Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (top ebook reader TXT) 📕

“I’m not.”

“Nah, mate.” The man’s face reddens further. “Don’t fuck me around. Look at you. You can’t get results like that without some serious help.”

Adam turns off his shower. “I was made this way.”

Sifting through the new clothes, Adam finds a combination that feels comfortable enough. The rest he bins, along with his old clothes, noting the earth and blood encrusted into the fabric. It was probably a good idea to change, after all. He spends a while unwinding the bandages from around his leg, and plucking the remaining staples from his flesh. The gunshot wounds have healed well, and in a couple more weeks they should scar up nicely. The scars will be white whorls, and they will join the white lines struck across his shin. Sometimes he thinks that his scars are like the night sky, and that he might name some of the constellations marking him.

Before he leaves the gym, he scrubs at his old military coat until the worst of the blood and dirt has been removed from it. It’s a good coat, he thinks, and it would be a waste to throw it away. It sits comfortably across his shoulders.

Outside, Magpie is sitting on the barrel of gunpowder and drumming at it with his hands and the backs of his feet. A gathering of tourists are watching him, and taking flash pictures, and clapping along. He drums a clever crescendo, and leaps from the barrel with a bow, before cupping his hands out to them. Coins and notes flutter from wallets and purses, and he pockets handfuls of cash, thanking them and thanking them.

“You look refreshed,” he says, when he notices Adam.

Carefully hauling the barrel of explosive powder, Adam does not reply. He doesn’t think he could string together any kind of sentence that would instil caution in Magpie. And besides, if Magpie has somehow survived this long, he must be doing something right. It is possible, Adam concedes, that every risk Magpie takes is carefully calculated, no matter how unlikely that seems.

* * *

Adam’s pretty sure that time doesn’t move at the same speed everywhere. In Manchester, a lot of the buildings look as if they’re straight out of a science fiction book – as if the city exists in a temporal valley, and time has run from the surrounding country to quicken the pace of progress there. Out in the Lake District, though, it doesn’t look as if much time ever passes. The trees could be the same trees as centuries ago; the mountains casting the same shadows; the rivers winding the same routes. Only the motor of Magpie’s car feels out of place here, rumbling and groaning down the rocky lanes, a futuristic chimera intruding upon a place where everything else is ancient and wild.

The barrel of gunpowder rolls across the back seats, jarred by every pothole.

Through an open wooden gate, Magpie drives alongside a meandering river, beyond which is a huge, yellowing forest. Peering at the map across his lap, he taps the paper triumphantly. From between the trees, they emerge into a muddy clearing, where the road ends and a small footpath begins. There are dozens of other cars parked here, shiny and black and gleaming. “This looks right,” he says, folding his map. “The service should be at the end of the track.”

Outside, the wind curls and uncurls the edges of Adam’s coat.

“You go on ahead,” says Magpie, leaning against his car.

“You’re not coming?”

“My brother has a way of droning on.”

“You need to talk to him.”

“I’ll be along soon. Don’t worry, Adam. I’m just not very good at funerals.”

Flicking through his phone, Magpie hums a song to himself.

Making his way up the track, Adam tramples crisp brown and orange and yellow leaves, which gust around his legs and skitter across the hard earth. Above the trees, the peaks of mountains are visible, with white tips scratching the open sky. The forest drips leaves of every autumn colour, and sat upon a branch among them is the shape of a large bird, watching over the winding path like a sentry. Owl flicks his wings as Adam passes, the great bird’s head slowly revolving to follow his progress.

Among the leaves and trees, there are petals. They are red, and yellow, and blue, and purple, and orange, and white, and they flutter across the muddy track. There are benches arranged in the clearing ahead in rows like pews, and they are filled with mourning figures dressed in black – all manner of people who must have known Crow from her life in America. Adam emerges into the wide clearing, which is set up beside the rocky bank of the river. This appears to be the very base of the valley.

At the head of the congregation is a small wooden stage, upon which is a large portrait of Crow smiling, wearing a silver dress and holding a glass of champagne. Beside the portrait stands Rook, delivering a speech from a lectern as if he is a lecturer at a university, with the white sun reflecting from his rounded spectacles. Among the pews, and stands, and mourners, are dozens and dozens of colourful flower arrangements in bunches and vases, with their loose petals drifting out in every direction, landing on the dark shoulders of the mourners, sticking to the portrait of Crow, and drifting out in a great stream across the frothing river.

There is a spare section on a bench near the back, and Adam claims it, brushing petals from the plastic surface. Sat beside him is the enormous figure of Pig, his black jacket struggling to contain his meaty limbs. Pig doesn’t notice Adam, because he is snoozing peacefully, with his chins resting against his barrel chest. On the other side of Pig is Butterfly, who is wearing a colourful summer dress beneath a red jacket, and has her hair braided in a rainbow coil. She leans across, whispering so as to not interrupt Rook’s speech. “Do you like the flowers?”

“They’re