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

Eve’s honour to shelve their books. Death by death, the library grew, and death by death, Adam’s knowledge of the world beyond the walls of the Mahavihara expanded. Yet what he remembers most fondly is the way Eve would sometimes come and sit next to him in the darkness of the library at night, and there recite some of the poetry she had memorised. To Eve, poetry was the finest of her children’s inventions – the height of their art. Her recitals were gentle, intimate things, as if she were sharing not words with Adam, but kisses, each flavoured by the taste of the verse she told.

When Adam leaves the bookshop, and resumes his walk back towards Piccadilly, he notices a great many couples in the streets, heading in the same direction as he is. They are dressed brightly, in the same rainbow of colours as the flags hanging from the shops everywhere, and they share kisses with each other openly, hands entwined. They are sharing poetry with each other, Adam thinks. He gets caught up in their affection, and his memory of Eve in the library at Nalanda, and he realises that the thorns embedded in his thoughts feel a little less sharp today.

* * *

Piccadilly has been cordoned off.

Police loiter at the cordons, wafting themselves with flyers against the heat of the bright day and sharing smiles with each other, with the crowds. A group of mounted officers stand together, idly chatting with each other, and none of them pause to watch Adam pass.

Beyond the barriers is a parade. It’s an unusual parade, Adam thinks, because everyone seems to be a part of it. Nobody’s waiting at the side of the street to wave the floats and marching bands along; instead, the crowds flow with the parade, making the floats look like rafts buoyed along by a river of people. There are double-decker buses crammed full, bedecked with rainbow flags and blasting noisy, tinny beats at the streets, and there are fabulous, bright marching bands with mismatched outfits playing music to wholly different rhythms, and there’s even a float with a grand piano attached to the back, being played by two different people simultaneously, creating a catastrophe of competing noises. Everybody is dressed in bright colours, and there is an abundance of glitter, as if bare patches of skin are real estate that needs to be occupied by shimmering colours. Cannons shower glimmering rain over the thickest patches of people, and everybody seems to be dancing. In the buses they shuffle their shoulders, and on the road they twirl and laugh, and nobody is judging anyone for the quality of their moves; Adam watches a girl in a wheelchair whirling about on two wheels.

“What is all this?”

Magpie has wrapped himself in a rainbow flag. “Pride, Adam.”

It seems so obvious, now. Adam has never attended a Gay Pride event before, but he has read about them. Mostly, the outrage over them. The newspapers in America have never been very kind to Pride, and paint them as pathetic, confrontational events, more about causing controversy than giving a minority space to celebrate. But now that he’s here, all those articles he read seem pathetic in turn: as if they were written by snooty men and women, sneering from behind net curtains. All he can see here is joy.

Magpie makes his way through the parade with elegance – somehow finding a rhythm to every step, so that he dances as he goes. On the other hand, Adam feels large and clumsy, tripping over himself and other people, and getting smeared with glitter. Only, he is delighted to find that nobody seems to mind his clumsiness; they buoy him along and through, helping him to go where he needs to go; hands keep him upright and guide him past pockets of celebration, making him feel welcome.

At the entrance to the Royal Academy of Arts courtyard, Adam pauses. He would have liked to have spent longer with the parade. Magpie removes the rainbow flag from his shoulders and hands it to a passing couple, and they drape it over themselves like a blanket. Beneath, he is wearing a black jacket, which he dusts down and adjusts.

“Your jacket’s inside out,” says Adam.

“I know,” says Magpie, with a wink.

The courtyard is sparsely populated. The same metal, tentacled kinetic sculpture as before eels, but there are few tourists snapping pictures of it today. Instead, the courtyard is being used as overflow for the parade: a quiet space for folk to take a break from the celebrations. In bright outfits, they loiter at the edges and on the steps, open faces to the open blue sky, and Magpie nods and bows and laughs as he skirts around them, sharing in their celebration and encouraging them. “Brush some of that off,” he says, motioning at the glitter coating Adam’s arms, and Adam does as he’s told, leaving a trail of silver and purple in his wake.

Inside the Royal Academy are a few tourists, waiting out the parade. They peer through the windows, cameras held hesitantly, unsure if Pride is something to be photographed. The Academy’s security seem bored; sitting at desks and on stools, some watching the remnants of the parade outside with a longing while others flick through their phones. Magpie’s demeanour immediately shifts as he enters the Academy, changing from celebratory and flittering to irritated and sober. He pays for two tickets to the Jewel of Paradise exhibition, and the girl behind the desk barely glances at him.

Through the Royal Academy Magpie goes, taking his time and studying exhibits with an apparent interest. The hallways are so sparsely populated that his footsteps echo, as do Adam’s. Only, instead of leading straight to the Jewel of Paradise exhibition, Magpie takes Adam on a winding route through room after room, before mounting a set of steps leading up to the galleries above. Adam tries to take in the art, but he is distracted, unsure of Magpie’s intentions here. He