The drink flowed freely, bottles piled high, yet not a crumb of food was to be found.
The house was full of guestsas it nearly always was.
“Everyone drinks, drinks, bottles everywhere, but not a bite to eat. Not even a scrap of bread… Just empty cans and cigarette butts on the table,” murmured Oliver, scanning the table once more, but finding nothing edible.
“Fine, Mum, Im going,” the boy said, slowly slipping on his torn shoes.
He still hoped she might stop him, might say: “Where are you off to, love? You havent eaten, and its bitter out. Stay home. Ill make some porridge, send the guests away, and scrub the floors.”
He always waited for a kind word from her, but kindness was never her way. Her words were like thorns, making Oliver want to curl up and hide.
This time, he decided to leave for good. Oliver was six years old and felt grown enough. First, hed need moneyenough for a bun, maybe even two. His stomach growled, demanding to be filled.
He didnt know how to get money, but as he passed the shops, he spotted an empty bottle half-buried in the snow. He remembered bottles could be returned for pennies. Tucking it into his pocket, he then found a crumpled bag by the bus stop and spent half the day collecting more.
The bottles clinked merrily in the bag. Oliver imagined biting into a soft, fragrant bunraisin or poppy seed, maybe even jam. But jam might cost more, so he kept searching.
He wandered to the train station. On the platform, where men drank ale while waiting for the next train, he set down his heavy bag by a kiosk and dashed off for another bottle. When he returned, a filthy, angry man had taken his haul. Oliver asked for it back, but the mans glare sent him scurrying away.
The dream of a bun vanished like mist.
“Bottle-collecting isnt easy,” Oliver thought, trudging back through snowy streets.
The snow was wet and clinging. His feet ached with cold. Darkness fell. He didnt recall how he ended up in a stairwell, curling against a radiator before drifting into warm sleep.
When he woke, he thought he was still dreamingit was warm, quiet, and cosy, and the air smelled delicious.
A woman entered the room. She was lovely, her gaze soft.
“Well, lad,” she said, “warmed up? Slept well? Come for breakfast. I found you last night, curled up like a pup in the stairwell. Brought you home.”
“Is this my home now?” Oliver asked, hardly daring to hope.
“If youve none of your own, it is now,” she replied.
What followed was like a fairy tale. This kind womanwhose name, Eleanor, sounded magical to himfed him, cared for him, bought him new clothes. Slowly, he told her of his life with his mother.
“Would you like me to be your mum?” she asked one day, hugging him tightly, the way real mothers do.
Of course, he wanted that. But
The happiness ended too soon. A week later, his mother arrived.
Nearly sober, she shouted at Eleanor: “No ones stripped me of my rights! Hes my son!”
As she dragged Oliver away, snowflakes fell, and the house behind them gleamed like a white castle under a spell.
Life grew harder. His mother drank. Oliver fled, sleeping in stations, collecting bottles, buying bread. He spoke to no one, asked for nothing.
In time, his mother lost her rights, and Oliver was sent to a childrens home.
The saddest part? He could never recall where that white house stood, where the kind woman with the fairy-tale name lived.
Three years passed.
Oliver, now quiet and withdrawn, lived in the home. He drew constantlyalways the same scene: a white house, snow falling.
One day, a journalist visited. The matron showed her around.
“Olivers a good lad, but struggles to adapt. Were trying to find him a family,” she explained.
The journalist smiled. “Im Eleanor.”
Suddenly, Oliver spokebright, eager, telling her of another Eleanor, the kindest woman hed known. His eyes shone, cheeks flushed. The matron stared, astonished.
The name Eleanor had unlocked his heart.
The journalist wept listening to his story. She promised to write about him, hoping the right Eleanor might read it.
She kept her word. A miracle followed.
That Eleanor wasnt a subscriber, but on her birthday, colleagues gave her flowers wrapped in newspaper. Unfolding it, she spotted the headline: “Good Woman Eleanor, Oliver Is Searching for You. Reply!”
She knew at once it was the boy shed once taken in.
Oliver recognised her instantly. They clung to each other, weepinghim, her, even the matrons.
“I waited so long,” he whispered.
She couldnt take him home that dayadoption took timebut she visited daily.
Years later, at 26, Oliver is happy. He studied engineering, plans to marry, and adores his mother Eleanor, who gave him everything.
Once, she confessed: her husband left her for being childless. Shed been lonely until finding Oliver in that stairwell.
When his birth mother took him back, Eleanor had thought, “It wasnt meant to be.”
Finding him again at the home was her greatest joy.
Oliver once tried tracing his birth mother. Shed rented a flat, then vanished with a freed convict years prior. He searched no further. Why bother?
