The Pigeon Loft

They were leaving today. The boot of their car was open on the drive, and from the garden rose screams and little footsteps as his grandkids played a farewell game of tig. He was up at the pigeon loft, waiting for his pigeons. It was at the top of a steep bank that led up from the drive, and from the bench outside he could see all of the valley. He saw the paddock, the silver birch trees that were slowly making a forest of the far side, and closer, to his right, the wall that ran up the side of the garden, crumbled in the middle by the oak that had fallen last Christmas and was still resting now on the loft roof. It had broken the roof, so when it rained the pigeons flew up to the beams and he had to sweep the water out before feeding them.

He saw these things, and then his eyelids closed and he didn’t see, a few moments later, his youngest grandson running up the bank towards him.

‘Grandad!’ came his voice. ‘Did you kill someone in the worldwide war?’

He woke up. The boy was standing in front of him, crouched forward with his hands on his knees, panting. He was seven or eight, with blond curls and a wide, strong face. ‘That’s right,’ said the old man, ‘I chopped his head off.’ He pointed to the door at the end of the loft. ‘I keep it on a stick in there.’

The boy looked. For a moment he was silent, and then he smiled very faintly and said, his voice hoarse, ‘Not really.’

Seeing the boy’s mother as she blamed him for the nightmares, the old man said, ‘Right you are, son,’ but the boy wasn’t looking and his words didn’t seem to make an impact.

‘If someone tries to kill me,’ said the boy, ‘do you know what I’ll do?’

‘No, what will you do?’ said the old man.

The boy came forward and pressed a finger to the side of the old man’s neck. He moved it a little, murmuring to himself, and then he stepped back and said solemnly, ‘I know the pressure points.’

‘Ah,’ said the old man, and smiled. He thought of telling everyone at lunch what the boy had said – how funny they’d all find it. Only, the pigeons weren’t back yet. If they didn’t come soon he’d have to eat sitting at his bench, and raise a palm as they drove away.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Are you sad to be leaving?’

But the boy was already walking off, and now he started running down the bank.

‘Come back,’ the old man called. He had stood from his bench.

The boy stopped running when he was level with the horse-walker, overgrown and rusted since the ‘90s. He turned and jogged back, panting exaggeratedly.

‘Let’s have a talk,’ said the old man, ‘just you and me.’ He sat in his seat and the boy sat next to him, and together they looked out over the valley. ‘Now what would you like to talk about?’

After a moment the boy said, squinting up at him, ‘Did your friend kill your other friend?’

The old man said nothing, and then he said, ‘Friend of mine called Brian. Got into a disagreement with the chap across the road and ended up in hospital.’ That moment something caught his eye. ‘Now, then,’ he said, looking up and blocking out the sun with his arm, but it was only a buzzard high in the distance. They watched as it soared through the air and flapped into place on the telegraph line above the paddock. ‘But he’s not dead,’ he finished, ‘and I’m no friend of the chap that stabbed him.’

He paused. He had not wanted to give details.

‘Can you tell me the story?’ said the boy. Then, receiving no reply, he said something the old man didn’t make out.

‘Beg your pardon?’

‘What animals are you scared of?’

‘Good question. Let me see. None, because I’ve got a gun.’

The boy looked up. ‘Really?’

'No word of a lie,’ said the old man. He stood up and went through the door at the end of the loft, and when he came out a few minutes later he was carrying a shotgun. ‘Now watch,’ he said, and reaching into his jeans pulled out a shell, which he fed into the gun. He snapped it into place and took aim at the muck-heap down in the paddock, at the wheelbarrow that was still stuck in nettles.

He fired, and the gun jumped back. The noise seemed to shake the world. There was another crack as the shell shot through the barrow, and for a second he was still. Then he folded the gun and sat down with it on his lap.

From the garden came the high-pitched voices of the boy’s siblings and cousins in unison: ‘Ja-ames! Where are you?’

‘I’m going now,’ said the boy, and he jumped up and ran down the bank. He got as far as the greenhouse, with its cracked, moss-flecked panes, and stopped. Then he looked back, seemingly for permission to leave, like when he'd ask if he could have an apple while he was already chewing on his first mouthful of it.

With two fingers, the old man beckoned him back. The boy’s head dropped and he ran up the bank again, before standing in front of the bench, a little further away now.

‘I thought we were having a talk,’ said the old man.

The boy sat cross-legged on the floor and started ripping up clumps of grass. ‘Why’ve you got a gun?’ he said.

‘You never know when one’ll come in handy,’ said the old man. ‘I didn’t scare you, did I?’

Sieving grass between his fingers, the boy shook his head.

‘I know you’re not a baby,’ said the old man, squinting at the horizon. ‘You’re actually very old, aren’t you?’ When the boy didn’t reply, he added ‘What are you now, nine?’

‘Eight.’

‘Eight?’

The boy nodded, head down.

The old man raised his eyebrows and whistled, as down on the drive the front door of the house opened. His daughter – the boy’s mum – carrying a tray of drinks to the lawn, where lunch was about to be served. Behind her followed the old man’s wife. She moved slowly, and stopped every few seconds to look around as if she was lost. Watching, the old man said ‘Don’t you want to be a big boy?’

The boy shook his head. ‘No because then I’ll become an old man and die.’

‘We all die,’ said the old man.

The boy was silent.

The old man sat back in his seat, turned his face to the sun, and whistled again. ‘Well, it’s a glorious day, that’s for certain. Can you handle a brush, son?’

He looked down at the boy, and the boy looked up and nodded.

‘Good lad. There's some corn in that stable that needs sweeping, if you would.’

A few minutes later the old man stood, still carrying the gun, and walked over to the stable. Holding the brush to his stomach, the boy was pushing it over the stable floor, which was sharded with sunlight from the broken roof. Most of the corn was escaping under the bristles.

He watched for a minute, one hand on the door; then he reached down and bolted it shut. The boy didn’t seem to hear. Smiling, the old man walked back to his bench and sat down again. ‘Would you like to hear the story now?’ he called.

The boy called back that he would. His voice was small inside the stable.

‘Well. He’s a chap I know, a pigeon-fancier. For years he hasn’t got on with his neighbour, Langridge; it’s a family thing, you know. But just recently it’s been building up and up, getting more and more out of hand. Nothing terrible – just niggling things. Langridge dumping fence-posts on Brian’s field, Brian blocking Langridge’s drive with his tractor. Anyway. It’s gone on and on like this until this Monday gone, when Brian was starting his tractor in the morning and heard someone come up behind him. And who was it but Langridge, holding a chisel. And he stabbed him with it in the chest. Again, and again, and again. His wife heard the commotion and ran outside, and there he still was, stabbing him. She pushed him off and he ran away; then she called an ambulance and a helicopter came and flew him to the hospital. Which is where he is now – on a life-support machine.’

‘Why did he stab him?’ called the boy.

‘Crackers, son.’          

A pause, and the boy’s voice came again. ‘Grandad? What’s happens when you die?’

‘Good question. Perhaps it all goes dark.’

There was a thumping sound, and the old man chuckled. The boy was banging against the door.

‘I can’t get out,’ he called.

‘Oh, dear.’ Soon they would be gone, and he’d get into the Daihatsu and go and do the feeds. Their toothbrushes, shoes, chargers, books – all would be gone. Time would slow back down, and he and his wife would be alone in the house again.

Painfully – all the sitting and standing had seized him up – he stood and made his way to the stable. He swung it open and the boy ran out, head down, crying. The boy ran to the bottom of the bank, where he stopped and turned and gave the old man the ‘V’.

The old man watched him, and for some time stayed watching the spot where he had been, frowning slightly. Then he looked up to see a pigeon – and now another, and now three more – dip down and start circling the roof.

The bell was ringing and lunch was ready.