A Funeral for an Owl

by Jane Davis

  “Not more junk mail!”

  Mistaken for a delivery boy, Jim stood open-mouthed. With towering heels and a large handbag at one elbow, she didn’t look like the sort of mother who had time to make eggs with runny middles.

  Making his excuses, Jim heard her voice join the shouting. “What’s going on, Martin?”

  He didn’t look back. Aimee would be fine now. She might even find an excuse to escape. He returned to the tracks, but by four o’clock he had lost the heart for it. Returning home, he dropped down heavily on the sofa, asking, “What are you watching?”

  Jean patted his leg. “It’s an interview with Sally Gunnell. She’s won gold in the 400-metre hurdles. Nothing doing?”

  “Not much.”

  “Me neither. My three thirty cancelled. We could have an early tea if you fancy it?”

  “Could do.”

  “Sure you’re OK? You’re usually starving.” She laughed, not waiting for his reply before making her way to the kitchen. A cupboard door was opened, contents rearranged. “Is pasta alright?”

  He loitered, slouching against the doorframe.

  “What time did you creep in at last night?” Mum was filling the kettle. “I thought you were only going as far as the bridge.”

  “I got held up,” Jim muttered.

  “Oh?”

  He hadn’t planned to tell her. It sort of slipped out. “Some idiot had shot one of the owls.”

  “No!” A saucepan handle in one hand, she froze. “What did you do?”

  “We decided to put it in a safe place until we could give it a proper funeral. That should have been today, but it all went wrong.” There was no point stopping there. Jim censored the details, deciding what Jean needed to know: how the summerhouse had burned down; the firemen’s suggestion that there might be more to it; the shouting. He couldn’t tell her about Nick’s role - not when things were just getting back to normal.

  “But there’s an innocent explanation. I’m sure Aimee’s parents are reasonable people. We’ll go round after tea, sort this whole mess out.”

  Jim felt far less certain than his mother. “And say what?”

  “We’ll explain that you and Aimee were trying to do right by the owl.”

  He winced. “I don’t think her parents know about the bird-watching. Or about me.”

  “What about you?” Jean asked, crossing her arms in front of her.

  Jim hung his head.

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” His mother put her hands on her hips, indignant. “You don’t judge people because of where they come from or who they’re related to. I mean it! I clean up after those folks and I can tell you, they piss and they shit just the same as we do.” That had his attention. “It’s time you started believing in yourself.” As if reading the thoughts that had been playing bagatelle in his head, she said, “You’ve got a good brain, Jim. If you’ve got any sense, you’ll use it to get out of here.”

  CHAPTER 26: JIM - AUGUST 1992 - DURNSFORD ROAD

  The visit might have been his mother’s idea but, as he watched the way she straightened her coat, Jim saw he wasn’t the only nervous one. Jean knocked on the front door then stepped back, shielding herself with her handbag. A new notice had been attached to the inside of a small side window: Please, No junk mail and door-to-door sales callers. He reckoned they would be marginally less welcome than Mr Everest. As footsteps approached, his mother pressed her lips together, blotting her lipstick. This was some performance she was building up to.

  “Good evening.” Jean sprang to life as the door opened inwards, adapting her voice to her surroundings. She smiled as if auditioning for a toothpaste advert. “You must be Aimee’s father.”

  The man was tall with what his mother usually referred to as ‘a good head of hair’. Unlike Mrs White, Jim failed to find any resemblance to Aimee. Somehow that pleased him.

  “And you are?” He looked blankly from Jim to his mother and back again.

  “I’m Mrs Stevens, but do call me Jean.” The man snatched at the hand she offered before it infiltrated the threshold. “And this is my son, Jim.” Jim found himself grimacing. “I don’t suppose we could have a quick word? There’s been a bit of a misunderstanding I’d like to clear up.”

  Folded arms barred their way. “Oh?”

  “Perhaps misunderstanding is the wrong word.” Jim admired his mother’s patience but, if he’d been directing her, he would have recommended sounding slightly less apologetic. Mr White was being intentionally rude. “My son heard about the fire in your garden. He was worried people might’ve got the wrong end of the stick.”

  People? Jim thought, but it seemed to have done the trick.

  “Perhaps you’d better come in,” Aimee’s father said.

  The door closed, they stood in the hall rearranging their hands. Despite all the space, there was something claustrophobic about the house. Something that made him want to run in the opposite direction as fast as he could.

  “So, young man.” One hand on the banister, Aimee’s father turned himself into a stair-guard. Aimee was upstairs, that much was obvious. It was equally plain that she wouldn’t be making an appearance. Something told him there would be no offer of tea and Jammy Dodgers. Jim recognised his denim jacket underneath Mr White’s hand. The jacket Aimee had claimed to have forgotten about. “I take it you know my daughter.”

  Standing on the mat between his mother and Mr White, Jim knew that he was being hemmed in. He resigned himself to saying his piece: The quicker you do it, the quicker you’re out of here. “Aimee’s a member of my bird-watching club.”

  “Forgive me.” Mr White closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “But I know nothing about a bird-watching club.”

  “I have to admit,” Jean latched onto his sceptical tone, “That was my first reaction, but it’s a wonderful thing for young people to be involved in. Jim’s been almost every day during the holidays.”

  “I see.” Mr White blinked at him.

  Knowing his credentials were being questioned, Jim’s only option was to speak his lines with conviction. “Last night, after watching the owls, I was walking Aimee home when we came across one of them, lying on the ground. Someone had shot it with an air rifle -”

  “Where did you come across the owl?” Aimee’s father interrupted.

  Jim hesitated. He hadn’t anticipated cross examination. “Sorry?” he asked.

  “It’s quite simple. I asked where you found the owl.”

  Bones showed through the knuckles of the hand that grasped his jacket on the end of the banister. It was obvious Aimee’s father had already extracted the story from his daughter, but Jim felt in control of his facts. “We were on the bridge when we heard something crying out, so we went down to see if we could do anything to help.”

  “Do I take it you mean down by the side of the railway?”

  Rather than say he thought he’d already made that clear, the boy decided to nod.

  “But that’s trespassing, isn’t it?” Mr White’s presence loomed all the larger because he was reflected in a mirror that hung over the telephone table.

  “They could hardly ignore an animal in distress!” Jean intervened.

  “Of course. And what exactly did you find -” Mr White’s mouths, both real and reflected, were smile-shaped, but there was nothing pleasant about them. “Down by the side of the tracks?”

  Jim found that he had backed up against the front door. “There were two lads with an air rifle.”

  “Stand up straight, love.”

  “They said it had been an accident, but they’d been drinking -”

  “You took my daughter somewhere where there were two drunks with an air rifle?”

  Realising they’d reached the part of the story he’d been economical with, Jim accepted there was no prospect of Mum coming to the rescue. The idea of taking Aimee anywhere she didn’t want to go was beyond him. The alternative - saying that he’d tried to convince her to go home - would hard
ly help. He was angry with his mother: she shouldn’t have made him come. He was angry with himself for having listened. When it emerged, his voice was uncertain. “We couldn’t see them from the bridge. It was too dark.”

  Mr White appeared prepared to let that pass. “So you came across a couple of drunks who had killed an owl with an air rifle.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why on earth didn’t you call the police?”

  Unease was growing. “I didn’t see any point.”

  This time his mother saw fit to volunteer. “I think what he means is the owl was already past help.”

  “What about this bird-watching club of yours?” Mr White asked. “Surely they have a procedure for reporting this sort of thing?”

  His mother’s expression said It’s a reasonable question - one a member of a bird-watching club should know the answer to. “It was the first time I’ve ever found a dead bird. Let alone an owl.”

  Aimee’s father changed tactics. “Then let me ask you this: did you know the lads with the air rifle?”

  A tight ball blocking his throat, Jim wished he hadn’t stepped away from the front door. He could have done with the support. “I recognised them.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t with them before this so-called accident happened?”

  “Now, hang about.” His mother’s clipped vowels failed her. “Aimee and Jim had spent the evening at ours.”

  “Thank you for that, Mrs Stevens.” Aimee’s father’s self-congratulatory smile suggested a scoring of points. “I have to say, I wasn’t aware you were such close friends. Go on, Jim.”

  Now that Mr White had succeeded in tripping his mother up, Jim couldn’t tell where the questions would land next. His delivery sounded stilted. “We decided to give the owl a proper funeral, but we didn’t want to leave her out overnight where the foxes could get at her, so we put her in your summerhouse.”

  “A funeral?” Mr White was incredulous, his distorted face huge and ugly. “For an owl?”

  “The children were devastated. They were just trying to do the right thing -”

  “And while they were trying to do the right thing” - Mr White’s reflection reddened - “not only did they put themselves in danger, but they burnt my summerhouse down! I’ve just spent the morning being interrogated by the police.”

  That explained it, Jim thought. He was being given a dose of the same medicine.

  “What if the fire had spread?” Mr White was continuing. “What then?”

  “Wait a minute!” Jean protested. “It was an accident.”

  “Jim, perhaps you can tell me, who accidentally left dozens of candles burning overnight in a wooden building?” Aimee’s father sighed, pretending to pally up to him. “Was it your cigarette lighter you used, sonny?”

  Beside him, his mother bristled. Jim noted how she held her breath, waiting for his reply. It was tempting to say, No, Mr White, in fact it was yours.

  “If you can’t answer that, tell me this: who lit the candles?”

  Jim thought he saw movement in the periphery of his vision. He tried to disguise the fact that he was looking upstairs to the landing by rubbing his forehead. A small hand was withdrawn. No signal. Just a small hand. “I was the last to leave,” he blurted.

  Mr White raised his eyebrows, apparently impressed that he would risk pre-empting the next question. “And you didn’t think it would be a good idea to blow them out?”

  It wasn’t as if he hadn’t suggested it. Aimee was the one who had read the instructions and assured him they would be safe. “It said that they would burn for twelve hours.”

  “It said they weren’t for indoor use!”

  Jim felt his eyebrows jump inwards before he could control them. Aimee was as obsessed with detail as he was. No way would she have missed something as important as that. Was it possible? Had she started the fire deliberately?

  “Well, it must have taken guts for you to come here and apologise, I’ll give you that.”

  Jim felt his breath catch: he had only come to get Aimee off the hook.

  “You’re lucky. Our insurance will cover most of the damage,” Mr White continued. “I told Aimee I would expect her to pay the excess from her allowance. Perhaps you’d like to go halves? We’ll call it twenty-five pounds each.” He turned to Jean. “I think that would be a good lesson about respect for property.”

  It was Jean’s turn to sound shocked. “Jim doesn’t have that sort of money!”

  “A bright lad like him will have no trouble getting a Saturday job.”

  “He’s not old enough...”

  Mr White feigned oily regret: “I was hoping we could sort this out without involving the police again.”

  Jean’s face paled.

  “According to them it was arson, but I’m prepared to be persuaded that it was carelessness.”

  “You’ll get your money.” Jim’s mother reached forwards and snatched his denim jacket from the end of the banister.

  “Hang on! What do you think you’re doing with my daughter’s jacket?”

  “It’s my son’s jacket. I should know. I bought it for him.” She opened the front door and shepherded Jim out. “Does your daughter tell you the truth, Mr White? Because I can’t see much in your reaction to encourage honesty.”

  “Jim!” Aimee’s father called over the top of Jean’s head. He turned, still absorbed by the confusing image of Aimee secreting the instructions for use of the candles in her pocket. “Did you tell your mother it was your brother who shot the owl?”

  The words paralysed him. He should have known this self-satisfied man would insist on having the last word. He imagined walking back up the path, his fist crossing the threshold, knocking that smug expression right off the bastard’s face.

  Behind him, the door slammed. The display of solidarity over, Jim’s mother elbowed her way past and marched ahead. “I can’t believe you’ve been smoking behind my back!”

  “Where would I get the money to smoke?” He fired back. If that was the only thing his mother could think of to blame him for, it might still have been worth it. Mr White had as good as promised to go easier on Aimee. Although whether she deserved it…

  “What am I supposed to think?” She stopped and turned on him. “Why didn’t you tell me about Nick?”

  He shrugged, meaning that he hadn’t wanted to upset her again after what she’d been through.

  Jean had formed a triangle with her hands, fingertips together framing her nose, thumbs under her chin. Above, her eyes were scrunched closed. “I’m your mother. It’s my job to protect you, not the other way around!”

  The roots of a tree had broken through the tarmac in the place they were standing. When Jim looked up, his mother was watching him. “I don’t want you doing anything stupid. I’ll get you the money.”

  He knew what she meant: she didn’t want him to steal it. Desperate that she knew she could trust him, Jim said, “I’ll earn it,” lips pressed together, hoping to disguise their wobble.

  “No need. It’s what I’d put aside for your birthday next week.”

  CHAPTER 27: SHAMAYAL - AUGUST 2010 - ST HELIER HOSPITAL

  “Man, you was well and truly screwed!” Shamayal sympathised, pacing the six feet of lino to the left of Jim’s hospital bed. “That Mr White was bang outta line!”

  “I thought so at the time, I admit, but now I’ve got a place of my own I’d be pretty pissed off if some kid burnt it down. Even if it was an accident.”

  Shamayal was surprised to hear Jim taking the man’s side. Only a minute ago, he was the enemy. “Sounds to me like you was tricked into owning up. Anyway, like he said, he was insured.”

  “Does that mean I should have been let off?”

  What the -? He’d thought they were on the same side. “The whole point was that it was Aimee’s fault. Man, why you turnin’ round and lecturin’ me all of a sudden?” Shamayal leant on the metal frame at the foot of the bed. “I’m just trying to show a little… what wa
s that word you called it?”

  “Solidarity.”

  “Right, right: solidarity. You wanna throw it back in my face, that’s up to you! You know somefink?” He straightened up and pointed. “I get what this is about: it’s about you switchin’ sides.”

  “Which side am I supposed to have switched to?”

  One of Jim’s neighbours pitched in. “Keep the volume down! Some of us are trying to sleep.”

  Perhaps it had got a bit out of hand. “You started out one of us.” Shamayal, lowered his voice, nodding his head to the window side. “Now?”

  Jim’s raised eyebrows challenged him, come on.

  The boy nodded in the direction of the corridor, where an alarm of some sort was going off. “You’re Mr White.”

  “What? Because I dared to pass the warning signs?”

  “You was stickin’ up for him a minute ago!”

  “I was playing devil’s advocate! Incidentally, which side are you living on at the moment?”

  Don’t get all incidentally with me. “Unlike you, right, I haven’t forgotten my roots!” Where was this going? He had already been told off by that fierce nurse for stressing Jim out, and he hadn’t set out looking for an argument. “So.” He navigated a 180 degree turn. “You never said. What happened to your friend, Aimee?”

  Jim’s sheet rose and fell. His voice came out sad. “The holidays came to an end. That’s what happened.”

  They were back on track. “Sometimes, yeah, that’s just the way it is. I don’t s’pose Ayisha will be invitin’ me round once I’m back at school. Fact, I don’t s’pect she’d be caught dead speakin’ to me. But you -” The boy clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “You’re sorted!”

  “I doubt it.” Teacher-Jim appeared to shrink down under the covers. “I’m not in her good books.”

  “Why d’you say that?”

  “Let’s just say she’s feeling put upon.”