‘Yes, please,’ I said.
‘What you got?’ Dad said.
‘Apple crumble.’
‘Lovely,’ I said.
‘Do you want custard or cream on it?’
‘Custard, please.’
‘Cream,’ Dad said. ‘So long as there’s no pins.’
Mum went to say something, then thought better of it, and went to the kitchen.
I could tell she was tearful, so I followed her.
‘Mum?’
‘I’m okay, I’m okay.’ She was wiping her face on a tea towel. ‘I told you what he was like, didn’t I? You didn’t believe me.’
‘I did believe – ’
‘I wanted today to be so perfect. I said to your dad, “Behave yourself! He doesn’t want to hear us bickering all the time.” ’ She started dishing out the apple crumble. ‘He was like this when I went out to work for the first time. Years ago. You remember that?’
‘The job at the library!’
‘Three days a week. And – boy! – did we need the money. But your dad . . . oh, he caused so much trouble.’
‘About you working?’
She nodded. ‘Argument after argument. “Who are you friends with at the library?” “Who are you talking to?” “How many men work there?” In the end I chucked the job in. It was the only way to get any peace.’
I waited for a moment.
Then –
‘Mum . . . this thing with Dad and the pins – ’
‘Where’d I put the bowl of custard?’
‘It’s on top of the fridge . . . Mum, I think – ’
‘Where’s the cream?’
‘Next to it. Mum – ’
‘Was it custard or cream you wanted?’
‘Custard. Mum, we have to talk about Dad.’
‘I thought that’s what we were doing.’
‘Listen! Please! I don’t think Dad is doing all this “pins” stuff just to annoy you.’
‘Of course he is!’
‘No. I think . . . I think it’s real for him. I think . . . oh, you must know what I’m trying to say?’
‘I’ve become a mind reader now?!’
‘I think Dad should see a doctor.’
‘Doctor?! Your dad’s the healthiest man I know. I’ve never known him miss a day off work. Not one!’
‘Mum! Dad needs to see a – ’
‘He hates going to the doctor. And what d’you expect me to say to the doctor anyway? “My husband’s got . . . a phobia of pins?” They’d laugh me out of the surgery.’
‘Say you want to have some tests!’
‘For what?’
I stared at her.
She said, ‘If you’re . . . if you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting – ’
‘There’s something not right with Dad. I’m not saying it’s dementia or anything – ’
‘That’s enough! You stop. Right now!’
‘But Mum – ’
‘No, no, no, no, no – ’
‘Mum – ’
‘Your dad’s only fifty-four!’
‘It can come at any age.’
‘I thought you were studying English Literature, not medicine.’
‘Clyde’s dad has dementia. He’s only forty-seven.’
‘Who’s Clyde?’
‘I’ve told you who Clyde is.’
‘When? I’ve never heard of him.’
‘He’s my boyfriend in Leeds.’
‘I . . . I don’t want to talk about any of this.’
‘Any of what? Dad? Or me being gay?’
‘Both!’
Silence.
‘Anyway,’ Mum said, ‘you’re not gay.’
‘I am, Mum.’
‘You’re not.’
‘I am.’
‘Well, you weren’t gay when you lived here.’
‘I was!’
‘You wasn’t! Then you go up to Leeds and the next thing I know you’re on the phone spouting all this “I’m gay” nonsense.’
‘Don’t call it “nonsense”, Mum.’
‘You had a girlfriend!’
‘When? Who?’
‘Lauren!’
‘Oh, well . . .’
‘ “Oh, well” what?’
‘It was three years ago, Mum!’
‘She was still your girlfriend. You both used to sit on the sofa holding hands. She came round for Sunday dinner every week!’
‘She came around three times!’
‘As your girlfriend.’
‘Yes, yes, okay, sort of.’
‘What d’you mean “sort of”?’
‘I was young, Mum. I didn’t know what I wanted.’
‘I met your dad when I was young. People get married when they’re young! They all seem to know what they want! Why should you be any different?’
‘Because I’m gay! – Don’t roll your bloody eyes like that!’
‘Please don’t swear.’
‘I grew up with you and dad looking disgusted if homosexuality was so much as mentioned on telly. You try to work out who you really are with all that going on!’
‘So it’s all my fault now?’
‘I didn’t say – ’
‘Lauren’s shocked, you know!’
‘At what? That I’m gay?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know what Lauren thinks?’
‘I met her. Down the market. She told me.’
‘Jesus! You meet my so-called ex-girlfriend and you can’t wait to tell her that I’m – ’
‘Of course I didn’t bloody tell her. As if I’d tell anyone! Lauren mentioned this poetry prize you’d won. I said, “Oh, did he phone to tell you about it, Lauren?” She said, “No. Someone at work is a queer and he had a copy of Gay Times.” ’ Mum rattled some plates. ‘Lauren said there was an interview with you in it.’
‘It wasn’t an interview! It was an article.’
‘About you being the first “gay poet” to win this particular poetry prize.’
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘Lauren said to me, “It must’ve come as quite a shock to you. Finding out that he’s turned gay – ” ’
‘I didn’t turn – ’
‘ “It certainly shocked me,” she said. “Especially after Glastonbury.”’
‘Glastonbury?’
‘You went to the Glastonbury Festival with her, didn’t you? I suppose she’s saying . . . you had a lot of fun in that tent!’
‘I don’t think . . . I don’t think I want to talk about this – ’
‘Oh!? So it’s okay for you to ram your bloody boyfriends down my throat, but the moment I mention a normal relationship you suddenly get all coy.’
‘Okay! You want to know, I’ll tell you. Yes. I had “a lot of fun in that tent” with Lauren. But not half as much “fun” as I had with the guy in the tent next to ours when Lauren wasn’t around. You want more details, Mum? Eh? Because I’ll give them to you, I swear I will!’
Silence.
Then –
‘Here’s your apple crumble and custard,’ she said. ‘Take your dad his. I’ll join you both in a second.’
‘Mum – ’
‘Do something I ask you. Please!’
I picked up the bowls and went to the dining room.
‘At last!’ Dad said. ‘Did she have to milk a cow to make the cream or something?’
‘We . . . we got to talking.’
‘I could hear something going on.’ He indicated his dessert. ‘Have you checked for pins?
‘I have, Dad.’
‘Find any?’
‘None.’
‘You check yours?’
‘Yes, Dad.’
‘Find any?’
‘No.’
‘Good, good. Pins are notorious murder weapons. It’s how they assassinate people, you know?’
‘Who, Dad?’
‘The KGB. They put pins in people’s vodka. It’s how they got rid of Trotsky.’
‘I think that was an ice axe, Dad?’
‘They put an ice axe in his vodka?!’
‘No. In his head.’
He chuckled. ‘Well . . . quicker than being choked to death by a pin, I suppose.’ He held a spoonful of dessert up to the light, like a doctor studying an X-ray.
‘It really is safe to eat, Dad.’
‘You eat yours, I’ll eat mine.’
I finished mine long before him.
I watched him as he inspected spoonful after spoonful.
Eventually, Dad finished and pushed the plate away from him.
‘This poem of yours!’ he said, looking at me, smiling. ‘The prize and all that. It’s such an achievement. I told them all about it at work. They were chuffed. They all said, “You must be so proud of him.” I told them, “Everything he’s ever done has made me proud. There is nothing he could do that would not make me proud.” ’
For a moment I couldn’t speak.
I was just about to say, ‘Thanks, Dad,’ when Mum breezed in from the kitchen, holding her dessert. ‘How’s the apple crumble?’ she asked.
‘Delicious,’ I said.
‘Delicious,’ Dad said.
‘That’s good,’ Mum said.
She picked up her spoon and started sifting through her dessert, much like Dad had been doing.
‘Mum?’ I said. ‘What’re you doing?’
‘What’s it look like I’m doing?’ she said. ‘I’m checking for pins.’
A SHOE THREE INCHES BIG
‘That bird?’
‘A . . . magpie.’
‘That tree?’
‘Where?’
‘On the hill!’
‘I . . . I’m not sure!’
I’m sitting in the car next to Dad. It’s Sunday evening and he’s driving me home from my weekend with Mum. My parents were separated a year ago, just after my tenth birthday. Although I live with Dad, I spend every other weekend with Mum and her boyfriend, Alex. Mum and Alex live on a farm. The farm has been in Alex’s family since before there were railways. ‘I’m not a city person,’ Alex says. ‘I can’t breathe the air.’
Dad’s always in a bad mood when he picks me up. He parks down by the farm’s wooden gate, honks the horn, then fiddles with the radio until I get in the car. Dad never asks me if I’ve had a good time. Or how Mum is. He just slams his foot on the accelerator. He drives too fast for the narrow country lanes. Once I told him, ‘Alex says you shouldn’t drive more than twenty miles an hour till you hit the motorway.’ Dad said, ‘Oh, really?’ and drove even faster.
I’m looking out of the car window, eyes searching the landscape.
‘That tree?’ I ask.
‘Where?’
‘There, Dad, there!’
‘I can’t keep looking when I’m driving, son.’
‘You could if you slowed down a bit.’
‘Why’re you asking all these questions anyway? I thought you hated the countryside.’
‘Alex says I only hate it because I don’t know anything about it.’
‘Then ask him all this stuff.’
‘I do ask him! I keep forgetting.’
‘That’s because you’re not really interested.’
‘I am really interested!’
‘We only remember the stuff we want to remember.’
‘But I do want to remember – ’
‘Listen! My subject’s Chinese history. Not the bloody countryside. Okay?’
Dad’s a lecturer at the University of Warwick. It’s where he met Mum. Dad taught Chinese history and Mum taught political theory. Dad’s the head of his department now, but Mum doesn’t work there anymore. She left after she started having an affair with Alex. He was a friend of one of her students.
Some birds – starlings, I think – swoop in a nearby field. They’re moving in unison, like iron filings in a magnetic current. I want to ask Dad how they can do this – and if they are starlings – but instead I say, ‘Alex says you used to hit Mum.’
The car goes faster.
‘How does he know?’ Dad asks.
‘Mum told him.’
‘Well, she’s lying.’
‘I don’t think Mum would – ’
‘Did you ever see me hit her?’
‘No.’
‘Exactly!’
‘You could’ve done it when I wasn’t there.’
‘Jesus! Don’t listen to anything your Mum comes out with. She’s trying to turn you against me.’
‘Mum told me she’s still fond of you.’
‘Fond?!’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Wait till you fall in love. You’ll understand then.’
‘Alex says you could never have loved Mum if you – ’
‘Alex is twenty-two years old and he knows nothing! Jesus! Your Mum was one of the most respected lecturers at the university. She was working on a book. She had a career. A family. Beautiful home. Everything! And then she throws it all away for a . . . a pig-smelling farmhand who’s never even read a novel!’
‘Alex has read a – ’
‘If this was a century ago I could’ve had your mum declared insane for what she’s done. You know that? She’d be in a straight-jacket and locked away in – ’
The car hits something. An explosion of feathers.
Dad slams his foot on the brakes.
We screech to a halt.
‘You okay?’ Dad asks.
‘Yeah. What was it?’
‘A pheasant, I think. Stay here.’
He gets out of the car.
I look in the rearview mirror.
A bird is in the middle of the road.
Dad is staring down at it.
I get out and join him.
‘I told you to stay in the car,’ he says.
‘Is it dead?’
‘No.’
One of the bird’s wings is clearly broken. Blood bubbles from its beak. Its legs are twitching.
‘It’s in pain, Dad.’
‘I can see that.’
‘What shall we do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But we . . . we can’t just leave it like this.’
‘Animals get killed by cars all the time.’
‘But it hasn’t been killed.’
‘I am not taking it to a vet, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘I’m not saying we should – ’
‘It’ll be dead by the time we get to a vet!’
‘I know that, Dad.’
‘I don’t know where a vet is, anyway!’
‘I know, Dad, I know!’ I gaze at the injured bird. Its face is hard, expressionless. ‘But can’t we . . . shouldn’t we . . . you know.’
‘What?’
‘Put it out of its misery.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, I’m sure I don’t.’
‘Can’t you . . . wring its neck or something?’
‘Wring its neck or something?!’
‘It’s what people do!’
‘Well, I’ve never done it. I’ll probably hurt it even more.’
‘Don’t you just . . . twist the neck quickly?’
‘If it’s that bloody easy, you do it.’
The bird is gazing at me with a glinting black eye. The feathers on its head are tinged with blue and the ones on its chest shimmer gold. There’s so much beauty and detail to take in – the silver of its claws, the sheen of its beak – I can’t believe such a magnificent creature once flew freely without everyone constantly pointing and gasping in wonder.
The pheasant starts making a mournful sound inside its body, like October wind through guitar strings.
‘Dad! Do something!’
Dad kneels beside the bird.
He reaches out.
The birds shivers away.
‘You’re scaring it,’ I say.
‘It’s scaring me!’
Dad’s hands get closer
.
Again the bird quivers, claws scratching air.
‘I . . . I can’t touch it!’ Dad stands up.
‘But Dad – ’
‘I’ll have to . . . to hit it with something.’
‘Like what?’
‘A rock! Find me a rock.’
I look around. ‘I can’t see any rocks.’
‘Anything will do!’
‘Like what?’
‘A . . . a stick!’
‘You can’t beat it to death, Dad!’
‘Jesus!’
‘Perhaps you can . . . stomp on it!’
‘Stomp on it?!’
‘Crush its head.’
‘I am not doing that!’
‘Please, Dad! You’ve got to do something! It’s suffering!’
‘Jesus . . . Jesus . . .’
Dad lifts his foot.
He stands like that for a while, a hand on my shoulder.
‘Quick, Dad!’
The bird flips over.
Its unbroken wing starts to flutter.
Dad backs away.
I yell, ‘Alex would kill it!’
‘Then let Alex bloody do it! Go back and get him!’
‘I can’t go back and – ’
‘Exactly! So it’s just us! You want it dead, you kill it!’
He strides back to the car, gets in and turns the radio on.
His shoulders are hunched like he’s expecting a blow.
I look at the pheasant.
It’s still fluttering, but less violently.
I raise my foot.
Will I feel its skull go pop when I stomp on it?
Will I hear bone crack?
How much blood will there be?
I nudge the bird with the tip of my shoe.
It rocks a little.
I nudge it harder.
It moves an inch or two.
I start pushing it a little harder . . . and keep pushing.
It’s moving across the tarmac . . .
It’s moving towards the edge of the road . . .
I let it roll into a ditch in front of the hedgerow.
It flutters and flutters.
But if I take a few steps back . . .
I can’t see any fluttering at all.
I can hear it, though.
I walk back to the car.
The fluttering gets fainter and fainter.
When I close the car door behind me . . . I can’t hear fluttering anymore.
Dad turns the radio off and says, ‘Well?’
‘It’s dead,’ I say.
Dad starts the car.
I want to say something else – anything! – but my eyes are riveted to a single feather on the windscreen. It’s small and golden, glued to the glass by a smear of blood.
Flamingoes in Orbit Page 8