The London Pigeon Wars

by Patrick Neate

  ‘It's still a good idea,’ Freya insisted.

  ‘There's no such thing as a good idea if you don't put it into practice.’

  ‘But you'll find more backing.’

  ‘Yeah? Not now. There's no money. Everybody's running scared. Unless you got a spare 150K knocking around?’

  ‘So…’ Freya had reached a dead end. ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Don't know.’ Tariq licked his lips. ‘Get drunk, I guess. And listen to some poetry.’

  Freya began to flick through Tom's paper. She wasn't really interested but it saved her from looking at anyone else. Then a short paragraph on an inside page caught her eye and she marked it with her index finger and exclaimed excitedly. ‘The pigeons! It's in the papers!’

  None of the others seemed remotely interested but Tom managed to say, ‘What pigeons?’ He made the question sound slightly pained; like a patient uncle indulging his show-off niece.

  ‘The pigeons,’ Freya said. ‘It says so here. “London's pigeons have become the focus of capital conversation in the last fortnight as numerous reports of erratic behaviour begin to come to light; everything from attacks on pets (and occasionally people) to apparent suicides. A young couple's picnic in fashionable Hoxton…” ’ She started to laugh and stopped reading. ‘They say “the last fortnight”. That means me and Big-In-Property must have been two of the first!’

  ‘That make you feel special?’ Tom said acidly. And he immediately regretted it. Freya looked hurt. What was the matter with him? ‘Sorry.’

  But the communication (or its lack) that passed between their eyes was quickly broken by Tariq who, for some reason, thought the pigeon story was the funniest thing he'd ever heard and he laughed uproariously and spilled his drink and his belly shook beneath his flimsy T-shirt. He tried to speak but his every word collapsed into a snort and he covered his mouth just in time to catch most of the spraying mucus.

  ‘Sorry!’ he gasped at last. ‘But that kills me! Even the pigeons are depressed! What the hell have they got to be depressed about? That makes me feel a whole lot better!’

  Tariq cracked up again. He threw his head back and laughed so loudly that people on other tables (the ethnocentrics especially) began to stare disapprovingly. Tariq didn't care. If they had a six-month-old baby, a sick wife and six grand of debt every week… then they could tell him to shut up.

  He only stopped laughing when a bubble of air caught in the back of his throat and he started to hiccup instead. Now he felt a little stupid. He ducked his head under the table and tried to drink from his beer bottle upside down. The bubbles went up his nose and he spilled most of it on his shoes. He realized he was pissed. He took a small package of tobacco from his pocket and started to roll a cigarette. He thought the concentration might help his hiccups but the paper kept sticking to his damp fingers and he soon gave up.

  The music was lowered a notch or two as Wordsworth, the host of Per-Verse, took to the stage. He was middle-aged with more than a hint of New Age about him. He wore cowboy boots and tight patchwork trousers in corduroy and denim and various shades of purple. An impossibly shiny red nose poked out from implausibly healthy dreadlocks. His long white fingers wrapped around the microphone but, for a moment, he said nothing. The Jamaicans began to kiss their teeth and the hippies shushed them. The music faded to nothing when Wordsworth pressed his lips to the mic.

  ‘Welcome to Per-Verse,’ he whispered. His voice was breathy and cigarette-cracked.

  From me, your host, Wordsworth.

  What are words worth?

  What are words worth?

  Words are worth…

  He paused portentously. Tariq hiccupped. Tom started to giggle. The hippies shushed them. ‘The earth!’ Wordsworth concluded. But no one was listening.

  The first poet on stage was an old hand called Paul. He was a professional Irishman who swore with a Roddy Doyle accent and made virtue of his disappointment by telling bitter wisecracks in eight-line stanzas, spitting out punchlines that invariably included the phrase ‘middle class’, delivered with a dismissive sneer. At one point, the ponytailed music teacher laughed at the wrong moment and Paul paused mid-line to call him ‘a middle-class fecker’.

  He periodically swigged from a half-pint of clear liquid. Either poetry had driven him to alcohol or alcohol to poetry; there was definitely some connection. The hippies admired his tortured genius, the ethnocentrics' pouts ripened a little more with every choice curse, the Jamaicans weren't listening. The social worker's mistress didn't get what Paul was moaning about, the student would have enjoyed more swearing, the music teacher was chastened, the cab driver found it all kind of funny, the journalist thought she could do better.

  Tariq leaned forward across the table. He was holding his nose (his latest ruse to cure the hiccups). ‘When's K coming on?’ he hissed, loud and drunken. ‘I didn't bargain for this. I came to see Kwesi. I'm not sure I can take much more…’ His complaints were interrupted by another hiccup.

  Tom looked at his watch. ‘I wonder where Karen's got to.’

  Freya examined her hands and started to pick at the skin around her cuticles.

  ‘I'm sure she's with your friend Murray,’ Ami said comfortingly. That didn't make Tom feel any better.

  Paul the poet concluded what he'd prefaced as his penultimate poem and there was rowdy applause. The hippies couldn't get enough; the rest looked forward to seeing the back of him. He gulped from his drink and swilled it around his teeth. His face creased and he made a strange, wet sound of satisfaction.

  ‘My last piece,’ he announced. ‘Is called “Liberals Smoking Roll-Ups”.’ And he chuckled to himself. Tariq hid his tobacco under the newspaper.

  Tories' teatime sandwiches

  Communist coffee cups…

  The swing-door to the café opened and its hinges creaked noisily. Murray breezed in with Karen, looking a little embarrassed, behind. On stage, the words stuck in Paul's throat. His eyes were wide and he seemed almost dismayed by this interruption. The whole crowd turned to look at Murray but he didn't seem to notice. He was squinting and scanning the room until he located his friends' table. Then, when he found it, he raised a cheery hand and began to excuse-me his way towards them. Paul was staring at him and he said loudly, ‘Jaysus! What's your problem?’ But still Murray didn't look. He slumped in a spare chair next to Tom and touched him on the shoulder. Tom whispered, ‘You all right?’ but Murray glanced at him with an expression he couldn't read (scorn, perhaps? What had he done wrong?) and pointed to where Karen was still hovering by the door. Then Murray smiled at Ami, Tariq and Freya. Freya was nodding towards the stage where Paul the poet was tapping his foot in a caricature of impatience. ‘Do you mind?’ he said. His Irish accent was getting stronger.

  Finally Murray glanced towards the stage. He raised his eyebrows and stood up. ‘I'm sorry?’

  ‘Can I continue?’

  Murray shrugged. ‘Go for your life, china.’ He sat down.

  Paul was looking daggers. He shook his head. He was about to carry on but there was something else he wanted to say. ‘Rude fecker!’ he spat.

  Murray was on his feet in a flash. ‘I'm sorry?’

  ‘You're a rude fecker!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You turn up late, interrupt me and now you won't feckin' shut up.’

  Paul shuffled to the edge of the stage and peered into the audience. He could just about make out the teeth of Murray's wide grin.

  ‘Sorry I was late, china. Got held up, know what I mean? But I didn't interrupt you, did I? You interrupted yourself.’

  The whole audience was silent. Some of them stared at Murray, some of them at Paul, most of them at the floor. The café was vacuum-packed in discomfiture: some were embarrassed for Murray, some for Paul, most for themselves. One of the hippies said, ‘Can you just sit down?’ At the same time, one of the ethnocentrics grunted, ‘Just get on with it.’ The Jamaicans had woken up. This was the best entertainment they'd
had so far. Paul was beginning to look unnerved. Murray was clearly enjoying himself. He sat down again.

  If Paul had continued ‘Liberals Smoking Roll-Ups’ at that point, chances are that the majority of sympathy would have stayed with him. But he couldn't resist another comment and he smiled in what he hoped was a relaxed fashion and said: ‘Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen. What a cunt.’

  He lost the rest of the ethnocentrics there and then and the hippies were wavering too and the café was utterly silenced – not a clink of glass or a clearing throat – as if that expletive were some kind of pause-button. Murray leaned back in his chair and swung on the back legs. He picked up Tariq's tobacco and began to roll himself a cigarette. Most of the room was staring at him but Murray was engrossed by his work, the easy smile twitching his cheeks. His manner was so right that every group in the café now suspected he must be one of their own.

  ‘You like having the last word, eh, china?’ he said, a definite and infuriating note of amusement in his tone.

  ‘You're a feckin' arse.’ Paul's voice was beginning to waver.

  ‘See what I mean?’

  ‘Why don't you just shut up?’

  Murray held up an apologetic hand. ‘Sure. Sorry.’

  ‘Arsehole.’

  ‘And again. The last word.’

  The audience began to titter. Even Murray couldn't hold his giggle.

  Paul looked bewildered. He raised his script in front of his eyes and took a deep breath. But he couldn't help himself and the word still slipped out of the side of his mouth: ‘Fecker!’

  That was it. The whole café cracked up. The social worker's harassed expression twisted in joy and his mistress squeezed his hand, the student squawked, the music teacher guffawed, the cabbie rocked and the journalist laughed unironically for the first time in so long it left her confused. The hippies couldn't help themselves, the Jamaicans roared and the ethnocentrics buckled at their midriffs and held their sides. Tom imploded with giggles, Freya buried her face in her jumper, Ami held her head in her hands and Tariq laughed and hiccupped and laughed some more.

  Paul the poet didn't know what to do so he launched headlong into his poem but, though he raised his voice to a near shout, nobody could hear it for laughing. And the noise only died down when Paul, still shouting, hit the final line.

  ‘And feckin' liberals smoking roll-ups!’ he rasped and the audience collapsed again; eyes watering, lungs hooting, straining ‘Oh shit! Oh shit!’ as stomach muscles wrenched.

  Now even Paul started to laugh. No doubt he didn't want to. He'd probably have rather cursed the lot of them and launched the half-bottle of vodka that lined his inside pocket into one of the walls in an empty gesture of contempt. But he couldn't help himself and a peculiar, unpractised cackle exploded from the back of his throat and, amplified by the microphone, rattled around the café. The volume of his laughter forced everyone to look up and, through their tears, they saw the rancorous poet contorted in mirth. And they laughed all the harder.

  It was Murray who finally halted the hilarity. He got to his feet, lit his cigarette and began to clap and cheer. ‘Bravo!’ he hollered. ‘Top man!’ First his table joined in, then the next, then the next, until the whole café was on its feet. One of the hippies shouted ‘Encore!’ but her neighbour hushed her with a finger and everyone was relieved when Paul stumbled off the stage. He was choking on his laughter and, when he exited out back, he was promptly sick in a fire bucket and the taste of bile made his eyes water.

  It was a full five minutes before the CCC café finally quietened down. Every now and then, Wordsworth walked on to the edge of the stage but, upon hearing the raucous chatter, he thought better of it. Most of the crowd couldn't even figure what they'd just found so funny and they shook their heads, bewildered, and rubbed their eyes with their hands. But then they remembered some detail (Paul's swearing or their neighbour's expression, say) and they felt the giggles come again and they ruefully rubbed their guts. Kwesi was visible behind the thin screens that served as wings. He was talking to himself and making peculiar gestures with his hands.

  Karen finally joined her friends' table, pulling up a chair between Freya and Ami. Murray stubbed his cigarette. He couldn't stop smiling. He leaned across Tom to pat Tariq on the thigh. ‘You all right?’ he said. ‘Where's the wife?’

  ‘All right, Muz. She's at home with Tommy.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Murray said. He held his smile, fixed, for just a second. ‘Appreciate it, china. Know what I mean?’

  Tariq felt a sudden resurgence of guilt so he offered a round of drinks and headed for the bar.

  Murray turned to Freya and Ami. He looked like he was about to say something but then another more pressing thought occurred to him and his eyes twinkled at Ami.

  ‘I saw you on TV!’ he announced.

  ‘Really?’ She was blinking.

  ‘Yeah. Three o'clock in the morning, I turn on the Weather Channel and there you are. “And now it's over to our reporter Ami…” What's your surname?’

  ‘Lester.’

  ‘That's it. “And now it's over to our reporter Ami Lester for the latest update from Penrith.” Amazing!’

  Ami was blushing: ‘It's only the Weather Channel.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Murray exclaimed. ‘You're on TV!’

  He asked about Freya Franklin Hats and his smile took on a new quality and his eyebrows raised a little, mirroring Freya's expression. He took her hand across the table and squeezed it lightly. It was only the second time they'd met but his manner spoke of a long and valued friendship that Freya was only too happy to accept.

  ‘It's early days, china,’ Murray shrugged. ‘And hats are a speciality business. You don't expect someone to walk past a new shop and think, “You know what? I always wanted a hat”, and walk right in. You need a bit of word-of-mouth publicity.’

  Freya looked forlorn. ‘How do you get word-of-mouth publicity when no one comes into your shop?’

  Murray span on his chair and scanned the room. Then he turned back to Freya and the nature of his smile had changed again. ‘I'll show you,’ he said. ‘You got a card?’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Freya was smiling, bemused, but she reached into her purse and fetched out one of the gold-embossed business cards (orange logo on blue) that had cost her a fortune.

  ‘Hold on.’

  Murray took the card, stood up and weaved his way through the tables to where an immaculately dressed ethnocentric with a nose like a beak and a grey felt beret was sipping on her herbal tea. He bent over her and whispered in her ear. Freya, Karen and Ami watched, fascinated. Even Tom reluctantly glanced round. The woman looked up at Murray and her eyes warned him off. They could see his lips moving and the muscles around his eyes working overtime. There was a moment of uncertainty and then the woman's expression cracked into a smile. She was shaking her head but Murray was nodding in a way that said ‘No! Seriously!’ His hand was resting lightly on her shoulder.

  Now the two of them looked round towards Murray's table and he raised a hand at Freya. She waved shyly in return and the ethnocentric waved too. Murray took the woman's hand and kissed her on the cheek and returned to his seat.

  ‘She says she'll be in on Monday,’ Murray said.

  Freya was shaking her head and giggling. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No problem.’

  Tom was staring at Freya and he felt himself bristle (although he didn't try to identify the reasons); god, she could be such a pain. He turned to Murray and his voice came out snide and bitter. ‘Charm her, did you, Muz?’ he said. ‘You always had a way with women.’

  Murray looked at him. For a split second anger flared behind his eyes and for the second time Tom thought he must have done something wrong (more than just the comment). What were these silent dialogues, triangles and squares playing out between him and Murray and Freya and Karen? Or was he just imagining? Because then the anger was gone and Murray was chuckling softly. ‘Superhero Tom Dare,’ he sa
id. ‘What the fuck would you know?’

  Tom wanted to reply – he wanted to ask Murray what was up – but at that moment Tariq returned with the drinks and a few bags of crisps. He offered a packet to Murray.

  ‘What flavour?’ Murray asked.

  Tariq pulled an apologetic face. ‘Sorry, Muz. They didn't have them.’

  ‘Never mind.’

  Back stage, Wordsworth decided it was finally time to get things going again and the music was lowered and the audience chatter subsided to a murmur. He turned to Kwesi: ‘You all right?’ Kwesi nodded. He was practising his stage face; trying to look tough.

  The house lights were dimmed as Wordsworth sauntered to the mic. He shook his head and then licked his palm and carefully pasted back his locks.

  ‘People,’ he announced huskily. Then he paused. ‘The second half of our show features a poet who some of you may know because he's been dropping lyrical consciousness since time.’ Again Wordsworth paused and licked his lips. He'd adopted a curious Caribbean twang to his accent. ‘So put your hands together and give enough respect to our very own righteous brother, K!’

  Kwesi swaggered on to the stage and the audience clapped enthusiastically. Freya and Karen even stood up and cheered. With the audience still high on the hilarity of Paul, Kwesi would never have a better chance to make a good impression. But Murray leaned across the table to Ami. ‘Why's he standing like that?’ he asked. There was something weird about Kwesi's bearing. He had his chin raised a little too high in a way that managed to look confrontational and absurd all at once.

  Ami shrugged. ‘Perhaps he's nervous,’ she said.

  There was a moment or two of silence and then the music faded up; a sparse and jazzy hip-hop beat. Kwesi began to tap the palm of his hand against one thigh and a couple of people called out ‘Bo!’ and ‘Boo!’, sealing their approval. This was going to be cool, wasn't it?