And when the bobbies came over we sat down in the park outside the flats where my mother lived, each taking a striped folding chair which we arranged in a circle. And more bobbies came, so the circle was maybe six policemen and myself.
The bobbies started asking me questions: When did I last see my mother? How often do I see her?
I see her a lot. She’s ninety-nine and doing well, I reply.
But all I wanted to do was to give them the axes.
So I take them up to see her, to prove she was doing well; and at the top of the stairs, the first floor hallway, she’s standing there. She looks fifty and is dressed in a black and purple halter top, a slit in the fabric revealing a youthful neck. She has on a knee length skirt.
And she has arranged her hair in her typical bouffant from the seventies; it is still dark brown with enough dye to hide any hint of grey.
See, she’s doing fine, I say to the cops as I put my arm around her shoulders. Though I wonder why she is out of the flat, wandering the halls.
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