Lyrebird. Cecelia Ahern

to the sound of Laura listening to him.

       9

      Solomon wakes in the morning to an empty bed. The connecting door is open a fraction. He sits up and gets his bearings. He hears Bo’s voice drifting out to him. Gentle but organisational.

      ‘Joe has agreed that we can have access to the cottage for today so that we can film you there. We can see you go about your day, what you do, how you live, that kind of thing. And then I’ll ask you a few questions about how you see the future, what you’d like to do with your life. So maybe think about those kinds of things.’

      Silence.

      ‘Do you have these answers now?’

      Silence.

      Solomon gets out of bed and pads naked across the room to the door. He peeks through the crack in the door and sees them, Laura sitting on the bed, the back of Bo’s head.

      ‘Okay, that’s okay, you don’t have to answer my questions now. But you do understand what we’re planning?’

      ‘I understand.’

      ‘We’ll film today and tomorrow, break for the weekend, and then return on Monday. Is that okay with you?’

      ‘I’m going to be with Solomon in Galway at the weekend.’

      ‘Yes.’

      Awkward silence.

      ‘Last night, Laura …’

      Silence.

      Solomon closes his eyes and cringes, wishing Bo would just let it go. It was the first night in ten years that Laura had slept in a different bed, a different room. Everything was different. Bo’s sounds had been new for Laura, mimicking them was her way of understanding, that was all. He wishes Bo could get that and leave it.

      ‘Em, last night I heard you make a sound. While I was in bed.’

      Laura makes the sound again, an exact replica of Bo’s pleasured moans, as if she had recorded it and was playing it from her voice box.

      Solomon bites his lip, tries not to laugh.

      ‘Yes. That.’ Bo is mortified.

      ‘You want that in your film?’

      Solomon peeks through the crack again, to get a look at Laura, he noticed the change in the tone of her voice. It’s playful. She’s playing with Bo. Bo, on the other hand, misses it.

      ‘No!’ she says, laughing nervously. ‘You see that, what you heard, was private, a private moment between me and …’ Bo pauses, not wanting to mention Solomon.

      ‘Sol,’ Laura says, repeating the name exactly as Bo does. It’s Bo’s voice coming from Laura’s mouth.

      ‘Jesus. Yes.’

      ‘Solomon’s your boyfriend?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Solomon swallows, his heart pounding once again.

      ‘Is that … okay?’ Bo asks.

      ‘Okay for who?’

      ‘For you. Okay with you,’ Bo replies, confused.

      Laura clears her throat awkwardly but it’s not her sound, it’s Solomon’s. She looks quickly in the direction of the door and he realises she knows he’s been listening. He smiles and walks away, to the shower.

      They spend Thursday filming Laura’s home. After realising that, under observation, Laura had a tendency to freeze up and look at the camera, lost, Bo has come up with a plan to film her making vegetable soup. This is something that Laura is comfortable with. At first she is wary of their presence, self-conscious of their eyes and camera on her. Then, as she gets lost in what she’s doing, she visibly relaxes. They stay back, trying not to be intrusive, though as unnatural as three people with recording equipment in a forest are. She mimics their sounds less as she moves around.

      She tends to her fruit-and-vegetable patch, she forages for herbs; wild garlic is plentiful along the streams and shady areas, she picks the larger leaves and flower heads that have blossomed.

      She doesn’t speak very much, sometimes hardly at all. Bo asks her to describe what she’s found in the ground but then she stops, deciding that this is going to be one of those documentaries, much like The Toolin Twins, where their audio will have to be added to the visuals at a later date, when answers can come from direct questions. Laura is no narrator but she does mimic the bird-calls; the birds seem puzzled, or at least convinced by her authenticity from afar, and reply to her.

      Bo is buzzing, this much is obvious. They all are. They work together as silently as possible, respecting Laura’s need for that. Between filming, their chat is kept to a minimum, basic communication. Hand gestures, a word here and there. It is possibly the quietest day of Solomon’s life, not just because he’s had to stay quiet – he’s used to that – but most of his days are spent listening to others. Despite filming on the same mountain as The Toolin Twins, there is a distinct difference between the feel, sounds and rhythms. What they’ve got here is a completely different documentary. This is lyrical, musical, even magical. The images of Laura working her way through the forest, her white-blonde hair and calm disposition, are stunning, unearthly. It brings Solomon back to that first moment he saw her, how she’d quite literally taken his breath away. He could watch her all day. He could listen to her all day. He does. And with her sound pack clipped on her clothes, the microphone on her T-shirt, he can practically hear every breath and heartbeat. Yet when he looks at her, when their eyes meet, there’s nothing dainty about her. She’s strong. She’s firm. That mind of hers is solid.

      Laura stands up from the forest floor and stretches her back. She looks up at the sky, breathes in and, as if remembering the crew are there, she turns around and lifts the basket into the air.

      ‘What did you get?’ Bo asks, delighted Laura is ready for conversation.

      ‘Wild garlic, it’s good for flavouring soups. Also good for coughs and the chest. I use it for a wild garlic, onion and potato soup. I’ve got mushrooms …’ She runs her long fingers over the array of mushrooms.

      ‘How do you know these are safe?’

      Laura laughs, her laugh is older than she appears. She makes a vomiting sound, one so real it plays with Rachel’s gag reflex, yet she doesn’t seem to notice her sound, it’s as if a memory for her has come alive through her own sound, as an image would flash in somebody else’s mind.

      ‘Trial and error for the first few years,’ Laura explains, then runs her hands over the food in the basket. ‘These are pig nuts, also known as fairy potatoes. They’re good roasted. Alexanders, they’re like celery. Nettles, gorse blossom for blossom jelly and garlic mustard. It’s a wild member of the cabbage family, good for marinating meat. I like this because you can eat all parts of the plant, roots, leaves, flowers and seeds. The root makes tasty garlic mustard root vinegar.’

      ‘Okay, great, thanks.’ Bo smiles happily.

      Inside the cottage, she opens her cupboards to show them her collection of food that has been pickled, dried and canned. She preserves the fruits and vegetables that don’t grow in the winter, when her diet would otherwise grow monotonous. That’s when she really relies on what Tom gives her. Gave her. She pauses, checks herself, before continuing. She is confident, proud of her work on her food and she is happy to talk about it. Her sentences are short and limited, of course, but for her, to offer any information unprompted is a sign of her confidence, which grows throughout the filming day.

      She makes her soup that she then offers to them to taste. Bo politely sips a spoonful. Solomon and Rachel finish their bowls.