When I was a child, someone promised me a jacket potato.
It was Bonfire Night. There were sparks in the dark, damp grass underfoot, adults shouting contradictory instructions about fireworks, and the smell of smoke getting into everyone’s clothes. Somewhere in the middle of it all, several potatoes had been wrapped in foil and buried in the hot ash at the edge of the fire.
This was explained to me as though it were a miracle.
“You wait,” someone said. “When they’re done, we’ll send one over to you.”
I believed them.
Children believe promises made beside bonfires.
I waited.
At first, not for long.
Ten minutes, perhaps.
I wandered about kicking at clumps of grass and watching other people eat sausages from paper plates. Occasionally I looked towards the fire.
The potatoes remained unseen.
“Are they done yet?”
“Not quite.”
Five minutes later:
“How about now?”
“Nearly.”
Nearly is a dangerous word to use with a child.
Nearly means the thing already exists.
Nearly means it is approaching.
Nearly means somewhere in the workings of the universe, your potato is becoming yours.
People began folding chairs.
Someone extinguished a sparkler in a bucket.
Cars started leaving.
I asked again.
“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll send it to you when it’s ready.”
That seemed fair.
I went home.
The potato did not arrive.
I assumed there had been a delay.
Perhaps the foil had become stuck.
Perhaps the potato was unusually large.
Perhaps the fire had cooled more quickly than anticipated.
There were plausible explanations.
I went to bed.
The following morning, I thought about it again.
Nothing.
Days passed.
I remained optimistic.
Every sound at the door seemed potentially potato-related.
The postman arriving became exciting.
A knock at six in the evening produced a brief surge of hope.
Sometimes a car slowing outside was enough.
Childhood moved on.
Christmas arrived.
Then birthdays.
School terms.
New shoes.
New disappointments.
At eighteen, I left home.
As I packed, my mother asked whether I had everything.
“Yes,” I said.
Then, after a moment:
“Except that potato.”
At university, people spoke about ambition.
What did you want from life?
A career.
Travel.
Marriage.
Money.
Purpose.
I listened to them and thought: I would quite like to see some follow-through on the jacket potato situation.
People laughed.
They thought I was telling a joke.
“Still waiting,” I’d say.
They laughed harder.
I didn’t.
By thirty, the story had improved with age.
The potato had become legendary.
Friends would ask for updates.
“Any sign?”
“Nothing.”
Occasionally someone would suggest I simply buy a jacket potato.
This completely missed the point.
I have had hundreds of jacket potatoes.
Lovely ones.
Butter.
Cheese.
Beans.
Once, inexplicably, prawns.
None of them was the potato.
The potato had a history.
The potato had been promised.
The potato was, by now, less food than destiny.
Technology advanced.
Online shopping.
Next-day delivery.
Same-day delivery.
One-hour delivery.
Humanity developed the ability to locate a taxi to within six feet, watch films instantly, and order Japanese noodles from a stranger on a bicycle at midnight.
Still no potato.
Sometimes I wondered whether it was travelling by older means.
Horse.
Canal boat.
Carrier pigeon.
A potato is a difficult object to expedite.
I imagined warehouses.
Depots.
Processing centres.
A small foil-wrapped object passing silently from one generation of postal workers to the next.
Nobody quite sure what it was.
A label fading on the side:
URGENT
JACKET POTATO
FOR THE BOY
The boy, meanwhile, had grey hairs.
Then one November evening, decades after the original bonfire, there was a knock at the door.
I was at home.
It was dark outside.
Cold.
Bonfire weather.
I opened the door.
There was nobody there.
I looked down.
On the step sat a small parcel.
No stamp.
No address.
Just my name.
I stared at it.
For a long time.
Then I carried it inside.
My hands were shaking.
I placed it on the kitchen table.
There are moments in life when the universe seems to narrow to a single point.
Weddings.
Deaths.
Births.
A mysterious package that might contain a root vegetable promised decades ago.
I opened it.
Inside was foil.
I peeled it back.
There it was.
A potato.
Blackened skin.
Cold.
Slightly shrivelled.
But unmistakably a jacket potato.
Beside it was a note.
Sorry for the delay.
For several minutes, I could not speak.
I sat at the table looking at it.
All those years.
All that waiting.
And now it was here.
I touched it.
Stone cold.
I laughed.
Then, to my surprise, I felt like crying.
Because I could suddenly see the child who had waited for it.
Standing beside the bonfire.
Watching the sparks rise.
Absolutely certain that adults meant what they said.
I wrapped the potato back up.
I did not eat it.
I put it on the windowsill.
It stayed there for three days.
On the fourth morning, my wife threw it away.
“There was a horrible old potato in the kitchen,” she said.
I stared at her.
“You what?”
She stopped.
“What?”
I looked in the bin.
Empty.
Already collected.
I ran outside.
The bin lorry was turning the corner.
For one wild moment, I considered chasing it.
Then I stopped.
I stood in the road in my slippers, watching it disappear.
My wife came to the door.
“What on earth is wrong with you?”
I looked at the empty road.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I went back inside.
After all, I knew how this worked now.
It’ll come back.
Eventually.
Rob Walker 