Pigeon Summer
Authors: Ann Turnbull
I should like to thank everyone who helped me
with my research into pigeon racing, especially
Angela Harris and Wilson Stephens.
“He … that … h–h–he—”
“Heareth,” said Miss Lidiard. “Start again, please, Arnold.”
“He that … heareth … you … h–h—”
“Heareth.” Miss Lidiard’s fingers drummed on her desk top.
The class sighed and shifted. Mary hid the crossed fingers of her left hand in her lap and turned the page of the Bible with her right. She glanced over her shoulder at Arnold Revell. He sat hunched over the undersized desk, his face furrowed in concentration, mumbling as he traced the words with a finger.
“Speak up, Arnold,” said Miss Lidiard.
The class tittered. Olive Jennings, who was sharing the Bible with Mary, leaned forward. Her plait tickled Mary’s cheek. “Dopy,” she whispered, enjoying the diversion.
But Mary wriggled with impatience. She wasn’t in the mood for Miss Lidiard’s Arnold-baiting. It was the last lesson of the day. The last few minutes. She’d had her fingers crossed all afternoon. All she wanted now was to hear the bell.
Miss Lidiard tired of tormenting Arnold. “Doris Brown,” she said.
“Hethathearethyouhearethme…” gabbled Doris.
Show-off, thought Mary.
“ … And he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me—”
The bell clanged.
“Thank you, Doris,” said Miss Lidiard. She closed her Bible. Benches scraped as the class stood up.
“Hands together, eyes closed,” said Miss Lidiard.
Mary obeyed, keeping her fingers still furtively crossed. The familiar words came to her tongue unthinking while her mind prayed.
Please: let me get home in time to see it hatch
.
“Goodbye, children.”
“Goodbye, Miss Lidiard.”
They were free. Out through the doorway into the playground.
“Want a pear-drop?”
Olive passed Mary a paper bag. Inside were a few yellow sweets, stuck together. Mary prised one free, bringing bits of paper with it.
“Thanks.”
She sucked the sweet slowly, spinning it out, feeling its cough-medicine smell going up the back of her throat. She didn’t get many sweets, not now Dad was out of work, but Olive’s family owned the sweet shop in town.
“There’s your sister,” said Olive.
Mary removed a fragment of paper bag from her tongue. “I’d better go. See you!” She ran to join Phyl.
“Only three more days!” said Phyl.
Next Thursday, the ninth of May 1930, would be a special day for Phyl. It was her fourteenth birthday and she would be leaving school for ever.
Mary was jealous. She breathed pear-drop scented breath at her sister.
“Get off!” giggled Phyl, pushing her. “What have you got your fingers crossed for?”
Phyl never missed anything. Mary hid her left hand behind her back.
“I haven’t.”
“You have.
I
know! The squeaker.”
“I want to see it hatch. I always miss them.”
“You and your pigeons,” said Phyl.
They walked home fast. Both were hungry; they’d had only a hunk of bread for their dinner, and that was hours ago.
They ran down Lion Street and turned in at the arched passageway between their house and the Lloyds’.
The fragrance of soup drifted from the kitchen.
Mary was tempted to stay with Phyl and follow the smell to its source. But the possibility of seeing the squeaker hatch was too exciting. She ran down the garden path, between the line of damp washing and the rows of leeks, to the loft.
Dad had built the loft. It was a good one, strong and roomy and clean-smelling. It faced south, side-on to the house, so she couldn’t see the pigeons until she turned the corner. But she heard their cooing. The front of the loft was slatted to let in air, and behind it she saw the birds moving about.
It felt strange not to find Dad here, checking the food and water, talking to the birds, making notes in the book that hung on a nail inside the door. But Dad had gone to Midhope today, looking for work, and wouldn’t be back till late. Today it would be Mary’s job to let the hen birds out for their exercise while the cocks were sitting.
She opened the door and went in. The birds knew her, and she caused only a slight shifting and ruffling of feathers. She moved softly, as her father had taught her. At the end of the row was Lenin on his nest-bowl. And she was too late! The eggshell lay broken on the floor, and underneath Lenin’s breast feathers she caught a glimpse of down.
“Come on, let’s see you,” she said. She lifted Lenin, who fluffed up his feathers and looked outraged, and there it was, a tiny thing with sealed eyes and an oversized lump of a beak. Its down was still not quite dry.
“Only missed you by half an hour, I reckon,” said Mary.
There was a tapping at the loft door: Lennie, her little brother.
“I want to see the squeaker.”
Mary let him in, shushing him, slowing him down.
“Can I hold it?” Lennie’s hands reached out longingly.
“Not now. When it’s older.”
“Can I hold the Lennie one?” Lennie was convinced that Lenin was named after him and he had a special fondness for the bird.
“No. He’s getting cross.” Mary put the struggling bird down by the nest-bowl. Lenin climbed back in and spread himself protectively over the newly-hatched bird and the second egg, which would hatch in a day or two.
“You can hold the Gaffer,” said Mary.
The Gaffer was the oldest bird in the loft, and the tamest. He didn’t race any more because he had once fractured a wing and it had healed crooked, but he had been a great racer in his time and Dad kept him for breeding.
He was sitting on a ledge now, close to Mary, watching. Mary picked him up, feeling the weight of him, nearly as much as the one-pound bags of sugar Mum sent her to fetch from Greenings. She passed him to Lennie.
The Gaffer sensed Lennie’s awkwardness and struggled. Mary showed her brother how to hold him, with one hand curved round his breast, the other round his rear, and the legs held between two fingers.
“Your hands are a bit small,” she said.
“I like him,” said Lennie. But the Gaffer fluttered, and he let him go.
Mary heard Phyl shouting outside. “Mum says do you want any tea or not?”
Mary opened the door a crack. “I’ve just got to let these hens out.”
“Hurry up, then. She’s in a mood.”
“That egg’s hatched,” said Mary.
Phyl pulled a face. She didn’t like pigeons, especially newly-hatched ones.
Mary opened up the loft, talking to the birds, urging them to fly. A few came out. She didn’t stay to see them all off, but ran indoors behind Phyl and Lennie.
Mum said, “I’d have thought you’d want your tea before messing with those birds.”
She had put out bowls of soup and was checking the potatoes in the oven. The heat from the fire reddened her face.
Baby Doreen was whimpering. Phyl picked her up and shushed her.
“Get your soup, Phyl,” said Mum. “I’ll see to Doreen.”
“Aren’t you having any?” Phyl asked. The girls knew that sometimes their mother missed meals to save money. She had always been thin, but now the scraped-back hair showed up hollows under her cheekbones.
“I’ll wait for your dad,” she said.
They turned to the food, and there was silence, except for Lennie’s slurping and an occasional hiccough from Doreen.
The potatoes had been cooked in the slow oven. They were soft, so that the skins just broke. Mary ate hers and scraped the plate. She felt she could have eaten ten more.
“If you’re still hungry,” said their mother, “there’s bread and jam. But go easy on the bread.”
Guiltily they spread jam on slices of bread and wolfed them down.
Their mother went off to feed and change Doreen, and Phyl collected the dishes and fetched water from the shared tap in the yard.
Mary went back to the pigeons.
There were eight breeding pairs in the loft, ranging in age from the Gaffer down to the yearlings. The flock was circling overhead. Mary counted eight birds. Good. That meant the cocks were still sitting, and all the hens were out.
Mary loved to watch them. She heard the whirr of their wings as they flew overhead. They passed behind the chimneys of the houses opposite and over towards Springhill Pit, where Dad had worked until it closed last year. The sun came out from behind a cloud and caught their light undersides and they all flashed together as they cornered and swung back.
They were beautiful. A team. And separately they were good, too. Ruby, named for her dark red eyes, was a strong little bird, plenty of stamina, never gave up; Lavender had won from Exeter last year. But there was one in particular that Dad had great hopes for: Speedwell. Speedwell was destined for Rennes, Nantes, maybe Bordeaux. There were other good racers in the loft: Bevin and True Blue had both won short-distance races last year. But Speedwell was a granddaughter of the Gaffer, a long-distance racer. She was the one he would send to the south of France.
It had begun to rain while Mary stood watching the birds: a few spots at first, then heavy soaking rods. Vaguely, above the sound of the rain and the cooing from the loft, she became aware of her own name – “Mary! MARY!” – shouted in increasing exasperation.
Mum was standing at the back door, Doreen screaming in the crook of her arm. With her free hand she held the laundry basket.
Mary ran up the path.
“Get the washing in, for heaven’s sake!” snapped Mum. She thrust the basket at Mary. “Couldn’t you have grabbed it when it started to rain? Standing there gawping up at those birds. You never
think.”
She went in, slamming the door.
Mary snatched pegs from the line, tossing the clothes unfolded into the basket. They had been damp anyway, but they were getting rapidly wetter as she worked her way along. The rain soaked into the shoulders of her cardigan and trickled down the back of her neck.
The line cleared, she backed in through the door with the heavy basket. Her mother was ironing.
“Hang them round the fire,” she said.
Mary began draping towels and nappies over the rack.
“You never
think,”
said Mum again. “There’s Phyl putting Lennie to bed, and I had Doreen, and what are you doing? Standing out in the rain staring up at those damn pigeons.”
She banged the iron down, folded a pillowcase and picked up a blouse.
Mary hung the last nappy on the rack.
“I’ve got to shut them away,” she said.
“Yes, and when you’ve done that you can take this lot upstairs,” said Mum.
Mary went to the door.
“The washing was wet any road,” she said, and flounced out before her mother could answer. She was angry because she knew she should have noticed; somehow she could never do anything right for her mother.
The shower was over. Light glinted on the pigeons’ wings. She filled the feed tin and shook it, whistling. They came at once, swooping down to the loft. She took a last look at the squeaker, then shut them in.
Back indoors, she had scooped up a pile of ironed clothes from the table and was on her way upstairs when familiar footsteps sounded in the passage. Dad was back!
She dumped the clothes on the top step and ran downstairs. Phyl followed her.
Dad shut the door and hung his coat on the hook. They could see from his face that he’d had no luck.
“Sit down, love,” said Mum. “I’ll warm the soup.”
Dad sat in his chair by the fire.
“Nothing,” he said.
Mary felt apprehensive. This voice, this slump of the shoulders, were not like her father, not the Dad she knew. Dad was always so full of enthusiasm. She’d seen him standing up at pit-head meetings, “sounding off”, as Mum would call it, his voice ringing, his shoulders thrown back. And in the loft, with the pigeons: he was gentle – you had to be – but he was confident. He knew his system was right. He knew his pigeons were winners. And in any crisis he was always the one who knew what to do.