The London Pigeon Wars

by Patrick Neate

  The next moment I was gone. With Gunnersbury at my side, I was soaring high over Brixton Hill to Tooting Common and beyond. But I was wishing for eyelids to blink the expression on that savoury's phyzog – innocent and knowing and certain and confused all at once – from my mindeye.

  By now, Gunnersbury and I were way behind the others and we stopped on the trusted oak with the hole in its trunk; partly to catch our wind and partly because this was where she'd stashed the Remnant of Content and for some reason that made us feel safe (fly with me and you'll understand). It was mostly, though, to ensure that no RPF wannabes had spotted us separated from the flock and figured to make a name for themselves.

  Gunnersbury couldn't keep still, hopping around that branch like a squib in a puddle, and there was a frenzy about her phyzog that filled me with disquiet. Then she fixed me with her bead. ‘When you peckchop a squirm,’ she began, ‘clean down the middle, what are you left with? Are they two squirms that wriggle away or two halves of the same one?’

  I said I didn't know and when I looked at her I scoped that she didn't either.

  It was on that branch that Gunnersbury said it. ‘This is war,’ she squawked, her call strained and excitable. And she was right. Because, like it or not, the London Pigeon Wars had begun.

  2

  Hat semaphore

  Freya spent a long time on the invites. They were orange and blue card, each with its own unique sketch of one of her designs on the front and the words ‘Hats off to Freya!’ written in glittered glue. Inside was ‘Come to Freya's launch!’ in silver. Below that was written the date and venue and ‘Dress code? Hats of course!’ in gold. She wondered whether the precious inks and exclamation marks gave the whole thing an appropriate sense of occasion.

  She sent the invites to a lot of people she knew and a lot of people she didn't. She invited all the London milliners, buyers and fashion hacks she'd ever heard of. She invited the few friends who'd voiced their doubts to her and the many who'd voiced their doubts to each other. Her use of the word ‘friend’ was, as it often is, more careless than she realized.

  She rented a spacious space above a gastropub in Westbourne Park. It was OK; polished floorboards, tatty armchairs, junk-shop lighting and walls painted a deep, womb purple. Her £200 included the barman too, a fey Eastern European with high cheekbones and expert disdain. She spent the afternoon decorating the room with orange streamers and blue balloons. She fanned out a clutch of her flyers on each table. She'd taken the photograph herself and she didn't like it much but it would have to do. She put a further £200 on the tab. After that her guests would have to buy their own drinks.

  The only major problem was the toilets, which smelled of rosewater and urine. There were no locks on the doors, most of the taps didn't work and the seats were covered in a thin film of grime. She asked the manager if he'd sort it out and he said he would. The manager was an Italian mannequin; all sprouting chest hair and greenish shadow. When he talked to her, he stared curiously at her flat chest with a face that said ‘they must be in there somewhere’.

  Freya was sure he wouldn't do anything about the toilets but she didn't think it mattered much.

  She went home to change at six thirty. Her guests were due at eight. She lived in what the rental market euphemistically called a ‘studio apartment’ just off Ladbroke Grove. It was a bedsit. The living/sleeping area sat four comfortably enough: three on the two mattresses beneath the bay window and one on the wicker chair. The left-hand wall was lined by a clothes rail that bowed beneath the weight of Freya's outfits. The right was given up to all sorts of hooks hanging all sorts of her hats, and a central full-length mirror that she'd surrounded with multicoloured fairylights bought from a market stall. In the middle of the room, a coffeetable supported a portable TV and video, a bonsai tree and a dozen aromatherapy candles. Beneath it were stacks of fashion magazines, catalogues and shoeboxes holding Freya's sketches, materials and salvaged offcuts.

  The kitchen was a one-in, one-out affair divided from the rest by the break between floorboards and faded lino tiles. There was a small sink above Formica cupboards that she'd decorated with collages of free postcards and flyers collected from fashionable pubs and bars. The hinges on the baby fridge were repaired with gaffer tape. The two-ringed hob was set into the end of the work surface right next to the concertina door leading to the tiny bathroom. Any carelessly placed saucepan made it hazardous to take a piss.

  The hot water was off again so Freya had a cold shower and sang show tunes to steel her courage. From the clothes rail she chose a twenties-style black chiffon dress and her iced nipples stuck out at right angles. She tried using the hairdryer to soften them but it didn't really work. She slipped into her favourite pink sandals, girlish but classy, and dropped her cigarettes, keys and purse into the antique pink handbag that her grandmother had given her. Then she took off her sandals and sat down on the floor. She lit a sandalwood candle and meditated for two minutes but her new mantra was still uncomfortable and it felt like twenty. She'd wanted to calm her nerves but found, instead, that she now had a vague but undeniable headache.

  When she put her sandals back on, she promptly turned an ankle on the loose floorboard and a heel snapped off. In the past an accident like this (especially on such a big night) might have reduced her to tears. But she was slowly toughening and she knew that successful businesswomen didn't cry over a broken heel so she considered her alternative footwear options. She settled on a pair of pristine white trainers with vivid pink flashes on the side. They were utterly inappropriate but she was keen to give the handbag an outing and nothing else matched at all. She shrugged at herself in the mirror.

  Entrepreneurs can get away with wearing whatever they want, she thought. Especially in this business.

  She pinned up her chaotic blonde hair into a shallow pudding that wasn't so much a style as a coping mechanism. She leaned into the mirror and applied a little eyeliner and lipstick that only seemed to accentuate the thinness of her mouth. She wondered if collagen implants were painful. She was sure they were expensive. She tried some foundation but the amount required to cover her natural blush and pale freckles gave her complexion the texture of cement. The woman at the counter had described her skin as ‘bone china’. Like the bottom of a favourite teacup, Freya thought as she smudged away all the make-up with a ball of cotton wool.

  She was pleased with herself: just about ready with half an hour to spare. Now for the finishing touch. She lifted her latest creation carefully out of its box. If hats were some kind of semaphore (which, in Freya's opinion, they most definitely were), then this one said ‘elegance’. A rounded black base fitted comfortably over her piled hair to gently clutch the base of her skull and four pink feathers lay languorously back from the top like sophisticated French courtesans stretching out on a chaise longue. It was perfect.

  She looked out of her window at the night sky and saw no rainclouds, just stars and pigeons silhouetted against the sky. It would be fine. She caught sight of her reflection in the pane and smiled shyly. She draped her pale-pink wrap with the ethnic brocade trim casually around her shoulders and headed out.

  The All Saints Road was early-evening empty. This was always the quietest time of day, before the fashionable restaurants began to fill and after the local kids and crackheads seemed to take an agreed breather in their games and negotiations. Only Jasper and Learie, two of the local drunks, were in the street. Jasper's family, people said, had once owned half of South Kensington and he certainly had that oyster voice even if his wealth was measured only in golden Special Brew. Learie, people said, was a Windrush Jamaican with voodoo skills. But these days he only mastered spirits at £9.99 a litre.

  The tramps were arguing over a cigarette butt when Freya passed but they quietened down respectfully at the sight of her. Learie offered an incomprehensible greeting, thick with patois and alcohol. Jasper touched the brim of his battered bowler. ‘You look a thousand soup coupons, my dear!’ he announced.


  Freya stopped and smiled. She was in plenty of time. ‘It's my launch tonight,’ she said. ‘My business.’

  ‘Fabulous!’ Jasper said as she offered him a cigarette. She knew he had no idea what she was talking about. At least he was taking an interest.

  At that moment Freya felt something land lightly on her head. She waved an irritable hand that glanced off something warm and soft and substantial. The winos were staring at her curiously and she blinked. Then she heard a low coo and a vindictive beak nipped her ear.

  In retrospect, Freya was surprised she didn't scream. But she didn't. She just shook her head from side to side and slapped at the bird with her hands and made vague panicking noises under her breath. ‘What is it?’ she squealed. ‘What is it?’ Jasper and Learie looked on in drunken puzzlement.

  The pigeon was gone in less than a couple of seconds and the three of them watched in silence as it flew away with the hat secure in its talons. It landed on the canopy of a deserted shop front and began to tear at the hat, shredding the pink feathers in an instant. Then it sat back to admire its beak-work. A moment later another pigeon appeared and perched next to the thief, flapping its wings and making bizarre, clucking noises that sounded like a scolding. Reluctantly, the thief nudged what remained of the hat with its head and it dropped into the gutter.

  Freya's hand was shaking and she was blinking repeatedly as she gingerly touched her ear. Her fingers came away a little bloody.

  Jasper cleared his throat. ‘That's not something you see every day,’ he said.

  ‘You mind?’ Learie helped himself to one of her cigarettes. As he lit it he said, ‘Bad magic!’ and he began to chuckle. ‘Ras claat!’

  Freya bit the insides of her cheeks until they hurt. Then she went inside to choose another hat.

  As it turned out, it didn't much matter that Freya was half an hour late for her own party. Almost all her guests (those who showed up anyway) still gave her a good head start. When she arrived, there were only three people standing at the bar. Tariq and Emma were already too embroiled in an argument to acknowledge her and Bast looked like he'd already drunk the best part of her first ton.

  ‘All right, darling?’

  Bast approached her wearing that leer she'd learned to hate. His hair, dashed blond at the front, fell slickly over one eye and gave his manner a permanent shiftiness. If only he were that interesting. He went for her lips but she deflected him with a cheek that he sloppy-pecked. He fondled her arse proprietorially before she could back away and she wondered, not for the first time, how you finished something that had never started.

  ‘I thought you were going to wear your new creation,’ he said.

  ‘I had an accident,’ she replied and shyly fingered the wide brim of the substitute.

  ‘Right,’ he nodded. She knew he didn't care.

  Bast went through his typical rigmarole but – a result of the alcohol, she guessed – it took even longer than usual and he had her cornered for an age. He told her about a new job he was considering. She asked him about the old one, which, of course, he'd lost, which was, of course, ‘the best thing that could have happened’. He nodded a bit more. He asked her to remember the old times and she said, ‘What? A week?’ and he looked crestfallen and protested ‘nine days’.

  In spite of herself, Freya felt briefly guilty. Then she felt angry with herself for feeling guilty. Then she felt more angry with Bast than ever.

  He said things like ‘We were good, weren't we?’ and she shrugged. He tried, ‘And… you know… that was the best’, and she remembered his Barry White mutterings and she felt a little queasy. ‘Do you remember the night we met?’ he asked and she realized that she didn't. ‘The all-night garage,’ he added and then she did and she considered that she must have got what she deserved because who else picked up layabouts on a Rizla run at the twenty-four-hour Esso? ‘There are some things you can't fight,’ Bast concluded and Freya thought this very true and she made her getaway, patting him on the arm and ignoring his protestations.

  By now the party was filling up and she hadn't even noticed. She was briefly exhilarated as she took it all in but she couldn't see a single industry face. These were all her friends: people she knew from university or around the neighbourhood, people she knew through people, people who knew people she knew, and some other… well… people. There were lawyers and accountants and bankers, dot-com whiz-kids and media stereotypes, bad barmen who might one day make good actors and bad TV producers who couldn't run a piss-up in a brewery. There were suits over shelltops, parkas over Prada and Calvin Klein poking out above low-slung Levi's. There was Identikit Ami, the sweet TV presenter who was so uniformly beautiful that she was always mistaken for someone else; there was Nick Jackson, a square-jawed, bespoke-tailored wide boy who was ‘something in the City’ and talked about himself in the third person (‘Well, obviously, at the end of the day, Nick Jackson's going to do what's right for Nick Jackson’); there was Connor who wrote links for daytime telly and wore spectacles as a mark of his intellect and a light beard as a nod to his Irish heritage; there was Lucky who dealt large quantities of grass and small quantities of coke twenty-four seven from the glove compartment of his ageing Jag. And there was Karen – Tom's ex – loving up to her new squeeze, Jared, an impossibly pretty toff and her boss in the mayor's office. Freya suddenly considered that inviting her hadn't been such a good idea (for any of them) and she wondered where Tom was. He was still so gutted it was probably a good job he hadn't pitched.

  If you'd hovered above the crowd or flitted between the groups, you'd have heard all sorts of conversations, snatches and anecdotes. People complained about the lack of free drinks and finger snacks. They talked work and play. They exchanged brand names and logos and pop references like kids with Top Trumps or Pokémon cards or pogs. And they looked Freya up and down and shook their heads as if the very sight of her confirmed their worst fears.

  ‘That hat!’ one exclaimed.

  ‘She's trying to look eccentric.’

  ‘But she just looks eccentric.’

  ‘There's a difference between trying to look eccentric and succeeding, and just looking eccentric. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  These were twirtysomethings – Tom's expression to span the ages of, say, twenty-seven to thirty-four; the age range in which degrees of wealth, power and happiness significantly diverged for the first time. Among them, there was an elaborate pecking order that would have been best explained as a Venn diagram. Some people picked up the flyers and said ‘good roach material’ and laughed to themselves. Some people picked up the flyers and told stories about Freya. ‘A new business?’ they said. ‘A shop?’ And they ummed and they erred and they concluded, ‘Good luck to her. That's what I say.’ Some people told stories about other people who were there. And those people told stories about people who weren't. Some people went outside to take cocaine and returned looking queasy and complaining about the state of the toilets.

  This party? It was full of successful London people. They were not all rich or powerful or happy but at least they took the starring roles in the imagined movies of their own lives. They were good at London and knew how to chew on the city like cows on the cud, pick it clean like jackals, gorge on its waste like pigeons. And none of them wore a hat.

  Apart from Bast (who didn't count because she'd met him at an all-night garage and spent the following nine days – he said – trying to kick him out of her flat), only four people actually greeted her.

  Emma and Tariq came over and Freya didn't know what to do with herself. Emma looked sicker than ever and it was somehow embarrassing. She was so skinny, fading away, and her lank black hair, now badgered grey in places, was middle-parted like cheap curtains, half drawn to reveal gemstone eyes that seemed to be burrowing into her skull. AIDS? Anorexia? ME? It could have been any thoroughly modern disease but all the tests had come back negative. Freya avoided her eye and stared doggedly at Tariq. She was fascina
ted, not for the first time, by the slight misalignment of his nose. He'd told her once how he'd broken it. A fight at university or something. She couldn't remember. He didn't look like much of a fighter.

  Tariq was proposing a toast. ‘To Freya,’ he proclaimed. ‘And thanks for the drink.’

  Emma tutted and said, ‘Of course, we'd buy you one if we could afford it.’

  ‘Em!’ Tariq had that tone in his voice; scolding and pleading all at once.

  ‘Sorry,’ Emma tried to fake a chuckle. It didn't work. ‘But we can't stay long. We've got to get back for the sitter.’

  Tariq shrugged and gave Freya a ‘some people’ look, which Emma saw (as intended), and they resumed their bickering. Emma may have been sick but it hadn't softened her tongue and Tariq made no allowances. Freya backed away. It was depressing watching her friends' marriage disintegrate. It made her lose faith when she didn't think she had any left to lose. It was like window-dining at the Turkish end of the Edgware Road when romantic smells and exotic names collapsed into all too familiar cynicism and she said to herself, ‘They're just glorified chip shops.’ It left an empty feeling in her stomach.

  The other two? There was Kwesi of course. She reassured herself that he didn't fit in any better with her friends than she did. Then again, they weren't really his friends.

  ‘Dope party,’ he said and he hugged her warmly.

  ‘Thanks, K.’

  ‘Creativity's got to stick together, right?’ He thrust a flyer of his own into her hand. ‘You coming in a couple of weeks?’