Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (read any book .TXT) 📗

of people’s lives they won’t remember.” She narrows her eyes thoughtfully. “It has its problems. As soon as you paint a forgotten bit of someone’s life, then it isn’t forgotten any more. It’s a funny sort of paradox. Plus, this isn’t real immortality. The paint will fade, and the canvasses will stain. No matter how hard you try, they won’t survive – not really. But I’m still happy with how it’s going.”

There are forgotten moments everywhere. A boy sifting through change in a butcher’s shop, a man reading a newspaper through the window of a train, a woman sipping at a hot drink in a café. Each picked out in Butterfly’s dazzling bright style. “They’re brilliant,” says Adam.

“Thanks.”

One of the paintings makes him stop. Upon it there is a wild figure – tousled black hair, and well-cut clothes – bent over and tying his shoelace. There is an extraordinary tension about him, as if at any moment he might leap from the canvas.

“Magpie.”

“Yeah,” says Butterfly, tilting her head. “It’s a problem piece. Doesn’t really match the rest. There’s something about him that makes him difficult to capture. It’s like trying to paint a storm – no matter how hard you try, you can’t pin down the true kinetic intensity of it.”

“Was he here?”

“Yeah. He came by a couple of weeks ago. Stopped for lunch.”

“I need to speak to him. Do you know where he is?”

“Uhm.” Butterfly bites her lip, thoughtfully. “I don’t, I’m afraid. He didn’t say. But you could always ask Pig. I’m sure he’ll have more of an idea than I do. He’s been living in Glasgow, but he’ll be here in the morning. He always comes over for Sunday lunch.” Peering at Adam, she pulls a pen from her pocket and doodles a curl down her forearm in ink. It looks like one of his scars, he thinks. “You and Owl are welcome to stay the night. In fact, I insist. I think I’d like to paint you, and for that I need you to have a forgotten moment.”

Adam smiles. The expression feels strange across his face, as if he’s pulled on a piece of clothing that doesn’t belong to him. “Okay,” he says. He has plenty of forgotten moments for her to choose from, he thinks.

* * *

Adam is woken by errant leaves of paper blustering across him. They drift silently across the chapel, tumbled by some stray gust, and the sliver of dawn light leaking in through the gap in the roof makes them glow yellow. Perched upon the chapel’s ruined font is Owl, looking like some mighty figure of mythology. He’s crouched upon his haunches, naked and human and muscular, half wreathed in shadow, and his wide yellow eyes are fixed on the far corner.

“What is it?” Adam asks.

“Listen.”

Silence returns. Except, as Adam turns his head, he hears something in the distance. An engine, approaching down the track. He stands, stretching and shivering the papers from his shoulders and lap; they are pages dislodged from a ruined Bible, he notices. At the entrance to the chapel, he pauses and turns to see Owl flap up through the gap in the roof, golden light across his bronze feathers, back in his native shape.

A beaten looking minivan rumbles up the track, crushing leaves beneath its wheels. It comes to a halt in the monastery’s cracked car park, engine hissing and ticking as it cools. Hefting himself out from the driver’s side door is an enormously overweight man looking deeply uncomfortable in a Hawaiian shirt – tugging at the collar of it. When he rolls the van’s rear door back, a stack of notebooks spills out and he curses, gathering it all up in his huge arms before chucking it back in.

“Hi, Pig.”

Pig turns, small eyes seeking. “Adam? What are you doing here?” He clenches his fists, his whole body tensing. “Saw you on the news. What you did.”

There is power in those arms, Adam thinks.

“Pig!” Butterfly hops down the monastery steps two at a time. With her bright tie-dye T-shirt and rushing rainbow hair, she is all the colours of summer.

Pig’s expression softens at the sight of her, and when she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him on his stubbly cheek, the tension ebbs from him. “’Ello,” he says.

“I love your shirt.”

Pig’s cheeks turn pink. “Thought you might.”

“Did you bring lunch?”

“Of course. Of course.” Pushing stacks of paper aside, Pig reveals a picnic basket with a polka-dot blanket draped over it. “Didn’t reckon we’d be having company, though.”

“It’s fine. I’m not that hungry anyway.”

“Well, then.” Pig clears his throat, eyes passing from Adam to the chapel’s weathervane, where Owl perches. “Shall we wander down? Looks like it might be a warm one.”

Pig leads the way through the forest, with the picnic basket on one arm and Butterfly clutching hold of the other. Beneath the trees she chatters to him – small nothings that make him smile. Adam follows at a polite distance, feeling as if he is intruding.

The forest breaks at the edge of the loch, where there is a shallow cove. A pair of weather-beaten deckchairs are set out among the pebbles and Pig settles into one, warped wood creaking beneath his weight. Butterfly wanders over to the lapping waters and removes her sandals, rolling up her jeans and paddling in the shallows.

Adam takes the other deckchair.

The loch is so still that Butterfly is mirrored in it. Both of her sift through the waters for coloured stones, raising each to the light and considering the way it plays across them.

Pig watches her in silence for a while. Then, turning to Adam, he says, “You’re not here to cause trouble, are you?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Good,” says Pig. “See that you don’t.”

Butterfly finds a shining silver stone and pockets it.

“Hungry?” asks Pig. Sifting around in the picnic basket, he produces a couple of thick-cut sandwiches wrapped in cling film.

“Thanks.” When Adam bites into his sandwich, he is surprised by the filling. “BLT?”

Pig chuckles. “Vegetarian