September Starlings

by Ruth Hamilton

  Outside Heaton Lodge, I turn off the engine, climb out of Elsie’s uncomfortable body, stroll round the garden and look at the faded bedding plants. It’s over, Ben. Summer is over. The marigolds are crunched up, wrinkled, aged.

  Susan Jenkinson accosts me in the lobby. ‘Hello, love. I never expected to see you at this time.’

  ‘Is he asleep?’

  She shakes her head slowly, draws me through the entrance and into Matron’s office. ‘Sit down,’ she says. ‘We can have a good chinwag here, no interruptions.’

  I sit, wait.

  ‘He’s had a rough day, Laura.’ She puts the matron’s desk between us, settles her bulk, rests gnarled elbows on the blotter pad. ‘He’s needing more sedation. We can’t let him carry on like this, because he’s a danger to himself, you know. He’s been throwing cups at doors, falling out of chairs, trying to run after somebody who isn’t there.’

  I place my keys on the desk, look into her eyes. ‘I want him home, Susan. And before you start, I’m intending to have round-the-clock nursing, three nurses, eight hours each.’

  She draws in her lips, takes a hissing breath, puts me in mind of a plumber who has just been asked when the lavatory will be fixed. ‘That’ll cost you a bomb. And it might take more than one to manage him when he’s at his worst.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I’ll be there, Susan. And if we need more than one nurse, or a strong man as well as a nurse, then we’ll employ as many as are needed. He can’t stay here. I put him here because I was ill. I’m no longer sick, so he can come back where he belongs.’

  She studies me for a few moments, then rises from the chair. ‘Come with me, Laura. Come and look at him.’

  She leads the way to Ben’s room, bustles along as if she means business. I have no doubt that she is intending to put me off, but I shall bring him out of here no matter what. He is mine, my husband, my beloved burden.

  At his door, she stops and draws breath. It seems an age before we enter the room, she first, me bringing up the rear with a huge grin on my face. Ben has routed her. As if he expected to be caught in bad order, he is sitting in his chair with the television flickering on his face. Some aged singer is assassinating ‘Always’, and Ben has joined in. ‘Hello, Laura,’ he beams. ‘Come in and listen to the singing. It is so beautiful.’

  Susan shakes her head, gives me a nudge of warning as if telling me not to be taken in by my husband’s improved mood. ‘I’ll be off, then. Don’t keep him up late. It’s as if he’s ready for me.’ She pats Ben’s hand. ‘Be good.’

  He gives her a withering look. ‘Go away,’ he says imperiously. ‘I wish to talk to my wife.’

  After she has left, he seems to forget me, is wrapped up in the songs of yesteryear. But ‘My Way’ proves too much for him. He looks at me, a temporary intelligence in the fading eyes. ‘How is Chewbacca?’ he asks.

  Ben doesn’t like dogs any more. ‘Fine. We have another cat, too.’

  He nods. ‘There were dogs, but no cats. We had rats, you know. Even the wild ones are trainable, very clever. And we didn’t see many birds. I’ve been back, and there are still few birds.’

  I wait until he seems to have finished. My spine is tingling, crawling with cold. I am beginning to know where he has been. ‘Was this during the war, Ben?’

  ‘It’s over.’ He frowns at the television. ‘For most, it is over. For some, it continues. They cut my toenails today, I think. Yes, it was today. I don’t like scissors. Are the children at school? Did you find Gerald’s geometry set? He will be a mathematician, you know. Keep the door closed.’

  He is leaving me. I drop to my knees, take his hands, am reminded of how Ruth held on to me just half an hour ago. ‘Is it under the birds, Ben? Is it in the Kellogg’s box?’

  He nods jerkily, like a child who has barely mastered the art of tacit agreement. ‘Strawberry yoghurt.’ There is pride on his face. ‘I knew I would never forget that. The key.’

  ‘To the bottom safe?’

  He is vague again. ‘They went a bit crisp under the stove, but we got them out. The jewels too. Well, they paid for their own destruction, so we merely used what was left as a deposit on retribution. Diamonds, rubies and sapphires, she wanted. I made it for her, but she died.’ A grim smile hovers on his lips. ‘So gaudy, it was, so we broke it later in Paris. Valuable. Watch the gendarme in the Rue Albertine. What?’ He is questioning an invisible companion. ‘Non, c’est fini. Je vais maintenant en Angleterre. Laura.’

  ‘Yes?’

  But he is speaking of me, not to me. He repeats that he is going to England, that he is going to Laura, that everything is finished.

  ‘Ben? Would you like to come home?’

  He focuses, recognizes, jerks the balding head. ‘I am better here,’ he says. ‘Soon, I shall get my wings.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  I step inside, catch sight of a Fry’s Chocolate Cream bar that betrays her by peeping out from its hiding place. I glance at the cushion, then at her. No sweet stuff, the doctor said. But why should I remind her? ‘What’s all this about McNally’s?’ I ask without further preamble.

  ‘I’m tired.’

  She looks about as tired as a three-week-old foal. ‘Mother, you can’t go picking up people like Diana. How do you know she’ll be suitable?’

  ‘I know. I know people.’

  I sit on the chair that faces her throne. The throne is high, made taller for old bones. It has wings and braided joints, lacks only a royal crest and a bit of gold thread. ‘I can’t leave Ben.’

  She fumbles with a Regal packet, picks out a fag, lights it. ‘We shall take him home. He can live with me at the farm and I shall hire help – nurses and so on.’

  What is the matter with her? She’s never cared before, has never catered for anyone but herself. ‘Why?’ I ask.

  She shrugs, the lifting of the shoulders emphasizing twin cavernous salt-cellars at the base of her throat. ‘I’m not sure.’ She has always been certain, and this ambivalence sits uncomfortably on her features. ‘I’ve …’ A long drag of nicotine disappears into her gullet. ‘I’ve not been much of a mother, have I?’

  There is nowhere for me to look. I am staring ahead into nothingness, would not be surprised if Jesus Christ Himself materialized in the face of so tremendous a miracle. ‘No,’ I reply at last. ‘You were not much of a mother.’

  She is plucking at her skirt, is smoking so fast that the cigarette behaves like a joint, burns hot, red, quick. ‘It was not in my nature,’ she offers after a few seconds. ‘And I had no help, no support from your father. That is not to say that he was a bad man. We were … different, poles apart. And you were in the middle of it. I suppose you were our equator.’

  Is this an apology, an explanation? I am counting the roses on her border. They are large and pink, extend dado-fashion around the comfortable room. There are seventeen in the alcove at one side of the chimney, seventeen and a half at the other side. The fractured flower turns a corner, marries up to another broken bloom. They are slightly offset, rather untrue. Truth. Is she telling her truth now? ‘Why did you hit me, Mother?’

  She coughs, clears the phlegm from her chest. She has been a good cougher, has perhaps found a way of clearing the muck of years from her lungs. ‘I don’t know that, either.’

  My eyes stray to her face. ‘You never loved me.’

  ‘No.’ She brushes non-existent ash from her blouse, stares downward at the floor. ‘But you are my daughter. I don’t have long, Laura, and I can’t put anything right. It was all done a long time ago. I have learned …’ She swallows as if in pain. ‘I’ve come to respect you.’

  There’s a dreadful clock on the mantelpiece, one of those domed things with gold-coloured globes that swirl back and forth, back and forth. It’s a timepiece that mocks time, makes it boring and uneventful. The silly thing wheezes, spits out a tune to illustrate the hour. Nine o’clock. It’s nine o’clock on a September
evening in 1992, and my mother has just spoken to me for the first time ever. The clock that marks this occasion is bland, unimpressive, a quartz thing with no character, no guts. ‘I used to hate you,’ I say tonelessly.

  ‘Yes.’ The cigarette end is being murdered in an onyx ashtray. Mother likes onyx and silver, is surrounded by ornaments culled from such cold substances. In fact, I am beginning to warm towards the clock, because it isn’t as dead as the rest of Mother’s collection. ‘Do you still dislike me so intensely?’ she asks in a whisper.

  I shake my head. ‘I’ve not the energy for it.’

  ‘Nor have I.’ She straightens, pushes her head against the chair’s high back. ‘You are all I have in this world, Laura. You are a living creature, the only one that comes directly from me. I want a new start before it’s too late. McNally’s is yours. Sell it or work it, whatever you wish. If you work it, take on that thin girl. She looks frail, but she’s as tough as shoe-leather.’

  I still don’t know where to rest my eyes. ‘But if I don’t go to Bolton, if I stay here—’

  ‘No. I said those things to the girl, to Diana, but it’s of no importance, really. I’m going home before Christmas. I came here all those years ago, followed you to Liverpool and sat here until I plucked up the courage to talk to you. You are a grown woman with responsibilities. Do whatever you need to do, but I’d be grateful if you carried on the McNally tradition.’ She sniffs. ‘He was a fool in many ways, but he knew his onions – well – his medicines.’

  This is as near as I am going to get. She is sorry, but she can’t say it, was wrong, can’t admit her error. My mother is a human being after all. And that is almost enough for me. ‘Thank you,’ I tell her. ‘This wasn’t easy for you, Mother. You are right, it’s no longer a question of right and wrong. We have to negotiate the terms of a treaty, and you’ve taken a very brave step. I admire you for that.’

  She stares at me. The eyes are wet, as wet as they used to be when she missed her aim with the little mascara brush. ‘You’ve turned out quite well after all,’ she mouths. ‘Close the door on your way out.’

  So I secure one door and march onward to open another. I am still in shock, still reeling from this strange encounter with a woman who has breathed fire over my whole life. Now, I go towards the key to another mystery. Having found a sort of mother, I shall seek my husband in an upstairs safe.

  Chapter Six

  THE TROUBLE WITH WINGS by Kevin McCann

  At first

  They were just nodules

  Protruding from behind

  His shoulder blades

  And after that

  The rapid growth of membrane and quill

  Was not an altogether

  Unpleasant sensation.

  But having wings

  Can create

  All kinds

  Of problems:

  His wife refused

  To sleep with him,

  He was made suddenly redundant,

  Children followed him

  Silently in the street.

  He flew

  Fishtailing and chandelle

  After the wild geese

  That drew him

  With their cadences

  As sirens drew sailors

  Towards a promise

  They could never keep.

  Only to return,

  Hedgehopping

  To avoid the guns

  Of frightened farmers

  And the cautions

  Of police.

  Finally,

  Tired and hounded,

  He went to a surgeon,

  Had his wings removed

  And burned.

  Now

  He’s got a new job

  With prospects of promotion,

  He makes love to his wife

  Three times a week

  And children

  No longer regard him

  With awe.

  But sometimes

  He will look

  Towards the sky

  And the flesh

  Between his shoulder blades

  Will tug and ache.

  I am standing on the doorstep of the man who wrote this poem. His name is Kevin McCann and I can hear him walking towards me. Life has made me all kinds of fool thus far, and I am now the fool who has rushed up ten flights of stairs with a collection of verses in my hand. Kevin McCann took some finding. I searched the whole of this city’s education system, found that the writer had escaped the classroom. Many do these days. They get out of teaching, discover that living is pleasant, wonder why they never tried it earlier.

  A girl opens the door. She has shiny brown hair that cloaks her shoulders, a small silver ring on a slender finger, blue jeans, boots, a pale green shirt. ‘Yes?’

  I smile, assure her that I’m not selling anything. ‘Is Kevin McCann here?’ I ask. She cannot be Kevin McCann, surely?

  I am led along a hall and into a cosy living room where candles flicker and cast shadows on a poet. He is approachable, almost handsome, clad in ordinary clothes. Did I expect a serious writer to wear something different, then? A smoking jacket, a toga, a suit of armour? His work has enlivened and disturbed me, because I found it good, found it among my husband’s papers in the bottom safe. Kevin’s hair is long, not curly, not straight, just bent a bit. He has a smile that means hello.

  ‘I found this.’ I thrust the slim green book beneath his nose. ‘He’s marked off this ‘Trouble with Wings’ one. Can you tell me why?’

  His eyes seem blue, but I’m not sure. ‘Can you tell me who?’ he asks.

  ‘My husband.’ I sit in a comfortable chair, find myself in the company of a pretty blond rat in a cage.

  ‘That’s Basil,’ says the girl. ‘I’m Danielle, so the other one must be Kevin.’ She sits on some cushions, draws in the long legs, rests her chin on her knees. Basil chews at a bit of apple, keeps an eye on me.

  ‘I’m Laura. Laura Starling.’

  Kevin knows my name, knew it before I opened my mouth. ‘Ben,’ he says. ‘The bird man, the one who works hand in glove with the RSPB. Gardening gloves, he told me. He said a seagull’s bite can be a lot worse than its scream. How is Ben?’

  Well, I’ve had the surprises, the shocks. Ben’s association with this young man is good news, the happiest piece of information I’ve gleaned so far. I tell him how Ben is, tell him all of it, not just the bearable oddments. Kevin has the kind of face that deserves the best truth you can achieve, so he gets the ranting, the dribbling, the incontinence. ‘I found your poem with the other papers. The story of his life’s in that safe, I think, but I’ve not tackled it yet.’

  Danielle offers me wine. ‘It’s peach,’ she informs me. It is sweet and fruity, slakes a thirst I hadn’t noticed till the first sip.

  With the minimum of Dutch courage, I ask these two how much they know. ‘Enough,’ says Kevin. ‘Ben read Danielle’s thesis about the concentration camp, showed an interest that was more than academic. A few years ago, your husband asked me about the poem. So I can only tell you what I said to him.’

  I notice something hanging from an overhead lantern, cannot stop myself from interrupting, ‘So it was from you, the Indian dream-catch.’ Metallic threadwork converges into a central hole, making the ornament into a rounded-off spider’s web. Ben told me the theory. Nightmares are supposed to be held back by the wider net, while pleasant dreams can find a way through the gap in the middle, are able to float down and access the sleeper. ‘I think it works in a way,’ I say. ‘He’s quieter now while asleep, but the living nightmare continues. I took the circle to the nursing home and hung it above his bed. I suppose the sleeping tablets help, too.’

  They know when to be quiet, these two. There’s a peace about this place, a tranquillity that does not argue with the field of energy that surrounds the flat’s inhabitants. They have taken me in, given me wine, allowed me to pour my heavy burden onto their heads. I could stay here until the energy wakes. Perhaps the room bec
omes noisier then, when the words fly. He writes the words, but she is in them. Even the little rat belongs, is in its proper home. The rodent is round and content, is a squirrel with bad PR and no bushy tail. Since the plague, these intelligent creatures have been avoided and feared by the masses.

  Kevin sits and focuses on Danielle, as if she is his pulse. I can feel the love between them, know that it is big enough to include me, my Ben and a million other people. ‘Can you help me?’ I ask at last. That Indian catch has another significance for me, because it sums up all I have learned in the past twenty-four hours. Danielle knows the camps, Kevin is the father of the poem, they both know Ben. I have come full circle within a circle of beliefs that stem from native America. This is a moment of magic.

  ‘It was a joke at first,’ he says. ‘When I was a kid, I wanted wings. Then, later on, I read how the American Indians treat birds like messengers from God. In their faith, a bird wears the wings of a holy being, something like an angel.’

  He is smiling slightly. ‘So I kept wavering between the concepts. How would a man with wings cope in a supermarket? I imagined Heinz beans tins swept off the shelves, women scooping up children to save them from the heavy feathers. An albatross has a massive span – think how wide a human’s would be.’

  Danielle picks up the thread. ‘But we all want to fly, even if we can only do it metaphorically. It isn’t difficult to imagine how great it would be to sit up there and watch the world. An eagle is supposed to be capable of focusing on the tiniest object. At the same time, he’s got this wide view of life. It’s taken us thousands of years to get something that birds had all the time, but we needed machinery to achieve it.’

  She leans forward, touches my knee. ‘No two people have taken that poem the same way. It means so many things. Poetry’s only good if it does that. What Kevin meant when he wrote it isn’t the important part. It reaches people. But for Ben, it meant so much, it covered a lot of ground for him.’

  I haven’t been able to read the rest of the stuff yet. I’ve dipped into it, hurried out of it. ‘There’s that other pile of papers,’ I remind them. ‘I was all right with the poem, but his life story’s going to be hard. He was in a concentration camp, I do know that much. And that burn mark on his arm was no accident.’ I take a gulp of peach wine. ‘He heated a poker and burned off his number.’