Dada 59

He had hundreds of these old notebooks. He’d read them sometimes when he was eating and crumbs would fall down onto their ridged and crumpled paper. When he was finished he would wash his hands and go out on to the balcony where he would shout out his thoughts to the street. Short of the visits from the detectives, those who lived around here learnt to pay him little attention.

The balcony looks out over the main street of the neighbourhood. He would stay there for hours on beautiful afternoons. People who passed by were in a hurry but he would call down to them anyway

‘Have you heard this, do you know what they’re upto now ,’ he would roar.

They were many families who would go out for a walk for their Sunday afternoon. Little boys wearing their best suits and shorts with shiny shoes or the girls in little sarongs that draped delicately down to their ankles. They looked a little awkward in their formal clothes – got up like this with one little girl with a large pink bow in her hair and black patent-leather shoes who flashed her eyes from side to side as if expecting someone to laugh.

Behind them was their mother, an enormous woman in a brown silk sarong, and their father, a rather frail-looking, short man I'd seen before. He wore a suit and ties even in this heat and carried an umbrella for the rain to come. Seeing them together, I understood why
Dada said that they looked distinguished in the way the woman carried herself.

I sauntered home along the quays. It was a good time of day. I caught up with them a little while later and  the local young men who had passed me by: slicked- back hair, red ties, very tight jackets with embroidered handkerchiefs sticking out of their pockets and shoes with square toes. I thought they were probably going to see a movie in town after their promenade. That was why they were leaving so early and laughing so much as they hurried to catch the bus. After they'd gone, the quays gradually became deserted.