Read by Claire Lacey - podcast here (third story)
It started with only one mum. She was all sweaty and couldn’t breathe because she was swinging so hard, but she really yelled up yours gravity. Then, all our mums got up from the benches. They pulled their children off the swings and tied their coats round their waists and started swinging as hard as they could.
There are four normal swings and two of the mums stood on their feet in the baby swings. The frame really, really wobbled. There was also a mum on the tortoise bouncer but she didn’t seem to mind.
But the mums really didn’t get off.
Isla Newman even needed a wee, but her mum just shouted Do an al fresco sweetie, and the mums kept going up and down calling out to each other.
Greasy hair only on the swings!
Four hours sleep and under only on the swings!
Postpartum anxiety only on the swings!
No child maintenance this month only on the swings!
The mum on the tortoise bouncer shouted yee haa and they all found each other really funny, but Ruby Hughes did actually start crying.
Don’t cry, darling! her Mum shouted. I’m having a good old time!
One mum shouted you hide I’ll seek and when they all just laughed again she said what, my kids can never find me.
A different mum shouted let’s hang upside down from the monkey bars but another one said, I’m still breastfeeding and then they stayed on the swings even more.
Ruby’s mum swung so high her coat fell off.
Rice cakes and Lunchbox Soreens and wet wipes and hand sanitiser fell out, all over the wood chips.
Ruby’s mum shouted I’m letting go. I’m doing it. I’m letting go!
All the children watching tried to tell her no.
You’ll fall we said.
You’ll hurt yourself we warned her. Hold on tightly.
Ruby grabbed the bottom of her own skirt in two fists and shrieked until her ears went red and her nose was running all down her lip.
But the other mums were all chanting backwards like Five. Four. Three. Two. One!
Ruby’s mum hurt her ankle. She screamed when she landed and then I thought the mums would definitely all get off the swings. They all stopped still.
But she didn’t cry. Nobody move, she shouted. Don’t you dare lose your swings bitchets!
She only lay back into the wood chips.
It was worth it! she called. Five days in bed bitchets.
The other mums looked at each other, then began smiling. Soon, they were laughing so hard they could hardly keep their legs going up and then under.
When Ruby’s dad got here, he told Ruby’s mum that he was so looking forward to spending the rest of the lovely day in A and E with her, so that was OK. But the other mums slowed and leaned their heads on the chains quietly. They were swaying and looking down and kicking at the wood chips.
Ruby’s dad asked why they were hogging the swings when the kids were all waiting and the mums mumbled things like core stability and pelvic floor exercise and mental health and Ruby’s dad looked away.
We all helped Ruby collect up the rice cakes and Soreens and her dad said to the mums you should be ashamed of yourselves.
No one wanted a go on Ruby’s mum’s swing after that.
Then the mums were only swinging, not shouting.
They looked at each other across the empty swing.
They went higher and higher, and their faces went redder and redder, and they were grunting out loud, but my mum went the highest. On the way up her hair went backwards like a flag and when she came down it covered her face like seaweed on a rock.
I can do it Lily! she shouted when she was really high and the chains kept going soft. I can go all the way!.
I didn’t see her do it because she swung too close to the sun and we all closed our eyes but the chain clunked flat, everything went quiet and we knew it had happened.
On the walk home from the park Mum’s face was wide as the sky and she had clouds on her cheeks. We stopped by the skate ramp.
Did you do it? I said. Did you fly?
That’s for me to know and you to find out, she said, then she bent down so I could climb up and ride on her back all the way home.
(c) Charlotte Turnbull, 2022
Charlotte Turnbull's fiction has won prizes and appeared / will appear in Litro, Mslexia, Denver Quarterly and The McNeese Review among others. Her work has been Pushcart-nominated, and translated into Italian. She was long-listed for the 2022 Caledonia Prize. She lives on Dartmoor with her husband and three children.
Claire Lacey’s recent work includes roles in upcoming TV series Treason and Flatshare, and Netflix series PanTau. Film credits include Kavita & Teresa, Game Day and County Lines and recent stage work includes Ethel in Barefoot in the Park at Vienna’s English Theatre and Mother in Aphiemi. She is also an experienced voice-over artist.
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