Birdseye Read online

  He was so easy to talk to. He wanted to hear about Oscar and Oliver, gave me a chance to talk about them. He just sat and let me ramble on, adding an occasional ‘hmmm’ or ‘that must have been so hard’ or ‘shame’. He could see why I felt the way I did, he said, he’d also experienced loss. Knew what it was like to hold people in his heart and not want to let them go. He hadn’t, of course; I learned that later. He hadn’t had a brother or sister walk out the door and never come back. No family member of his had ever vanished into thin blue air.

  ‘I didn’t know it was an interview,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry Mom, Dad. He didn’t write down a single word. He was so nice. Told me all about being a journalist.’

  ‘And it didn’t dawn on you?’ Orville asked. ‘That he wasn’t here just for the fun of it?’

  ‘It should have, I know,’ I said, tears filling my eyes for the umpteenth time that day. ‘I should have thought. It was just that, talking about Oz and Ollie felt good. A relief.’

  Orville put down the paper. ‘A relief?’

  ‘Yes, well, you know, Dad, Mom. No one ever wants to talks about them any more. And when I do, it’s like I’m scratching at a scar and it will be my fault if the wound opens again …’ I trailed off. ‘But you’re right. I was stupid. I didn’t think. I’m old enough to know better.’

  ‘We can’t get them to retract it?’ said Annie. ‘She’s under age. He had no right.’

  ‘Well, actually …’ I said, heat flooding my face.

  ‘Yes, Bird?’ Orville said. ‘Actually what?’

  ‘I might have given him the impression I was a bit older. When I told him about going to university next year.’

  ‘But Bird,’ Annie said, ‘you’re only in Standard 9.’

  I sighed. ‘I know, Mom. I just wanted him to take me seriously, not see me as a kid, especially when I was asking him about being a writer.’

  ‘Well, he certainly did that,’ said Orville. ‘The Little Boys are not lost,’ he read aloud, his voice dry. ‘Despite the fact that they’ve been missing for nearly ten years, Amelia Little (her friends and family call her Bird, she told me) maintains stoutly that her brothers are still alive. “I know they are,” she said, when I interviewed her at Marchbanks, the family’s gracious home situated high on the mountain overlooking the sea. “They are alive in my heart,” the young girl said, her face shining with the light of love, “and until someone can prove otherwise, they are alive in the world. When they come home, we’ll be ready and waiting. We’ve kept their place safe.”’

  I cringed. It had been bad enough reading the article for the first time, seeing myself described as a slip of a girl, with earnest grey eyes and a small smile quivering on my lips as I spoke about my brothers. Hearing Evan Sparks’s words again, Orville stressing each syllable of the sugary, sentimental prose was even worse. I stood to leave, but Orville waved me back to my seat.

  ‘This is the sort of faith that fuels the fires of hope,’ he continued, ‘the deep sense of knowing that will never let that hope die.

  ‘But how do these families cope from day to day?’ Orville went on, inexorably. ‘How does loss shape their lives? Amelia Little allowed me a small glimpse into a household devastated by grief.’

  ‘Stop!’ Annie said. ‘No more, Orville.’

  Orville folded the paper and placed it back on the table. Oscar and Oliver grinned up at me – Sies! had done well when it came to sourcing photos for the piece.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ I said again. ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘I know, Bird,’ he said. ‘But you did, and we’re all going to have to live with it. You have to learn that you can’t trust everyone.’

  ‘Madam?’ Thelma’s face was troubled. ‘The Madam has read the newspaper.’

  Annie sighed. ‘Of course she has.’

  ‘Yes, Madam,’ Thelma said. ‘Bird must go upstairs now and collect her tray. I said I would,’ Thelma looked at me with pity, ‘but The Madam said no, she wants Birdie.’

  I pushed back my chair. Orville and Annie’s crushing disappointment in me had settled like lead in my heart, but it was nothing compared to the heaviness I felt in my legs as I walked to the door.

  ‘Orville,’ Annie said. ‘She’s been through enough. She didn’t mean—’

  ‘Yes,’ Orville agreed. ‘Bird, sit down. I’ll speak to your grandmother.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘this was my mistake, my mess. You’re always telling me actions have consequences, and I have to take them.’ I swallowed. ‘Whatever they are.’

  Funny how things tie together. At school we were studying the martyrs, men and women who were, Sister Juliana said, prepared to die for their faith. ‘Girls, how many of you would be prepared to do the same as St Valentine, now? Poor darling man, beaten, stoned, beheaded and, yes, pierced to death by the arrows of love. Love for God, girls, love for God, not the carnal lust of cupids all over the mucky cards they sell every year in February.’

  Well, Saint Valentine had nothing on me. Ma Bess had a full armoury at her disposal, and she was busy choosing her weapons as I ascended the stairs.

  ‘Right then, Bird.’ Orville patted me on the arm as I passed his chair.

  ‘Right,’ I said and headed for the lair.

  43

  Whenever I’m in her room I hate having to look at her, but when I do, I wonder if she ever sleeps. I know she hardly eats, but does she sleep? I don’t think so. Once the house is snoring and we are deep in our dreams she opens her eyes. She rises from her chair and wafts from the room. She doesn’t need food, or sleep, because the night is her feeding time and we are her feeding grounds. She slips into our rooms and hangs above us, head cocked, eyes half closed, her heartbeat slow as she scans our dreams. And then, if what she sees and hears pleases her, she bends a little lower, sucks our dreams away and leaves us flat and empty.

  ‘Wait,’ she called out when I knocked on the door. I heard shuffling, a rustle, and the familiar creak of turning wheels.

  ‘Come in,’ she called, and I opened the door. My eyes went straight to her fingers, tap-tapping on the newspaper open on the table beside her. Her hands weren’t as shapely and slender as they used to be. The knuckles had thickened, the fine skin had loosened, speckled by small greyish-brown freckles. Old age was nibbling away at her, faster and faster.

  ‘Come closer, girl.’

  I walked up to her chair, close enough to notice that her hair had just been cut and coloured. But no amount of careful hairdressing could disguise the thinning at the crown, prevent glimpses of white skull.

  ‘I—’

  ‘Did you hear me ask you to speak?’

  I closed my mouth and waited, but she said nothing. Silence yawned around me, opening its mouth wide, ready to swallow me whole.

  Finally Ma Bess deigned to look at me.

  ‘I won’t ask for an explanation of this,’ she said. ‘I have learned over the years that there is little point in trying to fathom the reasons for your actions. Bird-brained little piece of fluff that you are. We make a mistake when we overlook children like you,’ she continued. ‘So sweet, cheeping and chirping and loved by everyone.’ Her lip curled. ‘Oh yes, we make a grave mistake. And, as a result, you get away with murder, bring disgrace to the family name.’

  Her eyes scorched my face.

  ‘Marchbanks,’ she said. ‘Not the Little family home, my home. The name of my family. Lies, smeared across this rag.’ She flicked the newspaper with a manicured nail.

  ‘Lies?’ The word interrupted my minute examination of the warp and weft of the pale-grey carpet. I raised my head.

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘But I didn’t tell him any lies.’

  ‘You’re surely not serious.’

  ‘I didn’t know it was an interview. He never said. But I told him the truth.’ For once the glare of her gaze didn’t force me to lower mine.

  ‘The truth?’ Ma Bess’s laugh was a thin jangle of disdain. ‘Almost ten years on and your brothers
are still alive?’

  ‘Well they are,’ I said.

  She sat there, her knees bony under the black crêpe of her skirt, her feet narrow in polished shoes, an invisible string pulling her neck straight, an invisible force holding her shoulders square and set, her face pale with powder, her lips red and pencilled into shape, a vampire feeding off my distress.

  ‘Take it from me, child, your brothers are dead. Let me spell it out for you. D-E-A-D. Anyone with an ounce of sense would know the truth. And now you’ve allowed this reporter, this Sparks, to drag my name through the mud by taking your silly fancies and fashioning them into this nonsense for anyone to read. Cheap little people, gorging themselves on their weekly dose of sensationalism.’

  ‘I wasn’t lying,’ I said again. ‘They are alive.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, they “live” in that puerile heart of yours. You’re keeping “space” for them. And one of these days they’ll walk in the door, and the years will fall away and the Little boys will be home and their little sister will be waiting for them with all the news she’s saved of everything that’s happened and we’ll all be happy again. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  She laughed again and the air froze around my ears.

  I swallowed. ‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘They aren’t dead. If they were, I—’ I stopped. It was bad enough that Evan Sparks had taken my confidences and splashed them across the pages of a tabloid. But this didn’t mean I had to explain anything further to her. ‘It’s true.’ The two words sounded feeble in my ears.

  ‘True?’ she spat. ‘What would you know about the truth? What are you now, twelve, thirteen years old? And you dare tell me what the truth is?’

  ‘I’m fifteen,’ I said weakly. It was becoming harder and harder to look into her eyes and I longed to dip my head, present her with my jagged parting.

  ‘All the more reason for you to grow up, my girl, and face some facts. I thought you’d stopped harbouring this ridiculous notion, of keeping your brothers up to date on our lives.’ She was handing me proof that she’d read my books, but I couldn’t challenge her. Not when her voice steamrollered on. ‘Your precious brothers are gone. They died the day they went missing, or some days after that. The day they broke the rules and—’ she stopped.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘They didn’t break any rules. All they did was go fishing.’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘That’s where they went,’ I said. ‘To the harbour. To fish.’ I rallied what was left of my shattered dignity. ‘That’s the truth.’

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ she squashed me again, ‘that is not important. The truth is,’ she shot my words back at me, ‘that your brothers were allowed out’ – she made Oz and Ollie sound like caged animals – ‘on condition that they were home at a certain time. Am I correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ my voice wavered, ‘but they couldn’t get back. They would have, but they couldn’t. They had watches and everything. And they promised Mom. They promised.’ I was slipping, back into my six-year-old body, hearing the words I had whispered to myself each night before I went to sleep. Words I had forgotten to repeat as I had grown older.

  Ma Bess laughed then, a tinkle of disdain.

  ‘None of this claptrap is going to bring those boys back to life. The sooner you learn that they broke their precious promise, broke the rules, the better for all of us. And furthermore,’ she smacked her palm flat on the copy of Sies!, ‘there will be no repeat of this sort of nonsense.’ She glowered at the paper and I was surprised it didn’t burst into flames. ‘You will stop this absurd wittering. Your brothers did enough to drag my name through the news the first time. I hardly think you need to as well. No more nonsense about promises and places in your heart. And a little more circumspection please.’ She shook her head. ‘Your parents don’t have the remotest clue about raising children. This proves it, yet again.’

  She sat back and closed her eyes and I knew my time was up. ‘Tell Thelma I will have my supper early tonight. Today has been extremely tiresome.’

  I turned to leave.

  ‘Wait, girl.’ A rustle behind me and I turned to see Sies! dangling from the tips of her fingers. ‘Take this rag,’ she said, ‘and close the door behind you.’

  I stood outside her door, shaking. She’d won. Again.

  She’d dug into my heart and ripped my brothers out. And I had done nothing to stop her.

  I leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. I couldn’t allow this to happen. I’d promised Ollie and Oz.

  I moved to the top of the stairs, the paper still clutched in my hands, so tightly that my damp palms were streaked with newsprint. Evan Sparks was a mean young man and he was going to grow into a mean and shrivelled old man. But no matter how he might be laughing at the gullible girl he had quoted, no matter how shocked Annie and Orville might be, or how deep Ma Bess’s contemptuous words might cut, the least I could do for Oz and Ollie was to get downstairs and into my room and open my trunk and take out a blue notebook and tell them what a despicable grandmother they had. And, for all I cared, she could read every word of it.

  44

  1995

  I envied Rafi. There were no befores and afters in her life. No trauma, no need for recovery time. Her life hadn’t been shattered into small bits. Often when I went to her house, Mrs Franco would be in the kitchen, chopping onions, peeling tomatoes. And around the table in Rafi’s house, all the seats were filled and then squeezed together to make room for one more. Rafi Franco was the only girl in my class who came from a big family like me. Only she hadn’t lost any parts of hers.

  Rafi and I shared almost everything. But there were some things she couldn’t know about, that I could share only with Oz and Ollie.

  Rafi’s bother Paolo is tall, with dark curly hair, and when he smiles his teeth shine. His eyelashes sweep to the top of his cheeks when he looks down. I sit across the table from him and wish I was older than fifteen. I wonder when I’ll be able to smile at a boy so that he sees me.

  Tonight, when I was at Rafi’s house, and she was in the bath, I saw a packet of photographs on the dresser in the dining room. I flipped through them and found one of Paolo, which I slid into the waistband of my jeans, and later, the bottom of my rucksack.

  When I got home, I stuck it in here, because you’re the only ones I feel safe talking to about this. And now, I’m sitting here, doodling, writing his name under mine.

  When he walks past me, he rumples my hair. His touch is hot on my scalp and he asks, What are you kids going to do today? Then he climbs onto his old rattling bike and puts on the helmet that hides his face. And he pulls away.

  If this is love, it hurts, deep in my stomach, and all I want is to lie on my bed and wait for the feeling to go away.

  45

  One evening, after I’d had supper with the Francos, Paolo offered me a ride on his new motorbike. Or rather he was forced into doing so by Rafi. ‘You have to try it, Bird,’ she said at school the day after Paolo brought it home. ‘Paolo’s been saving up for it for ages. It’s amazing – like flying, only better. And you aren’t breathing in clouds of smoke like on his old bike. You can taste the wind and your eyes water and you have to hang on so tight.’

  Hang on tight. My throat closed. I’d only ever flown in my dreams, and there was no way I could tell Rafi how much I longed to be somewhere – anywhere! – I could hang on tight to Paolo Franco.

  Rafi’s brother was the best-looking boy I’d ever seen. The boy I would give anything to be near, anything to kiss. The only thing was, I wasn’t sure how to do it.

  Kissing was a problem Rafi and I had discussed in great detail. We were both way behind all the girls in our class. We’d nod casually when they spoke about spit and tongues and wandering hands. And then, when we sat and discussed it, we’d look at each other horrified. Tongues? Spit? All that squishing of lips. And what about our noses? Where would theirs fit? And ours? Should we move our heads to the left, or to the right? Would o
ur teeth knock against theirs? And our breath? Would we be able to run to the bathroom and brush our teeth? Minty fresh and sparkling – that’s what we wanted to be when the moment arrived. When I imagined it, I could get the lips part, and the tender cupping of the face, and the gentle stroking of the hair, or the nape of the neck, but I couldn’t get the open-mouth-tongue thing at all. All I could think of was words like spittle, and slobber.

  I practised. Lying in bed, I would bring my hand to my mouth, press my lips to the fleshy pad between thumb and top of my hand, but when I opened my mouth and put my tongue against the flesh there and tasted the saltiness of my skin, and felt the soft rough press of my tongue, it seemed all wrong.

  Or I’d swoon into my mirror, gaze into my own eyes, murmur, husky-voiced, ‘Kiss me’, and watch the slow descent of mouth to mirror-mouth, but when my lips and tongue met the cold glass, I couldn’t go any further. The crunch of teeth on mirror stopped me every time.

  I can’t close my eyes and float away into a kiss with Paolo, I had confided in Ollie and Oz. He’s way out of my league. He’s never going to kiss me – it’s hopeless. He takes my breath away, and the only place I can kiss him is in my dreams.

  And now, here was Rafi, asking him to take me for a ride on his bike. To drop me off at home.

  ‘Would you like a ride, Bird?’ Paolo asked. ‘Get the adrenaline pumping?’

  Oblivious to the wild thump of my heart, Rafi said, ‘Go on, Bird. You’ll love it.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, feeling a sudden heat in my cheeks. I stood up, too fast, and managed to catch my chair before it crashed to the floor. I glanced over at Paolo to see if he had noticed, but he was talking to one of his little brothers.