Opening words

1. Let's go fly a kite

‘It’s grown! It must be as tall as me now.’ Chrissie strode across the grass towards a lanky rowan sapling, which stood tall compared with the stout bamboo cane to which it was tied. It was still just a single stem with feathery leaves spaced out along its length, but it was certainly flourishing. The finely-serrated leaflets fluttered in the breeze and the top of the tree swayed and bowed. It was always windy up here on Shotover Hill.

‘I suppose it will have done. We can’t have seen it for nearly four months.’

Gavin hurried to catch up with his wife. It was Saturday 4^th July 2020 – Freedom Day as the popular press described it. The day that places of worship, pubs, restaurants, hairdressers and non-essential shops were at last allowed to re-open after the COVID-19 lockdown. An emergency measure that had initially been put in place for three weeks, in an attempt to stem the spread of this deadly new virus, had lasted for far longer than anyone had dared to suggest that it might. Now, at last, they could visit the place where they had buried Kenny’s ashes six months, and half a lifetime, ago. For the first time since March, they could visit the tree that they had planted in his memory and remember the happy times when they had come up here with him while he was growing up.

They stood together in front of the tree, holding hands, each thinking their own thoughts. It had been a tough six months since that December day when they had been summoned to the hospital where Kenny was undergoing emergency surgery following a murderous attack. It had seemed so cruel at the time not being able to say a final goodbye; but ever since March the news had been full of stories of relatives unable to be with their dying loved-ones. Their experience wasn’t so abnormal anymore. Perhaps it never had been.

Gavin turned and walked over to a wooden bench, which stood in the shade of a large oak tree. He put down the bag that he had been carrying and reached inside.

‘What’ve you got there?’ Chrissie asked, coming over to join him.

‘D’you remember the kite we made for Kenny for his seventh birthday?’ Gavin pulled out a piece of brightly-coloured fabric made up of sections of blue and yellow cotton material sewn neatly together. ‘You made the sail and the tail, and I did the spars and the line.’

He reached into the bag again and took out two lengths of thin dowel. He slipped them into pockets at the corner of the kite, carefully fitting the thin cord that ran through a hem round the edge of the fabric into slots in the ends of the dowels. He held it up and shook out the long tail, made of a length of ribbon with multi-coloured bows tied into it at intervals. Finally, he attached a reel of thin string, pulling it firmly to check that it was secure.

‘I found it in the loft when I put away the Christmas decorations. One of the spars was broken, but apart from that, it was still in pretty good nick. I mended it and now I thought I’d give it an outing. This was where we took it for its maiden flight.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ Chrissie smiled. ‘You had a great time, but Kenny got upset because he couldn’t get it to stay up.’

‘Well let’s see if I’ve still got the knack,’ Gavin smiled back. He carried the kite out into the centre of the field and put it down on the grass. Then, letting out the cord as he went, he walked backwards into the wind. When he judged that the line was long enough, he stopped and gave it a jerk. The kite lifted off the ground, bounced a short way along the grass and then flopped back down again.

‘Shall I give it a lift?’ Chrissie called from the bench.

‘If you like.’

Chrissie got up, walked across the field and picked up the kite. She held it high above her head. ‘Ready?’

‘Yes. Let it go … now!’

Chrissie lunched the kite into the air above her head. It rose then veered downwards again before Gavin got it under control, pulling the string rhythmically to make it climb higher. As the wind took it, he let out the line, still pulling gently to maintain the tension. Soon it was soaring upwards as he continued to allow the reel to turn in his hands. He craned his neck and screwed up his eyes to watch its swooping flight against the brightness of the sky. There was something satisfying and therapeutic about collaborating with the wind to keep the homemade craft airborne.

Chrissie returned to the bench and sat down on it. She gazed out over the grass and shrubby trees at the view of Oxford and, beyond the sprawl of Cowley, to the distant Berkshire Downs. Were there more bushes now than there had been when Kenny was a boy? Or perhaps this wasn’t the spot where they had stood looking down on the city, competing to spot familiar landmarks. Had that been further on, on the other side of that hedge, in the next field? What a pity she hadn’t thought to bring their binoculars. Kenny had never grown tired of that special moment, each time they came here, when he managed to bring them into focus on their own house, three miles away in Rose Hill.

Gavin seemed to be engrossed in his kite-flying. Perhaps that was his way of communing with Kenny. Chrissie smiled as she reached into her handbag and got out her knitting. It was very pleasant up here in the warm July sunshine – one of those days that reminded you of the hot, dry summers of your childhood! And for once, they neither of them had any pressing tasks waiting to be done – or at least nothing that could not wait until tomorrow.