“Oh my God, I’m so pleased to see you,”
she says from her nest of blankets.
“I’ve been meaning to ask—
How is your father?
How is Paddy?”
“He died,” I say, remembering 1974.
“Good heavens, now you tell me!
How lucky he is.”
“You could join him,” I suggest.
“I didn’t like him that much,” she replies.
Finuala Dowling‘s poetry collections include I Flying, winner of the Ingrid Jonker Prize; Doo-Wop Girls of the Universe, joint winner of the Sanlam Prize and Notes from the Dementia Ward, winnter of the Olive Schreiner Prize.
