we are. We might not have everything we want and, of course, it would be good to have more money, better looks, more friends, well you name it. But remember it’s worth taking a moment to value what we do have because it might just prevent us spoiling it.

The beginning

It started so simply. The drawer wouldn’t open properly and he knew why. Because this was the drawer filled with all the things they didn’t know what to do with.

He wrestled a ruler into the small gap between the top of the drawer and the surround and managed to force whatever had caused the jam to one side. The drawer jerked open catching his knuckle at the same time.

He was angry now. He couldn’t see the things that he had pushed in the drawer over the months but only the rubbish that had been accumulated by the rest of the family. A familiar red mist descended upon him as he tipped the contents onto the kitchen table.

This would be a quick cull. Pizza leaflets, double-glazing, plastic bags for old clothes plus all the other direct detritus that dropped through the letter box would be thrown away. Not recycled because he was angry and nobody was watching and that’s what he did when he was angry.

Left on the table were dried up glue sticks, tapes, cards and god knows what else. Where the hell did a cracked protractor come from and why was it being kept and who are these people in the photographs. Once all that had been dropped into future land fill all that was left on the table top was a collection of old coins, paperclips, badges, a single die, grubby blue tack and a key.

The key had been jammed between the base of the drawer and the back. It had been hard to get out and by the time he had freed it he had forgotten what had made him open the drawer in the first place. Anyway at least the drawer would open and shut again and the rubbish was gone. But the key, well the key was another matter.

He turned the rusted metal over and over in his fingers as he walked down the hall to the living room. Why keep a key? Where or what was it for? He knew he hadn’t put it in there and he doubted any of the others had. It was too old to interest them and their love of ‘new’.

Perhaps it had been in there since he had bought the dresser from the auction. He knew that he hadn’t really looked at the piece of furniture properly. He only bought it because it reminded him of the dresser that his grandparents had kept in their kitchen.

As a child that dresser it had seemed so big and mysterious. It was a place where the ‘good stuff’ was kept or so his grandparents kept telling him. He never knew what ‘good stuff’ was but it had filled his mind when he was young. Was it treasure, perhaps silver, gold, rubies, diamonds?

“Don’t let him open that love, that’s where we keep all the good stuff,” he would often hear.

In a sobering moment there was the clash of a soft childhood memory against his hard mature mind. He knew that a part of him still wanted to  believe in the ‘good stuff’ kept behind the dresser doors. It was because until he started to think about the key he hadn’t questioned the memory of his childhood. Without questioning that memory had lain in the undisturbed part of his mind that was eternally six.

Now this bloody key had placed the cynical adult right in the child memory and smashed those magic times lying in bed wondering how Nan and Gramps had collected all their riches. Now those dreams were replaced with the image of the few pathetic belonging they had to clear out when Nan finally died.

Oh god he could see the collection of cheap china and linen that rested in that sacred shrine of the ‘good stuff’. Some of it had never been used and never would be. Why had that moment clearing out the dresser never before crushed his childhood belief in the treasure?

Perhaps it was the disgust he had felt on the day they had cleared out the house. How could he have come from such a family? He had managed to hide the revulsion from his parents and sister. They thought he was naturally upset but truthfully Nan and all that life had been dead to him for years.

So why would the rusted key bring that all back and why on earth had he bought that ugly old dresser from the auction anyway? His wife had been quite right, it didn’t suit the kitchen and was out of place against all the polished surfaces.

“It’s an interesting juxtaposition of old and new,” he had countered and then had had to convince himself that it didn’t look dark and ugly in their sleek white and stainless steel kitchen. After that of course he no longer really saw it. It had just became …. part of the furniture. He took a moment to appreciate his own joke and then stared at the key again.

He began to realise how much he hated that dresser. It was a stark reminder of his past and now that the memory of the ‘treasure’ had gone it was just a big ugly lump that didn’t fit in. And at that moment he realised that was how he saw himself.

It was no accident that he was home alone again. His wife and children had gone out together because he had told them how much he enjoyed time in the house on his own. But it was as if the revelation about the dresser had opened up the floodgates to some hidden feelings. It wasn’t that he liked being in the house alone, it was that he didn’t like going out with them. He didn’t fit in. Where did he fit? Had he really ever fitted in anywhere or with anyone?

A moment of clarity. He was alone, not just in the house but in his life. From his earliest memories he realized that he had found it impossible to relate to other people. Most of his life he had spent in his head with dreams and hopes and separated from those around him.

Now he realized why the ‘good stuff’ was so important to him as a child. It had been his salvation, a way of escaping from the life he knew. The ‘treasure’ would have allowed him to sail away and start again. To be the person that existed in his head, the one that could fit in.

Now he knew it was too late for him and that it was never going to happen. He was going to clear out that dresser as he had the drawer.

He walked over and put his left hand behind the upright shelves. It surprised him how easily it moved but the speed that it fell towards him was a shock.

Could he have moved out the way or was it a solution?

After the Police and medics had left and the Private Ambulance had taken his body away there was just one question. Where did the old key in his right hand come from and what was it for?

“He always had his secrets,” said his wife.