Read Online At the Break of Day by Margaret Graham - Free Book Online

noises, the voices, breathing in the smells which had faded and vanished with the years. But they were here again, all here.
    So, the gang was coming too. She didn’t remember them, not their names or their faces. It was only Jack she had pictured over the years and the miles. Would Joe and Sandra forget her too?
    When she returned Jack was waiting, his old leather money apron now tied around the waist of his father, Ollie, who had run the stall for as long as Rosie could remember. She started to walk towards Ollie but Jack caught at her arm.
    ‘Leave it for now.’
    They walked to the rec where they had scuffed the ground with worn plimsolls on hot days as they pumped themselves higher and higher on swings already raised by being thrown over the bar. They didn’t talk as they walked through the streets, and Jack had to lead the way because she had forgotten. He sauntered, hands in pockets, his two-tone shoes worn, his hair hanging down over his forehead.
    She remembered her shoes, and the sweater she had worn back to front as all Lower Falls girls did, but they were in her room, on the shelf below the Cougar pennant and she mustn’t think of that.
    They crossed wasteground which had once been three houses. The rec was across the road from Oundle Street where there were houses with black-tarred casement sheets instead of glass. They were all deserted and two were ripped apart; just as she felt.
    She remembered the park with railings but they were gone and now Jack told her how his mum had written to say that they had been taken away by men with oxyacetylene cutters to build Spitfires.
    ‘How’s your mum?’ she asked. ‘It was so quiet today.’
    His eyes were dark as he turned, then looked past her. ‘Race you to the swings.’
    He ran, catching her arm, running with her across worn asphalt where weeds were breaking through, running faster than her, goddamn it, and so now she spurted but he was still ahead and the breath was leaping in her throat as the swings drew nearer. But he was first, throwing himself on to one, pushing back with his feet, lifting them high and then surging forward, up into the air.
    She sat on hers and looked at the sign that said, ‘ 12 YEARS AND UNDER ONLY .’
    ‘Hey, we’ll be done.’
    She heard his laugh. ‘Come on, Yank. We’ve just been through a war. No one’s going to stop me swinging if I want to.’
    She pushed off now, feeling the air slicing through her, half pain, half pleasure. The links were rusty and stained her hands and then there was only the squealing of the chain and their laughter. She leaned back, the sky was blue. It was the same sky over America. Maybe it wasn’t so far after all, but she knew that it was.
    Afterwards they talked, still sitting on the swings, Jack’s legs gently moving his, his shoulders leaning hard into the chain, his hands between his knees.
    He told her then that Ollie was drinking, snarling. Sleeping a little. Working a little. That Maisie seldom laughed now.
    ‘But they were so different. Was it the war? What about Lee? Hasn’t he helped?’
    There were two small children standing by the swings now and Jack winked at them, standing, nodding to them.
    ‘It’s all yours,’ he called and they ran past him and Rosie, who stood too and watched as they scrambled on to the swings.
    ‘Give us push, mister,’ the boy with red hair said.
    Jack did and Rosie watched as his broad hands pushed and caught, pushed and caught the swing.
    ‘I’m OK now,’ the boy said and they walked over to the bench. The dark green paint was flaking. Rosie brushed the seat with her hand, rubbing the paint off as she sat.
    ‘Didn’t Lee help?’ Rosie insisted, watching the two children, hearing their yells clearly across the intervening space. She didn’t want to hear of Ollie snarling, of Maisie silent. She wanted to hear of laughter, of bread and dripping, of earrings jangling.
    Jack shrugged. He reached down, pulling at a dandelion which had lifted the