PLAYGROUND CHATTER

A story of two years.

It was first day at the Junior school and two seven year olds were comparing notes in the playground.

Adam grinned at Eve, and she smiled back.

“Fancy you being Eve and me being Adam,” he said, “but you are called Eve and I am called Adam.”

“Like in the Bible, told us at Sunday School,” agreed Eve.

“But we’re not like them,” said Adam, “because they wore fig leaves, whatever they might be, and we’ve got proper clothes.”

“But we can be friends,” suggested Eve, “just because we’re called Adam and Eve doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

“Boys aren’t like girls,” he told her, “boys don’t play with the same things. Boys don’t have dolls or dolls’ prams.”

“Not all girls like dolls,” she told him, “and I don’t play with them! I had a Barbie for Christmas and I’ve barely touched it since then, and Christmas was a long time ago.”

“Ages,” he agreed. “But there are other things. I mean, boys don’t have the sort of hair that you’ve got! I bet when you sit down you nearly sit on the end of it!”

“I can,” she agreed, “but I like it nice and long. It’s warm in the winter…”

“… and sweaty in the summer, I’ll be bound,” he grinned.

“So can we be friends?” she asked.

“Boy friend and girl friend? I’ve never had a girl friend, never wanted one because girls are… ditzy.”

“And I’ve never had a boy friend,” she told him. “but I like you so I want to be your friend. Not boy friend, just friend.”

“What would Rupert say?” queried Adam.

“Who’s Rupert?” she asked.

“He’s my best ever friend! We do stuff during the holidays, good stuff. He’s got a tent on his back lawn and we sleep out in it. And foxes come along and sniff us. I’ve heard them! Sniff, sniff, sniff when it’s dark!”

“I’ve got a tent too,” she said, “so it’s not just boys who can play in tents. Mine is on our back garden and Lucy stays with me when she’d allowed.”

“Who’s Lucy?” he asked, frowning, because he’d never heard of a Lucy.

“My bestest ever friend, and always will be” she told him. “We even do dancing!”

“That’s stupid, is dancing! Who ever heard of sensible folk dancing?”

“Famous people do, on the telly, on competitions.”

“Urgh! I wouldn’t watch that sort of thing if you paid me, men in daft trousers and girls in party frocks, and dancing! I’m never going to do dancing in my whole life!”

“What would you do then, instead of dancing?” she asked.

“Walking down the Bottoms. It’s fun down there, and there’s a river running across and down the hill. There are fishes in that river, sticklebacks swimming along as if nothing matters. You can catch them and keep them in jars to take home.”

“And then what? Cook them and eat them?”

“No, silly! You’d need a hundred to make a proper dinner! They’re only tiny.”

“So what do you keep them for?”

He thought for a moment. “I’m going to make a pond in the garden if dad lets me,” he told her, “and they’ll swim on the pond if they don’t die first. They often die, though, and I don’t know why.”

She sighed and shook her head. “It sounds cruel to me,” she said.

He knew she was right, but self-defence dominated his thoughts and he wasn’t going to let a girl get the better of him. “I’m kind to them and talk to them,” he said.

“I don’t think I’d like catching creatures who were going to die,” she said. “They’ve got the right to live. That’s what daddy says about animals. That’s why we’re veggie-tarian in our house. We only eat healthy stuff, like carrots.”

“I don’t like carrots!” he retorted

“Neither do I, I suppose, but they’re good for us. Daddy is sure of that!”

“So are fish and chips!” he decided.

“Is that what you’re having for dinner when you get home?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that! What day is it?”

“It’s Monday, silly, the first day of the autumn term at school, which is why we’re here and… listen., the bell’s ringing…”

They wandered off to see where they should be, and were put in double lines for their class.

“Now hold hands with the person next to you,” ordered Mr Jackson, their class teacher, “and don’t be silly, Ivan, she may be a girl but she’s still got hands just like yours though probably a great deal cleaner!”

“Adam,” whispered a voice next to him, “hold my hand, Adam!”

He did. It wasn’t Eve. He wished it was. He sort of knew her after their good long chat in the playground.

“You’ve been chatting up my friend,” the girl said, “but she won’t go out with you. Not ever. She’s my bestest friend.”

“Then you’re Lucy. She told me about you,” he replied.

“Stop talking you two!” ordered Mr Jackson, “or you’ll be in detention before you’ve started the term properly!”

“I’m Lucy,” whispered the girl when Mr Jackson was looking the other way, “and one day I’m going to marry you, see if I don’t…”

That statement silenced Adam for a good minute and he stood there, next to a girl he’d never seen before, open-mouthed.

Mr Jackson didn’t notice which was just as well. Instead, he led the double line of seven year old boys and girls into the school, through a really old wooden door that creaked when the wind caught it, and into a classroom which smelt of polish and disinfectant and years of small children.

“My granny was in the class when she was little,” whispered Lucy, “hundreds of years ago! She said the teacher used to hit them with a great big slipper if they talked out of turn!”

“I think,” Adam whispered back, “I think I’m going to marry Eve when I grow up. She’s my friend.”

“You better not!” snapped Lucy, “she’s my bestest friend and I won’t let her marry a scruffy boy like you!”

“But you said you wanted to marry me…” stammered Adam, at a loss to understand what this girl meant. He wasn’t used to girls, to talking to them and, least of all, to understanding them.

“Maybe,” grinned Lucy, “or maybe not. Now shut up or we’ll both get that big slipper of the teacher’s on our back sides, and I’m only wearing a thin summer frock!”

Later that day, in the playground when some of the girls were attempting handstands against the old school wall, Adam couldn’t help noticing that besides her thin summer dress Lucy was wearing bright orange knickers.

oo0oo

And a dozen-plus years slipped by.

There was a quiet hum of expectation in the church as the groom, a grown-up Adam, stood at the front, waiting for his bride to join him.

It had all been a bit of a rush like weddings often seem to be, but finally the day had come.

He felt rather than saw her as her father guided her to a place next to him. Then the vicar had his say, spoke about the sanctity of marriage and how it was to be a steadying thing when children came along, boys and girls, preparing a road into the future. But love, he said, was everything because his God loved all of them, which posed more questions in Adam’s mind than it answered.

Then they all walked out for photographs to be taken.

“So you’ve done it at last,” whispered the chief bridesmaid into his ear.

“It’s been a long time coming,” he replied with a grin, “Do you remember when you said you’d want to marry me, Lucy?”

“We were kids back then. But things have changed, attitudes are more liberal and Eve and I are the happiest people on planet Earth since we got married, being together like we are” she told him, “and if you’re a good boy we’ll let you donate your sperm so that we can have the children that we want.”

“We’d better see what my brand new wife says about that!” laughed Adam, “I think she wants to keep all my outpourings to herself! After all, she is my wife!”

© Peter Rogerson 04.04.22

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