Flamingoes in Orbit Page 2

  ‘No. Mack phoned me last night and – ’

  ‘Mack Ottway phoned you?’

  ‘Yeah. So?

  ‘We hate Mack Ottway.’

  ‘We don’t hate Mack – ’

  ‘He’s a fucking psycho! How’d he get your number anyway?’

  ‘It doesn’t fucking matter! You’re getting in a state for no reason. Listen! Mack phoned last night. He said he’d been to the warehouse and found some brilliant stuff in the rubble. An old gas mask. Stuff from the war. You know? Mack said he was going there again. Did I want to come? I knew you didn’t like him so I said, “Yeah sure!” But – but! – I made sure it was early. Why? So it didn’t interfere with you and me. I thought I’d get it all over and done with by the time you woke up, then I’d show you all the stuff I found. And then we – we! – could talk about it. I didn’t think it was going to cause a bloody argument.’

  ‘I . . . I’m sorry,’ I said, calming down.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Okay. So . . . what was it like? At the warehouse.’

  ‘Brilliant! What I was hoping to find – obviously! – was a machine gun or something. But no such luck. But then I see one of these photos. Then another. Then a whole fucking drawer-full. Mack got all stroppy and said he wanted half. “It’s me who told you about this place!” he said. “It’s only fair!” And Mack is not someone you argue with, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So we did the whole “one for you, one for me” thing. Like we were back in nursery school or something. I could see some of the best ones were going to him, but there was fuck all I could do. There was one photo – oh, Jesus, you should see it, mate. It was of a man crushed by a tank. It was brilliant. I might ask Mack if he wants to swop it for my Doctor Who alarm clock. He still likes all that stuff.’

  ‘Retard!’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lloyd grinned. ‘Come on! Let’s look at the rest of them.’

  We settled next to each other on the floor, shoulder to shoulder, our backs against Lloyd’s bed. At first, we had specific comments to make about each photo (‘You can see the bullet hole in his head’, ‘That one’s being burnt alive’, ‘He’s stabbing the prisoner in front of the other soldiers’), but, gradually, the comments gave way to, at first, murmurs, and then . . . silence.

  I could feel Lloyd’s heart beating.

  I could hear the click of his tongue.

  ‘Hello?’ Val knocked on the door.

  We jumped as if receiving an electric shock.

  We dropped the photos and stood up.

  Lloyd called, ‘What do you want, Mum?’

  ‘Your dinner’s on the table,’ Val called back.

  ‘Dinner!’ I cried. I looked at Lloyd’s Doctor Who clock. ‘Shit! I’m late.’ I rushed to the door –

  ‘Wait, wait!’ Lloyd said, pushing the photos under the bed.

  I helped him, then unlocked the door.

  I rushed out, pushing past Val.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said. ‘Mum will kill me.’

  When I got home, Mum and Mr Kass had already started eating.

  Mum said, ‘There you are! What did I tell you about being late?’

  ‘Sorry, Mum. Me and Lloyd got talking and – ’

  ‘Time went whoosh, eh?’ Mr Kass said.

  I smiled. ‘Yeah. Time went very whoosh!’

  Mum got my dinner out of the oven. ‘The plate’s hot,’ she said, putting it in front of me. ‘Be careful.’

  Mum had cooked roast chicken with more trimmings than I’d ever seen.

  ‘This meal is utterly delicious, Mrs Winsley,’ Mr Kass said, putting a forkful into his mouth. ‘Compliments to the chef!’

  Mum blushed. ‘I thought I’d do something a little bit special. To celebrate you being with us, Mr Kass.’

  ‘Well, I’m very glad you did, Mrs Winsley,’ Mr Kass said. ‘I am feeling quite spoilt.’

  Mum looked at me. ‘What were you and Lloyd talking about that was so engrossing?’

  I said, ‘Oh . . . things.’

  She looked at Mr Kass. ‘He doesn’t tell me anything anymore.’

  Mr Kass smiled. ‘I remember having a friend I used to talk to for hours and hours too.’ He leaned in my direction. ‘Not when I was your age, young man. I didn’t have many friends when I was your age at all. But a little later. When I was in the army. I met someone and he, like me, shared a passion for poetry. In particular, the poems of Wilfred Owen.’ He leaned closer. ‘Have you heard of Wilfred Owen?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘The First World War poet.’

  ‘Excellent, excellent! My friend and I used to memorize Wilfred Owen’s poems and recite them to each other.’

  ‘That’s certainly not army life as I imagined it,’ Mum said.

  ‘Oh, some of our greatest poets have been soldiers, Mrs Winsley. Wilfred Owen and his good friend, Siegfried Sassoon, to name but two. My friend in the army also wrote the most exemplary poetry. I said to him, “You should publish these.” ’

  I asked, ‘And did he?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Is he still in the army?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, no, no. He left the same time as me.’

  ‘Are you still in contact with him?’ I asked.

  Mum said, ‘Stop interrogating Mr Kass!’

  Mr Kass smiled. ‘It’s perfectly all right, Mrs Winsley.’ He looked at me. ‘Alas, I lost contact with my poetic friend soon after our army days concluded. I believe he became a pig farmer in Norfolk.’

  I said, ‘Perhaps he’s writing poems about pigs now.’

  Mr Kass chuckled. ‘Yes, yes! “Turn up the gas! Quick boys! An ecstasy of pork sausages!” ’

  We all laughed, though I was pretty sure Mum didn’t get the allusion to Wilfred Owen’s poem, Dulce et Decorum Est. But I got it. And Mr Kass knew I got it. We exchanged a smile.

  That night, in my room, I searched through a box of old books. I had a collection of First World War poetry somewhere. We’d studied the war poets at school last year, and Dad had bought me the book as a present. Dad bought me lots of books. When he left us, I put them all in a cardboard box, out of sight. I had intended to throw them away, but hadn’t got round to it yet.

  The book was called The English Poets of the Great War, by John Leland. I sat on the edge of my bed and flicked through the pages. There was a photograph of Wilfred Owen. Underneath it said that Owen had suffered from neurasthenia (or shell shock) and had been sent to a hospital in Edinburgh, and it was while there he met and became friends with Siegfried Sassoon. A friendship that would ‘transform both of their lives’.

  I wondered what it must be like to have a friendship ‘transform’ your life. Does that ‘transformation’ happen all at once, or does it take a while? Can you feel yourself being transformed as it actually happens? Can you change during the course of, say, a single conversation? Or perhaps it’s being physically touched by someone that does it. Someone puts his hand on your hand, or on your leg – or somewhere – and you feel a new kind of energy, and you know the atoms of your body have been re-arranged.

  l turned the light out and went to the window. I looked at Lloyd’s bedroom window in the house next door. His blind was pulled, but I could see the shape of him moving around. He was doing some air guitar. He had his headphones on. What music was he listening to? Perhaps it was Another One Bites the Dust by Queen. Lloyd loved that song. I wasn’t keen on it, but I pretended to like it for his sake.

  I could see that Lloyd was removing his jeans and T-shirt. I wondered if he was sweating. He must be. The night was hot. The sweat would be trickling between his shoulder blades. He switched off his bedroom light. I couldn’t see his shape anymore, but I knew he was getting into bed. He wouldn’t put any covers on top of him because the night was too humid. He would sleep on his back, arms and legs spread wide. I knew this because we’d recently had a conversation about our ‘favourite sleeping position’. Lloyd slept on his back, I slept curled in a ball. Lloyd had
asked me, ‘What’re you afraid of?’ I asked, ‘What d’you mean?’ He said, ‘Dad told me people who sleep curled in a ball are afraid of something. Whereas people who sleep on their backs aren’t afraid of anything.’ I imagined Lloyd in his room, falling into fearless sleep. What would he be dreaming about? Would it be tanks crushing bodies? Or perhaps he’d dream about me dreaming of tanks crushing bodies?

  The next day I went next door to see him.

  Lloyd had already been to see Mack Ottway and swopped his Doctor Who alarm clock for not just one photo, but two. The first – the person flattened by a tank – was still Lloyd’s ‘official’ favourite, and the second – a Buddhist monk burning to death – was mine.

  Lloyd said, ‘I wonder how painful it is to burn to death.’

  ‘The worst, I think.’

  ‘What about hanging?’

  ‘Depends on how long the drop is,’ I said. ‘If it’s a long drop then your neck breaks and it’s quick. If it’s a short drop – or, worse, no drop at all – then you slowly strangle to death. And that must be really painful.’

  ‘I’d still prefer it to burning,’ Lloyd said. ‘I burnt my hand on the toaster once. It hurt for days.’

  ‘I think small burns might be more painful than big ones.’

  ‘Where’d you hear that?’

  ‘Some telly programme. A big burn sort of destroys all the nerves. So your skin goes numb. But with a small burn . . . all your nerves are alive so it hurts like hell.’

  ‘I’ll ask Dad when he gets back,’ Lloyd said. ‘He has to deal with fires on the rig.’

  Lloyd’s dad, Dagger, worked on an oil rig. He was away for months at a time. There was a photograph of him in Lloyd’s room. He was very fit and very good-looking and very knew it. People called him Dagger because when he was younger he always carried a knife.

  When I went back home, at just after six, Mum was preparing dinner. She said, ‘Mr Kass should be home by seven at the latest, so we’ll have it together. That okay with you?

  ‘Yeah, yeah, great,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t mind Mr Kass being here, do you?’

  ‘No. He’s very . . . polite.’

  ‘Your dad used to be like that. When I first met him. Courteous. Most men lose the habit once they’re married.’ She held my look for a moment, then asked, ‘Has Val said anything?’

  ‘About Mr Kass?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh . . . not much.’

  ‘But she’s said something.’

  ‘Just that . . . she wouldn’t take in a lodger.’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t need to, does she. Dagger earns a bloody fortune.’

  Over the next few days, Lloyd got up early so he could swop more of his things (a skateboard, a Rubik’s cube, a model Millennium Falcon) for Mack’s photos, and then – once I’d surfaced from sleeping late – we’d both spend the afternoon looking at them, or going to McDonald’s, or going to Victoria Park, eating ice cream after ice cream to keep cool. But, on Friday, when I knocked on Lloyd’s door, no one answered. It was just after midday. Val would be at work (she had a part time job in a local card shop) but where was Lloyd? He couldn’t still be at Mack’s, surely.

  I went back home, and phoned Lloyd’s number. I could hear the phone ringing inside his house, but no one picked it up. There could be only one conclusion: Lloyd was still with Mack. How could Lloyd do that when he knew I’d be knocking for him? It wasn’t fair! Lloyd should be here! With me!

  I looked out of the living room window, waiting for him to return.

  By two o’clock there was still no sign. I was spiralling into a kind of panic. I needed to find Lloyd. I needed to see what he was doing. I needed to see if he was enjoying himself. I needed him to see me and realize what he’d done. I needed him to apologize for abandoning me. I needed him to promise it would never happen again. And I needed him to do all that now. Now!

  I knew where Mack lived. I rushed out of the house and started to half walk, half run to Mack’s block of flats. I was passing the football pitch on the corner of Mack’s street when I saw Lloyd. He was kicking a ball with Mack. A girl sat nearby. It was Mack’s sister, Zoe.

  Lloyd was drinking a can of Fanta. I’d never seen him drink Fanta before. He’d never even mentioned Fanta. It’s always been Coke. The same as me. Zoe was fiddling with a radio. Voulez-Vous by ABBA came on. They all cheered and started to dance. Lloyd grabbed hold of Zoe and wriggled against her. Lloyd and Zoe dancing to ABBA! It felt like the end of the world.

  I ran away. I ran all the way home.

  A couple of hours later, I was in my room, curled on the bed, when I heard a knocking at the front door. Three solid, loud knocks. Lloyd. I didn’t move. He knocked again and called out my name. I still didn’t move. I heard him go into his house. I had closed my bedroom curtains, but kept the window wide open. I started playing Scary Monsters and Super Creeps by David Bowie. Loud enough for him to hear. I heard him call from his bedroom window, ‘Talk to me, mate! I know you’re in there!’

  I turned the music up louder.

  When Mum got home she rushed up and said, ‘Turn that bloody music down! The whole street can hear you.’

  I said, ‘If Lloyd knocks or rings tell him I’m out.’

  ‘Well, he won’t believe me with your music blaring like that, will he?’

  I turned the volume down, but only slightly.

  I heard Mr Kass come home from work. He talked to Mum for a while, then went up to his room. I heard him take off his ‘work’ suit, and change into his ‘evening clothes’ (slacks, slippers, open neck shirt with cravat). Mum called up that dinner was ready. I called back that I wanted mine in my room. She brought it up on a tray.

  ‘So . . . what was it about this time?’

  ‘What’s what about?’

  ‘Your argument with Lloyd.’

  ‘Who said we’ve had an argument?’

  Mum sighed. ‘Okay, okay.’ And left the room.

  I was convinced that Lloyd would knock for me again (or at least phone), but as the evening wore on, and as the sun set, it became clear he wouldn’t. I could hear him playing music in his room. He was singing along without a care in the world. How could he sound so carefree after what he’d done to me?

  Perhaps I’d overreacted a little bit. Perhaps I should have opened the door when he knocked. Perhaps I should have answered­ when he called from his window. Perhaps he’s so pissed off with me now he might never want to talk to me again. I couldn’t go to sleep that night not knowing things were okay between me and Lloyd.

  I opened the curtain and sat by the window reading Great Expectations­. Lloyd’s window was open – and his blind up – so he was bound to see me. I saw him lifting some dumbbells.

  I sat more fully in the window, almost on the window ledge. He clearly wasn’t going to make the first move, so I called out (as casually as I could), ‘Oh! There you are!’

  He came to the window. ‘I know what this is all about.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t play fucking games!’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘You came looking for me!’

  ‘I did not come looking for – ’

  ‘Mack saw you! Running away!’

  ‘I . . . I . . .’

  ‘What? Come on! Think of an excuse!’

  ‘I . . . I could see you were having fun and I didn’t want to – ’

  ‘You’ve got to stop making something out of nothing!’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘You are! And it’s always about stupid things.’

  ‘It’s not a stupid thing! You could have at least told me you were going to spend the whole bloody day with Mack and – ’

  ‘Listen! Mack said he wanted my football for a photo. I took it round to him. He wanted to try it out. You think I wanted to stay all afternoon with that bloody psycho and his brain-dead sister? Of course I fucking didn’t. But if I pissed Mack off I wouldn’t get the photo. Th
at’s all there is to it. Okay?’

  I felt instantly calmer.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Okay. Good. Oh! Nearly forgot! My dad’s coming home!’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Next week sometime!’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘The rest of the summer. So he says. See you tomorrow.’ He closed his window. And the blind.

  I was just about to settle down with Chapter Twelve of Great Expectations when –

  A knock on my bedroom door.

  ‘Come in!’ I said.

  Mr Kass opened the door.

  ‘I’m so sorry to bother you, young man,’ he said.

  ‘Is it about my music, Mr Kass?’

  ‘Your music?’

  ‘Earlier. I was playing it a bit loud and – ’

  ‘Oh, no, no. It’s not a musical taste that I share but it doesn’t bother me in the least.’ He smiled. ‘I just wanted to say, I’ve got you a little something. I saw it in the bookshop today and thought you might like it. Wait a moment. I’ll get it for you. It’s still in my briefcase.’

  He crossed the hallway and went into his room.

  I followed him, stopping at his doorway.

  I could see the cut throat razor on the bedside cabinet.

  ‘Oh, do come in, young man. You’re most welcome!’

  I stepped into the room.

  ‘Here!’ Mr Kass handed me the book. ‘I hope you find it of some interest.’

  The book was called Essays on Expectations by H. G. Ryder.

  Mr Kass said, ‘The “expectations” of the title refers, of course, to Great Expectations. It’s a very old book, as you can see, but some of the ideas Mr Ryder has are still worth considering. The third essay – The Comfort of Misinterpretation – is particularly illuminating. As is the fifth, The Triumph of Truth over Reality.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Kass.’

  ‘Not at all, not at all.’

  I noticed some tiny objects on top of the chest of drawers.

  ‘Aha!’ Mr Kass said. ‘You’ve spotted my Museum of Memories.’

  ‘ “Museum of Memories”?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Each of these things is like a . . . a time capsule for me. I look at it, and I am transported back to when – and how – it came into my possession. This shell, for example, a lobatus gigas – otherwise known as a conch shell – was given to me by a good friend in Malta many, many years ago. I was stationed there for a while when I was in the army.’