Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
Out of the window I see galahs all rise up into the air together, a milkshake of grey and pink. Wings spread, dark-tipped feathers fan out and crests ruffle as a contest for the perfect spot erupts. Two birds somersault together, intertwined. They disappear behind the burnished winter leaves of the pin oak. I had two coffees today and sponge cake with cream and lemon spread. I feel all jangley. I watch the galahs settle again. I settle too, and in the quiet rustle of a room full of people, I bow my head over my notebook…..there was an elderly lady, Mary, who lived in the flat below mine. I would sometimes see her sidle out of her door in the morning, closing it quickly when she saw me coming down the stairs. Newspapers, magazines and sales catalogues spilled from boxes balanced floor to ceiling forming a tunnel into the flat. She was tiny and bent over with osteoporosis so she had to twist her head round awkwardly to look up at me. Sometimes she didn’t bother looking and just waved her hand and scuttled back into her flat. Her verandah, below my balcony, was piled high with plastic bottles and glass jars which she would sort, and, from time to time send crashing down – or perhaps it was the cats that sent things flying. Plastic chairs were stacked precariously along the corridor, saucers of milk lined up beneath them. The cats sat on the chair seats, disconcertingly at eye level, watching as I made my way past and on up the stairs. One day volunteers organised by the local council arrived and cleared her flat, taking away skip after skip of debris. Then Mary too was taken away. A neighbour knocked on my door to let me know that Mary’s funeral was on Thursday. We decided to go together.