Homing Read Free

the alley, the house, the pigeons. The wall cut off half the road from view, and only one empty deckchair was visible.
    From this unfamiliar angle, she saw that the windows of their house were too small, and unevenly placed. A couple were cracked. You could see the plumbing on the back wall, with a nasty stain spreading from one pipe. Down on the ground, at home, she never noticed these things, but with height and distance the blemishes pulled into focus. It was shameful; repulsive, even. She felt a hotel guest’s resentment of this disappointing view.
    The pigeons – diligent heads bent, tapping away – made variegated patterns on the tar. Black and grey and white and mauve, each bird unique. They seemed to feed in silence: the clicks of claws and beaks were sounds too delicate to reach her.
    Now something else, a blunt grey knob, pushed into the frame. It was her husband’s head, surprisingly thin on top, inclined towards the birds. An intimate view. Almost embarrassing – like seeing the bare feet or buttocks of a dignified stranger. An arm was extended, in its frayed, familiar cardigan sleeve. After a moment, a bird hopped onto Ray’s wrist. He seemed absorbed.
    Seeing him from this unfamiliar angle, exposed as he was, Nona felt rebuked. She’d lied to him about this weekend, as she’d seldom lied in her married life. She’d used money from her own small savings to pay for the room, and told Ray that she was off to visit her sister. Now the cost seemed much greater than it had when she’d cut out the ad for the two-night special, or slid the credit card over the desk. These were pleasures owed to him, she knew. Poor Ray! So little luxury in his life!
    But at the time of her decision – champagne cork still slightly damp in her palm – some action had seemed urgently required.
    And perhaps he was glad that she’d gone, that she wasn’t there to disquiet him with her sighs and carping, her impatient rustling of the newspaper.
    She dropped her eyes. Immediately below her window, peppermint grass flowed thickly to the base of the wall. There were parasols and camellia bushes and white garden furniture. You might sit down there of an evening, sipping a chilled drink, and never guess at what lay just an arm’s length away, on the shabbier side of the wall.
    Yet another attentive shadow in a red jacket appeared beside her garden chair, this one with a drinks menu. Everyone working here was young and unobtrusively attractive: eyes that took note but did not linger, voices low, manner deferential yet flirtatious to a finely judged degree. The waiter leant forward, showing her the tops of his long eyelashes.
    “Gin and tonic, why not?” she said.
    All at once, Nona felt happy again. The ease was back, the sense of smooth movement, although she was sitting quite still – at the heart, in fact, of a profound stillness. She and Ray, she saw, lived backstage of a perfect piece of theatre. The lighting in the garden was impeccable: even and mellow, unaffected by the alleyway’s brassy reversals of glare and gloom. The only sound was a precise ticking in the air: the piston spritz of unseen sprinklers, or perhaps it was the hushed beat of luxury itself. The gin appeared, in a tumbler chocked with ice. She sipped, and felt the coolness trickling down into her belly.
    Some things weren’t controlled, however. There were white and olive streaks on the battlements: sure enough, the pigeons had left their mark on this side of the wall as on the other. And across the table top, a line of ants negotiated the crevasses and cul-de-sacs of the lacy metal to a spill of sugar at its centre. She imagined, warmly, their tiny ant amazement at this manna. They made her think of Ray: their earnest, uncomplaining labour, their focus on the small satisfactions before them.
    She bent down to trace the line of insects to its source. It disappeared into the lawn, and emerged again to doodle up the corner of a flower planter, along its edge