We Were on the Swings

It was a video that the woman who cuts our hair found in a cupboard
in her living room while looking for something else. she lent it to us,
she lent it to everybody on the street. I didn't think anybody had
video cameras in those days but if I had to guess on person who had
done then it would have been her. The scissors that she cuts our hair
with probably cost more than our car.

Me and my sister were playing on the swings. Other children were eating
sausages and burgers cooked on the barbecues by the life and souls of
the party with hairy legs, oversized chefs caps and brightly coloured
T-shirts. They drank beer and talked together loudly. A group of women
sat around the table, which was covered in bottles of wine, sheltered
from the sun by a big umbrella weighted down with a bag of sand. You
could tell it was the early eighties because of the haircuts, the
sunglasses and because it says 15 July 1984 in the corner of the
screen.

The bigger boys chased the little kids around the spacious garden,
friendlyly wrestling them to the ground and kicking them in the
stomach. Nobody chased me and my sister around but we were new in the
area, didn't really know any of the other children and we were content
with each other on the swings. Later somebody got a football out so we
joined in with that, as did the bigger boys and some of the dads who
weren't occupied with the barbecue and entertaining the semi drunk
women in their brightly coloured sun-hats.

The video had been running for twenty minutes before my dad made an
appearance on the screen. It hadn't occurred to me that he'd have been
there as well. He obviously had been nervously anticipating it though
because within two minutes of pressing the play button he'd gone to
make a cup of tea and is now on the settee behind a book.

He was wearing smart trousers and a shirt as though he had come
straight from work, sitting by himself on a deckchair with a glass of
beer in his hand. He looked awkward as he sat there, acutely aware that
somebody, probably the woman who cuts our hair, had the camera in his
direction for a prolonged time. He seemed awkward then, in the same way
that he seems awkward now reliving it from the settee.

It was the first time I have ever seen my dad in any way other than
true life or still photos. I was shocked by the solitude of him on the
video. The way he sat alone with his beer. At home he was always so
lively with me and my sister. But the longer the video plays and the
continuous poses my dad unwittingly strikes on the video, I realise I
know how he felt. I've sat on those deckchairs, drinking beers. Wishing
the camera would get out of my face. Wishing I was the type of person
that did the barbecue.