Dear Mr Collins

Please excuse Nathan from gym today, as he cannot be arsed to do it. He told me himself last night that he thinks that it is a waste of time, and that you, Mr Collins, are a ‘sweaty, muscle-bound freak of nature’. These are his words Mr Collins, please do not come round here looking to take this matter up with me. I have no quarrel with you.

Nathan also suggested that you look at the boys when they are showering after gym. Is this true? To be honest, I assume that it is not. Most probably it is only one of the countless unseemly lies and half-truths that pour from his mouth daily. Nonetheless, it is not an accusation I can ignore. If it is true then please stop. If it is not true, then feel free to take it up with my son.

You will, of course, be aware that this is not the first note that I have written to you on behalf of Nathan. Doubtless you would have recognised my, shall we say, distinctive handwriting before you even began to read. You may or may not know that this is because I am writing with a ballpoint pen clasped between the hook that is my right hand, and the immobile, pink plastic prosthetic that is my left. I lost both my hands in 1996, returning to a lit firework at the shrill insistence of my son Nathan.

Despite stressing to him that it was dangerous for me to do so, he (as was his want at the time) threw himself to the ground and began to pound his head, very hard, on the new patio. Worried that he might injure himself, I went to take a closer look at the Star-Fracture 400, and to re-light it if need be. Unfortunately, it went off in my hands. Ironically, if I had not acceded to Nathan’s demands that we buy the biggest, most powerful firework legally available in Great Britain at the time, I probably would have suffered only very severe burns. As it was, my left hand and my right hand and forearm were atomised on the spot. Even more gallingly, given the money we had paid for the Star-Fracture 400, Nathan chose to ignore its impressive, colourful detonation high above our heads, as he squealed with joy and clapped at the apparently spectacular fountain of blood that gushed forth from my abbreviated limbs. To this day I have never seen him as happy as he was then, grinning furiously and raising his hands above his head to touch the fine cloud of gore and flesh as it descended upon us.

So, it is up to me to inform you that the reasons given necessitating Nathan’s absence from the sports field in previous weeks were, without exception, false. He has never suffered from pneumonia. There was no Aids scare. There is no such disease as cock-rot.

I would like to apologise for misleading you Mr Collins. It was never my intention to make a monkey of you. Sorry, that was a poor choice of words. It’s just that, with the way Nathan has described you in the past, I always visualised you as a huge, sweat-drenched ape in a polo shirt and tracksuit bottoms. That was very much the picture of you that he painted.

Anyway, I’m reasonably sure that you will receive this letter, as I get the impression that he has long since stopped troubling himself to read them before handing them to you. He doesn’t even bother asking me for them anymore – I simply sit down on a Wednesday evening to write it in time for the next morning, when he will wordlessly snatch it from my hook, crumple it into a pocket-sized ball and stuff it into his coat. I did ask him yesterday though, as he sat in front of the television in only a pair of boxer shorts and a Burberry cap, why he had such an aversion to gym class, especially given the apparent ease with which he evades his probation officer, often vaulting over walls and low hedges to do so. This was when he described you as a ‘sweaty, muscle-bound freak of nature’.

Either way, I feel that it is my duty to bring our deception to your attention. Again, I can only apologise for my complicity in his lies. Although it is no excuse, my writing these letters for Nathan is one of the conditions of our agreement – the house rules, so to speak. If I agree to write these letters, supply him with a small but significant chunk of my weekly Disability Allowance, and refrain from helping the police and probation services with their regular enquiries about him, he agrees to retrieve the food I have delivered weekly by Sainsbury’s Online from the high shelves, where he hides it. As I am wheelchair bound (after Nathan accidentally reversed his Fiat Cinquecento over me in 2001), I rather depend on his help in this matter, so my ‘hands’ are effectively tied (a little joke there).

I bring this matter to your attention, Mr Collins, because my conscience forces me to do so. Also, I sense that you are a proud man – a man who would feel hurt at being described as a ‘sweaty, muscle-bound freak of nature’. Or indeed, as a ‘pervy, kiddie-fiddling nonce’. My fear is that Nathan’s loose-tongue and lack of respect for authority is in danger of harming your career and reputation. I know that if I were in your position, I would wish to ‘have it out’ with whosoever was slandering my good name.

I am not a violent man Mr Collins. I neither practice nor condone it. Nor though am I a presumptuous man. Perhaps I am misreading you, but I would understand if you felt in necessary to settle this matter with your fists, so to speak. And, much as it would pain me to lose my only son, should he die in the course of any pummelling that might take place, I am aware of a number of methods by which we could cleanly dispose of his body. Furthermore – in the event of such an unfortunate development – I could also provide an alibi for his continued non-attendance at school etc., and no-one need ever be any the wiser.

I leave this matter with you, Mr Collins, secure in the knowledge that you will handle it as you think best. Despite the popular stereotype, I am aware of the hard work needed to become a P.E. teacher, and realise that you are required to be no less academically qualified than an art, or even a craft, design and technology teacher. Please feel free to ring me at home should you wish to discuss this further. Do not hang up if I don’t answer immediately, as I may take sometime to negotiate my way to the telephone, and then, to lift the receiver.

Also, I would urge you to burn this letter once you have read it and fully digested its content. Just a precaution should the unthinkable happen, you understand. Speak to you soon hopefully!

Mr Abraham Crick (father of Nathan Crick)

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