Fiona Bird

The dwindling light of a balmy evening gave us just enough permission to continue kicking the ball around. Bruised bare legs bronzed from summer, and feet in tattered trainers tackled hard; no mercy shown by the boys to the girl. You liked to put me in goal, desperate for me to dive like Schmeicel and laughed with that infectious shriek when I hit my head on the post. A tender headlock confirmed I was ok.

We’d stop for cheap choc ices fro your freezer, picking bits of melted chocolate paper off our tongues as we sat on the parched grass. Sometimes we would sneak into your dad’s shed to look at the calendar of topless women behind the lawnmower, giggles full of mischief and shared looks as if we knew then how ridiculous it was.  Even though I was starting to develop breasts myself you didn’t seem to see them. Tackles crunched, passes kicked with fire, high fives slapped. I was your friend and that’s what you saw.

I remember a few years later when your dad said we were too old to share a bed. How strange we thought that was. As if our changing bodies and racing hormones were suspended in the spaces we shared together. Those spaces of purity, of innocence, of a beautiful heritage.

With ice creams finished we’d snatch a few more minutes firing penalties from tired limbs. And then the phone would ring and your Mum would call out through the kitchen window that my Mum had expected me home ages ago. “See you tomorrow?” – we nodded.  Skipping down your driveway I realised that darkness had arrived and sounds of the early night were settling in. I braced myself as I ran through the field behind your house (even though I told your Mum I’d walk the road way). Heart in throat as I passed the giant bush where I was sure all of the child catchers lurked, waiting for me. I breathed again and sweated sweet relief as I met the road and hopped up the steps to my house two at a time.