A Strange and Unexpected Gift by Jo Cameron-Symes

I am about to tell you a story. It is the kind of story which, if I entered for a competition, I feel that people would think that this would never happen in real life, because it sounds so far-fetched. They would likely feel that this story is too unrealistic. The irony is, that they would be wrong, because every word of this story is true…

         It was one of those blisteringly hot, long days of summer. The days that melted tarmac in the road to the consistency of cookie dough. The air was thick with humidity. Humidity, that seeped into your bones and weighed you down. These were the facts of my childhood summers. Hosepipe bans, dried out, scratchy, sickly yellow-coloured grass that looked as if it had never once been lush and green. Clay baked earth that dried rock-hard and became covered in fissures like mini earthquakes. On days like these, there was nothing to be done but to try to cool off, any way you could. No one had air conditioning in their houses then. Almost all houses owned an electric fan, though all they really seemed to do was re-circulate hot air. All you could do was pray for the rain which arrived with occasional, mythical-type thunderstorms. One storm was so powerful, it set off a cacophony of car alarms on our road by physically moving the cars. The problem was, once the storm had passed, it was cooler for a day or two, then became insufferably hot again.

          Supermarkets provided some refuge from the heat if you were lucky enough to be near one. The refreshing coolness of the freezer aisle was bliss; like walking into a mountain of pure air where you could breathe easily and where the air seemed weightless. But there was only so much time you could spend in a supermarket, especially if you were a teenage girl accompanied by her peers. No, if you spent too long with friends in a supermarket then you only seemed to generate suspicion and were tailed by the security guards, who watched you like a hawk until you left their hunting ground. This always made me angry and I wanted to tell the security guards that all the time that they had wasted watching us would be better used following the people in suits, who were more likely stealing the goods scot free. I never said this, though I wanted to. The only other place to stay cool was at the local outdoor swimming pool. Swim sessions were cheap then and you could stay for a whole afternoon then wander into town afterwards.

           It was after one of these outdoor swims with my friends when something truly odd happened. The four of us had got changed and were walking out of the leisure centre down a long corridor. This corridor fed into the main building from the women’s’ and men’s’ changing rooms and the squash courts at the rear of the building. We were chatting and laughing, talking about where we were going to go in town when two men in their thirties hurried by holding squash rackets. One of them seemed really stressed and (for some reason I was unaware of) singled me out, approaching me with something in his hand and said loudly and very insistently "Take it, please take it!"
           I looked down and saw that it was a women's ring. Thinking that he'd mistakenly thought that I'd dropped it I replied, "No, it's not mine."
           "I know!" he aggressively insisted "Just take it!"
           So I did.  
           He hurried off, followed by his concerned friend. "Oh my God!" I said, "That was weird!" I looked more closely at the ring with my friends, it was 24 carat gold, had a hallmark and what looked like a diamond in the centre. It didn't look brand new, but we assumed it looked a lot like an engagement ring, though being aged thirteen we were a fair few years from getting one of those ourselves. I had no idea what to do next, so stored it in the pocket of my rucksack.

           When I got home, I showed my mother and recounted this strange tale. The whole situation had felt so bizarre and strange that I felt odd keeping the ring, it wasn’t really something that I wanted to have in my possession. My mother agreed that it looked very valuable and took it to the police station where she handed it in. That was the last I ever heard of it.

          To this day, I find myself wondering what the real story was behind that mystery ring? Was it a case of a relationship gone sour? A terrible break-up perhaps, where the woman was unfaithful to her partner? This seems like the most realistic explanation, but perhaps instead, it was an antique ring from an unsuccessful proposal? The writerly side of me also imagines, the most sinister possibility. That it was the ring from a victim's hand, perhaps a murder victim? Of course, that's not likely though...is it?