A Five Year Sentence Read Free Page B

to separate the living from the dead. Often when the bus stopped at the lights by the church, Miss Hawkins would watch the old men loitering without intent on the graveyard benches, and the mothers on their guardian seats, each with their own sense of detachment and privilege, yet the children passed between the quick and the dead without surprise. She would go to that park, she decided, and she would walk around it many times. A circular walk, but she would give it length in its passage of time.
    There were two entrances, one, a locking-gate that led into the mortal ground, and the other, a free turnstile into the playground. She took the turnstile, intending her graveyard explorations to be casual. She skirted the sandpit, and stood at its edge, watching two bucket-laden children building a castle. Only once had she been to the seaside, in her pre-woman days at the orphanage. She could remember very little about that day except for her cry of astonishment when she saw the vast open sea for the first time. Matron had told her to keep her voice down and to behave like a lady. One day, she hoped her diary would order her to the seaside, and she would greet the sea with an unstrangled cry. She felt herself smiling again, and she took off her glove and outlined the unaccustomed creases on her face, and though the notion of happiness had never occurred to her as part of her birthright, she dared to wonder whether she was not entitled to it after all.
    She turned and walked towards the swings. They were empty, and with her ungloved hand, she pushed one gently. She was aware that it was a gesture completely alien to her former self, and it convinced her that Hawkins from the Sacred Heart Orphanage, and Miss Hawkins from the sweet factory, were no more. She crossed over to the mothers’ benches. Two women sat there, apart and unspeaking, separately observing their respective children playing in the sandpit. She hesitated at the bench. She was tired enough to sit, but she didn’t want to admit of any punctuation between the swings and the graves. She didn’t see herself specifically as part of either side. Though she had missed out on the joys of swings and roundabouts, it wasnever too late for first childhood, and for her, the second childhood of the other side was premature. So she passed through the unseen barrier without wonder.
    An old man sat by one of the headstones. It was crumpled, and its legend indecipherable. It could have had for him no kin-connection, for by its age and layers of verdigris, it signalled a long-past century. But as a reminder of his future journey, it would serve as well as any other. With his stick he traced a circle on the gravel, round and round in ever-decreasing rings. Until he found his still centre, and there for a while, he rested, and looked up at her, but saw her not at all. A child darted past him, vaulting the grave, and in his fleet landing, disturbed the old man’s sad geometry. He sucked in his parchment dewy cheeks, and circled again with his stick. Miss Hawkins walked past him and smiled at him, though his eyes were on the ground. She passed through the playground again and hesitated at the slide. Had she been alone, she would have climbed the steps, and in her old and pensionable age, she would have claimed a childhood that had been denied her. One day, late at night, when children were too tired to swing, and old men too circle-giddy, her diary would send her to the playground to redeem her early years.
    She circled the park and the graveyard many times, never following the same route, reading aloud those tombs that were legible, hearing her strong voice applaud the dead she’d never known. She marvelled at herself and at the feeling of warm goodwill that invaded her. She noticed how quickly she was walking, with an energy that indicated that she had somewhere quite positive to go, and that there was not enough time to enjoy the small and simple pleasures that she