Published 'Vandeloecht's Fiction Magazine' 1992
THE INNOCENT ONE
I loved Robert.
If children CAN love, I certainly loved him: little more than infants, me the ringletted, simpering one, him the boy I'd always wanted to be.
There was a large swing in the orchard garden which hung from a blossom-tressed bough, ever since that most poetic day in which my father so proudly erected it. Robert's father was too sad to think about doing such things for his son's pleasure. The mothers had gone off somewhere together. MY father had shrugged off what he called an inconvenience of passion; Robert's had grown all bitter inside and lovelorn.
The wooden seat of the swing was almost too high for us to reach. I can recall Robert leaning backwards, his two palms pressed to the short horizontal plank, tugging up the rest of his unwieldy body in a combination of levered bone and sideways gravity. The first time he managed a wide swing, there were tears down his cheeks--in and out of the air like a puppet angel. The sky bluer even than his eyes. Joy on his face, his lips reyealed snagged milk-teeth in a prolific smile. The ratio of swing-length to his effort grew greater by the second, making me, the mere spectator, jump up and down in childish excitement.
The fathers stood at the kitchen door, mine waving generously, Robert's slowly stirring some thick pea soup he'd momentarily removed from the heat.
Now, my turn.
Robert, despite his size, helped to hoist me into position, my short frock riding up my thighs somewhat. But, at that age, neither of us cared, of course.
My father shouted for Robert to help push me. So he did. At first gently, then with gathering force. It was surprising, the degree of strength pent up around those tiny pumping bones of his. Higher and higher I lifted into the sky.
Today, I dream of those ancient times. I'm much older now but living in the same house. My mother has returned for a short stay until she dies. Robert's mother is persona non grata, for whatever reason. The fathers disappeared one dawn on tiptoes. Robert died of a broken neck. Simple as that. HE didn't want anyone to help push HIM--relying only on the mysterious physical force that needed no firm surface for leverage ... until that point of no return where angels trawl for souls.
They say, whilst human beings reach out for Heaven, angels die the other way...
My mother was dying in the bed I'd put her, where she still enjoyed looking out at the orchard. Well, it WAS an orchard once upon a time, but now more like the Devil's garden for his green fingers to nurture.
I looked at the bare bough and, then, as the golden shafts of sunset (frequently so rare) leant through the scrawny trees like Heavenly eyesight, I could see a swing again hanging from it. Rocking to and fro, gently, silently, it beckoned me with an inborn importuning. This time, I required no helping hoist. I sank my seat into the cushioned arch of cantilevered bone. Robert, now the grown-up man he never was to become in real life, gripped the bough tightly with both hands, his feet curled round the bark as they held it further along. I pushed calmly out upon this human swing, pleased that his straining face was still smiling.
