They were a potent mix, she was from Belfast and he from Glasgow. Settling in London, they brought little as baggage save bitterness. My old man kept pigeons, jeez… I hate them. As a child I feared heights but feared him more. The birds he kept on the roof. Our house was a three-storey one in Battersea, near the power station. The yellow light came creepin’ each evening. Course, that was the time he liked to feed the birds. He’d haul me up there, the yellow light like sickness on my bare legs, fear like regularity in my stomach.

When I was fourteen, I started to grow. An October evening, he’d bullied me as usual on the roof. The cooing of the pigeons as nauseating as cowardice. He was saying, ‘What did I tell you boy, feed them slow. Don’t you listen.’

And I said, ‘Feed them yourself.’

All sorts of shit the Presbyterians can’t get a handle on but leading the field is disobedience. He’d grabbed me by the scruff and hauled me to the edge of the roof, roarin’ ‘Better you should throw yourself to the concrete than fly in the face of your father.’

Through the years I’ve re-played, re-said that scene. I’d like to think it was courage or even anger that forced my answer. Mainly, I believe, the words came from my South-East London education. The streets in all their glory rushing up through my chest to explode ‘Fuck you.’

And he’d clutched at his chest. I’ve since learnt the word ‘apoplexy’, and wow, he got to live it then. Can a face go purple, his sure tried and he toppled over, finally experiencing a moment of flight. Sometimes in dreams, I’ve seen me push him and I know my mother was convinced that I did. When I wake, I don’t feel guilty. Well, the cop had a similar expression but before he could respond, a car came tearing out of the estates, burned rubber at the kerb, and shot off towards the Oval. Two pandas came screeching in pursuit and the cop’s radio blared into static. He shouted into it, ‘Responding… responding.’