Dada Seven

I thought of all the people who used to come to the apartment when Dada was there but I could not remember any of them well. On Sundays he would eat his eggs straight out of the frying pan if there was no bread. If he was bored he would wander around the large apartment. He loved the space. He used to say he liked the sound of his feet padding on the floor. It was heaven compared to the stokehold of his many ships. He had never been used to space with his life spent in the engine rooms of the Blue Funnell line. It was practical for him to pace and wander and to call down to all his friends.

He was always tidying. ‘To make more space is like making your bed and clearing your head,’ he would say.

He moved the dining table into the side room and made me live in my bedroom to stay in this one room now with a few straight chairs and a comfortable mattress; the closet with its yellowing mirror, a dressing table and the blue and white coverlet over the sheet, a remnant from the fleets of Alfred Jones and the Borneo Steamship Company. He said when I came to live here everything had to have its place. Nothing could be left where it was after you used it less you would always be chasing after your immediate past and that was not important. He constantly used the empty room to pace about and to call down to the street. He had his scrap books that he would get out or cut something from the papers that amused him just like my boss did with the Thai fishing boats.