When the time came to pick out our mystery swaps, I picked up a lumpy-looking package that I hoped might be something of equal value to my watch. Like another watch. But when I unwrapped it, it was a poxy cricket ball covered in blue tape and wrapped in a load of bubble wrap. I spent the rest of the lunch break in a state of shock, and when the bell rang to go back to class, the school gardener found me crying behind the sports equipment shed. He listened very sympathetically while I told him what had happened, and when I finished snivelling he said, ‘So it’s gone, eh, your watch?’ Yes, I said, indeed it was gone, last seen decorating the wrist of some year six kid laughing all the way to the bank. I was hoping he’d suggest going to the head together to make the boy give it back, but he just shrugged and patted me on the shoulder. Then he said, ‘Well, you can’t unring a bell, son,’ and walked away to move the sprinklers.

I went into a deep decline because I’d loved that watch and saved about six months’ pocket money to buy it. But two weeks later, when I could finally bring myself to actually look at the cricket ball, I peeled off all the blue tape and underneath was the Holy Grail of signatures (so I discovered), Phil Tufnell, which actually became the start of a pretty wonderful obsession that enriched my life a whole lot more than a stupid plastic watch.

What I’m trying to say is that there wouldn’t be anybody on the planet that doesn’t have some regrets. But, like the man said, you can’t unring a bell, so you might as well stop wishing for a life without regret and just make a life with it. (You can use that if you like, because it’s taken me thirty-nine years to kick that habit!)

The truth is, Harriet, no matter how rich or poor or smart or dumb we are, whatever job we do, however much we own, whatever we owe, at the end of the day we’ve all got exactly the same thing. Every one of us has got the rest of our lives ahead of us – and whether that’s fifty years or fifteen minutes really isn’t up to us. We can’t change the life we’ve already spent, so it’s what we choose to do with the rest of it that counts, I reckon.

Yours from the belltower,

Sincerely, Danny Mulberry

P.S. I nearly forgot. I looked it up and the best opposite to ‘regret’ I could find is ‘satisfaction’ or ‘happiness’. But if you want my version it’d be ‘just get on with living’.

32

Wolfie

I hear them laughing the minute I put the key in the door and, just for a split second, I consider turning around, running back up Glenmore Road and not looking back.

Apparently Ray and I are friends now, so getting through the front gate takes a while these days. We were so long chatting, Gentleman sniffed something was up and came down the side for a look-see, which led to a ten-minute story about Ray’s fox terrier, Inga, who he’d rescued from Battersea Dog’s Home and lived to the ripe old age of fifteen. Gone now. I filed that under ‘dogs’ in common ground and thought, There might be hope yet for Danny and Ray.