Shape of the Swing

I woke during the night as I heard something down the hall. Actually, I think it was only a short time after I had finally gone to sleep, exhausted by the fear (and the final break-up of the massive adrenaline dumped on my system) from the events of the last 24hrs. I awoke listening, and then remembered the events of the day before. Was this noise my father coming down the hall to finally deal with me? I could hear voices, more than one. I heard my mother’s voice ‘slightly sharply’ say “Just go to bed or you can sleep on the couch. Honestly!” This was obviously not the time to go out and ask what was going to happen. I stayed in the bed looking up at the sagging springs from my brother on the bunk above me. Straining to hear what was going on. Straining to hear, again. Maybe that’s why my hearing is starting to go now? All that straining to listen as a child to distant noises, in an attempt to identify what may have been an early warning to a potential threat (if heard early enough perhaps one could escape before being located?), or, straining to hear what was being discussed whenever you were sent from the room (and that happened quite a lot). And then there was the idea of it being funny, trying to listen in to what was being talked about on the phone. With three older sisters, there were always ‘boys’ calling for one or other of them, and the telephone was in the hallway. No such thing as a cordless phone and definitely not even a mobile (yes it was that long ago).

I saw a comment on social media the other day, which said;

“Many teenagers today who have a ‘crush’ on someone, will never know the heart-stopping moment of calling their ‘crush’ and having the parent answer the phone”

But if you were quiet, you could sit around the corner in the hallway, and listen to the ‘lovey-dovey chat’ of the older sister (sometimes two or three of us younger ones sitting and straining to hear), until one of us would give ourselves away by giggling, laughing or snorting, then things exploded. Fortunately as I mentioned the phone was not mobile and as it was attached to a cord, the victim of our laughter couldn’t chase you off very far.  Then there would be a scream “Muuuuuummm!!” If our mother was home, as I don’t think we would ever have done it when our father was home. The next trick was to avoid a swinging arm if mum was home, as you raced down the hall towards the kitchen to get to the back door. And you would hope that our mother wasn’t cooking or such, as she may have had a wooden spoon in that hand. But if there was more than two, then we could often confuse her as to who she would chose to take a swipe at. The chances were always better that she would miss at least two. Unless she was in top form and could fire off a quick smack on each of us as we ran past to the outside.

(Continued tomorrow)