Clive Barker - Weaveworld

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Also by Clive Barker
Short Stories
THE BOOKS OF BLOOD, VOLUMES 1 - VI
Novels
THE DAMNATION GAME
CABAL
THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW
THE HELLBOUND HEART
IMAJICA
EVERVILLE
SACRAMENT
GALILEE
For children
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS
Plays
INCARNATIONS
FORMS OF HEAVEN
WEAVE WORLD
CLIVE BARKER
INTRODUCTION
I remember a window in a farmhouse in North Wales which had a sill of white-washed stone so deep I
could sit sideways in it at the age of six, hugging my knees to my chin. From that spying place I
had a view of the orchard of apple trees behind the house. The orchard seemed large to me at the
time, though in retrospect it probably contained less than twenty trees. In the heat of the
afternoon the farmyard cats, having exerted themselves mousing, went there to doze, and I went to
hunt through the unkempt grass for eggs laid by nomadic hens. Beyond the orchard was a low wall,
with an ancient mossy stile. And beyond the wall an expanse of rolling meadow, grazed by sheep,
with the sea a misty blue prospect.
I have little way of knowing how accurate these memories are; almost forty years have passed since
I was small enough to sit in that window niche. The photographs my parents took of those distant
summers are still pasted in the musty pages of their album, but they are tiny, black and white and
often blurred. There are, it's true, a couple of pictures of the cats, dozing. But none of the
orchard, or the wall, or the meadow: And crone of the window where I sat.
Perhaps it doesn't really matter how accurate my memories are; all that matters is how powerfully
they move me. I still conjure that place in my dreams, and when I wake I have the details clear in
my head. The smell of the nightlights my mother set on the dresser in my bedroom, the dale beneath
the trees, the warmth and weight of an egg, found in the grass and carried into the kitchen like
unearthed treasure. The dreams are all the evidence I need. I was there once, blissfully happy.
And though I cannot tell you how, I believe I will be there again.
The farmhouse has long since disappeared; the cats are dead, the orchard uprooted. But I will be
there again.
If you are already familiar with the book in your hand, you know the relevance of this sliver of
autobiography. Weaveworld is a meditation on memory. Yes, it also tells about magic and demagogery
and angelic judgments, but the central drama of the tale is the way the characters remember - or
fail to remember - the glimpse they've had of paradise.
This, for instance, of Cal Mooney, our hero: 'It was only when, in the middle of a dreamy day,
something reminded him - a scent, a shout - that he had been in another place, and breathed its
air and met its creatures, it was only then that he realized how tentative his recall was . . .. .
The glories of the Fugue were becoming mere words, the reality of which he could no longer
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conjure. When he thought of an orchard it was less and less that extraordinary place he'd slept in
(slept, and dreamt that his life he was now living was the dream) and more a commonplace stand of
apple trees . . . . . Surely dying was like this, he thought; losing things dear and unable to
prevent their passing.’
The novel is not primarily about the escape into Eden. It's about how the knowledge of Eden slips
from us, and the means we devise to hold on to that knowledge: This is, I think, a universal
experience; which may go some way to explaining why the book continues to find readers. I
recently, finished a six-week publicity tour for a new novel, and at book-signings across the
country found readers bringing me battered but much-beloved copies of Weaveworld to be inscribed;
several times I heard people say the book had helped them through dark times in their personal
lives.
There is nothing more gratifying to this author than to sign and personalize a book which has seen
some action: passed between friends, dropped in the bath, coffee-stained and sun-yellowed. I have
in my library copies of certain works - Melville, Poe, Blake - that I've treasured over the years,
all much the worse for wear. I know how close you can get to a book whose stains and creases are
part of your shared history. And what more perfect marriage of form and content, than that a novel
about memory, like Weaveworld, should be valued because of the events that have marked it? The
book was published in 1987, the year in which the first Hellraiser film was released, but it
represented a considerable departure from the transgressive horror fiction with which I had become
identified. There were plenty of critics ready to snipe at the change of direction, opining that
my imagination was too dark for the genre I was attempting to infiltrate, and I was better off
staying on the horror shelves. But the response from readers, including many who were devoted to
the extremes of my earlier work, was overwhelmingly positive. The book sold solidly from the
outset, and has continued to do so, in several languages, ever since. It has sparked off creative
work in other media from readers who wanted to explore the story for themselves: paintings, poems,
musical compositions; even an opera, planned for production in Paris. I have come to believe that
the darkness I imported into the work, far from proving problematic, is very much to the book's
purpose. Yes, there are raptures in the novel, and glorious deliriums. But the Fugue - the magic
haven of the book - is threatened with total destruction, and the powers that overshadow it are
not tuppenny coloured terrors. They are the obscenities of human cruelty and human despair. Tales
of Paradise Lost are central to our culture, of course; we are all exiles from some place of
bliss.
What is that place? A memory of a pre-conscious state of perfect contentment, where we believe
ourselves whole because we have not yet comprehended the fact of our physical separation from our
mothers? Or a religious conviction, too deep in our selves to be subjected to the rigours of
intellectual enquiry, that knows our connection to the planet, to animal life, to the stars? A
faith, is it? Or a glorious certainty? It isn't necessary for a storyteller to have answers to the
questions they pose, of course; only to be interested enough to ask them. Weaveworld is full of
unrequited enquiries. Why does Immacolata's hatred of the Seerkind burn so intensely? Is the
creature in the Empty Quarter an angel or not? And if the garden of sand in which it has kept its
psychotic vigil is not the Eden of Genesis, then where did the Seerkind arise from? There are
certainly answers to these mysteries to be wrought and written, but they would, I am certain, only
beg further questions, which if answered would beg yet more. For all its length and elaboration,
the novel does not attempt to fill in every gap in its invented history. Nothing ever begins, its
first line announces; there are innumerable stories from which this fragment of narrative springs;
and there will be plenty to tell when it's done. Though I get requests aplenty for a sequel, I
will never write one.
The tale isn't finished; but I've told all I can. That is not to say my attitude to the work does
not continue to change. In the past ten years I've gone through, periods when I was thoroughly out
of sorts with the book, or even on occasion irritated that it found such favour with readers when
other stories seemed more worthy. And in the troughs of my discomfort, I made what with hindsight
seems to be dubious judgments about fantastic fiction as a whole. I have been, I think, altogether
disparaging about the escape elements of the genre, emphasizing its powers to address social,
moral and even philosophical issues at the expense of celebrating its dreamier virtues. I took
this position out of a genuine desire to defend a fictional form I love, from accusations of
triviality and triteness, but my zeal led me astray. Yes, fantastic fiction can be intricately
woven into the texture of our daily lives, addressing important issues in fabulist form. But it
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also serves to release us for a time from the definitions that confine our daily selves; to unplug
us from a world that wounds and disappoints us, allowing us to venture into places of magic and
transformation. Though of late my writing has concerned itself more and more with detailing that
wounded, disappointing reality, as a reader I have rediscovered the pleasures, of unrepentant
escapism: the short fiction of Lord Dunsany, early Yeats poems, the paintings of Samuel Palmer and
Ernst Fuchs.
The author who wrote Weaveworld has, however, disappeared. I've not lost faith with the
enchantments of fantasy, but there is a kind of easy sweetness in this book that would not, at
least presently, come readily from my pen. We go through seasons perhaps; and Weaveworld was
written in a balmier time. Perhaps there'll be another. But its tender inventions seem very remote
from the man writing these words.
Maybe that's why, when I sat down to work this morning, I thought of that sill in North Wales, and
the orchard and the wall and the meadow. They too are remote, yet - like the copy of Weaveworld
that sits beside me on the desk they are here with me still; part of my past, and yet present.
That which is imagined need never be lost, runs the epigram in the book of faery-tales Mimi
Laschenski leaves in her granddaughter's keeping. The book will become a repository, before the
story of Weaveworld is told; a place where vulnerable enchantments can take refuge. So inner and
outer books, tales of Faerie and of Fugue, collapse into a single idea, the same precious idea
that brings readers to bookstores with battered copies to be signed, and me, back to memories of a
sill and an orchard to set before you. It's such a simple idea, but it still seems to me
miraculous: that in words we may preserve ideas and images precious to us. Not only Preserve them,
but pass them on. To dream in isolation can be properly splendid to be sure; but to dream in
company seems to me infinitely preferable.
C.B.
BOOK ONE
IN THE KINGDOM OF THE CUCKOO
Part One
Wild Blue Yonder
'I, for one, know of no sweeter sight for a man's eyes than his own country.. . ' Homer, The
Odyssey
HOMING
Nothing ever begins.
There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs.
The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and to the tales that preceded that:
though as the narrator's voice recedes the connections will seem to grow more tenuous, for each
age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making.
Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable; great lovers will stoop to
sentiment, and demons dwindle to clockwork toys.
Nothing is fixed. In and out the, shuttle goes, fact and fiction, mind and matter, woven into
patterns that may have only this in common: that hidden amongst them is a filigree which will with
time become a world.
It must be arbitrary then, the place at which we chose to embark.
Somewhere between a past half forgotten and a future as yet only glimpsed.
This place, for instance.
This garden, untended since the death of its protector three months ago, and now running riot
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beneath a blindingly bright late August sky; its fruits hanging unharvested, its herbaceous
borders coaxed to mutiny by a summer of torrential rain and sudden, sweltering days.
This house, identical to the hundreds of others in this street alone, built with its back so close
to the railway track that the passage of the slow train from Liverpool to Crewe rocks the china
dogs on the dining-room sill.
And with this young man, who now steps out of the back door and makes his way down the beleaguered
path to a ramshackle hut from which there rises a welcoming chorus of coos and flutterings.
His name is Calhoun Mooney, but he's universally known as Cal. He is twenty-six, and has worked
for five years at an insurance firm in the city centre. It's a job he takes no pleasure in, but
escape from the city he's lived in all his life seems more unlikely than ever since the death of
his mother, all of which may account for the weary expression on his well-made fare.
He approaches the door of the pigeon loft, opens it, and at that moment - for want of a better -
this story takes wing.
Cal had told his father several times that the wood at the bottom of the soft door was
deteriorating. It could only be a matter of time before the planks rotted completely, giving the
rats who lived and grew gross along the railway line access to the pigeons. But Brendan Mooney had
shown little or no interest in his racing birds since Eileen's death. This despite; or perhaps
because, the birds had been his abiding passion during her life. How often had Cal heard his
mother complain that Brendan spent more time with his precious pigeons that he did inside the
house? She would not have had that complaint to make now; now Cal's father sat most of every day
at the bade window, staring out into the garden and watching the wilderness steadily take charge
of his wife's handiwork, as if he might find in the spectacle of dissolution some clue as to how
his grief might be similarly erased. There was little sign that he was learning much from his
vigil however. Every day, when Cal came back to the house in Chariot Street - a house he'd thought
to have left for good half a decade ago, but which his father's isolation had obliged him to
return to - it seemed he found Brendan slightly smaller. Not hunched, but somehow shrunken, as
though he'd decided to present the smallest possible target to a world suddenly grown hostile.
Murmuring a welcome to the forty or so birds in the loft, Cal stepped inside, to be met with a
scene of high agitation. All but a few of the pigeons were flying back and forth in their cages,
near to hysteria. Had the rats been in, Cal wondered? He cast around for any damage, but there was
no visible sign of what had fuelled this furore.
He'd never seen them so excited. For fully half a minute he stood in bewilderment, watching their
display, the din of their wings making, his head reel, before deciding to step into the largest of
the cages and claim the prize birds from the melee before they did themselves damage.
He unlatched the cage, and had opened it no more than two or three inches when one of last year's
champions, a normally sedate cock known, as were they all, by his number - 33 - flew at the gap.
Shocked by the speed of the bird's approach, Cal let the door go, and in the seconds between his
fingers slipping from the latch and his retrieval of it, 33 was out.
'Damn you!' Cal shouted, cursing himself as much as the bird, for he'd left the door of the loft
itself ajar, and apparently careless of what harm he might do himself in his bid - 33 was making
for the sky.
In the few moments it took Cal to latch the cage again, the bird was through the door and away.
Cal went in stumbling pursuit, but by the time he got back into the open air 33 was already
fluttering up above the garden. At roof height he flew around in three ever larger circles, as if
orienting himself. Then he seemed to fix his objective and took off in a North-Easterly direction.
A rapping drew Cal's attention, and he looked down to see his father standing at the window,
mouthing something to him. There was more animation on Brendan's harried fact than Cal had seen in
months; the escape of the bird seemed to have temporarily roused him from his despondency. Moments
later he was at the back door, asking what had happened. Cal had no time for explanation.
'It's off' he yelled.
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Then, keeping his eye on the sky as he went, he started down the path at the side of the house.
When he reached the front the bird was still in sight. Cal leapt the fence and crossed Chariot
Street at a run, determined to give chase. It was, he knew, an all but hopeless pursuit. With a
tail wind a prime bird could reach a top speed of 70 miles an hour, and though 33 had not raced
for the best part of a year he could still easily outpace a human runner. But he also knew he
couldn't go back to his father without making some effort to track the escapee, however futile.
At the bottom of the street he lost sight of his quarry behind the rooftops, and so made a detour
to the foot bridge that crossed the Woolton Road, mounting the steps three and four at a time.
From the top he was rewarded with a good view of the city. North towards Woolton Hill, and off
East, and South-East, over Allerton towards Hunt's Cross. Row upon row of council house roofs
presented themselves; shimmering in the fierce heat of the afternoon, the herringbone rhythm of
the dose-packed streets rapidly giving way to the industrial wastelands of Speke.
Cal could see the pigeon too, though he was a rapidly diminishing dot.
It mattered little, for from this elevation 33's destination was perfectly apparent. Less than two
miles from the bridge the air was full of wheeling birds, drawn to the spot no doubt by some
concentration of food in the area. Every year brought at least one such day, when the ant or gnat
population suddenly boomed, and the bird life of the city was united in its gluttony. Gulls up
from the mud banks of the Mersey, flying tip to tip with thrush and jackdaw and starling, all
content to join the jamboree while the summer still warmed their backs.
This, no doubt, was the call 33 had heard. Bored with his balanced diet of maize and maple peas,
tired of the pecking order of the loft and the predictability of each day - the bird had wanted
out: wanted up and away. A day of high life; of food that had to be chased a little, and tasted
all the better for that; of the companionship of wild things. All this went through Cal's head, in
a vague sort of way, while he watched the circling flocks.
It would be perfectly impossible, he knew, to locate an individual bird amongst these riotous
thousands. He would have to trust that 33 would be content with his feast on the wing, and when he
was, sated do as he was trained a do, and come home. Nevertheless, the sheer spectacle of, so many
birds exercised a peculiar fascination, and crossing the bridge, Cal began to make his way towards
the epicentre of this feathered cyclone.
II
THE PURSUERS
The woman at the window of the Hanover Hotel drew bade the grey curtain and looked own at the
street below.
'Is it possible . . . ?’ she murmured to the shadows that held court in the comer of the room.
There was no answer to her question forthcoming, nor did there need to be. Unlikely as it seemed
the trail had incontestably led here, to, this dog-tired city, lying bruised and neglected beside
a river that had once borne stave ships and, cotton ships and could now barely carry its own
weight out to sea. To Liverpool.
'Such a place,' she said. A minor dust-dervish had whipped itself up in the street outside,
lifting antediluvian litter into the air.
'Why are you so surprised?’ said the man who half lay and half sat on the bed, pillows supporting
his impressive frame, hands linked behind his heavy head. The face was wide, the features upon it
almost too expressive, like those of an actor who'd made a career of crowd-pleasers, and grown
expert in cheap effects. His mouth, which knew a thousand variations of the simile, found one that
suited his leisurely mood, and said: They've led us quite a dance. But we're almost there. Don't
you feel it? I do.’
The woman glanced back at this man. He had taken off the jacket that had been her last loving gift
to him, and thrown, it over the back of the chair. The shirt beneath was sweat sodden at the
armpits, and the flesh of his face looked waxen in the afternoon light. Despite all she felt for
him - and that was enough to make her tearful of computation - he was only human, and today, after
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so much heat and travel, he wore every one of his fifty-two years plainly. In the time they had
been together, pursuing the Fugue, she had lent him what strength she could, as he in his turn had
lent her his wit, and his expertise in surviving this realm. The Kingdom of the Cuckoo, the
Families had always called it, this wretched human world which she had endured for vengeance's
sake.
But very soon now the chase would be over. Shadwell the man on the bed - would profit by what they
were so very dose to finding, and she, seeing their quarry besmirched and sold into slavery, would
be revenged. Then she would leave the Kingdom to its grimy ways, and happily.
She turned her attentions back to the street. Shadwell was right. They had been led a dance. But
the music would cease soon enough.
From where Shadwell lay Immacolata's silhouette was clear against the window. Not for the first
time his thoughts turned to the problem of how he would sell this woman. It was a purely academic
exercise, of course, but one that pressed his skills to their limits.
He was by profession a salesman; that had been his business since his early adolescence. More than
his business, his genius. He prided himself that there was nothing alive or dead he could not find
a buyer for. In his time he had been a raw sugar merchant, a small arms salesman, a seller of
dolls, dogs, life-insurance, salvation rags and lighting fixtures. He had trafficked in Lourdes
water and hashish, in Chinese screens and patented cures for constipation. Amongst this parade of
items there had of course been frauds and fakes aplenty, but nothing, nothing that he had not been
able to foist upon the public sooner or later, either by seduction or intimidation.
But she - Immacolata, the not quite woman he had shared his every waking moment with these past
many years she, he knew, would defy his talents as a salesman.
For one, she was paradoxical, and the buying public had little taste for that. They wanted their
merchandise shorn of ambiguity: made simple and safe. She was not safe; oh, certainly nor not with
her terrible rage and her still more terrible alleluias; nor was she simple. Beneath the
incandescent beauty of her fare, behind eyes that concealed centuries yet could be so immediate
they drew blood, beneath the deep olive skin, the Jewess' skin, there lay feelings that would
blister the air if given vent.
She was too much herself to be sold, he decided - not for the first time - and told himself to
forget the exercise. It was one he could never hope to master; why should he torment himself with
it? Immacolata turned away from the window.
'Arc you rested now?’ she asked him.
'It was you wanted to get out of the sun; he reminded. her. 'I'm ready to start whenever you are.
Though I haven't a clue where we begin...’
'That's not so difficult; Immacolata said. 'Remember what my sister prophesied? Events are close
to crisis-point.’
As she spoke, the shadows in the comer of the room stirred afresh, and Immacolata's two dead
sisters showed their ethereal skirts. Shadwell had never been easy in their presence, and they in
their turn had always despised him. But the old one, the Hag, the Beldam, had skills as an oracle,
no doubt of that. What she saw in the filth of her sister, the Magdalene's after-birth, was
usually proved correct.
'The Fugue can't stay hidden much longer; said Immacolata. 'As soon as it's moved it creates
vibrations. It can't help itself. So much life, pressed into such a hideway.’
'And do you feel any of these . . . vibrations?’ said Shadwell, swinging his legs over the edge of
the bed and standing up.
Immacolata shook her head. 'No. Not yet. But we should be ready.’
Shadwell picked up his jacket, and slipped it on. The fining shimmered, casting filaments of
seduction across the room. By their momentary brightness he caught sight of the Magdalene and the
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Hag. The old woman covered her eyes against the spillage from the jacket, fearful of its power.
The Magdalena did not concern herself; her lids had long ago been sewn closed over sockets blind
from birth.
'When the movements begin it may take an hour or two to pin-point the location; said Immacolata.
'An hour?’ Shadwell replied. The pursuit that had finally led them here seemed today to have been
a lifetime long 'I can wait an hour.’
WHO MOVED THE GROUND?
The birds did not stop their spiralling over the city as Cal approached. For every one that flew
off, another three or four joined the throng.
The phenomenon had not gone unnoticed. People stood on the pavement and on doorsteps, hands
shading their eyes from the glare of the sky, and stared heavenwards. Opinions were everywhere
ventured as to the reason for this congregation. Cal didn't stop to offer his, but threaded his
way through the maze of streets, on occasion having to double back and find a new route, but by
degrees getting closer to the hub.
And now, as he approached, it became apparent that his first theory had been incorrect. The birds
were not feeding. There was no swooping nor squabbling over a six-legged crumb, nor any sign in
the lower air of the insect life that might have attracted these numbers. The birds were simply
circling. Some of the smaller species, sparrows and finches, had tired of flying and now lined
rooftops and fences, leaving their larger brethren - carrion-crows, magpies, gulls to occupy the
heights. There was no scarcity of pigeons here either; the wild variety banking and wheeling in
flocks of fifty or more, their shadows rippling across the rooftops. There were some domesticated
birds too, doubtless escapees like 33. Canaries and budgerigars: birds called from their millet
and their bells by whatever force had summoned the others. For these birds being here was
effectively suicide. Though their fellows were at present too excited by this ritual to take note
of the pets in their midst, they would not be so indifferent when the circling spell no longer
bound them. They would be cruel and quick. They'd fall on the canaries and the budgerigars and
peck out their eyes, killing them for the crime of being tamed.
But for now, the parliament was at peace. It mounted the air, higher, ever higher, busying the
sky.
The pursuit of this spectacle had led Cal to a part of the city he'd seldom explored. Here the
plain square houses of the council estates gave way to a forlorn and eerie no-man's-land, where
streets of once-fine, three-storey terraced houses still stood, inexplicably preserved from the
bulldozer, surrounded by areas levelled in expectation of a boomtime that had never come; islands
in a dust sea.
It was one, of these streets - Rue Street the sign read - that seemed the point over which the
flocks were focused. There were more sizeable assemblies of exhausted birds here than in any of
the adjacent streets; they twittered and preened themselves on the eaves and chimney tops and
television aerials.
Cal scanned sky and roof alike, making his way along Rue Street as he did so. And there - a
thousand to one dance he caught sight of his bird. A solitary pigeon, dividing a cloud of
sparrows. Years of watching the sky, waiting for pigeons to return from races, had given him an
eagle eye; he could recognize a particular bird by a dozen idiosyncrasies in its flight pattern.
He had found 33; no doubt of it. But event as he watched, the bird disappeared behind the roofs of
Rue Street.
He gave chase afresh, finding a narrow alley whirl cut between the terraced houses half way along
the road, and let on to the larger alley that ran behind the row. It had not been well kept. Piles
of household refuse had been dumped along its length; orphan dustbins overturned, their contents
scattered.
But twenty yards from where he stood there was work going on. Two removal men were manoeuvring an
armchair out of the yard behind one of the houses, while a third stared up at the birds. Several
hundred were assembled on the yard walls and window sills and railings. Cal wandered along the
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alley, scrutinizing this assembly for pigeons. He found a dozen or more amongst the multitude, but
not the one he sought.
'What d'you make of it?’
He had come within ten yards of the removal men, and one of them, the idler was addressing the
question to him.
'I don't know,' he answered honestly.
'Maybe they're goin' to migrate.’ Said the younger of the two armchair carriers, letting drop his
half of the burden and staring up at the sky.
'Don't be an idiot, Shane,' said the other man, a West Indian. His name - Gideon was emblazoned on
the back of his overalls.
'Why'd they migrate in the middle of the fuckin' summer?’
'Too hot,' was the idler's reply. 'That's what it is. Too fuckin' hot. It's cookin' their brains
up there.’
Gideon had now put down his half of the armchair and was leaning against the back yard wall,
applying a flame to the half-spent cigarette he'd fished from his top pocket.
'Wouldn't be bad, would it?’ he mused. ’Being a bird. Gettin' yer end away all spring, then
fuckin' off to the South of France as soon as yer get a chill on yer bollocks.’
'They don't live long,' said Cal.
'Do they not?’ said Gideon, drawing on his cigarette. He shrugged. 'Short and sweet,' he said.
That'd suit me.’
Shane plucked at the half-dozen blond hairs of his would-be moustache. 'Yer know somethin' about
birds, do yer?’ he said to Cal.
'Only pigeons.’
'Race 'em, do you?’
'Once in a while-'
'Me brother-in-law keeps whippets; said the third man, the idler.' He looked at Cal as though this
coincidence verged on the miraculous, and would now fuel hours of debate. But all Cal could think
of to say was: 'Dogs.’
'That's right,' said the other man, delighted that they were of one accord on the issue. 'He's got
five. Only one died.’
'Pity,' said Cal.
'Not really. It was fuckin' blind in one eye and couldn't see in the other.’
The man guffawed at this observation, which promptly brought the exchange to a dead halt. Cal
turned his attention back to the birds, and he grinned to see - there on the upper window-ledge of
the house - his bird.
'I see him,' he said.
Gideon followed his gaze. 'What's that then?’
'My pigeon. He escaped.’
Cal pointed. 'There. In the middle of the sill. See him?’
All three now looked. 'Worth something is he?’ said the idler.
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'Trust you, Bazo,' Shane commented.
'Just asking,' Bazo replied.
'He's won prizes,' said Cal, with some pride. He was keeping his eyes glued to 33, but the pigeon
showed no sign of wanting to fly; just preened his wing feathers, and once in a while turned a
beady eye up to the sky.
'Stay there . . .’ Cal told the bird under his breath,'. . . don't move.’
Then, to Gideon: 'Is it all right if I go in? Try and catch him?’
'Help yourself. The old girl who had the house's been carted off to hospital. We're taking the
furniture to pay her bills.’
Cal ducked through into the yard, negotiating the bric-a-brac the trio had dumped there, and went
into the house.
It was a shambles inside. If the occupant had ever owned anything of substance it had long since
been removed. The few pictures still hanging were worthless: the furniture was old, but not old
enough to have come back into fashion; the rugs, cushions and curtains so aged they were fit only
for the incinerator. The walls and ceilings were stained by many years accrual of smoke, its
source the candles that sat on every shelf and sill, stalactites of yellowed wax depending from
them.
He made his way through the warren of pokey, dark rooms, and into the hallway. The scene was just
as dispiriting here. The brown linoleum tucked up and torn, and everywhere the pervasive smell of
must and dust and creeping rot, she was well out of this squalid place, Cal thought, wherever
better off in hospital, where at least the sheets were dry.
He began to climb the stairs. It was a curious sensation ascending into the murk of the upper
storey, becoming blinder stair by stair, with the sound of birds scurrying across the slates above
his skull, and beyond that the muted cries of gull and crow. Though it was no doubt self-
deception, he seemed to hear their voices circling as though this very place were the centre of
their attentions. An image appeared in his head, of a photograph from National Geographical. A
study of stars, taken with a slow release camera, the pin-point lights describing circles as they
moved, or appeared to move, across the sky, with the Pole Star, the Nail of Heaven, steady in
their midst.
The wheeling sound, and the picture it evoked, began to dizzy him. He suddenly felt weak, even
afraid.
This was no time for such frailties, he chided himself. He had to claim the bird before it flew
off again. He picked up his pace. At the top of the stairs he manoeuvred past several items of
bedroom furniture, and opened one of the several doors that he was presented with. The room he had
chosen was adjacent to the one whose sill 33 occupied. Sun streamed through the curtainless
window; the stale heat brought fresh sweat to his brow. The room had been emptied of furniture,
the only souvenir of occupancy a calendar for the year 1961. On it, a photograph of a lion beneath
a tree, its shaggy, monolithic head laid on vast paws, its gaze contemplative.
Cal went out on to the landing again, selected another door, and was this time delivered into the
right room. There, beyond the grimy glass, was the pigeon.
Now it was all a question of tactics. He had to be careful not to startle the bird. He approached
the window cautiously. 0n the sun-drenched sill 33 cocked its head, and blinked its eyes but made
no move. Cal held his breath, and put his hand on the frame to haul the window up, but there was
no budging it. A quick perusal showed why. The frame had been sealed up years ago, a dozen or more
nails driven deep into the wood. A primitive form of crime prevention, but no doubt reassuring to
an old woman living alone.
From the yard below, he heard Gideon's voice. Peering down, he could just sec the trio dragging a
large rolled-up carpet out of the house, Gideon giving orders in a ceaseless stream.
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'- to my left, Bazo. Left! Don't you know which is your left?’
'I'm going left.’
'Not your left, yer idiot. My left.’
The bird on the sill was undisturbed by this commotion. It seemed quite happy on its perch.
Cal headed basic downstairs, deciding as he went that the only option remaining was to climb up on
to the yard wall and see if he couldn't coax the bird down from there. He cursed himself for not
having brought a pocketful of grain. Coos and sweet words would just have to do.
By the time he stepped out into the heat of the yard once more, the removal men had successfully
manhandled the carpet out of the house, and were taking a rest after their exertions.
'No luck?’ said Shane, seeing Cal emerge.
The window won't budge. I'll have to try from down here.’
He caught a deprecating look from Bazo. 'You'll never reach the bugger from here,' rite man said,
scratching the expanse of beer-gut that gleamed between T-shirt and belt.
'I'll try from the wall; said Cal.
'Watch yerself-' Gideon said.
'Thanks.’
'- you could break yer back-.’
Using pits in the crumbling mortar for foothold, Cal hauled himself up on to the eight-toot wall
that divided this yard from its neighbour.
The sun was hot on his neck and the top of his head, and thing of the giddiness he'd experienced
climbing the stairs returned. He straddled the wall as though it were a horse, until he got used
to the height. Though the perch was the width of a brick, and offered ample enough walking space,
heights and he had never been happy companions.
'Looks like it's been a nice piece of handiwork,' said Gideon, in the yard below. Cal glanced own
to see that the West Indian was now on his haunches beside the carpet, which he'd rolled out far
enough to expose an elaborately woven border.
Bazo wandered over to where Gideon crouched, and scrutinized the property. He was balding, Cal
could see, his hair scrupulously pasted down with oil to conceal the spot.
'Pity it's not in better nick,' said Shane.
'Hold yer horses; said Bazo. 'Let's have a better look.’
Cal returned his attention to the problem of standing upright. At least the carpet would divert
his audience for a few moments; long enough, he prayed, for him to get to his feet. There was no
breath of wind here to alleviate the fury of the sun; he could feel sweat trickle down his torso
and glue his underwear to his buttocks. Gingerly, he started to stand, bringing one leg up into a
kneeling position - both hands; dinging to the brick like grim death.
From below, there were murmurs of approval as more of the carpet was exposed to light.
'Look at the work in that; said Gideon.
'Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin?’ said Bazo, his voice lowered.
'I don't know 'til you tell me,' came Gideon's reply.
'What say we take it down to Gilchrist's. We might get a price for this.’
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