A Little Bird Told Me

by Marianne Holmes

  ‘Get that ladder put away and think about what you’ll do if he decides to come back.’

  ‘Oh, he’s definitely coming back,’ I say, ‘because he’s coming back for me. I’m most like him.’ I cross my arms and lift my chin up. Sergeant C takes a long look at me and then at Mum. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to talk this out,’ he says.

  When Mum goes to follow him out of the room, he puts his hand up to stop her. She comes over to me, takes me by the hand instead and leads me over to sit on the floor by Kit. She puts an arm around each of us and we sit there waiting because we know Matthew will be on his way home. Mum always needs him there when she talks to us about anything important. I wonder what she did about difficult things before she met him.

  ‘I know who he is.’ I say but no one replies. I can see Mr Mace standing in the corridor at the Town Hall, red faced and shouting about not being allowed to see Danny and I wonder if the Cowboy is as angry as that. There’s a sick feeling in my stomach, and I think it might be because I am so enormously cross. I put my hand in my pocket and feel the bracelet between my fingers.

  ‘Did you really live on a farm?’ I say. Mum looks sad, and I have to poke her to answer. ‘I really want to live on a farm. Why couldn’t we have stayed? You ruined everything!’

  ‘It’s complicated, Little Bird.’ She looks out the window at the bright sky. ‘I miss the big open skies and the peace and the smell of grass, I do. I wish things were different.’ She puts her head on her knees and sits like that, hiding from me, until we hear the front door open and Matthew calls up for us, and then he is taking the stairs two at a time until he is in the room. He doesn’t fill it up like the Cowboy, but it is still quite crowded with the four of us on the floor beside my bed. He pulls Mum up to her feet and I can see that she is shaking so hard she can barely stand. Kit doesn’t move until Matthew pulls him up too.

  ‘Derek called,’ he says. He puts a hand out to me but I stand up on my own. They all knew about the Cowboy already. I had to work it out by myself.

  ‘The ladder,’ Mum says to Matthew, ‘I left it.’

  ‘I know, I’ll put it away,’ he says.

  I ball my fingers into a fist inside my pocket and decide that they are not going to find the bracelet I’m holding. I press it into my palm.

  When we got up this morning, Mum had gone. The cockerel woke us early, but Matthew was already sitting at the kitchen table waiting.

  ‘I thought we’d make pancakes,’ he says and gets up to turn the hob on. The batter is mixed in the jug and the table is set.

  Kit gets the milk out of the fridge to fill our glasses and I say, ‘Where’s Mum, Matthew?’ Even when I can’t see her, I can tell when she’s in the house because she fills it up somehow, and, when she’s not there, it’s like the empty bits echo a little.

  ‘She’s just gone away for a couple of days to sort things out. And we’re going to have some fun.’ Matthew’s voice sounds light and cheerful, but there’s something about the way he stands hunched over the frying pan that looks wrong.

  I want to go and give him a hug, but he shoos me away from the cooker when I try, and Kit says, ‘She never goes away.’

  Matthew points to the table.

  ‘One of you needs to start squeezing the lemons, and the other one can come and flip this pancake.’

  We do paper, scissors, stone and Kit wins. I sit down and cut the fruit up and screw each half down on to the glass dome until the little jug is full. The juice stings as I pick out the pips and then it is my turn to flip. Kit has flicked the radio on and we are sort of bouncing around a bit to it. By the time we have a good pile of pancakes on our plates we are all starving.

  ‘I will not be frightened by him,’ Mum told Matthew last night when she was still here. Her voice was angry and hard even though she was whispering. ‘How dare he come into our home and try and frighten us. I’m going to find out what he really wants because it sure as hell isn’t happy families.’ She rattles the keys in the air, ‘Maybe I’ll remind him that half of that farm is mine too.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous,’ Matthew sounded scared. ‘You can’t risk going on your own. Derek said he wasn’t there anyway.’ I looked across to my window and wondered where he could be. It was still quite light outside and my window was wide open. I listened hard for any sounds in the garden.

  ‘I’m not an idiot.’ Mum said.

  ‘For God’s sake, Jemima, if it’s true what happened …’ but he didn’t get a chance to finish.

  ‘If it’s true?’ Mum hissed, ‘Well, if even you don’t believe me, how on earth will I convince Derek? No — I need to do this. I can’t talk to the kids until I have.’ Mum’s footsteps slapped up the stairs, and the conversation was over. I waited for her to come in to check on me like she normally does, but this time she went straight into her own room, and I could hear her walking about until I fell asleep. This morning she had gone.

  I watch Matthew and Kit eating. They are making ‘Mmmm’ noises but there is a little bit of skin under Matthew’s right eye that is pulsing as if there is a miniature heart under it beating too fast. Kit’s right leg is jiggling under the table and I think about that expression about ducks, or maybe it’s swans, that says they are calm on the surface of the water, but their little feet are paddling like mad underneath. I smile because my own hand is steady, piercing the fork into the next little roll of pancake, and then I realise with surprise that my other hand is twisting and pulling a length of hair hanging over my shoulder. Mum would have nudged me to stop, but Matthew is concentrating on the shower of sugar from the spoon on to his pancake, watching closely as each crystal dissolves into the pool of lemon juice.

  The Cowboy’s name is Ray. It’s such a short name that I almost have trouble saying it, as though it is swallowed up as soon as I start. He’s not really a Cowboy. He’s my dad. And Kit’s. Ray Carson, who wears a hat like a cowboy, is my dad. I don’t know why he couldn’t have just told me that right at the beginning when he gave me the wooden babies. Mum says he carved one for each of us when we were born. Sat out on the front step smoking and carving and polishing until they shone like blood. She also said he is a bully and violent and is not really interested in seeing us but just wants to get back at her for taking us away. But I know that’s not true. My dad would never hurt me. Kit didn’t say anything the whole time she was talking, and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking about.

  ‘Did you know?’ I asked him. ‘Can you remember him?’ But he only pushed me away hard, and Mum had to tell him to say ‘Sorry’.

  ‘I know this must be scary for you, but we are going to get it all sorted out, aren’t we, Matthew?’ He nodded. ‘Why don’t you tell them the plan?’

  Matthew looked between the three of us and said, ‘Well, I’m applying to adopt you properly. Nothing will change but it will just help us protect you from,’ he paused, ‘from Ray.’

  ‘But I don’t need protecting from him.’ I turned to Mum. ‘You’re probably just lying about him anyway. Just like you lied about Mr Mace!’

  Matthew looked surprised and said, ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Not now, Matthew.’

  ‘She lied about Mr Mace saying he would hurt Danny. I told her she shouldn’t have,’ said Kit, ‘Sgt C’s going to be really cross.’

  ‘My God, Jemima, is that true?’ Matthew looked shocked and angry. ‘No wonder Mace is livid with you.’

  ‘I’m not sorry about that,’ said Mum, ‘Someone should try and keep that boy safe.’

  ‘But that’s the wrong thing to do.’ Matthew took Mum by the shoulders and held her so that she had to look him in the eye.

  ‘She has to tell Sgt C the truth, doesn’t she?’ says Kit. His face is pinched and red.

  ‘Yes, you have to start telling the truth, Jemima. Or they’ll never believe you about anything again.’

  Mum smiled a tight little smile. ‘Then what I really need to do is get proof, isn’t it?’

  Kit says it’s my fau
lt that Mum has gone away, and he’ll never forgive me if she doesn’t come back. When I asked Matthew if Mum is definitely coming back, he laughed and said ‘Definitely’, but he didn’t quite look me in the eye when he said it. Matthew believes children should be told the truth, but I don’t think he’s being very truthful with me anymore either. I wish there was a way you could talk to someone when they’re not there and make them tell you things.

  I wonder if Mum is going to make up with Ray so that he can stop being angry and we can all live together as a family. On the front of the bracelet he left is a flower pattern and an inscription that says, To J, and, on the back, it says, Love R. Mum showed me the J&M engraved into the gold inside her wedding ring once, and I think it must be the same sort of thing.

  ‘Will you still stay with us when Mum has sorted things out with our dad?’

  Matthew gives me a funny look and says, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ I didn’t notice Kit come into the room, but now he throws himself into a hug with Matthew which is unusual because he doesn’t do that very often anymore. He hates it if we try and hug him in front of his friends. I wonder how it would feel not to live with Matthew ever again because it doesn’t feel very good with Mum away even if she is coming back soon. I can’t remember what it was like before we lived here because I was too little then.

  It smells of Mum’s perfume in her room and I squeeze into the bottom of the cupboard among all her shoes and handbags. It’s still full, so I think Mum can’t be going for long and I pull the doors shut so that it is like being in a big soft nest. I can hear the voices of people on the street outside, but they are far away and muffled by the weight of the wood and fabrics between us.

  The heat builds up until I can’t breathe, and I kick the doors wide open and some of the bags fall out. I find the one that the Cowboy brought and take the photograph out. I hold it by my face in front of the dressing table mirror to see if I look like Mum. There aren’t any other photos of her when she was young, and I stare at it for ages, but I can’t really tell.

  When I put the photograph back, I notice that the keys are not inside. I wonder if they are Mum’s old keys for the farm and guess that she has taken them with her. I try and wedge the bag back in among the other things and find an old shoebox that I have never seen before.

  I pull it out and open it on the bed. Inside is a mesh bag with a pair of blue booties, a pair of pink booties, and a white shawl that has been wrapped up tight like a shell. Underneath, I find a couple of baby photographs with tiny neat writing on the back saying Christopher or Robyn with dates. There are some with a little boy that must be Kit sitting in front of a birthday cake with three candles. At the bottom there are some sheets of paper folded up and covered with the same handwriting. There is a single sheet wrapped around them that just says For Christopher and Robyn. I smooth them out on the bedcover and read.

  Birthday photographs of Christopher. Then, added in different colours, ‘Robyn’s first tooth’ and ‘Christopher’s first steps,’ and I look back at the photographs for a picture of a baby with a tooth and there I am smiling at the camera. I find one of Kit holding on to a big dog by the tail. I continue through the sheets.

  These are the booties I made for you babies when you were brand new because it is so cold here without any heating but the oil. J helped me with the shawl for Christopher and I sewed the little rosebuds on for Robyn. Your dad isn’t much into keepsakes, but he carved those beautiful wooden babies and made them smooth for you to play with. I think that means deep, deep inside that he does love you very much.

  J loves you both a whole piece on the outside, and she is a great friend to me because I make a lot of mistakes. I don’t mean to get so many things wrong, but your dad says waiting for me to do a right thing is like waiting for a lost sheep to walk home by herself.

  I listen for Matthew and Kit, but I can’t hear any movement and carry on.

  I tried to tidy up his tool shed today but I put everything back in the wrong place. I knew it as soon as I saw his face.

  I like it when I’m on my own with the sounds of the sheep chewing and the chickens scratching. Other times it feels like the hills have swallowed me up and we are in one great grassy bowl. Oh, but there is one place that is special to me up among the trees above the road where the ground is hollowed out where a great tree has fallen. I can sit and look across the whole valley and no one can see us. Sometimes, when we need to get some peace, I bring you both here, like now, and we all sit in the shade and just be.

  Then I am at the final sheet.

  A lot of people think bad things about your daddy, but he is a different man when you get proper up close to him out here. In town he knows how he’s got to be, laughing and smiling with people, but, out here on his own, he don’t bend to any wind. He’s got big plans for this farm, and, one day, he says, it will be yours, and you’ve got to know how to look after it because it’s been in his family for generations, and it should stay that way for ever.

  I look for more letters or photographs but can’t find any, and I wonder why she stopped. The albums and pictures that we have in the lounge were all taken after we moved here and I think that these photos might be the only ones of Kit and me as babies. I open the shawl again and find the rosebuds with the tiny little stitches that hardly show on the other side. I know they must have taken her ages because she hates sewing and curses and swears whenever she needs to sew our names into our clothes or mend a tear.

  Kit comes in and sees what I’m doing. ‘You’re going to be in a lot of trouble.’ I shrug and hold up the photos and the letters. He climbs up on to the bed to read them.

  ‘I’m going to ask her why she stopped.’

  ‘You better not,’ says Kit flicking through the sheets again. ‘She’ll know you’ve been into her wardrobe, and we’re not allowed in there.’ He frowns as he puts them down. ‘Her writing looks funny.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ I wrap the shawl around me with the rosebuds on the outside. He shakes his head. ‘Well, it sounds like she liked him then anyway, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Dunno.’ Kit looks at one of the rosebuds and frowns again.

  ‘She took the keys out of that bag, you know,’ I tell him while I’m bundling the shawl back into the box. ‘It’s her farm too, isn’t it? Maybe she’s going to get it ready so we can move back?’

  Kit doesn’t say anything, but I can see that he’s thinking hard, and, when I try and shake him to come back downstairs, he doesn’t move. I think about showing him the bracelet, but, in the end, I don’t, and I leave him there on his own.

  Chapter Twelve

  1988

  The track is still unsurfaced, and Neil’s car lurches and jolts as we leave the road. He stops so I can open the gate and let him through. I remember Kit battling to place the heavy loop of rope back over the post while I watched from the car. The farm looks deserted from the road, but, as we draw nearer, I can see signs that someone has been making some effort at maintenance.

  I knock on the door while Neil walks around the small building, peering in the windows.

  ‘No one here!’ he yells back to me from the far side, so I try the keys. The lock turns, and the door opens with a suck and exhalation of stale air. I wait for Neil to come back before stepping inside.

  ‘Should you even be doing this?’ I say as he follows me in.

  He takes his hands out of his jeans and holds them up. ‘What? This partly belongs to you, doesn’t it? So, no laws broken.’ He winks, but, for the first time, I wonder how much trouble he’d be in if his colleagues at the station knew what he was doing.

  What if we do find her? I can’t breathe in here. ‘I don’t want you to get sacked, we should leave.’

  Neil’s face is hard to read in the darkness although he has stepped very close to me. He takes my hands. ‘Look, we don’t have to do this, Robyn. We can leave now, or you can wait in the car while I search.’ He looks down and turns my hands over as if surprised to see them there.
He’s silent for a moment and then releases me. ‘Okay then, let’s get it over with.’

  My hands feel empty, so I turn into the kitchen and open one of the filthy windows. A slab of light falls through into the sitting room beyond. My stomach churns up at the familiarity of it, and I wish Kit were here. It feels absurd to be in this room chasing ghosts we know can’t be here.

  ‘Reckon someone comes in here now and then,’ says Neil behind me. ‘There’s a new kettle and a clean cupboard with tea bags and sugar. Bet there’s a bed made somewhere.’ He walks through the sitting room into the rear lobby. ‘Yep,’ he calls out, ‘the bed’s been used.’ A door opens and shuts. ‘Looks like someone’s trying to sort it out.’ He reappears. ‘Who would that be? Can’t imagine Kit’s been here?’

  I shake my head. Kit wouldn’t come back here. This place is everything he wants to put behind him. Once, when I was still in the hospital he talked about living here, about our mother, but when he saw my eyes open, he stopped. I never could get him to say any more.

  ‘There was a girl living with him, with Ray,’ I say, and my words disturb the dust whorls in the light so that they bounce. ‘Maybe it’s her?’

  Neil reappears. He shakes his head. ‘She left before the trial, as soon as the baby was born.’

  I look at him in surprise — I’d forgotten about the baby.

  ‘Oh God, I didn’t think. Did you know about the baby?’

  I reach across and squeeze his arm to stop him. ‘Of course, good riddance to them,’ My scar itches, thinking of that angry woman screaming at Kit. There’s nothing in Matthew’s box about our half-brother or sister. Wrong half, I think.

  I lock the door again carefully behind us, and we stand waiting under the porch while a flash shower passes over, darkening the track and the grass around us and releasing a pungent smell from the damp earth. It rained too that last day of summer, and my nose fills suddenly with damp mud, and I feel it on my hands and want to shout out to Mum. Not now; I can’t be thinking about this right now.