Ep 1: Flight

25 MINS

‘Got any grubs?’ As food becomes scarce, the pigeons of Sillwood Mews go in search of answers. Meanwhile, Iridesco’s father is fading fast but Iridesco is reluctant to see him.  

Iridesco: A Homer’s Odyssey is an almost fictional story about a flock of feral pigeons in lockdown. Set in Brighton, London and the countryside in between, it follows the lives of Iridesco, Lulu, Dolly and Dove as they embark on a journey that teaches them about the dangers and delights of life as a bird and the relationship between humans, pigeons and homing pigeons.

Part adventure story, part rom-com, the series features raucous crows that speak in iambic pentameter, a trip along the Regent’s Canal and a mysterious code of honour that all birds must follow.

Writer/narrator: Kitty Fisher  Music : The Big Push   https://www.thebigpushband.com/  Producer : Dominic North  Artwork: Lotte North  Sound effects: Freesound   https://freesound.org/  Original story idea: Ed Hill.

Transcript

Iridesco: A Homer’s Odyssey by Kitty Fisher

Episode 1 : Flight

“Chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip!” Whoosh, whack, thud. Iridesco skidded across the shiny grey slates, catching his claws on the gutter and smacking his face against the bedroom window. In the reflection he could just see two fat seagull chicks noshing down the only decent meal he had seen for days.

Brighton had been quiet recently. A few individuals dashed furtively out of their nests, well wrapped in gloves and scarves, their beaks covered despite the spring sunlight. A magnificent calm had permeated the air: the rumbling traffic, throbbing car stereos and buzzing extractor fans  had been silenced. But the pigeons were hungry.

Iridesco hopped back onto the rooftop, stretched to his full six inches and puffed out his chest. His belly was emptier than usual. The small crumbs and easy pickings along the beach had been replaced by grubs and beetles. The sunlight brought them wriggling and twitching to the surface of plant pots to be snapped up by hungry beaks.

The young pigeon was in his prime. Amber eyes swivelled in his head and blinked knowingly. His plumage shone mauve, turquoise and green in the sunlight and his legs were lean and pink with perfect feet and sharp claws. Despite being slim, his powerful wing muscles flexed under his feathers as he strutted purposefully across the roof. 

Three young pigeons huddled together on the smooth brick paving below. He knew them all by sight but had always kept his distance, not knowing what to say. The smallest one was called ‘Dove’. Her feathers were a very soft grey, and her eyes were dark and nervous. Iridesco knew her from her habit of sitting on window sills mesmerised by the flickering screens watched by the groundlings. The other girls were Dolly and Lulu, feral pigeons with dark feathers and iridescent necks. Dolly and Lulu hung around together. They were good-time girls: cheeky and sociable and a little bit intimidating.

He imagined starting a conversation with them, absent-mindedly forming the words with his beak. Just then Lulu caught sight of him and whispered to Dolly and Dove. At that moment all three of them looked in his direction, a warm blush causing their feathers to ruffle slightly.

“Anything to eat up there?” cooed Lulu. “Dem groundlings given up on us I reckon.”

Iridesco strutted confidently across the roof and stabbed at a crack between the slates. Spearing a plump caterpillar grub and soared down onto the ground and dropped it at their feet. He watched as Dolly and Dove tussled over the writhing body, their beaks stained with green juice.

Lulu stayed put, watching him.

“So you know what’s going on, Iri?”

“Nah.” He wanted to chat more but didn’t want to appear too keen. After a moment Lulu spoke.

“Well I’m personally loving this organic, raw food diet. It’s doing wonders for my complexion and the chips were making me fat but...” Lulu trailed off, as though her concerns were somehow too great to put into words.

“Yeah, know what you mean. Something ain’t right Everyone’s getting edgy. The groundlings are acting strange.” He couldn’t help opening up to her. Lulu seemed to invite confidences. She shifted nervously from one foot to the other, turning her head from side to side and surveying the groundling nests that stood in a neat rectangle around them.

Many of the pigeons had been having strange deams. Iridesco shuddered as he recalled his recurring nightmare. Icy wind hurled him sideways and a huge wall of water bore down until he gasped for breath, waking in a cold sweat.

 He remembered the cold days of winter, and how he had drifted over the rooftops, following the channels of cars and buses until he had reached the wide open area by the clock tower. In one direction a straight line cut through the buildings to the sea. The flat lines of grey and white had reminded him of Dove’s soft plumage. Now, with the sun shining it would blind him with a thousand sparkling flashes reflecting off the water. Before everything closed down, the warm weather signalled rich pickings of vinegary chips and sticky doughnuts from the groundlings that emerged from their nests to feast on junk food and drink in the bars along the prom.

Back then, he often gathered with friends on top of the bus shelters looking for scraps of hotdogs, sushi, sticky buns full of juicy raisins or sharp fragments of crisps that scraped the inside of his throat. His tummy rumbled at the thought of it. 

 Sometimes old timers like Frankie and Eddie the Eagle would stand in the warm doorways of shops, their greasy black feathers clinging to their scraggy necks. Some limped on red swollen stumps, their eyes dull and lifeless. He wondered where they were now. If Lulu, Dolly and Dove were hungry, surely life would be even harder for them?

“We should check out the old timers.” he said, half to himself, but Lulu listened and swivelled her amber eye toward him, looking more intently this time.

“Yeh, you’re right.” she replied. “Let’s go see some of them old boys round near the clock tower. She turned to the girls and stretched her wings. “Hey, you want to come?

The air was crisp and fresh. Iridesco flew ahead with the three girls close behind. Gaining height he looked down at the city below. In the town, groundlings still shuffled along, disappearing into doorways and emerging with bags and packages but the rhythm of life seemed different. There was both an urgency and a sense of aimlessness where previously life has proceeded at a steady pace. Many shops were deserted and signs, hastily glued in windows, conveyed some indecipherable message to the human world.

He soared higher, enjoying the sense that great power was stored in his wings. He knew that the girls were watching him and dove down, weaving between the buildings with skill; tilting one wing and then the other so that his direction altered as he dodged the obstacles on his descent.

Following him in the distance he saw that Lulu and Dolly were almost out of sight, but Dove was clearly visible, gliding smoothly towards him, her soft delicate feathers undulating in the breeze. His mind went back to those days gazing out at the misty sea... SMACK.

At first he didn’t register what had happened. Everything went black, as though a shutter had clamped down over his eyes. Then, he experienced a falling sensation as he felt the front of his body slide vertically downward. Several groundlings sat behind glass. They appeared to be wincing as their eyes followed him. The next thing he knew, he was falling and finally landed with a dull thud.

The bus drove straight over him and he staggered groggily onto the pavement, landing in a pile of feathers, cigarette butts and debris.

When he came to, the streets were empty. Even the beggars and junkies had disappeared. The strange greenish light that appears on spring evenings told him it would be a cold night and he wondered if he would find his way back to Sillwood Mews. Tentatively, he started to rotate his wings, raising them up and moving them backward and round. Then he stretched through to the outer flight feathers and felt a sudden rush of nausea as the pain shot up his wing.

“Are you okay?” Dove stood anxiously above him on an ornately carved plinth, her beautiful dark eyes watching him with concern.

“Yeah, fine,” He remembered the moments before his collision with the bus and cringed with embarrassment. He stood up and walked around the base of the clock tower. There he saw Dolly and Lulu deep in conversation with Eddie.

“And that was the last I saw of him...” he wheezed. “He should never have taken the risk...It’s easy pickings, true...but dangerous. He knew all about that but i  s’pose he weren’t thinking straight. Driven half mad with hunger. He couldn’t compete with the other birds in a scrum. Silly bugger.”

Eddie the Eagle wasn’t the oldest bird in the city but he had packed a lot into his life so far. He lived on his wits, dodging bus wheels and bikes to grab a morsel of kebab or some left over chips. He was often seen throwing himself in amongst the razor sharp beaks of screaming gulls to defend one of his mates... sometimes he did it just for kicks. He had been something of a legend in his time, but time had not been kind to him. His eyes rolled crazily in his head as though they were inside a pin-ball machine in the back room of a seedy French cafe. Basically he was wrecked.  His real name was just Eddie, but ‘Eddie the Eagle’ was an affectionate nickname bestowed on him for his hair-raising stunts. Lately he had become more of a dodo than an eagle but the name had stuck.

“I can’t believe Frankie’s gone.” whispered Dolly, lightly touching Eddie’s wing. “He was a good old bird.”

“That he was. That he was.” repeated Eddie mechanically. “Still, he went quickly. He wouldn’t have survived long in these dark times. It’s better that he went like that. He was too weak to search for food. Being run over by a taxi is better than starving to death.”

The pigeons sat in silence for a moment. Finally Lulu spoke.

“So what do you make of it? It seems like the groundlings are hiding from something. Waiting... like some giant tidal wave is rolling in from the sea.” 

Eddie turned to her. His eyes wide with fear, “I knows what it is...a plague! The groundlings are getting sick. They’ve taken to their nests to protect themselves. I’ve been living here for a long time and I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s no food, no water, not even crumbs. The cafe in the park is closed; the burger van, chippies and sandwich shops. Birds are going crazy with hunger; fighting over bits of rotting food.

And the old ones are nowhere to be seen. They were a soft touch...put out grain and such...but now...” Eddie’s crazed eyes seemed to rattle in his tiny skull at he looked up desperately at the youngsters. “Got any grubs?”

Dolly flew lightly up to the head of the statue that stood in bas relief on the plinth and deftly picked a beetle from the mossy eye socket. Gliding down, she placed it in Eddie’s beak.

“Thank’s love.” He said, trembling violently as the sharp beetle-shell passed down his scrawny throat. “You kids should get out of this town. Find some place in the country where you still have a chance. It’s no place for the young...no place for the old either.” he wheezed.

Iridesco could barely fly but his legs were still strong. Helped by the three girls, he managed to stagger back along Western Road until they reached the golden wings of McDonald’s. From there they weaved through the back streets until they reached their roost in the mews. Although they took it in turn to support him, they were unable to help him fly up to the rooftop where he usually spent the night. Sleeping on the ground had its dangers: the possibility of being attacked by a cat; the crush of a car’s wheels or being torn limb from limb by a dog. They huddled together behind some flower pots watching the groundlings dozing off as they gazed at their flickering dream-box and imagined a better world; a world where grown men lived in trailers with their dads and solved crimes together. (Rockford Files theme tune plays inside.)

He reflected that only that morning he had been thinking about how to strike up a conversation with these girls and here he was hanging out with all three of them. He smiled to himself and fell into a deep sleep.

Dawn broke over the city and the gulls squawked joyfully. This was mackerel season and soon huge numbers of them would swarm beneath the waves; the gulls would then scream delightedly and peer into the icy depths like prospectors panning for gold.

At this time of year newly hatched gulls would also skate desperately up the slopes of the rooftops, their anxious parents shouting instructions from every chimney top. “Don’t flap so much!”                   “ Breathe!”  “Angle your wings!”, “Keep away from my kid or I’ll peck your face off!” “See this beak...”

Iridesco was awoken by one such youngster hopelessly flapping above him as a thousand conflicting pieces of advice were yelled out by the elders. He desperately wanted to move but Dove had fallen asleep on his wing and Lulu and Dolly had formed a kind of nest around him. He stretched and pushed his head back, beak facing skyward. Carefully standing up, he stepped around the sleeping pigeons and looked about. The street was silent, curtains were shut. It was still early but the big shiny coated groundling sometimes went out at this time. The other birds all knew him; in fact, they had given him a nickname: Big Daddy. Like many of the older groundlings, Big Daddy had a soft spot for the pigeons. He often stood outside softly calling to them, “Here you go, Daddy’s got you a bit of brekkie. You like that, don’t you?”

Now the house lay silent but out in the mews the pigeons’ tummies rumbled ominously.

Iridesco  felt as though he had been hit by a bus...and then he remembered, he had. He was badly bruised but felt stronger today and managed a few stretches, curving out his wings one by one and spreading his tail feathers wide. With a few flaps, he reached the broken downpipe of number five and stood beneath it. His tongue was parched. Placing his head under the cold water he let it roll across his feathers.  Shaking his head in the sunlight he looked across the courtyard and noticed Lulu gazing at him. Raising an eyebrow she smiled lazily and closed her eyes.

“You awake already?” he said, shifting behind a plant pot.

“Nah, just dreaming.” she yawned, closing her eyes again.

Soon the city began to wake up. The pigeons started to salivate and their minds remembered little bits of croissant; carrot cake wrapped in soggy napkins and scraps of cheese sandwich that were fed to them by the inhabitants of number six. The air seemed to become energised with the twitching of wings and beaks, all anticipating a snack. The door opened and raised voices came from within.

“No Daddy, you’re self- isolating. You can’t just go to a coffee shop.” Little Chick was on the warpath.

The door shut once again and a moment later, Big Daddy scuttled furtively out of the door like a prisoner escaping from Broadmoor. 

 “Iri, what’s happened to you?” called Ma, one of the older females in the flock. She had known him since he had hatched. His mother had died before he was born, and although his father had been around, it was Ma who had brought him up. She was the matriarch of the mews and kept an eye out for everyone. She talked to them when they had a problem; created games that helped the shy ones to make friends and enquired after their health when they limped back with missing feathers or fell into a bucket of chip fat behind the restaurants in Preston Street. Although Iridesco was almost fully grown it didn’t stop her worrying about him.

“I’m fine,” he lied. “I just bumped into something.”

Ma looked unconvinced but knew better than to question him in front of his friends. She made herself busy pecking at some loose feathers under her wing and flew back to her usual perch where she pretended to pick something out of her claw.

When Iridesco was alone Ma came over and spoke quietly, “You’d better go and see your dad.” she said. “He’s taken a turn for the worse.”

Iridesco sighed. “He doesn’t want to see me. It gets me down...all that moaning about the past. I’ve heard it all before. He needs to move on.”

“I know. Maybe he will one day. It’s just the way he is. He’s a homing pigeon. They take things a bit more seriously than the rest of us. I suppose it’s the way he was brought up. Anyway, I kow he’d like to see you...even if he doesn’t admit it.”

Iridesco looked over at his new friends. They were sitting on a window sill eating grain and discussing the progress of the baby seagulls. A fat brown bird was being lectured to by five or six adults before skidding down the slates and tripping over his enormous feet. He hung upside down from the gutter for a moment before plummeting to the ground. His fluffy feathers bounced across the paving slabs and he ran self-consciously round a corner and out of sight. The adults let out a chorus of squawks and the next one took his place. The pigeons smiled to themselves and settled down for the next act.

Iridesco wished he could join them but he knew he should visit his father. George had become embittered and now rarely spoke although the other birds remembered him as a gifted navigator.  He wore a metal band around his leg signifying his ability and sometimes he would be pointed out by groundlings. Now he shunned the sociable bustle of life in the flock. He dwelt in an extractor fan behind The Magic Wok Chinese Restaurant. The warmth thawed the coldness that had set into his bones. It was a dark, noisy place but the scent of ginger, garlic and powdered shrimp seemed to soothe him.

 Iridesco hoped that his wings would support him on the short flight to The Magic Wok. He sighed again and reluctantly took to the sky. The pain caused him to tense his shoulders as he flew over the houses and restaurants, but he was soon perched on a bin next to the fire exit.

Little Preston Street was known to all the pigeons in the vicinity. Delicious smells wafted from every doorway. The dull throb of extractor fans and the sizzle of deep fat fryers filled their hearts with joy. Although some birds were satisfied with a homogenous diet of tramp’s sick and the crumbs of broken biscuits from Poundland, a very decent meal could be had if one knew where to look.

 George had chosen this extractor fan for a reason: he was a bird of discerning tastes. In his younger days he had flown through the high open countryside beyond the city, where black crows cawed above ploughed fields and newly born lambs nuzzled up against their mothers. He had enjoyed corn, fresh from the fields and delicate herbs pecked from the rabbity hillsides.

But George was old now. Iridesco saw the entrance to the extractor fan. The grille on the back had fallen off and grey feathers clung to the greasy pipe. In the spring morning air it was silent and cold. With some effort, Iridesco was able to fly up into the dark opening. The walls were sticky with grease. Years of frying battered nuggets of pork and prawn had left them coated with an amber resin than clung to his feathers. He cautiously walked further into the tunnel and turned right. His eyes took some time to adjust to the darkness. Slowly, shapes solidified. Sharp vertical lines intersected horizontals and a cold bluish light filtered through the mesh ahead of him. 

There at the end of the tunnel, a grey ball of feathers lay propped against the sticky wall. Barely discernible as a living thing, his laboured breathing seemed to take all of his energy. His eyes were closed and his wispy feathers transparent and fine as a chick’s.

Iridesco moved closer and wondered whether he should embrace his father, but George was oblivious. His beak lay heavily on his chest, but despite being closed, it seemed to be concentrating its final efforts on breathing. His once muscular body was now reduced to a skeletal frame. He resembled one of those papery lanterns carried through the town by groundlings and their chicks in the dark nights of November, to be reduced to nothing with a lit match.

 It was known that pigeons took themselves off to a quiet place to die...but was this to be the fate of his father?  Although George no longer spent time with the other birds, Iridesco remembered the nights sitting up on the slate roof listening as his father spun magical stories. Some had been mysterious, like the legend of the phoenix that had remained in its egg for thousands of years only to hatch when placed in the flames of a fire. Other stories told of an ancient code of honour amongst birds; the whole flock had been spellbound as he described armies of winged creatures darkening the sky to come to the aid of one of their brethren.  Although nobody really believed the stories, when George had told them, tiny chicks and ancient old birds were transported by the magic of his words.

“Dad..” Iridesco began, not really knowing what he meant to say. George continued his shallow but steady breaths. Iridesco touched his feathers; they were cold and stiff. He stood wondering what to do. After a little while he began to talk.

“Remember the time you told us about flying over the mountains...all the snow sparkling in the sun and the tracks of rabbits and foxes? I would have liked to have seen that. And I remember you told us what the pine forests smelt like and about the caves with bears sleeping in them. I really believed those stories...even the ones about the code of honour and that ‘family, flock, feathers’ thing. We all sat up late...” he looked up, George had not moved, though he still breathed steadily.

This was the way it had always been; birds came and went, a few would be remembered for a time, others would vanish like a whiff of candyfloss.

Iridesco sat for a while then turned and followed the tunnel back towards the light. His feet tapped against the stainless steel ventilator shaft and his heart felt heavy. He emerged into the harsh light and jumped onto the plastic bin below. Doors were opening from the kitchens of a few of the restaurants and heavy rubber curtains flapped like sad wings as kitchen porters sat smoking and peeling vegetables. Iridesco felt a tinge of anger that the world carried on regardless as his father lay dying.

As he stood up, a tapping sound echoed inside the extractor fan above him.  Flying up to the opening, he hurriedly retraced his steps into the darkness. This time, his father’s eyes were open and he peered up at his son with a look of recognition. 

“Dessy...” he blinked affectionately, the effort of speaking exhausting him.

Iridesco ran forward and hugged his father.  Recently he had hated being addressed as ‘Dessy’, his chick name, but now it seemed to convey everything that could not be expressed in words. George held up his thin claw and the metal band glinted in the fluorescent light that shone through the vent from the kitchen.

 The ring that had once tightly encircled his father’s leg now slid off easily. George opened his beak to speak but had to stop. He started again,

“You never knew your mum. She would have been proud of you. I haven’t spoken to you about this before but...” he seemed to be struggling to find the words to explain himself. “I should have been there for her when she needed me. I... I let her down.” George shook his head slightly; his eyes staring vacantly. He lay his head against the metal wall and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

 The ring lay on the floor next to his lifeless body. Iridesco stepped forward and nudged his father’s face with his beak. His head hung sideways, a glazed look in his eyes.  Iridesco picked up the metal ring and carried it out into the daylight. The morning sun warmed the street and spring was in the air. Iridesco stood between the bin bags and vegetable peelings and blinked back the tears.

Back in the mews the pigeons’ prayers had been answered with a lavish meal of Danish pastries and waffles dipped in protein shake. 

“That Big Daddy knows us pigeons better than we knows ourselves.” observed Ma wisely. The others munched in silence, savouring the flavours of pecan, cinnamon and maple syrup.

When Iridesco returned, he stood away from the others. The mood seemed buoyant, and whilst he felt happy for them, he knew he didn’t belong there at this moment in time. Ma seemed to sense his presence and looked up. Seeing the metal band she nodded and came over to him, leaning her face against his neck.  

That night the pigeons discussed Eddie’s advice. Ma was nervous about saying goodbye but knew that a city without people was a hostile environment. There are times when pigeons must stick together and times when they must part. Where they were going was unclear but they would make the long journey together and maybe, with luck, they would live to tell their chicks.

Play Whispering Grass by The Ink Spots