James McQueen

Written age 13
Dalkeith High School, Midlothian

COLD REMORSE

It was dark and cold outside. Snow dropped thick and fast onto the square. A group of youths ran through the streets pelting each other with crumbling snowballs, not caring that they were supposed to be home at nine and it was now midnight. They were too busy to notice a tall figure, crouching under the silver birch with an old scratched guitar. He had not eaten in three days and his clothes were thin. He pulled the guitar close to him and began to play a melancholy tune. The music drifted up to the window of the house where Harry Pew-Grinding lived.

Harry Pew-Grinding was a harsh businessman who lived with his wife Sandra. They stayed in a big, majestic Georgian building. In the winter Harry claimed that there was no better place to live. He liked to watch the snowflakes drop gently onto the square and the patch of frosty, green grass where the silver birch stood, erect like an aristocrat. Harry was a contented man and normally slept soundly, but tonight was different.

Earlier, Sandra had cried herself to sleep and was now twisting and turning restlessly beside Harry who was finding it increasingly hard to drift off. The marriage had not been going too well recently, nor had the business and his head was filled with guitar music from outside on the street. It was an acoustic that was being played and suddenly, remembering someone who also played an acoustic guitar, Harry's mind filled with rage and he cursed whoever was on the street. "Damn guitarist."

As his mind wandered to thoughts of business deals, something his little brother had said when they were young sailed through the troubled ocean of his mind. "When I'm older I'm going to be a famous musician and make lots more money than you." He was ten when he said it but the idea had stuck. That was where the problems started. Harry, like his father, was repulsed by the idea of his brother becoming a guitarist. He wanted him to join the family business just like him, but Grant had 'other ideas' and bought himself an acoustic guitar. He learned to play and thought he was quite good, but at the age of fifteen when he told his family of his great ambition, Harry and their father mocked and crushed Grant's dreams.

"Quite right," thought Harry in his bed staring up at the dark ceiling. "There was no point in giving him false hope." Harry remembered the day when Grant ran away. The scene flashed though his head like an old film.

The room is dark. The walls are painted dark green. Grant is standing tall, his orange, blond hair curling down the side of his cheek. His sallow skin is looking pale and grey. His hazel eyes are wide, as though shocked by his own decision.

"Dinnae go son!" pleads his poor, wailing Highland mother. "Jeem, plees be reasonable."

Harry remembers watching his father glaring at his young brother. "If the lad wants tae turn his back on his family and dae this music rubbish, let him, but he is never allowed in this house again. He is no longer a Pew-Grinding!"

Harry's mum lets out a wail and then begins begging everyone as fast as she can. "Grant, plees dinnae go! Jeem let him stay! He's yer own son. Harry, tell him! Dinnae let him send yer brother away!"

The words that left Harry's mouth haunted him for the rest of his life. "I see no brother of mine!"
 

The scene stopped just as abruptly as it had started. Perhaps the rest of what happened was too long ago to remember. Or too painful! No! Nothing was too painful for Harry Pew-Grinding.

Harry pushed all these annoying thoughts from his head and listened out for the guitar music again. It had stopped. The square was silent. Even the snow, which at this point was falling in sheets, piled up noiselessly. Not even a single car on a distant motorway seemed to pass. Strangely, Harry found now that he missed the music. It had been inexplicably reassuring.

Harry quickly sat up in bed. Slipping his cold feet into his dark-blue velvet slippers, he hurried over to the window. The square was, as Harry always boasted, a beautiful sight to behold. The snow on top of the cars gave the impression that they were wearing wigs. Harry laughed at this thought. The laugh came out as a funny sound, as though emotion was not sure of itself, but then, it was the first time Harry had laughed in the last couple of months.

Something stirred under the silver birch. Harry could see the man shivering and clutching a guitar under there. Just then another emotion took Harry by surprise. It was a warm, caring emotion and he felt sorry for the tramp that he had earlier cursed. Harry felt for the man, crouched up against an old tree with thin clothes. His eyes were drawn to the orange, blond hair that was curling around the guy's small, pale face. It was the same shade of hair as Grant's. Could it be him?

That is when Harry made the biggest decision of his life. It wasn't like any of his business deals; because this was an unplanned decision that would change him for ever. He chose to go outside and see his brother!

Outside, Grant was trying to keep warm in the perishing cold. Since his music career had been left in tatters, he'd been living off the feeble hope that his family would accept him again and so was drawn to the square where his brother lived, but the last step of knocking on the door was too big a step for him.

His fingers were numb and painful as though death himself had been slamming them in the gates of hell. Grant pulled his bin bag closer to him. The bag contained all his possessions; a couple of guitar strings, a t-shirt and an empty mug. "Does no-one care?" he thought.

Just as he was losing all hope, a huge black door at the front of the house opposite him was thrown open, and out ran a figure in a dressing gown and slippers. Grant recognised him instantly and stood up. The two men stood opposite each other in the falling snow. Harry gazed into his brother's eyes for the first time in thirty years.

"Grant. I'm so sorry." He was cut short by Grant's crushing arms, hugging him like a child would hug his teddy. They clung to each other in the snow and then retreated from the cold into the warmth of the house.

In another house in the square, old Mrs McNab, the gossip, had watched Mr Pew-Grinding walk out into the freezing cold, hug a tramp and then invite him into his house. She took no time the next day, to tell everyone that Mr Pew-Grinding, the old grumpy businessman who shouted at children and never gave money to charity had changed his ways. She didn't know how right she was.