Lion head with swirling mane on thigh

The lion lived in the back yard of the Crown and Anchor, behind a wire fence that had been mended so often it looked like a bird's nest. His name was Captain, because the landlord had once been a bosun and never got over it. He was old and his mane had gone thin and grey at the edges, but when the trams rattled past he lifted his head and the whole thing rolled out around him in loops and curls, like the sea had decided to stand up and look at the street.

One Tuesday the fence gave way at the bottom and Captain walked out onto the cobbles as if he had an appointment. I stood very still with my basket. He turned his great head towards me, slowly, the way you'd turn to someone you'd been expecting, and the mane swung round after him in a long grey wave. He did not roar. He yawned, and I saw that he had a chipped tooth and a patient face, and then he went back through the gap as though he'd only come out to check the weather.

Nobody believed me, of course. Mrs Okonedo said I'd been at the gin again, which was a joke, because I was nine. But every morning after that I left a bowl of scraps by the fence, and every morning the bowl was empty and the curls of his mane were caught on the wire like tidy bits of wool.