The Swallowman

Illustration by Mercury Medhurst

He was just Tommo here - no last name nor birthplace, no nothing nor no one to fib on his past. His sins and secrets were his own, he'd claim, his own and shared only in the whispers the swallows caught as they wheeled around the church eaves on late summer evenings. With them his stories were like the clouds of gnats that rose up from the grass and headstones, snatched up on the wing in a blurred dogfight of black and white bellies. They paid no notice to much else. They had a silent agreement, Tommo and the swallows, one that bound his tent and their nests together in a rice-sprinkled vow: he'd never ask where they went when the sun took them south, and they would listen to his stories, no questions asked. Whatever happened behind the closed doors of their upside down mud-huts was their business, though Tommo was thankful he could hear them chattering as they watched him bed down for the night.

Tommo No Last Name, Tommo of the Churchyard - he was known well enough by now. His small red and blue tent nested between two ancient yews at the far end of the church grounds, tucked away from public eyes but neat, always neat amongst the crumbling molars of headstones long forgotten. The Vicar, Jenny, let him stay there as long as he came to the Sunday service and sometimes help the volunteers keep the graveyard tidy. No drugs, not on the Lord's land, but I can understand the need for alcohol, she said, just keep respectful of your neighbours, alive or buried, and we'll be friends. She was nice enough, but that charitable, simpering look in her eyes was too Christian for Tommo's liking. He knew she saw him as more of a good deed than a man, but it worked out all the same - during the day he could use the church pisser, and he liked the sound of the hymns well enough. Vicar Jenny had her flock, Tommo had his. He'd talk to the swallows about his musings from the porch of his tent, Pot Noodle balanced on his knee as they danced their violent ballet. A flock o'swallows, he recounted, is called a flight. D'ya know that? Not particularly imaginative eh? The swallows would somersault in reply, the thrum of their wings tiny Spitfires that spoke of changing winds and pollen. Dinnertime was an educative affair, story for story, no questions asked of how and why. Tommo preferred it that way. Folks didn't know how to listen anymore - families never quite got the memo, always nagging and prying between mouthfuls at the dining table. Thank God there was no place to put a dining table in a churchyard.

Winter was harder, the swallow's mud-nests hanging like empty gaping mouths over the tombstones in silent moans. Frost blanketed everything, and Tommo could feel his bones wishing he had gone south with the birds. Dinnertime became a chore. With no one to listen to his stories, and no black and white bullets fizzing through the air, Tommo would take to walking as he ate. The movement was good for him, warm him up before he curled up in his old sleeping bag and tried to sleep. He'd walk, and walk, and dream he was somewhere far south where the sun was kinder and his body didn't ache. He'd walk and imagine he was up there with the swallows as he ate his dinner on the wing. Tommo No Last Name, Tommo of the Churchyard, in his old khaki coat and his boots strictly polished to a T, would think his stories to the swallows far away, hoping maybe the winds would take them there, away to a place where they whizzed in kamikaze skies, red chins proud.

When the swallows returned in the spring, Tommo's tent was gone. A small sapling, an oak, was planted on the grassless rectangle of land in his stead. The swallows paid no mind to this, their white bellies flashing in the reflection of a small brass plaque: 'Thomas 'The Swallow', 1922-1984'.