Trusting it is ours
by S.C.Cullen
The week’s stress drains away into the zonking school-stained rest as they travel twenty miles forwards from fumes - and some hundreds of years back in time. Finding a single car on this late sunny afternoon draws smiles of satisfaction. And almost before they stop he flings open the door and slides down, out and away.
She shouts, following a little behind her frown, as they race to greet the patient griffins always on guard. He clambers up and balances - unsuccessfully. She stands a little taller, breathing in deep freshness of the space and place - until she topples too, but soon bolsters herself with their history - as ballast on a boat from Bishopsgate.
Two children arrive for their weekly visit to Wallington, and dash off, into their imaginations, playing with reality…
He shrugs and says he’s on a ship! And smiles - and sways - and falls again, before rising in a wince and hobbling off after her towards the gate. Finding her waiting dutifully at the road, he climbs and swings it open. She tell him off. He continues swinging anyway.
They are soon scrambling away into the freedom of their secret garden, before being brought up short by indignation, tweaked by spying strangers on the other side of the China Lake. Pirates! He snorts, peeking through the reeds. But their foes have already turned away, and the children delve deeper into the realm of their imaginations. He stands akimbo below his frown, yanking the lock a little, to check if the boat house has a door for the boat. It still does not.
After tripping over roots, but not to falling into the lake - generally speaking - they race along the Portico House wall.
She says she wishes she could to climb like the hydrangea petiolaris. He says it should just be called a wall clinger. She scoffs, saying that’s the difference between them. As he cocks his head at an old brick that has lost its face in the frost, she says last one to the Portico has to finish the carrot sticks.
He wins - as usual. She flops into a rest against a column, until straightening, she imagines herself a Greek caryatid-like, until he pulls off - and races into a tumble down the slope to the Garden Pond.
Race you to the lily pond of delight, he shouts back. Lolloping after him she calls him carrots - both because she lost and because of the scope of his imagination.
Once at the pond side she cocks her head towards the moorhens, grebe and mallards nodding their way to greet them, and - trailing their feathered friends - they pied-piper their way along to the old tweed of the garden wall - now rebuilt after the flood had swooshed the wall away.
He struggles with the latch of Neptune’s gate, dragged into a little fall once it opens backwards towards the pond.
She corrects him, saying it’s the Mary Pool actually - adding that its not even as old as Great Granny Helen. She watches him step down into the past, and lie flat tummy-chilled on the stone to reach into the goldfish pool. She tells him off, but he explains he is not catching fish - just tickling.
She walks beneath the high wall glancing at the empty plinths from where lead statues once looked down. She imagines them escaping from their now-cellared jail and wandering in the garden at night.
He gets up, saying he wants to climb up and replace them with himself. She says it is too high and he can never keep still - let alone balance. His frown moves his sulk, lumping down the remaining steps, before dashing, as always, past her, winding along the little stone edged stream. Knowing he will distract himself into various meanders, crossing every little bridge over the tiny stream, she calculates a quicker route.
When he does eventually arrive at the strewn blanket, she hides her panting with a laze on the deep pile carpet of grass. He flings himself down and begins to roll. They are soon both tumbling down the gentle slope, over Mamma’s legs, daffs, pansies and forget-me-nots into dizziness. Their spinning heads ending in a bed of riotous colour by the fairy stream. He tries to rise against the rolling nausea. She watches his grin of pleasure as his legs go from under him on standing.
Lying together, they both look up through the leaves, spying endless forms in puffy clouds. Rising at the supper call, they slowly heave up the gentle slope, flopping onto the holed familial rug.
The orange hue of summer sun catches her face as she munches the last carrot stick, and lies back in the hope she will see the dancing lead girl. Or Neptune. Or a Knight. If only they could just hide until after dark, she frowns her eyes closed, but the sun still peeks pink through her eyelids.
Vittles gathered back into their sack, they head off to the lower opening in the old wall and into the eighteenth century.
He heaves at the heavy latch, hanging as the oaken gate swings him back into the garden with delight. Pulling the gate closed behind him, he carries his grin into a trot down the little avenue to catch her up. They skip in and out of the low wizen of old trees that line the little path, elevating it in their imagination into a grand avenue.
Descending their wobbling gait towards to the road, they dutifully survey left and right and left and right, before they chorus their delight across the field and glee their skip towards the stepping stones.
Leaping first, he turns and beams a grin, before a slip, a fall, a splash into the shallows of the Wansbeck. Twisting himself into a familiar clown, he is soon up and out into the ‘just-in-case’ change of clothes.
As he squelches towards the humpback bridge she explains it was Paine’s. He winces his agreement, asking to sit - and rest - and think beneath its hug.
She frowns with concern, watching him dangle his feet into a splash beneath a very thin smile as he rubs his knee. Reaching into the pocket of her indestructible uniform, she finds an apple she has bitten only once. With wide smiling eyes he nods - and takes - and eats - and hands it back to share her generosity.
She urges him on, suggesting they count the little bridges over the cascading trickles as they wander west along the oft-wet river path.
Eventually they clamber their fatigue up and onto the foot bridge to play Pooh-sticks, while they wait for the familial fatigue to catch them up, before they labour up towards the Boathouse Pond, and peek down into the icehouse - and deep into their imagination and his offer to clamber down to retrieve ice in summer.
Too tired to drag themselves around the other ponds in the gloaming of their youthful sprite, they sag a sigh and turn along the West Walk towards the Hall. He says he says it’s funny but he loves their secret garden. She looks nat the Haha and smiles to herself, and says it’s not really theirs. He frowns his shoulders wide, and says he trusts it’s theirs! She turns to swift away her smile of delight, but can’t help but turn back to say that’s rather clever!
He swings around within the oversized shirt and cocks his puzzled head. Assuming he doesn’t get it, she smiles her gloat. He meets it with a shrug and reaches up to plant a kiss upon his sister’s cheek, before squelching his dart off ahead. Half way to the Hall he calls back that first to the Clock Tower gets the front seat. Not fair! She yells in tired pursuit. Their sojourn done. Their love of Wallington replete.
