A Thousand Paper Birds

by Tor Udall

  He saw her again an hour later, sitting on a blue bench set into the pagoda. He watched her quietly eating a sandwich as she stared into space. He wasn’t sure what had happened. He was glad that this woman could still feel the warmth of the day, but the whole incident unsettled him.

  13 September 2003

  How stupid to believe this month would be any different. This morning, there it was, the red stain. I sit on my usual bench, the paint still peeling, the planes still flying low overhead.

  I cradle a silence between my legs, pregnant with numbness.

  Twin boys run around the tower, clutching wands made of twigs. They remind me of my early childhood, when the summer was filled with my parents’ sunny snoozes, when the world felt small and safe.

  If I am quiet enough, perhaps this ache will pass me by . . . if I just remain unnoticed.

  What is this want and what would fulfil it? A cigarette? Some faith?

  That man at the crossing?

  Funny how these furls of smoke create a barrier around me. A little girl is playing near a twisted beech. Stripy T-shirt, pigtails, trousers rolled up to her knees. What would happen if I took her in my arms, rubbed my face against her cheek?

  Audrey wasn’t the reason Harry was there. Walking past Temperate House, a little girl had waved at him. She didn’t seem to have an adult accompanying her, so Harry decided to keep an eye out. After a while, the child stopped by the horizontal trunk of a beech, her smile irresistibly cheeky. Then Harry recognised the woman sitting with her back against the pagoda. Despite the heat of the day, she was wearing autumnal colours . . . a red jumper with a rusty-orange scarf . . . her hair like turning leaves. She looked up from her notebook to the nearby cedar of Lebanon and there it was: the distant glance of a woman as some unknowable thought passed through her like a breeze.

  She then looked at Harry. And Harry, the foolish dreamer, made his first mistake. He said hello, or good afternoon. He can’t remember which.

  14 September 2003

  When I said hello the sound surprised me, catching in my throat. His suit and tweed cap made him look artistic. I thanked him for earlier, but my voice boomeranged back into itself, spooled with too much breath and not enough volume. So I gestured: please – sit.

  The man glanced up at the sky then cleared his throat. Said no, then yes. Something about it can’t hurt – just for a while. He hitched up his trouser legs to sit down. Sturdy boots, muddy hems. On his navy jumper was the Kew logo.

  He was perhaps in his early fifties. The sparkle in his eyes, his grey stubble, reminded me of that guy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But on closer inspection, his jacket had lost several buttons. He looked like a painting in need of restoration – that at some point in his life he had been beautiful.

  ‘My name’s Harry Barclay. But, please – call me Hal.’

  ‘Audrey Wilson. How do you do.’

  There was her outstretched hand, waiting. Taking it, Harry became aware of the warmth radiating from her skin, the slight moisture between her knuckles. When he realised he was squeezing, he let go.

  Looking up at the sky for reassurance, he said, ‘Good God, look at the moon.’ The celestial sliver stood out against the broad blue. As Audrey smiled, Harry’s intimidation melted. It was as if it had been sucked away into the friendly gap between her teeth. He noticed her freckles.

  ‘Pretty,’ she said. ‘What a wonderful place to work.’

  ‘It is. But am I stopping you working?’ Harry gestured towards the yellow notebook, then noticed a pile of papers by her feet. On them were words he couldn’t understand: perhaps Russian or Polish?

  ‘I was looking for a distraction. It’s fine.’

  He shouldn’t have been talking to her – there was work to do; he looked around. But there was no one to raise an eyebrow. Did he want to pull a joke, or stare at her, stunned? He decided to exercise his tongue.

  ‘Did you know that there are over fourteen thousand trees in Kew? I particularly love the Old Lions – the maidenhair tree or Ginkgo biloba, the Sophora japonica, the Robinia pseudoacacia otherwise known as the false acacia . . .’ Her eyes were unreadable. ‘Am I boring you?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  She asked if he had always been interested in gardens.

  ‘Ignorant for years. It wasn’t until I was in the army that I learnt about veggies.’

  He had planted them in a Welsh village, during training. But then his regiment was sent to the desert where nothing grew. There was just the stench of human flesh laid out in the sun. Harry remembered batting away a fly that had landed on the tip of his rifle. Focus. Shoot.

  ‘One of the lads was a Kewite. He had this notebook full of botanical drawings. He’d heard of a conservationist collecting specimens, even under fire. But where we were posted there was damn all. Out there, he told me about these gardens – a paradise called Kew.’

  ‘So he was the one who inspired you?’

  ‘I guess after all that fighting, I wanted to be with the earth.’

  He had a curious voice that made you wonder if he had spoken. Its power wasn’t in its pitch or volume, but how the words bedded themselves into my belly. He peered into me, his gaze pulling out all the weeds, the roots, the flowers . . .

  He took out a Montecristo then joked about the medicinal nature of plants. With a silver guillotine, he sliced off the end of his cigar. The smoke smelt sweet, and I was glad to have an excuse to light my own cigarette. The pause stretched, but Harry didn’t seem to mind. He enjoyed the taste of his cigar with deliberate calm. Then he began a story. It was about the craft of folding leaves in the right order.

  Harry was trying to remember how to cross the unfathomable distance between himself and another human being. He told her how tobacco leaves are blended to create the perfect Habanos or Havana.

  ‘The volado leaf is used for its combustibility, the seco for aroma and the third, ligero, is the most full-flavoured. The slow burning of the leaf gives the cigar its strength.’

  He knew he shouldn’t get involved with visitors but he didn’t want this to end. Perhaps he was capable of more than he thought; he had, after all, saved this woman. But as he told her about the capa, the last, supple leaf that forms the wrapper, he felt like an idiot.

  I found myself looking at the crook of his thumb. He used his hands to articulate his words, and I wondered what those palms, good at growing things, would feel like on the curve of my stomach.

  We were squashed together on the narrow bench. Hemmed in by the alcove, our proximity was uncomfortably thrilling. Behind him, graffiti was scratched into the eighteenth-century brick – love hearts, initials. The boys I’d been watching earlier were running around the pagoda again. One was panting to keep up. Then Harry said I didn’t talk much. I have a hideous feeling that I might have shrugged coquettishly.

  ‘I prefer to listen,’ she said. ‘Other people’s stories are much more interesting.’

  Neither of them knew what to say after that. Harry started fidgeting.

  ‘Are you OK to be doing this?’ she asked gently.

  ‘What? Oh yes, I’ve done my shift for the day.’

  Their words flew into the distance. The silence was punctuated by the repeated click of Harry’s lighter each time his cigar went out.

  ‘I could tell you about the pagoda in the war,’ he suggested. ‘Would you like that?’

  He explained that the German bombs had destroyed many local properties, but the tower had stayed intact.

  ‘It was the British bomb designers that wrecked it. They cut holes in each of the pagoda floors, then dropped dummy shells down.’

  ‘To test how they fell?’

  ‘Yes. Bombs away!’

  She laughed, a bit sadly. ‘I can’t help thinking of schoolboys dropping paper aeroplanes.’

  ‘Do you want to try it?’

  ‘I’ll race you.’

  Harry wanted to please her. She was that kind of woman. The risk rushed to his cheeks as
he led her to the pagoda. There, he took out a large key from his pocket, the kind that would be appropriate to open a secret garden. After turning the lock, he pushed his weight against the surprisingly thin door. Checking no one was watching, they darted into the tower and stared up at the dilapidated stairs, the rotting wood, the magical shambles.

  Audrey climbed the first few steps, peering upwards. The spiralling staircase made Harry feel small, but suddenly she started to run, as if some capricious spirit had claimed her. Up and up she went, her tailored skirt hoisted, and Harry chased after her, dizzy with the backs of her knees, the underside of her heels. As the octagonal walls closed in, he was dazed and dazzled.

  They ran nine flights in all. Harry was nimbler than he thought but his heart beat against his chest like a wooden mallet. Once they reached the top, they were as surprised as the other.

  Surrounded by windows, they stared into each other’s eyes like animals. No language, but still trying, insisting, to find the reflection of themselves . . . then the stillness broke into laughter. It was liberating, unadulterated – more intimate than anything Harry could have imagined.

  Audrey brushed the hair from her face, letting the sunlight bathe her neck, her head thrown back with pleasure. Looking at her flushed features, Harry imagined her sitting up in bed, just a sheet wrapped around her. He was shocked by that. But then she glanced skittishly at the view as if daring to throw herself from the window. She stood at the top of the tower, arms outstretched, and Harry’s stomach lurched as if he was the one plummeting from the tenth storey.

  To fall or fly? What recklessness! To him, I was someone different. No history of miscarriages, just my bright eyes . . . and his. I could be anyone. I could run up stairs, make a racket. I was wide open for something not ordinary. I teetered on the edge of it – wobbly, woozy, intoxicated.

  When I turned back, Harry was grasping a stitch. Rubbing his ribs, he looked out of the window. I followed his gaze to the little girl I had seen earlier. She was leaving the beech tree. I asked him, what now? But he just scratched his chest as if he had heartburn. Then he suggested we make our way down.

  The civilised distance of strangers. I smoothed down my skirt, unsure what had happened. As I followed him, I clutched on to the railings. Rotting banisters. Rogue nails. I had left my swagger upstairs.

  The Gardens felt spacious. We strolled along Pagoda Vista, the little girl a hundred feet in the distance. When she entered Temperate House, we continued walking.

  In the Berberis Dell, Harry stopped and declared, ‘The mighty flagpole!’

  A mast towered above them.

  ‘It’s a Douglas fir from British Columbia. In 1959 they transported it – all two hundred and twenty-five feet – to Kew.’ Worried that he sounded like a tourist brochure, he wiped his brow.

  Audrey gave a courteous smile. ‘Perhaps I should get back?’

  They returned to the path that led to the pagoda, but at Temperate House, he wasn’t ready to release her. He bowed to a nearby bench.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mademoiselle. You’re looking mighty fine today.’ Christ, what was he doing? He nodded towards the inscription. ‘She sang “J’Attendrai” after D-Day. Can you see what it says? “A wonderful mezzo soprano”.’

  Audrey bobbed her head in a curtsy. As she straightened her neck, they heard crying.

  They both glanced towards the glasshouse, and saw the same young girl. One hand was held against her face; the other clutched a sunflower. Next to her, a woman with a black bob squatted down. She was rummaging through a rucksack.

  Harry’s gaze met mine. He began talking about what had happened earlier – that I had seemed disappointed when he stopped me from walking on to the road. I stammered through what I hoped was an acceptable answer: there are days when I’d like to escape my life – or to change it, but . . . Harry searched every inch of my face, then leant back as if his suit was heavy. He told me I had a lot to live for.

  When Harry looked at her freckled face, there was something vaporous about Audrey. They had spent the last hour chasing shadows. The little girl had left the sunflower, and was now walking away with the dark-haired woman. It looked like they were carrying something delicate, as if they had gathered up two wounded birds from the lawn.

  Harry was torn. He looked down and caught sight of the gold on Audrey’s hand.

  ‘How long have you been married?’

  ‘Eight years.’

  ‘He’s a good man?’

  ‘A music teacher.’

  She studied the horizon, lost in thought. Then she remembered herself.

  ‘He just started. A couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘But you don’t have children?’

  ‘What?’

  Harry managed to speak through his smile. ‘The way you looked at that girl.’

  For one yearning moment, I wanted to clutch Harry’s fingers to my belly, but a woman ran past in a yellow dress, startling us both. She was sprinting barefoot. A baby was scooped in one arm, her shoes dangling from her hand. She was calling out: ‘Emily!’ Birds flocked into the sky, panicked.

  Harry began to move, saying he might be able to help. He apologised for leaving, then told me to be careful crossing the road.

  Wait.

  But I didn’t say it out loud.

  The bathwater is cold. Chloe has reread the same pages endlessly, tears stinging her eyes. She pulls herself back to the present, listens for Jonah, but there is only the silence of the night.

  The next diary entry is a few days later.

  16 September

  The little girl’s picture is in the newspaper. Next to a photo of her mum. That yellow dress – its brightness looks wrong.

  I told the police everything I saw – Emily Richards by the beech, by Temperate House, the woman with the bob. What a terrible and enchanting afternoon. I don’t know what haunts me more: Harry’s gaze . . . or a missing girl.

  Chloe runs the hot tap, paces the room, stubbornly sniffling, then tests the temperature and steps in. Submerging her head underwater, she holds one date in her mind: that thirteenth of September.

  She had just split up with Simon and was struggling financially to commit to her final year at art college. Crashing on a friend’s floor in Chiswick, she was wondering how best to explore origami in her graduation project. It was one of those fluke warm September days that shouldn’t be wasted inside, so she packed a satchel of paper to fold in the botanical gardens. She had visited with Simon a month before, so her return was nostalgic. Not knowing the Gardens, she clutched a map with the air of a tourist.

  Beyond the lake, she stumbled over something that made her gasp: the surprise of a huge plot of sunflowers. The block of colour made her ache. She gazed up at the midday sun, the metal glint of an aeroplane, the blueness of the sky.

  An hour later, Chloe entered an intricate glass structure, labelled on the map as Temperate House. She studied the date palm, the camellias, the chillies, then stopped to read about the cinchona tree that provides quinine. As she left, she saw a weeping child at the bottom of the steps, clutching a dwarf sunflower. Chloe looked around for the girl’s parents, hoping to make this none of her business, but the child seemed inconsolable.

  ‘Excuse me, do you need help?’

  ‘I’ve killed it!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I tried to pick it, but the stem was thick and the flower started screaming. Once it was torn I had to keep ripping and ripping.’ The girl held out the broken proof of her crime.

  ‘I’m sure it’s fine.’

  ‘But Mum’s going to murder me. I’m only allowed to collect weeds!’ The girl pulled at her clothes as if she could hide the flower under her T-shirt. ‘I get it wrong all the time . . .’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t.’ Chloe looked around for assistance, but she was the only adult nearby. Squatting down, she pulled some paper from her rucksack. ‘Perhaps there’s something here that will cheer you up. What things do you like?’

  Th
e child thought for a moment, then her face reddened, as if the excitement was a rash. ‘Ice cream. Fireworks. Oh, I know . . .’ Her eyes widened. ‘Really loud storms . . .’

  ‘It was pretty blustery yesterday.’

  ‘The wind almost blew my face off!’

  Chloe laughed. ‘We could make a bird, a plane, or a boat? What do you reckon?’

  It was the most basic origami. The girl was attentive as she copied each fold, her brow creased in concentration. The end result was wonky but the child seemed pleased with herself.

  ‘Now we should sail it!’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘Why not? Every boat needs water.’

  Chloe wasn’t sure how to explain the fundamental physics. She futilely tried to tuck her bob behind her ears. ‘Where are your parents?’

  ‘Mum’s changing Daniel’s nappy, then she’s getting some drinks. I didn’t want to go to the loo, and I’m old enough to play on my own. She said she’d meet me here at half-past.’

  Bloody parents. The girl was looking at her with complete trust.

  ‘Can we go sailing? Please, miss . . .’

  Don’t they say that kids learn from experience? Chloe checked her watch.

  ‘OK, let’s have a scientific experiment. We need to make sure you’re back in time for your mum.’

  It was an awkward alliance. Leaving the sunflower on the ground, they picked up their paper boats and walked down Pagoda Vista. The girl reached for Chloe’s hand.

  Once they were at the lake, Chloe didn’t know whether to warn her.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to keep it?’

  But the girl was already teetering on the edge. She placed her boat on the surface as carefully as if she were releasing an insect. As the washi paper dropped into the water, a duck swam towards them hoping that the offering was bread. Then the boat began to disintegrate. It was a quiet shipwreck, the tiny vessel dissolving into pulp and reaching its watery grave in fragments.