Need (32 page)

The words could not be distinguished, but they altered everything. Instead of examining the paper plane, Willie was now riding inside it, first class, and the priest was drinking whiskey sour. A perfect gentleman, he asked Willie what he’d like for himself, and the way he smiled when he offered this, Willie knew he could ask for anything in existence. Just give it a name, it would be his. But no single word came to his mind; there seemed to be nothing he needed. Not now, not any more. So he shook his head, no, and a bowl of clear soup appeared. Then the priest raised Willie by his throat, not roughly or unkind but irresistible, and pushed his face beneath the surface.

Instantly, all his weariness washed away. He caught a glimpse of the priest reflected in the soup, and the priest had turned into a young girl, though he kept his bandit’s moustache. Seeing Willie watching, he peeled down his monk’s robe to show his breasts. His whole body was laid bare, offered up. Willie pillowed his face against the rounded hummock of the priest’s pussy. The red hairs smelled wild like jungle flowers.

Waking, he felt rested but antsy; his business here was over. When he stepped out on the street, it had begun to rain. Nothing hard as yet, but you could smell a drenching on its way.

Broadway in daylight was no man’s land. Huge tangles of barbed wire rose at every corner, blocking off the side streets, and the areas between were minefields. Camouflaged manholes, smouldering trash-fires, unexploded tear-gas canisters. A garter snake and a gecko were lounging outside the Chemical Bank. The clock above them read 9:43, then 104°.

The late-model Mercedes had been removed from Sweeney’s doorway. In its place was that man Anna Crow had told him about, the one who lived in the attic. Squat, he believed the name was. A dancing man, anyway, and he was
dancing now. Reeling drunk, an open pint in his meat hand, he was doing a soft-shoe shuffle. Leaning way forward as if listening to something way downtown, he kept swaying, almost falling. Still his feet were light; you could see he knew the steps. A sand-drag, a pigeonwing, then a long slow rubber-legged spin, his arms flapping like a demented flamingo:
“Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen,”
he said.

It was a point of view. Made a ton of sense, when you took time to think. But Willie had no time, he could not afford that luxury. This was his day, he mustn’t waste it.

Across the street a shoe store stood wide and gaping. The wolves had already gone through it, stripped it almost bare. But one pair had been overlooked. A pair of calfskin laceups, glossy nigger brown, absolutely plain. No armadillo or lizard-skin, no ostrich trim or Spanish tonguing. Just a handful of lines, a few curves. Maybe that was why they’d been spared, they were so simple and understated that no one had noticed them. Only Willie. Who took one look, and stood rapt, too dazzled almost to claim them. Peering down at the label to see who the designer could be, Manzio or Berkeley Musser, Roscoe de Llama, Miami Mort Amity maybe, but it was none of those, the creator was not even listed.
Dark Brown
, was all the label said.
Man’s Shoe
.

T
hese were the titles of birds:
Calliope, Ariel, Frilled Coquette, Sainson’s Doubtful Toucan, Red-capped Babbler, Turquoise-browed Motmot, Malachite Sun-bird, Sappho Comet
.

The stairs were smothered with their feathers, her room was full of feathers, too.
Blue Creeper, Ant Tanager, White-footed Racket
. She couldn’t stay here. She could never sleep in that bed again. A feather even stuck to Fred Root’s portrait.
Crimson Topaz Hummingbird
. She swept it aside, but then it clung to her nightgown instead, as others clung to her arms and legs.
Abyssinian Ground Hornbill, Mexican Diglossa Honeycreeper
, she couldn’t stay here.

Outside Ferdousine’s door, instead of a Welcome mat, lay a tangle she could have used for a mop.
King Bird of Paradise: red head, white breast, and a ring of green throat ruffle; white and fawn wing feathers, green-rimmed, which can spread downwards like a fan; and two thread-like tail feathers which cross each other and possess green snail-like veins at the tips. Its call sounds like the mewing of a kitten
.

She had a thought to rap on that mahogany door, seek refuge in a cup of Earl Grey, but this was no morning for Melba toast, and anyhow Ferdousine would never hear her knock. These last days and nights he had been consumed by cricket, huddled over his short-wave radio, listening on earphones
to the Test Match in London. England and Australia at Lords, in his mouth it sounded like a cathedral, and until play had ended, no earthquake or mere apocalypse would shift him.

No comfort there, not a hope, so she climbed more stairs, steep and strait, up above the feather-line, until she arrived at Anna Crow’s.

She had not entered this room since Anna moved in. Why would she? A trifling piece of work, that one. Forever wheedling and twisting, slavering after a new pair of pants.
Needy
, it was the ugliest word. But what was she herself, after all? What else had brought her here, fumbling at the poor bitch’s door, and when it gave way, sneaking in to snoop? Knowing well that Anna couldn’t be home, she would never have stood her ground through such a night. A woman who screamed
Fire!
any time you struck a match. No more intestinal fortitude in that girl than would fuck a flea. Still, she had some nice things in here. God forgive her so many self-portraits, and that hand-tinted pink bridesmaid was obscene. But the ornaments looked well, ornamental. The spice pots and the Chinese slippers. A Claddagh ring, she hadn’t seen one of those in years. A French shoe-last, that would fit well in her own room. And these silk scarves. And …

God’s holy trousers, forgive me
.

How could she be so crass? So perverse? These last weeks and months, she’d lost all sense of fittedness.
Gravitas
, that was the right word. Talk about trifling, she herself had taken out the patent. Self-defence, but no excuse. Spying on Anna Crow this way, she might have perished for shame. So she slid across the landing, and spied on Maguire instead.

This was another room she did not frequent; it was too full of Godwin. Poor boy, she felt responsible in a way, she never should have let him take that job, but how was she to know? Those were the days she was not seeing, she’d had no suspicion.
And he had been so happy in his work, the long white apron, the chef’s
toque
and all. How many midnights she’d spent in this same room, waiting for that little tubby body to trundle up the stairs with the evening’s pie. Chicago deep-dish, Sicilian, she liked them both, but you couldn’t beat straight Brooklyn, lean and mean, the crust slightly charred, with extra mushroom and anchovy. Plus some loose scraps in a bag for Pearl.
Foccaccia
for the bird, and hold it right there. No more waterworks. Or she’d never stop.

She scoured the room for distractions, there were none. Just the mattress on the iron bedside beside the barred window, a framed photograph of some broad ballroom dancing, one book.

The photo gave her the creeps. No particular reason, just the way the woman simpered in her backless blue gown, twirling on stiletto heels to show off her starched petticoats and all her scrawny legs. So she made do with the book.

The Deaths of Joachim
, by Hosea Tichenor; she’d never heard of it. One of those mouldy second-hand jobs off a street barrow, or thrown out with the trash. Dust and mildew, it smelled of dirty secrets, and she opened a page at random:

“Fire being out & all Hands safe in the dye-works, 3 days before the final battel, noing now his Hours were numerd, Joachim led his faythful SWANS some mile outside the citie Gate, wher was a feeld of Clovr & Thyme. & there he recit his last sermon saying, O my swans weep not or wale. Tho dark Night ly in wait, even unto DEATH, by all means Keep good Heart & Cheer. For the false PREESTS shall tryumf here, but not hereafter, & their lude Mastres lykwys, a hollo show onlie, no Worth. But you, my swans, all eternitie will tast & sup. Tho bound in slavrie now & cruel usd, the END shall your great Fredom be, if onlie you endure. O BUT ENDURE, my swans. O BUT ENDURE.”

Not Kate’s kind of stuff. Too much like hard work. But it helped fill her mind. Helped blot out the Zoo below. So she kept on flicking the pages. “For I have speke agin to the VIRGIN, in the Night she corns to me saying, Fere not,” she read. “& I to her say in retern, I am not Fered, but qestiun Why must I dye. Why periss by BODDIE BURRENING, for saying The VIRGIN have feets. Because thou art blessed, she ansers me. Because thou SEE true. For my feets they mov so fast, no fals eye can hop to follow. & HERE alone is the deep of truth: my feets they VANISH if you BLINK.”

Strange, she’d never thought of that. All the hours she’d wasted arguing with Monsignor Beebe, struggling to explain, the answer had sat right there.
For my feets they mov so fast, no fals eye can hop to follow
. But she’d been too young, she couldn’t see it. All that had counted then was Elvis, and painting her toenails, and stopping Pompey from slobbering on her blouse.

The book’s frontispiece was a woodcut of Joachim at the stake, devoured by tongues of fire. But he was no average martyr. Instead of an anguished ascetic with his eyes upraised to heaven, he was built like a lumberjack, too hale and muscular by half.

Looked a bit like Fred Root, in fact. Only black.

The first chapter was titled
FALS HUNGERS OF THE FAYTHLES WORLD
. “& dreme I did of men chaned and lasht, SLAVES in theyr skyn but theyr SOLES flying,” Kate began, but that was the furthest she got. Somebody was standing in the door, she glanced up, and it was Maguire. “I saw downstairs,” he said.

So she was dragged back. To find the floorboards littered with Camel butts because there was no ashtray; and the rusted bars imprisoning the window, this glass was utterly filthy, she could hardly see herself reflected; and worst, Maguire himself.
Looking like a deep-seam miner pulled half-dead from a cave-in, his clothes in tatters and his face caked with God knows what.

Tensed and hovering for instructions, straining to read her wish, his eyes on her were avid like some other eyes. Black eyes, one ringed, head crooked. And it came to her then whose eyes those were. They were Pompey’s, of course. Waiting to be fed. So Kate closed her book. “What happened to you?” she asked.

“There was a spot of bother.”

“What bother?”

“They killed Miss Crow.”

People, you could not trust them. And the dead ones were the worst. That morning they’d passed on the stairs. Yesterday morning it must have been, though that seemed unrealistic. When Anna was La Belle Dame sans Merci in her velvet robe and blonde wig,
I made her a garland for her head, and bracelets too, and fragrant zone:
“She loved words,” said Kate.

She supposed she should ask for details. Hear the story out. But it was none of her business, after all, she had no call to pry. Far below, she heard something thrash, sounded like a broken wing flapping, and she clattered her feet to drown it. “I have to go away,” she said.

“What about downstairs?”

“I’m sure you’ll handle things just fine. You have a natural bent for this business, you know, I spotted that right off. Just remember the oil in the rape, two drops per dish, and don’t forget the sunflower seeds.”

“But those creatures are all dead, they aren’t eating.”

“Flake maize and pellets are best in the morning, save the peanut kernels for night.”

Now that she had determined to leave, there seemed no good cause to delay. “Good book, I enjoyed it,” she said, “O BUT ENDURE, there’s a lot of truth in that.”

The lies out of her mouth! How could she exist with herself? “The lizards like live mealworms, you can mix them with wheat bran, or even termites if you like. Oh, and an occasional cabbage leaf or halved potato for variety. And mice for the whipsnakes on Sundays, please. The white ones are the sweetest, I always find,” she said. “But snakes are versatile, they adapt. Any old mouse will do in a storm.”

“What about the iguanas?”

“Spam.”

Gingerly, as if testing her footing after a spill, she made her way down the stairway to her own room. She had a fleeting impression that poor Godwin was on the landing, pie in pudgy hand, but he was gone again before she could focus, and she knew he was a falsehood anyway. She was overstrained; she needed rest. Thirty-five acres, fresh air, loads of healthy walks. Maybe a few brisk swims in Lake George, there was nothing like a morning dip to perk you up. Of course, the buses might not be running today, what with this earthquake and all. Well, she’d wait.

Cross her bedroom without glancing down. Reach the closet and pack. The only luggage she possessed was an antique cricket bag. The straps had rotted, the zipper failed to zip, but this was no moment to quibble. She threw in a change of underwear, Fred Root’s portrait, back copies of
Soap Digest
, her nightdress, her blue mules and dressing gown. Dressed herself in her flowered cotton dress, and left all other clothes be. Then threw out the
Soap Digests
, and left those behind as well.

Feathers coated her hands and feet, she had no time to pick them off. Only looked around for a belt or some tape to bind up the bag. Curled at the foot of her bedside table, where it must have fallen sometime in the long night’s upheavals, was that length of rope Anna Crow had laid on her. It looked unclean, but never mind. The girl had had her uses.

Should she say goodbye to Ferdousine? Better not, on the whole. His Test Match might still be in play, she didn’t like to intrude. Even if the game had finished, he would only weigh her down with macaroons and questions. A postcard from sunny Saratoga Springs would show more tact.

Maguire was behind her, still hovering, still waiting to be commanded. Should she kiss his cheek goodbye? Doubtful that he would enjoy that. Give him a hug?

They shook hands.

“Do you have everything you need?” asked Maguire. That fucking word again, it was a fucking contagion.
False Hungers of the Faithless World
. Well, the antidote to need was belief, any fool knew that. But she had so little to tap. All she believed on this morning for sure was that Baloney Breath was her horse’s name, and a horse might lead to a hound, a hound at last to a sufferance. So grant her grace in small doses, roach by roach. Dog in the mirror make her whole.