Pigeon

They took what they needed—ate until something, or someone, disturbed their meal. Resilient things. They returned—swooped down in a dark cloud on the paved podium of the little park and continued eating. Kunle sat at the bench many times, watching them in the cold dark London winter.

He rarely cycled straight home from his job as an architectural intern in west London. Instead, he would stop at the little park and sit there till late. His unpaid architecture internship gave him little spare time.

Sometimes, if he had any at all, he’d retrieve what was left of the baguette he had for lunch from the pocket of his navy wool-blend trench coat and feed the pigeons. Sometimes he’d chew on the baguette as well. He had little money to eat much else, to do much else.

—

‘You’re wasting your time, Kunle,’ Jide said. Jide had moved to London from Lagos, shortly after Kunle did. They’d met at an African Caribbean Society party when Kunle was at university on a scholarship for a master’s degree in architecture. Jide wasn’t a student at Kunle’s university. He only went to the parties.

They shared a cold studio apartment in Whitechapel, which they began renting after Kunle moved out of his flatshare because he couldn’t afford it anymore. The kitchen was separate from the main space, which had two single beds arranged in parallel, at the corner a round table with two foldable chairs pushed against the window with a view of the street. There was a potted aspidistra on a black metal plant stand at the left corner of the room. And at the opposite end, adjacent to the room entrance, was a in-built cupboard, which he and Jide shared.

‘You’re wasting your time, Kunle,’ Jide repeated as he sat on his bed and bent over to untie his shoelaces. He was facing the opposite end and Kunle was lying in bed and staring at the white wall. A painting in a gold-painted wooden picture frame hung on the wall. It was the only decoration in the room. It was of what looked like eight people dancing in a circle holding hands. You couldn’t tell if they were women or men. Or how many they were because they were so engrossed in dance. Their limbs were entwined and together they formed a blurry ball of jubilance. Happiness.

‘Kunle, are you listening to me?’ Jide had now untied his laces. He took off his shoes and stretched onto his bed. The metal frame of the bed screeched and echoed in the room.

‘But this is what I’ve always wanted to do. It brings me happiness and I’m paying my dues.’

Jide laughed. ‘Paying your dues?’ he repeated mockingly. ‘Who said that? Your boss?’ Jide asked, staring at Kunle, who said nothing. Jide continued, ‘You don’t look happy to me. It’s been ten months since you graduated. Ten months and nothing to show for it. Try another job.’

‘I’ve tried to get a paying architecture job.’

‘Look, the man doesn’t pay you. Working you like a donkey, day and night, night and day. In this rubbish cold weather.’

‘Look, this is just the way it is. You have to build your name and network. Get experience. I’m getting valuable experience, you know. It begins with an internship.’

‘Intern-what?’

‘Internship!’

‘I know what it is. Look. Any man that does work for no money is fooling himself. Any man that works another man without paying him is wicked,’ Jide said as he turned over in bed and looked at Kunle staring at the painting on the wall.

‘Do you believe that?’

‘Yes! You can’t afford it,’ Jide laughed. ‘Do you think you’re like those white boys with rich parents?’

He hated that Jide lectured him all the time. But Jide was the only one that took him in. And for that he was thankful. He was right, he couldn’t afford it. He wasn’t like those rich white boys. ‘No,’ he replied.

‘It doesn’t make sense to me.’

‘It doesn’t have to. I’m getting there. I’m getting more responsibility and, you’ll see.’

Jide smirked, shaking his head. ‘You were at the park again, right?’

‘Yeah.’

Kunle turned to the painting again—a blurry ball of jubilance, happiness. Taking off his socks, Jide said, ‘You should learn from those pigeons you spend your time with.’ Then he lay back in bed.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well…’ Jide wriggled around, then sat at the side of the bed facing Kunle. He looked at Kunle with a straight face and scratched the stubble on his chin. He kept long fingernails and constantly scratched and picked his beard. Kunle hated this. He hated Jide’s many habits.

‘You see those birds…when they see the food they fly to it—straight to it. Instinct, survival, no thinking, or nothing.’

‘I don’t think I understand your point.’

‘You see. That’s the problem. It’s simple. You think too much. Humans think too much. We see something, no, maybe something better will come—banking our happiness on something better. Rubbish. The pigeon sees the food and eats it. It doesn’t bank on anything. It doesn’t care if it’s poison. It just eats. It only cares about satisfying the hunger.’ He stopped looking at Kunle and stretched onto his bed again. ‘You aren’t suffering enough. If you were, you would’ve quit this architecture thing a long time ago and found yourself a paying job. What about your cleaning job? Can’t you do that full-time?’

Kunle’s gaze was fixed on the wall. Who was Jide to speak about a job? he thought. He’d never held a job longer than four months. No ambition. But somewhere in him, he knew that Jide made sense. He’d thought of giving up before, of chasing something that gave him money. But continuing with architecture seemed more worthwhile. It seemed like the way forward. He felt chasing something else was going back—a death he wasn’t ready for. I’m getting more responsibilities, he thought. My boss has noticed me taking on more and getting it done. Working extra time. Jide will see.

This was how many of their conversations went after Kunle finished work and watched the pigeons in the park. They were free. Unbothered. They were resilient. He watched them get fatter, bobbing and swaying around. And after a while, he stopped feeding them. Other people continued feeding them and left so much food for them. People took care of the pigeons and made sure they didn’t starve. The pigeons could choose from different meals—bread, rice, oat, lentils, all sorts. They had options.

Afterwards, Kunle would get on his bike leaning against the bench, cycle home and hope  that Jide would say nothing about his situation. But he always did. ‘Look at you. Look at how your clothes hang on your body, as if you’re the hanger in my closet, with nothing to fill the space. The man is sucking you dry.’

Jide was right. He was getting thinner. But he pushed on with this thing that he always wanted to do. No matter what the man did to him or didn’t do for him. In the morning he’d hop on his bike and cycle to west London and look at all the beautiful big white Georgian terrace houses and beautiful cars parked at the side of wide roads.

The office was on the ground floor of a Victorian building at the corner of the road where two terraces meet. The building had big windows with black aluminium frames contrasting with the white-painted brick wall. Light flooded the office as the staff clicked away in front of their computers all day. Kunle liked the building and his colleagues. They hated the man. But Kunle wanted to be like the man. He wanted to be rich like the man. Every morning, the man would arrive an hour late with the engine of his Porsche roaring. And everyone in the office would sit up, clicking away, as if they’d been hard at work for hours. The man would arrive through the door, greet everyone, go to his seat, carefully lay his leather briefcase on his desk, and then retreat to the corner of the office into his separate room where coffee had already been prepared.

Kunle wanted to be like the man in success and riches. So, Kunle stuck to the job, working hard day to night. He did the same thing after work every evening: watched the pigeons as they ate and flapped around.

Things changed when one day the man came into the office as he usually did and asked Kunle to accompany him to the site of a potential project. Finally, he’d been upgraded. Kunle had never been in a Porsche or to a project site. Handling the menial tasks in the office—tea, coffee, and cleaning up after the architects—he’d taken on more by assisting with drawings and ordering materials, but this was a real upgrade. The Porsche had heated seats and on the short drive, he sank into the leather chair, which was soft and warm.

The site was a disused three-storey terrace house, boarded up and neglected. It stood in the middle of a row of pristine houses on a beautiful west London Street. Bought for a good price by the client, the job was to make it look as beautiful and neat, if not better than the other houses on the street and extend the rear to form a ground-floor terrace that smoothly transitioned into the garden space. The man had ideas. He was scribbling away in his sketchbook. He wanted to pave a section of the garden to match the terrace extension.

The garden was expansive with overgrown lawn grass, concrete paving, and a single English oak tree, as tall as the building, positioned at the corner of the garden. Though it leaned over the fence into the neighbour’s garden, its leafless canopy cast an eerie shadow on the ground. No plants grew around it, just overgrown lawn grass.

Kunle walked closer to the tree.

‘It’s planted too close to the fence,’ the man said. ‘They shouldn’t have put all that concrete paving around it either.’

‘It’s remarkable how it’s grown from that stump,’ Kunle said. Its roots had cracked the concrete paving around it and slithered their way to the brick fence, which had also cracked in several parts. There was something about how it had survived cutting and taken over the garden that gave him hope.

‘Trees do that. They come back stronger, hungrier,’ the man said.

Kunle continued looking at the majestic thing. He loved the house. The ornate details of the cornices in the living room deserved to be refurbished, the alcove in the kitchen sparked ideas for a beautiful, nested kitchen unit, and the timber stairs, which were covered in blue carpet, deserved to be exposed and polished, but nothing stole his attention as much as the tree.

The man continued back into the house as Kunle stood there. A pigeon was perched on a branch above him, but Kunle paid it no attention. He continued looking at the tree standing underneath it for a moment longer before turning to follow the man back into the house.

At the front of the house, the man had started his car. He came out of the car and met Kunle at the door. After locking the front door, the man followed Kunle as he headed to the car.

‘I want you to help me on this project,’ the man said. Kunle smiled. Paying his dues was paying off, after all. ‘And…’ the man stopped talking, staring at Kunle’s left shoulder. ‘What’s that?’

‘What?’ Kunle said.

‘What’s that on your shoulder?’

Kunle looked over his shoulder. There was a black stain with a white ring on the shoulder of his wool-blend coat.

‘You can’t come in my car with shit on you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You can’t come in my car with bird shit on you. Don’t want that staining the seats, stinking up the car.’

The man watched Kunle as he wiped his coat with a leaf from the shrubs at the front of the house. There were more stains on the back. He cleaned that too. But it stained his coat.

‘You still can’t come in my car.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes, I am. It’s going to stink it up. Get the tube back to the office.’

Kunle stood on the spot as the man walked past him and entered his car. Then Kunle chuckled, brushed his palm over his face, laughed again and walked to the passenger door where he took off his coat and folded it. He opened the passenger door.

‘Seriously, you can’t come in here.’

‘But I’ve removed my coat,’ Kunle said with the door ajar.

‘You still can’t come in my car,’ the man said as he leaned over and shut the passenger door. He looked at Kunle through the window and then wound down the glass.

‘Get the tube to the office,’ he said and slowly pulled away from the kerb.

Kunle walked for forty minutes back to the office. He had no money to get the tube and his bike was at the office.

He’d managed to wash the shit off his coat. But the smell lingered. He couldn’t get any work done for the rest of the day.

At the end of the day, he got on his bike and rode to the park. He needed to cool off. He watched as the birds waddled around the park with their heads bopping up and down, picking up food—their backsides up in the air. He was hungry and he was still angry. It was like the birds were mocking him with their bums turned up at him, eating to their satisfaction. They were getting fuller, and fatter with each bite—every night he spent watching them, as he got thinner.

He sat there until a pigeon landed in the middle of the flock and dispersed the rest. This one was different—twice the size of the others. It wasn’t dark dirty grey. Instead, a golden-brown colour with a white crest. And Kunli saw, as it flapped its large wings and walked around lazily, bullying the other pigeons, it was taking all the food.

He had a tight feeling in his stomach watching the large golden-brown pigeon. There were pigeons in Lagos, mostly in the villages just outside the city and people caught them. In Lagos, they weren’t this comfortable, he thought. They weren’t this brave, strutting around. In London they are fed more than beggars on the street, he thought. They are fed so much that they leave leftovers to waste on the ground. Thinking this, a sudden embarrassment of having no money for food and fun—for living—overwhelmed him. What was the point of his dedication to his occupation?

His uncle once caught a pigeon and brought it home and roasted it for dinner. ‘It’s medicinal, more nutrients than chicken,’ he said. It tasted like chicken, but sweeter and tougher. He grew hungrier as these thoughts continued.

There weren’t many people in the park. They quickly walked through, heading home or to whatever destination. Kunle waited and watched until no one was in sight. He slowly got up, careful not to knock over his bike that leaned against the bench and startle the bird. It slowly walked towards a patch of green beyond the paved footpath and Kunle followed. When it stopped, he flung his arm, fingers splayed to catch the bird, but he missed. The bird hopped through the bars of the black wrought iron fence, which divided the park from the street. The bird didn’t fly off. It just kept walking on the pavement at the other side of the fence, bobbing and swaying around.

Defeated, Kunle returned to the bench for his bike. He rolled the bike along as he left the park as his stomach grew tighter. Jide has some potatoes stashed away, he thought. He’d ask him for some and pay him back later. He saw the large pigeon again, still walking down the pavement. Kunli carefully leaned his bike against the fence and crept behind the bird. Then he threw his whole body at the bird, his coat wide open, and as it took off, he caught it in his chest and quickly secured it in his coat with both hands.

‘Oh my God!’

A woman in a beige trench coat was walking towards him.

‘Oh my God,’ she said again. ‘I saw that. I saw what you did!’

Kunle tried to fit the bird into his inside breast pocket, but half of its body couldn’t fit. He quickly turned around and ran to his bike while buttoning his coat.

‘I’m calling the police!’

With one hand pressed against his chest, securing the bird, he jumped on his bike and zoomed off with the tail of his coat flapping behind him.

Jide wasn’t home when Kunle arrived, so Kunle helped himself to Jide’s potatoes to prepare a roast dinner. The small flat was filled with a spicy-sweet aroma.

In Lagos, his mother had taught him how to kill and prepare a chicken. ‘You must see how hard it is to make those wings and drumsticks you devour so quickly. You must see the whole process,’ she’d said. And after, his fingertips hurt from the hot skin of the chicken, which he’d dipped in boiling water before plucking the feathers. But nothing seared his memory more than the image of the chicken running around, spurting blood because he’d hesitated enough and used a blunt blade.

So, he didn’t start with the pigeon until he’d sharpened all the knives they owned, and sharpened them again until he was pleased with the glinting blades. Then he conjured all his strength. And after, he plucked the bird, gutted it, and roasted it with the potatoes.

He’d finished cooking and had set the little round table at the corner of the room with plates and cutlery when Jide arrived. ‘Smells nice!’ Jide said, hanging his coat on the wall hook opposite the entrance. ‘What did you cook?’ he asked as he walked through the small entrance corridor into the main room.

Kunle was sitting at the table, staring at the browned bird in the dish at the centre. He’d taken his time cooking it. Though hungry, he hadn’t eaten a single thing.

‘Wow…what are we celebrating? The man’s paid you?’

Kunle looked at Jide as he sat at the other side of the table. ‘He hasn’t paid me.’

‘So where did you get the money for this fine bird?’

Kunle said nothing as Jide grabbed his fork and poked the roasted pigeon.

‘Is this chicken? This is too small to be chicken. This nah all yah money fit carry?’ Jide said and laughed as he cut a piece out of the roasted bird. He often broke into pidgin english when he was happy.

‘No… It’s not chicken.’

‘So, nah wetin be this?’ Jide said, chewing on a piece of the bird he’d cut for himself. ‘Hmm…this nah proper sweet bird. This nah proper food.’

‘It’s pigeon.’

Jide stopped chewing and placed his fork and knife on his plate. He looked at Kunle, searching his eyes. ‘No, you aren’t serious?’

‘I’m serious.’

‘Where did you get pigeon meat from?’

‘From the park.’

‘You killed a park pigeon?’ Jide said as he pushed his plate away from him.

‘Yes.’

‘You can’t do that, Kunle!’ he said, staring at him. ‘You’re losing your mind,’ he said and looked at the brown meat at the centre of the table.

‘I saw the bird. It was big—’

‘This England people love their animals,’ Jide interrupted. ‘You can’t kill a pigeon. They’ll put you in prison and that’s it, you’re finished.’

‘I know!’

More than anything Kunle wanted to eat the meal. He’d been energised making it, but now he felt there was no strength left in him. Why was there no strength to enjoy what he’d worked hard for? Then he was filled with hatred for everything, which changed into intense pity for himself. He wanted to cry but couldn’t. Wasn’t it he who brought his situation on himself?

As if Jide had read these feelings on his face, he said, ‘Look at you. Look at what the man has done to you!’ He exclaimed, pulling his plate back. ‘The man has finished you. Finished!’ He cut off a large piece of the bird with his fork and knife and brought it to his plate. Then cut a small piece with a bit of the roast potatoes and put both pieces in his mouth. He chewed quietly for a moment. ‘You can’t even enjoy the delicious meal you prepared,’ he continued chewing. ‘You’re wasting your time with that job.’

Kunle looked at his plate. It was hard to get the golden-brown feathers out of his mind—each one he’d pulled off the bird. He picked up his fork and knife with Jide’s eyes still on him. He cut off a piece of meat from the bird and brought it to his plate. Then cut a smaller piece, brought it to his mouth, chewed lazily and smiled at Jide.

‘Ehen,’ Jide said. ‘Yes, enjoy yaself, proper. Time don reach to enjoy yaself,’ he said as he chewed. ‘This nah sweet, sweet bird!’

He nodded. ‘It is. It is nice,’ Kunle said, smiling while looking at the painting on the wall—a blurry ball of jubilance, happiness.

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