‘Oh,’ he said.
He had had a dream and his dream, after all these months, had finally come true. But there hadn’t been any pigeons in his dream. No pigeons at all. They had come as something of a shock to him.
‘Oh,’ he said, for the third time.
When he returned three days later, the party was still in full swing. He winced in the darkness of the stairwell as he heard the whirring and clattering of five hundred pairs of grey wings, as he thought of the task that lay ahead of him, but at least he had the grim satisfaction of knowing that he was prepared.
*
This was how Moses had spent his dole cheque that week:
1 broom
1 dustpan and brush
1 mop
1 plastic bucket
1 pair of Torpedo swimming-goggles
3 scrubbing-brushes
1 wicker carpet-beater
20 giant black plastic bin-liners
1 bottle of non-scratch cream cleanser with ammonia
1 bottle of scratch cream cleanser with ammonia
1 bottle of new thicker Domestos
1 bottle of new stronger Vim
1 aerosol of new improved instant double-action double-strength easy-to-use 30 % more free Blast insect-killer with new perfume in new giant family-size can as seen on TV
1 aerosol of Supafresh air-freshener with new alpine fragrance
2 grams of speed
5 packets of Increda Bubble — the popping bubble-gum (Feel the pop! Chew the soft juicy bubble-gum! Blow the fantastic bubble!)
1 case of Merrydown Vintage Cider (dry)
1 cassette of Liszt’s The Dance of Death
1 Second World War hand-held air-raid siren
1 shovel
That, he thought, should just about cover it.
*
The pigeons seemed to have some collective premonition of their impending fate. They began to whirl round the room twice as fast, colliding with each other, slamming blindly into walls and windows. Even the more casual of the pigeons left their mantelpieces and sills and mingled in mid-air, exchanging theories about the new situation and discussing possible courses of action.
Crouching low, with his arms wrapped round his head, Moses crossed the room and opened all three windows. Then, returning to the door, he switched his cassette-recorder on. The first bars of The Dance of Death thundered out at top volume. Moses began to shake the can of insect-killer. He glanced ominously at the pigeons. Some of them seemed to have taken the hint and headed for the open air. The others didn’t seem to understand the significance of the music they were listening to. Moses leaned back against the door and sprayed clouds of new improved Blast into the room. No effect whatsoever. We are not insects, the grey wings seemed to say. We are birds.
Eyes streaming, Moses tossed the can to one side. He reached for the carpet-beater. It was a sturdy article, a relic from Victorian times when carpets took some beating. It didn’t look as if it was going to stand for any nonsense, especially from a handful of twentieth-century pigeons. Things turned out differently. For ten minutes Moses thrashed and flailed. But the pigeons had never seen a carpet-beater before. They didn’t know what it was. They circled the room, wondering why this large man was attacking the air with an old wooden implement. It was strange behaviour, certainly, but not necessarily threatening. Some of the pigeons who had left even flew back into the room again to find out what was happening.
Moses was beginning to feel tired and foolish, he was beginning to feel as if he was playing a game of surrealist tennis that would last for ever, he was just reaching for the Second World War air-raid siren when help came from an unexpected quarter in the shape of a cat, a street-cat by the look of it, jet-black, with a blunt nose and fierce yellow eyes. It slid into the room from one of the window-ledges and crouched by the wall, eyes scouring the busy air, its rangy haunches tense and trembling. Moses stopped beating pigeons and stared at the cat. Where had it come from? And what did it have in mind?
Everything seemed to go quiet as Moses watched the cat begin to move slowly round the edge of the room, its eyes never leaving the pigeons, not for a moment; it seemed to know exactly where the walls were without looking. Halfway round, it paused, spread itself flat on the floor, hindlegs shuffling, and unleashed a haunting guttural cry that cut through the silence its entrance had created. It made Moses think of a seagull. Yes, now he thought about it, the cat sounded exactly like a seagull. How extraordinary.
The pigeons, meanwhile, had reacted with consternation and frenzy. They were clambering over one another in a desperate effort to reach the windows. In a matter of seconds they were gone. The cat sat up, lifted its left leg, scratched its ear, then licked its flank. In the light of its recent eerie display of control, this was reassuringly catlike. The washing over, it shrugged its shoulders, turned tail, and left the way it had come, without so much as a backward glance. Moses was impressed.
During the days that followed, the black cat patrolled the edges of his mind with a casual power, uttering its uncanny seagull cry from time to time as if it could still see the ghost of a pigeon there. The thought of this cat sustained him as he shovelled shit, chiselled and scraped at it, tipped it into buckets and bags, and hauled it down eight flights of stairs and out to the dustbins in the cobbled yard at the back of the club. Sometimes Elliot would be there, lounging against a wall, the spring light picking out the bracelet on his wrist, the mockery in his grin.
‘How’s it going up there, Abraham?’ Elliot asked once as Moses passed. He lit a Dunhill. His gold lighter flashed like a piece snapped off the sun.
Moses looked at him. ‘Was that suit expensive, Elliot?’
‘Two hundred.’ Elliot glanced down, brushed at a lapel.
‘Well, in that case, it’d be a shame to get shit all over it, wouldn’t it?’ Moses said, gesturing with his bucket.
After that Elliot often backed away in genuine alarm whenever Moses trudged past.
*
That April Moses worked harder than he had ever worked for money. Every day for three weeks he undid the padlock on the black door and climbed the eight flights of stairs and, gradually, the shit cleared. Areas of clean floorboards opened up before him like a whole new life. The sight of all this unfurnished space ignited him all over again, and his face would glow through a spattering of dust and filth. Hands blistered, dirt embedded in every crevice of his skin, he returned to Eddie’s flat each night with a larger vision of his future.
There were four rooms altogether. He decided to call them bedroom, lounge, kitchen, bathroom, though there were very few clues as to which was which. No cooker in the kitchen, for instance. No bed in the bedroom. The rooms led one into the next through doors that opened unwillingly, dragging on their hinges, as if children had been swinging on the handles. The walls and ceilings had been painted different shades of grey. The plaster had come loose in some places, leaving patches that looked like scabs. In the bedroom, there was a long brown stain where the rain had leaked through.
Of all the rooms Moses’s favourite was the one he had walked into with Elliot on the morning of the five hundred pigeons. It had a black fireplace surrounded with dark-blue tiles, and a trio of arched windows that reminded Moses of railway stations. They looked out over a clutter of rooftops, treetops, chimney-pots and TV aerials out of which, toffee-coloured in this landscape of red and grey, and surprisingly close, rose the intricate spires and crenellations of the Houses of Parliament. Away to the west a pair of pale-green gasholders stood among the rows of terraced houses like giant cans of paint. Modern offices blocked the view eastwards with their coppery glass façades. Even though it faced north, the room felt bright owing to the size and elevation of these three windows. It had possibilities, this room. Definite possibilities.