Burgundy skates

They sparkled. With every turn of the wheels, they glittered, and I giggled with glee. I felt groovy. Groovier that I had for some time. Carefree. It was my path to enlightenment.

A reminder notice for my rates lay on the kitchen bench, like a detention slip from Sister Devonport’s maths class. Nil interest. Nil care. That window envelope can’t get at me now.

I am invincible. The shiny burgundy vinyl is now the apple of my eye. As a Picasso stands in a gallery, pride of place.

I pick one boot up and close my eyes and inhale it in. Not leather, a synthetic mix I’m guessing. They are weighty but they are shiny and new. They are mine. Visions of 1983 at the skate rink in Hornby flash by. Adidas towelling shorts with white and green stripes. Navy scratchy woollen leg warmers pulled up with an inch of their life reveal scuffed white hire skates. Four wheels of wild abandon running free. Bubbly orange in glass bottles and yellow sticky bars covered in melted chocolate. Perky Narnas were our currency. Spin the bottle our game.

I hold that shiny burgundy skate like a mother does a newborn. Coveted. My own. I lean forward to my three-tiered bookcase and remove a weltered pottered fern and a tattered pile of old House and Graden magazines. And I lift up my two shiny burgundy skates and carefully place them strategically to take pride of place, glistening in the late November sunlight.