THE UNWANTED GIFT
My birthday! Not a great cause for celebration but I did expect
a few cards and gifts. I was not disappointed.
‘Happy birthday, mum,’ Susan dropped a neat flat package
onto my plate at the breakfast table. A kiss on my cheek and she was gone,
racing for the school bus as usual.
Five minutes later Patrick made an appearance – a real
effort. His eyes were still half closed. He too slipped a small, neatly wrapped
packet onto my plate. ‘Twenty-one again, mum, yeah-yeah.’ A wave of the hand
and he tottered back up to his bed.
I drank my tea, ate my roll and cleared away before taking
my gifts into the living room to open. I liked sitting at the sunny window to
deal with my mail. As I sat down the gate opened and Flossie from next door
came up the path, beaming and waving.
‘I know it’s your birthday,’ she said as I opened the front
door, ‘no, I won’t come in but I have something for you. I know you’ll like
this.’
I added the packet to the others. Just then the post thudded
onto the mat. Another flat parcel. The neat, tiny handwriting told me it was
from my niece, Katie. That was likely to be the total haul. I opened the first
gift, the one from Susan. Bless her, she had bought me the DVD of ‘Persuasion’.
Well, I had rather drooled over Captain Wentworth when we watched it on TV.
Then I ripped the paper off Patrick’s gift. Another DVD by the look of it. Oh,
dear, it was - and of ‘Persuasion’. There was going to be a bit of a scene
about this.
Next I opened Flossie’s gift. Yet another copy of
‘Persuasion’. Had I been so enthusiastic about Captain Wentworth? And to crown
it all, Katie’s gift was the same again. I sat and stared out of the window.
What was I to do with four copies of the same film?
Perhaps I could get Susan to change one copy at the shop
where she had bought it. Then I decided to send another copy to a French friend
who taught English. She would like the story and the actors as well. The final
copy… hmm, I would give to Jessica at work. She liked historical novels.
That evening, the dinner was almost dried up before Tim got
home.
‘So sorry to be late, darling,’ he said, giving me a big
kiss. ‘I stopped off to get you a little gift. I had to go to three shops to
find it.’ With a beaming smile he handed me a DVD of ‘Persuasion.’