Birdseye

by Máire Fisher

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right there, Bird?’ Annie had asked.

  ‘Quite sure, Mom,’ I said. ‘I promise.’

  ‘Hang in there, Birdie. We’ll be home soon.’

  ‘Send Granny and Gramps my love. And lots and lots of love to Dad.’ I hung up the phone.

  I reached the landing and looked at my watch. Dirk Stone’s dead eyes blinked in my brain, but I forced them away. I could only deal with one of the monsters in my life at a time. Another ten steps and I was at Ma Bess’s door. I put the tray down on the small table and knocked.

  ‘Come in.’

  I opened the door, picked up the tray and carried it into the room. Ma Bess blinked sleepily. ‘Well, girl,’ she mumbled, ‘what are you waiting for? Pour it.’

  I poured the hot chocolate carefully, making sure I drained it to the very last drop.

  I steadied the cup on its saucer and passed it to her. She took a tiny sip. Pale-brown milk rimmed her mouth and she reached for the napkin in her lap and dabbed her lips.

  ‘Off you go,’ she said to me. ‘Be back here in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘What for?’ I asked.

  ‘To get me ready for bed.’

  ‘Get you ready?’

  Ma Bess sighed. ‘What exactly is the matter with you, child? Your mother would have me believe that you’re bright. “Older than her years,” she’s said to me often enough, “with such an imagination.”’ She laughed shortly. ‘What is it she sees in you that I don’t? All I see is a silly little teenager.’

  ‘Annie didn’t say anything about getting you ready for bed,’ I said. ‘She told me everything I had to do, but she didn’t say anything about bedtime. Can’t you do that yourself?’

  Ma Bess laughed. ‘Do it myself?’ she said. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  I felt the tug of her undertow, dragging me down, and I thought how easy it would be to let go. Let her have her own way.

  It had all seemed so clear-cut on my way up the stairs. I wasn’t going to take any more from her; I was going to stand up to her, tell her not to speak to me like that. But now that I was here, I found myself floundering in the twisted mess she always managed to create in me. How many more times would I stand in front of this chair and allow her to humiliate me? Knowing she would always get the better of me because that’s who she was.

  She raised her cup and sipped again. If I didn’t grab my courage and act now, I never would. I turned to the place in my mind where Oz and Ollie usually sat, but they weren’t there. It was her and me.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  She stared at me. Then, ‘No? What is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means no. I’m not going to undress you and get you ready for bed.’

  Ma Bess said nothing.

  ‘You’re perfectly capable of getting up and looking after yourself,’ I said. ‘Mom thinks you can’t manage, but she’s wrong. If you wanted to, you could manage just fine. You just like having us jump when you tell us to. Get yourself undressed. And if you don’t want to do that, then sit there, in those clothes. I’m not your slave. I don’t care what sort of deal your sick mind thinks it’s made with my mother and father. I’m not doing anything more than my mother asked me to do.’

  My words were dervishes, bright sparks whirling in the gloom, and I felt like whirling too, faster and faster and faster, pulling Ma Bess into the vortex with me, spinning until all that was dark and heavy and cruel fell away from her.

  ‘Stop!’ She raised her arm as if she’d like to hit me. ‘Who exactly do you think you are, girl?’

  ‘Amelia!’ I yelled at her. ‘My name is Amelia. Not Girl. My family call me Bird, so do my friends. So make sure you never do.’ The words poured out, untangling all she had tangled and made impossible. ‘You’re not family. You’re not a grandmother. Grandmothers are supposed to love their grandchildren. Tell them stories, walk on the beach with them, show them shells and tell them the names of birds and listen to them when their parents are too busy. I have a real grandmother and she does all of those things. And it’s only to help her, so that Annie and Orville can be with her, that I said I’d do this. Believe me, if it weren’t for that, I’d be nowhere near you.’

  She sat, silent, unmoving, her feet flat on the ground in their elegant shoes, her hands loose on her lap.

  I drew breath.

  She lifted her cup, sipped, then placed it on the saucer on the side table. ‘Finished?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I haven’t even started.’

  ‘Well, now, that’s just too bad,’ she said. ‘Because I’m finished with you, young lady. Now help me up. I’ll decide what to do about your behaviour and tell your parents my decision when they get home.’

  Everything she’d said, everything she’d done, shifted in my mind, arranging and rearranging itself, settling eventually into a crazy pattern, making awful sense.

  ‘You don’t care, do you?’ I said. ‘You don’t care about Mom or Dad, or any of us. You might have been able to save the boys, but you didn’t care about that either. All you care about is yourself and who’s going to prepare your next meal, or collect your boring library books, or bring up your mail. And thank God Thelma got away from being here every night just to bring you a stupid drink, and in the kitchen at daybreak making your ridiculous breakfast. And you don’t care that Annie stays here because she feels you need her. That she’s tied by some sort of twisted sense of duty that keeps her running whenever you snap your fingers.’

  Ma Bess’s eyebrows were raised, her voice cool. ‘Of course I don’t care, you stupid child,’ she said. ‘Why should I? When you’ve left this house and are earning your living, you can make judgements. But until then, I’ll thank you to keep your ideas to yourself. No one wants to hear the ramblings of an overwrought teenager.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Don’t try that. You’re not getting away with that again.’

  Play her at her own game, Bird.

  I looked at my grandmother, sitting bent and malevolent in her wheel-chair, and I knew exactly what I was going to do.

  7

  Saturday morning and time to make Ma Bess’s breakfast. I turn to the stove and start cooking.

  I am judge and jury and the verdict is in. Dirk Stone may be beyond my reach, but my grandmother can still be punished. She is going to suffer.

  You’re not going to win this time, I think as I break an egg into boiling water. Her bacon is crisping in the pan, the bread is sliced and ready for the toaster, her mushrooms and tomato are under the grill. I arrange everything on a plate, and as her bell rings loudly in the hall, I open the kitchen door and step into the early-morning cool of the back garden.

  I look to my tall tree, my ship of the skies, and wish I could climb to the top branches and never come down. Sway with the breeze high above Marchbanks as I did when Oz and Ollie were alive and I was six years old and life was happy. Instead, I raise my shovel and let it bite into the earth.

  Saturday evening and I’m in the kitchen again. Everything revolves around feeding the woman who jabs her bell and thumps her cane on the floor. Food, food, food. To keep the strings of flesh alive. To feed the spitting mouth. A small fillet of sole, rich sauce, carrots, cauliflower cheese and rice. Thick yellow custard is cooling in a jug near my elbow, next to an airy sponge pudding. A thump from far above. I look at my watch. It’s 8.15 and dinner is late. Time flies when the culinary mood is upon me. More muted thumps. I go out into the garden and take the spade from where it’s leaning against the tree. I dig a hole. So far I have dug three, one for breakfast this morning and one for lunch. The hole I dig is deep and narrow. I hum as I work, sweat running down my face. The food is cool to the touch now. I scrape the plate clean. Out here, I cannot hear any noise from the cane, but there’s a rhythmic thud-thud-thud inside my head. It pulses in time to my song:

  ‘Bye, bye, blackbird …’

  I look at the spots in among the fynbos. No one will ever suspect that Ma Bess’s breakfast an
d lunch are busy composting the earth around them. I stop and listen but the garden is silent. I wipe the shovel clean and leave it where it belongs. Then I walk up the path, back to the kitchen to page through recipe books for tomorrow’s meals.

  There is no turning back.

  Soon Orville and Annie will be home, and Ma Bess will accuse me of trying to starve her to death. But I know what to do when that happens. I will open my eyes wide, all innocent, and say, ‘I don’t know what she’s talking about.’ Just as she did to me. I know the power of denial, and I’m going to put the lesson to good use.

  If I have to, I will show Annie the evidence of the meals I prepared, the wrappers in the bin, the recipe books open on the table. ‘She’s been a bit confused,’ I’ll say to Annie and Orville. ‘Muddled. Shame.’ I will look wounded and innocent and widen my eyes and bite my lip and look sad that Ma Bess could even dream of accusing me. ‘I can’t believe she’s saying those things,’ I’ll say. I’ll storm from the room and slam the door behind me. I’ve learned a few tricks from the old hag. And this time my power will be stronger than hers.

  I go into my bedroom and tidy my bookshelf – all the old favourites are here, soft-spined in my hands. A thousand small chores to keep my hands busy and my mind away from the noises above me. Finally it’s time to go to bed. Turn off the light and let sleep drown out the sound of her anger.

  But when I go to bed, I dream. Ma Bess is wizening, getting thinner and thinner until all that is left of her is a husk. I want to blow her away, but I can’t open my mouth and there’s no breath in my lungs and Annie is there and she’s saying, How could you, Bird, how could you, and Orville’s there too and he doesn’t say anything. He looks at me with his sad, sad eyes and then he lifts his camera and shoots pictures of me from all angles as if to prove that this strange species that is me really does exist. The crust of Ma Bess sits in her chair. Blue eyes still ablaze, a smile splintering the shell of her face.

  I wake up late Sunday morning. I look at myself in the mirror, bleary-eyed and groggy, and I shake my head. I can’t do this any more, not for another whole day.

  I’ve put myself in a terrible position. I’ll have to lie to Orville and Annie, convince them I fed her. And what happens if they can’t get back on Sunday evening? What then? I didn’t think this through. I imagined Day One vividly enough. But not Day Two and possibly Three.

  I don’t feel guilty about not feeding her, I really don’t. I want her to suffer, to be left alone and vulnerable and hungry with no one to hear her. But I don’t want her to starve to death.

  It’s too late for breakfast, so I set a tray for tea and open the cake tin. One of Thelma’s fruit cakes, still intact. I am ravenous. I haven’t eaten properly since Friday lunchtime, so I cut a wide slice and wolf it down. I wash the rich taste from my mouth with a glass of cold milk and then I climb the stairs, balancing the tray. Warm cosied teapot, the merest shaving of cake.

  Her portable telephone is where I left it, on the table outside her door. I put it on her tray. I place the key in the lock and turn it. I knock.

  I am hardly through the door and into the murk of her room when she begins.

  ‘Well, madam. What do you have to say for yourself?’

  I have two choices. I can bluff this out, or I can crumble.

  I place the tray on the table next to her chair and slot her phone onto its cradle.

  ‘What’s that?’ I ask.

  ‘You heard what I said, girl. Don’t be insolent.’

  ‘I’m not.’ My voice wavers and I follow the instructions she has been giving me for years. I stand up straight, lift my head, meet her cold stare. ‘It’s just … I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did you have a bad night?’

  Ma Bess opens her mouth, but I barrel on.

  ‘I’ve often wondered, you know,’ I say conversationally, ‘what it must have been like for my brothers. Left alone in a dark cave. No food, no water. No one to hear their cries.’

  ‘Not one more word,’ Ma Bess says, her voice a hiss. ‘How dare you, you nasty little—’

  ‘Bitch?’ I supply mildly. ‘That’s the word you used the other day, you know, when you were talking about your sister. Kitty. That was an interesting chat. Almost as interesting as your pretending to know nothing about my brothers. All alone in a dark cave, waiting for a killer to come back to them. And all the while you knew where they were. I wasn’t going to say anything to Detective Ace, or Orville and Annie, because if I did, I knew you’d lie. Just like you’ve lied your whole life.’

  Ma Bess leans forward, her hand up, but nothing is going to stop me now. ‘But I’ve changed my mind,’ I say. ‘I’m going to take my chances. Call me a liar, tell them I’m hysterical, do whatever you want. I’m telling Detective Ace every little thing you said about Oz and Ollie. I’m telling Annie all about her Aunt Kitty in England. And when you,’ I jab a finger at her, ‘say I’m upset or that you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you know what I am going to say? I’m going to tell them that you’re the one who doesn’t know which way is up any more. And,’ I jab the finger again, ‘you’d better fucking well go with that version – because I reckon your extreme negligence may have caused my brothers’ deaths.’

  I push the tray towards her. ‘Doesn’t that make you an accessory to murder?’ I ask, my voice suddenly light and chatty. ‘Eat up. I don’t think the food in prison is that great.’

  Ma Bess’s hand is still up and she’s running her tongue around her teeth as if they don’t fit in her mouth. She is flushed, and a thrill of triumph runs through me. I’ve got to her. At long last.

  ‘Don’t try contradicting me,’ I say, ‘because I’ll deny whatever you say. And this time round they’ll take the word of a healthy teenager over that of a sick, confused old woman.’

  She opens her mouth and I hear a grating sound coming from deep inside her, rattling its way upwards. Ma Bess surges to her feet and lunges forward, her arm stretched out, palm flat and ready to strike. Her eyes burn blue-black.

  I leap back and press myself against the wall.

  And then, I watch as she falls. A long slow topple. She hits the soft carpet, the hard floor beneath, with a thud.

  I stay pinned to the wall, my head screwed to the side, not wanting to turn my face and look down at the dark line of her body.

  I wait for her to speak.

  The room is silent.

  I lean forward, force myself to look at her. I have to call the doctor. I have to tell him whether she is still breathing.

  I take one step forward and my knees buckle under me. I try to get up, but I can’t make my legs work. So I crawl to where my grandmother lies. I touch her arm. Still warm. I feel for a pulse, but there is only the wild fluttering of mine, beating on her wrist.

  One breath, I tell myself. And then you can take another. Breathe deeply and close your eyes and when you open them she’ll be sitting in her chair snarling at you, and you’ll be cowering against the wall wondering why you thought you could ever fight her and win.

  After five deep breaths, I force my eyes open.

  She is still there, her face blotchy, her teeth snarling a white ghost smile. Her dress is rucked up on her thighs. I pull it into place.

  The rest of her, I leave.

  8

  I walk downstairs.

  I look at my watch and pick up the phone.

  My voice is calm, quiet, as I tell them she is dead.

  Annie wants to know if I am all right. I say I am and ask what I should do. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘Poor Bird. You’ve had a terrible shock. We’ll phone the doctor from here.’

  A pause, and then Orville.

  ‘Bird.’ It’s good to hear his voice. Even from far away he feels solid and real. ‘I’m phoning Mrs Franco. She’ll come and collect you. You aren’t to stay in that house alone. Do you understand?’

  The receiver clatters as I replace it on its rest.

  I stand at the mirror. Outside it is overca
st and the sky is low. In the dim light of the hallway I can just make out the squares of family photographs, framed and hanging on the wall behind me, the faint outline of the door into the sitting room, the pale paint a soft shimmer in the cloudy light.

  She’s dead.

  I look into the mirror, but I can’t see myself. I raise my hands to the glass and feel for my face. It’s there, I know. Sharp chin, wide-set eyes. Trapped behind the high forehead is a small girl who used to flit and flutter and wing her way around the house. I breathe onto the glass, looking for the fine mist to show I am still alive, but my nose is clogged with the smell of dry bones and damp earth and the food Ma Bess did not eat.

  ‘She’s dead,’ I say to the cold glass, slipping my fingers over the slick surface.

  Suddenly Dr Woods is there and he goes up, alone, and looks at her. He comes back down with a small square of paper that says in his untidy scrawl that Ma Bess is dead of a massive stroke, at least that’s what I suppose it must say, because that’s what he says to me. Massive stroke. And had anything happened to upset her, he asks, and I say she gets – got – cross quite easily. It didn’t take much. I tell the truth, but not all of it. And then my legs are wobbly, as if my knees have vanished, and I find myself sitting on the bottom step of the stairs and Dr Woods is bending over me, ‘Amelia?’ and reaching into his bag for pills and going into the kitchen and holding out a glass of water. ‘Swallow these, and you’ll feel better,’ he says, and ‘It’s been a terrible shock.’

  The doorbell is ringing again and there is Rafi, and Mrs Franco, and Rafi’s saying ‘Don’t worry, Bird. I’ll pack you a bag,’ and outside the sun hurts my eyes. And ‘I’m sorry,’ I’m saying ‘sorry’, and the doctor’s talking to Mrs Franco, ‘I’ll get hold of the undertakers, speak to her parents again,’ and I’m saying ‘No, no, please don’t. Annie asked me to leave everything as it was. She’ll be home tomorrow,’ and then the doctor’s going and I’m standing on the garden path with Rafi and Mrs Franco, and the soft light and colours of Sunday are swimming around me and my legs give way again.

  The next thing I know it’s afternoon, only it must be Monday because Rafi’s in her school uniform and she’s telling me Annie and Orville have arrived and they’re waiting to take me home. She comes around and hugs me tight and I want to say hello to her, but I can’t. Mrs Franco’s saying Dr Woods has left instructions. I have to take it slowly, rest a few days. I’ve had a terrible shock, she says, but I don’t feel shocked. I’m numb. As if I’m watching myself from far away. On my way out I see Paolo, and he smiles at me and stops, but his mother hustles him on and says, ‘Poor Bird, she’s exhausted,’ and I hear the roar of his bike and then he’s gone and it feels like he kissed me a long time ago, on a different road, in front of another gate.