The Long Grass
They’ve just kicked it into the long grass, one politician says to another on TV. I tune out from
the others sitting around me at Tree Tops. I feel it now, that long grass, cool and welcome, at the
far reaches of the playing fields where I’m supposed to be fielding with Jennifer. The newest
girl. But we’re nearer the neighbouring houses than the game of rounders. This was where the
real conversations took place. I hate those divvies, Jennifer would say, flicking a hostile thumb
yonder. I’d never suspected until she became my fielding ally. She smiled a lot, breezily. I
thought she would be popular. She was inoffensively pleasing on the eye in a way that wouldn’t
foster jealousy. But I’d not yet learned how to read non-verbals and nuances. She’d relay some
of the comments aimed at her: have you missed a period again, Jennifer? (Giggles). Have you
put on a bit of weight? In our private bubble she lifted her Aertex shirt a fraction and looked
anxiously at her tummy, wondering if her gym skirt was perhaps tighter. Another time her bust
was under scrutiny. Except the digs were oblique she said. They were making snide remarks
about wobbly trifles. They all went quiet when she appeared and pretended they were talking
about cookery.
Occasionally someone would loom from the mists of the game to tell us the score or
usually shouting at us to get the ball quick, snapping at us in mad gesticulation at a thicket. One
of us would scrabble around in the longer grass and fling it back before resuming our collusive
chats. Lying on our bellies, pulling up clumps of grass on the very outskirts. Trading dreams of
how to escape. If only we could stay here forever, where the distant squeals and whoops from the
game were remote. Nothing to do with our world here. The only thing in focus was the oak tree
and the lazy dappled light. We imagined this becoming our island, blurring out the rest and
replacing it with rolling meadows and one dream boy each.
One day, a wild ball flew high above us, bounced down the bank and into beyond. It was
Jennifer who crossed the boundary. I saw her hunting for the ball under parked cars. She
retrieved it, holding her trophy aloft. They can whistle for it, she laughed. She beckoned me
furiously. Daring me to join her. Her eyes imploring me. I thought about it but hesitated too long.
She shrugged and flounced off with the ball, breaking heroically from our world forever.
Leaving me to fend off the stinging balls alone.
In the adjacent chair, Bea isn’t engaged with the politicians on TV or the other residents
playing Fish. We like to call these our uneasy chairs. Bea lifts my spirits but for the last few days
she’s seemed restless. The other day she said, I don’t much like it here. It’s dull and suffocating.
She thinks the manager and the care stuff don’t like her because she doesn’t like to play silly
patronising games and laugh at their inane jokes. She’s looking wistfully to the gardens and
dreaming of the wild woods with the birds and water on the far side of our manicured lawns
where the long grass grows. It’s sunny out there, she says. What’s to stop us? She’s going to
leave, I know it, as she slips on her hush puppies beneath her Indian skirt, takes her tapestry bag
decisively and passes through the French window. I watch her intently, willing her to turn back
and beckon me.
Kate Rigby is widely published and has been writing for over four decades. She writes mainly gritty or retro novels, but also non-fiction, short stories, flash fiction and poetry. She recently co-edited a hard-hitting poetry book on disability assessments.