Heavy

I inherit my dad’s 1950s boarding school trunk. The large blue and black box with its leather handles and sturdy gold clasps, which contained all the possessions an adolescent boy was sent off with to start his independent life. I receive it as part of a job lot of old, mismatched furniture, which my mum ships down to me when I first move into an unfurnished house. It has labels on it, neatly written addresses in block capitals, attached with brown, peeling sellotape. It has a shipping label attached to one of the handles, like the ones which get looped around a suitcase when you check it in at the airport. Time has faded off the ink from this, so the trunk’s destination and the date of such exotic travels remain a mystery lost forever to the decades since its journey.

First, it is a coffee table, useful when I sit cross-legged on the sofa. Friends come around and get so engrossed in conversation that we don’t notice the hours slipping away.  The neat little rectangles of the paper addresses eventually detach, the yellowed tape proving to be no match for spilt tea and coffee rings.

Next, when I get the puppy, I open it up and turn it into a bed for her, packing it full of old cushions and a duvet. I glue pictures of people and things she loves to the blistered lining paper inside the lid. I know she doesn’t understand what I’m doing, but I am a besotted dog-parent, and all I want is for her to sleep in a cosy nook that feels like home.

Eventually, the puppy unexpectedly turns into a wolf-sized German shepherd, outgrowing her trunk. I repurpose it once again as a storage chest. Foolishly, I pack it full of books when I move house. I can’t lift it an inch, and it takes two burly removal men to haul it down and into the van; one of them tries first to lift it by one of the leather handles, which simply comes off in his hand, and he says, “Fuck me, that’s heavy – what have you got in there?”.

Finally, it becomes a side table again, with my thrifted phrenology head and lamp sitting on top.  The two house rabbits are suddenly interested in it and decide that the remaining leather handle is surprisingly satisfying to chew – the handle detaches. Presumably now having a sense of ownership of the trunk, the rabbits take to curling up together on top of it and falling asleep.

At some point, when it is still a coffee table, Dad comes to visit. He looks at the trunk, cradling his mug in his hands as if pressed back by a magnetic forcefield around the coffee table in the middle of the room. He raises his eyebrows and says, “Huh. That’s my school trunk.”. I tell him it is a good coffee table; everybody comments on how vintage it is, something from another era before luggage had wheels. Something from another world, where children have to leave home at 11 in a boater hat and tailcoat, with all their possessions in a large blue and black box with leather handles and sturdy gold clasps. My Dad nods thoughtfully. After a moment, he says, “That trunk was so heavy.”