Pigeon

by Alys Conran

  “How come what?”

  “How come the police are there?”

  “You phone them, silly.”

  “O,” she said. She looked doubtful.

  Sixth. Inevitable success and locking up of the villain.

  They were both happy with that.

  The only trouble, was that Iola seemed unable, quite…

  First. To understand what an allergic reaction really involved, and…

  Second. To remember with any reliability the exact order of the plan.

  But still.

  11

  Sunday. Sunday. Sunday.

  I’m sitting with Pigeon in our living room. The sound of Gwyn’s van drifts up the road, the pied piper songs of it lifting slowly up the hill, along the higgledy streets, and through the single pane of our living room window. Inside, me and Pigeon have been planning with a bit of paper. Pigeon has a pencil behind his ear and, with his black cheekbone from Him, he looks like he means business, so when I hear the van coming up the hill singing ‘bla bla bla’ and something about love or something, my bol lurches: hunger and nerves.

  Me and Pigeon jump up from the sofa. Running out the door, I have that feeling like a held breath, like I always have when Pigeon thinks too much, because the best ideas are the worst too. There’s kids coming from all the houses, Gwyn’s off-balance songs pushing the children out of their doors like Efa’s pills come through the shiny silver paper when you push on the plastic bubbles behind: Pop! Come the kids out of the houses. Pigeon and me race.

  We’re between the walls of the alley, climbing the fence at the end of it and running across the tarmac towards the van. Our shoes are hard on the road as we run up to the slot in the van’s side and bend there, to pant as always. Our breath steams, the cold air white with it, and above us clouds sweep past, rolling over and over, heavy with hail.

  In the slot is Gwyn’s round face. Gwyn, smiling. He’s looking down at Pigeon through the slot. The thick eyebrows. The dark eyes. The tanned skin.

  “Iawn, bois?”

  Together breathing “Iawn,” in reply.

  Pigeon’s drawing up to the slot first, smiling at Gwyn. I back off, a few meters from the van. I can hear Gwyn laughing his bristly laugh, but the sound scatters on the wind like all the dust that was left of Nain when Efa threw her out over the town from the top of the hill. Behind Gwyn’s van the mountains sit in twisting shapes, making zig zag lines against the sky, and the clouds make shapes too, like they always do. The high clouds are white sheets billowed up by the wind. The lower clouds hang like beards over the mountains.

  Pigeon’s talking now. His body moves with the words he says, pecking at the words like a bird feeding. Pigeon’s talking a long time. He speaks in a long ribbon, pushing words into the cracks of the plan, waving his arms to push them in. In his one hand he’s got one of Hiscigarettes, which he’s kept like the money and the tickets and the receipts, and in his other there’s an orange lolly now too, and now a chocolate one, and he’s pointing at me, and I’m waving at Gwyn as if I’m on a boat going out to sea. Gwyn and Pigeon seem miles away from me. I’m all on my own, three metres away is like a different country, like China, or the United States of America or Spain.

  Pigeon comes over to me, shoves the chocolate one into my hand with a look that means “C’mon!” and walks back to chat to Gwyn. I begin to unwrap, lick once, twice, heart beating.

  Then I begin it, the riaction alergick we’ve been practising by Pigeon strangling me over and over against the rough stones of the school wall. I’m grabbing my own neck and wriggling on the ground like a worm out of the soil, pretending I can’t breathe, going red in the face like Pigeon taught me.

  I’ve never seen Gwyn’s legs before: thick and short, wrapped in blue trousers and covered with a grubby plastic apron that has pictures of toy cars all over. The legs, and the dirty trainers at the bottom of it all, are running towards me. Through my bunched-up eyes, I can see Pigeon slipping into the van behind Gwyn’s legs and behind all the other kids’ faces looking at me as if I’m on the televison. Behind all this Pigeon just slides round the corner into the van like one of Efa’s silk scarves when it runs through your fingers.

  Now I’m getting my face back to normal, clearing my throat like a car starting, and beginning to nod to Gwyn that it’s all right. He sits me up. His arm’s round my shoulder, a killer’s arm, heavy. Gwyn smells of dirty clothes, cigarettes, and sweat.

  “I’m ok. I’m ok. I’m ok.”

  I’m saying it, over and over. But Gwyn doesn’t believe me. Gwyn’s face is covered with drops of sweat, like dew on a window. His breathing’s fast and short. He’s weird and worried, and, although I’m on my feet now, brushing myself off, Gwyn’s still trying to get me to “ista lawr” to “relacs” and take it easy. He won’t take no for an answer, Gwyn, and he’s all worked up, and I don’t get it. Why?

  Five minutes later, I’m stood on my front doorstep, Gwyn’s hands heavy and hairy on my shoulders and Efa looking down at me, eyebrows climbing up her forehead. Efa looks pretty fearsome stood there in all her flower-power glory. She’s facing Gwyn down, shaking her head like the terminator, and she has that face she makes for men that says “you arsehole”.

  “Your daughter,” begins Gwyn in his funny chapel Welsh.

  “She’s my sister.” Frowning even more.

  “Your sister has had an ALLERGIC REACTION. Perhaps indeed...” again his funny bible language, “perhaps indeed she needs to go to the HOSPITAL?” says Gwyn to Efa. He talks funny, like chapel, but with English in. Like as if he’s learnt it. Like as if he doesn’t belong.

  Efa looks at me. I smile. Efa looks at me again, scowls at Gwyn. “Sothach!” she says quickly. Rubbish! And pulls me inside.

  So that’s that for my ice cream. And I’m sitting on my bed in the attic, upset about that, and about not seeing Pigeon, and not going out for all of today Efa says, pulling the two sides of her forehead together all cross like she’s buttoning it up that long line between her eyes.

  Now I’m frowning just like Efa, sitting on the bed, when I hear Gwyn’s van starting up its tunes again, and I jump up, and my heart goes all over my body and into my head until it’s full of a quiet thud and I go all cold with the feeling.

  I’m looking into the window and the picture it makes, with the houses and the hill and the mountains past it, and, in the middle, trickling down the picture, is Gwyn’s van, driving down and down, with a pop song that’s like crying left behind a bit in the air as it goes away. It doesn’t last long the song in the air and then all I can hear is the still house all around me, and past that, there’s nothing but houses and streets and hills and trees.

  “Psychological! Torturer! Murdrer!” Cher pushes, past Efa, past the door, and up the stairs. She’s sniffing for air through all the crying she’s doing, as if it smells to breathe. But I don’t feel like laughing at Cher any more. Pigeon’s gone.

  Now we’re face-to-face in the attic, closer than I’ve ever been to Cher. Cher’s very pretty. She also actually smells really nice, like open windows and fresh grass. But she’s crying, and saying “He’s taken him! Murdrer, sicko, torturer! He’s got Pijin!” although I’m telling her she’s “got it all the wrong way round” like as if Pigeon isn’t Pigeon and doesn’t have good ideas, and like Pigeon isn’t “cleverer than Gwyn and you and me and everyone else. Pigeon’s the one that got in the van himself. Pigeon’s the one.”

  But Cher just says, “Same difference, stewpit,” and just when I’m starting to think a bit that Cher might be right and maybe Pigeon’s dead and Gwyn = murderer so Pigeon = gone forever; just then I remember the plan.

  The brown bits of Cher’s eyes are two perfect rounds done with a compass and a sharp pencil when I tell her what we’ve to do next. While I’m talking I’m thinking Cher’s so perfect and Cher’s got the most perfect white skin I’ve ever seen, so smooth and pale it’s like candles.

  Then Cher and me are out, with Efa running out the d
oor behind us shouting, “Where the bloody hell are you off to?” her shout dangling in the air as we speed down the hill on our bikes, coats spread out with the wind, making two coloured flags against the grey of the hill the pebble dash and the tarmac.

  Pedalling, I see Gwyn’s van ahead of us, at the bottom of the hill, where I always used to look left and right with Nain when we walked to school. I watch what the van does at the junction.

  To the right is the road that goes down town. One grey, ugly road, and all the closed shops and the big kids and chewing gum on the floor on it, and Spar on it too, and at Spar that noise like dying they call ‘mosquito’, like a siren to keep kids out.

  To the left is the way to the sea, and also to the left today a big sign for the fair and that’s where Gwyn’s van goes, with Pigeon in it. The van goes left. It goes quick, and me and Cher are following slow.

  On our bikes we follow the van round the corner to the fair. The short winter day has almost run out like a battery now, and I’m tired, breathing really hard. My legs are burning with all the effort of pedalling, and hunger’s making a big coil inside me.

  When we reach it, the lights of the fair are like fluorescent pens already, although it’s only just getting dark. The lights scribble and shine as they whirl, and the rides make the worst noise. There’s people screaming everywhere like in ‘hell!’ up and down and round on the big rides. The screaming’s spooky, considering what we know about Gwyn. Shooting games are everywhere too, which feels a bit weird too, considering.

  Me and Cher leave our bikes by the chip van, all tied up to a lampost, and then Cher holds my hand. Cher is stiff and cold against me, and she’s walking fast like when Efa stomps along in a mood. Cher takes this whole thing too serious.

  We have to go round half the fair, feeling small between the people, the rides, the stalls, before we finally find Gwyn’s van parked above a steep grassy bank that goes down and down, like for perfect sledging even without snow. The van looks like EddieTheEagle at the top of that bank. For the fair they’ve put plastic barriers all round the top of the slope, in case people roll down the bank. Past the barriers, the dark hill goes all the way down to the road by the sea below. The sea’s turning black like the sky now, but you can still see the worm of the road below the fair, and the stripes of a zebra-crossing far below, and then the grey water stretching away into nothing.

  Up here, the sign saying ‘Hufen Iâ Gwyn’s Ice Creams’ stands like a castle’s flag above the round heads of the people. A long tail of kids goes round to the slot in the van’s side, where Gwyn’s bristling face sticks out, smiling. He’s busy getting the kids ice creams in all the colours they want. He recognises me, and Cher too, and he waves, but he looks at me like I’m trouble because of the riaction.

  Where’s Pigeon? Where’s Pigeon? Behind Gwyn you can see there’s a door inside the van, and maybe it’s a toilet? And maybe Pigeon’s in there, maybe that’s where he is?

  “Murdrer, murdrer. He’s killed Pijin. Murdrer!” Suddenly Cher’s screaming and kicking the side of the van. I want to stop her, but I’m too shy in front of the big kids in the queue and so I just say, “Don’t be stupid, Cher, don’t be daft”, over and again. Cher ignores me and just keeps going.

  “Murdrer. Murdrer!” she screams, and I know now why Pigeon keeps her out of his shed.

  In the slot, Gwyn looks at Cher slow. He’s frowning, doing a job at looking innocent. Behind him, kids on The Twister scream and whirl round in the air. Some of the big kids licking ice creams are laughing at Cher and one boy puts on a girl’s voice and runs round in circles screaming “Murdrer! Murdrer!” while his mates cackle like gulls so that I’m all red now, and embarrassed. Pigeon was right about Cher. Cher’s a pain.

  “Don’t be stupid, Cher. Don’t be daft,” I say again, all quiet, feeling sick as usual.

  Cher doesn’t stop, and the big kids are laughing more now, so I get a hold of Cher’s arms, trying to keep her back. It’s like trying to hold back a dog that’s swimming, Cher’s arms and legs scratching and everything.

  Then, behind and through everything, there’s a shape, moving like a cat out of the van, past the sign on the side that says Mind that child, and running down the bank below, off into the dark. Pigeon’s gone before Gwyn and Cher can turn round to see him. He disappears into the dark, like the smoke from his cigarettes disappears up to the black sky from his attic window. Then he’s gone. Gone.

  Watching him, my hands have stopped holding Cher and so she’s running round the side of the van, pulling open the back doors. Cher’s pink coat’s flicking under the lights and my feet go smack and smack, hard and fast on the ground behind her, cos I hate being second most of all, even with Pigeon gone.

  But now Cher’s gone too far. Too far. She’s jumped into the van with Gwyn and he’s saying “Get out! Get out! You can’t come in here!” and I stop. I stop.

  And then it all happens quick. Like a flash Cher’s fighting Gwyn’s short legs. Like a tiger she is. And she’s so sudden that she takes him down. Gwyn’s falling hard against the floor of the van. His square body’s heavy when it falls. And it’s then the van suddenly shudders, and, watching, I get a panic feeling all fast like electric going up from my feet and to the start of my hair so it tingles and makes me hot and frozen.

  I stand very still but the van isn’t still, not anymore. It moves. It moves a bit, and where it is there’s not such a slope and I think maybe I can stop it? And I think maybe the big kids not laughing anymore will stop it? And now it's down the bank, down, straight through the fence, and down and the wheels rolling. The wheels are rolling and through the back doors I can see Gwyn inside. His face is red, bristly, ugly, scared, and he’s trying to get up against the angle of the floor, and Cher’s inside too. Cher’s inside too. Cher’s screaming now inside the van while it goes. Cher’s screaming. The van’s rolling away and Gwyn’s trying to jump out, and he’s pushing and pushing with his legs out the door and onto the bank, shouting and pushing and falling to the ground. But Cher’s inside. The van’s going away. The van’s going. That’s all. That’s all.

  People are shouting all round me, pushing and shoving. I’m pushed about like a crow in the wind. I’m crying, and I’m cross I’m crying, hot drips, like the prissy hogan Pigeon says I am. I’ve seen kids doing this in fairgrounds before, that lost look, turning and turning on the spot. Stupid. And all alone. And now I’m like them: lost. Because I’ve lost Pigeon, lost Cher, and I’m standing in the fairground between the people all alone.

  Now I collect worried women around me like flies on a dead body. Fags going droop from their hands, they’re bending down to me, itching me with it’s alrights from lipstick mouths.

  And then, there’s Efa! Breathing like she’s been running, covered in scarves and trinkets with threads and bells hanging off her all over, she’s coming towards me. I run to her, pushing everyone and everything away, because I want to smell Efa’s salty skin, feel her arms, her breath rising and falling like the sea. And then. Efa’s been crying.

  And I see it now, and everything in my head goes quiet and smothered. When I look down the bank, and down to the road by the sea, between the dull white and black of the crossing far below, there’s the van. There’s arrows of glass all round it, and, by the side of the van, there’s Gwyn, kneeling on the floor on the crossing, on a white stripe, and he’s pulling his coat over another thing on the floor, curled still like a chrysalis on the black stripe, with little cubes of glass all round it. It has a face, white like a lily, and a stain, red like a pommygranite, is spreading from it on to the ground on the road down there at the bottom of the hill.

  And now, on the other side of the crossing, his skin the colour of bones, Pigeon, thin and small, stands, staring at his new sister on the ground under Gwyn’s coat. And I look at him, and I think as hard as I can, try to think it like Cher would’ve thought it, for real, how we know now, for certain, about Gwyn.

  12

  Pigeon stares. In th
e fair, the dark gathering away from it all, the fairlights whirling, the van resting on its side at the bottom of the hill, and Cher lying there, her soft skin white, dotted like a tabbycat’s coat, but with red. Pigeon looks at Cher, and thinks it’s strange how it’s all happened, thinks how Cher believed it all, every word, and he didn’t, not deep down. Didn’t deep down believe his own stories about Gwyn.

  Pigeon looks at Gwyn there, his angular body shaking over Cher’s fragile one as he tries to get her to wake up.

  “Tyrd!” Gwyn says, over and over, come on…

  wake up…

  wake up…

  Cher stirs, just slightly, so you think she might become herself again, and then is still. And Pigeon doesn’t really think it, not in a proper real sort of a way, not in words and sentences and paragraphs which make sense. No. But in a kind of black-blue way he feels how it’s His fault, His. And while the ambulance comes through the fair like just another ride, and Cher is slotted into the back of it, with all the tubes and regular sounds and machines, Pigeon watches, and is angry.

  To the side of the ambulance Iola’s bright red coat runs down the hill, pulling away from all the people who hold her back and, when Iola runs through the ice cream and up to Gwyn, and kicks Gwyn, screams at him and shouts and shouts these make-believe can’t-believe make-believe words: “murderer, murderer, murderer,” Pigeon knows. He knows that he doesn’t believe it, any of it, even that first idea, Gwyn = od. For that moment, just that moment, it comes tumbling down, the feeling, of hating Gwyn so much it can cover and hide and shelter the hatred Pigeon has for Him. Pigeon sees it all as it is, for that moment. And so Pigeon walks up to Iola, and, as he walks, lifts a hand up, and then smacks Iola right across the face.

  Iola stops dead. She looks at Pigeon, looks at Gwyn, who stares at them both with red, scared eyes, and then she backs off into Efa’s arms. Efa who stands looking at Pigeon hard, with that look they all give him, that look that says that boy.