MORNING SERIAL
SHE looked at him. Her red eyes stopped pooling. She sniffed wetly.
“For your mum. For this.” “She’s not sorry. It’s what she wanted isn’t it? Mam? To go. Get out of here? Don’t bloody cry about it.” He walked through into the lounge.
“Aren’t you sad?” She sat down on his sofa.
Pigeon thought about it. Is that what you called it. This cold, empty hungriness for a mother that had not existed for years.
“No,” It couldn’t be. Sad was too tame a word.
Hunger. That’s what this was. Hunger.
“She’ll not come back,” he said. “There’s no point in crying, Iola. She’ll not bloody come back.”
It was what he’d learnt early on. There was no point in speaking to his mam if she didn’t respond. Didn’t answer with a word or a look or a gesture. Better to sit tight with the hunger. Hold the hunger in place with your own silence. His mam never really came home after He moved in. Iola looked at him.
“Nei di ddod adra, Pigeon?” she asked him. Will you come home?
He looked at her. He understands the question perfectly. Will he come home? Will he.
“Come with me up the hill, Iola.” He said it quickly. He’d to get the words out before they dried from his tongue.
Iola looked surprised, stood here in her nurse’s pinny. But she nodded.
On the hill it was boggy today after so much rain.
They skirted the field, keeping away from the cattle. A herd of nervy bullocks that had just been put out and were hyperactive and followed them vaguely.
Iola just ignored them, and for once Pigeon followed her, copying her long strides. She’d grown tall lately, Iola. Almost as tall as he was. He had it again then.
The feeling that she was overtaking him.
The feeling that she’d one day leave him.
Leave him to this.
> Pigeon is the winner of the Wales Book of the Year and the Rhys Davies Fiction Prize. Published by Parthian
CONTINUES TOMORROW