dead in the centre of our front lawn. Sometimes he would do the measurements all over again for the pleasure of knowing that he’d got it just right.
Today the dove had flown over the top of our house to the three lacy cherry blossom trees which stood at the back. It flitted from tree to tree, before flying off to the Cooks’ garden and landing on Graham Cook’s swing-set, which had been there for years, but to which I’d paid little attention.
I’d watched Barbara Cook pushing Graham in his enormous cage of a swing in the rain, and I’d watched Jim Cook with his shirt off and his big balloon tummy, shouting, ‘Hey ho and up she rises.’
That day, it struck me, as I stared out of my bedroom window, that nobody had ever sat next to Graham Cook on the spare normal swing. Nobody ever in his entire life.
So I crept downstairs out of the front door, up our little grey paved drive, and I went next door and asked Barbara Cook if Graham would like me to come and swing with him on the swing-set.
Graham was in his baby pen, rocking back and forward, and he sounded almost like a vacuum cleaner going up and down the carpet.
Barbara Cook talked to him, and she guided him into the garden, holding his arm. It was quite an effort getting him into the swing, but once he was in with his red bus, and swinging, he stopped making the hoover noises.
Barbara Cook pushed Graham, and I started to swing, back and forth in time with him. I went higher higher higher, and I could see my mother digging, my father digging, Julia digging.
Back down.
Up again – they were still digging.
Back down.
Up again – so odd to watch my family being my family without me.
Digging.
Very intently.
My father turned around.
Back down.
I loved it that they didn’t know I was watching them.
It made me feel powerful.
It also made me feel odd watching them.
I sang, ‘Hey ho and up she rises,’ like Jim Cook, and Graham and I made laughing noises together.
Up I went – my family remained oblivious.
I breathed in the smell of mown grass.
Barbara Cook went inside for a moment, and I heard her shouting at Jim, ‘You’re drunk again!’
When she came out, she was carrying a camera. She shouted, ‘Cheese!’ and she stood in front of the swing-set, laughing and laughing, as if she couldn’t stop, as if she’d been storing this laughter somewhere deep down for a long time, and, while she went on laughing, she kept taking photos of the same thing – Graham Cook and me swinging on the swing-set.
She gave Graham a push and went inside again. She came out with a flowered cushion, and she sat on her white plastic garden chair and she put her cup of tea on her white plastic garden table, and she sighed very loudly and she dipped in a digestive biscuit so that its edges went soft. When she lifted her head, I saw that she was crying, in the same way that she’d been laughing, as if she’d never stop.
Graham’s swing had come to rest, and he was moaning and twisting, and Barbara Cook was crying tears from deep inside of her, and I pictured all of our stomachs full of bubbles, which would turn acid-red for crying, or alkaline-blue for laughing, like litmus paper. I supposed that we all had an endless supply of these bubbles, and I didn’t know whether my life would be a laughing kind of life, mainly blue, or a crying kind of life, mainly red. None of us knows.
No, none of us knows.
Barbara Cook went on crying, and Graham and I went on swinging, and after a while, I thanked Barbara for having me and I crept through the double garage and sped through the back door and up to my room, where I bumped into my mother, on the landing.
‘We’ve been calling,’ she said. ‘Where on earth were you?’
‘In the toilet,’ I said.
‘We’re all going to the dump,’ she said.
‘Thrilling,’ I said, which was not the right answer.
Julia and I sat strapped into the back of the car.
‘What on earth have you been doing all this time?’ said my mother.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
When I went round to the Cooks a week later, there was a large photo of Graham and me swinging on the swing-set framed on the wall of the hall, above the shelf.
As I came in, Barbara Cook called out to Graham, ‘Your girlfriend’s here.’
That made me feel really strange inside, and I hoped that I could be a nice person without having to be Graham Cook’s girlfriend. Then I realised that Graham Cook would never ever in his entire life have a girlfriend.
The real problem came when my father went to visit the Cooks and saw the photo on the hall wall, and when Barbara Cook called out to Graham, ‘It’s your girlfriend’s dad.’
My father told Barbara Cook not to say that. Then he came home and told me I was not to visit Graham Cook’s house, and nor was Julia, that Graham Cook was not a suitable friend for me. What was I thinking, going and swinging with him as if, as if … he spluttered to a stop.
My mother looked shocked and wrung her apron in her hands, and mentioned all Barbara Cook’s good qualities.
‘I like swinging with Graham Cook,’ I said to my father. ‘I like being his friend.’
My father’s neck went red and his fingers started shaking.
‘There is to be no more swinging,’ he said.
Then I said something very rude. I said some double-entendre I’d learnt at school, which my father did not appreciate.
I said, ‘I heard at school that there has been plenty of swinging in Willow Crescent. That is, amongst the adults.’
My mother and father went very quiet, and then my father told Julia and me to please go to our bedroom.
Straight away.
Now.
NOW.
‘NOW,’ screamed my father.
Julia asked me why he was so cross about me swinging with Graham Cook.
‘Because he’s stupid enough to think …’ I began.
‘Please don’t say that,’ said Julia.
‘… that I would want to be Graham’s girlfriend, when it’s perfectly obvious that I want to be Diego’s!’
‘Me too,’ said Julia.
‘We can’t both have Diego,’ I said. ‘We can’t exactly share him. We might be twins but that would be taking things too far.’
‘But how will he choose?’ said Julia. ‘Surely it’s got to be one of us. We’ve fancied him for years.’
‘It will be quite easy for him to choose,’ I said. ‘We’re really not very alike. Especially for twins.’
As I said it, I knew exactly who he would choose.
‘People say our faces are quite similar,’ said Julia. ‘It’s only the colour of our hair and the shape of our bodies which have turned out a bit different.’
I looked down at my skinny legs with dark hairs on them.
‘Well, he’ll just have to choose the hair and body he likes best, I suppose,’ said Julia.
‘That’s a terrible thing to say,’ I said. ‘You’re supposed to fall in love with someone’s personality.