of them, the idler, was addressing the question to him.
‘I don’t know,’ he answered honestly.
‘Maybe they’re goin’ to migrate,’ said the younger of the two armchair carriers, letting drop his half of the burden and staring up at the sky.
‘Don’t be an idiot, Shane,’ said the other man, a West Indian. His name – Gideon – was emblazoned on the back of his overalls. Why’d they migrate in the middle of the fuckin’ summer?’
‘Too hot,’ was the idler’s reply. ‘That’s what it is. Too fuckin’ hot. It’s cookin’ their brains up there.’
Gideon had now put down his half of the armchair and was leaning against the back yard wall, applying a flame to the half-spent cigarette he’d fished from his top pocket.
‘Wouldn’t be bad, would it?’ he mused. ‘Being a bird. Gettin’ yer end away all spring, then fuckin’ off to the South of France as soon as yer get a chill on yer bollocks.’
‘They don’t live long,’ said Cal.
‘Do they not?’ said Gideon, drawing on his cigarette. He shrugged. ‘Short and sweet,’ he said. ‘That’d suit me.’
Shane plucked at the half-dozen blond hairs of his would-be moustache. ‘Yer know somethin’ about birds, do yer?’ he said to Cal.
‘Only pigeons.’
‘Race ’em, do you?’
‘Once in a while –’
‘Me brother-in-law keeps whippets,’ said the third man, the idler. He looked at Cal as though this coincidence verged on the miraculous, and would now fuel hours of debate. But all Cal could think of to say was:
‘Dogs.’
‘That’s right,’ said the other man, delighted that they were of one accord on the issue. ‘He’s got five. Only one died.’
‘Pity,’ said Cal.
‘Not really. It was fuckin’ blind in one eye and couldn’t see in the other.’
The man guffawed at this observation, which promptly brought the exchange to a dead halt. Cal turned his attention back to the birds, and he grinned to see – there on the upper window-ledge of the house – his bird.
‘I see him,’ he said.
Gideon followed his gaze. ‘What’s that then?’
‘My pigeon. He escaped.’ Cal pointed. ‘There. In the middle of the sill. See him?’
All three now looked.
‘Worth something is he?’ said the idler.
‘Trust you, Bazo,’ Shane commented.
‘Just asking,’ Bazo replied.
‘He’s won prizes,’ said Cal, with some pride. He was keeping his eyes glued to 33, but the pigeon showed no sign of wanting to fly; just preened his wing feathers, and once in a while turned a beady eye up to the sky.
‘Stay there …’ Cal told the bird under his breath, ‘… don’t move.’ Then, to Gideon: ‘Is it all right if I go in? Try and catch him?’
‘Help yourself. The auld girl who had the house’s been carted off to hospital. We’re taking the furniture to pay her bills.’
Cal ducked through into the yard, negotiating the bric-a-brac the trio had dumped there, and went into the house.
It was a shambles inside. If the occupant had ever owned anything of substance it had long since been removed. The few pictures still hanging were worthless; the furniture was old, but not old enough to have come back into fashion; the rugs, cushions and curtains so aged they were fit only for the incinerator. The walls and ceilings were stained by many years’ accrual of smoke, its source the candles that sat on every shelf and sill, stalactites of yellowed wax depending from them.
He made his way through the warren of pokey, dark rooms, and into the hallway. The scene was just as dispiriting here. The brown linoleum rucked up and torn, and everywhere the pervasive smell of must and dust and creeping rot. She was well out of this squalid place, Cal thought, wherever she was; better off in hospital, where at least the sheets were dry.
He began to climb the stairs. It was a curious sensation, ascending into the murk of the upper storey, becoming blinder stair by stair, with the sound of birds scurrying across the slates above his skull, and beyond that the muted cries of gull and crow. Though it was no doubt self-deception, he seemed to hear their voices circling, as though this very place were the centre of their attentions. An image appeared in his head, of a photograph from National Geographical. A study of stars, taken with a slow release camera, the pin-point lights describing circles as they moved, or appeared to move, across the sky, with the Pole Star, the Nail of Heaven, steady in their midst.
The wheeling sound, and the picture it evoked, began to dizzy him. He suddenly felt weak, even afraid.
This was no time for such frailties, he chided himself. He had to claim the bird before it flew off again. He picked up his pace. At the top of the stairs he manœuvred past several items of bedroom furniture, and opened one of the several doors that he was presented with. The room he had chosen was adjacent to the one whose sill 33 occupied. Sun streamed through the curtainless window; the stale heat brought fresh sweat to his brow. The room had been emptied of furniture, the only souvenir of occupancy a calendar for the year 1961. On it, a photograph of a lion beneath a tree, its shaggy, monolithic head laid on vast paws, its gaze contemplative.
Cal went out on to the landing again, selected another door, and was this time delivered into the right room. There, beyond the grimy glass, was the pigeon.
Now it was all a question of tactics. He had to be careful not to startle the bird. He approached the window cautiously. On the sun-drenched sill 33 cocked its head, and blinked its eye, but made no move. Cal held his breath, and put his hands on the frame to haul the window up, but there was no budging it. A quick perusal showed why. The frame had been sealed up years ago, a dozen or more nails driven deep into the wood. A primitive form of crime prevention, but no doubt reassuring to an old woman living alone.
From the yard below, he heard Gideon’s voice. Peering down, he could just see the trio dragging a large rolled-up carpet out of the house, Gideon giving orders in a ceaseless stream.
‘– to my left, Bazo. Left! Don’t you know which is your left?’
‘I’m going left.’
‘Not your left, yer idiot. My left.’
The bird on the sill was undisturbed by this commotion. It seemed quite happy on its perch.
Cal headed back downstairs, deciding as he went that the only option remaining was to climb up on to the yard wall and see if he couldn’t coax the bird down from there. He cursed himself for not having brought a pocketful of grain. Coos and sweet words would just have to do.
By the time he stepped out into the heat of the yard once more, the removal men had successfully
