|
Back at the television mast, he stopped and
slowly spun round, taking in the view. The last of the rush hour traffic
was moving urgently along the main road, just before the headlong rush
down the hill, just as he used to do all those years ago on his bicycle.
Halfway down the hill was a right hand turn that led to |
Thornton
Heath. If you were lucky, you could race down the hill on a bicycle and
take the turn at breakneck speed if there was a gap in the traffic. It
was one of the most thrilling things he could remember about being eleven
years old. The speedometer on his bicycle registered nearly thirty miles
an hour going round that corner, but he always felt it must be more, that
he was feeling the same way a swift must do when it performed acrobatics
in the air. All Saints’ Church stood there, its graveyard cool and serene
in the growing heat of the morning. That was where his mum had helped
him bury his pet newt underneath a holly bush, using a matchbox as a coffin.
Just along the road that ran by the side of the church was the entrance
to the housing estate where his grandmother used to live and which was
his second home when he was a young boy. He would visit it soon, but he
would go the proper way, through the woods and over the fence that bounded
the estate. With any luck, the children still did this and there would
be the familiar gap in the fence up near the corner where the estate road
looped round at the top of the hill. Completing his circle, he stared
up to the top of the television mast, which stood tall and aloof in the
sunshine. He wondered how often he had stood here, feeling as he did now,
small and excited in the heat of a new day, anticipating the adventures
that lay ahead. He should feel stupid or embarrassed about this, but he
didn’t. He felt just fine.|
|
|
