He nods vigorously. “Yes.”
“Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”
“No.”
Her face is set; just her gaze moves to the bag. “Did you bring what I told you?”
He nods again, squeezing his hands.
“The knife too?”
“Uh-huh.”
With this she clambers from the eucalypt, landing inelegantly before him. Leaves spin down around them. “Are you afraid?”
He shakes his head, but she seems unconvinced. “If you are,” she warns, “you better leave now. You better not cry like a baby.”
“I’m not afraid,” he assures her, although he suspects he is. He wants to tell her he has run away from home, but he worries she’ll laugh at him. He knows there is something ridiculous about the notion of running away. “Kneel down,” she orders, and he promptly does so; the earth is slimy beneath his knees. Nicole kneels beside him and puts her hand on the grave. The soil shows no sign of having been disturbed, but the weeds Nicole had cast about are withered and bleached, contorted as bones. “Repeat after me,” she tells him: “O bird, give me strength.”
“O bird, give me strength.”
“Let me fly.”
“Let me fly.”
“Let me see things that are hidden from other eyes.”
“Let me see things hidden from other eyes.”
His own eyes are shut tight, in imitation of hers. He sees, in his blindness, a ghost of the tree, a ghost of the grave. The earth is clammy, the skin of a fish. His eyes flutter open when he feels Nicole stand up. The poncho makes her lean and limbless, an obelisk. Her face is waxen and bears no expression, the face of a child saint. She turns this emptiness on him. “If we find them,” she says flatly, “everyone will pay attention to us.”
Adrian gets to his feet, the satchel tipping him like a toy. He has the sudden realization that she is friendless, as he is, that her days are one long exercise in whittling time. But then he thinks this cannot be, that he must be very wrong. “Come on,” she says, nudging him into motion. “We must begin.”
He walks alongside her, dusting weeds from his hands, the satchel slouched on his rump. Except for the gravel gritting underneath their shoes, the park is utterly quiet; already the sky has grown noticeably more dim. There are fewer birds pecking amid the shaved grass, and a haze of midges is gathering for the night. He glances at his companion, who walks like an undertaker, head down, evenly, her hands behind her back. “Where’s Joely?” he asks, and his voice is as disturbing as nails on a blackboard against the silence of the field.
“At home. We don’t need her.”
He nods in agreement, though he does not agree. It would be more like a game, if Joely were here.
“Besides,” adds Nicole, with a drop of poison, “she would be scared.”
They’ve reached the most distant point of the track – if they continue to follow it, the path will curve and wend them back in the direction of home. Without hesitation Nicole steps off the gravel, into the surrounding trees. They’re following the route they took the day they first met, weaving past the same trunks, toiling up the same hill, and now, as then, she is leading, born to command. Tall weeds and dropped twigs litter the urban forest, and swipe at Adrian’s shins; foggy air lurks beneath the umbrella of canopy, shiftless and stale. A bird in the branches caws threateningly and the children shamble sideways, fearing an attack. “Come on,” Nicole urges, “there’s not much time!”
She storms up the hill and Adrian scrambles after her, hampered by his bulky clothes and the ballast of the satchel and by the slippery, rutted incline. They grab saplings to stop themselves sliding backward; Nicole’s tasselled poncho flaps behind her like a heroine’s cape. He lurches and slithers, his legs protesting, his hands scratched by trees – then the forest’s abruptly finished, the hill subsiding suddenly flat, and before them, beneath a gelid sky and behind the silver wirework of fence, spreads the garish green and blueness of the local swimming pools. Nicole, breathing hard, hooks her fingers through the wire. Her sooty eyes flit from pool to pool, across the lawns, past the kiosk and swings. “She’s near water,” Adrian hears her whisper. “There’s water.”
He presses his face to the fence, feeling the steel gouge his cheekbones. Uneasily, he thinks she could be correct – there’s no reason for them not to be here, in this wintry, closed-down place. “What are we going to do?” he asks.
“Go in. Find them.”
He squints dubiously. There’s a char-headed ibis prowling the path leading to the kiosk, but otherwise the complex is deserted. It will stay that way until summer, when the grass will brown off and the loudspeaker will crackle, and laughter and splashing will carry through the forest and over the park, right into Beattie’s backyard. “The gates are locked,” he points out, somewhat gladly. “We can’t get in.”
“Yes we can. Climb the fence.”
He gazes up, and up. There’s a string of sagging barbed wire threaded along the top of the fence. The wall of cyclone fencing shimmers and wavers, pretending to be frail. It can be climbed – Rory has told him how, as a teenager, he and his friends often climbed this fence on balmy nights, to swim like seals in black solitude. Adrian can’t imagine his uncle doing such things – his uncle’s fingers in wire, his uncle’s feet in the grass. “What if we get in trouble?”
“We won’t,” Nicole answers firmly. “Who would get mad, if we find them?”
Adrian swallows. He peers again at the lawn, the seeping shadows. From this distance he can see the doorways of the locker room and toilets, but he can’t tell if the doors are bolted or padlocked. Anything might be in those buildings (anyone). He has only an imperfect feeling for passed time, but he knows the Metfords have been missing for weeks – long enough for them to be changed, to lose their childlikeness, to become something other. He imagines the Thin Man leering over them like an owl, he sees shapeless piles of clothing and fallen bone. The more Adrian stares at this windblown stretch of ground, this lonely, out-of-season place, its pools like cavities, its buildings like caves, the more clearly he understands that the children cannot be anywhere but here. This is the place they always were, there was no other place they could go, and he is filled with a freezing dread. “Maybe we shouldn’t,” he suggests. “Maybe we should tell someone…”
Nicole shies from him, disgusted. “You’re frightened!”
“But – what if the man is there?”
“He won’t be.” She’s scorning. “I thought you were my friend, Adrian.”
“I am, but—”
She prods him in the shoulder. “If you don’t come with me,” she hisses, “I’ll hate you for ever. I’ll never speak to you again.”
He ogles her in panic, his fingers aching on the wire: his blood feels as though it’s changed to oil when she pulls away and starts to climb. The fence rattles and shudders as she claws her way up, rippling like a tune. She will climb to the top and then into the clouds, and he jigs about in dismay. He can’t, he can’t, get left behind. He can’t go home without her, he cannot lose somebody else. He’s not shocked to discover he’s abandoned his plan, that he’s no longer even pretending to be running away – he always knew he wasn’t that boy, who could take his life in his hands. But he cannot, he simply cannot, go to sleep tonight knowing Nicole has spurned him, that he’s now completely alone. “Wait!” he yelps. “Wait for me!”
He forces the rounded toe of his boot into a diamond-shaped gap in the wire and hauls himself clumsily off the ground. The satchel pulls on his shoulders, a chunky kernel of gravity, but he can’t throw it off – he’ll need the knife and the scarf and possibly the cherub. Nicole climbs like a monkey, her long hair swinging at her elbows, her narrow feet finding the gaps. She is nearing the top and halts only briefly to ponder the barbed wire. Adrian knows it won’t dare hinder her and it doesn’t, she snakes past it, and although the poncho catches in half a dozen places she unhooks and unsnags as if this difficulty is all p
art of the fun. By the time Adrian reaches the peak and works his careful way over it, Nicole is close to the ground. At the height of the fence the wind is strong and the wire wobbles and sings: Adrian clings to it with hurting hands, thinking that, were he brave enough to look around, he might see his grandmother’s house. He picks his way down the reverse of the fence and drops to earth exhausted. He straightens his coat and adjusts the satchel, noting that the sky is very sombre now – within the forest there are pockets of absolute pitch, and even the fence fades into the distance, camouflaged in the gloom. He rubs his crooked fingers, wishing he could put his mittens on, knowing that, if he did so, Nicole would laugh at him. He slumps beside her, miserable, while she stands on her tiptoes to examine the complex. The two smaller pools, drained of water, look condemned and desolate. The kiddies’ pool has rotting leaves in the corners, a river of rain in its gully. The square pool, Adrian’s favourite, has what seems to be a tree sprouting from its tiled floor, a muscular branch with leaves and twigs that’s too big to have blown here on the wind. The branch’s leaves are wilted but green: something living has carried this branch and propped it here, and not very long ago. This strange but definite sign of life, standing like a signal, full of secretive meaning, crimps Adrian’s forehead with worry. He is afraid – of quicksand, of tidal waves, of burning, of night; he fears monsters, cupboards, being forgotten, going astray – and now he’s fearful of a branch. “I think we should go,” he says.
Nicole answers, “They are near water.”
Except for the rain-river in the kids’ pool there’s only one place of water. The adult pool spans the horizon, impossibly long and wide. Adrian knows it is deep at both ends, even the end that’s supposedly shallow. His waggling feet have never scraped the aqua tiles which shine up from the depths. This is the serious pool, where laps are swum and races are run and athletes dive from numbered blocks – all these being things he cannot do and he supposes, in a way, he’s also scared of the pool. This evening it appears massively benign, restful and sweet-smelling as a pond, making no movement beneath its off-season cover. Scattered across its plastic coat is a drift of orange leaves. The ropes that tether the cover to the edge creak placidly against the tiles. “Come on.” Nicole elbows his ribs. “There’s not much time.”
They weave down the hill towards the big pool, Adrian lagging behind. The pool looks peaceful, the cover lies still, but there could be a whale lurking under there, some viscous creature born from the stagnant liquid and months of solitude. He wonders what flesh looks like after it has been in water so long.
The ibis has raised its curving beak and is gazing at them. Brushing through the buffalo grass, Adrian’s toes clip Nicole’s heels.
The children stop on the footpath, where they can hear the water sigh. The tiles and the concrete and the smoothness of the land make this place colder than anywhere, and Adrian wraps his arms round his chest. Nicole picks up a pebble and flings it across the big pool. It bounces twice with dull twacks on the cover before spinning to a halt. She grunts, interested. To Adrian’s disconcertment, she trots over to the square pool and retrieves from its basin the wayward branch, which she drags after her to the big pool. Her progress leaves a rent in the grass, and two or three loosened leaves. Adrian watches, hair blowing in his eyes. Nicole hoists the branch above her head and, with effort, launches it at the big pool. A wave reverberates through the cover as the branch skids and rolls and the ropes around the perimeter are yanked and splashed but the plastic holds, and the branch does not sink. It stays where it stops, the leaves trembling. Nicole chuffs, delighted, clapping her hands. Without a word and before Adrian can protest, she has stepped over the brink of the pool onto the cover, onto the winter water.
She takes several slow paces, sliding her feet, her hands hovering up from her sides. The ropes strain at their moorings, lifting the plastic hem clear of the water. The girl turns a slow circle, hardly daring to breathe. “Look!” she marvels. “Look at me!”
Adrian crouches at the tiled perimeter, chewing his nails, cautiously impressed. Nicole stands on bandy spread legs, the water rollicking gently. She concentrates on her balance, watching her feet. A thin layer of liquid has flooded the cover, puddling where she stands. Her knees knock and she lurches, the cover heaves like something waking from sleep; regaining equilibrium, she lifts her eyes to him. “Look!” she calls. “They’re near water, I’m near water!”
He smiles weakly, longing for her to return to land. The tiles, blue as sapphire, give off a hum of cold. Evening is staining the sky, a watercolour of smoke and cream. When he can’t resist the words any longer he says, “Nicole, you better come back…”
She ignores him, as he knew she would. She quakes her way across the pool until she’s separated from him by a quivering expanse. She is nearing the junction where the four giant pieces of cover meet, rope stitched along the seams like thick cotton thread. Adrian sits straighter, sees water sliding past the joins. “Nicole,” he says, and she flips a careless hand. The ibis is disturbed by the sounds and the scene – a sough of air makes Adrian glance over a shoulder to see it lift heavily into the sky. A buckle on the satchel’s strap taps his chin, sending a shock through his jaw. The ibis swoops past the concrete cactus, climbs high to clear the monkey bars. Its neck is sinuous, plump as a bean, its long legs trail like ribbons. It is no longer a white bird, but grey. When he turns to look again at her, Nicole has reached the centre of the pool. “Nicole!” he calls.
She has her back to him, and the tassels of her poncho are dripping. “Everyone will pay attention to us,” she says. When she slides her foot across the plastic, a wave of water curls from her sneaker. At the sewn-up crossroads of the cover the plastic will be weaker, the surface tension breakable, and only the ropes will be holding her up. “Nicole!” he cries.
It makes him cross when she takes another step. Frozen and frightened, annoyance makes him momentarily warm. He thinks she knows the peril she’s in, just as he thinks she knows everything: when she persists in walking on water, he thinks she is simply showing off. Crossness is the final thing he will feel for her.
She drops between the plastic seams with scarcely a splash. The rope stitching yawns, then swallows her, then comes together again. This is done calmly, as though water were sand – if anything, the cover is more motionless when she’s under it than when she was above. Adrian reels back from the edge, his hands coming up to his face. The slumping satchel unbalances him and he trips, legs everywhere, an elbow striking the path. He glimpses smudged sky, dandelion near his nose. He staggers to his feet and can hardly believe she’s gone, though he’s alone as if she were never here.
A sound comes from him, the fractious wail of a bird. From his shoulders spread two broad pale wings. He flies across the plastic, towards the vanishing point. The water sloshes under him, swelling into waves; he feels it splash his ankles, saturating his feet. His arms flail behind him as he runs, his hair streams from his eyes. His running legs are leaden, as if they ploughed through snow.
He cannot leave her: he cannot do nothing. A good boy unto the end, he can not go home without her. So he tries.
The water takes him gladly.
He has no fins or wings.
It is worse than cold.
He opens his mouth to scream, and water rushes in. The satchel is a boulder strapped across his back. Inside, he feels the cherub drown, its kick of rage and fear.
The water is darker than the darkening sky. A black shroud presses against his face and his teeth clamp together in wool. Nicole turns and wavers and turns again. The poncho is a sail that takes her down.
His feet, kicking, touch nothing. His hands, outstretched, touch nothing. His blunt fingernails do not find rope. The cover of the pool seals the line between water and oxygen. He butts against it, but it does not lift.
Later, the cover will wrap him like skin. He’ll float in still liquid like something not yet born, like something only waiting to be born and begin.
The ibis lands, swirling gnats through the air.
Beattie answers the knock on the front door. For a second or two she fails to recognize the slim balding man who stands in the gathered darkness, and her face remains unwelcomingly severe; recollection makes her bob her head in a friendly but uncommitted way. He feels her aloofness and smiles awkwardly. “I’ve come to relieve you of my daughter,” he says. “Nicole.”
“Nicole?” She knows this is one of the girls from over the way, but has no idea which one. “I don’t think she’s here.”
“She isn’t?” The man is surprised. “She said she was coming here.”
Beattie sets her mouth, switching on the porch light. In the gauzy illumination of the globe she sees how the weather has ruffled the man’s scalp so the flesh there looks scalded and raw. She calls into the house, “Rory!”
Her son appears, not immediately, in the doorway of the den, and nods across the hall to the visitor. He recognizes their neighbour without difficulty, having watched him through various windows. Beattie is curt, for this doesn’t interest her. “Rory, have you seen the little girl, Nicole? She told her father she was coming here.”
So Rory is the first to know it, and it’s he who frowns and must say, “I thought Adrian was going to Nicole’s house.”
The burble of the television fills the silent gap which follows, but still it is a gap, and still it is silent. Inside it, each of them thinks of the Thin Man: they think of children who are not found.
Beattie’s gaze coasts along the floor and climbs the height of her son. She turns her head painstakingly, as if she is in pain, as if she is keeping shattering pain at bay. Later she will say this was the moment when she understood what had happened, that she’d turned her head knowing exactly what she would see. What she says now is, “Rory, bring my coat.”
What the Birds See Page 12