the road, a pigeon is flapping, straining to pull itself off the tarmac. Several times the squashed body peels up but can’t break free of its own goo. Small, surprisingly white feathers swirl like snowflakes around the grey body and some settle on the dark red intestines that have wormed out on to the road.
‘Yeuch,’ says Kirk, dropping his head between his knees.
Sarah clutches her hair and turns to put her face against my chest. ‘The poor thing, the poor thing …’
The pigeon rests, then tries again. It must be in agony but its face just looks puzzled. If only it would stop flapping. Its neck writhes up between wings that are scraping the ground like a weird dustpan and brush. Please stop flapping! I ease Sarah away from me and she looks at me like she did when Josie fell over, expecting me to make things OK. My head swirls with pride – and the need to be sick. I stand up and grab a bottle from a crate.
When I reach the pigeon it stops moving. Relieved, I spin round to announce its death when the bloody bird flutters back to life. I raise the bottle to strike, but the bird is still again, watching me with its orange-bead eye.
‘Do it Billy, de poor yoke’s buzzard meat.’
I bring the bottle down but miss the head and make a greater mess of its body.
Sarah screams, ‘No, stop!’
The neck lifts. This time the eye is closed. With the next blow, I crush its head. Jubbly-flavoured vomit rises in my throat.
I wobble back to the Big Step. Michael takes the bottle from me and puts a hand on my shoulder to reassure me as if I’m Roy Rogers and I’ve had to put Trigger out of his misery.
‘How could you? The poor thing,’ says Sarah.
‘T’was for de best Sarah. Sure wasn’t de bird dyin’ in agony?’
I want to say something too, but my head is too full of what I’ve just seen, and done. I sit beside Sarah, breathing hard to stop myself being sick. Until now, I’ve killed only insects and worms, which can’t look you in the face as you’re doing it. I put my hands over my eyes and can still see the pigeon’s writhing neck, and its accusing orange eye. Even when I was bringing down the bottle on its head, I could think only that here was a living creature that would soon not be alive anymore, because I was killing it. I tuck my shaking hands into my armpits, unsure whether I’m proud or disgusted by what I’ve done.
The Corona lorry pulls up at the kerb to screen the corpse from view. Michael holds out a hand to me. ‘Well done compadré, it had to be done.’
We move to sit on the other side of the shop to let the deliverymen load the crates. No one speaks until Michael gets up and squints into the distance, as if checking whether Sioux or Comanches are waiting up ahead for the wagon train. ‘Hasta la vista, muchachos. I have to be gettin’ back to de ould hacienda … chow time.’
Squashed pigeon or not, a meal is not something to be missed.
Kirk looks at Sarah and winks at me. ‘Hasn’t that put you off eating Michael?’
‘Not at all Kork. But aren’t ye looking terrible pale in de face. Was it all a bit much for ye?’
‘What are you talking about? I could have done it if Billy hadn’t.’
‘Not easy when ye are sat der wid your head in your hands. Sure wouldn’t de bird be dead of ould age before he got a belt from ye.’ He grins at me. ‘See ya around Kid.’
He lumbers off at a pace that will get him home before hunger sets in. For me, meals are interruptions to whatever I’m doing; for Michael, they’re vital staging posts in a day that consists of eating, short periods of satisfaction and longer, more difficult, times spent looking forward to eating.
‘What’s Fatty O’Rourke on about?’ says Kirk, who should keep quiet, as it’s the best thing to do when you’ve had the piss taken out of you.
Sarah and I don’t answer.
After a while, she says, ‘Well Billy, what about the round-the-block race on Sunday? Are you running?’
‘I am,’ says Kirk, with a forward one-two shrug of his shoulders.
Well, Kirk, aren’t you the bloody marvel.
The ‘round-the-block’ race is four times round an oblong circuit that takes in our street and the next one. Last year Kirk won it. This year, I think I’ve a chance of winning if I can stay free of asthma. Sarah hasn’t answered him. She’s waiting for my answer!
‘Maybe.’
Maybe? Of course I’m running in the race but I don’t want Kirk to think that it matters that much.
‘Well, may the best man win,’ she says.
‘Yeah,’ says Kirk, ‘hope it’s me … again. Last year, I won two big bottles of Cream Soda.’
That’s where he gets it wrong: boasting is worse than being thick. Sarah misses my modest smile, which is a pity, because it’s like Audie Murphy’s before he beats up bigmouth baddies.
I change the subject. ‘How was your holiday in Somerset?’
‘Oh, marvellous … didn’t want to come home.’
‘At your Nan’s?’
‘Yeah.’
She can see I’m trying to exclude Kirk and decides to be fair, ‘What about you, Kirk? Going hop picking again?’
‘S’pose so.’
I envy Kirk his late summers in the hop fields, when his whole family goes down to Kent to live in wooden dormitories with other Cockney families. They have a great time and, according to Aunt Winnie, it isn’t only the kids who get up to all kinds of mischief. And everyone comes home brown as berries.
We don’t get much sunshine in Cumberland. When John and I returned from holiday last week, Kirk greeted us with a rare joke, ‘Nice tan, Driscoll brothers, been moonbathing?’ Of course, he’s at his best in the summer, when his hair goes ‘straw blond’. Bastard.
Everyone looks better with a suntan. It makes Rooksy’s dad look like a film star. My dad goes dark brown in summer when working on the building site but because he keeps his vest on, he looks like he’s wearing one even when he isn’t. I’ve been sitting in the sun myself at every opportunity because it’s supposed to shrink spots – and Mum says a tan makes my eyes look bluer.
I pick up my empty Jubbly carton. Punching down over the hole at the corner can get it to burst with a satisfying bang. I place it nonchalantly on the step and bring the side of my fist down hard. It’s my day for missing targets. The blow fails to cover the hole and instead of a small explosion, there’s an embarrassing ‘phut’ as the carton collapses.
‘Ha, he’s farted,’ says Kirk.
My face burns.
‘Billy Driscoll’s farted.’ He’s rolling backwards on the step, forcing himself to laugh.
Sarah smiles. Does she think I have?
‘Don’t be stupid, it was the Jubbly packet, I say.’
‘Wasn’t. You farted, we’ll get the smell in a sec.’
My voice goes sissy-thin. ‘I have not farted.’
‘Pooh, the whiff,’ says Kirk, like some five-year-old.
‘It was the Jubbly packet, I say.’
‘It was a faaaarrrt.’
‘It wasn’t a fart. I don’t fart.’
‘Yes you do.’
Then I say it. ‘No I don’t, I’ve never farted.’
Kirk throws his arms in the air. Sarah’s eyebrows rise. I stand up, desperate