Above His Station (8 page)

The flamingo seemed to be having a hard time standing up and I wondered if its legs had been injured. Being cramped up behind the steering wheel of a
Mondeo
must have been uncomfortable for a bird of its size. What sort of person does that? And goes to the trouble of putting a seatbelt on too? Whatever sort of person (other than a cruel one) they had also foisted yet more indignation upon the bird, which is when I realised why it was struggling to stand.

It was wearing a pair of flip-flops.

And uncomfortably so, it has to be said. A flamingo’s toes are just not designed for such footwear - or should that be the other way around? I ducked to avoid its manic wing-flapping and hurriedly took the flip-flops off. The flamingo strutted about a bit, in circles mostly, getting used to its feet again. And then, with a few practice attempts that saw it lift no more than a few inches from the ground the bird took to the air, a bright pink dot in the sky within no time at all.

‘That was unusual,’ I said.

‘No shit,’ replied my rodent companion, just as breathless as I was.

‘A flamingo,’ I said. ‘Driving a car.’

‘Badly,’ said the rat, nodding at how erratically the
Mondeo
was parked.

‘All those birds,’ I said, looking up; the sky was still full of them. ‘What should we do? Who can we report this to?’

‘Do you think we
need
to? You’d have to be blind not to notice,’ said the rat.

A theory rapped its knuckles against the front door of my mind and I walked back around to the driver’s side of the
Mondeo
. Sure enough, there was a pile of discarded clothes on the front seat. A waterproof jacket, a blouse and a tartan skirt, a brazier (with a generous cup) and a pair of skimpy knickers.

‘So many clothes and so many birds,’ I muttered. ‘But what if it’s an equal number of both? What if people aren’t vanishing after all? What if they’re just…changing?’

‘Into different clothes?’ suggested the rat.

‘Into different birds,’ I said, feeling silly about saying such a ridiculous thing out loud.

*

Deciding that we needed to speak to someone in authority, I took stock of our location. Getting to High Wharton Street station had taken us away from Central London, so we needed to go back on ourselves. I could hardly take a bus, and the Tube was obviously out of the question - who knows what other beasts might be prowling around the stations - so I relied upon Shanks’s pony to get us there. The rat, in case you were wondering, had almost become a permanent fixture upon my shoulder and I rather felt like Long John Silver. But at least his travelling companion knew when to shut up. Mine seemed intent on chattering incessantly for the entire duration of our journey through the empty streets. Some were awkward for me to go down. At one stage I had to climb over a
Citroen
’s bonnet and actually
through
a bus via the emergency exit to get to the other side.

Almost an hour later and my rodent chatterbox still showed no signs of shutting up. I wouldn’t have minded had it been a decent topic of conversation, but it was the same thing over and over again, and only the time of day had changed.

‘More clothes over there,’ it said.

‘Yes, I know,’ I replied.

‘And there.’

‘I know,’ said I, gritting my teeth.

‘And look! There’s some-’

‘
I know!
’ I snapped. ‘Just ignore them.’

Many of the shop doors were wide open, the same telltale signs littering the pavement and floors; clothes everywhere. As we moved deeper into Central London, I feared for Claire’s safety. She lived in Surrey but worked in the city. What if she’d been caught up in this mess? We’d found many a telephone box on route but none of them were working. Just a constant dial tone. I had never felt more alone in all my years. Not even after Molly passed. At least then I had Claire (and David, for all the good he was). Now, in my latest moment of tragedy I had no one.

‘So why are we going all this way, Gramps?’ said the rat, reminding me that I was not alone. Not really. I had someone to discuss things with, even if it wasn’t necessarily someone of the same species.

‘There’s a mobile police unit stationed just across the street from Burger King in Leicester Square,’ I said to the rat. ‘With any luck they’ll know something about all this bird nonsense.’

‘Unless you’ve not considered the alternative,’ it said.

‘Which is?’ I enquired.

‘That the cops turned into birds too,’ said the rat. ‘Puts a whole new spin on the Flying Squad, don’t you think?’

I scowled at the creature. I dared not think like that. This insanity couldn’t be that widespread, it just couldn’t! It was probably all down to some weird migration pattern or something. A freak weather condition brought on by climate change. It was always something to do with climate change. Either that or an Icelandic ash cloud. That must have been why all the birds had flocked into London, surely. They were obviously fleeing from something and their flight-path merely took them over the capital. I was sure that they would pass eventually and normality would resume, and I’d probably regret leaving my Polaroid in my suitcase back at Regal Street. I wouldn’t have any proof to send to the newspapers, or brag about it down The Red Lion, and no one would believe me without any pictures.

I had almost got to the point where I believed my unfounded assumptions when I remembered the clothes. Now that part really made no sense. I could have understood it if there had been some sort of health risk associated with the overabundance of birds above London, an increase in contracting germs or something of that ilk. Toddlers and pregnant women beware. Get off the streets, stay inside your homes. That would account for how empty the city was. But what about the clothes? Okay, people often get panicky when it comes to matters of health and safety, but it seemed to be a stretch of the imagination to picture the whole of London stripping off and leaving their clothes in piles on the streets. I supposed that the Government could have made some sort of emergency announcement on television and I’d missed it, but a supposition was a long way from a fact.

*

Leicester Square, a smidge before 14:00hrs.

The place was worse than anywhere I’d seen before. Not just the odd one or two but every single car had crashed; into bollards, other cars, shops, and I guessed pedestrians too as there were piles of clothes laid upon bonnets. A fair few of the cars were on fire, some already burned down to their chassis. It must have been carnage. That thought in turn prompted another, and this one was notable in that it had not occurred to me before. Oddly, as it was beginning to increasingly exhibit the more time it spent in my company, again the rat seemed able to voice my thoughts as easily as I.

‘No blood. Not anywhere. Not even a drop. Have you noticed that?’

‘I have, yes,’ I said.

‘You’ve seen
CSI
, right?’ asked the rat, but I shook my head. ‘It’s what they always say. When someone dies, they always leave a trace. But there’s nothing. Nothing at all.’

‘Who said anything about anyone dying?’ I said. ‘As far as I can tell, there’s no evidence to suggest such a thing. I’d prefer to think that some sort of physiological mutation occurred to change them into birds.’

‘Still with the people turning into birds thing?’ asked the rat, doubtfully. ‘I think it goes a bit beyond that, don’t you? This city, this whole fucking
planet
for all we know, has been ripped inside out and upside down. Black is white and left is right. Nothing is as it was and how it is is fucking bonkers. Tigers and wolves prowling the Underground, flamingos driving about in clapped-out cars? I say that trying to apply any sense of logic to this mess is a waste of good fucking energy. Best we just stock up on supplies and find somewhere to take shelter until we can get to the bottom of what’s happened.’

‘They say that after a nuclear war there are only two species that will survive,’ I said, quoting the ever-reliable Attenborough (fast becoming my spiritual guide on this most surreal of journeys). ‘Cockroaches and rats.’

The rat peered up at me suspiciously. ‘Your point being?’

‘That rats are natural survivors! It’s what you
do!
’ I was on the verge of pleading with the bloody thing to help me, so I reeled my fervour in. ‘If anyone knows anything about how we can endure this catastrophe, then it should be you!’

‘I hate to burst your bubble, Gramps, but we don’t exactly come equipped with a built in survival guide,’ said the rat. ‘It’s
instinctive
. Shit happens, and rats only survive because deep down we’re all a bunch of fucking cowards! We find the nearest fucking hole and we fucking
hide
, man. That’s how we survive. That’s how we endure.’

‘Shame,’ I said, turning my nose up. ‘I thought you might at least have been some use to me rather than criticising my every move. You’ve done nothing but complain ever since I had the misfortune to clap eyes on you!’

The rat furrowed its brow. ‘Is that how you really feel?’

I said, unconsciously almost, ‘Absolutely.’

‘I didn’t have to come on this trip, you know,’ said the rat.

‘So why did you?
Hmm?
’ I asked. ‘Just so you could rub my nose in it? Watch me make a fool of myself as I stumble about blindly without a clue what’s going on? Is that how rodents get their kicks?’

‘That’s cold, man,’ said the rat, hopping down from my shoulder onto the roof of a nearby car. ‘I’m just as confused about all of this as you are, and I was only trying to help. But if that’s the way you want it, that’s fine by me. See you around,
old man
. From now on, you’re on your own!’

The rat scampered down from the car’s roof and onto the bonnet and onto the pavement and off down the street and down a side-road and then it was gone.

*

I stood in that same spot for well over half an hour, my eyes fixed on the corner where I’d last seen my furry companion, yet not once did I spot its little whiskers twitching, or its tail flicking like a whip as it gave me one last glance, or its beady little eyes urging me to apologise and make everything better. I was speaking out of turn, laying my confusion at its door, blaming it for my lack of knowledge, my lack of understanding of the situation. Once or twice I saw something in the corner of my eye and my spirits lifted, my sincerest apology over-rehearsed and waiting ever so patiently upon my lips. But it was just my imagination. Or wishful thinking. Or more likely, a combination of both.

The satchel’s strap slipped as my shoulders fell. Now I truly was alone. It felt horrible. A gaping wound in my stomach, an emptiness. A rat-shaped hole in my guts. Already my shoulder felt lighter, bereft of my companion as it was.

I won fifty pounds on a lottery scratch-card once. I was over the moon coming back home from the corner shop with my winnings burning a hole in my pocket. Molly was watching
Countdown
(I never did trust that Carol Vorderman. No woman that stunning should be so good at sums). Molly almost choked on her Rich Tea when I told her the good news about my win. I felt positively weightless. That was exactly how elated I felt when I saw my little rodent friend come scampering across the road from the entrance to Burger King. The greedy little so-and-so had been in there the whole time! Stuffing its face with cheeseburgers, whilst I’d been stood out here like a lemon.

But as weightless as I was, I soon gained ballast.

It was not my friend at all but a plain, common or garden rat. It skittered over to me and took a brief sniff of my boot before scampering away. I was lost again. Alone and lost and still no nearer to making sense of anything. What exactly had I achieved? I knew the answer, though I dare not say it. As sparse a commodity as hope was, I didn’t want to tempt fate as well.

As I’d told my absent companion, I knew the Metropolitan Police had a portable station located at Leicester Square, and there it was, right in front of me. A car had driven into the side of it, but it seemed to be mostly undamaged. The lights were still on inside, which was the brightest ray of sunshine that I’d seen in some time. There was a sign posted by the door that read “
Station manned Mon-Fri, 08:00-20:00 hrs
”, so I checked my wristwatch. Plenty of time. I tried the door and it opened without resistance.

The station was little more than a porta-cabin, with that same uneasy feeling you get whenever you enter one, as if the floor might give way beneath you at any moment. A glass partition bisected the station in almost equal parts and I approached it, feeling apprehensive as I couldn’t see anyone behind the desk. But I did see something else. I’m sure I don’t really need to spell it out; it is becoming rather a theme.

On the floor were two uniforms in untidy piles, as if their former occupiers had just faded away whilst wearing them and the clothes had fallen limply to the floor. I pressed my nose to the partition, spreading my face left and right, scanning every inch of the room beyond. No sign of anyone but the sound of static coming from a radio, all the computer screens turned on yet displaying nothing. No telephones were ringing off the hook, no policemen rushing about to and fro moaning about paperwork.

In effect, this was the most stationary of stations.

I leapt in shock as I saw movement beneath one of the piles of clothes. I was transfixed. Scared half to death too, but mostly transfixed. What sort of bird would come crawling out? An emu? A heron? A penguin, perhaps? I felt a rush of excitement as I like penguins. But what if it was something dangerous like an eagle? I prayed that the glass partition would hold. I jumped again as I saw something long and thin poke out from underneath the clothes and I tilted my head to get a better look. And then the long and thin thing became an almost trunk-like little snout. And then a head - swiftly followed by some eyes, a pair of tiny ears and a furry back! As the creature began snuffling around the carpet like a vacuum cleaner, I gave thanks yet again to Attenborough, because suddenly I put a name to the animal that I was looking at.