The First Day of Summer

There was a space in the park beyond the playground, through the trees. The warmth and the sun had come abruptly, at the start of the school holidays. The playground was heaving; people swarming the café for ice cream and fighting for the swings. But down by the stream it was perfect. The warm air on exposed skin created a shared high; strangers smiled; friends that hadn’t met yet.

A boy, wearing clothes the colour of biscuits, the same colour as his skin, skipped across the rocks as if he had just realised he had legs. A Pomeranian skittered up to the stream, drawn towards the children by their happy cries. A voice calling, sending it skittering back out of the frame. Children, formerly cooped up in overstuffed classrooms, their limbs and their minds bound by enforced education, had been released back into the world and they drank in the first day of summer as if it were wine.

On the path on the other side of the stream walked the public, chattering, hoodies discarded, summer dresses billowing. Headscarves undulated on strolling packs of women, their vivid colours spotting the bright air. Children ran through the woods towards the stream, windmilling their arms in their crazed, unfettered physicality. Toddlers, parents hovering, stepped clumsily amongst the rocks, on unsteady legs driven by impossible minds. Adults scattered themselves through the woods, on fallen trunks perfectly placed for picnics, lulled by the weather, by the shallow depth of the water.

At the stream, instant friendships formed, drawn together by shared interests and objectives: building a dam, digging up mud and clay from the bank, making pots and selling them in makeshift pop up shops. A fair haired girl of about nine, hair swinging, picked her way across the rocks, slender as only youth can be, her colt like body stretching like a ballerina’s as she stepped across a fallen trunk that bridged the stream, the delight on her face shining as if a light was projected from beneath her skin. A girl with long plaits bent forward to stir up the stones in the stream, her dress hitching up to display the creamy skin beneath, lost in her own world. Safe in the bubble of childhood. Her brother lay on a blanket, back in the woods in the shade, having his nappy changed, his fat legs kicking out playfully as he mouthed a knuckle. Boys stripped off their shirts in the heat of their play, making important, precious, soon to be forgotten collections of stones and sticks. Teenagers sucked at dripping lollies, as a paper wasp hovered in the air, attracted by the sugar, the sweetness of their sweat and potential, observing unseen the festivities of the first day of summer.

A girl, caught between childhood and adolescence, emerging breasts evident in her tight white t-shirt, jumped across the stream, eschewing the rocks, oblivious to the world and its gaze. Another trailed a stick in the water, while her brother jumped across the stream from rock to rock.

“Come on!” he cried, and she looked up shyly at him, her eyes betraying the lie of her body.

“You know I’ve got the wettest socks on the planet!” A dark-haired girl, rebel wisps of hair escaping from a long brown plait, declared to her group of similarly haired, long limbed, brown skinned group, sitting up high on the rocks, inspecting her sandalled feet. A curly haired girl, smile like sunshine, belly spilling over the band of her floral leggings, the flesh sectioned off below her matching crop top, waved at her friends from across the water, triumphant. Her hair and her smile mirrored those of a plump woman on the bank, in her twenties and still sporting the playful smile that time hadn’t erased yet, shining it like a beam on the water, at the sunshine, at the very warmth in the air. She chatted in what may have been Farsi to the others in her group, the lively conversation ringing in the air, a joyful soundtrack to the start of summer.

Two preschoolers nurtured a transient friendship, helping each other across the water in a universal demonstration of cooperation.

“Is she yours?” a woman asked, laughing in parental camaraderie at the sweet innocence of the children’s actions to the other woman sitting nearby.

“No,” the other one smiled, pointing further down the stream. She shaded her eyes, smiling and waving in the direction of a group of children in the middle distance. They were engrossed in their waterside activities. She knew the moment was approaching. The sudden change in weather had made people sociable, unusually amenable, talkative; the tepid personalities of Londoners having been warmed by the temperature. Guards creaking down. She felt a cool droplet of sweat travel down her back despite the warmth. It would leave behind a salt track on her dress that she would not notice until later, when she fed it to the flames. Her breathing quickened, rubber bands in her chest constricting into their accustomed positions. Luckily, a child slipped on the wet rocks then, scraping his shin, the water making the show of blood more dramatic, the wails and the flurry of parents making the time now. At the same time her mind had settled on the girl with the plaits. She took the moment. She walked over to her in three strides.

“Hiya. Your mummy said you have to go now.” She smiled. The girl didn’t move, unsure. They occupied their own bubble of time and space then, the world attenuated, receding. She grabbed her moment, forcing the future to her will. She had to. She nodded over to the car park.

“Your mummy said I should get you because your brother is crying. I'm mummy’s friend from work. I’m Nancy.”

The girl stood there and the compulsion to grab her and drag to the car park was strong. She dug her nails into the base of her thumb.

The girl shook her head. “I’m not allowed to go with strangers.”

“I’m not a stranger. I work with mummy. I’m Nancy.”

The girl was still not moving. So far, the whole interaction was light, natural. Her physicality had remained outwardly relaxed. Outside the bubble, she was aware of the commotion with the boy coming to an end. The window was closing and she had to go now, with or without the girl.

“OK,” she said lightly, turning her body away slightly, “I’ll tell her that you are not coming.” She turned away, still smiling, so lightly and so carefree that it was painful, actually painful, as if everything didn’t rest on what this little girl would or would not do, what her training in stranger danger had been, and her understanding of it. She was so angry she could scream, the power she had over her and her life right now. It wasn’t right, a child having that amount of power over an adult. She fought back tears of rage, fighting now to stay in control of herself. Come on come on come on.

The relief she felt then, when the child was suddenly at her side, skipping along to catch up, was a shower of water over her in her heightened state. She praised herself for her acting skills, her discipline. Grateful for the girl’s gullibility. She swallowed. Not much longer now. You can do this. You're doing well.

“So, you came-“

“What’s my mum’s name?”

She laughed, but tears blurred her eyes behind her sunglasses. She blinked.

“Your mum’s name is mummy, and you are only supposed to call her that,” she wagged her finger at her, smiling in mock chastisement. The car park was in sight, but she was losing her. Her thoughts started to atomise in panic. It was out of her hands. Keep trying, keep trying, she urged herself. Nothing to lose now. What if she starts to scream, fucking smart arse. We've been over this, she told herself, just keep going. If anyone is alerted it will be too late. It’s such a lazy, perfect day, a beautiful spot, where nothing bad can happen, no-one will believe it, I will have time to get away, to try again elsewhere, I will have a definite hour. She could cry. She drove the nails of her left hand deeply into the fat below the thumb. She pictured Saola then in her mind, but wasn’t sure if it was helpful to think of her now. Breathe. She took deep breaths, tried to pare the thoughts in her head down into nothing, or at least just one: keep going. You know what to do. She did. She was at the car now and had to work quickly. Trying not to think about this being the next crucial point. Trying not to think about her world rotating on the axis of this moment.

“That’s not my car,” the girl said when they stopped at a car. She started to take a step back and the woman dived towards her then, crystallising into sudden violence, all hands, and the child was strong beyond her years, wheeling limbs made of pure muscle, terror driven. This was really happening. The world had a rotten core and she was realising it in this instant. Two desperate people, struggling in the sunshine. Hands appeared from the van next to the car, pulling the child backwards through the air. Steely hands that had been waiting, and had always been waiting, in the dark, in the back of a blue van, in all those long minutes in the sunshine. The woman’s slippery hand sliding the door shut.

He was counting money as usual as they came in, rolling them into amounts and securing them with elastic bands. His mouth spilled open to show too many teeth when he looked up casually.

“So?” he smiled but his eyes were dead, dark holes that didn’t reflect light properly.

She nodded towards next door “She's in there”

“She?”

“It was the best one.” He smiled. She felt nauseous.

She couldn't help herself. “Where's Saola?”

He leered at her. “I hope this one is better than Saola”

“Of course. Otherwise then why would I bother?” She stood her ground. If this didn’t work she would kill herself. She would kill Saola first. If it were possible.

“She's in the kitchen.”

She started to leave.

“Wait.”

She froze; time hung in the air between them; a photograph. The muscle in her chest pumped inside her, but outside she was as still as a freezeframe.

“I will look at the girl. How old is she?”

She shrugged. “Seven, eight.”

He smiled, enjoying the situation. But she was untouchable now. It was out of her hands. If this didn’t work, nothing would. The girl was good enough, she was sure. He gave up on trying to get a reaction, she was spent now, he thought. Start with a new one. But he smiled anyway, the nugget of an idea tugging at his pleasure.

She stopped chewing at the hole in her lip when she heard him coming out of the room seventeen seconds later. He nodded and she headed to the kitchen, spinning on the ball of her foot.

“Mama!”

She took the girl into her arms, hugged her to her body but she was changed. There was an empty feeling in her chest. Somehow her lungs continued to take air in and blow it out.

“Mama, where have you been? I wanted chocolate croissants and you didn’t make them.”

She stroked her hair.

“Let's make some toast.” She was glad she could hear nothing from the next room. The girl was unconscious, probably. She put the bread under the grill with hands that didn’t belong to her. She was going to be sick now she was sure. She went over to the tap, filling a cup from the draining board with cold water, and gulped some down. Her head was hot, her hand shaking slightly as she raised it to her mouth. Outside the sun beat down on the estate below, teenage boys playing in the basketball courts, girls squealing as they played tennis in the court next to the bare-chested boys. Everything is wrong. She clutched the sink as if it was keeping her from falling. Nearly there, she insisted. This is not about me (I am gone). This is about Saola. She put the kettle on for the hot drink that would keep her blood sugar up in order to prevent vomiting or fainting. To keep her upright until they were long miles away. She silenced the thoughts in her head that sounded like self-pity, or any thought that was self-aware, concentrating on erasing herself. Her only thought from now on would be Saola. Saola, Saola, Saola. She ached to be out of there, but she had to play the game, see it through. She realised Saola had been speaking.

“Huh?”

“When are we going? Mama, have you been drinking wiiine?”

She shook her head no.

“Soon.”

She had forgotten to turn the grill on.

Just then he stuck his head round the door. Her stomach was hot, queasy.

He nodded, smiling that leery smile. “Very good.” She willed his head to explode, right there, right then. She was desperate to go, but he didn't leave, or indicate that they could.

Saola looked at her mother, watching her interact with the man.

He lingered in the doorway, smiling playfully. Bit by bit it dawned on her that he was not going to let her go. Standing there in the tiny, greasy kitchen she realised that now. Her belief that he would fulfil his side of the bargain was ridiculous. It was so stupid it was almost funny, and she swallowed a yelp of hysteria. Gullible. There was a sinking, dragging feeling, a sensation of lights snapping off one by one, the darkness creeping closer. An inevitability that was always there, but she just hadn’t seen it. The feeling sank down on her shoulders and settled there.

“It was easy for you.” She had nothing to say to that.

She tried not to look into his eyes, but couldn't avoid it forever. He nodded towards the next room.

“Come next door,” he said lightly, as if they were good friends and he was a kind man about to bestow on her a great favour. The room tilted and she held on to the side then.

She followed him next door again. He pulled out the rolls of notes.

“You know how much I can get for a girl like that?” He said.

She shook her head. They should be walking in the free air by now, holding hands. A line drawn underneath.

He put a line of rolled up notes on the table, one after the other. He counted them out slowly. When he had finished, he looked up at her.

“I can give you that” he said, splitting the row into two, “for another one.”

She shook her head.

“You said-“

He grabbed her hand, squeezing the bones together. She recalled the last time he had done that. Closed her eyes.

“You want Saola to have a nice life? You think you can give her that? Where will you go? She will end up the same.” A tiny droplet of his spittle had landed on her lip. “They will not let you keep her. You think you can stay off the drink? She will end up the same no matter. Money –“ he let go of her hand then to pick up one of the rolls, and the blood rushed painfully back into it “ - can get you a good school, a nice house, away from all this”

He was a brick wall. She had not planned anything beyond the take. Her mouth was dry, her head pulled heavily on her neck. Suddenly he was laughing. She could see the gold tooth at the back of his mouth.

“You ever want work, come to me,” he laughed. “You're a natural.”

She sat there, as if her legs had been stapled to the chair. Just a puppet. She needed to urinate.

“Go. Take your girl.” He smiled up at her, her jelly legs pushing the chair back, holding onto the table between them for stability. She walked into the kitchen, taking hold of Saola’s hand, walking out of the flat as the walls swayed on either side of them, at any moment she would collapse. The whining of the child, her slippery hand holding desperately onto the smaller one. Before she knew it they were outside of the flat, drinking in the air of the seventh floor balcony, then they were clattering down the cold stone stairs, then they were outside of the block, walking away from it across the paving slabs of the estate, walking past the basketball courts and their shouts, their music off somewhere to the right. Then they were walking down a street, trees lining it either side, the blossom falling from the trees in a summer snowstorm. Sweeping her gaze across the street behind them,each street they crossed. At some point she relaxed her grip on the girl’s hand, swapping hands, one sweaty one for one dry one, not letting go of her hand until she was ready to take it with the other. She realised again that Saola had been talking, whining really, about how she was hurting her.

Despite that, Saola skipped alongside, feeling the freedom that she took for granted, oblivious. Her mother looked down at her with lightless eyes, daring to believe that they might be free. Saola felt the energy of the air against her face, the sunshine warming her through her dress. Her eyes took in the pretty pink and white blossoms that were scattered through the air. Enchanted by the first day of summer. She looked up at her mother, eyes big with pleading.

“Mama, can we go to the park?”