Mandala-patterned bird in flight

The last train left Holcombe Road at twenty past nine tonight, and the only people who saw it off were me and the bird. You remember the bird. It came in through the broken pane above platform two back in March and never once went back out the way it came. Its wings were held up high, as if it had just lifted off a hymn book, and every feather was pricked with tiny dots and zigzags, circles inside circles, like the lace on Mrs Aske's good tablecloth. Stationmaster Pryce said nothing with feathers was allowed on the concourse. I fed it crusts from my dinner tin and he pretended not to notice.

Last night I was locking up the ticket office when I found it perched on the brass grille, tail fanned out, talons curled around the rail as though it meant to take the departure board with it. I had a blank platform ticket in my apron pocket, so I wrote on it in pencil, Admit one, bird, to anywhere, and tied it to its leg with a bit of green thread. It looked at me the way Pryce does when I've got the change wrong. Then it turned towards the open yard door, where the lamps were dimming one by one.

It went up through the gap where the glass used to be, wings catching the last of the signal light, and the lamp on the down line went from red to clear. I stood on the platform until I couldn't tell it from the smoke.

Tell Mum I'm on the morning milk train. Keep the kettle on.

Love, Ada