The Limpet Syndrome

by Tony Moyle

  The shadow of Nelson’s Column painted on the ground beneath them proved that they had indeed reached their desired destination. Ian and Sandy watched as their adopted pigeon family explored the tourist attractions, as equally bewildered as they were intrigued to see how their city cousins lived. Their journey here had not been without incident. Twice they had been ambushed by buzzards on the lookout for a tasty lunch, only escaping thanks to the amazing efforts of their followers. It had surprised Sandy that they fought off these predators as if he was one of their own. But in the flock’s mind that is exactly what they were. It doesn’t matter how strange you look or act, family is family and you always defend what you hold most sacred. That’s what the pigeons had done. It wasn’t a conscious decision, just instinct.

  “I’m starving,” grumbled Ian. “Let’s get one of those hot dogs over there?”

  “Remember what you are, Ian,” replied Sandy. “Maybe we’d best stay as low-key as possible.”

  This was easier said than done when you were thirty percent bigger than the thousands of pigeons that called Trafalgar Square their home. Sandy had already seen a small child pulling on its mother’s jumper saying, ‘Mummy, look at that pigeon, he’s massive.’ It was to Sandy’s relief that the mother was too preoccupied to take any notice of the young lad.

  “I think we’d best eat from the conventional sources like the rest of the family,” said Sandy, pointing a wing to where the pigeons from the oak tree were scurrying around, dubiously analysing the seeds being scattered by the excitable tourists.

  If a pigeon can look dumbfounded, then this was their expression. The concept of being fed just didn’t make sense to them. Normally they searched high and low for their food and this just seemed far too easy. They assessed the collection of discarded seeds with the same suspicion as a housewife confronted with a door-to-door salesman promising to save her money on the gas bill. Were the seeds poisoned? Would something come down and attack them the moment they picked one up, some deadly trap? Once one of them had weighed up the risk of certain death against a free meal and nothing untoward had happened, the rest willingly followed suit. Having gained hundreds of flying hours, Ian and Sandy elegantly glided down to join them.

  A horde of confident urban pigeons hopped around a weathered-looking man, cooing in greeting of an old friend. They stalked the gaggle of people surrounding him, as he handed out small, one-pound bags of seeds. Some of the birds landed on his shoulder in order to carry[PP3] favour as if it was normal behaviour. The encircling Japanese tourists, eyes glued behind almost invisibly small, futuristic cameras, pointed at the wonder that was a bird eating a seed. Over the crescendo of finger-clicking and wing-flapping, a group of Americans were about to burst with excitement.

  “Hey, look at that, a man selling bird seed, how quaint. Come and look at this Bobby, ain’t it sweet?” announced a seismically loud American pensioner from under the darkest sunglasses ever made, despite the sun having not been sighted in London since late-April.

  Sandy stopped in his tracks overcome by the strength of her perfume, a sickly aroma so potent that it must have been hosed onto her using a water-cannon. Bobby, a man so large he took up both sides of his family tree, barged in past the Japanese contingent who had been photographing every possible combination of their group standing next to every possible combination of pigeon. With the Japanese knocked down like skittles, Big Bobby continued to shove his way through the crowd until he had grabbed the seed seller’s attention, whether the man liked it or not.

  “Hey, buddy, how much money to feed the birdies?” he bellowed in a volume that suggested everyone he talked to was profoundly deaf.

  “Five pounds a bag, governor,” he replied, moving to block out Bobby’s view of the one-pound sign on the railings. Having rebounded from the floor like Subbuteo players, the Japanese group giggled at his stupidity like a bunch of schoolkids.

  “Wow, that’s amazing! I’ll have ten bags. What a bargain. I’ve got them, Betty!” he hollered[PP4], as both of them made a beeline to the pavement where Sandy and Ian had just landed quietly to avoid attention.

  “Hey, Bob, look at that. Get the camera, honey, those are the biggest doves I’ve ever seen,” yelled Betty.

  While Bobby tried to excavate the world’s biggest camera from amongst the other rigmarole that was contained within his massive bumbag, Betty weakly threw seeds at the two birds.

  “Did she just call us doves?” Sandy said to Ian.

  “Ya, I fink so,” he mumbled through a mouthful of sunflower seeds, a handful of which landed on Sandy after an unusually strong throw for someone as frail and thin as Betty.

  “Hey, careful, watch where you’re throwing that,” Sandy said spontaneously in Betty’s direction.

  Betty froze to the spot. It wasn’t the first time that she’d heard voices, but usually they came from inside her head. After eighty-one years of devout Christianity you assumed, even expected, that sort of stuff to happen eventually. Even if you had to convince yourself that you’d heard it.

  “Bobby, did you hear that?” croaked Betty.

  “I didn’t hear anything!” he shouted, probably because the only thing anyone heard when Bob was around, was Bob.

  “Jesus Christ,” coughed Sandy, spitting his mouthful of sunflower seeds onto the ground. “I thought slugs and snails were bad, but this shit tastes like bloody cardboard. Look, darling, I’m not on a diet.”

  Bob and Betty gawped in Sandy’s direction, the first waking silence to surround the pair in months. Bobby was the sort of person that believed in anything, however strange or unlikely it might seem. Nothing was in the realm of the impossible. If you told Bobby that a giant lump of Angel Delight had just been fired at London by the Russians, he’d have looked up and shouted, ‘Where?!’ Not only was he willing to believe in anything, he was also totally unfazed by it.

  “A talking pigeon, that’s awesome. It must be some kind of robot,” stated Bobby, leaning forward to pick Sandy up to get a better look at the way that it worked.

  If Bobby had been totally at ease at the sight of an oversized, talking pigeon it was nothing to the shock that Sandy had that a human understood what he was saying. He had always thought that when Ian and Sandy talked to each other in English it was only them that understood each other. He’d guessed that they had been chirping all the time, but deciphered those sounds as English words, inaudible to pigeon or person. This proved not to be the case at all. They were speaking English and people heard them. Sandy jumped to one side to avoid Bobby’s advancing chubby fingers.

  “Get your filthy, fat hands off me.”

  “Hey, how did he know that? This isn’t a robot, it’s real. Quick, pass me the camcorder, honey, we’ve gotta get this on film. We’ll be famous, Betty, just like I’ve always hoped.”

  “Ian, we need to get out of here. If they catch us on film, I think you can safely say we won’t be low-key anymore.”

  “But Sandy, I’m still hungry. Let me just finish this lot off first,” replied Ian, hoovering up as much of the free food as possible.

  Bobby was already fumbling excitedly with the buttons of the camcorder and it wouldn’t be long before he got what he needed.

  “Ian, NOW! He’s going to get us on film,” shouted Sandy, pushing Ian away from his feast before launching himself into the air.

  “It’s always me, me, me, with you, Sandy.”

  Click went the sound of technology jumping into action. Bobby was waving his tree trunk-sized arms in the air in a sign of victory. Ian needed no more hints to get out of there.

  “Did he get you on film?” Sandy asked, when Ian landed back on top of the stone lion next to him.

  “I think he might have done,” Ian replied meekly.

  “Fantastic. You never fail, do you? Scrub that, you always fail, that’s the problem. Now that obnoxious tourist will tell the world and every person in London will be on our tails.”

  “I’m sorry, Sandy. Let me make it up to you,�
�� pleaded Ian, head stooped like a scorned infant.

  Limited by his options, and quite against Sandy’s better judgement, he was going to allow him to do just that. At least he could try. Sandy couldn’t afford to get caught, but he was quite happy if Ian did.

  “After a lifetime of disappointing me, Ian, you are bound to get it right one day. I just hope for your sake that day is today. The only positive thing to come out of this is that we can ask someone for help because people will understand what we are saying. I want you to go and find Violet. Tell her where I am and that I need her help quickly.”

  “I promise I won’t let you down this time. I think I’m only here because I need to repay you in some way. Where will I find Violet? I thought you said she was in hiding.”

  “She will be, but I know where. Go to Number 12, Blackhorse Way, you’ll find her there. Once you’ve found her, bring her back to me.”

  *****

  “Is it still out there, Herb?” asked Nash, whilst his manager peeked out of his net curtains into the evening sky.

  “Yeah, it comes and goes but they’re definitely still watching us, I can hear the hum of the blades going around,” replied Herb, his bloated stomach impeding him from getting closer to the window and a better view of the sky. “What’s the plan now?”

  “I think only John can answer that question?”

  Herb rolled his eyes, still unconvinced that Nash had been possessed and wasn’t in fact just having the world’s worst and longest bad trip. There was certainly no way that Herb was going to ask John the question himself: far too weird.

  “Ask him, then,” said Herb.

  “John, what’s our next move?”

  “What’s the date today?”

  “It’s the twenty-first of May,” replied Nash.

  “What day of the week is it?”

  “Monday.”

  “Okay, Nash, the plan is tomorrow you get rid of me. Although I wouldn’t raise your hopes up, things rarely go to plan. We can only go where we need to on a Tuesday, so I suggest we all chill out and hope that no one comes knocking at our door between now and then,” replied John, so that both Nash and Herb heard the response.

  “OK, very funny, Herb. Stop knocking the table,” said Nash, as a light knocking noise came from the front door.

  “I didn’t, I swear.”

  John contemplated whether he had been given some additional powers that he’d not been told about when he was sent back to Earth. It was evident that when he was in the most difficult of spots the answer came to him as if by magic. There was the Polish cleaner in the hotel, the security guard at the airport, and the advertising sign on the bus in Trafalgar Square. If it wasn’t him, then some other force, out of his control, was interfering. He really hoped it was him. Every time he was desperate for help it had come to him. The only difference this time was that he didn’t want the knock at the door. Perhaps he did want it to happen but didn’t know why?

  “It was the front door alright,” whispered Herb who, having made his way there, was now squinting through the spyhole.

  “Don’t open it, Nash. I don’t care if it’s The Queen,” thought John.

  “Who is it?” asked Nash, walking to the front door to have a look for himself as a second set of firmer knocks echoed through the hallway.

  “I think…it’s a girl,” said Herb, whose eyesight was poor at the best of times. Nash’s pace suddenly quickened.

  “It’s Faith,” said Nash slightly too loudly, having bundled Herb out of the way.

  “Hello, are you in there, Nash?” came the voice from the other side of the door.

  “Who the hell is Faith?” John replied as he moved all of his soul up to Nash’s eye sockets to get his own unique perspective.

  “She’s a friend. She’s harmless, John: let me open the door. It would be good to have some company other than you two for a while. Please, John, before she leaves.”

  John peered again, first through his own spyhole of Nash’s eyes, and then through the one in the door, to check out the young woman on the opposite side. At the door was a young, fashionably dressed twenty-something, although her real age had been concealed by the way she was tarted up for a night out. John was transfixed by her deep, beautiful blue eyes, like a Caribbean swimming pool enticing him to dive in. So vibrant and alive was this girl it crystallised his own loneliness for the first time. He, too, had only had a fat, bald roadie and a hairy-arsed popstar to look at and talk to for the last six weeks. Without answering Nash’s plea, John placed his hand onto the door handle and opened it, just before Faith was about to give up and leave. She smiled at John, ran forward and gave him a long firm and lingering hug.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” she expired.

  It was the first time that John remembered feeling happy and unburdened since he left his own body. Faith’s very presence lifted his soul by simply walking in and smiling.

  “If she’s going to stay, for God’s sake, shut the door,” Herb wheezed as he stumbled towards the kitchen to top up his empty beer mug.

  “Well, you’re a sight for sore eyes. What are you doing here?” asked Nash.

  “I’ve come to see you, of course. I was really worried about you. I’ve tried calling but only got your voicemail,” replied Faith, still clinging to Nash like an infant monkey.

  John was consumed by a new emotion that he couldn’t find a name for. So far he’d only felt his past emotions, those attached to the physical form that he’d left behind. Just blurred memories and feelings from another life. Significant moments that he experienced triggered his emotions. Loneliness, love, guilt, fear, anger and hope had all been very real to John, even if the memories that they related to were not always clear.

  Take the accident that caused his death. He only remembered cloudy visions of what happened. The figure of a man leaning over the bonnet of his car. The young girl with the lightning-white hair that he’d swerved to avoid. All echoes of his mind that lacked visibility, whilst the emotions linked to those events were as real as the pretty girl that stood before him.

  What was new about Faith’s entrance was that this emotion wasn’t linked to a real-life event. This emotion was linked to Nash’s real-life event. The name that he had been struggling for was longing. It might even be called jealously. Jealous that Nash was the one she was in love with and not him. It meant that his soul was evolving, reacting to real-life external stimulus and not confined to the ones from the past. His soul had some kind of future and the potential to change. John might have recognised the importance of this moment if he hadn’t been distracted by Faith’s bosom.

  “How did you find me?” said Nash.

  “Daddy told me where you would be.”

  “That was nice of him,” said Nash, clearly in the same trance that John had fallen into.

  John was not really following what Faith said: it was enough that her lips moved and captivating sounds came out. Then, as if his attention was catching him up, he took a double take, the specific words finally correcting themselves into the right order.

  “Sorry, who’s her father?”

  “Byron T. Casey,” Nash thought in reply.

  “Who’s he?”

  “Prime Minister.”

  “Oh, Prime Minister, I see,” replied John flippantly.

  Cautiously, Herb returned to the lounge with an exceptionally large glass of red wine and a two-inch-wide cigar, already filling the room with a thick, grey smoke. Aware that Faith’s arrival would mean another drinking session for one, he slumped onto the furthest sofa from the canoodling popstar and his latest groupie.

  “Daddy said that he’s had Nash exonerated for the Geneva thing and that he wanted to send me over as a kind of apology. He’s really sorry that they’ve been chasing you, Nash,” said Faith, smiling innocently.

  “Sorry to interrupt but who’s she talking about, Nash?” asked Herb, from beneath his tatty copy of a 1970s NME magazine.

  “Her father is Byron T. Casey.”


  “Have you gone bloody mad?” scorned Herb, jumping out of his chair with the force of a thousand volts attached to his buttocks. “She’s the daughter of the very person who would like to see you banged up in the Tower of London while he watches the ravens take turns to peck your eyes out.”

  John was suddenly shocked out of his own dream. In the time that John had occupied Herb’s world, he’d put him down as a whacked-out hippy who was incapable or unwilling to react with any level of concern. It wasn’t as if Herb was in any significant trouble if Nash was caught. Therefore this unusual reaction was guided by a spontaneous and unconscious desire to protect. Maybe there was more to Nash and Herb’s relationship than John had understood. Now that he was thinking clearly again, John knew Herb was right.

  “It’s all right, Herb, she hates her father,” replied Nash.

  “It’s true, I do.”

  “Look, what I know about politicians is that they are vicious arseholes who will do anything to get what they want. At the moment Byron wants Nash, for more than one reason. One of those reasons is sitting in my living room. He’s got a helicopter circling our house and it’s not to keep an eye on her, it’s to keep an eye on you. She has to leave,” Herb shouted at Nash, attempting to frogmarch Faith to the door.

  “He’s right, Nash. I think it’s a trick.”

  “Look, it’s not a trick, she loves me. She’s staying and that’s that,” snapped Nash, engaged in a bizarre tug-of-war with Herb over Faith’s skintight clothes which were already bursting at their seams.

  “You’re a fool,” raged Herb. “If she stays, then I go, and good luck to you and your friend, John. I’m done with both of you.”

  Releasing Faith from his grasp, he staggered out of the room more than a little inebriated from the night’s alcoholic intake. Clumsily he slung his coat on back to front and pin-balled down the hallway before slamming the front door and tripping head first down the steps of the house. John heard a muffled, limping Scotsman lurching away from the house, clattering into empty dustbins as he went.