The Pearls of Primrose Hill - Folder Piece - From the point of view of the boy

Jamie Pender

The Pearls of Primrose Hill – Folder Piece

(1) From the point of view of the boy

I knew I’d had too much to drink that night, but I didn’t care. I saw a bike just sitting there; it seemed a waste for a perfectly good bike not to be used. Although my vision and thinking patterns were blurred, the idea then came to me. Perhaps if I took this bike for a little ride, and then return it back later on in mint condition, no one need ever know. I knew that stealing something as expensive as a motorbike would be the wrong thing to do, but it wasn’t as if my mother cared. Besides, I’m a good driver, it’s not as if I’m going to cause an accident.

And so, I stole the bike. Cruising along, I was hysterical; after all, nothing could stop me, as I was invincible. It didn’t take me long at all to reach the hill, and I was going at 60 miles per hour when I went through it.

Then, suddenly, I saw the enemy. I aimed for it, and then I began to charge at full speed. The impact was overwhelming, and a sense of joy infested me, knowing that single handedly I had obliterated the enemy. However, I was on the ground now, I couldn’t feel anything, it was a struggle to move, not that I nor anyone else cared.

I wasn’t in pain because the alcohol had taken it away, but inside I knew something was missing, something not right. I put a hand inside my mouth to check if my teeth were still there. ...

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I wasn’t in pain because the alcohol had taken it away, but inside I knew something was missing, something not right. I put a hand inside my mouth to check if my teeth were still there. I kept moving my hand for several minutes, until finally I realized that my teeth had burst out. I saw the blood dripping frantically from my mouth; as I began to crawl out of the forest at Primrose Hill, wondering if anyone would even care about what had happened to me tonight. My brain was still under the influence of alcohol but as I was slowly crawling my way out of the trees, I began to realize the severity of all that I had just done, despite knowing my mother probably wouldn’t even care.

(2) From the point of view of the mother

I couldn’t stay still. I kept on getting up and wandering about as the night passed; such was the extent of worry about where my son could be at this time. I knew that he hadn’t been happy recently, but rarely was he not back home by this time, this was completely out of character. He had made me wait the whole night, and when he finally did return, I almost wished that I hadn’t seen him at all because of the state he was in. His face was covered with red blood and he looked more like a creature from a horror film than a normal human being.

Normally in a situation like this I would panic, but I grabbed the car keys and carrying him I ran to the car. I don’t know where I found the srength from, but I quickly got the engine going, and paid no attention to the maximum speed signs or traffic lights.

Joy filled me when surgeons informed me that teeth could be saved, but moments later I was left in disbelief when I was told that I would have to find the teeth. I wouldn’t have minded, but I didn’t even have an inkling as to where they could be. This meant I would have to search the whole of Primrose Hill, and even then the chances of finding the teeth were remote at best.

And so, I went to search the hill. I felt like the incident alone had aged me overnight, and I didn’t realize how bad the conditions on the hill would be. I had to crawl through dogshit grass to look for my son’s own teeth, for a son who showed little if any care for me. Indeed, the only thing he did show towards me was disrespect, but I thought that if I endured this degrading and humiliating act, that things might change, that we could have a true mother-son relationship based on trust and care rather than cruelness and neglect. The probability of finding the teeth was no more than the probability of finding a few needles in a haystack. If I could find the teeth it would mean so much to me, but all I could cling on to was the hope of finding them. I cared so much for him as any mother would for any son, hence why I continued to examine Primrose Hill.