It’s 8am, and from the window of my rooftop apartment, you can’t see The Shard’s upper floors. They’re hidden in the clouds. Fifty yards down the road, there’s already a queue outside The Manna soup kitchen, where I used to eat. I swear a guy’s looking up at me, pointing down and mouthing “Jump.” But I ain’t jumping. I’m flying. And I’m about to show Dad how wrong he was.
Standing in the church five years ago—the silent reproach of Mum’s coffin—Dad said it was my bad life choices that drove her to the grave, that I was a born loser. I could’ve got a proper job, kept a roof over my head; instead, I was living the dream, making art that no one looked at and begging for my meals. “Angels” crackled from the speaker, curtains closed over the coffin, and as I watched her disappear, I promised Mum I’d rise from the ashes.
When I moved out of the hostel, I began squatting in the basement. The soup kitchen customers looked down at me from street level, taunted me through the windows. Basement Max, they called me. I was skint, sometimes stole the pigeons’ bread, but always a crumb for me, a crumb for them. Whatever else my mum got wrong, she taught me to share. There just weren’t much to go round.
When my benefits came through, I moved up to the first floor, just a studio with a microwave, but now I could afford my own bread. I still put crumbs on the windowsill for the birds. One pigeon hung around after the feast, so I named her Phoebe. Then my neighbor posted a note through my letterbox: ‘This is not a home for vermin.” Did he mean Phoebe? Did he mean me? I scrawled Fuck you across the note, stuck it back through his door. Whatever else my dad got wrong, he taught me to fight back. Never fought at my side, though.
I found work as a gallery attendant at the Tate Modern and moved into a one-bed flat on the third floor. My first wages paid for a pigeon-sized cage off Amazon for Phoebe, and on my day off, I took her to see some proper art. The doorman knew me, waved me through without checking my bag, where I’d hidden her. First, I showed her the Impressionist section, then the Cubists. Pigeons are super-smart; they can tell the difference, but people call ’em rats with wings, cos humans are stupid. Which do you prefer? I cooed into her purple feathers. Phoebe sat unmoved before Monet, bobbed her head at Picasso. When the exhibition closed, I begged a poster off the gift shop manager and bought a frame from a charity shop. The picture’s called Le Pigeon Aux Petits Pois, which means the pigeon with peas. Phoebe loved it; she’d stand in front and circle, like a man pigeon. I still called her Phoebe.
Days later, she perched on the frame and crapped all over the picture. I wasn’t mad at her- it was like when those Chinese guys jumped on Tracey Emin’s bed – an emotional reaction. I figured she’d improved it, took it to NotYourGrandma’sArt gallery in Hoxton, where the auctioneer said it was more-than-human activist art, depicting how capitalism craps on culture. They opened the bidding at eight hundred pounds, and it went for three mil.
Now I live next door, on the top floor. It’s small, like a dovecote, but there’s a room each for Phoebe and for me. I’ve got my first painting in an exhibition. Yesterday, on the way home, I saw a guy queuing up for food, one of the guys who used to taunt me. I offered him half the sourdough croissant I’d bought in Borough Market, compliments of Penthouse Max.
I got Dad’s address off a distant cousin and invited him round. I’d not seen him since Mum’s funeral. Wait till he sees my fancy clothes, my view over the river, wait till he hears about my painting. I’ll show him. I laid out some fancy food and shut Phoebe in her bedroom so’s not to upset him.
The intercom buzzes, and Dad’s distorted face appears on the screen. Aw’right, Max, he says. My finger hovers over the enter button. I glance sideways out the window, where The Shard’s piercing the sky. C’mon! says Dad, I haven’t got all bloody day. Can’t you work yer own doorbell yet, yer pillock? The cloud’s lifted, and the Shard is touching the sun. I move my finger off the enter button, disable the video feed, and watch the screen go blank. I open the bedroom door, let my girl out. She flutters onto my shoulder, and I feed her toast crumbs as we look down on my father’s tiny figure disappearing down the street.
