Hush, Little Bird

by Nicole Trope

  ‘You mustn’t even make eye contact with them,’ Eric said when we discussed what to do about them. Every day when we left court, Eric would wrap his arms around me and guide me through the waiting throng. Robert would hold up his briefcase and almost use it as a battering ram to push his way through, and the girls would follow. We tried leaving by the back door, but journalists aren’t stupid. They were there as well. I kept my head down and watched my feet. I understand their interest. If it had not been my face in the paper and on every television channel, I’m sure I would have been fascinated by the story as well.

  ‘Just ignore them, Mother, and do what you want to do,’ said Portia when we discussed the ones who had taken up residence outside my home. I suppose I should have just carried on as before, but it was daunting. The few times I did brave an outing I almost ran over one or two of them. The women were the worst. They were so aggressive and seemed to have no concern for their own safety. They would leap behind the car when they saw the garage door opening and wait for me to practically nudge them before they got out of the way.

  It is quite restful to be free of them. Now, of course, I am under an entirely different sort of scrutiny.

  I was woken at some ungodly hour this morning to be counted again. Before I opened my eyes I had my regular few moments of peace before my life came crashing in. Those moments are the cruellest of all. For the last year I have woken and stretched and wondered why the aroma of percolating coffee was not drifting through the house. In all the years that Simon and I were married, he got up every morning to make me coffee. At first when we had little money it was just instant coffee, but our tastes changed with our income and status, and the machines we used to produce our morning beverage became more and more expensive. Despite the fact that everything was now automatic and only one button needed to be pushed, Simon would still get up early and make sure that my coffee was waiting for me.

  ‘Good morning, my beautiful girl,’ he would say, placing the cup next to the bed. When the girls were babies he would also bring me a wet and frantic bundle to feed and change, so I had to get up anyway. When Lottie and Sam were small, Rosalind used to yell at Jack for not understanding what it took to take care of a baby, but I never expected anything from Simon. The babies were my job and I never questioned that.

  ‘You don’t have to do this anymore,’ I told him a couple of years ago, because I wanted him to rest more.

  ‘But darling girl, it is what I have always done,’ he said.

  Lately at home I had been drinking tea.

  ‘Muster!’ shouted Sal from the living room at six o’clock this morning, and I leapt out of bed with a dry mouth and shaking hands. There was no coffee smell and no Simon. I felt the familiar fist of grief and shook my head and lifted my chin. Day one, I thought.

  ‘You got through your first night okay?’ said Allison as we walked to the gardens.

  ‘I did,’ I said. ‘Heather and Sal are—’

  ‘Are not your friends. I don’t want to sound harsh, but you should remember that. Getting close can lead to complications, and you all have to go your separate ways soon enough.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said.

  There are quite a few women who tend the vegetables. Today I met Jess, who has close-cropped grey hair and the wrinkled face of a serious smoker. She also has that terrible smell about her that I’ve noticed on other smokers. She is friendly enough but very bossy. I think she’s in charge, even though there are some other women who look a great deal more formidable than she does.

  Still, I’m happy to get my hands back in the soil and I don’t mind taking instructions from Jess, as she seems to really know what she’s doing. She introduced me to Mina, who looks about sixteen but apparently is twenty-five, and Dana, who looks about Portia’s age. I feel like I’m the oldest person in this place, and this feeling isn’t helped by them all calling me Mrs Winslow.

  ‘If Martha Stewart survived, you can too,’ Portia said when we hugged goodbye before I was led away to prison. Rosalind didn’t say anything. She didn’t seem able to wrap her head around what had happened. She had assumed, we had all assumed, that my packed suitcase was a silly precaution at the sentencing.

  ‘Probation,’ said Eric when we discussed it.

  ‘Or maybe home detention,’ said Robert.

  ‘You thought I wouldn’t be found guilty,’ I wanted to say but didn’t.

  ‘What on earth am I going to tell the children?’ was the only thing Rosalind said.

  ‘Oh good, Rosalind, give her something else to worry about,’ said Portia.

  ‘Now, girls,’ said Eric. He has developed a habit lately of stepping in as Simon would have done. I don’t think he knows he’s doing it, but the girls responded as if their father had spoken.

  I will miss my grandchildren most of all while I am here. Sam, at ten, seems to feel he is getting too big to spend time with his grandmother. Before all this happened he was already sighing and rolling his eyes whenever I said something he found ridiculous—like asking who ‘Mario Kart’ was. He got on better with Simon, and I know he understands what I’ve done. I doubt he will ever forgive me. They used to play backgammon together. Simon was a patient teacher and he revelled in being beaten by Sam.

  ‘Grandpa and I are going to turn the spare room into a model train room,’ Sam told me on his last visit before Simon died.

  ‘Really?’ I said, feigning surprise. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Well, it’s not something girls are interested in. Lottie isn’t allowed in unless I say so, and Grandpa says that I can choose the trains. They’ll be replicas of real trains, not stuff for children. Grandpa has a book.’

  I don’t think Sam has directed more than two words to me in the last twelve months. I would like to have the chance to explain to him what happened, but I can’t think how to do that without tarnishing his grandfather for him forever. I hope to have the time to win his love back. Simon does not have that luxury.

  Lottie is only six and I don’t think she really knows what’s happened, or at least no more than Rosalind will allow her to know. I hope . . . I hope she does not know more than she should. Please God, let her not know more than she should.

  ‘Has Lottie ever said anything about your father?’ I asked Rosalind when we were in the middle of the trial.

  ‘She misses him,’ said Rosalind. ‘I think she knows that he’s dead but she still believes it’s possible that he will be back from being dead.’

  ‘Yes, but has she . . . did she . . .?’

  ‘What, Mum?’

  ‘Nothing. Never mind.’

  Lottie plays on my mind all the time. She is so little, so innocent. I hope, I pray, that Simon was only ever a loving grandfather to her.

  I believe Rosalind has decided to tell them both that I’ve gone away on a cruise. She’ll get that past Lottie, but Sam spends all of his time on his computer. I have no doubt that he will find out the truth. I’m sure that children his age know more about the world than I ever did. Sam doesn’t ask his parents questions anymore. He asks his computer. He did that when the allegations about Simon first appeared, and Rosalind and Jack had to try to explain what was being said. There will be snide remarks at school as well, I’m sure, as there have been for many months. I hope it dies down quickly. This generation is supposed to lose interest as soon as the story disappears from the headlines. I hope that Sam will soon be allowed to go back to being a ten-year-old boy and cease being the grandson of a criminal.

  I wonder if it is easier to deal with your grandmother being accused and convicted of manslaughter or with your grandfather being accused of being a predator. If Simon was still alive and the investigation had begun, would Sam have turned against him? Would we all have turned against him? It’s easy to flippantly remark that a person would rather lose their life than their reputation, but what if their reputation was their life? What would the answer be then? Would I have expressed indignation to police when they came to question h
im? Would I have held his hand to steady him as we walked into court, if things had gone that far? Would he even have survived being formally charged? His heart was strong, but his blood pressure gave him headaches in times of high stress. When it all began he would often retreat to the spare bedroom and lie in the dark waiting for his body to calm down.

  ‘If you could just leave me be for a moment, my dear,’ he would say.

  ‘What can I bring you?’ I asked. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Oh, Rose dear, there’s little you can do. Time will help. That’s all.’

  It was easy enough for all of us to discredit the first woman to come forward. Easy enough. She was an out-of-work actress desperate for a second chance at fame. The article appeared in a popular women’s magazine and we only found out about it when Eric came over with the thing clutched in his hand.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ he said to me when I opened the door. He was dressed in his suit from the office with his tie straight and his shoes shined. He sounded agitated but appeared perfectly calm.

  ‘What’s that?’ I said as he waved the magazine at me before even coming into the house.

  ‘It’s an article, it mentions Simon. Patricia read it at the hairdresser. Has anyone contacted you for comment? Has anyone contacted Simon?’

  Simon came into the front hall holding the newspaper. His glasses had slipped down to the end of his nose and his slippers made a shuffling noise on the polished floors. He’d been doing the crossword. ‘Rose, I have no idea what twenty-four down is. Do you know—Oh, hello, Eric. Have you come for an early drink? How nice.’

  ‘No, Simon, I came to show you, to show both of you this.’ Eric held up the magazine open to the page with the article.

  ‘Who is that?’ I asked Simon, feeling a slight twist in my stomach.

  ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ said Simon, glancing back at his crossword.

  A woman was pictured curled up in an armchair with her hair falling over her shoulders in artificial waves. Her lips pouted and her eyes shone with unshed tears. In the article she talked about her financial troubles and how awful it was to find herself unemployed after all her years in the industry.

  I had a wonderful career after being discovered on the talent show, but now it seems that the industry is only interested in young women with perfect bodies. Men never have that problem. Men are told they look distinguished. They can get work at any age.

  ‘I have no idea what any of this has to do with me,’ said Simon.

  ‘Just read it to the end,’ said Eric.

  Simon held the magazine a little away from himself so that I could read at the same time. Her allegations about Simon were almost a footnote. They seemed like something thrown in at the end.

  ‘What a preposterous thing to say,’ said Simon. ‘I have no idea who this is. I never met her. How can she say such things about me?’

  ‘She says she was on the show, Simon,’ said Eric. ‘I’ve put in a call to the station so that they can check their records, which I’m hoping they still have filed away somewhere. Are you telling me that you had no idea this article was coming out? Has no one called you to discuss it?’

  I have come across the worst type of men in this industry. I met Simon Winslow when I was a child, and his behaviour would now be called assault and he would be charged. Back then he just got away with it. We all wanted to be famous.

  ‘Eric, we haven’t heard anything about this,’ I said. ‘And she’s not really saying anything, it’s very vague. What does she mean by assault?’ I was irritated to have had my afternoon interrupted with such silliness. I wanted to berate Eric for bothering Simon when I liked him to remain calm.

  ‘I know, but if they printed it she must have said a great deal more to them.’

  ‘We will sue,’ said Simon looking at the article again. His face was pale but I could see his ears turning red. ‘Tell me you will sue, Eric. People cannot be allowed to do this. How can she make some vague accusation and expect to get away with it?’

  ‘I’ll get hold of their legal department. I wanted to make sure you hadn’t heard from anyone before I did anything. Don’t worry, Simon, I’ll sort it all out.’ Eric grabbed the magazine and turned to go.

  ‘What do we do?’ I said. I still thought the whole thing ridiculous even as I asked the question.

  ‘Do nothing. Do not talk to anyone who calls who may be in the media. If you find yourself involved in a conversation, just say “no comment”. Try not to get into a discussion. Don’t feel you have to defend yourself, just put down the phone. Leave this to me.’

  ‘I think I need a stiff drink, my dear,’ said Simon when Eric had gone. That was, perhaps, the first clue that the whole situation was not just something that would disappear with the next edition of the magazine. I should have tried to talk to him then but I left him to it.

  ‘I’ll call the girls. I think I need to warn them, don’t you? Just in case someone says something?’

  ‘Yes, perhaps that would be wise.’

  And that was the end of the discussion between me and Simon. I understood immediately that it wasn’t true. It was impossible for it to be true. Impossible.

  ‘How could she not know?’ they have asked about me in magazines and the newspaper. How could I not know? I want the answer to that as well but it was not something I thought to look for. How could it be?

  ‘Would you want to know?’ I would like to ask all these people with these firm opinions. ‘Would you want to know that about someone you love?’

  ‘Jealous bitch,’ said Portia after she’d read the article.

  ‘A complete lunatic,’ agreed Rosalind.

  ‘Why would anyone want to say such a thing about me?’ said Simon.

  We were, as a family, quite stunned, but determined. We were not going to let some awful woman tarnish his reputation with scandalous lies. Before now Simon had only ever been spoken of in glowing terms. In his entire career there had never been a bad article about him. Everyone who had worked with him described him as ‘delightful’ and ‘charismatic’. Women described him as ‘sexy’. He had been in the television industry for years and nothing negative had ever been said about him. Until now.

  The magazine had only just come out that day. By the evening, Simon and I were both fielding calls on our mobile phones and the home phone.

  Our friends were unanimous in their support.

  ‘Shameful woman,’ said Patricia when she called.

  ‘Awful, jealous creature,’ said Roxanne, who was part of my walking group.

  ‘She should be ashamed of herself,’ said Becca and Joan and Alice and all the others. Everyone we knew was absolutely certain that either the woman had made some ghastly mistake and assumed someone else was Simon, or that she was simply a vindictive liar.

  The press did call and we followed Eric’s instructions, eventually turning off our phones to get some peace. Eric released a statement to the press vehemently denying the woman’s accusations and announcing our intention to sue her and the magazine for printing such lies. As a family we held up our heads and got on with our lives.

  That was the first article, the first mention of any impropriety. The first article was easy to ignore and the furore died down quickly enough. What happened next was not so easily dismissed.

  When I think about my concerns over the years they seem ludicrous to me now. I worried all the time about him having an affair. He was a devoted husband and never gave me a reason to doubt him, but he was a beautiful man in an industry filled with beautiful women. I had always feared that he would be drawn to another woman. It never even occurred to me to question his behaviour with children. Men who prey on children jump out of the bushes and steal them away to hurt them. Simon was not a predator. To accuse him of being such a man was, at the time, almost laughable.

  ‘You shouldn’t let it bother you,’ I told him whenever he brought up the article over the next few weeks. I was always mindful of his health. He had already begun to s
toop a little when he walked, and he was on medication for his blood pressure.

  I had always been worried about him dying and leaving me alone to live out the rest of my life, but I understood that it was inevitable because of the difference in our ages. Sixteen years did not seem so much when I was fifteen and he was thirty-one, but once he turned seventy the age gap became more apparent to me. I still felt like I had so many things I wanted to do but Simon was ready to slow down.

  ‘You want to make sure you get those seeds in quickly,’ says Jess, pulling me back to what I’m supposed to be doing.

  ‘Were you involved in this sort of thing before . . . before . . . ?’ I stutter as I try to find the words, struggling to bring myself back to the present with inane conversation.

  ‘Before I came here? Yes, I was. I worked at a nursery. I’ve always preferred plants to people. People will give you crap, but plants just need a little love and attention and they’ll grow for you.’

  ‘You’re right about that,’ I say. ‘I used to spend as much time in my garden as I could.’

  ‘And you will again.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ I say. ‘I think when I do leave here I might want to sell the house, maybe live somewhere else.’

  ‘Wish I had a house to sell.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m just nattering on.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ says Jess. ‘Why don’t you come with me and I’ll introduce you to Birdy.’

  ‘Birdy?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s the last of the garden girls, although she doesn’t spend much time here. She takes care of the finches in the aviary.’

  ‘My husband used to have finches. We had a big aviary built at the bottom of the garden. I never liked them, but he seemed to find them calming. He could watch them for hours.’ I bite down on my lip so I stop talking.