MORNING SERIAL

BEFORE He came, Pigeon’s mam was a seamstress. She sewed, at home. She made dresses for other people.

But now see the dresses, as they still hang in the dark lounge under plastic coats, like bodies, strangled.

Underneath the plastic there are all the colours in the world: shiny, flat, soft, shimmery, see through, materials called beautiful names, chiffon, silk, satin.

And Pigeon expected to see pretty girls in the dresses. Beautiful.

But the ones who came to get them were always ugly, and never as pretty as his mam.

No, never as pretty as she when she laughed. (Although it wasn’t now so very often that she laughed.)

Before He came Pigeon was inside. Pigeon’s bedroom was upstairs before He came. He came bringing Cher and silence, and the shed.

When He first moved in, they got off to a bad start. Pigeon was sitting on the sofa, or rather he was draped over the sofa, lording over the room, his trainers kicked off, and strewn on the floor.

He was reading a book. It was a book about aeroplanes. Back then that was what Pigeon liked, aeroplanes. Back then.

Pigeon’s mam brought Him round.

At that time she still went out, at that freewheeling time still went for the shopping of her own free will, still took a bus into town. She had a friend, who she met once a week, to exchange dress patterns, have a cup of tea, talk.

Talk. Back then she did that too. Usually when she returned to the house, she’d come in through the back door. Like a lot of people they left the front door ‘for visitors’ although they never had any, and the ones they did, like Iola, came round the back too.

So, usually, the front door was almost just a wall. Something that never moved, never opened. Pigeon sat upright when he heard a key turning in the front door that day.

You knew it was trouble when it was the front. The police, the social worker, some kids playing pranks.