MORNING SERIAL
THE man doubles over, and Pigeon scarpers off out the garden and down the street. He runs uphill. Uphill to the crooked house.
The man doesn’t follow, so, Pigeon, sprinting up the dark street, begins to slow down. He slows, stops, turns. It’s just an empty street, streetlights, bins, a navy-black sky, quiet, only the sound of a faint television coming from one of the houses and an uneasy breeze brushing over it all.
Pigeon walks up this street, turns, left, right, walks a downhill street and now, it’s his lane, and now his door. Pigeon reaches the door. Stands.
His mam had made it in for the exit interview. She’d sat there silently while Pigeon answered all their questions. They decided that although she seemed to be not quite all there. It’d do. He was old enough to manage anyway. Pigeon couldn’t bear to look at her, but he caught the faint smell of the crooked house from her clothes.
On leaving day, today, she was supposed to come and collect him. They weren’t supposed to sign him out otherwise. But the social worker had called. His mam was unwell again. She couldn’t come. They shouldn’t send him home to her without her signing. But they did. Pigeon was going to be old enough soon anyway, and he persuaded them, persuaded them with his tight, smooth English, so they did.
Leaving the centre, he’d felt the world slowly fix back together, but the joins between things were uneven, piecemeal, and now, standing here on the doorstep, the world has collapsed again. There’s only a blur and Pigeon and the door. The door is made of PVC now. There’s double-glazing. There’s a knocker. But Pigeon raises his fist to the door. He hesitates.
When he knocks, he can feel the street shattering behind him. His body is warm against the cool street. His mam may make him arrive. That’s possible. Pigeon waits on the doorstep for her. He musn’t breathe.
When she opens he looks at her full in the face for the first time. She’s still beautiful. And she’s still not back to normal.
> Pigeon is the winner of the Wales Book of the Year and the Rhys Davies Fiction Prize. Published by Parthian
CONTINUES TOMORROW