Paul Canon Harris

The Treasure Box

The ballerina made her final turn as the magical music faded. I resisted calling for an encore. I was mesmerized by her and never tired of her cameo performances. I took her in my hand – she held her pose perfectly, her tutu stiff as starch and the muscles in her legs clearly flexed. My fascination with her was more than matched by the excitement I felt for the sparkling treasures under her dainty feet. The lid of the jewellery box was now open and my mother’s treasures were revealed, laid out enticingly before me. 

My name is James and for as long as I can remember I have loved everything about that wonderful box; the miniature drawers where my mother kept her ear-rings, each ring, locket and necklace in its allotted place. Given that our home life when I was young was marked by chaos and uncertainty it was as though the box represented for my mother a precious miniature haven of order. Looking back I realize that for her the box was a poignant reminder of how life might have been. Even to this day I can recapture the smell of the white faux-leather case and recall how the crimson velvet lining felt between my fingers. The senses of smell and touch are so evocative. I only have to catch the merest suggestion of that distinctive scent in an antiques shop for a strong memory of my furtive magpie moments with my mother’s jewellery box to be triggered.

I remember a day when my mother found me enjoying what even then I recognised as a guilty pleasure. She stood in the doorway of her bedroom, quietly watching me for several minutes as obliviously I took out each item handling them reverentially like a priest with the sacrament. She came over ruffled my fair curly hair and knelt down beside me. I asked her where the box came from and she told me shyly that it was a present from her first real boyfriend on her seventeenth birthday. As a child you don’t really understand wistfulness in an adult but when your own life unfolds you recognise it retrospectively. Apparently the boyfriend in question, strange that I never learned his name, joined the army and married a girl from Northern Ireland. Mum used to tell us that our first love would always be special even if it came to nothing. To this day I do not know for certain that she was right. 

I know now that my mother did not only keep her precious things in the box under the ballerina’s watchful eyes. It was where she had invested fond memories and not a little buried hurt. When she looked in the mirror on the lid, she still saw a young girl with a sparkle in her eye and a dream in her heart. My sister has it now, something I regret but dare not admit. Mother wanted her to have it.

My father left us a week after my eighth birthday. I suspect he had been planning his departure for a long time, waiting for my birthday was his attempt to put a veneer of decency on an act of, what seemed to me at the time, desperate betrayal. I have no memory of dramatic scenes, no school gate tears or bedtime tantrums.  The three of us settled into a new rhythm of life. My mother coped stoically, relieved at last to be herself, no longer treading on eggshells and keeping the peace for our sake.  Initially my sister and I would talk to each other about how we felt but gradually, almost imperceptibly this mutual need receded. She threw herself into caring for her pet rabbit, a soft grey lop-eared Dutch who was as docile as an Amsterdam hippie! She nearly stroked the poor thing to an early death.

And as for me, I decided I needed my own treasure box. One that no-one else would even know about.  At the beginning of the next autumn school term I was bought a new pair of shoes, boring black ones in a plain white box. Unlike the boxes trainers came in, emblazoned with logos, this was ideal for my purpose. I tucked it under my bed and hoped neither my mother nor sister would lay claim to it for one of their many craft projects. Previous boxes had been transformed into model theatres, cribs and even a miniature stained glass window! Over the next few days I set about decorating to make it a fit and proper container for the treasures of an eight year old boy.  I knew that something more than lurid felt-tip whirls was required, although the quasi-medical smell of the pens contributed to the heady pleasure as I worked out my designs.

I toyed with the idea of borrowing something glittery from among mum’s jewels but quickly ditched that idea for a far more cunning plan.

The family entertainment budget was tight to put it mildly so we made a lot of our own entertainment. The three of us spent many a happy evening playing board games. Mum would pop some corn in butter in a pan and we would settle down with two bowls of popcorn, one salted and one sugared. Simple pleasures. I loved listening for the percussive sound increasingly urgent and loud against the saucepan lid. One of our favourite games was Buccaneer, a pirate game that involved moving small plastic ships around an exciting board and collecting treasure; various gems, gold bars, pearls and tiny barrels of rum. It appealed to me because the playing pieces were so much more exotic than the standard plastic counters in most other games. So, when I needed a touch of sparkle for my real treasure box it was natural that I should cast my eye towards the games cupboard. I reckoned that I would get away with liberating just one of each of the gems in the game. Some quiet subterfuge one evening while my mum and sister watched Coronation Street and I had my touch of bling.

Craft work was not my forte but I did enjoy any excuse to use Copydex glue. Squeezed from the stripy tube it looked like white thick toothpaste but quickly set with a rubbery texture and musty, slightly fishy smell.  I would deliberately put some on my fingers and on the back of my hand, sniff it, let it set and then peel it off like a snake shedding its’ skin. On reflection it was an innocent, mildly erotic pleasure. My pre-adolescent experiment over, I stuck a gem in the centre of each of my fluorescent whirls.  It was taking shape but was not quite right. Partly from a desire to use more glue and partly from purer aesthetic motives I went searching for other sources of decoration.  A rummage in my mother’s needlework basket yielded a range of sequins and her craft drawer provided me with a plastic phial of glitter left over from Operation Home-made Christmas Card. What my design lacked in subtlety it certainly made up for in startling colour.

I remember the excitement I felt. It was like surfing a wave of creativity. By offering to make and wrap our sandwiches for school the following morning – my sister and I normally took it in turns to undertake this more pleasurable of chores – I was able to take enough cooking foil to make a silver lining for my treasure chest. After quick dips into my mother’s make-up drawer and the first-aid box I had tissues and cotton wool to give the finishing touches to the interior. All that remained was to write in neat capital letters in a space I had left on the lid: PRIVATE. THIS BELONGS TO JAMES.DO NOT TOUCH.

That night, after mum had put the light out, I leaned over the edge of the bed and shone my Pifco torch on the box. The diamonds, rubies and sapphires glistened. I felt a warm sense of pride and contentment. I drifted off to sleep and realized on waking the following morning that I had not had my recurring nightmare of being lost in a forest unable to see the sky and unable to cry out for help.  At school we were being introduced to the Second World War in a gentle way. 

Each Friday afternoon our class teacher Mr Bailey, read a chapter of a book to end the week. With his scholarly glasses, neatly parted dark hair and crisp white shirts, Mr Bailey looked to me like Bruce Wayne, Batman’s secret alter ego. I was clearly a boy in search of a hero. We had just finished reading an abridged version of The Secret Diary of Ann Frank. The ingenuity and secrecy involved in a family living in a confined space behind a secret panel struck a chord deep in me.

I decided I must have my own secret compartment somewhere. That night, by torchlight, I peeled back my bedroom carpet where it was loose near the door. I used another of my prized possessions, my red Swiss Army knife, a present from Uncle Rob, to undo the screws in a short section of flooring. I eased up the board to reveal the perfect space in which to hide my treasure box. Looking back I can see how a need for secrecy had developed in me at an early stage. The obvious explanation is that it was a subconscious expression of loss. I had internalized the pain of my father leaving and needed to create my own space. That may or may not be the case, I am easy either way. What I do know is that even back then and to this day I take pleasure in guarding personal secrets. Friends have said that I need to open up more. While I accept this in theory, having a side of me that is mysterious and ambiguous remains an exquisite pleasure.

Over the following weeks I squirreled my treasures away. Even as I did so I had a clear sense that this box was as much about the future that lay before me. I did not want it to be simply like the Blue Peter Time Capsule, a moment frozen in time. However, for starters I tucked away under the fluffy covering a plastic Disney character from a packet of breakfast cereal, a foreign coin with a hole in the middle, a penny red postage stamp, a world cup coin with handsome Bobby Moore on, a shiny conker and a corner of light blue flannelette – all that remained of my beloved Blankie – the comfort rag that had brought me through toddler-hood unscathed! Six years later the coin saw the light of day again as a medallion on a thin strip of leather, part of an early attempt to look cool.

Children tend to do things in a rush and for them time seems unlimited. Even a school year seems an improbable unit of time. Waiting for playtime can be an eternity. For me, as primary school gave way to secondary school so time seemed to accelerate. My treasure box never lost its allure. Two or three months was the absolute maximum interval I could leave between sorting sessions.  Academic certificates, postcards, a few letters including a rare one from my father on my sixteenth birthday, my first air-ticket, one or two positive school reports and snapshots of friends were all added. Depending on my mood at the time an evening going through the box could either lift me to a positive, appreciative emotional high or send me sinking into a depressing bout of unhealthy nostalgia.

In the fullness of time “A” levels came and went without anxiety or alarm. The ease with which I was able to create and inhabit my own space worked well for me in the revision and exams season. While not a genius I recognized in myself an ability to lose myself in research and an aptitude for absorbing quickly information about subjects that fired my imagination.

Despite my mother’s misgivings I planned a gap year. Until that point I had carried an unduly heavy weight of responsibility for my mother and sister. I had stepped into the role of the little man of the house. This had the effect of me being outwardly compliant, the peace maker who avoided causing emotional upset in the two women with whom I shared my life.  Rows and disagreements were few and far between.  Unlike many other teenage boys, I worked out my uncertainties and personal discoveries discreetly and in the privacy of my own emotional landscape.  I knew I wanted my gap year to be full of learning, exploration and new experiences. 

A highlight of the year was the two months I spent inter-railing around Europe.  Content as ever in my own company and intrigued by the drifters I met along the way, I remember how excited I felt about the prospect of meeting up with a long-standing older friend for a fortnight in Rome towards the end of the trip.

That proved to be a magical summer – my summer of first love.  We tramped round the Eternal City, queuing early for all the tourist sights and lying close in the warm nights talking about the effect such historical gems had on us. This was the first time I had let someone break through my protective wall of emotional privacy. I shared my deepest feelings, most of my hurts and my fondest hopes. Our time flew by all too quickly despite being punctuated by moments of intense intimacy when time seems to stand still.

On my return to England I had half a dozen artifacts and souvenirs to deposit in my box. One stood out from the rest; a ring of two curls of hair, dark and blonde, interwoven and tied with purple thread. In the ensuing years from time to time my need for personal space lost its appeal and left me feeling isolated and lonely. It was then that I would go to my box and take out the ring of hair and hold it on my outstretched palm before closing my fist over it. Even now I marvel that something so light and beautiful in its simplicity can carry such weighty and complicated emotional significance, triggering joy and sadness in equal measure.

The night before I left for university I lay awake for an hour or so before sleeping fitfully. A fresh start in a new city appealed to me. My summer travels had awakened in me a curiosity and a desire to see more of the world.  The decision I had to make was whether or not to take my treasure box with me into this new season of my life. Suddenly I recalled powerful, long-sublimated memories of the evening my mother had told me I no longer needed Blankie because I was about to start big school. Early in the morning, I went through the ritual of lifting the carpet and undoing the floorboard. I took out the box. I did not need to go through the contents. Like the dedicated curator of a museum I knew each item intimately. I took out the ring of hair and placed it in a small zipped pocket in my wallet. I slid the box back under the boards and replaced the carpet. Like saying goodbye to someone you met on holiday I sensed it might be a long time before I would set eyes on it again.

My premonition was well-founded. I returned home at Christmas with souvenirs of freshers’ week, three beer-mats, a friendship bracelet and a concert programme to secrete in my usual way. To my horror, my mother having received a handsome legacy from a distant aunt had decided to treat me to top of the range laminate flooring in my room. I smiled weakly and tried not to give off any sign of the inner turmoil I was feeling.  This flooring was well-laid, fixed securely round the edge of the room.  My first night back home I lay awake again, weeping silently in the darkness as I clutched the ring of plaited curls tight in my hand.  Eventually the tears gave way to a calmer realization.  I no longer needed access to my box and personal memorabilia. Simply knowing it was stowed where no-one could reach it and pry was enough in itself.  On reflection I realize my tears that night were an expression of grief for the passing of an era. I had embraced adulthood. I was a survivor.

Fifteen years would pass before I held that box in my hands again.  I was reunited with it when my sister and I sold the house.  Going through the items again felt good and I felt surprisingly calm.  The items so carefully collected had taken on another quality with the passing of time.  They seemed quaint and childish, a connection with another era, like discovering coins that are no longer in circulation; like finding postcards from a place which for a moment you forget you ever visited.