A Thousand Paper Birds

by Tor Udall

  Jonah’s vision becomes slurry. He doesn’t know how to grieve for their three children, or the child that may have come, but a new realisation shocks him like a wave crashing against his body, like being swallowed up into the dark belly of a fish. Audrey is never coming back.

  The girl has sat up. ‘The Bird Man’s here.’

  Jonah props himself up to see an old man with a red bucket standing by the lake. The man’s whistle is hurting his ears. Wiping the goose shit from his sleeve, Jonah glances towards where he wants to be. ‘I’ve got to be going.’ He gestures towards the moorhens, the birds blurring. ‘Why don’t you go and talk with your friend?’

  ‘The Bird Man? He’s busy.’

  ‘Right.’ Jonah aches to be alone, sitting quietly on Audrey’s bench. ‘I’m going now, so . . .’

  ‘It was nice to meet you.’

  ‘Yes. Bye, then.’

  He takes a few paces, then looks over his shoulder to see the little girl walking towards the Palm House. He continues his journey towards the other side of the lake while the coots and mandrakes scramble for grain. The heron holds its stillness while the other birds flap and fluster, the sky full of screams.

  Milly is trying to make Harry laugh. She pulls a fish-face, then waggles her fingers through the railings of Victoria Gate.

  ‘Ta, ta,’ she calls.

  ‘Wait, luv, please. You mustn’t talk to him. You’ve no idea how much damage you could cause. Believe me.’

  She walks across the pedestrian crossing, pretending she can’t hear.

  An ice-cream van stands on the corner. Harry halts when he sees the boy on the skateboard then feels the usual lurch in his stomach. Milly stops too, her shoulders caved into love-struck shyness. They both listen to the continuous rhythm of the wheels sliding along the pavement, the challenges the ten-year-old sets for himself. It’s like clockwork every day, as if he is marking time, procrastinating from homework. Wearing a tracksuit hood, passers-by don’t see James Hopkins’s eyes, but Harry knows what is scratched on to his retinas: that moment of screeching tyres, the look on Audrey’s face before her head hit the windscreen. Back and forth he skates, chasing demons, and Harry wishes this kid would turn to Milly and explain the impact of collisions. But, tired of being ignored, she ambles away.

  In Kew village there’s a bookshop, the health-food store, the butcher and the fishmonger. People are browsing postcards or eating al fresco. Harry catches up with Milly as an overground train from East London pulls into the station.

  ‘Please, luv, you mustn’t talk to strangers.’

  ‘He’s not a stranger. He’s called Jonah.’

  ‘Milly, he’s . . .’

  ‘Lonely. He needs a friend. Besides he has time to talk to me, not like that boy on the skateboard, or the Bird Keeper. Please, Da—’

  ‘How many times have I told you? You shouldn’t call me that.’

  A tide of tourists washes in and out, like a sea dappled with litter. A woman in a bright-blue dress pushes through the smog of people.

  Milly tugs on his hand. ‘Look! We’ve seen her before.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘With Jonah.’

  The sway of blue silk reveals the shape of the woman’s limbs, as if the body beneath is offering an invitation. Harry looks away.

  ‘But, perhaps I’ve met her before. And before that.’

  ‘Are you sure, luv?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’ Her expression brightens. ‘How about I ask Jonah?’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’

  Harry’s voice slaps the smarting air. Immediately regretting it, he pats her hand. He has an awful sense that consequences are unravelling, that there is some momentum that he can’t comprehend, and God, that dress is beautiful. The electric blue contrasts with the girl’s crow-black hair. Distracted by the silk, it takes him a while to realise that Jonah has probably sat down by the lake. Perhaps he has already noticed that the redwood is a slightly different shade, or the back of the bench lower. He might have turned around and seen the inscription.

  1901–1960

  Andrew Mattings

  He walked these paths often

  I am a foreigner here. This is what Chloe thinks as she stands by Kew’s wrought-iron gates. Despite the familiarity of her surroundings, her feelings are untranslatable, as if she has been transported to the centre of Hong Kong and is now staring up at the flashing billboards, a world of unknowable symbols.

  Here is her love letter. It is not made of words. It is a dress worn especially so he can watch it fall. Later he will unzip the back, let the straps drop from her shoulders, and the fabric will flutter down to her ankles. Worn on various occasions, it has always been a success. If fabric could speak it would tell its legends: The Multiple Adventures of a Blue Dress.

  She thinks back to Saturday morning, when Jonah sang a Bowie tune under his breath. Wake up, you sleepy head. Put on some clothes, shake up your bed. Touched, she had joined in. She teased out his resistance, encouraging him to sing louder, until he began bashing the keys on the piano. She danced across his living room, singing, ‘No room for me, no fun for you,’ until he spun her around, caterwauling in time with her. They made such a racket the neighbour knocked on the wall.

  They made love on the piano stool. Afterwards, she wondered if he knew something had shifted. Surely he must have been able to tell by now that she grew a centimetre or two whenever she was with him.

  He ran a finger from her nose to her belly. There was sadness in it.

  ‘You’re better than you think,’ she said, ‘as a lover, a musician.’

  He raised his hands. ‘I don’t know if I’m cut out for—’

  ‘You could give private music lessons? Or run a project at a community centre . . .’

  ‘You mean, like you – “Art for underprivileged youths”?’

  ‘Kids aren’t really my thing.’ She stood up then looked over her shoulder. ‘Let’s go out for breakfast. I’m starving.’

  ‘What just happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He looks at her questioningly, but it’s not long before he gets fed up with waiting. ‘I’m seeing my dad this morning. Sorry.’

  She knew by his face, he was lying. Something she had done had turned off a switch. She imagined him spending the day flicking through TV channels, his legs jerking.

  As she was leaving, she stopped by the door. How many kinds of love letters are there? She had never sent a sentimental text, or kissed a man’s toes, or run a bubble bath for him after a long day’s work.

  ‘How about Monday?’ She tried to keep the hope out of her voice. ‘We could celebrate Beltane . . . dance the maypole?’

  ‘Great.’

  Jonah threw her a backward wave as he walked to the bathroom.

  Chloe took the tube to Tower Hill, where she had brunch with Claude. Over brioche he talked about his admiration for a famous photographer, and took a call from a girl named Natalie. Chloe stared out of the window, telling herself that all she was feeling was a chemical imbalance, a flush of hormones. All she’d ever wanted was a man to give her space; she should be ecstatic.

  Despite her attempts at nonchalance, Chloe spent all morning getting ready. She now stands at the entrance, feeling overdressed, nervous. She waits at the corner so long that she begins to worry that she looks like a prostitute. While she stands stock-still, she thinks about movement. She has always adored rocking horses and swings, the sweep of a paintbrush, making love: different kinds of momentum.

  ‘You run away,’ her ex, Simon, had said. ‘You run away, so you can come back.’

  He is twenty minutes late. Chloe walks towards the visitors’ centre where staff are selling cards, plants and bath oils under a bright, artificial light. The gates will close within the hour, but she doesn’t want to start their date with recriminations. Instead she thinks about the space between them. Her art teacher told her not to focus on the objects within a still life, but what lies between the bottles, bowl an
d pear. Relationship is found in the distance. Jonah said as much when he spoke about rhythm. What is the right distance to maintain the thrill? she wonders. How close, how far apart? Chloe stares up at the campanile by the entrance. The Romanesque-style tower has a monastic air, as if the arched glassless windows should house a clanging bell. It’s getting late. She scrolls down to Jonah’s number on her phone.

  ‘Hello? It’s me.’

  ‘Hi.’

  She can hear him walking; he is probably rushing towards her right now.

  ‘Are you almost here?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Victoria Gate,’ she says steadily. ‘We agreed to meet. Remember?’

  It sounds like he has taken the phone from his ear. Muffled footsteps.

  ‘I’m sorry, Chlo. Something’s come up.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  A pause. ‘Look, why don’t you wait in my flat? The key’s under the green flowerpot. I’ll be back.’

  ‘But . . .’

  He has already hung up.

  Chloe looks down at her carefully chosen handbag, the red shoes chafing her heels. What is she doing here? She can’t bear to let the entrance staff know she has been stood up, so she walks in, flashing her membership card. The man in the booth stares at the backless scoop of her dress.

  She holds herself steady as she walks to the Palm House and climbs the steps. When she eases open the heavy glass doors, the heat hits her like a rainforest. Vast and fluid, the space drips with vines and bananas. She breathes in the damp, woody scent, the sheer aliveness, and when she looks up at the enormous fans of the Attalea palm, she remembers all the times she has come here looking for rescue. White steps spiral up into the foliage, towards the ceiling of glass. This will help her for a while at least, this bath of light, leaves and warmth.

  Once he hangs up, Jonah continues searching with the sweaty panic of an abandoned child running through a supermarket. Just forty minutes ago, the lake had looked the same, the red osier dogwood was still behind him, but Jonah sensed at once that he was in the wrong place. When he finally looked over his shoulder, he saw Andrew Mattings’s dates. He walked across to the nearby seats and found one plaque for a forecourt gardener. Another simply stated it was ‘Mum’s Bench’.

  He looks around, dazed. It’s as if he’s forgotten where he’s parked his car. Walking chaotically from bench to bench, he drifts away from the lake and loses his bearings. He chastises himself for not visiting the Gardens for nearly a week.

  He has lost Audrey all over again. He should have been here, stewarding his wife’s memories – not singing and shagging. Another bench.

  Do rest a while as she often did

  to gain thoughts and pleasure.

  Where is she? It’s almost closing time, and the Kew constable will be herding people out into the rush-hour traffic. Perhaps it’s this one.

  In memory of my wife

  Bertha Trauss

  and the happy hours we spent here

  Who the hell places these benches? Perhaps they’re shifted to make room for the mowers. Jonah stumbles upon two benches choreographed to form a gentle encounter in a glade. Others have the best view of Syon Vista, seats perfectly placed for the sun’s movement through the day. Here is a circle of benches facing inwards, a gathering of Second World War veterans, but Audrey is nowhere near. Jonah wants to drop to his knees and shout her name. As the day stretches into evening, he continues walking, searching for one bench that looks exactly the same as the other thousand that are here.

  Chloe has been waiting in Jonah’s flat for two hours, watching the sky turn. Uncomfortable in an ever-tightening dress, she debates whether to leave, or make supper for Jonah’s return. As she texts Claude to see if he’s free, she can’t shake off the feeling that Audrey’s photographs are staring. She deletes her words and studies the many moments of a marriage. She notes the endearing gapped grin, the tailored clothes, then enters the study, hoping to discover a wife’s bad habits.

  There are names on the walls: Bella, Amy, Violet. Chloe picks up a book, then puts it down, then takes another, rummaging through the shelves. She knows it is wrong, but she wants to understand this ghost of a rival. Flicking through translations and folders of invoices, she finds a hardback book in a box-file, bound in hardy yellow fabric. As she opens it, memorabilia tumbles out: a feather, a ticket stub and a cigar band with the famous branding of Havana. On the first page are handwritten words.

  I can hide inside you. And in your warm places I will write you love letters and tragedies . . . and you can post them out to the world.

  Don’t turn over, don’t read any more. But Chloe can’t take her gaze away from the italic. It is a confident, expressive hand, the indigo ink stylishly slanted. Jonah told her that he’d searched through Audrey’s personal belongings, but this was in a file of copy about a Russian cosmetics company. Chloe struggles with the idea of sharing her discovery: this ex-lover who’s barged into their lives, triumphant and surly.

  The heat rises in Chloe’s body. She glances at the door then gingerly peels back a corner. Careful not to make a fold, she glimpses the next sentence.

  H understands. It’s only with him that I don’t feel a failure.

  Hesitantly, she flicks through the pages and finds a scan of a baby. She can make out the feet, the dome of the head. This is trespassing. But still she turns over to find thick, black pen.

  WHO IS HARRY BARCLAY?

  Thumbing through the book, she finds the question again and again. Chloe sees the decision in front of her as two visual choices. The first is the door to this study. She can return the diary to its hiding place, go and cook spaghetti. While the pasta boils she can decide how to tell Jonah, yet cover up the fact she’s been snooping. The second is a treacherous door. Chloe tugs on one of her cuticles, then turns to the final entry.

  26 May 2004

  Today I’m going to find Harry.

  A Sheet of Paper (can become many things)

  12 March 2003

  Why haven’t I told him? I almost said something this morning before he went to school, but . . . I want to write about the Gardens.

  The crocuses are out. There was an old Buddhist monk standing at the ice-cream van, buying two Mr Whippies. He was bent over, counting out change. He looked ancient.

  Beyond the entrance, a younger monk was sitting cross-legged among the crocuses. With his saffron robes and shaved head, he looked like a statue – but he was VIBRANT. He must have been waiting for his teacher, but it looked like he was meditating, peace saturating his face. He was surrounded by flowers.

  As I walked past, our eyes met. He gave me the most beautiful smile – the world seemed to bend with the joy of it. I wondered if he knew my secret . . . if he had divined the gentleness in my womb. Hush, I thought. Don’t tell.

  I sat down under a tree and did the maths. I am six weeks pregnant. I know there’s nothing to feel but somehow I sense it – like wings quivering in my womb. There is a fluttering, thumping bliss in my belly. I don’t know how to describe it, this ELATION.

  I pray that what they say is right. Third time lucky.

  It is ten in the evening. Jonah hasn’t returned; perhaps he is getting drunk, or sleeping with someone else. Chloe is still sitting in her blue dress, under Audrey’s shelves. She stretches out her legs, notices some stubble on her calf, then crosses them again.

  14 April

  I dreamt about you. It was the day of your birth and you were exhausted by the struggle of becoming – the shock of life, your first day of breathing. You were so small.

  My parents visited – and J’s dad too. Everyone walked out a different person – melted, shaped, reinvented by the miracle of you.

  There was lilac on the walls. But J says I shouldn’t paint the study yet. What does he know?

  Chloe walks to the kitchen, pours a whisky and swallows it neat. There are still Post-it notes written by Audrey on the fridge. As she picks up the diary, a fragment of cardboard drops to
the floor, torn from a cigar packet. On the back is scribbled in ink:

  Meet me at the pagoda. Midday Tues. Yours, Hal.

  During the night, Harry is restless. He nudges furniture this way and that, but stubbornly leaves Audrey’s bench by the pagoda. Acutely aware that she hasn’t returned, he drags other seats to the exact spot where visitors can bask in the setting sun, or notice the symmetry of an avenue of holm oaks. He places one bench under the rhododendrons so people are encouraged to smell the ‘King George’, a hybrid created with specimens from the Himalayas. Visitors might even become still enough to hear a nuthatch or a woodpecker. Harry would love to talk to these strangers, but doubts they will listen.

  After moving a bench to the Woodland Glade, he sits down, taking in the quiet majesty of the trees, their constant compassion. This mysterious place breathes for the city. As the damp from the rotting slats seeps into his trousers, Harry remembers a bench he found earlier, decorated with blossom. It marked the anniversary of a mother’s death. At Christmas, relatives will often place wreaths or mistletoe, and it’s palpable, the love of those remaining . . . and the hungry distance between absence and presence. Probably no one will remember this moss-covered bench, but the wood still tells its story. It’s reminding Harry that trees can be reincarnated into a seat or a coffin. A sheet of paper, a piano, a weapon . . .

  A branch breaks. Then another. The footfalls are too heavy for a fox or a badger. A man stumbles through the dark. As the intruder navigates his way past unexpected trees, Harry sits as still as a plant.

  Jonah lumbers into one of the clearings. He runs his fingers along a bench’s inscription, then another. Harry looks up at the sky and awaits God’s judgement. What else could love have done? he asks. What? Tell me.

  Jonah moves on, but for hours he searches. It is dawn when he stands by the waterlily pond, where soon the lilies will unfurl. In this tender light, a white birdhouse shimmers. The swamp cypress has catkins and cones, both male and female flowers – and between this tree and a man is a memory. As Harry hides behind the New Zealand flax, he doesn’t know that Jonah once stood here with Audrey; but he senses that the habits of humans are no different from those of birds. All creatures migrate home, and this is a place where Jonah once found relief, not knowing that in less than a year Audrey would be gone.