The Swing

You are sitting in the lounge of the care home with something more than a hint of vacant passivity.  Your face is lined and worn, your hair blanched to a hoary white.   There is a touch of dementia hovering behind your stare.

I took this photograph in December 2008.  By then, you had stopped spending Christmas with us.  We didn’t fully comprehend the extent of your decline nor foresee your sudden death the following May.

We wanted to visit you regularly, check on your welfare, and remind you of our love.  The Orchards, as your Care Home was laughingly called, stank of cooked vegetables and stale urine.  The other residents sat in threadbare armchairs around the periphery of the room and followed our arrival with keen observation, hungry for fresh faces and disruption to the regime.  Our children were scared of a toothless woman who sat opposite you.  She would always growl in a deep and menacing voice, “Get Out!”  After initial greetings and hugs, we retold stories of the old days, when I was a boy, to make you nostalgic and happy, and to pass the time.

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Do you remember The Swing Dad?  And Leonard Turner?  Ha, I bet you do!  That story began straight after a Tarzan film which you, me and mother watched on that old black and white television in the lounge at Maple Grove.  I must have been about nine, right?

It was a Sunday evening during summer, or perhaps spring?  I’d just had my weekly bath and was wearing pyjamas, my favourite ones with the paisley pattern and orange trim.  I was all ready for bed, just as soon as the film had finished.  Finally, Tarzan caught the bad guys, and the credits had started to roll.

“Bedtime” I heard you say.

Bed?  No way!  I had become Tarzan The Ape Man.  I leapt from the sofa, tore off my pyjama jacket and beat my chest with clenched fists.  As you looked on in bemusement, my face filled with a wild expression and I yelled at the top of my voice, “Ahhhhhh-ohhhh-ahhhhhh-aha”.  You must have thought, “Silly Bugger”.

I raced out of the lounge, through the dining room and into the kitchen, then out of the back door and up the drive.  I ran across the lane and jumped straight onto our swing over the ditch, my momentum launching me forward and off the ground.  Splash!  The nylon cord, always too thin, broke immediately and plunged me into that stagnant, slimy and rat-infested water.

The shock of it!   I was convinced I could hear rats scuttling away.  As realisation began to sink in, I panicked, and thrashed about, trying to get out.  You rushed over to help, remember?  I was covered in green slime and duckweed, crying my eyes out.  You tried hard not to laugh, I could see that, and you know what, that made me cry all the more.  Mother was furious of course and began reprimanding me as she peeled off my stinking pyjama bottoms.  You ran another bath and guided me into the hot, soapy water.

I never used that swing again.  Nor did my friends from the next avenue.  You took the broken cord down, retrieved the wooden stick which we had used as a handle and promised me you would find a stronger rope.  In any case, that Hawthorne tree in front of our bungalow was too small for a swing.  Because the moon sometimes shone through the branches, we called it The Moony Tree.  That was your idea.

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January was a daft time to move house, Dad.  Winter delayed the builders, and many homes were unfinished.  Good job ours was!  They hadn’t even started on Mark’s house.  In fact, there was a massive stack of grey breeze blocks on their site.  You told me not to play there, but me and my mates built a fort out of those blocks, at least until Mister Jary the builder stopped us.  I think he remonstrated with you afterwards.  Nonetheless, it was his fault the ditch was in such a state, full of discarded building materials and rubbish.  No wonder there were so many rats.

I don’t think I’ve said this before, but you were always true to your word.  Just a few days later, you came home from work with a longer and thicker nylon rope.  Cousin Tim climbed up the large Ash Tree just a few yards up the lane from the Moony Tree.  The Ash was so much taller and grew right over the ditch.  I followed your example and christened it the Sunny Tree.  Tim positioned the rope perfectly, and you jammed the same stick through the knots at the bottom.  Hey Presto, a new swing!  Everyone loved it.  It swung higher and wider and was so much faster.

Mark and his family moved in as soon as their house was finished.  He quickly became my best friend and spent as much time on the swing as I did.  I liked both his sisters as well, Ruth the younger and Elizabeth the older.   I never told you this, but Lizzy once kissed me on the lips at a birthday party.  I wasn’t expecting it, and she said I was too sloppy.  Sadly, she never gave me a second chance.  You know, I quite fancied her.

I didn’t like his parents though.  Jean Turner, his mother, was a school teacher and a rather scary one at that.  You called his father Len, rather than Leonard.  He didn’t like that, did he?  He was a councillor and talked posh.  You said he spoke with marbles in his mouth and stupidly, I know, if I stayed over for an evening meal, I used to watch him to see if he spat them out before eating!

But the new swing kept breaking.  The nylon rope seemed to fray up on the branch, and every so often it would snap and drop one of us into the ditch.  Even the water seemed to be more stagnant and smelly each passing week.   I think it was on my second bad fall that you decided to do something.

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I’ll never forget that sunny evening when you came home with a steel cable with ready-made loops at each end, one large and one small.  It was brilliant!  Tim came over straight after school and climbed the Sunny Tree with the cable twirled around his back.  He fed the smaller loop through the larger one, and we simply jammed the old stick through it.  Dad, you were an absolute star.  You’d judged the height perfectly.

I had the first go.  I ran madly along the near-side bank, ascended steeply into the air, then reaching the zenith of the arch, swung back along a wide curve above the ditch.  Back and forth, time after time.  When the pendulum effect diminished, it was easy to kick out at an exposed tree root and push myself safely onto one of the banks.

Surely you remember what happened next?  After Tim and Mark, we begged you to take your turn, but you declined.  The sun was lower, shadows grew longer.  I heard you say, “Good Evening Len” and I spun around to see Mark’s Dad walking down Maple Grove, looking very smart in his work suit, white shirt and tie.  He was carrying an expensive looking briefcase and had a cream coloured raincoat over his other arm.  His white hair made him look rather distinguished.  “Ah Frank”, exclaimed Leonard in his Public School accent, “I see we have a new swing”.  Instead of turning into his drive, he diverted across the road to examine it.

“Steel cable!  Goodness Frank, this must be worth a lot of money.  I hope Fison’s don’t miss it.  It’s perfect though, absolutely top notch!  I can’t see this ever breaking”.  We all nodded in agreement.  Then, to our amazement, Len said,  “In fact, I’ll have a go myself”.  Len never did anything like this!  The look on your face Dad was a real picture.

He put his briefcase down and carefully balanced his cream coat on top of it.  It might have been more comfortable to have taken his expensive suit jacket off, but instead, he grasped the wooden handle firmly at each end and took a short run along the bank before rising into the air.  It was at that precise moment, just like in action films on television, everything went into slow motion.  I’ll never forget.  He swung out and flew up into the blue sky, his body now parallel with the ditch and his tie hanging down at a right angle.  It was at the furthest and highest point of the arch that the wooden handle suddenly snapped in half with a loud crack.

For several seconds he seemed to be suspended in mid-air, a look of absolute shock freezing his face.  Down he went, as though belly-flopping into a swimming pool.  Such was the splatter of green algae and slime that it simultaneously carpeted each bank.  Initially, we just stood there, wide-eyed.  It seemed an age before he started to get to his knees, coughing and spluttering and exclaiming “Oh My God!”

What I remember most Dad was your face.  It was kind of contorted, and for an instant, I was concerned.  Your shoulders were pumping up and down, and although your mouth was clamped shut, your cheeks were set back towards your ears.  Your eyes were glistening, and also, your head was shaking.  You looked as though you were possessed.  As Len got to his feet and tried to climb up the slippery bank, your mouth opened and you let out a howl.  Tears were streaming down your face.  You bowed down with your head towards the ground and began giggling uncontrollably.  That set us all off.  Tim, Mark and I started laughing openly.  No one thought to give poor Len a hand out of the ditch.

When he finally managed to get onto the top of the bank and stand up straight - he was simultaneously a picture of distress and risibility.  His thinning grey hair was thickened with green slime.  Several strands of water-weed were hanging down his face and dripping black water.  His expensive suit looked ruined with dark stains of ditch water.  Both his knees were clumped with black, slimy mud.  His shirt was soaking and sticking to his body, outlining each hole of his string vest.  His tie was equally spoilt, and one of his shoes had come off.  Head down in embarrassment, he was pouring black water out of it.

“You said the swing couldn’t break Frank!  You misled me.  AND it’s not funny.  This suit cost a lot of money”.

At that moment Jean came trotting across.  “Just look at you!  What on earth were you doing?  Do you think you are a child?  For God’s sake Leonard!”  And with that, she almost frog-marched him back across the road and down their drive.  They quickly disappeared around the back of the house, and Mark ran after them.

We were in stitches for ages.  I’ve never seen you cry with so much laughter, Dad.  It was our funniest moment, ever.  A few days later you returned from work with a metal tube, cut to form a perfect handle and carefully taped it to the small loop in the steel cable.  That swing never broke again, and we played on it for years, though Leonard Turner never went near it.  Jean left him a few years later for one of his golfing friends. Ditched twice you could say.

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“You look tired Dad”.

For a while, your eyes seemed brighter and a half-smile lingered. Soon after, our conversation failed a little and you sank lower into the armchair.  Time to leave.  You accompanied us to the front door.  We stopped to hug and reaffirm our love.  You waved goodbye from the open doorway and we drove off, gravel crackling under the car tyres.

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I reconsider the black and white photograph before me.  You look as though you were trying to tell me something.  Would you have remembered the swing and that sunny evening Len fell in the dyke?  It’s ten years since your death, and my questions will forever remain unanswered.

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