T h e S w i n g
by Nicholas Royle
I'd just cleared the ball off my line and kicked it
back up the park when I noticed this beautiful girl
standing near the goal. She was applauding my save and
didn't look away immediately when I grinned at her. While
she was looking down I had a good look. She didn't seem to
have any holes as far as I could see. Her ears weren't
pierced and I couldn't see any scars on her face or hands.
Still, I thought, no harm in looking.
As the first half was quiet, I stayed on the goal
line and talked to her. Even if there was no future in it, I
was flattered by her attention. I talked about the game and
the lads on the team, my job, how to avoid arrest for burglary
if you're carrying heavy bags stuffed with books and records;
rubbish, in fact. I talked rubbish because I was scared of drying
up. Also because it didn't look like anything could happen
between us and so it was hard to justify the desire to talk.
It was the middle of winter and although the sky
was almost all gray the sun shone for a short time and struck
her face like it would a statue's. She was wearing glasses with
an attractive black frame and the lenses were coated with
something that made them reflect strange colors. Her skin
appeared perfect in the sideways light and she wore her hair
casually flicked over the right side of her head. She had jeans on
that looked warm and comfortable. I wanted to tell her how
stunning she looked but it might have confused her. I wished I
had a camera with me despite the obvious handicap of my
goalkeeper's gloves.
I asked the girl her name and she said it was Georgie.
Her hair was long and dark. I told her my name. She said, "That's a
lovely name." I didn't have any holes either so I couldn't work out
why she was being so nice to me.
There was an attack on my goal that came out of the
blue and I fumbled the ball. It fell to an attacker but I blocked his
shot. Georgie was clapping again, her breath freezing in front of
her face like big white roses bursting into flower. Our midfield
must have fallen asleep because suddenly the opposition were
coming at me again. Their winger put in a cross and I jumped for
the ball along with three other men - two of their forwards and one
of our defenders. Normally I would have been more cautious but, in
spite of myself, I was showing off in front of Georgie. I got hit in
the face. Someone's elbow caught me in the cheek. It was a mighty
blow and I felt instantly sick, as if I'd walked into a tree. I fell to
the ground, too badly hurt to clutch my face, too shocked to know
how to react. The pain was startling and I was terrified in case
the damage was . . . what? . . . worse than I expected? A footballing
injury. Surely it couldn't be that bad, could it?
With players crowding round me I tried to feel with my
tongue inside my mouth. The rich taste of blood was in my throat.
My tongue found the point of impact, where the inside of my cheek
had been pressed against my teeth. There was a hole. My tongue
seemed to go on forever as it felt for the end of the hole. What if it
goes right through? I thought anxiously. What if I've got a hole
through my cheek?
And when I looked up and saw the expressions on the
faces of my teammates I realized that was exactly what I did have.
Gingerly I fingered my cheek. I felt the edge of the hole
and drew back like a tourist on the lip of a volcano. The only person
who came forward instead of backing away was Georgie and she
came so quickly I didn't have time to react. Deftly she threaded a
large silver ring through the hole, attached a strong-looking chain
and snapped the ring shut. "I love you," she whispered unnecessarily.
The rest of the lads were watching, some exchanging
knowing glances and nudges and winks. They didn't seem to mind that
they'd lost their keeper. A game's a game but some things are more
important, they would have been thinking. Even if they hadn't scored,
I had. Things like that. They would have all seen similar things
before. I knew for a fact that Jon, the left back, had seen a girl he
fancied in a pub the week before and had slipped a thin wire through
the hole in her pierced ear while she was waiting to be served. Since
he'd wanted to go to the pub anyway they stayed for a while before
going back to his flat on the outskirts of the city.
With Georgie it was love at first sight. So she said later,
after she'd led me away from the field. We didn't bother to go via the
changing rooms and pick up my clothes. She made no concessions like
that, and there was no reason why she should, obviously. My life had
changed and I had to accept it. It wasn't as if it had never happened
before; just not on a football pitch in front of twenty-one blokes. It
was a bit embarrassing.
We spent the next thirty-six hours at her flat, moving
from the bed only to run a bath - which we let go cold - or to get
more orange juice from the fridge. We got to know each other's
bodies to the most intimate degree and talked when there was an
opportunity. She didn't take the ring out of my mouth once. It was far
too early for that degree of trust.
During those first few days I submitted myself to
everything without question. It felt good to be with someone again
but I knew that before long I'd have to start looking for weaknesses.
Realistically the balance couldn't stay the same for long.
Georgie took me to see her friends. In the car she took no
chances, securing me to the door handle with a stout chain. I liked
watching her drive. She didn't wear a seat belt and her lips never
stopped moving as she mouthed abuse at any driver who either cut
her off or proceeded too slowly. I liked to see them get out of her
way fearfully, especially because if they didn't it tended to mean a
violent jolt that jarred the ring in my mouth, reopening the wound
and causing blood to flow. I put my hand on her leg at one point and
she covered it tenderly with hers before taking hold of my little
finger and applying a twist that threatened to break it. We both
laughed at this.
On arrival at her friends' house she led me into a chatter
of appraisal and endless questions rattled at her. Where did you find
him? What does he do? Is it good? Better than the last one? "He
looks good to me," one woman in a gold dress said as she ran her hand
flirtatiously up my chain, stopping just before the ring so that I
could feel her trembling with suppressed excitement.
The host emerged from the kitchen with a flourish and a
black woman whom he kept in tow by means of a length of gold rope,
the type you see in theater foyers and outside posh hotels, which
was plaited into her bleached hair. The black woman was carrying a
tray of cocktails in outrageously tall glasses. I could only imagine
the punishment she might receive for dropping one. In fact, as she
passed me I noticed several barely healed welts on her cheek and up
the back of her neck.
In the main living room everyone reached for a glass. I
thought I'd try to get one for myself, just to test Georgie's reaction.
She was on the ball, all right, whipping out a short riding crop - much
to my surprise - with which she beat me twice on the arm. I was
surprised because the only other couple I knew who kept a riding crop
were my parents. To my knowledge they never used it because their
relationship seemed as close to perfect as you could get. They had
matching holes pierced through the nasal septum and both wore rings.
Whoever had the benefit of the swing led the other with a thin chain.
When the swing changed they seemed to accept the fact mutually and
switched the favor of the chain. Of course, their relationship was the
exception rather than the rule.
Georgie's second stroke with the crop raised a thin red
stripe. That's what I don't like about love affairs - the blood. My own
or anybody else's. But in most cases it's inevitable.
"Don't touch, darling," Georgie said gently. "We're not at
home now. These are my friends." Then she kissed me slowly and
deeply, probing the hole in my cheek, much to everyone's enjoyment.
Out of the twenty or so people in the room the host and his
black partner were obviously very much in love. Probably, like Georgie
and myself, they had only recently met. There were several single
people and a few other couples at various stages of getting to know
each other. One woman wore a hood and had been hobbled with nylon
fishing line but she kept a respectful two paces behind her partner,
a tall, thin man with silver hair and four fingers missing on his left
hand. At regular intervals he would turn and run his good hand under
the folds of her tunic and she would appear to shiver. It was hard to
tell if her reaction was one of pleasure or disgust. Another couple
stood at opposite sides of the room, each partner flirting wildly
with other people. Every so often one would tug the long thin flex
that snaked across the wooden floor between them. They looked as
if they were hungry for new experiences but reluctant to throw away
what they had.
I felt my head being pulled round. Georgie was unclasping
the chain from the ring. She smiled at me indulgently as she held on
to the ring itself and said, "Go on, have a run about."
She was taking a chance. The other women gathered round
me, hands reaching out to pet me and stroke my head. One or two
touched the ring and threaded it round through the hole. It hurt but I
tried to put a brave face on it for Georgie's sake. There were at least
a dozen women touching me. It only needed one to take a fancy to me
and snap some kind of lead or chain on to my ring and Georgie would
have lost me. I imagined that the risk gave her some pleasure because
she seemed to be enjoying herself as she watched the frenzy of hands
and bared teeth.
There was something about the episode that struck me as
less than tasteful and I felt it reflected badly on Georgie. This was
probably the moment - when she snapped the chain back on the ring, all
but smirking with self-congratulation - that I began to love her slightly
less and the swing began. In the car on the way back to her place I
think we were probably about level but I was the one who was chained
up. The thing about relationships, of course, is that when you're in one
all the normal rules by which you live change. Georgie had needed to
wait for something to happen to me in the first place before she could
put the ring on me. Had she just marched up and pierced a hole in my
cheek it would have been rape - an act upon which society still frowns.
But when you love somebody the gloves are off. Georgie should perhaps
have taken my docility less for granted.
I watched her at the wheel as she negotiated the ill-lit
rainy streets north of the city, her dry lips constantly fluttering. At
one point she turned her head and looked at me and gave me a smile.
Sickly in the orange glimmer of street lighting and the green display
of the car's dash, her face seemed years older than the one I'd seen on
the football field awash in early sunlight.
With a sudden movement I reached for the hand brake and
jerked it up.
The rear of the car pitched up in the air and the front
wheels swiveled. The steering wheel spun out of control and Georgie's
head punched into the windscreen, which shattered like a huge
chandelier crashing to a wooden floor. I had braced myself adequately
and was still sitting in my seat unharmed when the car stopped
moving. I unclipped my chain from the door handle and looked at
Georgie. She was bent in half, her face on the hood, her legs stuck
under the wrenched steering column.
I walked to the nearest phone and called an ambulance.
When Georgie came home from the hospital she was
in a wheelchair. Because I had sold her flat while she was in
intensive care, she stayed at my place. The swing had happened and
I started leaving things out of reach on high shelves and on top of
cupboards. We were still sleeping together but the relationship - like
Georgie - wasn't really going anywhere. I didn't need to chain her. Her
legs were useless and I lived on the fourth floor. There was no lift.
The hole in my cheek healed up nicely, leaving a neat scar. I went out
to work as normal and thought about her sometimes as I sat at my desk
looking for pierced ears among the secretaries and personal assistants.
She took to ringing me at work to tell me she couldn't
wait for me to come home, so one night when I got home I ripped out
the phone and bound her wrists behind the back of the wheelchair. I
should have been enjoying myself both at home - where I should have
been grateful for Georgie's attention - and at work, and in the pubs and
clubs, sitting waiting for someone to fall on a smashed glass. But I
felt increasingly numb, unable to appreciate what I had. I began to have
serious doubts about the swing and only realized what was really going
on one day when I stayed late to finish sorting some papers at work.
A very attractive woman who I'd noticed looking at me
several times over the past couple of weeks came into my office and
leaned against the desk facing me. She made much of the short skirt she
was wearing. "Your wife loves you very much, doesn't she?" she said.
"She's not my wife, but yes," I answered. "That's what makes
you so attractive."
Then she took the long thin letter opener from my
stationery holder and, laying her left hand flat on my desk, plunged
the blade of the letter opener into the middle of it. Although clearly
close to fainting, she managed to pull the blade out of the desk top in
which it had become embedded and show me the palm of her hand. Blood
dripped from the fresh hole.
Clearly the swing was in Georgie's favor again, because I
felt no desire for this other woman. I just watched her bleed for a few
moments before picking up the phone to dial Georgie. The number was
unobtainable and I remembered why. "I love you," I whispered desperately
into the receiver.
"The Swing" Copyright © 1994 by Nicholas Royle
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