Lyrebird

by Cecelia Ahern

  She turns off the light, wraps the covers tightly around her and covers her head with Solomon’s pillow to block out the sounds.

  23

  Exactly one week since her first live performance, Solomon and Laura sit outside the production office in the Slaughter House studio on plastic chairs, their heads leaning against the wall. He has just returned and they haven’t yet had a chance to talk. Solomon tries to steal glimpses of Laura, to see how she’s doing; he’s not sure he can trust Bo’s instincts as to her wellbeing.

  ‘I feel like we’re in trouble with the principal,’ Solomon says, looking at her, then realises Laura might not have a clue what he’s talking about, seeing as she never went to school. ‘Sorry,’ he says, ‘Never mind.’

  ‘Me understand joke,’ she says in a Tarzan accent. ‘Lyrebird see TV. Lyrebird read books.’

  He chuckles. ‘Okay. Got it.’

  People appear in the corridor from secret rooms, glance down at her, whispering, ‘That’s her,’ then disappear again. Others make obvious detours to walk past her, checking her out with sidelong looks before realising that at the end of the corridor is a dead end, and then are forced to walk by her again.

  ‘So, any news? Quiet week?’ he jokes. She laughs.

  He’s missed her so much. Being away from her has felt like a torture, but a necessary one. Ever since he heard her imitate his laugh that night in bed, he knew he’d have to go away. He owed it to Bo. He owed it to Laura. Going away was the only way he could escape Laura’s sounds at night. Listening to them felt like being invited into her heart, reading her diary, and he had no place being there – all the more so because he wanted to be there. The fascination that the world is experiencing with her now is exactly what Solomon had experienced in the woods that first day he met her. But he has a nervous feeling that, in the brief time since he left last Monday, so much has shifted. Nobody could have foreseen this level of attention, but StarrGaze should at least be able to handle it. He’s wondering now who’s handling it.

  ‘How are you feeling about all of this?’ Solomon asks as somebody sneakily grabs a photo of Laura, pretending they’re texting, the phone aimed right in her direction. ‘It’s been a crazy week. We haven’t had a chance to speak.’

  ‘No. We haven’t.’ She mimics his awkward throat-clear and his chin-stubble scratch.

  His week away hadn’t achieved the hoped-for goal of helping him to forget her. At the very moment Solomon was trying to get away from her, get her out of his head, the universe started conspiring against him. All week she’d been the topic of every conversation: ‘Did you see that girl?’ Even Paul, star of Grotesque Bodies, the show he was in Switzerland for, had asked Solomon about her in the waiting room one day, off camera.

  At first Solomon hadn’t wanted to talk about her, but he soon discovered that pretending he had no idea who she was only led the other person to start telling him all about her, how she looked, how she wasted time before eventually blowing everyone away. So he’d changed his response, admitting that he had seen her, hoping that would end the conversation, but instead he found himself having to listen to conjectures about whether she had a recorder hidden away – and how she managed it when there was no hiding anything in that dress, huhuhuh.

  Thankfully, nobody, fans or press, has yet figured out where Laura is living. When not at the studio meeting fans and being photographed, filmed, or being fitted for the next performance costume, Laura has been closeted away in the apartment. She has been photographed buying flowers on Grafton Street – a set-up photo op – and walking in Stephen’s Green. In particular, feeding the ducks. Lyrebird Feeds the Birds. She’ll be getting more than tuppence by the time she’s finished on the show, one clever tabloid journalist pointed out. Lyrebird’s earnings from potential reality shows, magazine shoots, interviews and performances has been totted up. If they knew how she really spent her days – sitting in the apartment with the TV off, or on the balcony watching the water, mimicking the bird in the cage on the balcony next door – he doesn’t know whether they’d be fascinated or bored by her. She would have loved to pass the time by cooking, but unfortunately Bo isn’t an eater, which makes the tension even heavier between them.

  ‘I’m okay,’ Laura replies. She makes a smacking sound, chewing gum in her mouth.

  Solomon knows immediately she’s referring to Jack. ‘What about him?’ he asks.

  It’s a relief to be with someone who gets what she means. Bo still doesn’t understand most of what she is saying. She doesn’t understand the connections. She thinks Laura is like a broken machine spurting out random sounds, she doesn’t get the underlying links. Neither does Jack, or Bianca, or just about anyone else, with the exception of Rachel, but most of all Solomon. It’s not complicated at all to Solomon, though Bo makes out he and Laura are speaking a secret language. It’s no secret; he pays attention, that’s all.

  ‘Jack doesn’t like you,’ she tells him.

  ‘Shocking, isn’t it?’

  She doesn’t laugh. Her heart feels heavy. She knew that making this decision to join the show was hers to make, but the only reason she’d gone along with it was because she thought it would keep her with him. Instead, it has somehow led to him slipping away. She hasn’t seen him all week, and he has felt so far away. Not one phone call.

  She plaits the suede fringing at the hem of her dress, undoes it and starts again.

  ‘You should be in there with them,’ Solomon says. ‘Bo and Jack are talking about you, planning things for you.’

  ‘I’d rather be here,’ she says bluntly. Then she changes the subject, hoping to lighten the mood. ‘What were you filming this week?’ She’s trying to pretend that she’s not angry with him for leaving her, pretend that she’s not angry with herself for being angry with him. Bo is his girlfriend. Bo is. Not her. Bo is everything Laura is not, could never be, would never want to be.

  ‘We were filming a man with ten-stone testicles.’

  Her eyes widen and she starts laughing.

  ‘I know it’s funny, but it’s sad. He could barely walk, those things swelled up and wouldn’t stop. He didn’t have a life – not until the operation this week. It will take a while but eventually he’ll be able to walk, get a job, get trousers that fit him. Same as the woman with three breasts.’

  ‘I think that’s the show I should have been on.’

  ‘There’s nothing grotesque about your body,’ he says, and though he tries to stop it, he feels his face burn. He leans his head against the wall, closes his eyes and wishes his face would cool down. ‘I mean, there’s nothing grotesque about any of their bodies. It’s a stupid name. They’re just different.’

  ‘Hmm. I’m weird, though.’

  ‘Laura …’ He looks at her but she won’t meet his gaze. She’s busy concentrating on the strings in her hands. ‘You’re not weird,’ he says firmly.

  ‘I read it in the papers. “Lyrebird is mysterious, supernatural, unearthly, strange.” “Lyrebird’s freakish ability …” They’re all saying I’m weird.’

  ‘Laura,’ he says, so firmly he sounds angry.

  She looks up at him in surprise. She stops twisting the strings around one another.

  ‘Don’t read that shit, you hear me?’

  ‘Bo tells me I should read it.’

  ‘Never read that shit. And if you do, never believe it. Not the good, not the bad. You are not weird.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He seems so angry, she remains silent for a moment, not knowing what to say. She can’t help but observe how his neck has gotten wider, how his eyes darken and his eyebrows furrow, his forehead in an angry crease. His voice has deepened, there’s a rough edge to it. He leans his head against the wall and looks up at the light, breathing in slowly, his nostrils flaring, his Adam’s apple seeming larger than usual; perhaps it’s the anger, perhaps it’s the angle. Even his anger has sounds.

  He looks at her suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is t
hat what I sound like?’ he asks.

  Laura isn’t sure what sound she made, but she assumes so.

  ‘I sound like a horse breathing after a race.’

  She shrugs. There’s something on her mind.

  ‘Bo and I went to the theatre across from the apartment.’

  He looks at her, surprised, he had no idea. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘My idea to go. Stupid idea. We had to leave. The security man said my noises were distracting the actors. That they would assist me in sitting somewhere else.’

  ‘Who was he?’ Solomon asks, thinking he’ll stand outside the theatre and wait for him to leave work.

  ‘He was perfectly nice. He thought there was something wrong with me. I mean, obviously there is something wrong with me because we had to leave.’ Her eyes fill and she looks away, hating that she’s become upset in front of him, but she’s had no one to share these thoughts with, no one but herself, and she’s driving herself crazy. Talking to Bo is like talking to a non-absorbent sponge.

  ‘Laura,’ he says gently, taking her hand.

  His touch is everything to her. It has the effect of bringing her alive again, her heart lifts from that stuck place.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know, Bo didn’t tell me …’ He’s so angry. At Bo. At the world. His hand grips hers tightly and then loosens, tight then loose, over and over, as though massaging her. ‘Let me tell you about your gift, Laura. People always say they don’t like to hear the sound of their own voice, did you know that? Usually, when people hear themselves, they cringe, or they’re surprised that they sound the way they do. We hear ourselves differently. What you do—’ He stops as another person walks towards them. ‘This is a dead end,’ he says bluntly, and the young girl turns puce and returns the way she came. When she turns the corner there are chuckles and giggles from a group of girls. ‘I think what you do is let people hear people and the world exactly as it is. No filters. And in this world, anything raw and untouched is a fucking rarity. People like to hear you for the same reason people like to watch movies, or look at art, or listen to music. It’s somebody’s interpretation of the world, not their own, and you capture it just as it is. What you have is a gift. You’re not weird – and don’t ever let anyone tell you that.’

  Laura’s eyes fill and he wants to take her in his arms, but he can’t because he knows that’s wrong. She wants to lean into him, but she can’t because of that shield that he sometimes puts up, raising it higher and lowering it like a privacy window in a limousine.

  The door to the production office opens and Bo steps out. She sees them huddled together, Solomon holding Laura’s hand.

  Laura lets go.

  ‘Jack wants you,’ Bo says coldly.

  ‘Do you want me to go in with you?’ Solomon asks.

  ‘No, it’s private,’ Jack replies, from over Bo’s shoulder.

  Laura enters the office alone while Solomon stares at the wall ahead of him, fighting the anger that is surging through him. He hears himself for the first time, sounding like a panting horse. He remembers the feel of skin and bone on his fist. Jack is glaring at him, daring him to do it again, egging him on, give him one excuse to throw him off the premises for good. Jack wants him to do it, and Solomon wants to do it. And he will, but he’s biding his time.

  ‘Didn’t take you long to get back to hand-holding,’ Bo says cattily, sitting in the chair next to him and examining her phone as she speaks. ‘So much for staying away.’

  ‘She was upset.’

  ‘So you comforted her. Appropriate.’

  Solomon fights the urge to storm out. He sits through it.

  ‘She told me about what happened at the musical.’

  She looks at him, ready for another argument, but she doesn’t have the energy. She rubs her eyes tiredly. ‘She was imitating the orchestra, Sol. She kept trying to get the trombone right, over and over again. I didn’t know what to do, so I took her out of there. I didn’t want to tell you because you’d get mad and upset.’

  ‘That’s exactly what happened,’ he fumes.

  ‘And what good was that going to do, when you’re away in another country?’ she says gently. ‘I handled it as best I could.’

  ‘She was upset about it.’

  ‘I told her that it wasn’t her fault.’ She sighs. ‘She opens up to you more than me, you know that.’

  They’re silent. He calms down. He can’t be mad at Bo. He’s angry with himself for not being there.

  ‘That was a fucking disaster meeting,’ she says finally, putting her phone down and rubbing her face. ‘Jack’s talking about flying her to Australia in the next few days. Melbourne and maybe Sydney. He says he’ll have her back by Monday for the semi-finals.’

  ‘Australia? For a few days? That’s ridiculous. She’ll be exhausted,’ Solomon says, sitting up.

  This seems to occur to Bo for the first time.

  ‘Why, what were you worried about?’

  ‘We’re not allowed to go. Some exclusivity deal with the magazine and TV show in Australia. They won’t allow any media that’s unrelated to StarrQuest. We’re supposed to be making a documentary about her and he’s taking her away from us, again.’

  He feels that familiar overwhelming frustration when Bo displays cold selfishness. ‘You’re disgusting, Bo.’ He stands up and walks away from her.

  ‘How’s my Lyrebird?’ Jack asks, taking Laura by the arm and squeezing her tightly. He grins. ‘What a fuckin’ week we’re having, right?’

  She nods.

  ‘Sorry for swearing, it feels wrong to swear around you. You’re too angelic.’ He helps her to her seat and goes to sit behind his desk. He watches her thoughtfully. ‘You’re not one, are you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘An angel?’

  ‘No.’ She smiles.

  He returns the smile and drums his fingers on the table.

  She imitates the sound.

  ‘You’re right. I need a cigarette. Gave them up a week ago.’

  ‘For Bo,’ she says.

  He looks at her in surprise, then he grins. ‘I swear you don’t miss a trick.’

  She makes the gum-chewing sound.

  ‘Good idea. Where’s my gum?’ While he searches his desk drawers, Laura studies the walls.

  ‘You don’t happen to know if I’m in with a chance, do you? With Bo?’

  ‘Bo Peep?’ she raises an eyebrow. ‘She’s with Solomon.’

  ‘Yeah, her long-haired lover. She should leave that loser. Tell me, you live with them, are they happy?’

  Laura growls at him, the same way Mossie did when he heard a sound in the trees that he couldn’t identify.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Jack pops a chewing gum in his mouth.

  Laura turns her attention to the walls. Framed discs, awards, artists she recognises, others she doesn’t, his own from his band, Jack Starr and the Starr Gazers.

  ‘You like music?’ he asks.

  She nods. She makes the crackling sound of vinyl, like logs burning in a fire, that comfortable, cosy, memorable sound.

  His eyes widen. ‘Jesus. You listened to vinyl?’

  ‘Mum and Gaga loved jazz. Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong …’ She hums the tune to ‘I’m a Fool to Want You’, but her humming is deep and gravelly, not the voice of a young woman. ‘Gaga’s favourite song,’ she explains.

  He shakes his head, in awe.

  Uncomfortable under his gaze, she looks away.

  ‘I’m guessing you’ve never been to Australia,’ he says.

  ‘No,’ she smiles.

  ‘Well, they want you. Boy, do they want you. Biggest talk show over there has invited you. There is no Australian creature, with the exception of the koala, more firmly established in the public regard than the lyrebird. But you couldn’t be more different. The koala is a hundred popstars you could name, all quaint and approachable, but you are elusive, exclusive. Man, you coming along is … well, it’s the best timing for us, for t
he show. We’ve been trying to get into the Australian market for a while and I think this gives us a way in. The networks wanted to see that we could stir up public interest, and now they have. One hundred million views …’ He checks his phone. ‘One hundred and eleven million views.’ He laughs. ‘Anyway, you don’t need to worry about any of that, you just get to go on a free trip. Go on the country’s biggest chat show. Pose with a lyrebird for the press. Do a magazine shoot. Then fly home for Monday night’s semi-final. What do you think?’

  ‘It all sounds … incredible.’ She grins, unable to believe it. ‘Are the others coming?’

  ‘What others?’

  ‘The other contestants. I don’t think most of them like me very much.’

  ‘They’re jealous.’ He smiles. ‘It’s a competition, you blew them all out of the water. And no, they’re not coming. This trip is all about you.’

  She chews on her lip, concerned about this.

  ‘Don’t worry, they’re all doing interviews too. They’ve probably done more, in fact, but you’re getting all the coverage. If I were to ask any of them to come on this trip, they wouldn’t think twice about leaving anyone else behind. It’s a competition, Lyrebird. So, you need to get your passport details to Bianca so we can take care of your flights.’

  ‘Oh … I don’t have a passport.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ he says encouragingly. ‘We have a few days, we can organise one. The show has had to organise emergency passports before. The passport office are good that way. Fans of the show. All you have to do is give Bianca your birth certificate. Don’t worry if it’s in Cork, we can pick up a copy from the Dublin office.’

  Laura stares at him, open-mouthed, not sure what to say. He takes it the wrong way.

  He laughs. ‘I told you not to worry, this show takes care of all your needs,’ he holds his hands out grandly.

  Laura swallows. ‘No, it’s not that … I don’t have a birth certificate.’

  His smile fades.

  Bianca, Curtis and Jack sit in the office in what Laura understands to be a crisis meeting. Curtis and Jack watch Laura, Laura looks at Bianca as she reads from a list of paperwork required to attain a passport.