The London Pigeon Wars

by Patrick Neate

  ‘But how come?’ Karen pressed.

  ‘How come what?’

  ‘How come you're just Murray?’

  ‘I just am.’

  ‘What, you don't have a surname or you don't want to use it?’

  Murray looked at her steadily and the tone of his voice was flat. ‘Why would I accept the name of the oppressors who raped my ancestors?’

  ‘Right.’ She was nodding. She couldn't tell if he was serious. ‘Where are you from?’

  Murray smiled. ‘The Highlands,’ he said. ‘Culloden was a fucker.’

  ‘Are you always this facile?’

  ‘Yeah, china. Always.’

  ‘I only wanted to know why you didn't have a surname. Guess it's an affectation.’

  Murray stared at her for a second (was it Tom's imagination or did his eyes glisten a little?), then he looked away. ‘You want to know? You really want to know?’

  Karen shrugged. ‘Sure I want to know.’

  ‘I come from an abusive home,’ he said. ‘My dad used to knock me about with anything he could lay his hands on; electric flex, broom handles, saucepans, whatever. Once he beat me senseless with a frozen chicken. Since then I've refused to take his name and I only eat chicken. It helps me remember what I've come from.’

  Karen watched him carefully. ‘You're joking.’

  Murray smiled. ‘Yes.’

  ‘That's not funny.’

  ‘You're right.’

  ‘I mean, you shouldn't joke about that sort of thing.’

  ‘Which? The beatings or the frozen chicken?’

  Karen tutted. ‘Don't be funny. The beatings.’

  ‘Don't be funny. Right.’ Murray was nodding. He took a breath like he was about to say something else. Then he held it for a second. ‘What about the frozen chicken?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I be funny about the frozen chicken?’

  Karen giggled. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Murray nodded. He was staring at Karen and his eyes were now a little sleepy. ‘That's good to know, china. I'll get back to you.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what.’

  ‘Your name?’

  ‘Is Murray. I tell you what, though. You want a good two-part name? What about Tom Dare? That's a real super-hero name right there.’

  ‘Tom Dare?’

  Murray cocked his thumb and forefinger into a pistol and pointed across the table. It was a gesture straight from John Hughes, Karen thought. Tom felt like he should cough into his hand or something but he just said, ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Hi.’ Karen turned towards him then for the first time. But she didn't actually look at him at all. She was only interested in Murray and Tom was a touch embarrassed. He knew he was no more than an optional extra, a condiment; as if Murray had said, ‘You want a good two-part seasoning? What about salt and pepper? That's a real superhero seasoning right there.’ Tom stood up and picked up his tray. He wanted to get away. He felt humiliated to be ignored and silly to feel that way. ‘I'll see you later,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Right,’ Murray said. But he didn't look up. Instead he shrugged at Karen. ‘Probably got to save the world. Hard life for a superhero. Too many demands on your time, know what I mean?’

  Over the next month, Tom began to see a lot of Murray and Murray began to see a lot of Karen. But they never actually met as a three. Occasionally Tom would spot the other two around the college buildings or in the street but they always seemed to be disappearing into a lift or stepping on to a bus. Consequently, all of Tom's earliest info about Karen came via Murray and it always concluded with Murray saying, ‘I should introduce you two properly, china. I think you'd get on.’

  Karen was from Peckham, Murray said. She didn't know her dad and her mum died when she was thirteen so she'd been brought up by her older sister. She was the first in her family to stay on at school past sixteen and the first to go to college. ‘She's a tough nut, china,’ Murray said. ‘Know what I mean?’

  This was a girl who'd pretty much raised herself. She'd got to LMT without any help from anyone and she was determined to make the best of it. Karen had no time for the smug suburbanites nor the rich idlers nor the wide-eyed northerners who seemed to dominate the student population. Oh no. According to Murray, Karen dismissed the college social life, drama, newspaper, sport and the rest. According to Murray, she said ‘they're all just games for people with the luxury to play at real life’. He thought this was one of the funniest things he'd ever heard. ‘Like anybody ever does anything else,’ he said.

  Karen was only there to get her qualification and move up and that was that. So she'd head back to South London every weekend. Because, while most of the first years were still bed-hopping between fuck-buddies. Karen had a boyfriend she'd already been seeing for two years; some bloke called Kush.

  ‘Kush?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Murray shrugged. ‘Rhymes with bush. I should introduce you to her properly, china. I think you'd get on.’

  ‘Why?’ Tom asked. It didn't sound likely to him.

  ‘Don't know. Just a feeling.’

  A week before the end of the summer term, Tom came across Murray in the inter-departmental library. Murray hadn't been to more than a handful of lectures and tutorials the whole year and he'd walked out of most of his exams before half-time so Tom was surprised he even knew where it was. Maybe he'd been scared into some action.

  ‘Hey, china.’ Murray didn't look up. He was bent over a desk with a pair of scissors, a roll of sticky tape and a stack of what looked like birthday cards in front of him. He was carefully cutting out the middle section of one until he was left with a mini, folded card about two inches square. Pinching the card tightly between thumb and forefinger, he bit off a small piece of tape and sealed it closed. Next to his elbow on the desk stood a finished pile of about twenty similar cards.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Tom hissed.

  Murray looked around furtively. ‘Bored,’ he said. ‘Just having some fun.’ He swept the debris of his enterprise into a bin and carefully dropped the mini cards into the breast pocket of his denim jacket. He stood up, turned away from the desk and ducked down one of the aisles of floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Tom followed.

  ‘You coming on Friday?’ Murray asked. He was standing on top of some wheelie-steps and flicking through the pages of a dusty hardback from the top shelf.

  ‘Friday?’

  ‘Mate of mine's running a night at the Union; an end-of-year kind of gig. Should be a laugh.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Tom thought that he was taking the piss. Because, as far as he knew, Murray never went to student nights.

  ‘Why not?’ Murray had taken one of the mini cards out of his pocket and removed the sticky tape with his teeth. Then, slowly, he slid the card into the middle of the book he was holding. He glanced at the cover. ‘Suicide by Emile Durkheim. You think anybody ever reads this?’ he asked.

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Murray wedged the book firmly back into its former position and descended the steps. What was he up to? Tom was about to ask but Murray raised an eyebrow and put a finger to his lips. Then he turned down the next aisle. Tom followed but he briefly lost him in the ordered maze of the library. When he found him again, he was already slipping another book back into its place; this time on the bottom shelf.

  ‘A Hero of Our Time,’ he said. ‘Ever heard of it?’

  Tom shook his head.

  Again Murray headed deeper into the recesses of the library, talking quietly over his shoulder as he went.

  ‘Karen's coming. I've persuaded her to stay around because it's the last night of term. Anyway, I think she's having trouble with her boyfriend. I think he's been getting a bit…’ Murray paused. ‘Les Mains Sales by Jean-Paul Sartre. Who's he?’

  ‘French existentialist.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He replaced the book and chose another. ‘The Theatre of the Absurd by Martin Esslin. Who the fuck's
going to read that?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said, reaching into his pocket.

  Tom was silent as Murray slipped another of his cardboard inventions between the pages. Then he said, ‘Her boyfriend's getting a bit what?’

  ‘A bit… y'know… physical.’

  ‘Physical? What does that mean?’

  But Murray was already on the move again, zig-zagging from French Language and Literature through Media Anthropology to Religion and Cults. And this was the way the stilted conversation continued: Tom scurrying in his friend's purposeful wake until Murray's next seemingly random stop, the gossiping about Karen interrupted by questions about books.

  Murray reckoned Karen's boyfriend hit her. Tom was shocked. Really? Murray shrugged because Karen hadn't actually told him anything so he couldn't be sure, could he? He said it was just a feeling he got; something not quite right. The Spiritual Self by the Very Reverend Desmond Payne? No?

  Tom wondered aloud if maybe Murray was mistaken: ‘I mean… hit her… It just doesn't happen.’ He didn't quite catch the sardonic reply but it was ‘Maybe not in your world’ or something like that. Tom was shaking his head. When he thought about Karen being beaten up by the mysterious Kush, it somehow made her even more appealing to him; the sense that she was struggling to outstrip her background, to be more than she was. And then this fucker wanted to knock her back down? For Tom, the realness of it all seemed impossibly romantic.

  ‘Anyway, china,’ Murray was saying. ‘The point is, are you coming on Friday? Kazza doesn't know many people and it would be cool if you could make it. I want to introduce you two properly anyway. I think you'll get on.’

  ‘Sure,’ Tom said. ‘Of course.’

  They were right back where they'd started; standing by the same desk in the library's central work space. Murray said, ‘Shall we get out of here?’

  But Tom still wanted to know what he'd been up to and he caught him by the arm. ‘Those little cards. What was that all about?’

  Murray smiled. It was a new and cheeky variation on the expression and Tom realized that Murray seemed to have more different smiles than anyone he'd ever met. One day he'd try to figure out exactly how many, he thought.

  ‘Musical greetings, china. They're sensitive things. The slightest disturbance sets them off.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Just bored,’ Murray said through a yawn. ‘Just having some fun.’

  With that, he turned and headed out of the library. Then, by the door, he suddenly stopped and Tom almost trod on his heels. Murray reached out a hand and gave the last bookcase a gentle shove.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Tom asked impatiently but Murray held up a silencing finger.

  ‘Listen.’

  At first Tom couldn't hear anything and he was just about to say so but then, somewhere in the distance, he heard a vague but familiar tune. ‘Auld Lang Syne’. It was high-pitched and metallic-sounding and as impossible to locate as a whining mosquito.

  Murray was singing along, softly, under his breath: ‘…Should old acquaintance be forgot. For the sake of Auld Lang Syne.’

  Tom looked down the library and every working student had raised their head. Some were smiling, some shrugged at each other, some pinched their noses in irritation. Tom didn't think it was funny but he found himself laughing anyway. ‘Shit that's childish.’

  ‘Just playing at real life,’ Murray said.

  11

  When Murray got down, Tariq got smacked and Tom got the girl

  On the Friday, Tom found Murray inside the party. It was held in the Students' Union bar and the place was already rammed by the time he arrived at half-eight. The venue was almost pitch-black but, at one end, Tom could make out a makeshift dancefloor where a bunch of sweaty ravers were gyrating to fearsomely loud, bleeping techno. They were illuminated in the freeze frames of a single strobe and every now and then they paused in their stuttered movements to throw each other OK signs and thumbs-ups and to mouth stuff like ‘You up on one?’ and ‘Sorted’. The walls were covered in half-hearted balloons and amateurish banners proclaiming ‘SCHOOLZ OUT FOR THE SUMMER’ in capital letters. The concrete floor was already sweating and slippery underfoot.

  Murray was at the bar talking to a skinny Asian guy whose clothes were wannabe trendy and desperately unflattering. Pristine Adidas shelltops poked out beneath improbably baggy combats that were all pockets and zips. On top, he wore one of those Camden-market T-shirts with a cartoon raggamuffin on the front smoking an enormous spliff. The T-shirt was too tight and showed off the suggestive beginnings of a paunch that was incongruous beneath the definite outlines of his scrawny ribcage. He had a nice face, though, Tom thought. He looked like he was both trying to be cool and fully aware that he didn't know how.

  ‘Tom, this is Tariq,’ Murray said. ‘He's the guy running this. A real entrepreneur, aren't you, china?’

  Tariq smiled at Tom and raised his beer bottle cheerily. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Just another excuse to get drunk, isn't it?’

  The music at the other end of the room faded out to be replaced by some seventies funk and the jittering strobe gave way to some traffic-light spots and a blue wash. Nearby a bunch of dull-looking girls whooped in excitement and made for the dancefloor, passing sweaty, bemused ravers heading the other way. Murray spotted Karen at the door and waved her over. Tom hadn't seen her up close for a while and he barely recognized her. Her perm was gone and her hair was now naturally straight, dirty blonde and scraped back in a ponytail. She was wearing flat-fronted black trousers and a crop-top that cut above her pierced belly-button. Tom was staring at the ring. He'd never met anyone who wore one before and he found it immediately and undeniably sexy. It seemed suggestive, like a naughty signpost down to the waistband of her trousers. Suddenly, Tom realized that Karen was regarding him quizzically as he gazed at her midriff so he pretended his shoelaces were undone and dropped to one knee and kept staring anyway.

  Tariq greeted Karen and then made his excuses. He went to have a word with the DJ, who was now playing back-to-back Abba. The dancefloor was packed but that was hardly the point, was it?

  As Tom straightened up he said, ‘Hi. You look different.’

  Karen took his hand cautiously. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Karen,’ Murray intervened. ‘This is my good friend Tom. Tom, this is Karen. You've met before. In the canteen.’

  ‘Oh,’ Karen said. She raised an eyebrow. ‘The superhero.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tom said. ‘That's me.’ He felt lame.

  Now the music changed again and the syncopated beats of some generic New Jack swing kicked in. Murray glanced over to the dancefloor and then back to the pair of them. ‘Do you want to go dance?’ For a moment, Tom thought he was going to be left on his own but then he realized it was a group suggestion and, besides, Karen was already saying no.

  ‘You dance?’ he asked Murray. For some reason the idea astonished him.

  ‘Why not?’ Murray said. ‘Laters.’

  He began to barge his way through the crowds to the other end of the room and the swell of people pushed Tom and Karen together until they found themselves face to face. Tom was suddenly and acutely embarrassed. He felt like, if he had ever spoken to a woman before, he certainly couldn't remember how it was done. ‘So…’ he began.

  ‘Murray told me I should meet you,’ Karen said noncommittally. ‘He reckoned we'd get along.’

  ‘Yeah? He told me the same thing.’

  ‘I don't know why he thought that.’

  Tom looked at her carefully. Was she laughing at him? He couldn't really tell. She sounded like she was genuinely puzzled so he just said, ‘No.’

  There was a moment or two of awkwardness. They didn't know what else to say to each other so they both pretended to contemplate the posters on the wall or the students nearby. Tom found himself nodding, as if she'd said something fascinating which he needed time to mull over. Karen started to twitch half-he
artedly to the music. Fortunately Tariq bundled over to interrupt their discomfort.

  ‘Shit!’ he exclaimed. ‘Check out Murray!’

  Tom craned his neck and Karen stood on tiptoes as they tried to see Murray at the far end of the room. He wasn't hard to spot. ‘Jesus Christ,’ Tom muttered.

  On the dancefloor, a zone had cleared around him as Murray got busy. He was an undeniably brilliant mover – rhythmical, loose-limbed and bursting with funk – but there was something disruptive, bizarre and hysterically inappropriate about his style (for a college disco, anyway) as he threw himself wholeheartedly into each new step. And the expression on his face was solemn and oblivious all at once. And his extravagant manoeuvres negated any possibility of dancing as a social activity. And some people watched with their hands over their mouths and others shook their heads laughing and others tutted irritably as his flailing limbs mapped out the majority of the space and threatened to decapitate any trespasser. He was kick-dancing, breaking, locking, winding, stepping and sliding. He did the worm, the cabbage patch, the running man, the robot, the boogaloo and, as the track built to its wailing climax, he flipped from propeller to windmills to a final headspin.

  At one side of the dancefloor there was a group of guys who sneered as they watched. They weren't actually from LMT but were students from Imperial who'd heard about the night and decided to gatecrash and they were incongruously dressed in blazers and slacks and pinstripe shirts with designer monograms on the breast. They all had the same haircut, floppy and long and parted in the middle, and the same round-shouldered manner. When they weren't watching Murray, they addressed each other by their surnames and muttered about the ‘local birds’ and tried to impress the passing talent with their uninterested expressions. Two of them – the two with the youngest faces – were smoking thick cigars and trying to look sophisticated. One of these nudged his neighbour and pointed his Cuban at Murray: ‘What's this plum up to?’