The Bird's Child

by Sandra Leigh Price

  A car honked wildly from out near the pump and he leaped up as if it were his mother calling his name. I rushed to the door first, so glad to see the driver even if he was just a stranger passing through, and went out to pump the petrol. I reached up to pull my cap down, but it was gone, only my braid escaping down my back, a trousered girl pumping petrol in disarray. The man raised his eyebrows, but paid me the money for his fuel without comment and went on his way. Without a glance backward, I tucked it in my pocket and ran. But it didn’t stop that bastard’s words coming thick and hard after me, and they followed me still, an echo in my ears even here in a boarding house far away.

  Perspiration threaded down my neck as I reclaimed my seat, and Ari shifted to the edge as if he was only waiting for his chance to get away. Every time I tried to read him, he would not catch my eye. Billy perched on my end of the sofa, leaning too close. The evening’s glow somehow seemed tarnished; I wanted to turn the clock hands back to before Billy entered, back before his lips struck a claim upon mine. All I could concentrate on were the fallen flower heads, their petals strewn on the floor. They were the colour of lambs’ hearts, bleeding into the red pattern of the Turkish carpet. Red like the heart of Jesus.

  At Sunday school sometimes, if we answered a question correctly, the teacher would give us little cards with a quote from the New Testament on one side and a picture on the other. A lamb with a staff, or an eagle, bull or angel, to represent the four gospels. A Virgin Mary, auburn hair framing a serene smile, was highly covetable when she was clothed in her blue robes of heaven. But if she pointed at the red cavity in her chest, she would be worth up to at least ten other cards. Even higher in value was the heart of Jesus – red and glittering like a jewel suspended in the middle of the card, so intense that the one child who had owned it before it had been swapped to me swore it had palpitated before his eyes. I stared at it until black spots crowded my eyes, but the red ink never stirred.

  The card that was most coveted was the Holy Spirit, a highflying dove, gold rays radiating from it. I wondered, did other birds have the gift of the divine too? Was the bird singing at the window imparting a message? Could the birds themselves be the message?

  I had that card for only a day. I was walking back from school clutching at my cardboard dove, squinting at it under the wide brim of my hat, the hat my father insisted I wear from the moment I left the house until the sun went down. The golden words were shaded, so I pulled off my hat and the sun blinded me. My little sisters, the birds was all I made out, before a huge gust tore the dove from my grasp. I chased it, holding my hat, the wind always teasing me, tumbling the card from my reach just when I thought it was mine again. Then it was gone, another gust blasting it once and for all into the never-never, winging its way back to the Lord as I lunged for it and went sprawling in the dirt.

  Just then my father happened to walk past. He was always popping into the office to file a story or check with the typesetter that the headline was correct. He scooped me up, put me back on my feet and brushed off the gravel embedded in my knee. He picked up my sunhat, gave me a certain gentle look and pulled it down firmly on my head. I didn’t want to tell him why I wasn’t wearing it – he would have thought me silly running after one of the holy cards my mother took so seriously – but I was unable to keep any secrets from him.

  ‘I lost my holy card,’ I sobbed. ‘The Holy Dove.’

  ‘O Til, is just a bit o’ paper!’ he sighed. ‘We can make one at home with some glitter and glue, will be just the same.’ My father had a dancing voice, the ragged remnants of his Irish accent made everything he said sound like music.

  ‘But it won’t, Dad, it won’t be the same at all.’

  He crouched down close to my face, his blue eyes crinkled as he took his tender measure of me.

  ‘We make our own way in this world, my darling, you don’t need an invitation,’ he said matter-of-factly.

  I didn’t understand. ‘But it was the dove, Dad, the dove!’ I felt the hot tears of my frustration track down my face and off my chin.

  ‘I always thought the Holy Spirit should have been depicted as a swan, not a dove. A dove is just a pigeon. You can eat doves and pigeons, but you can’t eat a swan, those necks can break a man’s arm,’ he said, his eyes twinkling.

  ‘Dad!’ I squealed.

  ‘But a swan, there is something elegant in the idea,’ he mused. ‘In the old country a swan is holy bird. Aengus Óg loved a girl who was a swan in disguise, so to be with her he had to turn himself into one.’

  ‘Who is Aengus Óg?’ I asked curiously, my father’s words replacing my petty loss with wonder. He was filled with stories; they leaked out of him and encircled me with his love like a cloak.

  ‘He was the Irish god of love. He had a golden harp and every kiss he ever gave turned into a little bird.’ And with that he erased my tears with a torrent of little kisses all over my face.

  He took my hand, tingling from the gravel rash, and together we walked back to his office. His colleague wore a long black smudge on the side of his face where he had wiped at perspiration with inky fingers.

  ‘Mike, you remember my daughter, Matilda, Tilly?’

  Mike looked up from his case of letters and lifted the visor that shaded his eyes from the glare of the lamp, but still his eyes widened and I felt my difference, my whiteness. It made me squirm beneath my skin and I wanted to hide my face against my father’s legs.

  ‘Of course I do. Hello there,’ he said, shaking my hand by daintily clasping the tips of my fingers with his blotchy hands, the fingernails black. When I looked at my hand again, it was christened with ink. My father led me off to his desk, picking me up and planting me on his chair before giving it a gentle spin, the thrill of a turn, my private merry-go-round. He pulled out his handkerchief, the smell of starch still freshly laundered upon it, dabbed it on his tongue and patted the wound on my knee.

  ‘It’s your birthday soon, Til the Lil, what would you like to do? Have a party?’ He dabbed his tongue again and moved up to my fingers, finding ink more stubborn than blood. ‘You could invite friends, have a cake, play some games.’

  I had never hoped for a party before; it was something other families did but not mine. My mother had an aversion to guests.

  ‘Maybe a magician?’ Hope got the better of me, creeping out into my childish voice. I loved nothing more than my father’s magic, a coin from the ear disappearing on dancing fingers.

  ‘Why, I’d be happy to, but I may not be able to pull real doves from your ears … though I possibly know someone who can. How about that?’ I wanted to believe him, but even then I knew my mother’s limitations.

  ‘What about Mum?’

  Dad cast a quick eye to Mike, whose head was down as he plucked the letters from the box and placed them on the composing stick.

  ‘I’ll talk to her, love, smooth things over. Why, even her beloved Jesus loved a bit of a party, water into wine and all that sort of thing. Was fond of a magic trick, too – making the dead rise, multiplying loaves and fishes, walking on water and doing that Houdini act at the finale, escaping from a tomb. He was a bloody magician all right!’ my father teased, before his knelt down in front of me and cupped my face in his hand.

  ‘What about the greatest magician of all time, Lil? What about that? What if we could get him to come to your birthday and invite the whole town too?’ A thrilling wave washed over me. Mike stopped what he was doing and wiped his black fingers down the front of his apron. My father stood slowly and extracted a piece of paper from his pocket with a flourish and pressed it into Mike’s hands.

  ‘The Great Houdini will attempt flight here in New South Wales, this week. Can you believe it, a man flying in something that looks more like a kite?’

  I sat up higher in my chair. Even I knew Houdini was no ordinary magician. His flight would be better than the flap of dove wings. He was going to fly.

  ‘Did you get this date and places right, mate?’ Mike asked. The letter
s he had held clattered back into the box.

  ‘Of course. It’s my darling daughter’s birthday – I’d hardly not remember, now would I?’ My father spun me again in the chair, all sting gone from my scraped knees.

  ‘He’s done Diggers Rest in Victoria and the few demonstration flights out at Rose Hill in Sydney. Now he plans to fly between stops as he makes his way to ship out at Brisbane. We are on that path, unless the map is wrong, and we’re one of the few places with easily accessible fuel. My contact told me as much.’ My father spun me another rotation of the chair and the room swirled to ribbons before my eyes.

  ‘You bloody ripper! Just imagine it, an aeroplane flying over our sleepy little town. The air is the future! We could hold a civic reception, turn on the local hospitality. We could get the Oddfellows Hall set up with a decent spread, prepare a banner and the like. Keys to the town even. What do you reckon? The bloody cows in the fields and the cockatoos in the trees won’t know what hit them, let alone the sleepyheads in this town. We got to get this sheet out, let everyone know. Give them time to wash their collars and polish the silver. Think of it, the tourists will flock in. A special meeting needs to be held. Can’t let the Masons organise it – our Order of Druids will put on a reception and then some.’ My father paused to catch his breath. His excitement made Mike’s hands move faster over the trays of letters.

  ‘Did you hear that, Til the Lil? The world’s most famous magician will be flying over our town just in time for your birthday!’

  My excitement ran across my skin in goose bumps, as the letters clacked into the compositing frame, waiting for the benediction of the ink, my father’s story forming.

  ‘Can you believe it? Harry Houdini flying over our bloody town!’ He said it as if it was still not quite a possibility. We were giddy with the news.

  That morning, as my father took me down to the bustling main street, a bundle under his arm, it felt as if the town were preparing for my birthday. The date of the guest’s arrival had been ringed in every calendar in town; verandahs were swept, curtains bleached, laundry starched within a crisp of its life; cakes were baked, trees pruned, shoes spat upon and polished, dresses pressed. A banner was painted and strung across the Oddfellows Hall, the letters made large enough so they could be seen from the air.

  As we entered the hall, a lady was spreading a tablecloth over a trestle table, weighing down the cloth with lamingtons and scones and cucumber sandwiches. As she placed a jug of homemade lemonade on the table, the liquid sloshed over the side and I heard her swear under her breath. My father looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Looks beaut, Rebecca,’ he exclaimed, and the lady looked up shocked; she hadn’t even noticed us.

  ‘Mike, Stephen and his little girl are here,’ she shouted, and it was then I looked up to see my father’s workmate up a ladder, stretching a canopy to shade the table.

  ‘Not a minute too soon. Hand her up, would you,’ he called, his face red and hot, and for a moment I thought he was talking about me. My father mounted a chair and handed Mike the end of the bundle and, like a large skein of wool, they unwound it, the painted letters slowly appearing. The Ancient Order of Druids Welcomes Houdini, and beneath it, a star, a beehive, a pair of holding hands and a dove with a sprig, just like the one I had lost. My father looked down and smiled.

  ‘See, I told you I could make another one, bigger and better. The dove for peace, the beehive for industry and the hand in hand for fraternity.’

  He was right: the dove on the banner was radiant, with gold feathers painted on her breast.

  After the banner was hung, my father dusted his palms on the back of his trousers and held my hand as we walked home singing ‘I see the great mountains’.

  The whole town could not have been shinier if the King had been coming. Most of the townspeople stayed outside watching the skies from their verandahs but some lined the main street. Waiting. In our house, my father fussed over the lint on his trilby, and my mother was quiet as if she was hoping the fuss would go way. I was in my Sunday best, a cake upon the table, the frosting slowly sliding onto the surrounding plate, a wire cage protecting it from the aerial assault of flies. Time moved sluggishly in the heat, the street turning to a shimmer as everyone stood outside, shading their eyes against the brightness. Except for me. I crouched in the window frame, protected from the sun’s rays, scouring the sky like the rest of them, made jittery by the sight of a cloud or a bird or the sound of a passing motor.

  Dusk fell and some of the townsfolk went inside, the wireless blaring news. But there was none. My mother ushered me in and we sat around the table. She served our dinner as the first stars came out. But still my father waited, his eye on the horizon, as much a child as I was, hoping against hope that Houdini would still come. He rivalled the apostles with his faith. He eventually came to join us, his disappointment blending with mine. The cake was cut, but the flavour was all gone.

  I said my prayers and went to bed, my ears straining in the darkness for the possibility of my father’s redemption, Houdini’s arrival. My father had ignited the town with his story as if it was a bushfire, and now there was the strange quiet of it having passed us over. Before I went to bed, my mother came in and brushed my hair, releasing it from its tight braid, my hair a snowy veil wafting over my shoulders with the constant static from the brush. With each downward motion of the brush I could see the red threads of scars upon her arms and they unsettled me. After she had helped me into my nightgown and tucked me into bed, she smoothed the static from my hair as she said a prayer for my father, her words like a final curtain on his hopes, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen, before she kissed me goodnight.

  In the morning he was already gone to the office, the broadsheet printed by the time I walked with my brother to school: HOUDINI ABANDONS FLIGHT. TAKES TRAIN INSTEAD.

  As I walked past the Oddfellows Hall, a huge bin was stuffed with the streamers that were to have heralded a welcome. Something glinted atop the refuse and, magpie quick, I plucked it out. A brass key as big as my hand, ornately inscribed to Mr H. Houdini, in honour of his visit to our town, 1910. The key to the city in one hand and a world of disappointment in the other.

  Ari absent-mindedly fondled a key hanging from a cord around his neck before he let it drop beneath his collar. All the while Billy’s eyes never left my face.

  ‘We could get a band,’ Miss du Maurier said. ‘Or maybe, Ari, you could play the old upright? Of course I’ll have to have it tuned.’

  Ari looked from her to me as if he were waiting for a sign I did not know how to give.

  ‘It all sounds good,’ I said on cue, not wanting to disappoint. Part of me wanted to agree to anything to bring this conversation to an end. ‘Well then, it is decided.’ I stood up and straightened my trousers. ‘I’m bushed. See you all tomorrow.’

  As I walked up the stairs, I felt their eyes prickle into me and I suppressed my desire to run. As I got to the top of the stairs, I wiped my mouth, trying to erase the pressure of Billy’s kiss, my hand wiping back and forth again and again.

  The raven blinked at me as I opened my bedroom door, as if she had been expecting me. How could I have so nearly forgotten about her? I chucked my fingers under her chin as one does a cat; a low grizzle of pleasure came from her throat. I was glad of her wordless company.

  All night my lips hummed like a ghost wind on a telegraph wire. Who would have thought that two small parts of anatomy, the flesh of the lips, could stir up such a commotion? It felt as if Billy had been biding his time; all his kindnesses suddenly fell into line, his attentions little soldiers just waiting for the order. I’d felt his eyes upon me at the theatre, when we shared a shift, and I’d returned his smiles and rolled eyes, little jokes that made the shift go faster. It had never occurred to me that he had been scoping that chance moment when he could land a kiss upon my lips.

  My first kiss had spurred me onwards, as far away from it and my mother’s crippli
ng grief as I could get. But as soon as I stepped off the train at Central Station, I was as stunned as a bird that has flown into a glass window. The city roared up at me. I didn’t know which way to go. I stood on the platform, rooted in fear. What had I done? I had some money, but was it enough to pay for a room, for food? I looked down at my father’s old shoes: I’d have to replace them too.

  Light-headed, I took a wobbly step and a kindly nun asked me if I needed help. Was she thinking I was about to throw myself on the tracks? She suggested I find a boarding house run by a respectable matron, just the thing for a country girl like me starting work in the city. I couldn’t correct her; what work did I know of, what work could I do? Pumping petrol, cleaning windscreens, selling maps and giving directions. How could she tell I was from the country? I hardly had a piece of grass hanging from my lip like a scarecrow’s cigarillo. Then I realised the indicator board had given her the information. She bid me farewell and blessed me, her well-meaning words feeling like a shackle.

  Pinned to a noticeboard at Central Station were advertisements for boarding hotels, pensiones, hostels, but how could I determine which were the ones run by respectable matrons and those that catered only to bachelors? I scribbled down a few addresses and made my way down City Road, the dust from the cars and carts blowing up into my mouth, a light rain turning the dirt to mud.

  The first address was opposite a vast park across from the university, but I took one look at the young men lolling on the doorstep smoking and found my feet moving onwards of their own accord. The next address was a few blocks up, above a public house; the raucous singing from within pushed me onward. Mercifully the rain had stopped, but it had managed to soak me right through. I took a turn into a small side street, the footpath as wide as my forearm, the front of the houses crouched on the side of the road. As the sun burst through, the children of the street ran back outside and resumed their game of cricket, an old crate making their bat and stumps, a bundle of rags bound with rubber bands their ball. I was about to ask them directions but they stared at me slack-jawed, so I thought better of it and hurried on. A stone sallied through the air behind me and clipped my shoulder, spinning me onward through the maze of small tangled streets so I had no clue to where I was. In the distance I could hear trains rumble, and I walked in their direction as if they were my compass. When I found them, they ran parallel to a row of terraces, wet washing hanging limp across the balconies like a sodden parade, until the line of them broke and opened up into a small park, a green handkerchief of grass framed by large swaying figs.