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The Bell Waiting for our children outside their school I ask this stranger some foolish question thinking my words the kind of thing a man says to another father, believing all fathers’ lives approximate my own. He replies but I am barely listening. High sea. A squall. An overwhelmed dinghy. Toys, nappies, straggling in its wake. I look past him stupidly. I do not speak. From where I stand he should have struck me down. Of course he doesn’t, and the school bell rings. Staring through him I search only for my own. And all our children run into the rain. 82
page 85
Leamington Bird Reserve Hide The bird reserve is reedy and neglected with drab posters of species in the hide. At least, they seem like birds. With graffiti, you wouldn’t want your children to look closely. Stubbed cigarettes scar the shelf where you place your elbows as you lift binoculars. My boys are seven and ten and unaware all the little windows have been shattered. Before them is their mind-made Serengeti: crowned cranes, impalas, aardwolves… sycamores spring with vervet and colobus monkeys. The hide door bangs and bangs but they don’t care. Heat-haze stirs with steenboks and klipspringers. We might as well make magic of what’s there. 83

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The Bell

Waiting for our children outside their school I ask this stranger some foolish question thinking my words the kind of thing a man says to another father, believing all fathers’ lives approximate my own.

He replies but I am barely listening. High sea. A squall. An overwhelmed dinghy. Toys, nappies, straggling in its wake. I look past him stupidly. I do not speak.

From where I stand he should have struck me down. Of course he doesn’t, and the school bell rings. Staring through him I search only for my own.

And all our children run into the rain.

82

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