‘In the summer time, when the weather is fine’ is the first line of an old upbeat song, and was a prompt from a Dean Writers Circle ‘Creativity and Cake’ evening, stolen as usual for my FaceBook prompts.
In the summer time, when the weather was fine, Betty loved to kick off her shoes and run through the park’s long grass, her toes curling in the silky coolness. That connection with nature had first thrilled her at age three – she remembers her mother laughing, walking backwards with her arms outstretched, to welcome her barefoot daughter into her embrace.
Betty encouraged her friends to romp with her.
‘Come on, take off your sandals, get rid of your socks.’ She’d plump onto the ground, tearing off her own footwear to free her wriggling pink toes.
When they were young, her friends joined in with enthusiasm, but adolescents – cool, hip, standing on their dignity – were harder to convince. The boys scoffed. ‘Baby games’, they sneered and wold wandered off to sneak cigarettes and beer among the shrubbery along the old railway line. The girls, most of them, sniggered or pouted. ‘We’d get our feet wet!’ they protested and would sit, feet firmly clad, on the swings or roundabout to gossip.
Except Dorothy.
Dorothy and Betty were friends since kindergarten, Dorothy the devoted follower to Betty’s exuberant lead. It got her into trouble from time to time, but Dorothy stuck it out and Betty loved her for her devotion – an d occasional caution which she may or may not heed.
‘Joined at the hip,’ Betty’s mother would say, smiling from her seat on the picnic rug beneath the chestnut tree, arms held wide to emphasise her delight.
Today Betty walks to the park, glorying in the hot sunshine. When she arrives, she sits on a bench for a time, watching the children playing, dogs running, adults chatting. None of them are barefoot, except the dogs.
And then Betty bends down, with difficulty these days, and slips off her sensible shoes and knee-high stockings. She stands, leans on her stick and and wriggles her toes in the lush green grass. One step, two, another … she stops, gazes heavenward.
‘For you, Dotty,’ she says. ‘Life wasn’t always a walk in the park, but at its best we did it together.’ She grins. ‘Toes naked.’
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Find Cheryl’s flash fiction and short stories, including audio versions of some, here.