A Little Bird Told Me

by Marianne Holmes

  ‘Shall we call Matthew?’ I say.

  ‘No, Darling, I have to put this right myself now. I’ve got a few things I need to do, and then I’ll explain it all to you.’

  ‘Why is Kit so angry?’ I say. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I know.’ Mum looks at me and I can see that she’s thinking about something tricky because her forehead has wrinkled up again. ‘Okay, go and wash that pretty face, and I’ll walk you down to Debbie’s, if you want. But you must wait there for me to pick you up or walk back with Mrs Walker or Ruth. Promise?’ I nod and run to the bathroom and then into my room to get my stuff.

  When I get downstairs, Mum is on the phone to Mrs Cadogan arranging to get Kit later and hands me an open biscuit packet to put in my bag.

  There are not many people on the High Street and the heat is already lying like a blanket on the pavement. Mum is looking this way and that as she walks, much more than usual, and she is holding my hand tightly in hers.

  ‘Are you looking out for the Cowboy?’ I say. She stops and crouches down so that she can look straight into my eyes. Then, she puts on the smile she uses for dentist visits and injections.

  ‘Look, he’s just really not a very nice man. He gave you those wooden dolls to make me scared and I’m not.’ She looks around again.

  I think she might hug me, but I can just see the WendyCarols behind her coming out of the newsagents, so I let go of her hand and step away quickly. Mum frowns at me.

  ‘But I do want you to stay away from him.’ She straightens up and puts her shoulders back. I’m worried that the WendyCarols will spot me and say something in front of Mum.

  ‘Okay,’ I say, scooting around her so she that she is between me and the girls as we pass the newspaper rack on the pavement. The door to the newsagents opens again, and an older boy walks out. He is wearing a too tight T-shirt and the flares of his jeans flap around his ankles.

  ‘Thanks for the lollies, Mickey,’ says Wendy. She has a plastic necklace around her neck.

  ‘No problemo, Little Sis,’ he says. Carol giggles and Wendy shoves her hard so that she trips a little and has to pretend she is doing a dance. Mickey is already walking away, his hips swinging, thumbs hooked into his pockets. Beside me, Mum is still talking.

  ‘So,’ says Mum, stopping, ‘you do understand, don’t you?’ I nod and slip my hand back into hers as we walk away even though I have no idea what it was she said.

  Chapter Six

  1988

  I wriggle into the only skirt I own. It’s so tight above the knees that my feet look enormous in the black court shoes I’ve bought, and I feel like Daisy Duck. I button my shirt up to the collar and pin one of Mum’s old brooches to the lapel. It looks garish against the white shirt, and I take it off again and find some plain black beads that I loop several times around my neck. I finish with a slick of black eyeliner and back comb my hair a little before pinning it up in a twist at the back of my head.

  I’ve no idea if I look ridiculous, but I feel it. When there were parties or school discos, Matthew would send me round to a friend’s house and hope that somebody else’s mother would help me get ready.

  I take my hair down and grab my bag.

  It’s far too early to go straight to the offices, so I wander along the High Street running through possible questions in my head. My reflection stares back at me from the newsagent’s window. Who even are you? Do I look like I could work in an office? A stubborn bit of hair falls into my face. I wish I’d left it up.

  ‘Ooh, look at that! It’s only bloody Madonna!’ shouts a lad sitting in the bus stop.

  ‘Very funny,’ I snap.

  His mates laugh out loud when I spin around, and my ankle turns over on the spiky heel of my shoe.

  I decide I’m better off waiting inside. I’d begun to relax about being recognised, but the look on the receptionist’s face tells me I’ve got it wrong. Of course, it would happen now.

  I stick my chin out and walk straight over, but she just waves me towards some chairs around a coffee table opposite and keeps her head down, as though searching for something in her desk drawer. Her hair has been neatly cut in wide flicks away from her face and the sweep of blue eyeliner under each eye, that I can see when she sneaks a look across at me, makes her look like one of those decapitated doll-heads that little girls use to practise styling.

  There’s a fan in the corner of the room that hums and flips up the pages of the brochures arranged on the coffee table in front of me. I lean forward to pick one up, and the door to the street opens, letting in warm air and a man who walks straight over to the receptionist and bends down to kiss her on the cheek. She blushes and pushes him away a little, whispering something and peeking at me through her eyelashes. He turns around to look. Oh God, not here.

  ‘Well, well, it’s little Robyn. I wondered when I’d bump into you.’ His voice is a surprise, of course, and I have a sudden memory of he and Kit shrieking and howling in the garden while Mum throws buckets of bath water at them out of the upstairs window.

  He walks across to me smiling like a friend. I find myself on my feet and my hand is raised and connecting with his cheek before the thought has even registered.

  The girl makes a choking noise, and I ignore her as she runs out from behind her desk. There’s something about her that sets alarm bells ringing at the back of my mind.

  ‘God, are you okay? Shall I call the police?’ Her hands flutter around Neil’s face, like a moth.

  He doesn’t take his eyes off me, but he does step back. He’s still not as tall as Kit, so I can see the stain of my rage spreading across his cheek. I think about what he did, what he didn’t do, and want to punch him again and again until he realises how badly he let us down. He was Kit’s friend, our friend, and his betrayal still stings. All the years of friendship and nothing left but the hurt. The hurt and the heartbreak.

  ‘Carol, I am the police.’

  And the heartbreak, I think. Oh.

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ she says spinning around to me, ‘you hit a policeman. Uh-oh, now you’re in trouble!’

  ‘Imaginative.’ I mutter at Neil, ignoring her. He touches the mark on his face, and I can see the heat in it. The palm of my hand is red too, but I can’t feel a thing. It’s like it’s not actually part of my own body but some separate force and I feel a little afraid of what else it might do. Breathe.

  One, two, three.

  ‘Well, you look all grown up, but you’re still all fight first and reason later.’ Neil looks down at my skirt and the height of my shoes, and I can feel the blood rushing to my cheeks. Four, five, six. If he arrests me, everyone will know I can’t control my temper and they won’t be surprised, not at all. Neil just smiles broadly like the idiot he is. ‘What on earth did you do that for?’

  An inner door opens and a man in a grey suit steps out, checks his watch and then looks towards us. It’s time for my interview. ‘Carol’ scuttles over to him and, even though she covers her mouth as she speaks, it’s not hard to work out what she’s saying. Neil waits for my answer. Seven, eight, nine.

  ‘Aren’t you going to arrest her, Neil?’ I have an urge to run. Jenkins or ‘Partner’ starts to walk over. I do want this job. I need it.

  ‘Looks like you might be needing a lawyer,’ his smile spreads slowly like a snake uncoiling across his face. Blood bursts into my ears.

  Ten.

  ‘You know what? I don’t.’ I run for the door. A wave of shame and anger drives me on to the street.

  Neil follows me out.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ I shout at him, and he actually laughs.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so. You just slapped me in front of one of the queens of the local gossip scene. I have my hard man reputation to think of.’ I think he’s joking, but I’m beginning to feel sick. He’s walking far too close beside me. ‘Now, are you going to tell me what that was for?’

  ‘You don’t know?’ I stop and bend over, gulping a mouthful of air. The waist
band of my skirt is rubbing where the skin puckers. I can’t bear to look at Neil. If I stay near him any longer, I’m going to cry, and I won’t let him see that. I tug my shirt out a bit and get ready to bolt.

  As I move, Neil steps around in front of me, blocking my path. Finally, he’s stopped smiling.

  ‘No, I don’t know.’ Neil looks at my hand which is pulling the waistband of the skirt away from my stomach.

  ‘Is that where …?’ I step back, and he puts his hands up. ‘Sorry, not my business. It’s just you look very pale. Do you want me to get Kit?’

  ‘You’ve seen Kit?’ It’s too much.

  ‘He didn’t tell you?’ Neil raises his eyebrows a little. Kit has seen Neil, what could they say to each other? ‘Come on, Robyn, tell me what I did to deserve this.’ He touches the back of his hand to his cheek again.

  ‘You betrayed us, and then you just ran away!’ I yell.

  His face folds up in confusion. ‘Hey, that’s not fair!’

  ‘You were too slow! It’s your fault she’s not here!’ My head is throbbing, and the blood is still roaring in my ears. This time, despite the tears, I shove him hard enough to send him sprawling back down the curb. I don’t wait to see him get up but run, not caring that I rip the seam at the back of my skirt. I hate it anyway. I bolt down the High Street, kick off my shoes and hitch up my skirt, and then I’m flying.

  There are monsters at my back and faces in the windows and my brother is friends with the enemy.

  At home, I take the stupid skirt off and throw it into the corner of my room. I don’t want to be in the house when Kit gets home full of expectation. I scrub the make-up off my face, and make a sandwich and a flask of tea, and head to the park. He won’t find me there, and I need time to work on my excuses.

  Although the weather is still mild, there are only a few children in the playground. The grass has become patchy around the picnic tables and some of the branches of the surrounding bushes have lost their leaves prematurely to the continuous passage of small bodies. There are shiny new railings all around like an enclosure.

  As if that could keep them safe, I think. Beyond the play area, the land drops away to where I know there’s a stream. It rumbles down through the park to meet the river that rushes alongside the town between us and the dissected farm land on the other side.

  Right down there, that’s where Neil betrayed us the first time, when he gave me away. I remember the spreading red mark that bloomed across his cheek then and the humiliation on his face and realise he paid for that straight away. It wasn’t my hand that dealt it out that day though.

  I don’t want to linger here in the open, so I cut away from the path.

  I follow the curve of the ground down towards the stream and find the old willow tree. It’s spread so much that the branches dip into the water and the yellow and green of the leaves is dappled across the surface. I settle just inside, in a cool space that smells of damp earth and fallen leaves and watch the gnats blowing backwards and forwards in shoals in and out of the willow fronds above the water.

  There’s no evidence of the dam that Kit and Neil tried to build. The water level is high now and it runs past the tree hissing and spitting over the stones and agitating the sticks and leaves caught between them. The handle of a white plastic bag is caught, and it stretches and tugs sadly against the flow.

  Inside the willow, I throw myself on to the damp earth and cry into my stiff hands — my tears squeezing through my fingers and soaking into the ground. I think of the life Matthew made for us, how the gentle beats of time passed uneventfully for years like a fire hissing and fizzing softly in the grate. We could have stayed even after Matthew moved on. But I had to bring us back here.

  We should leave. Kit wants us to leave. Would it be so bad not to know?

  I wipe my hands on my shorts and think of the shock on Neil’s face. I lost control. This isn’t me. I study my hands. They look ordinary, a little wide perhaps. Not the hands of a bully.

  My body starts shaking, and I focus on the knots and veins of the willow’s trunk and let its trailing branches create a veil between this moment and the ticking clock of our life outside. In time, the trembling stops.

  If we’re going to stay, I have to learn to control myself.

  I stand up almost at full height under the dome of the tree and then step back out blinking and blind into the sunlight. I listen to the chattering of the stream until a cloud slips over the sun. It feels cooler as I start to walk back.

  I see two men ahead. They’re seated on a bench under the sagging boughs of a chestnut tree, spiky green cases scattered on the ground around them. Neither of them is talking and both are looking toward me. I pause, coiled. The younger of the two stands and drops a lit cigarette and grinds it beneath the tip of his boot. I’m still a long way from the gate. The man walks towards me, his hips rolling. The brand of his cigarettes visible through the thin material of his shirt pocket. The lighter he’s flicking in his fingers flashes red in the sunlight.

  I turn and take a shortcut across the grass, but when I glance behind me the man has broken into a run. Around my feet the tangle of long grass tightens as I step back. The man’s arms are stretched out now, a tattoo curling around one wrist, and he leans forward into the run. My legs burst to life, and I sprint for the gate. My heart hammering in my chest.

  I check behind me. The man continues on the path to the playground gate. He bends and scoops up a small boy and throws him into the air. A woman leaning against the railings watches and smiles, and I can hear the child squealing with joy. I stop, gasping for air, and wait for my heart to finish jumping and flipping in my chest.

  The message from Bill Mace plays on a loop in my head. My dad reckons you don’t want to stay here. As I reach the gate, someone bursts around the corner and brushes past me. I fold up against the base of the wall with my head between my knees until the nausea passes.

  When it does, I get up angry. Angry that a random man in the park can make me feel so afraid. Angry that Mace is making threats when we’re not hurting him. And I’m angry that Kit won’t help me, however much I plead with him. I shouldn’t have relied on getting that job — it just seemed like an easy way to calm Kit down. The only thing that will help me has been obvious all along.

  ‘First, I want to tell you about Mace,’ I call out as soon as I can see Kit is sitting in the kitchen with a mug of tea. I don’t want to be side-tracked.

  ‘First, you need to explain what went on this morning.’ Kit waits for me to walk into the room completely before answering. Neil is there too.

  It takes a moment for me to remember the interview. I study Neil’s face for signs of redness. He looks fine.

  ‘I don’t want him here.’ I tell Kit, and then turn to Neil, ‘Really? Aren’t you a bit old to tell tales?’

  Kit looks weary and puts his head in his hands. ‘Why must you always be fighting?’

  I shrug. Neil puts a hand on Kit’s shoulder.

  ‘Hey, it’s not a big deal, she’s no Tyson.’ He starts laughing, but Kit isn’t finding it funny. Neither am I.

  ‘Why would you hit him?’ There are pink spots high on Kit’s cheeks when he looks up at me. I can’t meet his eyes, so I glare at Neil. He looks uncomfortable, and I’m not sorry.

  ‘You know why. He deserved it.’ I cross my arms.

  Kit pushes a hand across his forehead. He knows what I think of Neil, but he doesn’t agree. He is loyal and pig-headed and wrong and we’ve both been losing this argument for years.

  ‘If it wasn’t Neil, you would’ve been arrested!’

  ‘If it wasn’t Neil, I wouldn’t have hit him.’

  Neil’s stopped laughing and has found something interesting at the bottom of the mug in front of him.

  My bottom lip quivers, so I bite down hard. Kit’s the only person I can trust, and now Neil’s spoiling that too.

  ‘And you’ve messed up that interview! You won’t see what they’ve got now.’ Kit knows this
is leading me closer to contacting him, and that’s what he’s really angry about. He stands up and leans across the table. ‘I told you it was a bad idea to come back. And look what you’ve achieved. Nothing!’

  I know he’s right.

  ‘Mate,’ Neil looks miserable and shocked at the same time, ‘it was nothing. Forget it.’

  But it’s not nothing to me. Something breaks inside me.

  ‘I’m not talking to you while he’s here!’ I yell at Kit and stomp upstairs.

  I hear Neil’s chair scrape as he stands up. ‘Christ, that was a bit harsh.’ I hear Kit stand up too. ‘I just wanted to see if things were okay, not cause an argument.’ He carries on talking until I hear the front door open and Kit crashing it shut behind him. Then I hear his footsteps beating up the stairs.

  I sit on my bed and wait for him to come in, but he walks straight past and into his own room. I hear him take off his shoes and throw them to the floor before the springs in his mattress creak as he lies down on it. If I wait, he’ll calm down. He never stays angry for long.

  I pull out the box from under the bed and lay out Mum’s letter on the floor alongside some of the newspaper articles I’ve collected. The sooner I get this done, the sooner we can both leave here.

  When Kit comes in and has said his piece about the job and about Neil, and I have hung my head and held my tongue, he watches me for a few moments. Then he sits down on the bed beside me.

  ‘Go on, tell me about Mace.’ When I’ve finished, I realise there’s not much to it after all. I’m just working myself up for no reason. Kit agrees.

  ‘It will be nothing, Little Bird, a gibe, that’s all.’ I look at the long shadow he throws across the floor. Sometimes, Kit seems to be able to take himself so far away from everything that happened. You are two sides of the same coin, Matthew would say, but that never did make sense to me.

  Kit leans off the bed and picks the articles up, scanning each one until he reaches her letter. When he finishes reading, his eyes are glistening, but his jaw is still fixed. He folds it up and tucks it behind the article about Mace.