Flight of a Starling

by Lisa Heathfield

  I know they might see, but I have to go to him.

  “Lo,” Tricks calls to me.

  “I’ll be a minute,” I say, waving him away.

  As I walk across the grass, Ma and Rob’s bare skin lifts away from me and I see only Dean. He half waves when he sees me, but he hesitates. Maybe he’s unsure about coming closer to our homes, maybe unsure whether I’ll want to speak to him after last night.

  I meet him by the wall. “The pikeys won’t bite,” I say, nodding to my family far behind me.

  He looks like I’ve slapped him. “Ben’s nothing to do with me.”

  “You didn’t exactly do much to stand up for us.”

  “I did. After you’d left.” He reaches out to try to hold my hand, but I pull my arm away. “If I’d said something when you were there, it would’ve made things worse.” I look away from him, concentrating on a tree breaking through the pavement, its leaves hanging high over the road. “Honestly, Laura. What you saw yesterday was nothing. Ben kicks off all the time, on anyone.”

  “And no one does anything?”

  “Not everything about my world is good.”

  I look up at him, and I want him to know that I’m sorry for my spikey words. I know he hears me. No one has ever looked to my very bones.

  “I was hoping we’d go to the river again,” he says.

  “I haven’t got time,” I say, my barriers completely gone. “After pack-up we’re moving on.”

  “I want to come and see you, Laura.”

  “How will you, though?”

  “I’ll drive, it’s not far. I’m insured on my mom’s car.”

  “You’d really come?”

  “Of course,” he says.

  I want to kiss him, and I wonder if he would kiss me back, if we weren’t here where people might see. Instead we stand, our fingers touching.

  Dean looks at me. “How will I know where you are when I get there?”

  “We’re pitched right next to the sea. You won’t be able to miss us.”

  “And I just come in?”

  “I’ll look out for you,” I say.

  “Which is your van?”

  “Terini,” I say. “It’s written above the door.” And Dean nods.

  “But be careful.”

  “Lo?” The shout echoes out toward us.

  “Tricks isn’t happy,” I say. “He likes us all to pull our weight.”

  “I promise I’ll find you,” Dean says.

  And he bends his head down slightly and kisses me quickly on the lips.

  I want to take this moment, trap it tight in a bottle.

  “Lo!” I hear Tricks shout again.

  “I have to go.”

  I move my hand from his, and I have to walk away from him. From the boy who makes my blood spark in a way I’ve never known.

  I look back and he’s still standing there, his hands in his pockets.

  I wave, but it doesn’t feel enough. Nothing does, as I turn from him again and walk back to the mess my family has become.

  The inside of the car makes my head ache. It feels like the doors have trapped me inside, moving me on when I’m not ready yet. Taking me to an unsteady place, when I want to stay with Dean.

  Everyone else is happy. My dad is even humming to himself when we first spot the sea.

  “There it is,” he says, as though no one else has seen it. Rita reaches over the gap between us and squeezes my hand.

  Dad glances at us in the rear-view mirror.

  “Everything all right, Lo?” he asks.

  I can’t tell him anything, about Ma, about my moon-rock boy and the secrets I’ve given him.

  “She’s just a bit worried about Gramps, is all,” Rita says.

  “Gramps?” Dad asks.

  “That he’s getting older.”

  I can tell that Dad is surprised, that he wasn’t expecting it.

  “Better to be getting older than younger,” he says, trying to take the thoughts away.

  “I don’t know,” Ma says. “Getting younger would be OK.” She’s there, with Rob, her skin young enough for him. I have to close my teeth together to stop myself from screaming.

  “Will it be warm enough to swim?” Rita asks.

  “Only if you want to freeze to death,” Dad says.

  “I can hear seagulls,” Ma says. She leans forward to look up through the front window. Above, I see just one bird floating, its white wings wide. We’re close enough to see the tips of its beak slightly parted. If I could turn small, I’d clutch onto its back and tell it to fly me to Dean.

  Our car turns onto the grass, following the one in front with its van attached. I can see the edge of Tricks’s car, where Gramps likes to travel. I know he’ll have the tin of sugared sweets on his lap and he’ll be making shapes with the crinkled wrappers in his hands.

  I can smell the sea as soon as I get out. And I can hear it. Dad walks around and puts his arm over Ma’s shoulder. She doesn’t pull away.

  “It’s good here, isn’t it?” he says.

  I don’t want to see the lie in her face. Instead, I turn to Rita, needing to do the handshake that we always do when we arrive at a new place. But she’s already walking off to where Ernest has parked Terini.

  Rita

  Magic happens when we set up our site. Before, there’s just a blank stretch of grass and then slowly everything we need seems to grow out of the ground. When we used to be too tiny to help, Lo and I would sit and watch as the frame of the big top was winched up. It was our robot, so tall its head was almost in the clouds, webs of metal waiting for clothes. The stacks of chairs a thousand teeth waiting to eat the flatties whole.

  It’s windy today and the tent is struggling against us. I thought it’d like it here, with its view of the sea.

  “I think it wants to swim,” I tell Ash, as we help haul it and hold it in place.

  “The tent?” And he laughs at me, shaking his head. Rob appears and instantly the air feels electric.

  “We could sail on it to Norway,” Ash says. He doesn’t feel the change, and I wish I could stop myself noticing too.

  “Wanting a holiday?” Rob has a deeper laugh than Ash, and it creeps happy under my skin.

  “Never,” I say. Ash finishes looping the rope and stands straight.

  He’s almost as tall as Rob, but next to him he somehow looks like a boy again. “Are you going to come and watch Carla on the pier?”

  “Her silver woman statue?” Rob says.

  “She’s good at it,” Ash says, defensive of his mom. “Sarah is going to do it too.”

  “I can’t come,” Rob says. He touches my arm so quick that I wonder if Ash even sees. I feel it, though. “You all go and tell me what you think when you come back.”

  “We will,” I say.

  “Enjoy,” Rob says and I try not to let his smile touch me, not in front of Ash.

  We watch him as he walks away.

  “I’ve seen my mom practicing the statue. It’s really good,” Ash says, as Rob disappears around the side of the tent and I try to pretend that I don’t feel empty.

  “She’ll be great, Ash,” I say. But I don’t want to be here. I want to have followed Rob and still be by his side.

  “You OK?” Ash asks.

  “Of course,” I reply. He doesn’t seem to notice my stage smile. I don’t want him to ask more, so I turn from him and run across the grass and up Spider’s van steps and already I’m banging on his door.

  The wind catches underneath the clouds as we walk along the pavement by the sea. Lo’s strange mood has left her, and she jumps onto Spider’s back and he runs with her, darting among the flatties walking by. They don’t seem to notice the blackening bruise on his cheek, uncovered by greasepaint.

  Ash reaches for my hand, where it’s usually comfortable, but instead I take the band from my hair and spend time doing and undoing my ponytail.

  The pier stands steady in the water, busy with lights and noise that creep up on us as we get closer. />
  “What’s up, Rita?” Ash asks. His question rocks the air slightly, and I don’t like it. It leads me toward thoughts that rub awkwardly against each other.

  “Everything’s fine, Ash.” And I link my arm through his. “The beach is beautiful, isn’t it?” The sand reaches so wide to the sea, with only a few people walking on it, wrapped thick with clothes.

  “What are they doing?” I laugh, watching as Spider stumbles from the steps onto the sand. He doesn’t fall—he never would when he’s holding Lo. Instead he walks like a drunken man, zigzagging across the beach.

  We follow them, enough in time to see Lo jump down and throw herself back into the sand, her arms and legs moving in arcs around her.

  “A sand angel,” she laughs as we get to her. Spider lies down next to her, copies her every move. Sand splashes up into his face and paints his bruise speckled, as he spits the grains from his mouth, blinking it out of his eyes. Lo puts her hand out for me, and I pull her up.

  “It needs a bit of work,” I say. Ash runs down to the shore, not close enough for the sea to grab him, and he comes back with a trail of seaweed.

  “For your angel, my lady,” he says to Lo, laying it across her sand figure’s head.

  “Don’t I get a crown?” Spider asks as Lo pulls him up. She holds her head down and shakes the cold grains from her hair.

  “You get this.” Ash picks up a broken plastic cup and balances it carefully on the sand where Spider’s head was.

  “Nice. Thanks,” Spider says, wiping his hands against each other. He bends down and picks up the cracked cup, filling its good half with sand. “For you,” he says, throwing it. Ash runs just in time, so Spider scoops up more. He’s not as tall as Ash, but he’s quick.

  “Your lovely laugh,” I tell Lo, looping my arm through hers. I don’t want to tell her how much I’ve missed it, how the walls of our room have felt stripped and empty the last few days.

  “Let’s leave our footprints,” she says.

  And we hold each other as we stand together, one foot each pressed side by side into the sand.

  There are still people on the pier, even though the summer is behind us and here the wind from the sea feels even stronger on our skin.

  “There they are.” Lo points to where Carla and Sarah sit twisted together on a mat, their silver feet arched over their backs, nestled next to their silver hands.

  “They look freaky even to me,” Ash says. People gather around them, but not too close. A woman bends down to a child and together they throw a coin into the hat by Carla’s mat. Slowly, she untangles herself, points her legs straight in the air and balances on one arm, her other stretched out to the side. And she stops and doesn’t move as she and Sarah wait.

  “That’s gonna hurt,” Spider says, glancing around and waiting for someone to throw more coins in. The muscles in Carla’s arms shake under the silver paint.

  “She’s got herself in a right mess now,” Ash says. “She can’t hold that forever.”

  Lo steps forward and throws in a coin. Carla’s eyes switch quickly to her and away, the briefest tip of a smile on her lips. She turns her body crooked like a knotted branch, comfortable now without muscles burning, waiting for more cash to fall onto the mat.

  Lo

  The flames in the barrel burn slowly. I sit with Rita close by my side, our backs to the murmuring traffic. If I threw a stone from here, it would almost land in the sea. It would have to fly over the thin promenade and the stretch of beach, but it might make it.

  “I did,” Rob says. “I once swam on Christmas Day.”

  “You never,” Tricks says, the fire flickering yellow and dark on his cheek.

  “When I was twenty-one.”

  Every word Rob says tacks onto me. I want to love him again, but his voice grinds sharp under my skin. It’s the lies dripping from it. The fact that I don’t even know who he is any more.

  “Do you remember the last time we were here, Lo,” Spider says. “You swam out to sea holding a cotton candy.”

  “I remember it,” I say.

  “Your toes and knees bobbed above the water,” he laughs. “The pink fluff was bigger than your head.”

  “We used the stick for a flag for our sandcastle,” Rita says.

  “My sandcastle, I think you’ll find,” Ash says. “But I never got the credit for it.”

  He leans forward with his arms on his knees, his fingers linked into each other. Spider pokes him in the ribs, but Ash is too quick and topples him backward off the log.

  “It’s a beautiful night,” Spider says, lying on his back, his legs sticking up to the sky.

  “Who was the boy, then?” Tricks asks me.

  “What boy?” I ask, but in the firelight my heart begins to beat quicker. He knows.

  “The one you were with.”

  “Lo’s not allowed a friend?” Rita asks.

  Spider pulls himself back up, using Ash’s arm to steady himself.

  “Who is he?” Tricks asks.

  “Dean,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. Trying to show them he’s someone I can be proud of.

  “Where did you meet him?” Rob asks. I don’t see why he needs to know, but I know I have to stay calm.

  “At a fountain,” I say. It feels like my secret is drifting out of my reach.

  “Does your dad know?” Tricks asks.

  “There’s nothing to know,” Rita answers for me. “It’s past tense. He’s from the last town.”

  “Your dad will kill you if you keep seeing him.” Ash is quieter this time.

  “Ah, young love,” Rob says. I think he might be trying to help me, but I hate him for it. I should be grateful, but instead I take the image of him with my mom and push it down into the flames.

  “Who’s in love?” It’s Dad. I hadn’t heard him on the grass.

  “No one,” Rita says.

  Dad sits down next to Rob.

  “You got yourself a girl, Rob?” Dad asks.

  Rob laughs awkwardly. “Chance would be a fine thing.”

  I can barely breathe because my dad can’t see the knife his friend is slicing clean through his heart. I know I can’t stay sitting here, not when anger burns in me so hot that I’m scared about what I’ll say.

  “I’m going to bed.”

  “Already?” Spider asks me.

  “You coming, Rita?” I reach out for her hand and she gets up.

  “I suppose so.”

  “You don’t have to.” Ash looks disappointed.

  “It’s fine. I want to,” she says.

  “Night, Dad,” I say, as I lean down to hug him close. “I love you.” I scramble over the log, without saying anything to anyone else.

  “Night all,” I hear Rita say.

  “See you in the morning.” Rob is the only one to reply.

  The dark air wraps cold around us as we head away from the fire. My thoughts are skittering, but at least I know that Ma is not with Rob right now. Maybe Dean is right, that it was just once, a strange mistake.

  Back in Terini, Rita and I are quick to change and get into bed. The colder evenings bite our skin if we take too long.

  “Lo?” Rita’s voice filters down in the darkness.

  “Mm.”

  “I need to tell you something, but you’ve got to promise me you won’t tell anyone else.”

  “OK.” My mind darts to Rob and Ma again. Does Rita know? Do we already share the secret?

  “Say you promise,” she says, the serious in her voice settling with my heartbeat.

  “I promise.”

  “I think I love someone as well as Ash.”

  I didn’t expect these words. “Who?” My mind flits to Spider. And Dean. But she can’t love Dean.

  “Rob.”

  “Rob?” Twists of cold touch my skin.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Rita.”

  “I’m not. I think he likes me too.”

  “Stop joking. I’m not in the mood.”


  “I’m serious, Lo. And I don’t know what to do about Ash. About any of it.”

  The air now buzzes thick between us. Too many thoughts block the blackness.

  “I’m not listening anymore,” I say, pulling my duvet tight around me, over my head so I can’t hear.

  But doubts and fear still creep in. My Rita and Rob? My sister with him? I slam the duvet away from me.

  “Why do you think he likes you too?” I ask. “Have you done anything?” But I don’t want to hear the answer. I don’t want to know any of it.

  “No,” she says and relief pounds through me.

  “It’s just a stupid crush, Rita. With a stupid flattie who’s waltzed in here with his big ideas, making out he’s some special guy who wants to save us.”

  “But you love Rob too.” Her voice is tiny.

  “He’s pathetic. I wish he’d never found us.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do. And I also know that he doesn’t love you, and he never will. It’s all in your mind, Rita.”

  There’s a silence and now I know she’s crying, but Rob’s name hangs like a wall between us, and I don’t go to her.

  “I just needed to talk to someone about it,” she says.

  I stand up and run out of the room, unlock our front door and stand unsteady on the steps. They’re cold on my feet. Above me, the sky is a sparkling black.

  Maybe this is what it’s really like to fall from the edge of the world. Maybe I want to. Rob’s unpicked the stitches of my life so I’ve nothing to stop me from letting go and tumbling off. I could untangle my thoughts up there, fall into the dark sky and never come back.

  But I imagine Rita holding out her hand. My sister who’d walk tightropes of fire for me and would never let me go. So I reach up to pluck a star for luck, snatch it in my palm, before I open the door and go back inside. I step one foot on the bed’s ladder, risking the witch’s nails, and pull myself up beside her. She doesn’t try to hide her tears.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she says, her words breaking.

  “It’ll be OK,” I say, stroking her hair. I can feel where her tears cling to it.