MORNING SERIAL

THEY’D look for him in the common room and find just a magazine pile tipped to the floor, three magazines open on the blue carpet, as if someone had been lying on their belly, reading the articles, and in the air there was the smell of tobacco, not Rich’s dark bitter kind, but the blond, sweet stuff that Pigeon has favoured from age eleven. His mam sees a psychiatrist, a psychotherapist, an occupational therapist. His mam sees a doctor, several nurses. His mam sees an addiction counsellor. His mam acts as if she sees none of them. This goes on for weeks.

Finally the doctor asks Pigeon what he thinks they should do.

“Make her talk,” says Pigeon “Make her talk to you.”

So the doctor gives the psychologist two more weeks, and asks her to do some family counselling too. Family counselling is where Pigeon sits with his mam and the counsellor, and the counsellor asks questions which Pigeon answers as briefly as possible, and his mam doesn’t answer at all.

But this time, when Pigeon arrives in the pale-coloured room with the coffee table, the three comfortable chairs, the flowers in the pot, the counsellor with her notebook, it’s different. His mam, who’s been here for a session before he arrived, has been crying. Proper tears. Pigeon looks at her tear-stained face, and feels relief. Some dam must have broken. Some silence.

The counsellor’s looking nervous. Why? She’s looking at the door, and then back at Pigeon. She’s looking at the panic button to her right.

“Pigeon,” says the counsellor. “Your mother’s been telling me about what happened to Adrian.”

Pigeon sits, perfectly still. “I’m going to have to pass the information on, Pigeon. Do you understand?”

Pigeon nods. He goes to his mother, hugs her, and nods, then he leaves the room. The policewoman who arrives at the front door is pretty and blonde. Pigeon opens the door, and then tries to close it again in her face. But she sticks a foot out to hold it open.

> Pigeon is the winner of the Wales Book of the Year and the Rhys Davies Fiction Prize. Published by Parthian