A Funeral for an Owl

by Jane Davis

  Outside, a few feet from the front door, Shamayal was leaning on the railings, his back to her. She joined him, looking despondently at the car park below, the rotary driers, a single bench, not trusting herself to speak. She couldn’t understand why the view struck her as so familiar until she heard the rumble of a train. All those times when she’d looked out of a carriage window as she neared Central London, the big wheel coming into view. Balconies and doors and windows; bicycles and washing lines and potted plants; but rarely faces.

  “You’re right, Miss.” Shamayal said, not a hint of emotion. “My dad has got a funny way of showing he cares.”

  “Shamayal, I -” Humbled, she stalled. She’d never given a thought as to who might live on the estates she sped past on the way to the theatre or an art gallery, a secretive smile betraying the hope she had in store before her date turned out to be another disaster.

  “Seen everything you wanted to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we can go, right?”

  Before reaching the main road, Ayisha pulled over to the kerb. This time she tried taking her father’s advice and thought before she spoke.

  “Whatever you’re goin’ to say, you’d better go ahead and say it,” the boy said flatly, sitting low in the passenger seat, knees slumped sideways, touching the door.

  She tried to keep it simple. “Shamayal, don’t you think you might be happier somewhere else?”

  “You realise Christian’s just been killed, Miss? You remember that, right? It was just on the news.”

  In her head it hadn’t sounded so trite. Faced with his anger Ayisha felt foolish and naïve. “I know this isn’t a very good time -”

  “What you need is some perspective. I don’t have this big expectation that everythin’s goin’ to be all hunky-dory or whatever you want to call it. ‘Sides, I don’t see that you’re all that happy.”

  She felt her nostrils prickling at the shock of having the tables turned on her.

  “So I don’t get why you’re aksin’ me, like this is America or somethink.”

  Comparing his life to hers, Shamayal seemed to think it was she who had drawn the short straw. Bowing her head, Ayisha made a disclosure of her own: “You’re right. I’m not very happy at the moment.” The truth was, no matter where you grow up, however caring your parents might be, nothing guarantees happiness. How many times had she heard it said that teenagers think the world owes them a living? The main difference Ayisha detected between her and Shamayal was that he expected nothing.

  The boy’s voice had lost its edge. “Then I’m in the same category as you. That’s all.” Here he was, reassuring her in the way her job forbade, with an arm that pulled her to his chest. “Hey, you listen to me. We’re going to be alright, Miss. Both of us. That’s never in any doubt.”

  And how needy she was as she brushed away her tears and rested there for a moment, how she lapped it up! A lift, a sofa for the night, a few meals: what wouldn’t she do for this boy? Ayisha’s head throbbed, but she said, “I’m alright now.”

  “You sure? I’m in no rush.”

  She sat upright, smiling shyly, put her foot on the accelerator and the stop/start technology fired up the engine. “How would you like to earn some money over the holidays?” she asked.

  “Depends what you got in mind,” this open-minded boy sniffed, take it or leave it.

  CHAPTER 23: JIM - JULY 2010 - ST HELIER HOSPITAL

  “I hope you’re behaving yourself for Ayisha,” Jim said, looking at Shamayal, who was seated on the windowsill. He felt grateful that his colleague had made good her promise to offer him work. The boy needed to be kept busy.

  “Yeah?” He counter-challenged, eyes trained on the hospital corridor. “And I hope you’re behavin’ yourself for that hot young nurse.”

  “I’m serious! She’s paying you to do a proper job.”

  Jim preferred the straight-talking, honest-to-the-point-of-brutality version of the boy. This fake joviality was a cover. He had tried asking Shamayal how he felt about Christian’s murder, but serious appeared to be a no-go area. Apparently, the boy saw it as his duty to cheer Jim up. And the effort was appreciated. Post-surgery, Jim had admitted to feeling depressed. The answer? Another prescription. Hardly a function took place in his softening body that wasn’t chemically induced. Despite being labelled a hero (how he’d grown to hate that label), his feeling of worthlessness had multiplied. He couldn’t say if he would do the same again, but he would have liked all this pain, the sheer boredom, the wasting of his muscles to have been for something. Not necessarily something noble, but something.

  “What makes you think I’m not?” Shamayal toppled sideways with the effort of straining his neck. “Here she comes, here she comes… arse like Beyoncé’s.”

  The man in the bed opposite perked up. “Where?”

  “Show a little respect, Shamayal.”

  “I was only tryin’ to cheer you up, innit!” The boy slapped his paint-splattered jeans. “You wanna talk about testpots, we talk about testpots. Shall I tell you how many shades of cream there are on the walls of Ayisha’s living room? Nine! ‘Just choose one,’ I say. ‘They’re basically all the same.’ But she wants to live with them. See how she feels about them. I go to her, ‘If you want to get this finished before the holidays end, you’d better do that Ip dip sky blue thing.’ And you know what she says?”

  “What?” Inquisitive, the man in the bed opposite shuffled.

  “She says,” Shamayal adopted a ridiculous falsetto, his hands petals cupping his face, “‘Actually, I’ve been thinking about changing my mind. I’ve seen a picture of a room I liked in sunflower yellow.’”

  Jim swallowed, wincing.

  “You got somethink ‘gainst the colour yellow now? Lucky for you, she’s changed her mind. Again. This time she’s goin’ for duck-egg blue.”

  Jim’s laughter was relief. “Well, at least there can’t be so many variations.”

  “You think? Then you don’t know your Dulux from your Fired Earth. Why did I let her talk me into this? Women, they’re very manipulative, f’you know what I mean. ‘I’ve got a likkle favour to ask,’ she goes, and she wrinkles up her nose, like she’s all helpless. You’re laughing! What you laughin’ at? You fink it’s funny?”

  “Typical Ayisha!” Jim said, wondering what ‘typical Ayisha’ might be. The detached teacher of the staffroom; the vulnerable person he glimpsed sight of in the pub; the passionate individual she tries to rein in.

  “Yeah, well.” He repositioned himself on the sill, rocking from side to side. “Hey! You got somethink to do with this? I wouldn’t put it past you.”

  Jim feigned shock. “Me?”

  Passing the double doors, Sophia performed the mother of all double-takes. “You!” She entered the ward, hands on hips. “Wachoo you doin’ up on the windowsill, boy?”

  “Tryin’ to locate some fresh air, aren’t I? ‘Cause there ain’t none down there.”

  “Did I ask for back-chat? Get yo’self down”

  “I ain’t breakin’ no law.”

  “Now!” An erect index finger traced a path straight to hell. “You get your tiny brain round something: here, I am the law!”

  Shamayal swung out his legs and hopped down lightly, his impish grin implying, It’s a fair cop. There was no fear in his eyes, Jim observed. The real danger lay elsewhere.

  “If you so hot,” Sophia continued, “why you still wearin’ that stupid hat?”

  “Sister, this ain’t no hat! This here’s what’s called a beanie.”

  “Jim!” She redirected her full-sailed bluster. “Your visitors can’t go treatin’ this place like home.”

  “In the chair!” Jim shot the boy a warning look.

  Resigning himself to the inevitable, Shamayal complied with an unhurried amble. Only when she was satisfied he was in position did the big nurse swat the air with one hand and go on her way.

  “She wants to watch her blood pressure,” Shamayal observed.
“She gets vexed way too easy.”

  Jim wondered how best to ask Have you been home to see your father? without opening another can of worms. Ayisha had reported that not all was well in that department. He had seen her truly angry for the first time. No, he censored himself: the boy would talk when he was ready. “She’s got a point about the hat.”

  “This here’s style, man. Somethink you in your PJs clearly got no idea about.”

  Jim tried another tack instead, his voice low: “It’s all over now.” A reference to Christian’s death.

  “Yeah, yeah. Everything’s back to normal, innit. So,” Shamayal demonstrated the art of the natural subject-change, “You gonna finish telling me the story of your owl, or what?”

  According to his doctor, Jim needed to make more of an effort to ‘anchor himself in the present’ but it was the present Jim found disturbing. He’d believed what he said when he told Ayisha that Christian would never be left alone, but he hadn’t allowed himself to imagine the brutal reality. A boy was dead. And for what? The sake of family honour! Jim was long enough in the tooth to have some understanding of how a loss could send out far-reaching ripples, ripples that would still have an impact in five, ten, twenty years’ time.

  “Now would be a good time.” Shamayal leant back in the chair and elevated his legs. I haven’t heard one of your shaggy dog stories for a while.” For everyone who wanted him to park himself in the present someone was willing to lure him back to the past, and he would rather let time slip.

  “Feet.” Jim’s eyes traced a path to the floor.

  “Man, you’re as bad as her!” The boy grumbled, letting his feet drop to the floor heavily.

  “I want to stay on Sophia’s good side. She’s the one with the needles.” But already Jim was searching for his mental bookmark.

  CHAPTER 24: JIM - 1992 - RALEGH GROVE

  “Jim, love!” his mother called, the minute he had shut the front door behind him. “There’s someone here to see you!”

  Suspicious after his meeting with Nick, he considered the possibilities: Ben with another excuse to get him out of the flat; the police wanting to question him about his brother. A gang member recruiting seemed like his best option! “I’ll just get changed out of my football gear,” he shouted.

  “Don’t worry about that.” His mother appeared at the kitchen doorway, eyes widening urgently. “Come and say hello!”

  Thinking that perhaps it was one of his aunt’s rare visits, Jim dumped his kitbag and followed.

  The unbrushable hair was unmistakable.

  “Well?” His mum pushed for a reaction but, after relief, his next was anger.

  Aimee turned her head, apparently pleased with herself, the gap in her teeth on display. “Did you have a good game?”

  “Not bad.” He leant against the kitchen units, trying to look casual, self-conscious that his scrawny legs were on display.

  “Cup of tea?” Jean extracted another mug from a cupboard without waiting for his reply. “Sit yourself down, love! You’re making the place look untidy. ”

  He scraped a chair out and sat, tucking his legs under the chair.

  “Aimee and I have been talking.” Jean spoke with her back facing them. “She’s just been telling me how you’ve taught her ways to remember the Latin names for birds.” A steaming mug was placed on the table in front of him. “Aimee says you’re good with languages…”

  Aimee says, Aimee says. Having charmed her way in, Aimee clearly had his mother under her spell.

  “She’s going to stay for tea so she’s here when it gets dark.”

  What the -? He’d been ganged up on. This was no less of a trap than being jumped in the stairwell. While Jean reached into the fridge, Jim shot Aimee a thundery look and she had the decency to appear ruffled. “You said I could swap your owl for my heron, remember?”

  If Jim remembered rightly, Aimee had asked him. No way would he have agreed to this!

  A splash of milk clouded the contents of his mug. “I told her how you thought you’d seen a ghost the first time we saw the barn owl. Tell Jim what you told me, love.”

  Aimee leaned forwards: “In English folklore, it’s bad luck to see an owl at night.”

  If she was hoping to win him over, she had another thing coming. “Oh, yeah?”

  “It means someone’s about to die.”

  “What do you think of that?” his mother prompted.

  Jim shrugged, unimpressed. “We’ve been watching the owl for months.”

  “Maybe that’s because it’s not your owl,” Aimee persevered.

  “Not my owl?” he laughed dismissively. “What are you on about?”

  She adopted a tone similar to the one his granddad had used for ghost stories. “Indian tribes believe owls carry the souls of living people and that, if an owl is killed, the person whose soul they’re carrying will also die.”

  “And there’s me thinking they’re just supposed to be wise.” But Jim couldn’t disguise the involuntary shiver that coursed through his bones.

  “Jim.” He winced as his mother ruffled his hair. “Why don’t you show your guest the view from the living room while I make a start on the spuds? On a clear day you can see all the way up to the City.”

  She was being so obvious, trying to act as a match-maker.

  Kneeling on the sofa with his back to the kitchen, he hissed at Aimee, “How did you find me?”

  “I saw you leaving this morning from across the road. Do you want me to go?”

  “She’s making your tea now!”

  “Can you see the NatWest Tower?” Jean called through from the kitchen.

  “Over there,” Jim pointed Aimee in the direction of a skyscraper sitting head and shoulders above the others.

  “It’s really clear!” Aimee shouted, then, to Jim, she said simply, “I really like your mum.” As if that excused everything!

  “We’ll have to go up to town one of these days,” Jean replied from the doorway, one hip resting against the frame, potato peeler in hand. “I never seem to find the time. We saw the space rockets at the Science Museum once, didn’t we, Jim?”

  “Years ago!” he protested in case Aimee thought he still needed his hand held.

  As they sat down to tea, Jim predicted disaster: egg and chips with tomato ketchup. He was willing to bet Aimee had never had a meal like it in her life.

  “Use your hands,” his mum invited, piercing the membrane of her egg with the pointed end of a chip, spilling its golden contents.

  That broke the ice, somehow. Once she laid down her knife and fork, Aimee looked right at home. “These eggs are great. My mum never gets the middles to stay soft.”

  Evidently pleased, Jean popped another yolky chip into her mouth and raised her eyebrows. “Where d’you live, Aimee?”

  “It’s a ten-minute walk from here,” she replied. “Just down the hill.”

  Adding more salt, Jim began to feel excluded.

  “Oh, it’s lovely there! There’s a park I used to go to when I was a girl. That’s where they do the big firework display. We don’t need tickets: we’ve got the best view in town.” Right on cue, the six thirty-three trundled past. Jim watched his mother grip the table top. “In fact, the only downside of living here is those blasted trains.”

  Aimee nodded in agreement. “They rattle the glasses.”

  “They rattle my brains, that’s what they do!” Then her expression dropped as realisation struck her. “You hear them as well?”

  “All the time! We’re even closer than you are.”

  “Course you are.” Jim’s mother’s expression suggested it had never crossed her mind that the escape route she’d been dreaming of all those years wouldn’t solve her headaches. Richard Gere’s white charger was going to have to work that little bit harder.

  Jim watched the two of them wash up, passing dripping plates between them, and thought about how easily women made friends.

  “You can come again!” Jean was laughing. Unlike him, s
he didn’t feel as if her home had been invaded.

  Kneeling on the sofa, the unlikely trio watched dusk descend in waves of violet. They were rewarded with sightings of bats flitting like shadows.

  Then: “Over there. A flash of white.” His mother pointed suddenly, handing the binoculars to Aimee. “Have you got him?”

  “Got him,” Aimee replied in a half-whisper. “They really do hover,” she breathed, before passing the binoculars to Jim.

  Remembering his first glimpse of an owl through those lenses, recognising the same wonder in Aimee’s voice, he found it impossible to stay angry. “Keep them for a while.”

  “Look at that wingspan!”

  Eventually, Aimee turned and sat down, grasping the binoculars in both hands as if she was holding on to the moment. “I’ve seen my owl,” she said, her voice quiet.

  Checking his digital watch, Jim was surprised to discover how late it was. “It’s gone ten!” he announced. It struck him: what had been different about that evening - aside from Aimee’s visit - was that the television hadn’t been switched on all night. Even when there was nothing they wanted to watch, it was the background noise that blocked out the neighbours.

  Aimee glanced out of the window into the darkness, worry shadowing her face. “I should get going.”

  “I’ll walk you home,” Jim offered, shy to be making the offer in front of his mother.

  “I think he should, love,” Jean said, seeing that Aimee was about to protest. “At least as far as the bridge.”

  “Binoculars?” Jim said just as he was opening the door.

  “What about them?”

  “Can I have them back?”

  “I left them on the coffee table.”

  When Jim returned to the living room to retrieve them, his mother lowered her voice to a whisper. “I recognised her from your sketches straight away!”

  “She came to see the owls,” he hissed.

  “I know,” Jean said, too smugly for Jim’s liking. “She said so.” Then she spoke at normal volume. “Don’t you want your denim jacket? You’ll catch cold.”