12/05/2010

Confession:Does That Ring A Bell?

Dear Father Mayo and the kindly collective

This confession goes back over 30 yrs, I think I was about 9 or 10, and at that time, shared a room with my older sister Charlotte, who was then 18 or 19 and my newborn sister Sarah.

Now Charlotte had been seeing the same boyfriend for quite some time and had finally, about 6 months before my confession takes place, become engaged to him. To celebrate their much trumpeted announcement he had dutifully been out and brought her an incredibly beautiful and extremely expensive ruby engagement ring. It was worth hundreds of pounds which in those days was a king's ransom (particularly to a pair of 18 year olds) and as you can well imagine she wore with it with great pride and made sure that it was visible at all times.

One night Charlotte and her fiancé attended a friend's party at which, for reasons I'm still unaware of, they had a huge row. The aftermath of the row continued for days, until finally a few weeks later in a fit of piqué she told him it was all over, and came storming home.

She went straight to our bedroom and for the first time I could remember removed the treasured ring from her finger, muttering something under her breath that I couldn't possibly repeat on the radio, and placed it carefully back in it's expensive looking red velvet box that she had been keeping in her bedside drawer.

So the ring sat in its box on her bedside table for a few days, and they didn't talk. I got home from school one afternoon, and as she was still at work, I decided to try on this much admired piece of jewellery. I put it on and proceeded to strike various posses in the mirror, holding my hand out and giving regal waves with the giant ruby glittering in the sunlight. I had a lot of fun and day dreamed about the day that I might posses such a precious and expensive gem.

Whilst I was admiring it and myself in the full length mirror, I heard my mum calling me from downstairs, I quickly removed the ring, but as I did, it fell on the floor and under her bed, amongst the collection of platform shoes and discarded David Cassidy posters. I couldn't see it immediately, so went downstairs, vowing to get it out later and return it to its box.
Well, being 9 and more interested in skateboarding, I soon forgot about
the ring and my task of retrieving it, until the a few days later, when on returning from school, my mum declared that she had hovered our bedroom, and could I please keep my side tidier in future.

Fear and dread suddenly consumed me, I immediately ran to our room and started a frantic search, but to no avail, all that lay under the bed now was neat lines of shoes and some carefully rolled up posters. There was no dirt, no dust and definitely NO RING! Obviously I was far too scared to own up to my misdeed, so I kept my silence.

Charlotte soon discovered her precious ring was missing, and started to search the room for from top to bottom, I looked on, obviously offering encouragement wherever I could, and joining in her confused musings on where on earth she might have put it.

As she had now officially broken off her engagement (which i was glad about, because I hated her fiancé) at first she was simply annoyed about the missing gem, but the annoyance soon turned to anger, mainly I imagine as it was worth a great deal of money and she probably wanted to sell it and spend the money! (I don't think she ever had any intention of actually returning it to her ex)

It became a complete mystery to her and to the whole family and was one of those stories that came up at Christmas and family gatherings, when new searches would still from time to time take place. I suppose I could have owned up at the time, and made our mum empty the Hoover to find it, but I was just too scared!

A few years later however, she married a much nicer man, and got an even nicer ring so the searching and questioning stopped and the truth stayed hidden… until now that is.

Can you forgive a scared 9 yr old for losing a once treasured and highly valuable piece of jewellery?