The London Pigeon Wars

by Patrick Neate

  When Murray appears, he's carrying a small plastic bag. He buys a round before sitting down and it's Tariq, now nagged by an evening hangover, who points to the package. ‘So what's that then, Muz?’

  Murray hands over the bag and Tariq pulls out a tarnished pewter tankard. There's an inscription on the front and Tariq reads it aloud: ‘ “Der Vollbartclub Von Aachen”. What does that mean?’

  ‘The Aachen Beard-Growers' Club,’ Murray says.

  Tariq sniggers. ‘You're joking.’

  ‘No,’ Murray says. ‘No, china. I'm serious.’

  Tariq is staring at him but Murray's face is inscrutable. Emma picks up the tankard and examines it carelessly. ‘What's this all about?’

  Murray looks at her and starts to laugh. Then he glances at Tariq. ‘Long story,’ he says. ‘Long and boring.’

  Tom decides to interrupt because Murray sounds a little tetchy and he doesn't want things to turn nasty. ‘What made you want to come to this shithole?’

  Murray nods out of the window, through the frosted swirls of shamrocks and harps, and the others follow his eyes. ‘The view,’ he says.

  Freya, who is closest to the glass, is peering outside. ‘What view?’

  ‘Over there. The bank. Suburban, middle class, low profile, unexpected. Perfect.’

  For a moment there is silence. Murray's tone is both solemn and offhand all at once and they don't know what to make of it. Then Kwesi says, ‘You don't really think we can rob a bank, do you, Muz?’

  Tariq swills his whisky through gritted teeth. His head is beginning to pound. ‘If anyone can, it's Murray.’

  Emma tuts. ‘It's not about whether we can do it, it's about whether we're going to.’ She pauses. If she leaves it there, it will sound like she's dismissing the idea. But she doesn't leave it there. ‘Isn't that right, Murray?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Exactly.’

  At three a.m. Murray is sitting alone in a flat. His flat. It's in Hounslow, maybe. Or Harlesden. Or Roehampton. One of those London places that's barely a place at all; more the blink of an out-of-town eye on its way into the city. He is sitting alone in a tatty armchair in front of a huge television at full volume. He scratches a threadbare armrest with the fingernails of one hand, unpicking the material like a playful kitten. His other hand is wrapped around the pewter tankard. It's half full of water and he takes occasional swigs.

  The room is furnished but bare and the voices from the TV echo. Apart from the armchair and the television (which, judging by the cellophane on the back, must be brand new), there is a coffeetable, one upright chair and a couple of stools that are tucked under the counter of the open-plan kitchen. There are three doors off this room. Two of them are closed (one, closest to the kitchenette, latched) but the third is ajar and a cold strip-light illuminates white tiles and a pristine basin with none of the debris – toothbrushes, flannels, soap and the like – of day-to-day life. There is nothing in this flat to suggest occupancy: no pictures on the walls, no rugs on the floor, no washing-up liquid on the draining board and no crockery in the sink. There are half a dozen books on the mantelpiece (a bizarre selection including, for example, Suicide by Durkheim, A Short Introduction to Hegel, A Hero of Our Time by Lermontov and a Euripides primer) but even these have a library's coloured labels stuck to their spines and they only add to the picture of impermanence. If anybody were to look around this place, they might think it soulless and a little spooky. But Murray doesn't look around and he doesn't think anything.

  The thing about Murray – the one thing that nobody has identified; the thing that might elucidate and bewilder in equal measure – is that he doesn't think anything. Not really. Not any more. Not for ten years. Once, Murray was the personification of consciousness. Whatever you made of him and however he chose to use them, you couldn't deny that he pulsed with ideas and empathy. Sure, he lived in the present with no publicized personal history nor apparent awareness of consequence, but wasn't that simply the perfect persona for London life? But now, while his behaviour – his actions and reactions – suggests a complexity and abstraction worthy of humanity at its most potent, it is really no more than instinct and impulse and as superficial (or perhaps deep) as that. Murray is a ghost of his former self. Ask him what he's thinking: you might as well ask a monkey to explain Hegel – ‘I turn the world on its head’ – or Big-In-Property to see himself through another's eyes or a super-computer to weep over a movie. If Murray considered this, he'd surely be wondering ‘What has happened to me?’ and his mind would take one certain stride back a decade. But he doesn't consider anything and his recollections bear as much resemblance to memory as a stranger's photograph album; inadequate and snatched representations that lack the soul to tell their part of a story.

  On the TV, Ami concludes her report with staccato sentences – ‘This is Ami Lester. For the Weather Channel. On Dartmoor’ – and the action cuts back to the studio presenter with the smarmy expression and rainbow tie. He looks out of the box and raises a smug eyebrow. ‘And that's all from Weatherwise for this week and, indeed, for a while as this is the last in the present series.’ He smiles without teeth. ‘Thank you for watching. Until next time. I'm Andy Donaldson. Goodnight.’

  As the credits roll, Murray zaps the TV with the remote in his lap and, before the colours implode to a single dot of light, he hears the banging at the door. It is urgent and must have been going on for a while, drowned out by Ami's stories of the ponies caught in Devon thunderstorms. Murray gets up slowly, ambles over and turns the latch. It is the landlord, who lives in the flat below and runs the minimarket on the ground floor. He is wearing an apologetic, timid expression and clutching a packet of Murray's favourite chicken roll.

  ‘I'm sorry, Mr Murray,’ he begins. He always calls Murray that and it provokes an automatic smile. ‘But it is terribly late and we can't sleep with your TV at such volume. I do not like to disturb you of course but Meena is at the market tomorrow and she must be there by five o'clock sharp.’

  ‘Shit! Sorry, china. How thoughtless of me.’ Murray grimaces and gestures towards the television. ‘I've switched it off now anyway. I'm really sorry, Sankar. You should have come up sooner.’

  Sankar giggles nervously. ‘No. It is quite fine. I am sorry to bother you myself but you know how Meena is.’ He hands Murray the packet of chicken. ‘Here, Mr Murray. I brought you this by way of apology.’

  Murray takes it and says, ‘Thanks, china’, but the man is already halfway down the stairs and waves away Murray's gratitude with one hand.

  ‘It is nothing, Mr Murray,’ he says. ‘It is quite fine. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  Murray shuts the door behind him and flops down in the armchair once again. He is staring out of the window as he rips open the packet and begins to nibble the chicken roll absent-mindedly. A puzzled look spreads across Murray's face and he glances at the meat in his hand for a second. As usual, it tastes unpleasant, soapy, but he hasn't learned his lesson. It's chicken, after all.

  Outside, Murray can see the tall oak tree with its fresh wounds. It looks disabled, like an amputee, and the workmen have left some tools in the crook of one stubby branch. Murray peers down into the street and he can see the contractors' fencing in place around the trunk and the sign on the pavement. In the dark, from up here, he can't read it but he knows what it says: ‘By council appointment. Melville & Sons. St Albans.’ They have been working up the street for a fortnight, ruthlessly hacking back the trees until there's nothing left but the central nervous system to feel the pain. As a rule, they've managed one oak a day but the gnarled old fellow outside Murray's window whose leaves used to tap the glass is taking a little longer and Murray knows because he's been watching.

  It's the pigeons that have slowed them down. The pigeons haven't actually attacked the workers but a host of them have been making nuisances of themselves, flying in and out of the branches, knocking off hard hats and shitting in sandwich boxes. ‘They're taking the fuck
ing piss!’ That's what Murray heard the foreman exclaim and none of his boys wanted to take chances; what with the facts and stories and rumours and gossip that have been circulating around London for… For what? A few weeks. According to the foreman, ‘The pigeons have gone fucking mad. Headless fucking chickens. Or pigeons, rather.’

  Pigeons. Murray is suddenly arrested by images so powerful that he no longer sees anything else. Pigeons. He is transported back in time through a slide-show of the senses that he doesn't understand. Pigeons. He is looking up at the sky and there are dark, heavy clouds; bank upon bank of them. Pigeons. A single bird is on the wall in front of his eyes but Murray realizes he cannot even tell if it is above or below him. Pigeons. Now there are three of them. Now four. Now five. And they're clucking around him as if he were a chick that had fallen from the nest. Pigeons. Murray tries to smile but the muscles of his face are deadened and unresponsive. Pigeons. One is on his leg. Murray can't seem to move his head but he can feel the bird's feet pinching his flesh. The sensation is heavy and light all at once. It's somehow reassuring. Pigeons. Murray realizes his left hand is submerged in water. It's cold but he likes that sensation too. It's as if he were feeling it at a distance. He feels a spit spot of rain on his cheek. Pigeons. Out of the corner of his eye he looks across the chopping water of the Thames to a skimming boat whose oarsman, a blond Adonis, is staring straight at him; he's sure of it. Pigeons. Now he feels a sharp pain in his right palm. He wants to lift it up, to check it out. But he can't. Pigeons. His attention is taken by another bird standing on his forehead. On his forehead! Murray almost bursts out laughing – and he could if he chose to, couldn't he? – but he doesn't want to scare it away. Pigeons. Murray can see the bird's breast rising and falling above his eyes. It has something hanging from the side of its mouth. A worm that struggles pathetically no more than a centimetre from his nose. And what's that? It looks like a globule of red blood on the very tip of its beak. The bird jerks his head and the drop of blood falls. Pigeons. Murray is lying on his back. He decides it's time to stand up. Pigeons. His brain, his body and his will are no longer one.

  Murray twitches slightly in his seat and his fingers release the packet that lands face down on the tatty carpet. Now he is still again. His eyes are wide, unblinking and blind. If anyone were to see him they might think he was dead. But there is nobody to see him except the pigeon on the window ledge outside who coos, soft and pitying.

  9

  The remnant of content

  When a peepnik cocks his head a ninety to the sky, he'll find something reassuring about a flock of pigeons and the patterns they make against the clouds, because their movements seem as natural as the tides or the sway of a willow in the wind. But for a pigeon geez looking down? That's a different story and no mistake. There are patterns among the peepniks, all right, but they are random, changeable, confrontational.

  Look at it this way: us pigeons circle and swoop and criss-cross like the most efficient spaghetti junction, while the niks below sidestep and clash shoulders and sound their verbal horns. When we look down we see organized confusion. So is it any wonder that we fly from a heavy footfall or a raised voice?

  Of course, all this changed in the aftermath of Trafalgar and weren't the niks as bemused as squibs fallen from the nest? Looking up like the bottom had fallen out of their world (and isn't that some sick joke?). And I'm not beaking about the prelude to the wars, when us birds were divided into two great armies – yes, armies became the right word – and there was some pastiche of pattern reimposed on our flight paths. Oh no. I'm talking about before that; the early days when there was no sense of leadership and us pigeons began to dart every which way with all the composure of fleas and flies and the other miniscularities of flight.

  It's no surprise that the niks noticed us birds at that time because you'd better believe I've heard all sorts of stories: numerous accounts of pestering the peepniks and other kinds of confusion besides. There was the tale of the two geezs from the Concrete who collided headlong over Hoxton Square and crashed to terra firma in the salad bowl of a nik picnic. And the one about the old bird in Notting Hill who severed a penthouse pinxen's beak and was battered to death for his confusion. And the tragedy of the coochie-momma who shovelled her own eggs from her own nest and watched them smash on the pavement below because she was just so scared of who-knows-what. And there was me, of course: me and my embarrassing misdemeanour with the four pink feathers pecked from the vanitarious sweet's headgear while the streetnik desperadoes stood and stared.

  The way I scope it, it was memory that did for us. Before Trafalgar, a pigeon would fly towards food and away from danger with all the instincts of evolution. But you tackled that same bird a tick or tock later and they'd have been bemused by any suggestion of hunger or threat. You don't accord? Sure you do. Because every nik's chased a chubster geez from the crumbs of their sandwich lunch in Soho Square, sent him squawking away, only to see him settle a spit distant and begin clucking as contented as a squib with a squirm. So it was memory that did for us. Because memory is about fear first and foremost and any attendant comforts are no more than sugar coatings for the pill. And fear? Well. I've come to believe that the holllowest, most gizzard-twistingest fear of all is about loss. You may not scope it for yourself but the thing that scares you most is what's gone.

  What scared me most? You know that old Ravenscourt isn't lying when he says it was the unilluminable nik he likes to call Mishap (for fear of the syllables of his proper name). Yes, sir. And you can consider that information at your leisure.

  Now I've told you about the day I saw him at Trafalgar and the night when, I say, the London Pigeon Wars began (with the murder of Brixton23 and that strapping cue-ball pinxen), but I haven't told you about another sighting between the two. Does that make me a lying fuckster? I don't think so because, like I said already, a story unravels at its own pace that has nut all to do with the regular speedometer of time (‘He was born. He lived. He died.’ What? You call that a story?). Besides, this third sighting can hardly be described as a skyscraper of drama like the other two.

  I was perched on a window ledge who-knows-where and I was looking inside (because, as I told you, these days us pigeons like nothing better than to watch the peepniks, transfixed like babchicks in front of a motion flixture). The unilluminable nik was sitting in an armchair with his head lolled back and kinked to one side and his wide eyes staring right past me. Did he see me? I don't think so. His gaze was glazed like a mirror and it left me uneasy because I scoped I knew that look so well; it reflected me and a million other pigeons before the happenings of Trafalgar and the sudden consciousness. But – like that wasn't discomfort enough – there was even more to it than that. Because I knew that I'd seen this inanimate expression on this particular phyzog somewhere before; somewhere a long time ago when I was a squib fresh from the egg.

  I can say no more. This is no narrative device but a veritable admission on my part. I can say no more because my memories of so long ago are as wriggly as squirms, elusive and struggling to avoid my pointed beak. How I would love to illuminate what was, I must assume, my first brush with the unilluminable Mishap! And, trust me, I will as soon as I may; as soon as the rain of recollection soaks my feathers and I can no longer fly carefree, as long as my consciousness remains intact (because I fear for it now like a coochie-momma fears for an exposed nest).

  Let me put it this way: consciousness is a river that tides and tugs and swirls and eddies stronger than the Thames times ten. The consciousness thereof is an exhilaration like the first gasp of ozone above the estuary and as daunting as night flight into a gale. If you've never known otherwise, you might take it for granted. But here's the thing. The way I scope it, it's a fragile phenomenon and a social disease and it could evaporate like a puddle if enough pigeons reminisce about the missing bliss of ignorance (whether called ‘Content’ or otherwise) with all the fears of what's been lost therein.

  I figure that it must have b
een around then that Gunnersbury resurfaced. You may have scoped that I'm none too clever with time but I recollect that, after Trafalgar, I didn't see that peachy coochie for a spell, not when the moonacy of memory was at its height. Verity is, pigeons had already begun to coalesce into small groups like oil on the river (finally united by the fear that had divided them or garrulous pigeon nature or divisions between Concrete and Surban, who knows?). But when Gunnersbury reappeared on that oak at Tooting Common? I'm sure that might be called the founding day of us Surbs; when we became more than the sum of our parts and, in some ways, less too.

  It was a brisk dusk and the light was nuclear clear and ethereal and magical like only London knows how. There were more birds over the Common than usual, for sure. But don't think we'd come to scope Gunnersbury. No way. Better call it fate or chance or magic or simply fine judgement on that scheming coochie's part.

  Nobirdy saw her approach. She was cloud-skimming up high and plunged into our midst like a hawk with the piece of the hulkingest pigeon you ever saw (that she'd pulled from the unilluminable stuff in the rubbish bin in Trafalgar Square) held tight in her beak. There was quite some commotion as she landed on the thick branch of the oak with the hole in its trunk – pigeons winging for a look, coochie-mommas dropping their squirms and the like – because you can bet that every bird knew the story of Gunnersbury and Regent at Trafalgar whether they'd been there or not. Besides, she had that peacock manner (a cock not a hen, mind) and a swagger to her wings that made you scope she must be top bird. And when the peepniks below bow-wow-walkers, hermetic sexers, all that type – scoped the kerfuffle of feathers? You can bet they headed homewards because you know they'd heard about or read about or seen about the ‘crazy pigeons’ who'd even attack a nik that hadn't kept an eye on the sky. And isn't that a sugar-coated memory that makes me squawk with delight?