In the room

I wasn't allowed to cross the water but watched the ferries go in and out.

I could see the ferries if i stood on the only chair in this cold,noisey store room. I shouldn't really be in this room and my presence was kept secret everytime I arrived in this place.

It was a small room, quite dark and gloomy with a strange smell, oily and yet dry to the back of your throat. There was a chair and some old newspapers dotted around the floor and some shelves,two and a half walls of shelves with old rusted bits and pieces on, obvioulsy surplus to requirement.
Beneath my feet I could hear the sea crashing against the dock walls. The constant creaking of the old floor boards and the smell of the sea.
In the distance i could hear the voices of the passsengers boarding the ferry. I would stand on my chair and imagine a day when I was old enough to leave this place and travel freely across that river, a river so forbidden to me at this age.

I would try to amuse myself with odd bits of paper I had to draw on and sit and stare at the photographs on the newspapers. It got so cold in my store room that on occassions I made a den out of the newspapers and wrapped myself up in them to keep warm until it was time to go.

At the end of the day the sound of the key in the lock would announance my freedom and my mother would be crouched down in fornt of me, arms wide open, ready to fold them around me with such love. Each time this happened she repeated the same words over and over " I am so sorry my darling, but we need the money so much, it wont be long before you go to school and I won't need to leave you in this awful room again".

The heavy old door would close with a bang. My heart felt as light as a feather as I danced along towards home holding my mothers hand, forgetting about the hours spent previously and basking in her love for me at the present.