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Sunday in the park with Rosie
In the distance we heard our church bell summoning the faithful. It had been my suggestion to skip Sunday School. It had been just an impulsive thought but Rosie pounced on the idea. We were eleven years old and thought ourselves to be highly sophisticated. Life had so much to offer. We didn’t want to spend an hour and a half of this precious spring morning imprisoned in a musty church basement, listening to the offensive braying of the embittered Miss Woods, and stumbling through dreary hymns that were carefully chosen to curb our youthful enthusiasm.
“Hot damn,” said Rosie. “Let’s do it.”
It had been my suggestion but I had a few reservations. “We’ll get caught.”
“Doing what?”” said Rosie.
“Not going to Sunday School,” I said.
Rosie looked at me with pity. “We can’t get caught NOT doing anything, can we?”
It didn’t sound right. Rosie sometimes played around with words like that and I always got confused. I tried another objection. “Miss Woods will tell our folks that we weren’t there.”
“Miss Woods doesn’t talk to our folks,” said Rosie.
This was true. My Mom and Dad never went to church, neither did Rosie’s Mom. We didn’t know why they made us go to Sunday school. Rosie’s grandmother went to the chapel at the other end of town.
“God will be mad," I said.
“He’s got plenty of people visiting him today,” said Rosie, “He’ll never miss us.”
“We won’t go to hell, will we?”
Rosie said that she was absolutely positively sure that this wouldn’t happen.
Having resolved those token protests, we walked as sedately as we could, clutching our collection money and made for the park.
We exhausted ourselves on the swings. We picked a few daffodils for our mothers, but realised they would initiate awkward questions. There were a few other ‘heathens’ scattered around relaxing in the natural surroundings.
An ice cream cart came into view. “Rainbows keep falling on my head” I sang along with its catchy tune.
“Rainbows can’t fall on your head” Rosie pointed out.
I laughed “I meant raindrops!”
“Come on," said Rosie. “Let’s buy an ice cream with our collection money,”
“Rosie,” I protested. “That money is for the poor.”
“Do you have any money of your own?” she asked.
“No.” I admitted. My parents had never heard of an allowance.
“Well then,” said Rosie. “If you haven’t any money, you must be poor. Right?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “I suppose I am.”
Everything we did was enhanced for me by a delicious sense of guilt. Rosie, on the other hand, probably missed her weekly confrontation with Miss Woods. Rosie read the bible more than the average eleven-year-old. She searched for contradictions.
“Which is it, Miss Woods” she would ask ‘turn the other cheek’ or ‘an eye for an eye’?” She was quick to discover the implausible “If Adam and Eve were the only people on earth, who did their children marry?”
Miss Woods became flustered and tried to keep to the planned lesson. Miss Woods always referred to the Book. Rosie claimed direct communication with God. It was mere coincidence, of course, that his opinions were a reflection of those held by Rosie.
We walked over to the pond. A clutch of fathers sailed toy boats, while their small boys ran wild in a field of daisies. I wondered where the little girls were. They were probably helping their mothers with Sunday dinner, I thought, satisfied that this should be so.
Rosie did not agree “Why can’t the daughters go to the park?” she stormed. “Let the boys pod the peas and set the table.” Rosie had some strange ideas.
We heard the tennis pavilion clock chime. There was time for a stroll through the rose garden before we made our way home.
In the rose garden we met my Aunt Connie. “What are you doing here?” she said. “You’re supposed to be at Sunday school.”
My heart almost stopped. A piece of scripture thundered through my brain: ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord’. Rosie looked a little stricken “we’ve cooked our goose now!” she whispered.
I stared at Aunt Connie’s hand. A man who was not Uncle Art tightly clasped it. Uncle Art was round; Uncle Art was bald and slightly smelly. This man was tall and romantic and he smiled down at my Aunt Connie with an expression of melancholy rapture.
Aunt Connie pulled her hand away. Our eyes met briefly and it was established that neither Aunt Connie nor I would ever mention this meeting.
Rosie didn’t know my Uncle Art. She was relieved when I explained. She said she would save for a future occasion the three excuses she had been concocting:
(a) it had all been my idea
(b) we were obeying God’s will
(c) the devil had made us do it.
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