King Crow Read online

  The funny thing is, someone has drawn a face on the ball with big jug ears and a smiley tooth-filled mouth, as if the person responsible realised that the lamp didn’t look right and needed brightening up to match the surroundings. Except it doesn’t brighten the place up, it makes it in some way darker, like the painted-on smile a clown wears, or the about-to-eat-you grin of a shark.

  There’s a chalkboard with some writing on: Afternoon Special Mon – Fri 2-4pm, pot of tea or regular coffee with a toasted fruit teacake £1.25p. Which explains why the place is so busy, mostly with old women gabbing.

  I walk through the gates of Buile Hill Park from the Seedley end, up the hill to the middle. From the top of the park you can see all of Weaste and Seedley and the surrounding area. There are some kids on skateboards and a man with a beret on and a Weimaraner dog. You can see a grey concrete high-rise with red writing down its side: Salford Shopping City, it says, with a big red arrow pointing down. I don’t know about ‘Shopping City’ though, there’s just a T.J. Hughes, a Timpsons, a Wimpy, Home Bargains, a pet shop which also sells second-hand books, video cassettes, DVDs and CDs, three charity shops and Larder’s café.

  To the left of me is Weaste and to the right it’s a bit posher. The trees in the park are well established, the buds about to burst. Green shoots on the grass, underneath are daffodils about to sprout. The houses on the right are big and the streets are leafy. It’s like the park is a wall between two areas. I pass a white X painted onto the trunk of a tree, marking it out as dead so the man can chop it down.

  The bowling green is surrounded by red brick walls painted with red paint over the top, as if the brick wasn’t red enough. A jogger goes past with his chow, tail curled up and its dark purple tongue lolling. I notice a dog ball, one of those with a rope attached, dangling from a branch like a bauble hanging from a Christmas tree. Slate grey clouds, edges of white and yellow poking through.

  I head for home down Weaste Lane and onto Gore Crescent. It’s a better area than when we were here before, some poor bits but not like Ordsall with the trackies on one side and the suits on the other. Lots of red brick terraces, but more seem to be bought now than rented. They back on to each other so there are cobbled back-ins between them, with grey wheelie bins with pink lids outside the backyards, except some of the back-ins have been gated and locked with black metal bars, so that the wheelie bins have been left out in front of the gates, all jostling for room. Each has a number on, as though there’s any difference between them.

  These houses, the ones with the gated back-ins, have hardwood window frames and curtains and ornaments. Our street has white PVC window frames and To Let signs outside attached to the red brick walls. There are two collared doves rubber-necking by a Kenny yellow skip. Gore Crescent is long with lots of different houses. There’s one with two pot sailors in the yard, blue and white, and one with a red and black flag flying with a picture of that bearded bloke you see on student T-shirts. I stop and have a look at it flapping in the breeze. Then I notice, standing beneath it, an old man with long white hair staring right at me.

  I look away.

  Babblers

  I crossed over the road as I came down Gore Crescent to avoid a gang and saw a group of long-tailed tits in the willow trees outside number 55. About six of them. They’re sociable like that. I like the mix of pink with black and white. Long tailed tits are not classed as true tits – they’re known as babblers. Most true tits have black bibs, white cheeks and black or dark caps. In true tits the sexes are alike.

  When I open the front door, which leads straight from the pavement to the living space, mum is on the sofa with Tina. She looks embarrassed, as though I’ve caught her doing something she shouldn’t. She clasps at a green corduroy cushion.

  —Ok? Mum says.

  —Sorry I’m late, I say.

  She looks at the clock on the DVD. It says, 16.35. I’m an hour late.

  —I went to the precinct.

  —What for?

  I hold up my bag of sunflower hearts and mealworm.

  —I’ve been trying to get hold of you, she says.

  I take my phone out of my pocket. —It’s gone blank, I say, holding it up. It’s not been the same since I dropped it a few months ago.

  Mum gets up and puts on her slippers. —How was it then?

  I shrug.

  —Well? she says, —What was it like?

  I wonder why it has taken her three days to ask. —It’s big, I say eventually.

  She pulls her hair off her face. —You’ll get used to it, she says. —You’ll see. She smiles awkwardly. —And there’s the trip.

  I close the door and take off my blazer. It’s hard to know where to put anything because there are boxes everywhere full of stuff. There are pictures that haven’t been put up yet and loose bits of newspaper spilling from boxes where mum has had a look to make sure they are in the right room. There’s a box of plates and mugs that should really be in the kitchen. I drape my blazer over the armchair. Mum’s unpacked the mirror and placed it over the mantelpiece. She goes over and examines her face. She re-applies her lipstick. She wets her finger and preens her eyebrows. In birds you call the eyebrow the supercilium, which means, above the eyelash. The long-tailed tit has very striking supercilia – big black wedges arching right back. My mum’s supercilia have been plucked to such an extent that there isn’t that much there. She has to draw some of it back in with a pencil.

  —We’re going out, so you’ll have to make you’re own tea. Is that alright?

  I nod. There’s plenty in the freezer. Mum and Tina leave the room. My task for tonight is to sort out my three boxes of bird books, first tea then sort out the books. I’m hungry, so I pour myself a bowl of Frosties first, before tackling the freezer. Over by the window now, I shovel the sugary flakes and milk into my mouth, while watching the table.

  At first there isn’t much action. But then there’s a robin. He hops onto the sunflower seed dispenser, rummages for one of the succulent hearts and flies off, mandibles wedged open with the seed. Shortly after, a pair of coal tits arrive. Nervy little birds, they twitch and jerk about. I pick up my binoculars to take a closer look. He could be a she. A female coal tit and a male coal tit are identical.

  I put a lasagne in the oven and open the fridge. There are some of Tina’s lagers, so I take one and open it. I didn’t like lager at first, I was more of a cider drinker, or wine, like mum, but I’ve developed a taste for it now. It’s cold and crisp on my tongue. The lasagne is going to take about half an hour. The microwave was broken so we didn’t even bother bringing it with us – we left it in the back car park with Heather’s dresses and Heather’s shoes and Heather’s bags. I sit down at the table with my lager and my book. I take out a sketchpad and start to do some rudimentary sketches of tits.

  I find it really hard to distinguish the marsh tit from the willow tit, and I find that by drawing them, identification becomes easier. The only real difference is that the bib of the marsh tit is slightly smaller than the bib of the willow, and also the willow has a light area on the edge of its wing feathers. In my sketches of the two birds I accentuate the differences and draw a big black line to the light wing edges and write WILLOW in capital letters. Then I draw another big black line to the bib of the other bird and write MARSH.

  Once I’ve finished the sketches I close my book and take out another one of Tina’s lagers from the fridge. I lever the ring-pull open and swig. I walk back through the living room and the unpacked boxes, and open the front door. I stand in the doorway with lager in one hand looking up and down the street. There are a few kids standing outside Kaz’s shop, one is on a bike, and as a man passes, she asks him if he’ll buy her some cigarettes. He doesn’t even acknowledge her, just carries on walking.

  Next to Kaz’s is a Chinese called Golden Star, next to this is Zion Afro Store, then a Coral betting shop. There’s quite a lot of activity. A couple walking hand in hand. He’s got a brindle pit-bull with a thick leathe
r harness. She wears white leggings and sucks the top off her ice cream. There’s a big poster for Scorpion Lager outside the Gore Social Club at the end of the street. There’s a group of smokers standing beneath it. It’s a white drawing of a scorpion on a black background. This is a lager that can sting, drink me if you dare, it seems to be saying.

  An old man walks past them wearing a navy blue cap with earflaps and carrying a canvas bag. He disappears into the betting shop, as a man in a black hoodie and a hi-vis waistcoat comes out, almost bumping into him. A dark skinned man in a grey baseball cap and a black beard posts leaflets through letterboxes. A kid with a staffy and a golf club. What are all these people doing? All the bald hard men with dogs, the old blokes with funny hats and doddery walks, the kids on bikes with hoods up, the old women wrapped in macs and clutching bags, the women with young clothes and young shoes and young hair, with old necks and old lips and old eyelids. They all seem to be going somewhere, or coming from somewhere.

  I turn around and look up the other side of the street. There are a group of five, all about my age, walking down the road. Three boys and two girls. I wonder if they go to Roseway – I don’t recognise them without their uniform. They seem full of energy and life, they laugh and nudge each other. The boys jostle and elbow and shove, the girls shriek and chatter. One of the girls is pretty, with long silky brown hair and tight jeans. As they pass by, the pretty one nudges one of the boys. They both look at me and snigger. I feel my cheeks flush and take a good swig from the lager. I look up to the sky, grey, darkening high cloud as far as the eye can see.

  I’ll sort out those boxes, I think, but then I remember, it’s The Met on television and I never miss The Met. There’s always something exciting going on, people getting shot, police chases, fast cars, drugs. It’s never dull. My mum used to get worried about me, because I wanted that excitement. She was afraid I’d go to prison. But it’s just a television programme.

  Hornbills

  The next morning I place bread crusts on the table and come back into the kitchen. I’ve also placed some bacon rind there. It would be nice to attract some corvids or even some raptors. In Ordsall, we had a sparrowhawk that was a regular visitor. I sometimes called into the butchers for scraps, but there isn’t a butchers round these parts.

  The starlings are there straight away, fighting over the bread. They gorge themselves in a frenzy. I make a quick head sketch to capture that quality a starling has, of being both human and reptilian. I can hear mum’s headboard banging against the bedroom wall directly above me. I grab my bag – time to catch the bus. I go to the stairs.

  I shout half-heartedly — I’ll be late back Mum, school trip.

  She doesn’t hear me. But I’ve got my mobile so I can ring her later. Seems a strange thing to be doing, this trip. The coach sets off from school at nine, but it takes four hours to get to London, so we won’t get there till one. That only leaves three hours to walk around the Tower of London, because the coach sets off back again at four, getting us home at eight. Seems a bit of a waste of time, but the school has received some funding for a history project, and our class was chosen. I’ve picked three books to take with me. My field guide, my sketchbook and a large hard-backed book on hornbills that I took from Manchester Central Library two years ago but still haven’t had a chance to read.

  I chose it primarily because I liked the picture on the cover of a black hornbill with a flame-red bill. You don’t get hornbills in Salford, but it’s good to learn about non-native birds. Birds, like anything else, are a product of their environment. There are 57 different species of hornbill, many of them endangered.

  By the time I get to the school gates the coach is already loading. There are about thirty in my class and they are lined up ready as the teacher counts them off. I see the swanking boy from day three, who I now know is called Ashley, some way off in the distance. He is talking to a man in a car. He leans on the window of the driver’s side of the car. The man inside is talking to Ashley but I can’t hear what he is saying. The man’s expression is stern. Ashley nods his head solemnly.

  I make a quick sketch. The man passes Ashley a bag, which Ashley shoves into his inside coat pocket. The man points his finger at him. Ashley shrugs. The teacher has counted in all the class now. He sees me and looks down his list, slightly puzzled.

  —Has anyone seen Tom Reed?

  I don’t hear anyone answer. I bag my sketchbook and walk over to the coach. Ashley appears and pushes in front. The teacher ticks me off his list.

  —Come on, we need to go. But we’re already inside.

  In the coach I manage to get a seat near the front on my own. There’s a bit of a commotion at the back where most people want to sit and some shoving and general jostling. Some of it is jokey and there’s laughter but there’s a bit of an edge too. They’re sorting out a hierarchy I suppose, like birds do. One of the teachers chirps up.

  —Hurst, sit down, stop messing about.

  —It was him sir. He’s got my seat.

  —Just sit down there.

  —But I was there first, swear down sir.

  Things calm down a bit and the driver sets off. There’s still a lot of joking and shouting.

  —There’s Reeko, eh Reeko!

  Someone is banging on the window.

  —Ugghhh.

  —He’s like shhhhh.

  —What?

  —What, no one puts it on the T-shirt?

  —How do I spray myself?

  —Do it underneath, shhhhh like that.

  —What time is it bastard?

  —See that car?

  —Wow!

  —Sick.

  Lots of laughing. It’s like I’m invisible. Perhaps I’m not really here. Then he appears. Ashley. He sits on his own in the middle of a double seat. I watch the girl in the seat next to him. She wants to sit next to him but there is no room. Ashley has taken all the room. She wants him to flirt with her. I should be sitting with a girl, I think. She is pretty and her breasts push open her blouse to reveal the edges of her white lace bra. Her skin is creamy and smooth. I imagine I’m sitting where she would like Ashley to be, sitting next to her. I needle her just below her rib cage with my finger and she giggles. Then she looks over to me and notices me staring at her. I bury my head in my book but make a sideways glance. She whispers something to her friend and points to me. Ashley watches her and laughs.

  —Hey, what’s your name? he shouts over to me.

  —Cooper, I say.

  I go back to my book. The girl nudges her friend again. I can feel their eyes on me, marking me out, separating me from the others. Ashley watches them nudge and whisper and he looks over to me and smiles. His black hair shimmers.

  —What you reading? he shouts over.

  I hold up my book and show him the cover.

  —What you reading that for?

  I shrug and go back to reading it, but I don’t actually read the words, I just stare at their shape on the page.

  —Eh! he shouts.

  I ignore him and focus on the page more intently. Ashley walks over and sits next to me.

  —Hey. I asked you a question, what’s so interesting about that book?

  He’s very close to me now, almost touching. I show him the page I’m reading. There’s a large colour photograph of an African ground hornbill.

  —If this bird lands on your roof, you have to move house.

  —That right? Ashley looks over to the girls, winks, but they have moved on to talk about something else. They are no longer staring at me.

  —Why’s that then?

  —You have to move or else you die.

  Ashley laughs and shakes his head. He grabs my sketchbook and starts to flick through it. He flicks past the sketches of mum at the kitchen table smoking a Regal, the marsh and willow tits with lines marking their differing bib sizes, the head of the starling, and it’s too late as I realise what’s on the next page. Ashley sees it, a sketch of himself, leaning against the car wi
ndow, the space between the elbow and his torso forming a triangle, with a man pointing his finger in the middle of the triangle.

  —What’s this? he says.

  I shrug.

  —Eh? He points to the sketch of himself, puzzled and annoyed at the same time. He rips out the page and screws it up, puts it in his pocket and goes back to his seat. The girl with the breasts pushing out is muttering something to the other girl. They mutter and giggle as Ashley sits in the middle of his seat and stares out of the window.

  But then he looks back at me, this time not annoyed, just puzzled. He takes out the crumpled paper and uncrumples it. He holds it up towards me like a flag and then points at it with his head. He makes a fist and pushes the paper down deep into the fist with his index finger. He holds the fist up, in the light, slowly it unravels. Five fingers, a palm. No paper. I go back to my book and give another sideways glance. I imagine reaching for the girl. I cup the back of her head with my hand and kiss her on the lips. She opens her mouth. I take my other hand and place it over one of her breasts. I squeeze it. My hand moulds the flesh and I feel the heat of her and her nipple stiffen under my palm. I feel myself getting hard and place the book on my lap so no one can see. I put my hand underneath and move my pants to make room for the growing feeling down there.