Buddha, lotus and tiger arm sleeve

I am writing this at the kitchen table because the stove is the only warm thing left in the flat, and the street outside has gone quiet except for the buses sighing at the stop on Canal Street. You will laugh, but the Buddha Mr Okafor sold me last week is sitting on the windowsill now, facing the car park, and every time I come in from the late shift I catch his face in the glass before I see my own. He is heavier than he looks. The dealer swore it was cast in Osaka, though I suspect it was poured in a yard in Smethwick and aged with tea.

The lotus came from the same yard. Mrs Okafor keeps a pot of them on the back step, and in the sodium light from the lane they look almost grey, as if the night has taken the colour out and left only the shape. Last Tuesday a tiger came padding along the wall, a real one, a cat from number nine with a torn ear and a coat like scorched bark. It stopped under the lotus, looked up at the window, and then went on its way with a dignity I have never managed.

I keep thinking about the halo. Those rays behind his head are carved so fine you could count them with a fingernail. Mr Okafor says the light was meant to keep going out past the walls, past the city, into every dark corner, and that is why the rays do not stop at the edge of the stone.

Come up at Easter and I will show you. Bring your own tea, because I have only the one kettle and it is currently in love with the Buddha.

Love, Nell