canal

It’s a vision of harmony. Cows paddle in this canal. It’s the edginess of it that Sarah loves. The layers of history here. The men who died digging the canal. Nature and that technology now seem in harmony. The corrugated iron on the far side of the water, holding back the bank. The tow-path is quiet. Tourists sit in their narrow-boats and the wild revives. She can smell wild garlic. The canal must once have seemed a scar on the earth, an open wound, before they put the water in. Now the iron holds back the earth and grass. A canal looks as if it is always about to go native. Places where it opens up wide and shallow over the edge of a field. There are men fishing it and a bit further down swans are regular visitors. In the middle of a town that has a canal, you’re only ever that far from a taste of this equable bargain between us and the earth. Versus this, a road begins to look obscene. Geoff used to come here. Loved the canal. How on a drizzly summer day he’d watch swallows swooping across the his path scooping up flies. The thrust and hesitation of their flight, the patterns they wove over the water.
“Mum, can we go to the park now. This is boring.”

In the park, Simone and Teresa have a definite routine. First they find a good stick. Sarah notices a group of teenagers. Four boys sit at one of the picnic benches on the grassy area behind the swings. Four girls sit at another. Each group is highly aware of the other, but they do not interact. Sarah doesn’t let her eyes rest on them. They are not a threat. Now the girls have found sticks, they play an incomprehensible game. It involves part of the climbing frame.
“Careful on those steps, Sim!”
“It’s not steps. It’s my larder.”
“A ladder?”
“No, lar – der!”
“What’s in your larder?”
“Moaking powder.”
“Milking powder?”
“No, moaking powder.”
“Oakin powder?”
“No, moa – kin’ powder!” It is impossible to pronounce this word to Sim’s satisfaction. Any adult attempt will be greeted with a correction. It’s impossible to say what this mysterious powder is. It is invisible, imaginary. It has no know properties or uses. But for several minutes the girls harvest it with sticks from a variety of joints and edges in the climbing frame, carefully storing it in their larder. Sarah spots Tess as she wavers at the top of the steps, the arcane procedure of moakin’ powder storage seems to require both her hands. Sarah resists the temptation of insisting that she hold on. Got to let them play. Can’t spot both of them, though. Where’s Sim? Apparently, there’s a particularly rich source in a hole in the tarmac where there used to be a round-a-bout. Sarah looks at the scar. She sees this as the trace of some tragic accident. A child with a leg stuck between the platform and the abrasive surface of the play-ground. A child in a checked red school dress. The dress bloodied, the air stained with screams. She’s glad it’s been taken out. One less hazard.
Now the climbing frame is a spaceship. Tess wordlessly shifts the focus of the play. She’s in between the legs of the structure, pushing buttons and checking the display of her craft. Sim joins her, sitting down, allowing her sister to pilot them to wherever. Sarah looks at the uprights of the climbing frame. Graffiti all over it. Teenagers. Probably the ones who are sitting over there right now. It’s the usual stuff. “Damo is fit.” “Steph luvz Paul 4 eva.” But on the slide someone has written out quotations from Romeo and Juliet: “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Amazing.
One of the boys goes over to the four girls. Sarah can’t hear what he says. He goes back to his mates. Two of the girls leave the play-ground. Two of the boys join the two girls.
Now Teresa is up high. She’s at the top of the slide. She calls Simone to sit next to her and they go down together. They call this “playing silly beggars.”
“Five minutes now, girls. We need to get home and have some lunch.”
“Can I have 5 more goes?”
“Okay. Yes. Five more.”
“A hundred goes!” Insisting.
“Okay.” Sarah knows they will not really have a hundred goes, it makes no sense to argue.
“Silly beggars” is over.
“Mummy. Bring me a leaf.” Simone has a small piece of the climbing frame apparatus in her hand. Sarah notes that it is the plastic thing that covers the nuts and bolts. Sim has crushed a leaf into it and is now shaking out the fragments.
“Please Mummy. A green one.” Sarah looks down. A few holly leaves lie around. No good. Sharp bits. Sarah finds another fallen leaf, one without sharp bits. She hands it to Simone.
Tess is up near her larder again. This time she’s a shopkeeper.
“Mummy, what would you like today?” Sarah moves away from Simone, who’s crushing her new leaf. Is she making moakin’ powder? Best not to ask. Tess is at the top of some steps. The steps lead to a ledge from which a child can gain access to a set of monkey-bars. The monkey bars are just a metal ladder set horizontally, welded onto the structure. But Tess isn’t going to attempt the monkey bars. She looking in her larder.
“Erm … I’d like some cake, please Mr. Shopkeeper.”
“Okay, cake. Let me see.” Tess is examining the contents of her larder, or is it a store-room now?
She leans back. She’s turning to hand the cake to her customer. She wobbles. She isn’t holding on. Sarah is close enough to catch her. Her foot turns on the top rung of the ladder that leads to the larder and she’s falling. Sarah is close enough, but doesn’t catch her. The noise of her child hitting tarmac stuns her. Tess is silent. Winded. Takes a huge gulp of air and starts wailing. Scooped up, held, kissed. She’s sucking in great lungfuls and sobbing them out. Sarah can feel Simone at her leg, holding on, her thumb’s gone in.
“Okay darling. You’ll be okay.” Sarah carries Teresa over to a bench. Sits with her child in her arms, comforting her. “Poor sweetheart. You’ll be okay. We’ll go home and you can have some medicine. You’re okay. Just gave yourself a big shock. Must hold on to the climbing frame.”
After a minute or two, one of the boys comes across to her, leaving his mate alone on his picnic bench. If those teenagers had not been here, the girls would have colonised those benches, re-imagining them as cafes: one for monsters, one for princesses.
“Is she okay?”
Sarah looks up at the boy. “Yes, thank you. She’ll be alright in a minute. Just knocked the wind out of her.”
“Okay, just wanted to check you were alright.” The boy walks off. Sarah wonders if it’s him who likes to quote Shakespeare on the playground slide. Teresa’s stopped crying now and so the three of them set off home.