MORNING SERIAL

HE looked in bemusement at the canvases nailed to the trees.

“What is all this?” he said. “What place have you brought me to?”

Whether he recognised the swing in the paintings as the swing from the hospital grounds I could not be certain – he did not mention anything – but his confusion and distress grew and grew.

And then shortly we came upon the small clearing.

Illie was sitting motionless in his chair, and showed no signs of surprise at our appearance. His eyes were red and his face was an ashen pale. There had been something going on here, but now he seemed almost serene.

“I demand to know what is going on here,” Furkan bellowed.

I tried to calm him, put a gentle hand to his shoulder, but now it was as if he and Illie were the only people in a vast universe.

Illie did not change his demeanour at all.

He said to me, past Furkan, “You brought him to me.”

He turned his attention to Furkan and gestured to the paintings all around.

“When I came to get your mother from the hospital, I could not find her, and eventually I saw her through the window of the ward, and there she was, sitting lonely on that red swing in the park. I came down and took her. She did not want to go. She did not want to leave you. I dragged her from that swing and she screamed and cried. And it swung there with her shape still in it.” Furkan changed at this. “You are my father?” he said softly.

Illie nodded once. Furkan now strengthened his pose, wiped his face with the palm of his hand, paced a little, glared at the floor, at the paintings, at me.

And then he turned back to Illie. “And my mother?”

It knocked me back. Illie too had a lurch at that. How could he say what Tara had done?

“You have known her,” Illie said.

Furkan looked confused. Somewhere in the darkest depths of his mind a dungeon door was opening and the truth was stepping into the light.

> The Golden Orphans by Gary Raymond is published by Parthian www.parthianbooks.com