Fiction: ‘Perch’
Photography Sian O’Gorman
Aviana Oakley’s home is no home at all. The walls are bare and the bookshelf contains little more than a smattering of housewarming gifts. Plastic-covered sofas ornament the otherwise naked parquet flooring. She’s yet to find her perfect housemate, but, now, that might not be such a bad thing.
For the past week, the dishwasher’s been spewing a foul-smelling liquid. As the repairman clatters away at the opposite side of the flat, Aviana curls against her desk. Her fingers drum the hardwood as the browser loads on her phone. She realigns a pile of pristine notebooks. Still it buffers. She sets a pencil parallel to the table’s edge.
The BBC News live feed flickers onto the screen. The daily figures are out: 264 new cases; 15 deaths. There are now more than 1,000 cases in the UK, 300 in London alone. She refreshes again. That’s 134 countries in a matter of months. It’s been 43 days since the first case was found in the UK. The feed reloads. She drags her thumb down and refreshes again.
“Right, all done,” says the repairman, walking towards her. She jerks around.
“Uh, okay. The money’s on the side, next to the door.”
She gestures keenly to the exit. He smiles and leaves.
The sounds of spring flood in through the open window: chattering pedestrians organising their Saturday plans; patrons of the local pub quaffing beers in the sun; the occasional chirrup of a bird over the whine of mopeds.
The latch of the front door clicks shut. She swipes a bottle of disinfectant from the desk and darts across the living room. She sprays down and wipes the radiator cover that flanks the hall. She picks up every bowl, candle holder and picture frame and buffs them to a spotless gleam, then moves onto the door.
Next is the kitchen: the dishwasher, the counter, the table where the repairman drank his tea. Engrossed in her survey of the room, Aviana itches her nose. Realising what she’s done, she thrusts her face under the tap, and the cartilage of her nose crunches as she scrubs it with dish soap.
She leans against the counter, sighs, and resists the urge to run her fingers through her hair. Only a third of the spray bottle’s fluorescent yellow contents remain. Thankfully she has two in reserve. She picks it back up and resumes her purging.
Arm tight from scrubbing, Aviana lies in bed and stares at the ceiling. Her stomach groans. The double fridge-freezer is empty, save for a bottle of sauvignon blanc and some Medjool dates, and the cupboards are no fuller, so she composes herself to go to a shop. Any shop will do, the closer the better. She pulls on a pair of latex gloves and sets out.
By the time she reaches Mile End Road, her hands are itching with sweat. The street is aglow with sunshine, its pavements packed with bare-armed pedestrians. Aviana tightropes along the kerb.
Spotting a shop through an opening in the throng, she scuttles across the pavement and into the store. On its right lies a meat counter, and, beyond that, shelves stacked with vegetables. The whiff of oxidising flesh fills her nose. She shoves her tongue into the roof of her mouth, blocking her nostrils, and skirts three women eyeing up uneven cuts of lamb strewn across the counter. She paces toward the back of the shop.
By the time she reaches a safe distance, Aviana is gasping for air. She looks back aghast at the ladies huddled by the counter. She faces forwards and almost crashes into a doddering pensioner, who is turning the corner. As she steps across him, he straddles his cane, inhaling a lungful of his accompanying must. He glances at her, wheezes, and waddles on. She sighs and rubs her shoulders.
She forces her focus onto the vegetables in front of her. The shelves are gaunt, and their contents unfamiliar. She leans in, hoping to decipher the scrawlings beneath each carton. After much squinting, she realises that she’s reading Bengali.
She picks up a limp carrot. It has a discoloured brown spot, and is finely dusted in what looks like mould. Shuddering, she drops it back into the basket.
A fleck of something moist lands on her wrist, and Aviana leaps as if someone has shot the cashier. The elderly gentleman is behind her now, spluttering into a tissue. She gives up on food and flees the shop.
Stood by the shop, sheltered from the busy she pulls an antiseptic wipe from her purse. She rubs her pale skin red raw, but can still feel the remnant molecules of spittle burrowing through like microscopic termites. She must get home.
Not 50 paces down the road, she hears a cry: “Aviana! How are you?”
She pretends not to hear until she feels a tap on her shoulder.
“Oh hey, Sarah,” she says, smiling weakly. “I’m kinda – ”
“What are you doing here?” Sarah says, beaming.
“Uh, good. I mean, I live here now,” says Aviana, pocketing her hands.
“No way! Buying or renting?”
“I bought. Well, I had a little help.”
“Haven’t we all? Good for you! You must have me over.”
“Don’t you – ”
A waft of perfume smells all-to-close and she shuffles mid-sentence. Consenting is easier than explaining why this is a terrible idea. She says, “Sure.”
“Anyway, lovely seeing you, but I’ve got to be going,” says Sarah. Aviana stands rigidly as Sarah plants a kiss on her cheek. She doesn’t move until she’s sure her friend has been swallowed by the bustling crowd. A shiver runs up her spine like the crack of a whip. She scurries homeward.
As she nears the building, a rabble of children and their hijabi mother approach -- the family from the flat opposite. The two younger ones are jumping and screaming and tugging at the woman’s dress, while a third helps carry the worn shopping bags.
As they turn into the building’s entrance, Aviana freezes and gestures gingerly for them to go ahead. The lady smiles, and guides the children towards the door. The eldest opens it and lets the family through, but the last child, his face and hands caked in a sticky brown residue, lags behind. He plays with the door handle, his face a giddy grin. His mother beckons him inside and the door swings towards its frame. Before it shuts, Aviana gets one foot in the gap, forces it open with the other, and slides her body into the cool shade of the building.
She hurries up to her flat and collapses on the sofa. The room feels cramped and stuffy. She breathes deeply and tries to clear her mind, but a blaring horn outside distracts her.
She needs space, but the park will be packed and the canal paths will be even worse, heavy with recycled air pumped from lung to lung, from host to host.
She looks out the window at her balconette. A pigeon rests atop the shit-spattered metalwork. She studies its emaciated frame and sooty plumage, wistful for the fat wood pigeons who frolic in the bird baths of her family’s summer house in Sussex. She calls her mother.
Two hours later, a black Audi Q8 pulls up. Aviana waddles out of the flat with essentials for the coming weeks: clothes, laptop, yoga mat.
As she locks up, she hears rattling. The door opposite opens. The mother has her back turned, and is waving goodbye to someone. She turns, sees Aviana, and backs into the flat. Behind her, a shrunken, grey-haired lady is entering the living room. The mother follows Aviana out of the building at a distance.
Aviana piles her possessions into the boot of the car, clambers into the back seat, and wraps her face in a scarf.
When they get to the summer house, Aviana goes to the garden and slumps deep into a deckchair. The sun is setting, spraying shards of amber over the lawn. She takes in her surroundings: every warbling reprise of the symphony of birdsong, every emerging petal, each a delicate brush stroke on the verdant canvas of spring. And there, beneath it all, an unmistakable lilt can be heard: cuckoo, cuckoo.
It is the sound of the eponymous traveller. It only visits for the spring. One by one, it will unload its eggs in the nests of other birds, leaving its hatchlings to evict their nestmates and be raised by unsuspecting new parents. By June, the cuckoo’s work will be done. It will be gone again, bound for Europe, its refrain unheard until next spring.
