Pigeon Summer (3 page)

Mary had always loved that photograph. Her mother was so slim and pretty, and Mary had dreamed of one day looking like her. Phyl would, of course – she’d seen that look in Phyl when she pulled back her hair and put on the hat with the cherries. But not me, she realized now. I’ll never look like Mum. I’ll look like Aunty Elsie.

She turned to her mother. “You don’t like Aunty Elsie, do you?”

“What?” Her mother blushed, startled. “Don’t be silly. You know how good she’s always been to us.”

She put the tape-measure away.

“Now, I want you to go to Greenings and get some groceries. I’ll write a list. And you can call in at the drapers and see if you can get some dark sewing cotton for that frock. Don’t bother matching it. Black or brown will do…”

Resignation crept over Mary. Saturday was Mum’s cleaning day and that always meant extra chores for Mary: do the shopping, hang the washing out, peel the potatoes, mind Doreen, mind Lennie. She’d be lucky to find much time for the pigeons today. Still, shopping was better than helping with the cleaning.

“And can you pop in and see Uncle Charley? He might need something.”

Mary went to see Uncle Charley first. She liked him. He was her mother’s uncle, retired long ago from the pit with dust on the lungs. He couldn’t get about much, although he managed to creep the few yards to the Rose and Crown every night. Dad often met him there. The pub had a meeting room at the back where the pigeon club met. Dad and Uncle Charley both went to the meetings, although Charley didn’t race any more; he just kept a few old favourites.

They were soon out in the garden, looking at the pigeons and the few chickens that were scratching around amongst the nettles. Uncle Charley found four eggs and gave them to Mary to take home.

“All of them?” asked Mary.

“One each.”

“Doreen doesn’t eat proper food yet.”

“Well, two for your mum, then.”

“Mum wouldn’t eat two.”

“She should. Tell her.”

“But she won’t. And what about you?”

Uncle Charley laughed. The laugh turned into a cough, and he coughed and coughed; his face was grey. When he got his breath back he said, “Don’t worry about me. A pot of tea and some bread and jam. That’ll do me fine. Now, tell me about your pigeons. Nice flying weather. Are you training them?”

Mary pulled a face.
“Trying
to. I want to take them out on a toss. Not just a mile or two – I’ve done that – but a real one, five miles, or seven, out in the country. But there’s never any time. It’s school all week, and then after school and on Saturdays Mum says do this, do that, and I don’t get a minute.”

“Well, you must help your mother.”

“I
know
, but…”

Mary paused. An idea was forming in her mind, but she daren’t tell Uncle Charley about it. He’d be shocked. She was a bit shocked herself. She changed the subject.

“Dad thinks Speedwell’s a winner. Best long-distance bird he’s had. I want to put her in for Bordeaux in July.”

“Bordeaux! That’s over seven hundred miles, girl.”

“She could do it. She won last year from Nevers, didn’t she?”

“That’s true. She did. She’s a lovely bird. Try her on four hundred-odd later this month. There’s Le Mans, or Nantes. I’ll put her in for you.”

“Thank you.” Mary wished she could go to the club herself, but Mum had forbidden it. The pigeon club was a man’s place, she said; she wasn’t having Mary hanging around a public house; besides, there was enough for her to do at home.

“But the races,” Mary had protested.

“Your father asked you to look after them, not race them.”

“But that
is
looking after them!” Mary exclaimed. “I might win some money,” she added.

“And you might lose some. You’ll get no money for pools from me.”

“Dad puts them in. He pools them,” said Mary.

“Yes.” Her mother was tight-lipped. “More’s the pity. But I decide where the money goes now, and it doesn’t go on pigeons. If your Uncle Charley’s daft enough to put them in for you, that’s his affair.”

Uncle Charley was daft enough.

“I’ll find out the dates for you – tell you what’s best,” he promised.

He put the four dirt-spattered, precious eggs into a paper bag. Mary took them straight home, for fear of breaking them.

“Oh, bless him!” said Mum, and her face softened with relief and gratitude. “I couldn’t think what we were going to eat today. You know, Mary, if that postal order doesn’t come on Monday we’ll have to go to the Assistance and ask for help. Now off you go, and get those bits of shopping.”

Mary went, her mind full of her audacious plan.

Mary woke early on Sunday morning, as she had planned. She sat up, willing the bed springs not to squeak. The bed was an old double one with a lumpy mattress. Mary had slept on one side of it; she still could not get used to having all that space to herself.

She slid her feet out on to the cool cracked lino and began putting on her clothes. From behind the screen which gave her the illusion of being in a room of her own, Lennie was snoring gently.

The window was in Mary’s half of the room. She looked out. It was going to be a beautiful day – too good to spend in chapel. Behind the roofs of the houses opposite rose the headframe of the pit; the sunlight sparkled and she had to squint to see, over to the left, pit mounds and scarred earth giving way in the distance to green hills. That was where she was going: right out of Culverton, with its pits and brickworks and streets, out into the distant green countryside.

With her shoes in her hand she crept past Lennie, flat on his back with mouth open and arms flung up, on to the landing, past the closed door of the room where Mum and Doreen slept, and downstairs.

In the kitchen she got a drink of water. Then she cut two thick slices of bread and wrapped them in a paper bag. She found an empty vinegar bottle and filled it with water. Under the teapot she pushed the note she had written last night.

Outside the back door, she looked up at Mum’s window. There was no sound, and the curtain was drawn. Mum wouldn’t wake easily; she liked a lie-in on a Sunday.

The pigeons, on the other hand, were wide awake, all glossy feathers and gleaming eyes. There was one she noticed particularly as she handled the young birds: a dark chequer cock with a bold eye; he sat beautifully balanced in her hands.

Mary gave the birds a drink and got out the basket. She put in six of the young birds, those hatched that spring. She wondered about taking some of the yearlings, too, to help keep the flock together, but when she lifted the basket she knew that six was plenty. Besides, Uncle Charley had come round last night with the race dates, and had promised to put some birds on the train to Gloucester on Tuesday, to give them a longer run.

Mary put her food and her vinegar bottle in the pockets of her dress, heaved up the basket, and went out through the back garden gate.

It was not until she reached the end of Lion Street that she began to think about the consequences of what she was doing.

No decent person flew their pigeons on a Sunday. Sunday racing was forbidden. Even Sunday visits to friends’ lofts were frowned upon; and Mary’s place on a Sunday was at chapel in the morning and at Aunty Elsie’s for tea in the afternoon. She’d be in trouble, for certain, when she got home.

She should have asked, she thought; but then, justifying herself, if she had asked, Mum would have said no. There would be trouble, but it seemed to Mary something she could not avoid, since the young birds needed a toss and she was determined to be the one to take them. Anyway, at this early hour, the afternoon and its retribution seemed a long way off. She was more concerned now about the weight of the basket and the way it scraped and banged her leg. She stopped, and changed hands.

The rows of terraced houses began to thin out and she found herself trudging along a lane of rutted earth with only an occasional cottage here and there. The headframe of Old Hall Pit came in sight to her left, and the spoil heaps rose all around, blocking the view.

Mary stopped by a stile, put down the heavy basket, and ate one of the slices of bread. The pigeons shuffled in the basket and cooed softly. The mine was motionless in the Sunday silence, and from the cottages there was no sign of life except a cat which was eyeing her from the top of a wall. Perhaps its ears had caught the sounds from the pigeon basket.

“You keep away, cat,” said Mary. She didn’t like cats; they were always prowling around the loft.

She climbed over the stile and walked on. She was getting tired; the basket was too heavy. But gradually the pit mounds were giving way to fields and hedgerows. The air was clearer and there was a scent of flowers.

When she stopped at midday she was surrounded by fields; all she could see of Culverton was a distant church spire. She put down the basket and sat on a stile, then ate the second slice of bread and drank the water.

Young green wheat was growing in the field on one side of the stile, and clover in the other. Beyond a hedge was some bright green crop that she couldn’t recognize at this distance. Far away, across several fields, there was a line of people bending, weeding. There was no sound except the rustle of wheat and, high up, the faint summery sound of skylarks calling.

“Time to go,” said Mary to the birds. She got down from the stile and began unfastening the straps on the basket. The pigeons fluttered and cooed. They would be hungry now, keen to get home; she hadn’t fed them this morning. They ought to be all right, but she was nervous. You could never be sure with young birds, and they hadn’t been taken this far from home before.

The lid was down; a couple of birds ventured out. For a second or two they stayed. Then one, the bold-looking dark chequer cock, took off. The others came out and followed with a whirr of wings, and Mary knew it was out of her hands now; they were away. They circled round for several minutes, not as smoothly as her flock of older hens, but connected, moving as a group. Then, suddenly, they veered off. They were heading towards home. Mary felt both relief and apprehension. Her one desire now was to return home herself and be sure that they all got safely back. She bent to fasten the basket.

When she looked up again the birds had vanished. And then she saw one dropping down towards the field beyond the hedge.

“Oh, no – you mustn’t!” Mary was panic stricken. If they stopped to feed they might never come home. She’d have to chase them off. She seized the basket and ran awkwardly with it along the edge of the field and over the next stile. They were all down. What was it – that bright green? Of course. Peas. Young peas – the first crop almost ready for harvesting. Pigeons couldn’t resist them. If only she’d noticed; Dad would have done.

She jumped down from the stile, and as she did so a gunshot rang out, followed by a rush of wings. A man had appeared at the bottom of the field. Pigeons were circling above in panic. Had he got one? Mary couldn’t see. The gun was pointed skywards again.

“No!” screamed Mary. “No!”

The man fired again, and the flock scattered.

Mary ran down the side of the field, yelling, “No! Don’t shoot! They’re going! Look, they’re going away!”

The man ignored her. He aimed, and fired a third time. Mary saw a pigeon plummet.

She threw herself at the man.

“You didn’t need to kill it! It was flying away! You only needed to scare them off. Why did you kill it?”

The man lowered the gun and turned to her. She quailed at the sight of his anger.

“Because dead pigeons don’t come back,” he said. “I’ll shoot every one I see. You people with your damn pigeons are a menace.”

“I didn’t know,” said Mary, sniffing back tears. “I didn’t realize it was peas.”

She started forward to retrieve her dead pigeon, but the man caught her arm and flung her back.

“Off my land, miss!”

“I want my pigeon!”

The man’s face darkened. “Just get off my land. Get off! Go! And don’t come back!”

Mary backed away, terrified. The man looked so angry she feared he might turn the gun on her. She ran back to the stile, grabbed her basket, and climbed over into the next field, out of his sight. She ran, gasping for breath, until she reached a gate with a stile in it and knew she was on the footpath that would lead her home.

She stopped then, put down the basket, and stared up at the sky. They had all gone. But had they gone home or were they scattered? They had been frightened and might lose their bearings. Once they were separated they could be picked up by other flocks. And then there were hawks, and telegraph wires, and, if they came down, cats. It was miles home to find out if they were safe, and Mum was going to be so angry, and if she’d lost the pigeons then Dad had lost all his new season’s birds.

“That bloody farmer!” said Mary. She beat her fist on the gate and began to cry in real earnest, hating the farmer, hating herself for being so stupid, hating the thought of going home.

She was not aware of anyone’s approach until a voice behind her said, “What’s up with you, then, Mary Dyer?”

Mary looked round, trying to control the trembling of her chin.

She saw a boy – a rough-looking boy, dark haired and dark eyed, with a bruise on one cheekbone and an air rifle over his shoulder. He was swarthy with a darkness that was more dirt than nature and he wore a ragged shirt and trousers and shoes that had split open at the sides.

Arnold Revell. Just about the last person Mary could have wanted to meet.

All the girls shrank from Arnold Revell.

“He smells,” Doris Brown would say, wrinkling her little nose. And it was true that a fusty, unwashed odour, sometimes mixed with a rank smell of goat, emanated from the corner where Arnold sat at the back of the class. His nails were usually black and his neck grimy. He was not exactly badly behaved, but school didn’t interest him and he brought an air of disorder into the classroom.

Further down the school were more Revells. Nearly every class had one. Arnold was the eldest. He had been kept back at least a year because he was so slow, and he was bigger and older than everyone else in his class. The Revells lived on a smallholding and scrap-yard on the edge of town out beyond the railway station. Whenever there was petty thieving, scrumping or fights, the Revells were blamed.