Bird Brain Read online

  He was hurtling towards the line of guns, speeding through air that stank of cordite and burnt feathers. He quickly grasped he had a choice of four Guns to fly over. Below him, Jenni Murray flew uncertainly at a frighteningly vulnerable height over the man on the very left. Banger hoped the Gun was too sporting to consider taking such an easy bird, but doubted that a man of that quality shot at Marfield. Forty feet in front of Banger, ten feet lower, was Humphrys flapping desperately. Banger saw a puff of white smoke from a gun, heard the sound of the shot, and watched him stick out his claws in a spasm of death and plummet in a ball to the ground. Banger banked, and tried with one last effort to gain more height. Below him he saw the four eyes of a man who was aiming to kill him: two human ones and the gun’s close-set black ones. Banger flew through a small cloud of downy feathers that hung in the air where Martin Luther King had been killed. He estimated he was doing about thirty miles an hour. The two black eyes were fixed right on him, he could see nothing of the length of the barrel, but glimpsed the man’s pale, office-dweller’s complexion. With a blaze of flame one barrel discharged shot that ripped through the air right in front of him; Banger braced himself for the second barrel. KAKRAK, behind him. He looked to see if the guns on either side were going to take a late shot, but one was reloading and the other was trying to pick off a bird behind Banger. He was through. He had made it. He was alive. He looked back to see a black-and-white Spaniel racing across the frost with Sharon Tate in his mouth.

  Banger dipped when he was out of range and glided into a compartment of larch, landing out of breath on a bed of needles. He crawled into the shade of some half-dead nettles.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked a voice.

  ‘Jenni?’ said Banger.

  The little hen emerged from some bracken.

  ‘You made it,’ said Banger.

  ‘Why were they shooting at us?’ Jenni asked. ‘Kevin was there. He didn’t even try and stop them.’

  They crouched shaking with terror until at dusk the hunting horn echoed through the wood for the last time, and Banger said, ‘That’s it, we’re safe to go back.’

  They trudged out of the larches, back across the darkening stubble and into the bottom of their wood. The cold weather had brought on a fall of leaves and the bare branches were silhouetted against the gun-metal sky. They found The Rev trembling behind the feeder with a handful of other petrified pheasants.

  ‘How many did we lose?’ Banger asked.

  ‘About half of us are missing, but more keep arriving,’ said The Rev.

  Banger looked around.

  ‘Something must be done to stop this,’ said the Tsar.

  ‘Is Atavac here?’ The Rev asked.

  Nobody said anything.

  ‘Atavac!’ shouted Banger, but his call went into silence. ‘Damn,’ he muttered.

  The next morning Banger was able to do a proper count. Of the six hundred who had been in the pen, eighty were missing, forty-five confirmed dead. The survivors stood around dazed, shaking their heads, blinking and shitting themselves every time they heard a noise. When Kevin came by to look at them they all stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘Explain yourself,’ said the Tsar. ‘What was the meaning of that yesterday?’

  ‘Well done, moy lovelies,’ Kevin said, ‘you done me proud you ’ave.’ He sprinkled the last bag of Bird Puller among the sprouts. ‘His nibs up at the house was right pleased with what we put on for the guests. Same thing next Saturday if you please.’

  ‘Bugger that,’ said Banger.

  Atavac limped in later that day. He had been hit in the middle talon of the right claw. Banger took a look at the wound. ‘You’re lucky, there’s not much blood flow to the foot, so you haven’t lost a great deal. If it heals cleanly you’ll live. Just keep licking it.’

  ‘I saw Martin Luther King on the game cart,’ Atavac said. ‘Along with at least a hundred others. Bastards.’

  Banger nodded.

  The Rev quietly said, ‘It’s good to give others joy.’

  ‘Twin Towers’s dead too,’ Jenni sniffed. ‘And Jack Kennedy.’

  ‘Bobby too,’ said the Tsar.

  ‘So what?’ Atavac suddenly cried. ‘Lucky them. For Jack, Bobby and Martin the hurly-burly is over. They have an early release from this shit-hole we call life. For what is our existence, when you get down to it? We are born, fattened, chased and slaughtered. Is that really something to hang onto? The pheasant has the grimmest gig in the natural world. Once, many many generations ago—’ He halted, overcome with emotion. ‘A long time ago,’ he hoarsely cried, tears brimming in his eyes, ‘we were noble and proud birds whose ancestral lands stretched from Kashmir to Thailand. In a few hundred years we have been transported to Britain, and turned into mass-produced, genetically modified, drug-filled, dozy, daft, indolent, wood-infesting flying dartboards. Just so a few toffs with lousy aim can say they have hit something with a gun. At least the slaves of Africa had a chance, slim as it was, of survival. I mean extermination wasn’t the primary motive of their owners. With ours it is. We are the Jews of the avian world,’ Atavac continued, casting his mind back to Mr Smedly’s history lessons he had heard spilling from the classroom window. ‘Except they had six-million killed over six years and we have forty-million killed annually, and more importantly they got given their own country as a consequence, where they get to practise that freedom that is the sign of dignity to a human: the opportunity to victimise someone weaker than yourself.’

  ‘Come come,’ said The Rev, ‘that is a bit negative. Remember morale, Atavac, please.’

  ‘Shut up, you pompous arse,’ Atavac said.

  14

  Drowsy Numbness

  A DAMP, GUSTY wind swung in from the south-west, bringing warmer air and bulging grey clouds which emptied armfuls of Atlantic Ocean onto the Cheshire plane. Rain poured from the sky, and there was nowhere to stay dry. The pheasants shivered in miserable huddles under dripping trees and hedgerows, wet feathers plastered to their bodies. The downpour drenched the land, softened the fields, kickstarted the stream and turned paths to mud. Two soaking days passed before the rain ceased, and patches of pale blue sky came and went among the bruised clouds. At a ruddy sunset, Banger stepped out from under an evergreen holm oak and shook himself. He took a few steps and saw a bright orange hot air balloon through the branches of the wood, preparing for take-off. Hot air ballooning was the kind of ostentatious activity that Barry Brown would engage in, leaning out of the basket with a cigar in his mouth and a flute of champagne in his fist. Then Banger realised that it was not a hot air balloon, but the full moon rising off the horizon: huge, astonishing, mesmerising. He stood and stared, not hearing Atavac coming up behind him.

  ‘We’re off to have a bit of fun,’ Atavac said. ‘Do you want to come with us?’

  The moon made its stately progress into the darkening sky, diminishing in size and losing its colour, but staying bright enough to light Banger, Atavac and The Rev’s way along a skeletal blackthorn hedge, through a thin oak wood and onto a meadow glistening with dew that sloped down to the where the brook had flooded an alder carr in silver pools. Whisps of ghostly mist wafted off the water and floated in moonlit layers.

  A nightingale in a distant wood sang sadly about summer from one of the leafless black trees.

  Atavac sighed and drawled dreamily, ‘My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk.’

  ‘Aren’t you feeling well?’ asked Banger.

  ‘It’s poetry,’ said The Rev. ‘He learnt it at school. Mr Smedly took year nine for English literature.’

  ‘Never much one for poetry myself,’ Banger said. He wouldn’t have been able to place ‘To be or not to be,’ forget Keats.

  ‘It’s called “Ode to a Nightingale”. I loved the Romantics; it was the best module on the syllabus,’ Atavac sighed. ‘Wish I’d been able to sit the exam.’

  ‘You’d have done better than most of the boys who did,’ said The
Rev. ‘They were a very weak year.’

  ‘You’ll note that no human ever wrote “Ode to a Pheasant”, Atavac said. ‘Or at least none that I ever heard of. We don’t rate highly enough for that. Despite being the most beautiful bird, and the friendliest, humans have consistently hated us. They named a cider after the woodpecker …’ Atavac said. ‘And a lager after the kestrel.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Banger asked.

  ‘The lads often drank Kestrel behind the fives courts. I spent many happy hours with them there. Nice lads, all of them. Good laugh. They used matches called Swan,’ he continued, ‘for tobacco called Condor. There’s a vodka called Grey Goose, and a whisky called – can you believe this? – Famous Grouse. Famous Grouse!’ Atavac repeated, almost crying at the injustice. ‘The grouse gets to be famous. But the pheasant? Bred to be vilified and killed.’

  Atavac and The Rev wandered off in separate directions.

  ‘Over here,’ The Rev called.

  Banger found The Rev inspecting a bunch of small and slender mushrooms in the damp grass.

  ‘The rain brings them on this time of year,’ said The Rev.

  ‘What are they?’ Banger asked.

  ‘Magic mushrooms,’ said Atavac. ‘The perfect escape. Eat five of those and you’ll be transported anywhere you want to go …’

  Atavac and The Rev started eating.

  Banger knew about magic mushrooms. Every autumn they appeared in his sheep pastures, attracting men with wispy beards and hand-knitted hats with ear flaps who clutched bread bags and wandered around looking like they had dropped something.

  ‘What do they do?’ Banger asked.

  Atavac looked at him. ‘You may well die tomorrow. Don’t you want to live a bit first?’

  Banger ate his ration.

  ‘What now?’ he asked.

  ‘Let’s take a walk in that wood,’ said Atavac.

  They wandered in the moonlight under some spreading oak branches.

  ‘Listen,’ said The Rev.

  Banger heard a plaintive moaning call.

  ‘Help, help …’

  They picked their way through long wet grass under a strata of mist to where Jack Kennedy had collapsed among some feggy tussocks by a fence, breathing heavily. He smelt of blood and pain and fear.

  ‘Friends,’ he groaned.

  ‘Jack. Are you hit?’ The Rev asked.

  ‘In my side. Under the wing,’ Jack murmured.

  ‘Sorry, old man,’ The Rev said. ‘Is it bad?’

  Jack clenched his eyes and nodded his head. ‘I’m scared,’ he breathed.

  Banger stared at the dancing shadows that the trees traced on the woodland floor.

  ‘Brave boy,’ The Rev said.

  ‘Atavac,’ Jack whispered, ‘sing me some poetry, will you?’

  ‘Of course, it would be a pleasure,’ said Atavac, pulling himself into his poetic pose and lifting his head to the moon.

  For many a time I have been half in love with easeful death,

  Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

  To take into the air my quiet breath;

  Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

  To cease upon the midnight with no pain …

  ‘Haven’t you got something a bit more upbeat?’ The Rev whispered.

  ‘Thank you,’ Jack said. They stood by the wounded bird listening to his fading breaths until the last long exhalation.

  ‘Right,’ said Banger. ‘We better get out of here before a fox turns up.’

  ‘Is that all you can say?’ said Atavac. ‘A friend has just died, Banger. He was brave and beautiful to his ghastly end …’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Banger.

  ‘I hate humans,’ Atavac said. ‘I frigging hate them.’

  ‘What about Keats?’ The Rev asked.

  ‘He was no human,’ drawled Atavac, ‘he was an angel. He wouldn’t have shot a pheasant. Or Shelley. Or Wordsworth. Shelley would have challenged Kevin to a duel and killed him on the spot.’

  Banger thought ‘sewers’ but agreed. ‘I hate humans too.’

  ‘You don’t even know them,’ Atavac said. ‘You wait till you’ve been through a season.’

  ‘I was a human, once,’ Banger said.

  ‘I’m sorry? What?’ asked Atavac.

  ‘In my last life. I have lived before. I was a human. I hated them then. You don’t have to be a pheasant to hate humans.’

  Then Banger, falling into a trance, turned his face to the moon and stared across the damp air at the pale disc and its wide, misty halo. He suddenly laughed. ‘This is a jolly odd sensation. For one appalling moment I thought I was a pheasant,’ he said. ‘But now I see it was all a horrible little dream,’ he chuckled.

  After a pause, Atavac said darkly, ‘You are a pheasant. But you said you were a man.’

  The Rev said, ‘It must be the mushrooms talking.’

  ‘Oh! Do they talk too?’ Banger asked.

  15

  A Repeat Like ‘The Archers’

  BANGER WOKE IN a ditch and had to turn round three times to work out who he was and where he was. When he had trudged back to the sprouts he detected an odd atmosphere. The birds, with the exception of Atavac, eyed him suspiciously. Atavac stared with open hostility. Banger remembered enough about the night before to guess what it was about.

  To The Rev he said, ‘Morning. I’m afraid I talked a lot of nonsense last night.’

  The Rev said nothing.

  Atavac said, ‘You said you were a human.’

  It was not in Banger’s character to hide who he was to anyone, and he was relieved to have it out in the open.

  ‘I was; don’t ask me how or why. But I lived a life as a human before I was a pheasant.’

  ‘You’re a repeat,’ said Jenni. ‘Like the lunchtime “Archers”.’

  ‘Quite like that. But I am a fully paid-up member of the pheasant species now.’ He smiled. None of them smiled back at him.

  ‘You said more than that last night,’ said Atavac.

  ‘Did I? What did I say last night?’ To Banger it was all rather a pleasant blurry blank.

  ‘You said you shot pheasants.’

  ‘Ah.’ The pheasants made a circle around Banger. One or two of them scraped at the mud with extended claws.

  ‘That’s not true, is it?’ said Jenni. ‘Tell them, Banger.’

  Banger had a clear choice: he could admit the truth, and take a beating, quite possibly a fatal one, or he could say he had made it up under the influence of the mushrooms, and save his life, but this would mean denying who he was and what he stood for. It made the decision very simple. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘That’s what I did. In fact, I actually shot pheasants on this estate. It’s called Marfield.’

  Atavac moved slowly up to Banger. With one shoulder dipped and his tail spread wide, his feathers stiffened on his neck. ‘You, sir, are a murderer. I thought as much last night. I say we kill him now,’ he said. ‘Who’s with me?’

  Banger stood his ground.

  A group of poults pressed forward behind Atavac. ‘We are!’ they cried.

  ‘Let’s kill him!’ shouted Flight 93.

  ‘Come on,’ said Atavac. The gang closed in on Banger.

  Atavac crouched in front of Banger, making weird bobbing gestures. Suddenly his spurs and claws flew as he lunged.

  Jenni closed her eyes, screamed ‘STOPPPPPPP!’ and ran at Atavac, scrabbling onto his back and stabbing at his white collar with her beak.

  ‘Jenni! Jenni! Stop it, get off him,’ Banger shouted. ‘Stop. Please.’

  She got off Atavac; there was blood dripping from his neck.

  ‘Banger’s my friend,’ she panted. ‘Whatever he’s done.’

  ‘Let’s just listen to his story, shall we? Before we jump to conclusions,’ said The Rev.

  ‘Or shall we just kill him?’ said Flight 93.

  Atavac turned to Banger. ‘You shot at pheasants, yes or no?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Banger.
‘I did. I killed them the way you kill insects. To eat. For the pot. Humans have to eat too.’

  ‘Humans must get very hungry,’ sneered Atavac. ‘Every week they kill a pile of us as big as that tree.’ He indicated a coppiced hazel. ‘Did you eat pheasant for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Come to think of it, Banger, exactly how many of us did you kill?’

  Banger swallowed, and met Atavac’s unblinking stare. ‘Fair point. I shot more than I ate, I admit it.’

  ‘I’ve heard all I need to,’ snarled Atavac.

  ‘But why did you shoot us?’ Jenni asked.

  Banger sighed. ‘For … for sport, for fun. It’s fun.’

  ‘But surely killing birds isn’t fun?’ said The Rev.

  ‘Grandmother’s footsteps is fun,’ Jenni said.

  ‘Or pass the twig,’ said Flight 93.

  ‘Humans think it is,’ stated Banger.

  ‘Don’t humans care about us?’ Jenni asked, literally crestfallen.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘Because you are a fucking pheasant,’ said Banger. ‘You have been purposely bred to be stupid and dispensable.’

  ‘They’ve bred us to be stupid?’ Jenni asked.

  ‘Very successfully in your case,’ Banger said.

  ‘We may be stupid, but we enjoy life. It doesn’t take brains to laugh or dance or sing, does it?’ said The Rev.

  ‘All humans hate us?’ asked Jenni.

  ‘Some don’t,’ said Atavac. ‘Some want to help pheasants. They are called “antis”.’

  ‘They’re scum,’ said Banger, ‘gutless interfering ignorant killjoys.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Atavac said. ‘Let’s kill him. For fun.’

  The crowd of pheasants advanced again on Banger.

  ‘Fine, come on then,’ he growled. ‘Which one of you halfwits am I going to kill first?’

  The Rev, finding himself pushed to the front of the group, said, ‘Now, let’s not be hasty here. Banger might be useful. If he knows about shooting pheasants, he must know how to help us avoid getting shot.’