Each time the phone clicks, the egret tilts her head. I take photos to remind myself of this visiting miracle, but however hard I try to keep my hands steady I can’t snap one that’s in focus. Blurred edges show cloud-like, fog-like – the ghost or memory of a bird.

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I choose not to silence the sound so it’s like we’re communicating. It calms me on days when my nerves are strung tight like winter telegraph wires. I pace the urban streamside walk seeking the calm of green slow-flowing water. With the cost of living higher than ever and my zero-hours contract dwindled narrower than this stream, the threat of homelessness hangs heavier than wet washing in the houses I clean.

Once, as a child, my mum caught me eating the stale bread set aside for ducks. I can still taste the shame that rose burning into my gullet as she scolded me for my greed, and how relieved I was to vomit the mess of undigested bread by the road. I haven’t eaten a bite of bread since.

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I’ve noted the sites of food banks in my area, but haven’t yet found the courage to join the line of hollow-cheeked, tense-shouldered hungry.

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The egret perches on a branch that mirrors the curve of her beak. White feathers shine pristine despite the tarmac and dusty bricks. I think of how it would be to build a nest here, twigs lined with moth-winnowed blankets and repurposed bike tyres. I could curl between mud and strangers’ gardens, sheltered by a roof patchworked from the pages of discarded books, surviving on moss and lichen, and whatever small fish the egret filches from the murky stream below.

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Strangers stroll, run or cycle by without pause. It’s as though the egret is visible only to me, and for the first time in weeks or months I feel lucky.

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But today, someone has got here ahead of me. An old man hunches at the fence that hems the stream. His face is lifted and he’s smiling at the bird. A clear bag holding a loaf of bread dangles from one hand.

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“Don’t give it that. Bread’s bad for birds.” The words escape before I know I’m going to speak.

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He looks at me sharply, as if shocked I’ve noticed him. I wonder if he’s a ghost too. Like the bird. Like me.

“I didn’t know that.” His voice rasps a fraction higher than seems right for his frame. “Thank you for telling me.”

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He shuffles towards the scarred, graffitied bench where the path widens out to meet the road.

I gaze at the egret, trying to draw its serenity into my chest with each breath, but my mind won’t settle. I can hear the old man’s wheezing from here.

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He sits at the point where I usually take a sharp left and slog uphill.

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Today, instead, I sit down on the bench beside him.

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He opens the bag of bread and pulls out a slice. “It’s still fresh,” he says. “I just like to bake and make too much.” He offers it to, one eyebrow raised.

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I accept the soft bread and raise it to my nose. It smells of yeast and sesame seeds, perhaps a hint of saffron. My stomach gurgles.

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The old man laughs softly at the sound and I grin my self-consciousness. I wonder if he needs a cleaner, whether I can find the nerve to ask.

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He takes a slice of bread for himself. We sit and chew in silence with the stream in front of us and the road behind.