'Pigeon' - short fiction (a work in progress).

He blinked hard as the drops splashed his glossy eye. The pharmacist had told him that he didn’t have an eye infection. The stinging sensation was probably nothing more than a symptom of dry or tried eyes. 

Waking up felt like a resurrection anyway, without the need for this new ritual. He imagined Dracula – from a camp 1950’s Hollywood horror - punching through a coffin lid, sitting up and scraping the grit from his face, and body before roaring with an open blood stained mouth. He huffed and laughed to himself a little too loudly. ‘Still here?’ His wife Jenny said. Oh God she’s awake.

‘I thought you had an 9 o’clock meeting?’

‘Yes, yes. I’m going.’

‘But you’re still in your pants.’

‘They’re boxers. Can you please call them boxers…’ He left the bedroom, tugging self-consciously on his Calvins. God, she would always do this. She would always say something that would get under his skin and really piss him off before he’d even had a decent chance at starting the day. ‘Argh!’ He growled as he accidentally knocked over a bunch of Jenny’s cosmetics on the sink.

‘Alright noisy. What are you doing in there?’

‘Your shit is just everywhere! Where’s my stuff supposed to go?’ He bent over the sink gritting his teeth and gripping his toothbrush in a white knuckled fist. Nothing more from the bedroom. He’d obviously upset her. He was being a prick and she was lovely just the way she was. He was just grouchy. And he didn’t love her any more.

As he gruffly looped his tie around his neck, he peered up at the ceiling and conjured up another image that was all too dark for a Monday morning. Life was not grim for Andrew.

He had a job he enjoyed and was married to a former model/actress /cabaret performer who wanted to father his children. Perfect. For someone else. The only part of his day he could stand, was work. His unnecessary menial morning and evening routine around the house depressed him, made him think about things that well-adjusted magazine editors shouldn’t be thinking about.

He hooked a dark green Wentworth brolley over his forearm and shouted up the stairs, ‘Jen I’m off-‘

‘No kiss-‘ she shouted back. Even her voice made his nerves jangle.

‘Late.’ He mumbled. He then decided to lie to her, ‘Oh I’m meeting with this guy from the MOD tonight….for drinks. He might have a lead.’ She was walking down the stairs now, her robe was open and her patchwork Agent Provateur twin set showed off her toned figure. ‘Another late night?’

‘Yes. I won’t be long. Just a couple of hours.’ He lunged forward touched her lightly on the small of her back as he pecked her, too quickly for her to reciprocate.

‘Hey!’ she pulled him close to her and wrapped her pale freckly arms around his neck. ‘I want a proper kiss.’ She kissed him long and hard on the mouth. He counted four big elephants in his head before he jerked his head away. ‘Really late.’

He yanked his rucksack on to his back before leaving the house. He stopped for a moment outside. It was raining, as he had suspected, and he felt nauseous for the second time that morning.

Andrew got off the train at Waterloo – having stood up in the carriage for the entire journey – and walked over to a seat to change his shoes and drink the last of his coffee. He suffered from horrendous bunions around his big toes and couldn’t stand the pinching of his smart shoes any longer than he had to.

He tugged off his orthotic trainers and grimaced as he pulled on his especially shiny pointed shoes. He daren’t wear trainers on the way to the office as he always saw at least five colleagues on the way. He didn’t want people to think he was a wimp, or worse, a pre-work gym bunny.

*********************************

He looked up sharply as he heard a bird take off in a hurry. A woman shrieked unnecessarily as it did, at least three metres away from her. ‘Little twit.’ He said out loud, almost hoping she could hear. He watched the pigeon fly off and settle on a metal bar in the rafters of the station. Poor bloody creature. Most of the time it’s ignored until it accidentally flies too close to a churlish mid 40’s divorcee, who is consequently repulsed by it.

Andrew had always been fond of birds and Pigeons happened to be his favourite. Pigeons had a bad rep, but he was inclined to think that they weren’t much different to any other feathered creature. Sure it looked a little rough around the edges and it probably wasn’t the cleanest winged specimen, but that’s why he liked them.

The choice he made when he was six years old – when his mother (who he severely disliked) swatted and clubbed a pigeon to death in their small kitchen in Somerset because it had ‘broken into the house’ - was almost a protest. Sure, Robins were friendly, chubby and more aesthetically pleasing, but pigeons were like mavericks. The odd ball’s choice. He picked up his trainers and squeezed them in to his rucksack.

He stopped at Neal’s coffee shop just before he got to the office. Starbuck’s and Costa were to be avoided. He had an amiable relationship with most guys in the office, but at this time in the morning conversation was unwarranted.

Before 10am, Andy’s brain was still digesting all those difficult thoughts and problems built up from a nightmare-filled sleep, and then worst still; actually waking up. All that bad noise in his head made him feel light-headed and queasy.

So an involuntary discussion with Kevin about his latest drug fuelled bonk with a stripper would not help the caffeine and jam glazed pastry go down. Going to Neal’s was one more act of self-preservation. It made his life that little bit more bearable.

‘Andy’ Oh God who the hell was that and why are they in MY fucking coffee spot. He turned his head timidly, bracing a forced smile in preparation for this regrettable morning chat.

‘Oh, Si.’ It was only Simon Hiles, the mag’s Creative Art Director.

A decent chap that Andy wished he could call a ‘mate’, but didn’t. In fact it had been Simon that had suggested this coffee haunt when he’d complained that Starbuck’s was overcrowded with arse-licking employees with desperate hopes of promotion. But he hadn’t seen Si in here for weeks now.

‘Where have you been getting your coffee from of late?’ Andy was surprised by his own sprightly tone.

‘Oh, I’ve given it up… Caffeine. It was giving me heart problems.’

‘Oh shit. What do you do for kicks now then?’ They both sort of smirked at the half-joke Andy had made.

‘Well I’m still on the medicinal heroin and crystal meth, so I think I’ll be alright.’ They laughed more enthusiastically this time.

‘So why are you in here then? Oh god you’ve not gone decaf or worse... herbal?’

‘Oh it’s not for me, I’m just getting one for Mike… my partner.’ Si motioned to a table in the corner of the café, where a young man was reading the newspaper and removing his jacket.

‘Oh…’ Shit. This is awkward. Andy knew Si was gay. Everyone in the office was aware of it. But as much as Si had tried to get everyone else to be comfortable with it, they weren’t…

Andy gripped the brolley in his left hand tighter and tighter as he forced himself to raise his right hand in a sort of embarrassed wave in Mike’s direction. Then he realised it looked like an apology, so he made the effort to bend his fingers downwards in one jittery motion. Now he'd made a 'Coo-eee' gesture. He guessed that Mike would assume that Andy was another homophobic arsehole from the magazine.

‘So I guess I’ll see you back in the office in a little while.’

‘Mmmm.’ Was all Andy could muster as he gulped down a foamy cappuccino in order to stop himself from saying something inadvertently offensive.

He waved a little more convincingly this time as he sailed out of the door and into the downpour which he’d momentarily forgot about. Fat droplets splashed into his uncapped coffee and he stood there looking up into the grizzly sky and enjoyed an indulgent moment of self-loathing.

That was one of his Andy's other hobbies; apart from habitually lying to his wife and drinking too much coffee, he got some sort of sick pleasure from abusing his own psyche. It was a purification process which reminded him that just because he was the editor of well-established publication and was well respected (feared) by his peers and his wife, he was still as flawed, if not more so than, any other human being.

*************************************

He was the last person in the office and he was looking at his monitor in contempt. The new fonts were bothering him. He'd insisted that his decision was final in a heated debate with his Picture Editor, Dominic, but now he wasn't sure.

And the more he continued to scrutinise them, the more they irritated him, blurred and danced up and down, jeering at him and his inability to make a decision without second guessing himself. His eyes were beginning to sting again. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger into his eye sockets in a circular motion, trying to generate some sort of lubrication, or dull himself into a trance.

'Ah...tough decision to make eh? The cerulean or the indigo for the strapline? I've really been looking at the layout again and...' what Dominic said next was lost on Andy. Dominic jabbered on about this colour code and that, but Andy let his eyes wander around the room.

Simon was packing up now. He was on the phone and wrestling with a usb cable with the other hand. He was smiling. Really smiling. Andy began to notice how straight his teeth were; bizarrely straight in fact. Had he had work done? He was a poof after all. But he'd never considered Si to be camp. Not in the tight net vest, glow sticks and boasting about sex at the gym, camp. Why was he smiling so hard? Must have been on the phone to his 'partner.'

Andy had been averting Dom's peepers for a moment too long because Dominic was now out of his chair and wafting his hand in front of Andy's face like a petulant child. Andy was almost convinced his picture editor had ADHD.

'Jeez Andy. You should go home mate. You're looking pretty haggard these days. Go home and bang your wife for Christ's sake.' Haggard? Really? People thought he looked haggard. Balls. What was wrong with the good old 'shagged' 'shattered' or 'knackered'?

Andy decided to ignore the rather inappropriate comment about 'banging his wife' and chanced a look at himself in the office window, which doubled up as a mirror, now that the steets of London were dark and glittering with shop window lights. He opened his mouth wide and grinned. Bloody hell, he's spot on. I look craggier than Gordon bloody Ramsey. He didn't appreciate his sallow skin or the crooked teeth either.

'I need to get out of this place. I'm ageing by the minute.' Dominic was already half way out of the door and didn't bother to acknowledge Andy's comment.

As Andy shuffled out of the office, trying his best not to wince from the pain in his bunions - he'd left his trainers under his desk - he thought he might grab a drink to snaffle on the train ride home... Something to take the edge off seeing his devastatingly beautiful wife and knowing she expected a good seeing to. He stopped at a Threshers on the way to the station.

'Sir. I'll have one... Bottle of vodka.'

'Yes sir... Any particular brand?' the shop assisant peeked over the counter, almost indecipherably, at Andy's glossy shoes and thought he was on to a winner.

'Errrr...Oh just the cheap stuff over there will do.' He wagged his finger at a clear bottle covered with an orange label and some foreign words Andy could not translate. He could afford better, but he wanted it to feel dirty, really naughty.

'Ten pounds for the Polish stuff. But you know, the Russian is probably better-'

'That'll be all'. He handed the man one of six notes in his wallet and swiped his booty from the nice middle aged man.

He didn't wait for the ride home to get a taste of the mind numbing substance. Once he was outside the shop, ignoring the lash of the wind and rain, he wrapped the plastic Threshers' bag tightly around the bottle, unscrewed the lid and felt the liquid burn his cracked lips, warm his throat and tingle in his stomach. That's when he realised he was supposed to be eating out - having lied to his wife about meeting the guy from the MOD - she wouldn't be cooking for him tonight.

His stomach gurgled. The greasy kebab shop was calling. He dived into Hal's kebab hut and picked up a mixed doner and a side of chips.

As he approached the station, It didn't even occur to him what he looked like. His tie hung loose on his chest, his shirt untucked, as he stumbled on to the train. He slumped himself across three seats on the practically empty train and popped open the squeaky yellow polystyrene box.

The train wasn't leaving for another fifteen minutes. He slipped the fatty meat and dry chips into his gob inbetween swigs of his vodka. The bottle was half empty and he was drunk. He belched loud and unashamed.

More people were entering the train. It was a mixed batch. It wasn't that late so he wasn't surprised to see lovesick teenagers, families holding show programmes, as well as an elderly couple holding each other's hands. And then he saw Simon Hiles.

'Andy... Is that a Hal's Kebab special?' Si and his partner stood unblinking, waiting for an answer. Holy shit...this is humiliating.

*********************************

 

Andy's colleague and his kooky looking boyfriend were uncomfortable. It was one of those moments when you wish you could just rip your own face off, turn it inside out and replace it with an altogether different face that no one knows or recognises. It would be called the 'reversible face' and it would save you from untold embarrassment and agonising chit chat with ghastly people you wish you weren't associated with.

This particular conversation lasted no longer than two stops, but it was excruciating. It was awkward, mindless spaff that concluded with Si's boyfriend stating the bloody obvious, 'Well it's nice to meet you Andy... you're gonna have one hell of a hangover tomorrow dude.' Dude? How old was this guy. He was wearing skinny jeans and a Ramones T-shirt. What a tool.

Si and his hippy toy boy sat two seats in front. Far enough to distinguish themselves from an unsavoury character such as himself, but not so far that he should be offended.

They talked about the raw prawn appetizers, the expensive merlot and Jenny 'the slutty marketing girl' falling out of her bra. Andy began to feel desperately sad again. His achy head pulsed and as he looked down at the empty bottle of mainstream poison held fast in his hand, he despaired.

He couldn't bear their contentment. It wasn't happiness, just a bit of peace and satisfaction to round out a meaningful day. Andy had totally forgotten what that felt like.

Just when he thought he couldn't stand to feel this way for a minute longer he became suddenly overwhelmed by something quite distressing. It became clear that he was going to be sick.

As the train pulled up to the next stop, he threw the remains of his kebab off his lap, grappled with his umbrella and suitcase and scrambled to the carriage doors. As they opened he bent over double and released the entire contents of his stomach on to the platform... and on to someone's small dog.

'Oh sweet Jesus. I'm so bloody sorry.' The owner looked like she might have an aneurysm. She was a wizen thing wearing a long shapeless dress with tiny parrots all over it, and a knotted woolly cardigan. The dog shook violently and rolled over and over again. It seemed to be disgusted by the smell.

The poor old lady, who kind of looked familiar, just picked up her dog and pulled herself up on to the train. As Andy wiped his mouth and began walking away, he heard that sweet little lady call him a prick. Wow.

He walked home. He felt like he didn't even deserve a taxi right now. He eventually made it to the street in Clapham where he lived. He scuffed his smart shoes on the wet pavement and deliberately stood on snails to hear the crunch.

He felt the urge to swing around a lamp post and kick his heels up to his bottom. Then he abruptly stopped. It was a headless pigeon that did it. He felt his stomach flip again. It was right in his path obstructing his next footfall. The culprit was no doubt a well-fed fox. Nasty flame-haired demons.

He could imagine it now, chewing on the dead bird's sinews and licking the blood off it's sharp tiny teeth. But it was only the head that was of use to the mangy scavenger; the body wasn't worth guzzling or taking back to the den. Andy bent down and tried to focus on the bird.

He even picked it up to see it clearer, but the alcohol had made his fingers numb and his eyes completely useless. He thought the animal would feel gritty, unclean and damp, but it was soft and still warm.

It was only three feet to the gate at the front of his house, but it took him about fifteen minutes to make it to the front door. He was being careful not to drop the bird which he cradled in his left hand, leaving his right hand to struggle with the brolley and briefcase.

In retrospect he realised how insane he looked. Days later he would mull over this extremely blurred portion of the day and desperately try to rationalise his properly absurd behaviour. Part of his brain - a place so insipid and frankly terrifying - thought he might know what possessed him to bring a decapitated bird into his house, the remainder, hadn't the foggiest.

He wondered then, why it was always the worst part of his personality which revealed itself every time he got through a whole bottle of cheap vodka.

It was that mindless, anti-social idiot which also forgot that his wife would be loading the dish washer at this precise moment. The first thing he did after he stumbled up the large paving slab which served as a door-step, was dump the seemingly unimportant items in his right hand, at the front door.

The second was to take the bloody offering still clamped in his left hand, into the kitchen 'to get it cleaned up'. He found a towel resting on the radiator as he made his way through his house, swaying from side to side, nudging his shoulders on the door frames. He placed the bird on the dining table and wrapped it up in the towel.

'Andy? What the hell are you doing?' she said.

*******************************

This seemed like an incredulous statement. Surely it should be obvious to his wife what he was doing. Andy looked down at his hand and the offending item and nearly threw up...again.

“Oh god. What is that?” he whispered putting a hand to his mouth, without realising it was moist with the bird’s blood.

“Andy, are you pissed?”

“Of course not. Just had a couple with Mike after work.”

“Mike? I thought you were meeting with that army general or whoever he was? Or is that bullshit too?” She fired at him. Her stance was intimidating. She was holding a hand towel with both hands held taught across her thighs. It was if she was getting ready to wind it up and whip him with one moist end of it if he didn't answer correctly.

“Why are you so angry all the time?” He could feel that he was swaying and flinging his arms about without any assertion or control.

“That’s totally unfair Andy. I am NOT angry all the time. Just right now...and this morning...and last night when you told me you didn’t want sex because you were feeling fluish or some crap. And now you come home doused in god knows what...wait...is that vomit?”

He considered the question. Looked down at the various splodges of partially digested food and stomach bile decorating his shirt and continued.

“Yes, I believe it is. So now I’m not allowed to drink, is that right?” The smell of the pigeon carcass reminded him of the kebab he’d previously guzzled. He rubbed the dead bird’s blood between his fingers and inwardly questioned his sanity.

“You are ridiculous and I can’t live like this anymore" she continued.

“Oh come on. Stop exaggerating Jen. For God’s sake, I’m drunk and I missed dinner. Get it together.” That was a mistake, one that he instantly regretted. The towel in her hands snapped tighter and her eyes grew wide as a bush baby's.

“Our life together could have really gone somewhere, but now I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t live with you like this. Not in my condition.” She was breathing short and sharp through her nose, trying to stem her inevitable tears.

“What the hell are you talking about? You’re not making any sense-"

“I’m pregnant you arsehole!”

Andy physically wretched. He didn’t mean to at all. It just happened. It must have been an acid reflux brought on by this extremely distressing news. He composed himself.

“I beg your pardon.” He said. He was back to slurring his words again. It was like his brain and his mouth were numb from the vodka intermingled with the thin blood spurting through his arteries.

“I’m pregnant.” She was far less angry with her delivery this time. She looked down at her hands which were gently tugging at the towel now. She was winding it round her fingers, like a nervous child. She was wearing her baggy pyjama bottoms and thin camisole which revealed her undulating chest, heaving and dipping under her agitated breaths. She started to cry.

One hand came up to stop the tears, but it was no good. They had already begun to wet her nose and cheeks.

Andy was horrified. In that moment, he had a brief spell of clarity. He knew he really didn’t love Jenny, but now he was realising that she knew it too. How could he support and love a child with a woman he couldn't share a bed with? What the hell was he supposed to do?

“Jen...I’m sorry. I’m so so bloody sorry. We’ll be fine. My mistake.”

“No Andy. You don’t love me.” Did he say that loud? No he didn’t. She just knew him too well.

“It’s not going to work. I’ll arrange to move in with Alex for a bit.”

“She’s just had a kid herself Jen.”

“Well then she’ll understand.”

She left the kitchen dragging her feet, shoulders collapsed and hunched forward. She had capitulated right in front of him. It had been terrible for Andy to witness. She was always so bright and boisterous, and if he was honest, rarely angry.

To see her so dejected crippled him. It didn’t matter that he didn’t love her. He cared for her with all of his heart, but that was a completely useless feeling and one which Jen should never and could never be satisfied with.

*******************

The whole headless pigeon thing had really freaked Jenny out. He could have assumed this by registering her expression the night before, when he had laid it before her in the darkened kitchen like a sacrificial offering.

But he knew for sure that she thought he had 'lost it', when he overheard her talking to her sister, Alex, on the phone at 6am. She was trying to mumble, but the walls of the bathroom were so thin, he could hear enough to get the jist.

“He’s....and....but really it’s completely nuts...not right now...it’s none of my business...I can’t ask him that.” This is where Andy became more intrigued. Ask him what? Probably something like; how could he be so despicable? Is he an alcoholic? Is he planning on supporting the baby? Is he insane?

No, it wasn’t any of these. The question that Jenny, prompted by her sister Alex, wanted the answer to was one far more surprising than he would ever imagine...

**********************

He would never have guessed it, but yes...his sister-in-law believed him to be gay. "He can't be gay...he would never have asked me to marry him if he had been gay...of course he would have known back then!"

To be honest, when he actually stopped to think about it, there was more than enough evidence to corroborate his sister-in-law's argument. He had recently whipped himself into a jealous rage over Si's happy relationship and he often made excuses to avoid sleeping with his own beautiful wife.

And his wife was stunning. Sometimes he felt like she was too good looking for him. They were unmatched. But this wasn't always the case, he was sure of it. In his mid-twenties (before the metro-sexual years) it all kind of worked.

His face had thinned out after puberty, revealing an envious bone structure and pleasing thick dark brown hair that he could actually run his fingers through. He carried enormous confidence in his tall, strong frame, daring to curl purse his lips into a smirk at a pretty girl on the bus or in the café where he used to work.

Back then, perhaps there was something to look at and stop young girls in their tracks, but now he'd be lucky to win a answering smile from the female editorial assistant at work; and she was supposedly begging for a full-time writing position. If she wasn't willing to pay him attention than who the hell would?

Oh yes...his gorgeous wife.

Suddenly it felt like a pneumatic drill was threatening entry to his skull through the temple, which in turn referred pain to every nerve in his body. If a marriage on the rocks, unwanted unborn child and a dead bird festering on the dining room table wasn't enough to contend with, he had a savage hangover. 

He had at least managed to make it into bed upstairs this time - unlike three weeks ago when he'd poleaxed on the stairs, dragging the door mat with him as some sort of blanket...