Doris Lessing - London Observed

‘Come on, you do it too,’ she said. But the little bird sat on there, watching, not involved at all.

Then a new bird arrived on the table among the crumbs, and pecked as fast as it could. It was an older bird, its feathers no longer fresh and young. And now the little sparrow hopped on to the table, crouched, fluffed out its feathers so that it became a soft ball, and opened its beak.

‘What’s the matter with it?’ demanded the man, as if in a panic. ‘It’s sick.’

‘No, no,’ soothed his wife. ‘Watch.’

The older bird at once responded to the smaller bird’s crouching and fluffing by stuffing crumbs into its gape. This went on, the baby demanding, as if still in its nest, and the parent pushing in crumbs. But then a brigand sparrow came swooping in. The parent sparrow pecked it and the two quarrelling birds flew off together to the roof. The little sparrow, abandoned, stopped cowering and spreading its feathers. It closed its beak, returned to the chair-back and resumed its bland baby pose.

‘But it’s grown-up,’ said the man, full of resentment. ‘It’s grown-up and it expects its parents to feed it.’

‘It was probably still a baby in its nest yesterday,’ she said. ‘This is probably its first day out in the wicked world.’

‘Why isn’t it feeding itself, then? If the parents have pushed it out, then it should be supporting itself.’

She turned her head to give him a wary glance, removed this diagnostic inspection as if she feared his reaction to it, and sat with a bit of scone in her hand, watching the throng of sparrows who were looting the now empty plates and platters of the Japanese trio. The Japanese matron was grumbling loudly about the birds. Her children pacified her, and waved to the indolent waiter with the shock of straw hair, who came across at his leisure, piled up trays, and went off with them, depriving the sparrows of their buffet. They whirled up into the air and the baby sparrow went with them.

The little garden café was filling with people. The sun was again close to the edge of the clouds, and one half of the sky was bright blue. The athletic couple went striding efficiently away. The young male Japanese went back into the building. Surely he wasn’t prepared to tackle even more food? The two elderly ladies sat on, though a waiter had removed their coffeepot and the two empty plates.

The dog lay with its chin on the grass and watched a sparrow hopping about within inches of him.

The baby sparrow returned by itself to sit on the chair-back.

‘Look, it’s back,’ she said, full of tenderness. ‘It’s the baby.’

‘How do you know it’s the same one?’

‘Can’t you see it is?’

‘They all look alike to me.’

She said nothing, but began her game of carefully pushing crumbs nearer and nearer to it, so that it would be tempted but not frightened.

‘I suppose it’s waiting for its father to come and feed it,’ came the grumble which her alert but cautious pose said she had expected.

‘Or perhaps even its mother,’ she said, dry, ironic – but regretted this note as soon as the words were out, for he erupted loudly, ‘Sitting there, just waiting for us to …’

She said carefully, ‘Look, Father, I said this morning, if you don’t want to do it, then you don’t have to.’

‘You’d never let me forget it then, would you!’

She said nothing, but leaned gently to push a crumb closer to the bird.

‘And then if I didn’t I suppose she’d be back home, expecting us to wait on her, buying her food …’

She was counting ten before she spoke. ‘That’s why she wants to leave and get a place of her own.’

‘At our expense.’

‘The money’s only sitting in the bank.’

‘But suppose we wanted it for something. Repairs to the house … the car’s getting old …’

She sighed, not meaning to. ‘I said, if you feel like that about it, then don’t. But it’s only £10,000. That’s not much to put down to begin on getting independent. It’s a very good deal, you said that yourself. She’ll own a bit of something, even if it is only a share of the place.’

‘I don’t see we’ve any choice. Either we have her at home feeding her and all her friends and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all, or we have to pay to get her out.’

‘She’s twenty-one,’ said the mother, suddenly exhausted with anger, her voice low and tight. ‘It’s time we did something for her.’

He heard, and was going to retreat, but said first, ‘It’s the legal age, isn’t it? She’s an adult, not a baby.’

She did not reply.

Out came the Japanese young man with yet another tray. More cakes piled with cream and jam, more coffee. As soon as he had set these down before his wife (girlfriend? sister?) and his (her?) mother, the three of them bent over and began eating as if in an eating contest.

‘They aren’t short of what it needs,’ he grumbled.

That peevish old voice: it was the edge of senility. Soon she would be his nurse. She was probably thinking something like this while she smiled, smiled, at the bird.

‘Come on,’ she whispered, ‘it’s not difficult.’

And then … the baby hopped down on to the table with its round eyes fixed on her, clumsily took up a crumb, swallowed it.

‘Very likely that’s the first time it has ever done that for itself,’ she whispered, and her eyes were full of tears. ‘The little thing …’

The small sparrow was pecking in an experimental way. Then it got the hang of it, and soon became as voracious as its elders as she pushed crumbs towards it. Then it had cleaned up the table top and was off – an adult.

‘Marvellous,’ she said. ‘Wonderful. Probably even this morning it was still in its nest and now …’ And she laughed, with tears in her eyes.

He was looking at her. For the first time since they had sat down there he was outside his selfish prison and really seeing her.

But he was seeing her not as she was now, but at some time in the past. A memory …

‘It’s a nice little bird,’ he said, and when she heard that voice from the past, not a semi-senile whine, she turned and smiled full at him.

‘Oh it’s so wonderful,’ she said, vibrating with pleasure. I love this place. I love …’ And indeed the sun had come out, filling the green garden with summer, making people’s faces shine and smile.

High on a walkway connecting two tower blocks Stephen Bentley, social worker, stopped to survey the view. Cement, everywhere he looked. Stained grey piles went up into the sky, and down below lay grey acres where only one person moved among puddles, soft drink cans and bits of damp paper. This was an old man with a stick and a shopping bag. In front of Stephen, horizontally dividing the heavy building from pavement to low cloud, were rows of many-coloured curtains where people kept out of sight. They were probably watching him, but he had his credentials, the file under his arm. The end of this walkway was on the fourth floor. The lift smelled bad: someone had been sick in it. He walked up grey urine-smelling stairs to the eighth floor, Number 15. The very moment he rang, the door was opened by a smiling brown boy. This must be Hassan, the twelve-year-old. His white teeth, his bright blue jersey, the white collar of his shirt, all dazzled, and behind him the small room crammed with furniture was too tidy for a family room, everything just so, polished, shining. Thorough preparations had been made for this visit. In front of a red plush sofa was the oblong of a low table, and on it waited cups, saucers and a sugar bowl full to the brim. A glinting spoon stood upright in it. Hassan sat down on the sofa, smiling hard. Apart from the sofa, there were three chairs, full of shiny cushions. In one of them sat Mrs Khan, a plump pretty lady wearing the outfit Stephen thought of as ‘pyjamas’ – trousers and tunic in flowered pink silk. They looked like best clothes, and the ten-year-old girl in the other chair wore a blue tunic and trousers, with earrings, bangles and rings. Mother wore a pink gauzy scarf, the child a blue one. These, in Pakistan, would be there ready to be pulled modestly up at the sight of a man, but here they added to the festive atmosphere. Stephen sat down in the empty chair at Mrs Khan’s (Stephen particularly noted) peremptory gesture. But she smiled. Hassan smiled and smiled. The little girl had not, it seemed, noticed the visitor, but she smiled too. She was pretty, like a kitten.