The Swing

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

I made 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, smelled of cooked vegetables and a hint of stale urine.  The other residents sat in threadbare armchairs around the periphery of the room and monitored our arrival with keen interest, stimulated by fresh faces and a disruption to their normal routine.  Our children were scared of a toothless woman who sat opposite you.  She would growl in a deep and menacing voice, "Get Out!"  After greetings, hugs, and listening to your limited news, we retold stories of the old days when I was a boy, to make you nostalgic and happy and to pass the duration of our visit.

⬦

Do you remember the swing Dad?  And Leonard Turner?  Ha, I certainly do!  That story began after a Tarzan film that Mother, you and I watched on our old black & 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 my favourite pyjamas, the ones with the paisley pattern and orange trim.  I was all ready for bed just as soon as the film finished.  Finally, Tarzan caught the bad guys, and the credits started to roll.  The End!

"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, I yelled out Tarzan’s tree-top call, “Ahhhhhh-ohhhh-ahhhhhh”.  You must have thought, "Silly Bugger", a phrase you often chose at such moments.

I raced out of the living room, through the dining area and into the kitchen, then out of the back door and up the drive, before you realised what I was up to.  I ran across the lane and jumped straight onto our rope swing that hung over the ditch opposite our house.  My momentum launched me forward and into the air.  A momentary pause followed, and then snap!  The flimsy rope, always too thin to bear a child's weight for long, broke in two and plunged me into the stagnant, rat-infested water below.  The shock of it!  As realisation sunk in with the cold water, I panicked and thrashed about, trying to get out, convinced I could hear the rats scuttling towards me.

You rushed over to help, remember?  I was covered in duckweed and green slime, 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 soon as we got back indoors, 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.  You took down the broken cord, retrieved the wooden stick handle, and promised to find a stronger rope.  In any case, that Hawthorne tree was too short for a swing.  You had christened it The Moony Tree when we first moved into the bungalow because, on clear nights, the moon shone right through it.

January was a daft time to move house, Dad.  Winter delayed the builders, and many homes were unfinished.  It's a good job ours was!  They hadn't even started work 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 and remonstrated with you.  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 should have said this before, but you were always true to your word, Dad.  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 also grew right over the ditch.  I followed your idea 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!  It swung much higher and wider and was far more exciting.  Everyone loved it

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, Ruth the younger and Elizabeth the older.  I've never told you this, but Beth 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 had a real crush on her!

I didn't like Mark's parents, though.  Jean Turner, his mother, was a schoolteacher who was rather stern and a somewhat scary.  You called his father Len rather than Leonard.  He didn't like that, did he?  He was a councillor and was particularly well-spoken.  You said he spoke with marbles in his mouth, and stupidly, if I stayed at Mark's house 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 frayed on the top branch, and every so often, it would snap and drop one of us into the ditch.  Not only that, but the water became more stagnant and smelly as the weather warmed.  As I lay on the roadside bank after one nasty fall, a rat appeared out of the ditch, ran along the bank and jumped right over my legs!   I still shudder at the thought and blame that ditch on my phobia of rats.  Shortly after that, you decided to find a safer and more permanent solution for the swing.

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.  Tim came over straight after school and climbed the Sunny Tree with the cable twirled around his back like a professional climber.   He looped the cable over the top branch, fed the smaller loop through the larger one, and let the length of the cable fall.  You'd got the height of the cable to perfection so that the small loop finished about four feet from the ground.  We simply jammed the old wood stick through the small loop and wrapped tape around the middle to secure it.  Our new, ultimate swing was ready to go!

I went first and ran madly along the roadside bank of the ditch, ascended steeply into the air, and then, reaching the furthest point of the arch, enjoyed the thrill of swinging right along the ditch.  Back and forth, time after time.  When the pendulum slowed, 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, Dad?  After Tim and Mark had their turn, we begged you to have a go, but you declined.  The sun was lower, and shadows had grown 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 ever did anything like this!  He put his briefcase down and carefully balanced his raincoat 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 ran along the bank briefly before rising high into the air.

Precisely at the moment when he’d reached maximum height, his body was parallel with the ditch, and his tie was hanging vertically down, the swing’s wooden handle broke in two with a loud snap!

There was a sufficient pause before gravity took effect for us to observe the look of absolute horror on Len's face.  Then, down he went, as though performing a dramatic belly-flop into a swimming pool.   SPLAT!  Such was the scale of the tsunami of green algae and slime that it carpeted both sides of the ditch.  Initially, we just stood wide-eyed in shock and silent disbelief.  Several seconds passed before Len tried to get to his feet, coughing and spluttering.  Once standing, he looked up at us on the ditch bank and then, in a loud whooshing voice, exclaimed, "Oh My God!"

Dad, your face was also a picture.   It was contorted, and for an instant, I was concerned.

With shoulders pumping up and down, face reddened, eyes glistening, and mouth clamped shut, you resembled a man suffering a seizure.  As Len stumbled up the slippery bank, your mouth opened wide and let out a high-pitched howl, a prelude to uncontrollable laughter, first from yourself and then from the rest of us.  No one thought to help poor Len out of the ditch.   He was clearly not the least bit amused.

When he finally managed to scramble up the slippery slope, he looked a complete mess.  His thinning grey hair was coated in duckweed.  Several strands of green slime were dripping down his face.  His expensive suit looked ruined, covered with dark stains of stagnant ditch water.  Both his knees were clumped with black mud.  His shirt was soaking wet and sticking to his body, outlining each hole of his string vest.  His tie was equally spoilt, and one of his patent leather shoes had come off.  Head down in embarrassment, he was tipping black water out of it.  His lips parted, and he managed to croak out a comment.

"You said the swing couldn't break, Frank!  It’s not at all funny.  This suit cost a lot of money".

At that moment, Jean came cantering across.  "Just look at you!  What on earth were you doing?  Did you think you were a child dressed for play?  For Goodness sake Leonard!"  And with that, she 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 remained standing where Len had left us, looking at one another and giggling like a trio of inebriated schoolboys.  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 walked out on him a few years later with one of his golfing friends.  Ditched twice, you could say.

⬦

"You look tired, Dad".

For a while, your eyes were brighter and a half-smile lingered on your face.  Soon after, our conversation stuttered, and you sank lower into the armchair.  Time to leave.  We helped you up, and you slowly accompanied us to the front door.  We stopped to hug and reaffirm our love, and then you waved goodbye from the open doorway as we drove off.  It was always the worst moment of any visit, leaving you standing alone and looking forlorn.

⬦

I reconsider this old photograph before me.  You look as though you were trying to say something.  Would you have remembered the swing and that sunny evening when Len fell in the ditch?  It's been ten years since your death, and my question will forever remain unanswered.

◻︎