Dada 34

I had finished eating and she was still totally engrossed in making her notes. Then she stood up, put her jacket on with the same precise movements and made to leave.

 She gave a pursed little smile as she moved away from her table.

 Since  I was finished for the day and Mo had gone to his brother’s, I waited a moment  and followed her . She walked to the edge of the pavement  with a crabbed walk and headed up the road towards the water in a straight line without looking back. Her movements were so precise and fast it looked as if she might rise up off the pavements and fly like some little bird but not high enough or low enough to avoid disaster. I could see my mother in her somehow. How was I to know she would preside as companion to the end of my life or she should sit erect side by side next to that unhappy woman?

Eventually, I lost sight of her and I turned around and walked home. I thought that she was very strange but soon forgot about her.

I found old Srino standing in front of my door. I showed him in and he told me that his parrot had stayed missing this time: he wasn’t at the sanctuary. The employees there had told him that the bird had perhaps been taken. He`d asked if he could find out for sure at the police station. He was told that they didn’t keep records of such things because they happened every day.

I told Srino that he could get another bird, but he was right in pointing out that he was used to his. I was sitting on the edge of my bed and Srino was on a chair by the table.

He was facing me and had his hands on his knees. He`d kept his old cap on. It was hard to understand him because he was mumbling beneath his yellowish moustache.

He bored me a little but I had nothing to do and I wasn’t tired yet. Just to say something, I asked him about his bird. He told me he`d got him after his wife died