Bird Brain

by Guy Kennaway

  Amy said nothing, but Banger felt her arms tighten around him. He didn’t like that, but there was nothing he could do about it. They drew up in a converted dairy yard, parked and entered a place that Banger instantly recognised from the smell of bleach, dog and fear, was a vet’s surgery.

  His first thought was: One can’t possibly take a pheasant to a vet, but it was swiftly followed by the caveat: unless he was the pheasant, in which case an exception might be made. In a lifetime of looking after animals, Banger had hardly ever taken one to a vet, though he was known to drop by when there was something wrong with him, to avoid the sniffling queue and quisling doctors at the Health Centre. He always had a tube of antibiotic cream for cuts and sores in his bathroom cabinet that had written on the orange wrapper: for dogs. If an animal belonging to Banger got ill, he gave it a week or two to rally or shot it.

  In the waiting room, a cat shouted abuse from its cage on the floor. Banger lay still on Amy’s lap, feeling her hand on his feathers, until she stood up and took him into a brightly lit surgery and he was placed on a black rubber table.

  ‘I did tell her that it probably wasn’t going to be possible to save him,’ Mrs Bridge said – not entirely helpfully, Banger thought.

  The vet unwrapped the towel. Banger tightened his beak waiting for the pain. He felt the man’s hands touch him gently all over.

  ‘He’s a wonderful fellow, beautiful!’ the vet said. ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘On the road in the country. Can you cure him?’

  ‘He’s been shot.’

  ‘How could anyone shoot something like that?’ Mrs Bridge said. Banger thought that a good sign.

  ‘It happens,’ said the vet. ‘They’ve broken his wing, here.’

  Amy leant over and stared intently at his wound. Banger watched her eyes move over his feathers to his head and was astonished to see tears forming in their corners.

  ‘Can you mend it?’

  ‘Yes, it will heal.’

  ‘Will it have a pain-free life?’ said Mrs Bridge. ‘We don’t want it to suffer any more.’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said the vet.

  ‘Good,’ said Amy, ‘I knew it. I knew it.’

  ‘Right now he’s in trauma, so we need to keep him here, put him on fluids, give him some antibiotics and set the wing under anaesthetic.’

  It was a course of treatment Banger would have begrudged a member of his own family, far less a wounded pheasant.

  ‘Come and take him home this evening,’ the vet continued. ‘What’s he called?’

  ‘What are you going to call him, Amy?’ her mum said.

  ‘He’s called Beauty,’ said Amy.

  ‘You can’t call me that!’ Banger shouted. ‘Oh ruddy hell …’

  She stroked his neck and said, ‘Awwwww.’

  ‘Get off me, you annoying little girl,’ Banger said.

  ‘So, how much is that?’ Mrs Bridge asked.

  The vet named a figure ten times what Barry Brown had paid for him.

  23

  Bracelet

  BANGER WAS DRIVEN back to the Bridges’ semi in the suburbs of Chester, and housed in a rabbit hutch. The cage was on a table in a sun room attached to the back of the house, which gave Banger a view through a picture window to the sitting room. There was a second hutch where an obese white rabbit called Herbert dwelt, who had spent three years watching television with the Bridge family.

  So this was to be Banger’s fate – caged up for the rest of his life watching a suburban family, while being fussed over by a sentimental eleven-year-old girl.

  ‘Any chance of escape?’ Banger asked Herbert.

  ‘You don’t want to do that!’ Herbert said. ‘It’s great here – three meals a day, warmth, safety, a lorra love, TV for nine hours at a stretch, and since he’s been off work we’ve got Sky Sports.’

  ‘I can’t live in a cage,’ said Banger.

  ‘Chill – wait till you get some Weetabix and brown sugar, that’ll change your mind. There’s nothing like that in the wild.’

  ‘Do we get any exercise?’

  ‘Sometimes they give me a run round the garden – it’s a nightmare: wet grass, cold and draughty and stinks of foxes. They have to pull me out of my house and push me round with their feet. Give me my nice little apartment any day.’

  ‘I have to find a way to get out,’ said Banger.

  ‘Rather you than me,’ Herbert said.

  Banger swiftly judged the humans: Mrs Bridge was overweight, and Jim Bridge a skiver. He never went to work, preferring to spend the day in his dressing gown. Amy was an annoying little girl, and her brother Justin an ill-educated youth.

  ‘Oh, Amy,’ said Justin one evening while they watched ‘The Simpsons’, ‘I saw a recipe for pheasant à l’orange in one of Mum’s mags. Don’t come home late from school or you’ll smell him in the cooker.’

  Before the end of the show Jim stood up unsteadily and said, ‘I feel tired. I reckon I’ll go up to bed.’

  ‘Jim’s been off colour,’ said Herbert.

  ‘What?’ asked Banger. ‘He’s bloody bone-idle, sitting around all day long. Nothing wrong with him that a brisk walk won’t fix. Sitting around all day long wallowing in his troubles makes it worse.’

  ‘He’s ill.’

  ‘Unemployment is not an illness,’ Banger said. ‘What he needs is a kick up the backside.’

  ‘I don’t think so. He’s got cancer of the spine. Looks to me like he’s going to snuff it. He’s right off his food and has lost condition. And now his mind’s going. He forgot to feed me one day last week.’

  Amy stood up. ‘D’you need a hand?’ she asked.

  Jim stood looking at her, as if he were thinking about the answer. He smiled and said, ‘No, thank you, love. I should be okay on my own.’

  ‘Can you move?’ said Justin to his father, leaning to his left. ‘Only you’re standing in the way.’

  ‘Just off,’ said Jim, and shuffled to the door. The moment it clicked shut, Amy said, ‘You are such a frigging wanker, Justin.’

  ‘What?’ he asked, all innocence.

  ‘Asking him to move. He’s ill. Are you blind?’

  ‘He’s not that bad, you treat him like an invalid. He’s going to be fine, he told me. He doesn’t want a fuss made of him.’

  ‘He’s not fine, don’t you see?’ she hissed as she stood up and turned to Justin. ‘And all you can say is get out the way.’

  Justin leant to the right. ‘Can you get out the way, ta?’

  Amy walked out the door. closing it behind her. Justin sighed heavily, looked up at the ceiling, and then back at the TV.

  Banger was pleased when they argued; happy families were painful for him to contemplate, and it confirmed his suspicion that all families held ugly truths. He fell easily into the convalescent lifestyle: rising late, eating breakfast, reading the Daily Mail that Amy lined the bottom of his cage with every morning, dozing until lunch, dining well, napping through the afternoon in front of the horse racing and then enjoying a snack before nodding off in front of more TV.

  He had ideas about escape, but they came to nothing. He once said to Herbert, ‘Do you think you could gnaw through this wood?’

  Herbert had said, ‘I’m not that hungry, but thanks for the thought.’

  ‘To get out, not to eat it,’ Banger said.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Herbert. ‘No way, José.’

  One gentle morning about a month after he arrived, Banger came across an article in the Daily Mail about William and Cary. When he saw the photo of them standing in front of Llanrisant Hall under the headline DO THESE TWO OWN THE BEST ESTATE IN BRITAIN? it was like a purring lawnmower running onto a sharp stone.

  At first he thought the photo had to be captioned wrong, but he could recognise the pointed towers and gothic windows of the Hall behind them, and the truth became clear with each jabbing sentence: William and Cary lived at Llanrisant. Banger scanned the piece for a mention of Victo
ria or Tom. There was none. He sat down; he stood up; he turned around. He had definitely left Llanrisant in his will equally to Victoria and Tom. How were William and Cary living there? It was obviously connected to his murder, which he now conceded was not motivated by a disagreement over the number of birds he put down on the estate.

  William had killed him to get Llanrisant. Banger grabbed a lungful of breath.

  He looked at the newspaper again. Each and every sentence choked him with anger. ‘“William and I have found the most indispensible item for living in the country is a helicopter,” laughed Cary.’ Banger couldn’t abide choppers; if he’d had his way he’d have made second-homers walk from London. He had often thought of buying a Stinger ground-to-air-missile to bring down a private helicopter that overflew his house. He looked away from the Daily Mail, blinked, and then read on. ‘“William believes that he is only a steward for future generations, and yes, we’re hoping that soon there’ll be the pitter-patter of little feet in the Hall – far away in the children’s wing, of course – who’ll end up inheriting the estate in their turn!”’

  He sat down and thought long and hard about how this had happened.

  Amy came home from school. Jim sat up and forced a smile.

  ‘How are you today?’

  ‘Good, good,’ said Jim through the pain.

  ‘What? Better?’ Amy asked.

  ‘I think so, a little,’ Jim answered, trying to maintain the smile.

  Banger approved of the way Jim tried not to alarm the children. Amy sat on the sofa with her dad; they watched ‘Scrubs’ in silence with Amy leaning her head on Jim’s shoulder. Banger thought about all the difficulties he had had with Victoria. Even as a child he had found it hard to cuddle her, or even to relax with her. And now this had happened with the estate. Leaving Llanrisant to her in his will had been his masterplan to put it right with Victoria. He knew he couldn’t do it with words; he was a man of action. But like most of his plans involving Victoria, it had gone wrong. For Victoria’s eighteenth birthday, Banger had gone to Chester and bought her a bracelet from Lowe and Son, a jeweller on the Rows. He had written her a reasonably uncritical letter, and sent it with the box to her boarding school, but had never heard a thank-you. This had annoyed him. When she came back for the holidays he had noticed that she wasn’t even wearing the bracelet. Banger took this as a rejection, and sulked around the place, alternately scowling at her and avoiding her eye. Ten months later he had been searching the back of a drawer in the gun-room desk for a stamp, and had found an unposted package addressed to Victoria. Inside it was the bracelet and his birthday letter. He had forgotten to send it. He had remembered that he had put it away so it would arrive on the correct day. He had felt like an idiot – but here was his real idiocy: he had never mentioned it to Victoria, who had lived under the impression that Banger had given her not so much as a card for her eighteenth birthday.

  Banger began to think about his will. When he had fallen out with Victoria, in the 1990s, and had got friendly with William, he had written a will that had left everything, every acre, every building, and every penny to his half-brother – to punish Victoria, and to keep it out of the loathsome Kestrel’s hands. When Victoria had come to live on the estate, years later, he had grown fond of Tom, and at least able to tolerate Victoria, so had penned a new will, in Victoria and Tom’s joint favour. With a sickening realisation, Banger remembered that he had drawn up this second will only the day before he had died.

  He had penned it at his desk, signed it, folded it, placed it in an old envelope, and had written his lawyer’s name, B. A. Hudson Esq., on the envelope, planning to take it down to Hudson personally. But had he actually driven into Oswestry and given it to the man? That he could not recall. Was it possible that he had not, and this new will had not been found after his death? Or had William got hold of the new will, and killed Banger, while the old one still pertained, to inherit the place?

  Jim lost more weight and began to move as though he were underwater. Mrs Bridge’s sister, Aunty Pam, a big blousy woman with a lot of make-up and jewellery, came round. When Jim went upstairs he left the two women in the lounge. Mrs Bridge started crying.

  ‘I’m so worried,’ Mrs Bridge sniffed.

  ‘Don’t worry, babe,’ said Aunty Pam. ‘He’ll be okay. He’s had a big operation, he’s not going to bounce back that fast.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Sure, I had a friend who had the same thing. I told you about him – Paul – it took him six months before he was properly up and about and put the weight back on.’

  ‘So you don’t think I should worry?’ said Mrs Bridge, tears staining her face.

  The door opened and Justin came in. ‘Ey-ya,’ he said, plonking himself lengthways on the sofa. ‘Are you two … everything all right?’

  ‘Yeah, love,’ said Aunty Pam. ‘Your mum’s just having a little cry.’

  Justin eyed his mum carefully. Mrs Bridge said, ‘I’ll put your tea on, love.’

  Aunty Pam went out into the sun room, lit a Lambert and Butler and took out her mobile phone.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Shite, absolute shite.’ She took a deep draw on her cigarette. ‘Put it like this: hope you got a black suit. Yeah,’ she said, ‘it’s come to that. See you later, babe, bye.’

  When she came back into the lounge Justin said, ‘Is Mum okay?’

  Aunty Pam said, ‘She’s fine, she’s just tired I think.’

  ‘What did you think of Dad?’ Justin asked.

  Aunty Pam smiled. ‘He’ll be okay, don’t you worry. He’ll pull through, you’ll see.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Justin.

  ‘I’ll go and help your mum out,’ she said.

  When he was on his own Justin leant forward and put his head in his hands.

  Herbert said, ‘It’s hard for the lad.’

  The door opened and Amy came in. She closed it behind her.

  ‘She’s taking it badly too,’ said Herbert. ‘She loves her dad.’

  Justin looked at her and said, ‘I’m worried about Dad.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘So am I. So am I.’

  She sat down next to him. They didn’t say anything more until Aunty Pam came in smiling with cups of tea.

  24

  Anchor to a Kite

  DOGS ALWAYS KNEW the mood of a household. It affected them personally. Tom came into the Pemberley Sovereign and sent Tosca sliding across the lino with his boot.

  ‘Get out of the way, you stupid animal,’ he growled, throwing his homework onto the one-legged table.

  ‘He’s not angry with you,’ Sunshine said. ‘He’s unhappy with that new school.’

  Victoria was no better: when Sunshine accidentally bashed into the water bowl Victoria shouted, ‘You stupid, stupid, stupid bloody dog. God, why did I ever …?’ As she got on all fours and wiped the floor.

  ‘It’s not your fault. It’s because we are all cooped up in here,’ Tosca said to Sunshine. ‘Either that or PMT.’ PMT was a regular and powerful force in the life of any dog who lived with women.

  Victoria started staying in bed all day. If a car drove up she sat up, twitched the curtain and fell back heavily onto the foam. It was always someone coming to see Bryn in the bungalow – no one dropped in on her any more. Sometimes she cried into the pillow, with the dogs staring at her anxiously.

  ‘The best thing for her would be exercise,’ Tosca said. ‘It does humans the world of good when they have the blues.’ They tried to get her out, by scratching on the door, and being boisterous, but Victoria just lumbered out of bed to free them. When Tom came back she told him to walk them, but he just ambled out of sight of the caravan and let the dogs stray off.

  Dogs needed a human to walk. Without a man or woman to decide on the route, to hold a lead, to throw a stick and whistle them back, things fell apart. You needed a human to assess the danger of roads, and electric fences, among other hazards. Victoria had always been careful to check an electr
ic fence with a blade of grass before giving the all clear. Banger had been less reliable, and was even known to usher his dogs forward to test if the current was on.

  Without Victoria, Tosca, Spot and Sunshine started to go back in evolution. Spot particularly, but then he was a terrier, a breed that only ever really pretended to be domesticated. When Victoria or Tom had called their names in the old days, it had brought the dogs to the booted feet of their human. But Victoria’s boots were always on their side under the Pemberley now, and the open fields and verminous barns of Gwyn’s farm drew the dogs away from the caravan. Victoria had been to her dogs like an anchor to a kite, and when the string dropped from her hand, Tosca, Sunshine and Spot floated free.

  Spot headed for a pair of rats holed up like desperadoes behind a squashed bale of vintage silage; Tosca sniffed the air and thought she’d take a naughty stroll along the brook, and Sunshine stood quivering, staring at the Pemberley, willing Victoria to get up and rescue them.

  Tom was no good either, rolling a joint as soon as he got out of sight, then plugging in his iPod and ignoring them. He had once thrown sticks for Tosca. You had to have an artistic temperament to enjoy retrieving sticks. The same urge that drove a human to find a melody in a piano, a story in a pile of research or a picture on a canvas drove Tosca to find an old tennis ball in a bed of dead leaves or a thrown stick in a hedge. Bringing it back and laying it proudly at Tom’s feet had been Tosca’s version of publication, of giving a concert or having an exhibition. But Tom didn’t want to play any more, and Victoria was reduced to a bump in the bed.

  25

  Lifelike

  WHEN MRS BRIDGE WRESTLED a Christmas tree through the doorway and into the lounge Banger sighed and said to Herbert, ‘That means I’ve been here over two months.’

  ‘You’ve lasted longer than your predecessor.’