A Little Bird Told Me

by Marianne Holmes

  I wonder why Mum didn’t tell Matthew about Mr Mace coming around before, but I’m glad they’re not arguing about the wooden babies. I’ve never heard them shout like this before, and I don’t want it to be my fault.

  ‘All you had to do was call the police,’ says Matthew.

  I think Matthew’s not really being fair saying that because she kind of did by shouting out to Mrs Cadogan, and Sergeant C was there almost straight away.

  ‘I panicked. I just wanted to get them somewhere safe.’ It sounds like Mum might be crying, and I think Matthew will probably give her a hug. That’s what he does when I’ve done something naughty and I’m so sorry that I can’t help crying. ‘You don’t know what he’s like. He’d have talked himself innocent, he’s slippery.’

  ‘Christ, Jemima, you can’t hide this forever!’ Matthew’s voice sounds funny and bad, and I remember the way Mrs Walker’s voice had turned hard and angry when she was talking about Mum. I wonder why trying to help Mrs Mace and Danny has made them all so cross. Mrs Walker said Mr Mace lost his temper, and Mrs Mace was an accident waiting to happen. Then I think that if Mr Mace made Mrs Mace have an accident, Mum might have snuck her and Danny back into our house and put them in the spare room. It always annoys Matthew when she lets people stay without warning him.

  I get out of bed and put my slippers on even though it’s still hot. Some of the floorboards have nails that stick out a bit, and it hurts so much if you tread on them. I open the door into Kit’s room and see that he is fast asleep as usual, so I turn back across the landing to the guest bedroom. The door is shut, and there’s no giveaway streak of light spilling out from underneath. I turn the handle very quietly and push the door open. It only takes me a moment to see that the room is empty.

  ‘I can’t tell, not yet! I just can’t!’ Mum is sobbing. ‘I never thought he’d find us, Matthew. I’m sorry!’

  There was silence for a moment and when Mum speaks again her voice is harder to hear. ‘Don’t you see, we have to leave?’

  I stand very still, and I can hear Matthew move round to Mum. I expect he’s doing the hugging thing now, so I step out on to the landing on tiptoe.

  ‘Look, he’s probably just trying to scare you. But you’d better think of something to tell the children because if he does come back —’

  I forget that the door to the spare room always clicks shut hard, and Matthew stops talking. I know he’s holding up a hand to stop Mum while he listens, but she comes flying out of the kitchen.

  ‘Who’s there? Robyn, Kit, are you okay?’ I wait at the top of the stairs for her. ‘What are you doing?’ Mum’s eyes are red, and her make-up is smudgy. Matthew follows her up. He opens the door to the spare room and looks inside and then walks around the whole of the upstairs checking behind the doors and the curtains which is a bit weird. Kit wakes up a little when Matthew opens his door, but then closes his eyes again almost immediately. I don’t know how he does that.

  ‘Sorry, I thought Mrs Mace and that little boy might be staying here. That you might be looking after them again.’ Mum’s face looks pale and wobbly in the landing light.

  ‘Oh Darling, no, she’s not coming back. Funny old you to be worrying about them all this time.’ She drops to her knees and puts her arms around me and I can tell she is crying, so I hug her back. I look up at Matthew who has come back out on to the landing and is leaning against the wall watching us.

  ‘Now’s your chance, Jemima. Tell her the truth.’ His face is red and funny too. Mum just pulls away from me and shakes her head.

  ‘Tell me what?’ I ask. She makes a sort of choking noise and then runs into the bathroom.

  ‘Come on then, Little Bird,’ Matthew says to me. He puts an arm around my shoulder and steers me back into my bedroom. I hadn’t realised I was crying too until he wipes the tears off my cheeks with his thumb and gives me a fierce hug.

  ‘What were you shouting about?’

  ‘It’s nothing for you to worry about, Robyn. Sometimes grown-ups have little fights, just like you and Kit.’ He leans over and kisses me on the forehead and then makes a show of tucking me up tight into my sheet and, even though it’s too hot for covers really, I let him.

  ‘Matthew, do we have to leave?’ I say. ‘I want to stay here.’

  Matthew gives me a strange look. ‘No, of course not. Don’t worry about that right now, just get some sleep. Night, night,’ he says, ‘sweet dreams.’

  But I don’t have sweet dreams because telling someone not to worry is not the same as taking the worry away. And that’s why I creep into Kit’s room and sit on the end of his bed until that annoying cockerel wakes him up.

  ‘What are you doing here again, weirdo?’ he says. I’m so pleased he’s finally awake that I grab his horrible smelly feet and tickle them.

  Mrs Mace is in a coma which is something between being alive and being dead. A bit like a zombie except you can’t move, and I read somewhere that the only way to get better is for lots of people to read stories and play music to you. Mum didn’t make her go into a coma, but it’s something to do with Mr Mace and the accident, so Sergeant C needs to know exactly what happened when they came here.

  Eva has set up Monopoly on the floor. We haven’t been allowed to leave the house since Mum found the wooden babies, and Eva says it’s cooler inside anyway. She’s been asking us even more questions than usual, so Kit suggested a game. He doesn’t like answering questions very much; especially sappy ones like ‘How much can you remember about your real dad?’ or ‘How do you feel about not seeing him?’

  Eva and Mum were sitting in the front room with the door shut when Sergeant C came round after breakfast. He asked Mum to go with him to the police station to make a statement about Mrs Mace.

  Eva held on to Mum’s arm as she was following Sergeant C out the door and said, ‘You should tell him about the other thing too.’

  Eva is usually funny when Mum’s around, but today she’s just being nosey. Matthew says Eva and Mum are friends because they both like having a good rummage through other people’s lives and bossing them about. Except Eva has been trained for it and even gets paid to do it. Then Mum waves her studying books at him and says, ‘I’m trying, but it’s hard for poor little me with all these long words and everything!’ Matthew will say ‘Diddums’ in a silly voice and give her a hug and a little kiss on the top of her head while Kit and I put our fingers in our mouths and pretend to be sick.

  When Eva asks us again whether we’re happy living with Mum and Matthew, Kit rolls the dice right under the sofa so that she has to pull it out a bit and go all the way behind to reach it.

  ‘We all hate that cockerel; it wakes us up every day.’ I say, taking a few notes from the banker’s pile while she can’t see. I hand some to Kit too so he won’t say anything, and I buy a hotel to put on The Old Kent Road. They don’t really make much money there, but it’s the best I can do. Eva laughs as she rolls the dice.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘that’s not really what I meant.’ She looks at Kit, but he just scowls and stands up.

  ‘Going to make a sandwich,’ he says and leaves the room.

  ‘Are you looking after Danny?’ I ask when he’s gone. Eva looks surprised and sits back on her heels. ‘You know, if Mrs Mace is in hospital, and Mr Mace is at the police station?’ I think about Mum going to the police station and Mr Mace being there already with his red, red face.

  ‘Actually, Mr Mace is back at home on bail. Do you know what that means?’ I shake my head. ‘It means he can go home, but he has to be on best behaviour until everything is sorted out.’

  ‘So, can I go and see Danny? He’s got my teddy.’

  ‘Oh no, Darling, he’s staying with some special people for now until his mum is better, or the court decides he should go home with his dad.’

  Kit is still in the kitchen when Sergeant C brings Mum home.

  ‘He wants to ask you and Kit something too,’ she says to me when she comes in. ‘Would you stay, Eva?’
Mum goes out to the kitchen to send Kit through, and we hear the sound of the kettle as he returns.

  Kit sits down beside me, and we start putting the Monopoly away. When everything is in the box, we slide it back under the sofa beside Operation and Cluedo and wait for Sergeant C to start.

  He is perched on the edge of the sofa in front of the window when Mum brings the tea in. His notebook is balanced on one knee, and he takes the mug he’s offered in his other hand. The table beside him has an uneven pile of books and magazines on top of it, and I can see that he doesn’t know whether he should put the mug down on to the thick fluff of the rug under his feet. Mum sits down on the other sofa holding her tea in both hands and watches him without saying anything. Eva looks at Mum for a moment. Then she rolls her eyes and goes over to clear a space on the table. Sergeant C has to put the mug down really slowly because Mum has filled it right to the very top. A little slops down the side anyway and runs around the bottom.

  ‘Alright, then,’ he says. ‘I just want to ask you about when Mrs Mace and little Daniel were here the other day.’

  ‘Danny,’ I say.

  He nods. ‘Did you see Mr Mace come into the house?’

  We nod.

  ‘Did he make any direct threats to Mrs Mace or Daniel?’

  ‘Danny.’ I say and look at Kit.

  ‘He couldn’t see them,’ says Kit.

  ‘Yes, but did he threaten to hurt them at all?’

  Mum snorts and says, ‘I’ve already told you he did.’

  I don’t remember him threatening Mrs Mace or Danny, so I look at Kit.

  He glances at Mum before answering. ‘Yeah,’ he says, nodding.

  ‘Yes,’ I say too because if I don’t, it’s the same as calling Kit a liar.

  ‘Can you tell me exactly what he said, Christopher?’ Kit gets up on to the sofa beside Mum and shakes his head. Mum doesn’t look like she’s lying, and I wonder if she has to practise her not-lying face. She says she can always tell when we’re not telling the truth because it’s a grown-up super power. I look down at my feet and then pull out some paper and a pencil and start to draw, hoping that Sergeant C doesn’t ask me any more questions.

  ‘Come on, Derek, we’ve been over this already,’ says Mum, ‘Leave the kids alone.’

  I shade in some dark creases for Mum’s skirt and ask, ‘How did Mr Mace being angry put Mrs Mace in a coma, Sergeant Cadogan?’ Mum tells Matthew she’s had an accident when she drops a bowl on the floor and it breaks or she parks too close to the curb and scuffs the wheel hub.

  ‘You’re right, Jemima, I’ve got everything I need.’ Sergeant C says standing up. He looks at Kit, who doesn’t quite meet his eye, and then back at me. ‘Good question, Robyn. Well, Mr Mace lost his temper and there was a little accident. It’s just a private matter really, nothing for you to worry about.’ I put the pencil down and smudge the shading a little with my finger. I wasn’t really expecting a proper answer because adults never tell kids the truth.

  Kit turns to Mum once he’s gone. ‘Thanks a lot, now you’ve made me lie for you.’ He slams the door when he leaves, and Mum follows him out. Eva picks up the mugs and goes after her too, and I move over to the window, behind the sofa, where the light is better.

  Mum is talking to Eva when they walk back in.

  ‘Bloody man,’ she says, ‘I wanted to ask him in what way was it an accident? I mean “good question, Robyn”?’ I look around the sofa but she’s not actually talking to me, and I don’t think she knows I’m there. ‘Was it that he lost his temper because she screamed when he accidentally hit her? So, he hit her again, and when she screamed again, he just hit her harder, and he kept hitting her until she was good and quiet?’ I can hear that Mum’s voice is lumpy and I peek round the sofa again and see that her face is all twisted up too. ‘Or maybe he put his hands around her neck and squeezed and squeezed until she made no more noise? Is that it? Or a knife, a short, sharp little stab of temper that nearly killed his own wife and the mother of his little boy?’

  ‘I know, Jemima, but you need to calm down a bit.’ Eva says, ‘Derek’s better than some. And anyway, it sounds like you might need him on your side.’

  ‘Then God help us!’

  ‘Come on, I get it. It’s all a bit close to the bone, isn’t it? I know you haven’t told me everything, so why don’t you tell me what’s going on?’

  I try and remember Mrs Mace’s face, but the only picture in my head is of her long hair hanging down in front of her and little Danny hidden in her arms. Her hair is shaking and jerking as she sobs, and I wonder how anyone could hit someone who looked like that, all trembles like one of the long-haired gerbils at school. I wish Danny was here so we could sit under the table and, this time, I would find something that did make him smile, and I would think of giving Mrs Mace my riding money all by myself.

  I don’t realise that I am crying until a drop lands on my picture dissolving the lead into the paper and the sound of it bursts out, and, suddenly, Mum is right there beside me saying, ‘Oh god, you’re still here’ and ‘I’m sorry, Little Bird,’ and she picks me up and carries me back to the sofa. I forget how strong she is sometimes, and I bury myself inside the curve of her arms so that she can’t let go, not ever.

  Eva stands up.

  ‘You know, I’m going to leave you two alone. I’ll check out that other thing with the lawyers and see what we need to do to get the paperwork organised.’ She ruffles my hair a little, and then she leaves.

  Mum and I don’t move, even though it is hot and we are both sticky, and after a little while I sleep.

  I find Kit in his room. He has taken the mattress off the bed and has set it up on its side across a corner. One of the curtain panels is pulled out over it so it is a proper den and I know that means no grown-ups. I go and fetch some biscuits and bring them back as an offering and he lets me in. He has shoved his pillow into the corner and is lying against it reading.

  ‘Why did she lie about that man?’ I open the biscuits and push them across to him.

  ‘Which one? Oh, you mean Mr Mace?’ I nod. ‘You didn’t hear him threaten Danny either?’ I shake my head.

  ‘Beats me, but if Sergeant C finds out, we’re going to be in big trouble.’

  ‘You won’t tell him, will you?’ I ask. Kit really likes Sergeant C, and he spends a lot of time over there with Neil. ‘I don’t want to be arrested.’ He takes a biscuit and pulls it apart to lick the chocolate filling. I take another and take the top off mine and eat that first so that the filling is nearly the last bit I have.

  ‘Kit?’ I say, and he looks up at me as if I’m about to set a trap. ‘Do you know who the Cowboy is?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He puts the rest of the biscuit down and I see that his hands are shaking, ‘I didn’t see him.’

  ‘I know, but Mum thought you might have recognised him, didn’t she?’ Kit doesn’t answer, and I think it’s because he’s still cross about Mum lying to Sergeant C, so I try again. ‘Did we know him a long time ago? Is he one of our dad’s friends?’

  He still doesn’t answer, but I can see that it’s because there are lots of things in his head and not because he’s ignoring me.

  When I can’t wait for him to sort them out any longer, I say, ‘What if he’s got a message from our dad? What if he wants to see us?’

  I tug at Kit’s arm, and he pulls away and stands up. The curtain and mattress burst outwards so that we are in ruins.

  ‘You’re so stupid! Why are you so thick all the time?’ He has his back against the wall and is shouting. I can see that there is something very important that I don’t understand, but I can’t work it out because I keep seeing the tears on Danny Mace’s cheeks and thinking about Mrs Mace having an accident and how loud Bill Mace’s voice was in our front hall. Kit’s face is ugly and red now, and I don’t recognise him anymore, so I stay sitting down and hold on to the bed frame.

  ‘Get out of my room!’ Kit keeps shouting, but my legs won’t move, and
then Mum is in the doorway.

  ‘What is going on?’ she says in her voice that means ‘Stop this now!’ Kit is still shouting, but now he is shouting at Mum. I put my hands over my ears, but it doesn’t block him out one little bit. I concentrate on the bright red sun perched on the tip of one of the snowy mountain peaks on Kit’s book and stay super still.

  ‘You’re a liar!’ he screams at Mum and I look up to see him step right up to her. He isn’t as tall as she is yet, but he nearly is, and I wonder if she’s going to take a step right back at him like she showed me. She doesn’t, even though she looks a bit afraid too, but tries to reach her arms around him in a hug.

  ‘Kit,’ she says, and her forehead is all wrinkly pink lines and the rest of her face is pale so that she is ugly like a monster mask, ‘it’s more complicated than that. Please, sit down so we can talk.’

  ‘Tell the truth,’ he says, ‘I don’t want to lie!’ He points at me, and I try and make myself small. ‘Look at her! I’m fed up with the questions. Tell her!’ Mum looks at both of us, and I don’t think she has any words in her head because her mouth opens but nothing comes out.

  ‘It’s alright,’ I say, trying to push the hair out of my eyes, but it’s tricky because my fingers are like jelly. ‘I don’t really want to know. Please, stop fighting.’

  ‘You’re pathetic,’ shouts Kit, and then he pushes Mum aside and is running down the stairs.

  ‘I’m not staying here. You can’t keep us locked up, it’s not fair!’ We hear him shout, and then the front door slams, and I follow Mum to the window in her room. We are just in time to see Kit knock on Neil’s door and the door opening to let him in.

  I look at Mum, waiting for her to explain what Kit said, but she just sinks on to her bed and puts her head in her hands. I don’t know what to do, so I touch her on the shoulder, and she grabs me and pulls me into a hug so tight that I can’t see her face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and her breath is punching in and out of her chest and into me.