room always seemed dark, although it had no curtains and the windows were usually open. The walls, which had once been white, were now a shabby grey. Bits of wallpaper hung in strips where the birds had ripped at it to secure lining for their nests.
No attempt had been made to clear up the splatterings of dirt left by the birds on the floor, or at the bases of the thirty or so perches which had been erected on three of the four walls. Here it had formed into small, pointed, pyramidic piles.
The perches varied in size and were nailed to the wall in a series of regimented lines. They were fixed at four heights, some ten or so inches from the floor, others only inches from the ceiling. They encroached on the room, making it seem much closer and smaller than it actually was. About a quarter of the perches had been enlarged and built into perfunctory nesting boxes, although the birds rarely hatched their eggs or brought up their young within the room’s perimeter.
Pushed up against the only clear wall was Sylvia’s bed. The duvet was a dark green colour, stained intermittently by whitish bird droppings. There was little else in the room except for a large, grey trunk at the foot of her bed in which she kept all her clothes and the few other personal possessions that she valued.
The room was rarely quiet. The air was constantly full of the sound of vibrating wings, of bird argument and intrigue, and underneath each sound, humming at the very bottom, the purring, cooing, singing of the pigeons.
Wild birds are not naturally aromatic creatures, but the consequence of a large number of them inhabiting an enclosed space was that the room smelled something like a chicken coop. It was a strong and all-pervasive smell which was gradually taking over the top few floors of the block. During fine weather – in the heat – the smell expanded and could be detected over an even wider area.
Sylvia was oblivious to the smell. Since she rarely ventured out of the flat, it never struck her as out of the ordinary. Sometimes she noticed it when she travelled back indoors from her dawn vantage point on the roof, but even then it smelled like something good and reliable, a heavy, dusty, musty familiarity.
She knew that the dirt, the smell and the feathers were bad for her. Often she tasted this in her mouth after she had coughed. When she suffered from an asthma attack she would use her inhaler and hide under her duvet, somehow believing that the air under here was cleaner, free of the cloying thickness.
During the long, solitary periods spent in her room, Sylvia usually sat on the trunk at the foot of her bed with her legs drawn up and her chin resting on her knees.
She did very little, but was skinny. Her face was not thin, though. It was round and her cheeks were pouched and protuberant. Her father was a Cypriot. She had never met him, never mentioned him. Her mouth and nose were heavy and her lids and lips were thick and rich. Her eyes were a bright deep green: ironic cat’s eyes.
Most people – apart from those who were expert in such matters – presumed her to be retarded. Yet it always grew increasingly difficult (with familiarity) to pinpoint exactly how this was. She was numerate, literate, articulate. Only her will was retarded. She couldn’t quite do anything. She couldn’t quite want anything. She had no real desire, except to be left alone. She didn’t even really want the birds that much, but she perceived them as though they existed in a different realm of being, a realm of necessity, of inevitability.
Earlier on, Brera had supposed that external stimuli might renew Sylvia’s vigour, her will. She had tried psychotherapy, counselling, family therapy. But nothing had worked. Nothing encroached. She remained aloof.
Sometimes Sylvia sat in her room and with a great deal of effort tried to summarize her life, to get her head around its totality. Whenever she did this, she could think only of nothing. Of a vacuum. The enormity of this vacuum terrified her. So instead she fixed things in terms of the birds, in a feathery cycle of birth, youth, age, death. This meant that after a time she couldn’t actually do without them. They were her.
Straight after the argument she had regretted it. Steven John didn’t really matter, she knew that. He didn’t threaten her. He couldn’t change things.
She sat on her trunk, pressed her chin into her knees and thought, I want them to leave me. I want things to be quieter and simpler. If they deserted me, if they grew tired of me, I could sit here for ever. I wouldn’t have to try any more and that would be good. I think that would be good.
She knew it.
Because he had forced himself to await a precise time before calling on her, Steven felt almost as though a previous arrangement had been made for this meeting. He felt confident. He waited for her to say something as he stuck his thumb into his belt and grinned.
Ruby squinted out at Steven through the half-light, her expression a mixture of impatience and exhaustion. ‘Oh God.’
His expression sank from cheerful to jowlful. ‘I’m pleased to see you too,’ he said.
He watched as she pushed her hand through her hair. He thought, She’s still wearing too much make-up and her skirt is too tight. Paradoxically, these familiar flaws made him feel inexplicably fond.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Um.’ She thought about this for a moment. ‘Why don’t we go out for a drink? I can run up and fetch my coat.’
‘And put some shoes on.’ He pointed to her stockinged feet.
‘Yeah.’ She turned. ‘Wait here.’
He ignored this and followed her, up the stairs and into her flat.
Her jacket was slung over the arm of a chair. She grabbed it and frantically looked around for her shoes. He stood in the doorway and appraised the room, wondering what it could be that she was so keen to conceal. Someone was in the bathroom. He could hear a tap running. She pulled on a pair of boots. ‘That’s Toro,’ she said, ‘washing his face.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s drunk. He won on a couple of races this morning.’
Steven stared at the bathroom door, waiting for it to open.
She checked in her pocket for her keys. ‘Right, let’s go.’
‘Don’t you want to tell him?’
‘What?’
‘That you’re going out.’
She stood in front of him, awkwardly, her eyes unblinking, hiding something. ‘No.’
He looked not at her but over her shoulder.
‘How about that person on the floor?’
‘Who?’
She turned. ‘Oh. Him. He’s fine.’
Vincent lay on his back, spread-eagled across the carpet, his head hidden from view behind the sofa.
‘Is he sleeping or what?’
She sighed. ‘It’s not a problem.’
Before he could respond to this she said, ‘How do you manage to always make me feel so bloody guilty?’
He shrugged. He just had that knack. They both knew the reason. He disapproved of her. He liked her, but he thought her capable of behaving, at times, stupidly and carelessly. She allowed her life to become sordid. He found this hateful.
He walked over to where Vincent lay. ‘Who is he? Do I know him?’
‘No.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘I think so. He passed out.’
‘When?’
‘Five minutes ago.’
‘His head’s disgusting.’
‘He