MORNING SERIAL

“OKAAAAY,” she says, pulling the okaaaaaay out like bubble gum. “How about your stepdad then? How did you two get on?”

And Pigeon hates it, the way ‘you two’ sounds. “He’s gone,” he snaps. “He’s not around anymore anyways,” and he lets the ball fall to the floor, watches it as it slows against the deep-pile carpet and finally stops against the skirting board, cornered.

“Hmm,” she says. “Yes, I see. But were you friends?” and she leans forward, slightly. You can see it on her skin, the prickles of getting to the bottom of it, of unlocking the secrets. The prickles wander like ants up her arms.

Pigeon looks up, is still for a second, and then, “No! We weren’t ‘friends’ alright?” And it’s a man’s anger, uncontainable in his boy’s voice.

“If you don’t want to talk about it Pigeon, then that’s alright, okay? That’s fine for today.”

She shakes her head, shuffles her papers. She looks at him, almost kindly. Almost mothering. But the room is too white. And she isn’t a mother. She isn’t his mother.

“Yep, that’s right.” Pigeon rests his forehead in his hand. “Don’t want to talk about it,” he says, pursing his lips.

“Okay, fine, we’ll do this some other time Pigeon, okay?” She looks at him a long while, her eybrows pulled down low.

But Pigeon doesn’t want to do this ever again. Doesn’t want to sit in this room with the stupid toys, the grinning bears, the shiny, ugly-perfect balls, the dolls and the cars and all the other things that adults need children to have, so he says suddenly, “I hated his guts,” and then, “He spoilt everything. He was a bastard to mum, and a bastard to me.”

“Who’s He?” She’s looking confused, looking at her clipboard, as if she’s lost her place on the page.

“Him,” Pigeon leans forward, with his own italics this time, reaches for her clipboard and taps his finger twice about halfway up the page. Step. Dad.