Little Bird

by Camilla Way

  ‘I –’ She struggles for a moment to answer him. ‘I,’ she says again, unable to take her eyes away from his.

  ‘Would you like to go somewhere to talk? For a drink or something?’

  At first she is too surprised to reply but at last she nods. Frank, she knows, will be working late tonight, doing a stock-take at the shop, and the thought of sitting in the house alone fills her with dread.

  Outside, they walk in silence for a while. She doesn’t question or even notice where they are going, only follows him blindly up Wardour Street, lost in her own thoughts. On the other side of Oxford Street he leads her down a narrow side road and stops outside a pub. She looks up, dazed, as if surprised to find that they are no longer in the library basement, and then she passes wordlessly through the door he is holding open for her.

  The pub is almost empty, too small and old-fashioned and out of the way to attract the hordes of Friday-night drinkers thronging the trendier bars nearby. She sits at a corner table while he fetches their drinks. When he’s sitting opposite she regards him for a moment or two. And then, without even knowing that she’s about to say it, she looks him in the eye, takes a deep breath, and begins to speak. ‘When I was two years old,’ she says, hearing the words as if listening to a stranger’s voice, ‘I was kidnapped.’

  While Steven listens in absolute, unblinking silence, she tells him everything. The forest, High Barn, Queens, London, Frank, the phone calls, the car, and finally, the carved bird. The words pour from her and as she speaks the relief is overwhelming. On and on she talks, her mouth moving as if by its own free will, and as she tells her story her heart grows steadily lighter. It is only when she reaches the part when she must describe Ingrid’s death that she stops, finally unable to continue. ‘I thought the house was empty,’ she begins, ‘but then I heard her call my name from the kitchen. And then … and then …’ she flounders, unable to meet his eye.

  ‘What, Kate?’ his voice is very quiet. ‘What happened then?’

  She shakes her head. ‘It was an accident. A horrible accident.’ She cannot look at him. A heavy silence falls.

  ‘You are Little Bird,’ he says quietly.

  She nods.

  The silence stretches on.

  At last he says, ‘And Frank knows nothing about this?’

  She shakes her head, almost feeling now as if she were waking from a dream, astonished that she has told her story at last, that it is Steven she has told it to. Sadness fills her. It should have been Frank. She turns to Steven, searching his face to see what affect her words have had. He is not looking at her, is staring as if unseeing, at the empty air in front of him. But when, suddenly, he turns to her, she feels the breath catch in her throat, her heart thudding now to be looking into the eyes of someone who knows the truth finally, who sees at last who she is. But his face is unreadable, devoid of expression as if he has retreated somewhere deep inside himself. And then a strange thing happens: bit by bit she sees his face become infused with pain.

  She moves to the seat next to his. ‘Steven?’ she asks, reaching out and touching his arm. ‘What is it?’

  And with that touch, everything is lost. Their eyes lock. Reflected in his irises she sees twin versions of herself, as she has seen herself reflected in so many men’s eyes before his. Slowly, very slowly, hardly aware of what she’s doing, she reaches over and puts her fingers to his face. She sits and looks at her hand upon his cheek as if at an object entirely detached from herself. He does not for a second drop his eyes from hers. And then, in a sudden violent movement he pulls her towards him, his fingers gathering her hair tightly in his fist as his lips hit hers and she feels the heat spread across her body, her hands gripping the knotted muscles of his back. Desire slams into her.

  And as abruptly as he’d seized her he pulls away and regards her for a moment (a flash of something she can’t read; the shadow of something swooping past his eyes). From their separate chairs they survey each other, their breath shallow and quick. ‘Kate,’ he says, ‘will you come with me?’ A moment passes, and then another. She nods, and together they leave the pub.

  Outside in the street, dusk has just begun to fall. The low thunder of Tottenham Court Road can be heard in the distance, but this street is empty and still. As she moves by his side she feels entirely detached from the world, as if the real her is still back in the kitchen, holding the little carved bird, while this person, following Steven, is a dream version of herself.

  They have barely walked more than fifty yards before he stops and says, ‘Here. I live here.’

  ‘Here?’ The tall, slim town house in the middle of central London is the very last place she had imagined him living.

  He points to the top floor, the small attic windows. ‘Up there.’ He smiles at her confusion. ‘Long story. I’m flat sitting.’ He delves into his pocket, bringing out a key. ‘Come on.’

  Inside the small low-ceilinged flat she gazes around her at the bare magnolia walls. There is nothing here; no clue to tell her anything about Steven’s life. She takes a step back towards the front door but just at that moment he takes her hand and leads her silently to the bedroom. Like the hall this room is empty and bare but for a mattress that is lit like a stage by a lamp on the floor.

  Silently they lie down together on the bed, quickly they undress. She watches the monstrous shadows of their bodies thrown by the lamplight across the bare walls; and turning her eyes to his face she finds his intent stare upon her still. She closes her eyes tight shut and in the end, it is Frank’s face that she sees.

  Afterwards she is on her feet in seconds, his sweat still mingling with hers, her breath like jagged glass. She dresses as he watches and without looking back at him or uttering another word she runs from the flat, down the steep stairs and out into the street.

  All the way to Charing Cross she runs, through the Friday night crowds in the clammy August heat. And in the packed train she holds her head in her hands and tries in vain to stem her tears. When the train finally pulls into Deptford she runs the few blocks to their home. Tearing open the door, she calls for Frank, but realising that he is still not home, she sinks to the floor and begins to cry.

  At last she reaches her decision. She will tell him everything. Tomorrow she will tell him everything.

  twenty-seven

  Deptford, that same night

  It was 4 a.m. when Frank’s mobile rang. Still half-asleep his outstretched fingers fumbled on the floor beside the bed while Kate murmured and shifted in the darkness next to him. There were only four people in the world he would take a call from at that time of night: Kate, his mother, Jimmy, or Eugene. His eyes still closed, he found his Nokia at last and brought it to his face as he slowly cracked open one eye. The little screen glowed blue as it continued to bleep and vibrate. Illuminated letters spelt: Jimmy Mobile.

  Frank was wide awake suddenly. He hadn’t spoken to Jimmy since they’d argued in the car lot a week ago. He’d been meaning to ring and apologise for not turning up at Eugene’s that night, but somehow he’d never got around to it. He pressed a button on his phone. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Frank?’ Jimmy’s voice sounded very loud and unnaturally high in the silent room. Frank sat up in bed, rubbing his face.

  ‘Yes, mate. You OK? D’you know what time –’

  ‘He’s dead, Frank,’ said Jimmy in the strangely shrill, too-loud voice. ‘Eugene’s dead.’

  Later, he would remember every detail of those first few hours after Jimmy called. It took less than a couple of minutes to dress and get into his car. He would remember exactly what Jimmy had said, and what he, himself, had told Kate when he finally hung up the phone. He would remember driving around to Eugene’s bedsit. He would be able to recall in minute detail the scene that awaited him there: the ambulance and police cars on the street outside, faces peering from the windows of surrounding flats, the door open, the brightness of the hall. As he made his way to the third floor, he saw Jimmy’s white, frightened face peering o
ver the stairwell while the paramedics carried down the stretcher that bore their friend’s dead body.

  He remembered because, after an initial, brief lurch of horror, he had felt so peculiarly calm. It was as if he’d spent his entire life waiting for tragedy and now that it had arrived, he was strangely unable to react.

  The police needed Jimmy to make a statement, so Frank rode with him in the police car.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked. His voice sounded high and thin, like a recording made long ago. Jimmy, who had been staring out of the window, opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he whispered at last. ‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Was it … I mean, did he … top himself?’ whispered Frank. It was a conversation belonging to a film, to someone else’s life.

  ‘Top himself?’ repeated Jimmy, his voice so loud in the silent car that one of the policemen in the front whipped his head round sharply. ‘Top himself? Course he didn’t fucking top himself,’ said Jimmy, ignoring the copper. ‘What’s the matter with you? It wasn’t on purpose, was it? Course it wasn’t. Too many drugs, accidental overdose, heart attack or something. I don’t know, do I? You fucking twat. I mean why – why would he kill himself?’

  There was something in the way Jimmy asked this last question that was so unspeakably sad that somewhere in the very depths of himself Frank felt a cautionary nip of pain, like a distant solitary cloud before a hurricane, a warning of the devastation to come. He quenched it, and put a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. ‘OK, man. I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I just. Fuck. I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe it. I mean, Euge? What the fuck …’

  Without warning Jimmy started to cry. His body shook with great, convulsive sobs and Frank gripped his shoulder until they gradually subsided. He realised with a start that in all the years he’d known Jimmy, he’d never once seen him cry. As they drove through the empty Deptford streets he began to tell Frank what happened.

  ‘My phone rang around midnight. I saw Euge’s number so I picked up.’ Frank nodded, the words, the police car, everything unreal. ‘There was music in the background, really loud,’ Jimmy continued, ‘but he didn’t say anything. I thought he was in a club or something. I kept shouting his name, but he didn’t reply.’ He gave a bitter snort of laughter, the tears spilling from his eyes again. ‘I was a bit hacked off to be honest, I was about to hang up on him, but then he started talking.’ Jimmy put his head in his hands for a moment, and took a few ragged breaths.

  ‘What was he saying?’ asked Frank, not sure that he could really bear to hear it.

  ‘All kinds of crazy shit.’ Jimmy shook his head. ‘A right load of old nonsense. I’d never heard him like that before. I mean, at first I thought he was just a bit stoned, you know? But he was really weird and confused. Started talking about when we were kids. Asking me if I remembered the day we all met, stuff like that. Even started going on about my mum. Then he got really upset. He kept fading out, and the music in the background was so fucking loud I could hardly hear him. I kept asking him where he was, you know? There was something about his voice that just gave me this weird feeling. But in the end, I told him to go to bed and sleep it off. And I put the phone down.’

  At this last bit, he turned to Frank, his eyes wide with horror. He clasped his hand to his mouth to stifle a sob. ‘I didn’t … why didn’t I go straight round there, Frank? Why the fuck didn’t I just go round there?’

  ‘Look, mate,’ said Frank, his hand once again on Jimmy’s shoulder, ‘how were you to know what was happening? You can’t blame yourself for this, nobody could have known. Nobody.’ Even as he said the words, he had the sick feeling he’d be repeating them to himself many times some day soon.

  Jimmy swallowed, then went on. ‘I went to bed, tried to sleep, but in the end I decided, fuck it, you know? I thought I’d go round to Euge’s and find him blitzed on something or other, thought I’d have a drink with him and try and talk him out of this bender he’s been on for so long. So I did. I took the spare key, went round there and when he didn’t answer the door I just let myself in.’

  The funeral was a week later. The court ruled death by misadventure. The coroner had found a combination of crack cocaine, barbiturates, painkillers and twelve times the recommended level of alcohol in his system. Eugene had choked on his own vomit.

  In the days between Eugene’s death and the funeral, Frank got up, went to work, ate and slept exactly as he always had. In the evenings he would turn on the TV, put on a record or pick up a book and the hours would pass the way they always had. Sometimes he would look up from whatever he was doing to find Kate staring at him, but he would smile at her reassuringly, and carry on as before.

  On the morning of Eugene’s burial, a Thursday, he woke before six. Fingers of grey light had begun to creep furtively beneath the curtains; rain splattered on the window pane, birds squawked testily from a tree somewhere. He didn’t know exactly what had woken him, but he knew he didn’t want to lie there in the silent half-light for a second longer.

  Kate woke as he was finishing getting dressed. ‘Frank?’ she asked, sleepily, ‘where are you going?’

  ‘Just for a walk,’ he replied from somewhere behind a pasted-on smile, reaching out to stroke her hair. ‘I’ll see you at the church at ten, OK?’

  Rubbing her eyes she sat up and silently watched him tie his laces. ‘Can I come?’ she asked carefully. ‘Let me get dressed, Frank. I’ll walk with you,’ she half rose from the bed when he didn’t reply.

  ‘No,’ he said, firmly then. ‘I’m OK. Just feel like a walk, that’s all. I’ll see you at the church later.’ He squeezed her foot beneath the duvet, and left the room before she could reply.

  It had stopped raining by the time Frank emerged from the house. He walked with no purpose, and felt no emotion as he trod the quiet, empty streets. He drifted aimlessly through south-east London, from Deptford to New Cross and on towards Brockley, and at last he stopped, surprised to find himself at the gates to the cemetery where Eugene would be buried in a matter of hours.

  Brockley Cemetery is a vast place; sprawling, Victorian, and cluttered with lopsided, crumbling graves etched with high-minded sentiments from a different era. Between the tomb stones run narrow paths overgrown with weeds and overlooked here and there by lichen-streaked stone angels that sink into the grassy verges, their age-worn faces wasting, crumbling, their wings tethered by ivy. One far end however is reserved for the freshly dead, whose plots are marked with mounds of earth bearing browning wreaths of flowers spelling NAN or awash in a sea of carnations, sodden teddy bears or soggy photographs in peeling plastic.

  It was on the edge of this section that Frank spotted the two men in yellow bibs with spades taking a fag break besides a half-dug plot. Frank’s insides had been cold since the night of Eugene’s death; now they dropped another twenty degrees or so.

  He used to like this place, had been coming here since a child, when he wanted to escape his mother. Later, as a teenager he would wander around amongst the graves with his Walkman, sometimes he and Eugene liked to come here to smoke a joint or two, sitting on a bench beneath a tree (Jimmy never came, he said the place gave him the creeps). It was a nice, restful place to come and think, amidst the traffic and greyness of London, more atmospheric and peaceful than the overcrowded parks. Now, gazing around, he felt only repulsion for it all.

  He arrived at the church before everyone else: he arrived early for everything in his life, a habit that had been with him since childhood when the thought of keeping anyone waiting would send him into paroxysms of anxiety. The rest of the congregation, such as it was, arrived in hesitant dribs and drabs. He watched them from the side of the church, where he lingered in the shadows. First came Jimmy dressed in his best suit, his face raw with grief. By his side walked Mel, clutching his hand, steering him gently as if he were an inmate on day release from the nearest pensioners’ home. Her long blonde hair was pulled back
into a ponytail, her enormous breasts swaddled in a severe black dress. As Frank watched, he realised that nothing in Jimmy’s life up to this point had prepared him for this – even his grandparents were still alive. He mentally examined himself for similar signs of devastation, found nothing; felt nothing.

  After Jimmy and Mel came a rag bag assortment of Eugene’s acquaintances: a couple of builders from the site he’d been working on, a handful of past girlfriends, some fellow drinkers from the various local pubs. The ex-girlfriends stood apart from one another, staring into space, fiddling with their mobile phones or shooting covert glances at each other from behind clouds of cigarette smoke. In the morning sunshine they reminded Frank of brightly painted marionettes, taken down from some dark and dusty shelf. He wondered why, out of the legions of Eugene’s women, these particular ones had decided to show up today. He could be heartless when it came to girls, Eugene, had never really attached himself to any one of them. Frank glanced around for his parents, but there was no sign of them. He saw Kate arrive and join Jimmy and Mel. Taking a deep breath he went over to them too. The girls made their way into the church while he and Jimmy waited on the steps for the coffin to arrive.

  Later, at the cemetery, when the small, incongruous group was gathered around the grave, Frank watched the proceedings as though through the wrong end of a telescope. Everything – from helping to carry Eugene’s coffin into the church, to listening to the brief service, to watching the wooden box containing his friend being lowered gently into the ground – failed to reach him. He looked over and saw Jimmy crying into Mel’s hair. Her arms were round his waist as if she was barely managing to hold him upright. He watched his friend with a mixture of pity and wonder, and catching Mel’s eye, returned her smile, feeling glad in a detached, vague kind of way that Jimmy had decided not to go through with his plan to dump her. He became aware of Kate’s hand gripping his own tightly, and was surprised to remember that she was by his side. He looked down at her pinched, white face and returned the pressure on her fingers, while the vicar murmured from the other side of the grave.