My childhood home was nothing but a 70's four bedroom suburban build at the bottom of a sloping Cul-de-sac, nothing untoward or dark was ever present between its walls. There was a rumour it was built on the site of an old farmhouse but that's hardly a Saxon burial ground. My next door neighbour's the Harrington's had two children both my elder, a boy Nigel and a girl just 1 year my senior Catherine they were a pleasure to grow up with.
As the oldest sibling of my household it was a joy to have an older brother and sister if you will guiding me through my formative years. We spent many an innocent afternoon playing games over the back garden fence, tennis, water pistols, I even recall a spud gun being introduced to proceedings somewhere along the line. When Nigel was out with his mates me and Catherine would talk for hours over the fence and sometimes when plotting something mischievous would crouch and talk through a small hall our eyes peeping through as if by being crouched and talking through this hole prevented anyone seeing or hearing us.
One afternoon much like any other I was playing at the back of the garden in the muddy bit where dad used to pile leaves, dreaming up tactical military manoeuvre's with my plastic soldiers. There I heard a call from the other side of the fence, just the usual voice of a pre-pubescent young lady which in thinking I suppose more or less sound the same as each other depending on your region. I assumed this was Catherine and wondered over to the small eye hole we shared many chats through, there I crouched down and looked through to see the eye of catherine, I put this down to the fact that I had never seen any other eye through the hole before and in fact at my young age was more interested in what was going to happen in saturday mornings cartoons than girls eyes and more to the point their eye colours. We chatted as usual,
“what are you doing?” she said, her voice was sweet and calming,
“not much just playing army's”,
“oh, I don't like that game”
“why” I replied,
“I don't like it that you should make men kill men”,
she made me think, and that awoke something new inside me I had never experienced before, I started to notice how pretty her eye was and how brown and never ending it was as I looked into it. “I see what you mean” I said thoughtfully, “We should talk more through the fence its fun”.
Her eye blinked and I saw sadness in the abyss of her pupil. “I can't”, and with that the eye disappeared from the hole.
“Catherine” I shouted, “where have you gone?”.
There was no reply and no sign of her. My heart sunk, I left the soldiers at the back of the garden and went back inside.
I carried on my day as normal, cartoons on the sofa with a Pot Noodle as a treat, Grandstand with dad and then final score. But although all these things were enjoyable they were just distractions and I couldn't stop thinking about her and that somehow it was bad to do so, even though I longed for her to come and knock at the door. As it came round to about 6'o’clock I heard next doors car come down the drive, and when I heard the doors open I ran outside to say hello to Nigel. To my surprise the whole family emerged,
“Hi catherine” I said somewhat confused,
“Hi Lucas” she replied “how was your day”.
My confusion rose ten-fold, and my relief to see her was unfounded “good thanks, how was yours?”
I am not sure why I replied like this knowing I had spoke to her through the fence not 3 hours earlier.
“Great, we went to Colchester zoo!” ,“all day?” I asked,
“yeah we went this morning...”
and she trailed off into talking about feeding the elephants and such. I didn't bother to ask who I was speaking to if not her, I was young but old enough to know people would think I was crazy and I definitely didn’t want to lose my friends over it. But by knowing that somehow whom I was speaking to wasn't Catherine my feelings for the eye in the whole got even more confusing and I longed to see her again. Most afternoons for weeks I sat around the back of the garden hoping that she would re-appear. Even when playing in next doors garden I investigated all along the fences and the garden gate but to no avail there were no ways of entering or exiting except through the house and the fences were far too tall for a 9 year old girl to climb. I never got to speak to the girl that wasn't Catherine again and never found out who she was or could have been, two years later we moved out of the house but I never forgot that one brown dark beautiful eye.
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