MORNING SERIAL
MELODY was late and my feet were beginning to fidget.
‘You know she’ll be here soon, don’t you?’ Mam said with a smile, bending to fill the bird bath.
‘She always is.’ I nodded, feeling the same smile bloom between my cheeks. It was true. Melody had been there almost every day so far that summer. Mam certainly had a way of breathing life back into everything, while Dad especially – found joy in her atmosphere, taking in her light, so they could duet in their own little photosynthesis. Me and Melody were similar.
I focused on a painted lady dancing around the border of heather, the strange stiffness of its black and orange wings gliding towards one flower and then the next. Dad had told me how they only live several weeks, so I couldn’t help but wonder if the twitch of one of its fragile wings was because it was near death or just curious.
While Mam’s back was turned, I swung like a pendulum, stretching my legs to urge time forward as best as I could, swinging so high that I could see right over the hedge. With each sweep, I could peer down into Dad’s fields where all sorts of root vegetables were growing, and there was the long line of Mam’s greenhouses, where she brought every flower and plant to life.
School wasn’t far from home and ballet was just the other side of the Common, a name I still didn’t understand being given to such an unusual and lonelylooking place, with nothing common about it at all. Further on from that was our town. I could see it all from the swing, and if I looked right past the Common, far in the distance, was the gargantuan tongue of the sea, a place that seemed to happen all on its own, just drifting in and out whether we were there or not. I wondered if one day, it would poke right out and swallow us all.
But no, everything stayed perfectly in its place.
So, I took the opportunity to stand up on my swing, with feet turned out and hands clinging to the rope either side. I lifted one of my legs behind me with a pointed toe.
Unspeakable Beauty by Georgia Carys Williams is published by Parthian at £10.99. parthianbooks.com
CONTINUES TOMORROW