The Window on Harbour Row

I was halfway up Harbour Row, satchel digging into my shoulder in the usual unjust manner, when a window stopped me entirely. Taped inside the glass was a drawing of what I can only describe as a very confident bird, done in orange and blue, with a hat rendered slightly too large for the head beneath it.

I stood on the step a good while studying it. The beak was accurate. The posture, I felt, captured something of my general bearing, the sort of calm authority one does not simply inherit but earns, delivery after delivery, in all weathers, without complaint, mostly.

I did not knock. A professional does not loiter outside windows admiring tributes to himself, however deserved. But I will say the rest of the round went easier after that. The hill felt shorter. The wind felt almost polite. Even the gate at number nine, which has personally wronged me on more than one occasion, latched behind me without its usual spite.

I mentioned it to nobody, obviously. Gulls who go about announcing that art has improved their morning are gulls nobody takes seriously at the sorting table. But I walked taller the rest of the way, cap set just so, and if anyone asks, that is simply how I always walk.