Under the Big Sky

Warm covers are pushed down and she sits up in bed. The cut on her knee pulls, as she bends her legs to her chin and examines the scab.

She puts her finger into her mouth to wet it, then rubs the wet around the top of the wound, in little circles, watching  as the scab darkens to a shiny brown. It is hollow underneath the crusty shell and it’s ready to come off, and reveal the new pinkness underneath.

When she fell, she limped home, but didn’t cry at all, even though the blood ran down her leg and seeped into the top of her new socks. It spread through the cotton, making the white flowers around the top bloom bright red, and then harden as it dried. She never cried at all, even though it really hurt, and bits of grit were stuck to it.

She only cried when she reached her front door and saw her Mammy there, and then, like a baby bird in the nest, when it opens it’s yellow mouth wide to the world for food, she gaped and howled for care and attention.

And now her scab is a point of endless interest, picked and worried, tasted, bled and healed.

The sun shines through her closed curtains and she knows the street is warm with it. And the house is quiet - all gone, to work, to school. Her playground, the whole world outside, swings and slides and ‘pee-the-beds’, bright yellow in the tall grass, tall as her five years; all wait for her to go out.

Food is slopped, cold milk and cornflakes, and a wipe with a face cloth frees her. With a jump she is out of the front door, under the big sky.

The pavings are hot against the back of her thighs, as she sits on the ground, legs stretched straight in front, toes turned in, and she finds a stick to gouge at the damp clay between their squares, the soft muck and moss that comes out in long solid forms, flat topped. From under the clay come the creepy crawly insects that live in the dark, and now she gets close, to watch as they run away, their little world broken up by some unknown force. One is climbing along the knobbled stick in her hand, crawling along onto and over her fingers. It shines green and blue like sea shell, little wings flipping, not taking off.  Too small to notice her; she is a giant, a landscape it crosses, hills and clefts, new terrain for it’s tiny thready legs. Light as air.

She lifts it to her face to say hello and then blows it away with a puff.

To be five, and away from your Mammy’s constant care, getting on with the business of being, alone or with other children, the ones who live in the street too. She is not old enough, yet, to need friends to cling to, little self sufficient person, solitary explorer in the big world, close to the ground under the big sky.

Crouching in the grass, where the seed heads are swollen and ready to be harvested and the seeds run through her fingers, soft and lush as they pull away from their stem, downy and pliable. Dandelion clocks tell her the time when she blows their fluffy perfect circles - one o’clock, two o’clock, lifting away in quarters, floating on the air around her face. Buttercups reflect their colour on her brown skin, daisies are gathered in bouquets for Mammy indoors.

Bigger boys and girls, out of school, ignore her, and are ignored. They play in circles, while she masters the swing by herself, kicking off and holding tight to the chains that leave a rusting smell on her hands. She arches her body and thrusts with her legs, gaining momentum, the force that pushes the seat, flying high, up ‘over the bar’, to see the mountains and the river far away, the cars passing far below beside the park, the people gathering, leaving mass.

And then the chill fear of being too high creeps in, when the chains start to buckle, the seat to twist and she knows that she might fall to the ground far below.

Stop.

Sit still and let the swing slow down, each rise and fall not just as high as the last, each one bringing her back to earth by degrees, until she can scrape her toes along the ground and skid to a sudden halt.

As the sun descends behind the rooftops, the daisies close their little heads to sleep. Bedtime - she knows to go indoors when the daisies go to bed; indoors, for supper and TV, Tom and Jerry and arguments with brothers and sisters. She sits again with knees to chin and examines the scab. It has loosened. When she sucks her finger again, it tastes of earth and salt and metal from the swing. She wipes it dry on her skin, leaving long streaks of dirt,where the damp smears the dust of the day.

Mammy stands over her at the sink, washes her arms and legs, and closes her hands together between soapy palms. She wets a cloth and bends to wipe all over her face. With two hands she squeezes her cheeks and lifts her chin up to look at the clean, rosy skin.

“Just look at those freckles,” she smiles.