Little Bird. Camilla Way

Candice clutches Carmen’s arm and the two look over at the beautiful mixed-race man. Kate wonders what has taken them so long.

      The night speeds up, bodies fill the dance floor, the man in the green sweatshirt upping the tempo with each song. She sees how lovingly he handles his records, how expertly he gauges the dancers’ mood. His movements are fluid, sure. In this at least, she sees, he is sure. His two friends approach Kate and her colleagues. The beautiful man tells them his name is Eugene, the stocky, smiling one is Jimmy, and he offers to buy them drinks. Kate hangs back and watches the four of them dance. She raises her glass to her lips and turns to the DJ booth to meet the third man’s soft, brown gaze full on. She holds his eyes for a long time.

      In the taxi that takes them to south-east London she sees that his hands are large with bitten nails. She’s sorry when he pushes them beneath his knees, out of sight.

      Standing in the doorway of his lounge in the tiny Deptford house she watches him across the chaos of the shabby, record-strewn room. As he blunders around shifting piles of vinyl she notices how the words bubble behind his eyes, come briefly to the surface only to be dismissed immediately with an uncertain smile. He clears a space for her on the sofa and she sits.

      ‘You like music,’ she says, after a moment or two.

      ‘Yeah,’ he shrugs and rubs his face. ‘I play any old shit in the Mermaid. As long as they can dance to it they don’t give a fuck. But, yeah –’ he looks around at the mess of records as if noticing them for the first time and laughs apologetically ‘– yeah,’ he says softly, ‘I like music.’

      Her arms goose-pimple in the cold room. She watches him, as he hangs there awkwardly before her, trying to think of what to say next. His entire body leans forward, as if desperate for her. She senses that he wants to touch her; that every speck of him longs for that. Abruptly, though, he leaves the room, muttering something about coffee.

      She goes to the sound system and picks up a record at random from one of the boxes on the floor. She doesn’t look at it as she places it on the turntable and raises the needle: she knows nothing about music. By coincidence, it’s a song she recognises. Life on Mars. She freezes, immediately shoved by the familiar tune back to a different time and place. A small, cramped room in a New York apartment. A pink nylon bedspread. A young Vietnamese boy named Bobby who is covered in bruises and who still smells of his last customer’s semen, a cheap cassette player that rattles as it plays the words, Is there life on Mars? Is there life on Mars?. Unexpected tears spring to her eyes.

      She bends her head over the record sleeve and seconds later turns to see Frank standing in the door, the coffee mugs in his hands. They smile at each other and as she stands there gazing at him, she feels for the first time in a very long while that perhaps she might find peace, here, in this dark, messy house, with this tall, shy stranger, if only for one night. She feels as if she might perhaps sleep and not dream for once the same, old, terrible dream.

six

       Forêt de Breteuil, Normandy, 1995

      The child grows taller. Her light-brown hair with its strands of red and copper falls almost to her waist. There is a new restlessness within her that was not there before. Now, when the man gets into his truck she will try to jump in too, holding on tightly to the handle until he pulls away. And when he has gone she will roam further than she ever has before, looking for something, for somewhere else, but not quite daring – not yet – to wander too far.

      She is almost thirteen. In recent months something has changed between them, a shadow has crept over their contentment. Sometimes, when they sit together in front of the fire at night she will turn and catch him looking at her in a way he never has before and although the moment passes an uneasiness will continue to linger in the air between them for a little while longer, like a slithering in the undergrowth on a dark and silent night.

      One evening at the end of summer she returns from the river to find the man sitting by the hearth. A small fire flickers in the grate. She pauses at the threshold of the cottage, aware immediately that something is terribly wrong. Outside in the dusk, the birds have begun their plaintive evening song and she looks longingly behind her to the twilit forest. The man turns and sees her, and motions for her to come.

      When she’s seated next to him she notices that on his lap is a large wooden box she has never seen before. She wonders where it has been hidden for so long. The man’s long silent fingers rest motionless on top of it for a long moment until abruptly and without looking at her he raises the lid and pulls from it a photograph of a young woman. The child cranes forward to see it, her heart skipping with excitement at this sudden, incredible image of another human being. He passes it to her and she takes it eagerly, marvelling over the square of grainy, faded paper, scrutinizing every detail as it lies there in her hands.

      The woman is wearing a long green dress and her hair is thick and dark with a heavy fringe. Her smile is shy, secretive; her eyes are lowered to her hands which are clasped neatly together in her lap. The girl takes all this in with wonder until at last she is distracted by the man opening the box for a second time.

      Next he pulls out the green dress itself. It’s folded carefully, the fabric faded at the creases and it has a faint whiff of age. He hands it to the girl and indicates for her to put it on. But for a while she just sits with the dress in her lap staring down at the material as if hypnotized, her fingers absently, nervously, stroking the buttons at its neck. And though she doesn’t raise her eyes she feels the air between the two of them crackle with something she cannot begin to understand. At last she turns to him and sees that he is unnaturally still: he doesn’t tremble, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t drop his gaze from hers.

      Obediently, she stands and pulls the garment over her head, smoothing it down over her T-shirt and shorts, hoping that the gnawing, twisting feeling beneath her ribs might disappear if she pleases him and does as he asks. But once the dress is on (the sleeves too long, the hem tumbling over her toes) and she is standing before him, her cheeks burning with something she has never felt before, she sees an expression of such pain flood his face that involuntary she gives a little cry and takes a step towards him. Just as she is about to reach for him however she falters and, confused, withdraws and takes her seat again.

      A long moment passes before he gets to his feet once more and fetches the large workman scissors from his tool kit. Before she can understand what is happening he has begun to carefully chop at her hair until it matches the woman’s in the picture. He sits back down while she cautiously strokes her newly shorn locks. He continues to stare at her for a long time, and then without warning he begins to cry. She has never seen his tears before and the sight horrifies her.

      They sit there, the two of them, and the minutes, the hours pass. The man does not take his eyes from her and she, in turn, does not move, can neither abandon him to his pain nor think of how to comfort him. His tears are awful to her. Night falls; the fire dies in the hearth, and still they sit. Finally, when the cottage is completely dark and she can no longer tell where he begins and the night ends, she creeps into her little bed and lies awake, her heart thumping, while the man and the night sits and waits, sits and waits.

      The next morning she rises before the sun and slips from the cottage to wait for the birds. But she takes no pleasure in their song today. She remains there for a long time, long after the sun has climbed above the forest. The small carved bird sits as usual in her lap, her thumb moving over the smooth contours of its head in slow, comforting circles.

      When at last she ventures back to the cottage the stone floor is streaked in sunshine. A cloud of midges hangs in the doorway. All is still. She notices that the man is stretched out upon the bed. By his side lie the scissors, their large, clumsy blades streaked in red. She creeps closer. His eyes are open, staring at the ceiling. His left arm is wrist-side up and flung almost nonchalantly from his body. There is a deep, long wound that runs the length of his inner forearm, from wrist to elbow, the flesh and the tendons torn with force by the heavy blades. The wound is so deep she can see the bone. The bed is drenched in blood. The man’s face is blue-white; he