What the Birds See Read online

  His mother was rake-thin, as wide-eyed as an owl. She always had a cold and a headache. She could be emotional, scathing, suffocatingly fond. She lost patience with his childishness. She would rant against her family and against Adrian’s father, counting off to Adrian their blatant hypocrisies. She rarely took him anywhere – never to the drive-in or on a holiday – but he was content to stay home. She could be unpredictable and embarrassing, so he preferred it if she stayed home too. He never asked a friend to visit, although he would have liked to. Once, there had been vomit in his mother’s hair, and Adrian didn’t want guests witnessing anything like that.

  For all this, Sookie wasn’t hopeless: bills got paid and clothes got washed and the house was acceptably clean. And Adrian adored her, for a mother must be much more dreadful than Sookie ever was before the affection of a child will curdle. None of this made any difference, however, when it was decided Adrian needed taking away.

  It was no one real who decided this – it was an entity without a face, authority. Authority whispered behind his back, discussed him, laid plans. Adrian’s father arrived, shovelling all the boy owned into garbage bags. “You brought this on yourself,” the man told the woman, while Sookie sat and wept.

  Your mother isn’t well, the sight of you will upset her. Adrian is like a bird kept caged, perceiving that the truth is held from him. He knows he is told a tame and sterile version of what is actually true. Sookie isn’t sick. And he doesn’t believe that seeing him would upset her: rather, he thinks it would make her happy. For all his mother’s faults, she had never made him feel unbeloved.

  When the Metford children have been missing for exactly two weeks, there comes the unspoken realization that they are not coming home. Whatever has become of them, the hope is that it came quickly and painlessly, without too much fear. Whatever is being searched for now is not the same thing that was lost.

  Rory watches footage of a police line shuffling across a boggy, grassy field. He wonders what they’ve been told to make them turn their attention here, to a patch of bedraggled wasteland bordered by factory walls. It is the kind of place one finds car tyres and dead cats.

  The ashtray wavers on the arm of the chair. The den is a compact room, woodpanelled, brown as a cave. There’s a three-barred radiator set low in the wall and heavy paisley curtains in shades of copper and cocoa. The television hulks in a corner, encased in wood veneer. If this is a cave, Rory is a caveman, for this is his favourite room. The smoke of his cigarette whittles skyward as if from a campfire. This is the closest the young man ever gets to taking part in the great outdoors.

  Rory will never shuffle through a grassy field. He won’t feel pebbles beneath his boots. He won’t slip in mud and soak his knee in a puddle. He won’t, for balance, clamp a palm against a tree. He won’t crimp his toes into beach sand or taste the salty splash of sea. Rain won’t fall on his shoulders, snow will never freeze his ears. He won’t stand in the shadow of boulders, nor reach the peaks of mountains. The sun won’t blind him with its brightness, the wind won’t pull his hair.

  None of this will happen to the children, either.

  Adrian is lying on the floor, propped on his elbows, waving his feet to some tune in his mind. He is drawing a picture on a clean white sheet, groaning quietly when the line goes wrong. He had looked up when the television showed the police search, but apparently had nothing to say. He looks up again now that the ads have come on, remarks, “They never show anything about the sea-monster.”

  “…What?”

  “They never show anything about the sea-monster.” He glances over a shoulder at Rory, clearly aggrieved. “Remember the sea-monster in the newspaper?”

  Rory taps ash in the tray. “What about it?”

  “It’s never on the news. I’ve looked in the paper every day and it’s never there, either…” He sighs, his nose crinkling. “You’d think people would be interested to hear about a sea-monster, wouldn’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I reckon they would. They should show it on the telly.”

  The child, disappointed, shakes his head. He brushes away strands of unkempt hair and returns to his work. Rory watches the fine lead marks take shape around a thing only visible to Adrian’s eyes. There is concentration in every part of him, the hollow of his back, the slope of his shoulders, the flawless nape of his neck; even his feet have gone still, ceasing their private waltz. Watching him, Rory feels oddly as if he is prying. He wonders how the world looks from the viewpoint of a child, but does not manage to ask. Down the hall, in the kitchen, Beattie drops a pot and swears.

  SIX

  Horsegirl is on the roof. Someone’s noticed her and given a shout and now the entire school is gathered at the base of the red brick wall, their chins tipped up as far as they’ll go. Horsegirl is storming back and forth, snorting down at them. She is a high-strung thoroughbred, rolling eyes, tossing head, scraping and stamping her hoof. Rust rains earthward in gritty showers, along with twigs and primeval muck from the gutter; the roof, corrugated iron set at a lazy slope, creaks and drums with the rampage. On the roof alongside Horsegirl is her wrath, which pounds the iron like a physical thing: Horsegirl and her fury are like two black fighting crows.

  “Get lost!” she screams, and whisks her deadly reins. Because the building is high, two storeys plus an attic where chairs and files and pageant props are stored, the reins lash nowhere near any child. And because they are so safe where they stand, the children have turned brave. They would never dare heckle her, were she on the ground; but she isn’t on the ground, and her pride won’t let her down to defend herself, so she is at their mercy, of which children have little or none. They buzz below like an excited swarm, like wolves that have spotted the weakling. Horsegirl stares savagely at them, baring her fangs. “I’ll jump!” she threatens. “I’m gonna jump!”

  “What did she say?”

  “She says she’ll jump!”

  The children move as one, a mass of wasps turning on the wind. Those nearest to the wall step back to give her splattering space. Horsegirl rears away from the edge, her hands moving madly in the air. She throws her head from side to side. Far below they can hear her, garbling curses and spells; they hear the moan of the iron as her weight falls on its weak spots. Her burning face juts over the gutter. “I wanna see Mr Palmer!”

  Mr Palmer is the only teacher for whom Horsegirl has any respect. Three righteous girls have already hotfooted to the staffroom with news of the mad girl’s latest escapade, and the teachers will arrive at any moment. The children know there’s not much time – their excitement tightens like a bolt. The air is suddenly peppery with stones. Someone kicks a football and it bounds thickly off the wall. Rubbish is hurled, paper bags and wadded gum and the wrappings of flavoured iceblocks. She claws at them, shredding air, beyond the range of even the strongest boy, the most canny aim. The teachers are rushing across the playground when one voice finally yells it, determined not to be deprived. It’s a hoarse sound, a myna’s cry: “Jump!” And there’s no persuasion needed for a chorus to rise instantly behind it, fire rushing through grass. “Jump! Jump! Jump!”

  Horsegirl gazes down at them, her mouth gaping wide. The cresting crowd of innocents laughs, claps, alive. It hoots and whistles with glee. A boy snatches Adrian’s bag of Chikadees and crushes filthy fists into the phosphorescent yellow balls. “Jump!” the vandal whoops, crystals of snack flying, bouncing on his toes. “Jump! Come on!”

  “Jump, whydontcha? Jump!”

  “Do it, jump—”

  The teachers wade amongst them, hurling children aside. A tiny girl is knocked to the ground; another child buckles, clutching at his face. Horsegirl wails, spotting Mr Palmer. Beyond her, the sky is hoary-white and grey. “Mr Palmer! Mr Palmer!”

  The children run riot while they still have their chance. “Mr Palmer, Mr Palmer!” chant the noisiest, while the bullies begin to shove and pinch. The schoolyard is slashed with shrill cries, blurred by the fragmenting
crowd. Several youngsters put their hands over their ears; one or two start to hysterically scream. Other children snatch the opportunity to bellow. “Jump! Jump!”

  “Horsehead, horsehead, jump, jump!”

  Adrian, on the outskirts, seeks Clinton, who giggles doubtfully, eyes fixed on Horsegirl. He too is yelping, though not loudly, “Jump?”

  Adrian looks to the sky, biting his lip. He tastes the false flavour of Chikadees. All the children are glancing at each other, darting dark inspections. Solidarity is important, there’s only strength in a crowd. “Jump!” he says, because he cannot be seen to do otherwise. He hopes she won’t – he knows he would never see a more horrifying sight than the tumbling of that gangly girl – but he is obligated to encourage her, though the word catches in his chest. “Jump! Jump!”

  “Get out of here!” Mr Palmer shouts it, and a few are shocked into silence. Others push forward, hammering the wall. Mr Palmer slings them aside like cats. “Get lost, you little bastards!”

  “Make them shut up!” Horsegirl is lying along the gutter, one leg flung over the side; the reins and bridle are knotted round her hands. “I’m gonna jump!” she’s yelling, “I’m gonna jump!” And Adrian steps back, at that moment convinced that she will. A mouldy rain of decay and leaves plummets for the ground.

  In that instant the school bell rings. The children spin to confront the sound. The bell monitor, a sturdy girl from Adrian’s grade, is striding across the yard, giving hefty swings to the bronze bell. Her face is set like concrete, as flinty as shale. She rings the bell with a terrible authority. The crowd is swiftly muted, though they sense that they’ve been dudded: children on their lunchbreak, like lonesome animals on a chain, have a feeling for time. A grumble of mutiny rolls over the asphalt: few of them wear watches and even fewer can tell the time, but Clinton has a diver’s watch, and Paul, standing near, grabs the boy’s wrist, brandishing his arm in the air. “There’s ten more minutes!” he trumpets. “We’ve still got ten more minutes!”

  “Get out of here!” Mr Palmer roars. In each hand he’s gripping a shirt, shaking the brains from the child inside it. Other teachers are toiling through the crowd, swatting heads and backsides. Horsegirl, flattened against the roof, is howling at the clouds. “Get to your classrooms!” commands the principal; “Nasty little dogs,” Adrian hears a teacher say. Clinton is torn from Paul’s grip, sucked away by the churn of the crowd. The monitor relentlessly rings the bell; her ears are beginning to hurt. The pack breaks into smaller clumps, splintered by angry adults. Such is the bell’s power that even the most unruly thug feels its pull, and slouches from the shadow of the wall. There’s chuckling and chatter as the children return to their rooms, but they understand that the game is now over.

  Adrian, alone at his desk, nicks his thumb until it stings. He knows it was wrong to say the word jump – he wishes he could gulp the word from the past and swallow it back down. At the same time, he’s glad that some kids saw him say it – glad that, when they are punished, he will be given an equal share. He feels the gnawing of guilt and remorse, but it’s a fair price to pay for not singling himself out.

  What really worries him is the empty desk in the corner, the craziness that seems sunk into the wood, the fact that no one seems to regret her absence, the recognition of how much they despise her. How much, out there, he too had despised her, and still shamefully does.

  His left hand, trembling on the table, hankers for the bronze bowl.

  Nicole listens to the story and says, “I wish that she had jumped.”

  Joely squeezes into a ball at the thought, says, “Grrr.”

  They are sitting, with toddler Giles, at the base of the liquidambar in Adrian’s front yard. The earth is moist and oozy but they’ve perched themselves on the tree’s thick roots, which writhe like anacondas to the surface and below again. Nicole leans forward, pushing the sole of her sneaker into the soft ground. “What happened next? Did the girl come back to class?”

  “Nope.”

  “How come?” Joely unsqueezes, sitting up. “Where did she go?”

  “Maybe she did jump,” her sister suggests. “Just because you didn’t see her—”

  “We did see her. One kid was looking out the window. He saw her walking round the playground.”

  “What do you mean – they just let her walk around? Like a wild animal?”

  “Like a wild animal!” Joely crows.

  Adrian nods vigorously, pleased they understand. “She was digging in the preps’ sandpit.”

  “In the sandpit?” Nicole cannot fathom it. “What was she doing in the sandpit?”

  “She really is crazy!” Joely marvels.

  Nicole leans against the ambar’s fissured trunk. “I reckon she should have jumped. When you say you’re going to do something, you should do it.”

  The evening is rapidly closing, and the air is very still. When a car sweeps silently past on the road it is a fleet but curious interruption. Giles is gathering dropped leaves and presenting them, one at a time and with great ceremony, to Adrian, who keeps them in his lap. The children sit facing Nicole’s house, with its high unwholesome-yellow walls and bristling blue wrought iron. For the first time it occurs to Adrian that the house, Mr Jeremio’s pride and joy, is an eyesore. He has never, before this moment, thought to pass aesthetic judgement on his surrounds. “Remember that lady,” Joely murmurs, and both he and Nicole know which woman she is thinking about, for the ruminations of each of them are anchored here, on their houses, on their neighbours, on the junction of the roads. “She was crazy too.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t!”

  Nicole speaks so sharply that the three children blink nervously at her, sensing rising danger. The girl’s cheeks are wan with cold, her fingertips are rosy. “Maybe she wasn’t crazy. Maybe that lady was right. Maybe we aren’t who we say. Maybe my name’s not Nicole. How would you know?”

  With this she jabs a nail into Adrian’s side. He pulls away, scattering leaves. Nicole darts closer, yowls, “Who do you think I am?”

  He doesn’t know how to answer – he’s never met anyone as frightening as she. His mouth flaps like a fishtail. “I don’t know—”

  “You don’t know anything. I’ll tell you. I’m Miss Terious, that’s who.” She springs suddenly to her feet and skips like a ballerina through the grass. She frolics in a circle, pirouetting round the tree. The children watch, slack-jawed. The dancing makes her dizzy, and she puffs out clouds of air. She staggers drunkenly to Adrian, and flicks him, quick as snakebite, under the chin. It makes his heart jump. “I’ll tell you who I am,” she pants, bending down to him. “I’m the girl that everyone’s looking for.”

  Joely goes beetle-browed, confused. Nicole stands on tiptoe, tilting to the ghostly moon. “I am!” she sings, to someone living on the stars. “No one knows it, but I am! I’m the girl who made them cry! I’ve lost my mum, I’ve lost my dad, and everyone’s looking for me!”

  She glares at the children, who stare, amazed, at her. “Ha!” she barks, brisk as a terrier – then she’s off and running, hair flying like a pirate’s flag, her long legs kicking the hem of her dress. She sprints over the road and charges along the street, and when their view is blocked by fences they still hear, for a minute, the slap of her soles on concrete. Giles’s eyebrows creep together, he tugs thoughtfully on an ear. Adrian looks at Joely. “That’s not true, is it?” he says. “You’re not lost, are you?”

  “No!” The idea makes her laugh delightedly, when her house is just over the road. “Nicole’s crazy like that girl at your school!”

  Adrian feels foolish and relieved. Joely stands up, shaking specks of grass from her skirt. She’s wearing woollen tights that make green twigs of her legs. She says, “My mum wants to see you.”

  “What?” He feels the blood pool in his cheeks. “Why? I haven’t done anything—”

  “Mmph, she just wants to meet you. You’re not in any trouble.”

  Giles upturns his palm so his sis
ter may take his hand. Adrian wavers. “It’s nearly teatime. Gran might get cross.”

  Joely nods and shrugs. “OK.” Adrian is stabbed with desperation: no one’s mother has ever asked to meet him before. He finds his feet, brushing his damp haunches. “Maybe if I’m quick,” he says.

  He has been inside their house in the days before anybody lived there – he’s been inside when it wasn’t even a house, just an arrangement of timber cluttering the sky. He had been young then, for the house had taken years to build – when Mr Jeremio poured the grey foundations, Adrian was a little kid. He was older when the staircase took shape beneath the carpenter’s hands, the banister rail carved from a single length of teak. His mother would bring him to visit his gran and, after picking a flat tune out of the piano and re-examining the drawerful of matchboxes from all over the world, the idle boy had invariably found himself wandering over the road. Mr Jeremio had let him explore as he pleased, providing he kept out of the way. He liked Mr Jeremio’s reasons for renting out the big house and keeping the small one as his own: “I don’t want to take up much space on this earth.” He knows the house as if he’s lived in it: he knows the rooms, he knows the views. He mostly knows what he’s going to see even before he steps through the door.

  They do not have much furniture. There is a thick, porridgy smell. There are a couple of dirty footmarks on the beige carpet in the hall. The important noise of a television travels down the stairs. Pictures lean against walls, waiting to be hung. Joely leaves Giles to totter alone, beckons Adrian with a curled finger. The master bedroom is on the ground floor – Adrian has always been impressed by the fact that it sprouts its own bathroom. He has expected to meet the mother in the lounge room or the kitchen, but Joely pushes aside the bedroom door.

  The room is pink, the wallpaper flocked – it’s like being inside a rosebud. The first thing he sees is a high expanse of bed, topped and tailed with carved bedsteads, plush with blankets the colour of powder. The lady lying below these blanched covers is something he almost fails to see. Across his mind flits the image of his grandfather, dying beneath the quilts. “Mum,” says Joely, “this is Adrian.”