The Joy I Found in Between SE5 and SE6
The yellow ferrari was in the lead. Ever the showman, he decided to take to the air and do some 360 flips, just because he could. Meanwhile the green car, who hadn’t performed well in recent races, was heading up the chasing pack. A respectable second place finish was the best he could hope for because as usual the ferrari was so far ahead that he was showboating and-
The sound of a bell being shaken in the distance stole into the living room. At its sound I neglected the race, my toy cars now idly tracing the pattern on the rug that formed the track. Already knowing I wouldn’t see the playground, I moved to the window and peered onto the part of the school building that was visible to my line of sight.
The tinkling of the bell indicated the end of playtime at what had been, until a few days ago, my primary school. I lived probably no more than 100 metres away from Loughborough Primary School and while I’d heard the shaking of the bell signalling for end of all playtime antics countless times, I’d never heard its sound from a distance. Always up close. But funnily, its sound still had the same effect on me. I had quietened and halted my own individual play as if I’d been on the playground that I could now hear but not see.
We were moving house. Leaving Lambeth, Brixton, for Lewisham. Migration in that direction — outwards and away from London’s central zones- is customary practice as your family expands and our one bedroom flat had was pushing on claustrophobic even before my little brother’s arrival almost two years earlier.
For some reason I’d spent the last few days not at school. I’m guessing that with my parents stressed enough by all the tedious tasks that come with moving house, and with the school year days away from coming to an end anyway, to keep me with them spared one less responsibility. Far from the introvert I grew to be, as a child I was loud, very sociable and way too talkative. And being an only child up until the age of 5, I loved school. Playing with my toy cars was cool but playing with my friends out on the playground was much better. So when the sound of the bell carried with it the message of playtime being over, I felt a pang of sadness at it never having started for me.
My parents most likely saw that I missed my school friends, so on what I assume to have been one or two days before our move, they took me back in to say goodbye to the kids and teachers one last time. I remember walking into the playground being a weird experience. It’s where I’d longed to be for the past few days but I’d come back as an outsider; in my own clothes and no longer an automatic part of the games taking place. I stepped tentatively into the playground, all the kids too enthralled in their own games to notice my uncanny presence.
I walked further into the playground, looking around to try and scout my usual playmates when I heard my name exclaimed in a surprised tone to my left. I turned to see the caller stood with a look of mild shock on his face, an expression which seemed to copy and paste onto faces of the others he was playing with as their eyes found me. I stood there, not sure what to do or say. Then the kid who called my name’s face broke into wide smile and he ran at me. Like a flock, the other kids followed, running at me in excitement. I too ran, but not towards them. I instinctively ran in the opposite direction, inciting them to try and catch me.
A bunch of the boys in my class would always do races across the width of the playground. It couldn’t have been more than 30m across but there was no way you could convince us that it wasn’t 100m, that each race wasn’t its own Olympic final. So when my friends ran to me I found a way to reenact my favourite playground pastime. I ran. The initial group chasing me tailed in hot pursuit and as the chase caught the attention of other kids in the playground, they joined in. Before long it felt like all the kids in the playground were in on the chase. I sprinted full tilt, dipping and swerving to evade capture, feeling like the starling at the front of the fleet, each person behind me mirroring every turn. A jubilant sound, half laughter, half scream, escaped my mouth every time an arm got close enough to grab me. I ran and ran until I ran out of breath. And soon as I caught it back I ran again, ensuing another chase.
