THE WHITE BRIDGE

For most of my childhood, a 1960’s housing estate on the outskirts of Reading was my holiday home. I lived in a small council flat in central London, with a small balcony – Reading was as exotic as it got. Aunty June’s semi-detached had stairs, a serving hatch and smelt of Palmolive soap. Five minutes from her house was ‘the back’. Fields, styles, overgrown paths, cows and canals boats. Hedgerows instead of alleyways, a white bridge that rose up to meet the sky in place of a lift that smelt of urine.

With only a selection of pick ‘n’ mix to keep us going, my cousin and I set off on an expedition. No drinks, no suntan cream, little sense of danger. We left my mum and aunt sunbathing in the garden, cooling their feet in a paddling pool, drinking lager. Cousin Andy, age six and eager to please, always followed my lead. His extra short shorts and blond curly hair somehow robbed him of masculinity, in my eight-year-old female mind.

As we walked, we picked convovulus flowers to use as fairy cups and dock leaves to serve as plates. Thick and purposeful, with strange red spots, I wondered if these leaves could bleed. Cousin Andy wondered aloud what was for tea.

Crossing the white bridge marked the end of safety. Something about its shape and height, the feel of the hollows where the protective paint had chipped off. The way I could fit my legs between the railings and stare at them as if they belonged to the bridge instead of me.

On the far side of the white bridge lay a landing stage for canal boats. I sat down on the warm decking and adopted my best fairy tale princess pose, albeit in a 1970s halter neck sun dress. Cousin Andy knelt down to scoop water into the convovulus cups to present to me. I had enough sense to mime drinking. Then, at my bidding, he presented me with sweets on a dock leave with a solemn well-rehearsed bow.

Ritual performed, we laid down side by side on the landing stage, waiting for a boat. Listening to birdsong, naming clouds, crunching our spearmint drops. Noses getting redder, freckles multiplying. 

When a boat finally came, we stood by the lock gates and watched them being wound open. Water changing height made no sense to us and we marvelled at how the water gushed through and the boat rose up. Maybe one day the water would rise too high and wash people away. They would speed downstream like frightened leaves.

To distract ourselves from hunger, and to scare ourselves, we carried on to the weir. Fabled for sucking people in, tearing them apart, yet not spitting them out. The deadly swirl, the suck. If I jumped in perhaps I’d end up in a world where I didn’t have to go to school. Colourless dead fish my only companions.

Monkey Island was our final stop of the day. No monkeys had ever been spotted there, but that’s what my aunt said it was called and we took her word for it. This river pool, part of the Thames, was surrounded by overgrown bushes and trees with exposed roots to trip up explorers. Joyous shrieks and screams gave away its location long before it came into view. On the ‘island’ – a central raised area – a single bent over tree clung on. Long suffering, branches broken, shackled by the tyre swing attached to it.

Cousin Andy sat on the edge with his legs in the water, afraid he would drown without his mum on hand. Unconcerned, I waded in, sundress tucked into my knickers, skin feeling sore from too much sun. Water so clear that grey and golden gudgeon could be seen swimming in and out of my legs, brushing up against me. I bent down, scooped one up, kissed its wriggling body then placed it back, half expecting a prince to pop up. Tired from walking and not eating, I sat in the water up to my shoulders, watching people swim and play watery games. Shadows from the bushes surrounding the pool moved on the water’s surface. Sunshine forged its way between the gaps, illuminating children as they swam and played. Parents with fold out chairs, blankets and picnics were dotted around the pool’s edge. Maybe we were the only children on our own, but I’ve never felt more part of something. There was no sense of time, no point on which I existed sitting in that pool. Blended in to the scene with a feather-light brush.

Needing to get even closer to what this was, I waded in up to my neck. Put my face in the water, stretched out my arms and interlaced my fingertips, as if to frame this magical scene. Fish tickled my face, the sunburn on my arms soothed. I opened my eyes. At the core.