Little Bird. Camilla Way

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СКАЧАТЬ door, shoes squeak upon linoleum, machines bleep, urgent trolleys trundle past. And beyond her window, from out of the orange-tinged blackness where the grey buildings loom and sulk across the street, drifts the distant noise of a world she can’t even begin to fathom; the sounds of growling, mumbling traffic, of unimaginable lives being lived beneath an unimaginable sky. And when sleep at last comes for her, it takes her on its soft, silent wings, back, back to the forest, where she flies and swoops and soars, to rest once again within its leafy arms.

      And yet she has a brave heart, this child that has emerged from the woods like a hatchling from its egg. Slowly, gradually, beneath that thick, freezing fear there begins to stir the first tentative shoots of something else: a strange long-dormant impulse that grows ever more insistent. Gradually, she becomes accustomed to the faces that appear to her each day, and her ears begin to tune into the sounds that they make, a strange but infinitely seductive sound that seems to pierce the fear and confusion like sunlight through leaves.

      And then: something else. Like the dragonflies that used to flit across the surface of the river, long-forgotten images begin to land briefly upon her memory: a woman’s face, a certain smell, and, stranger still, snatches of a nursery rhyme, words spoken by her and understood; a woman’s voice responding to her own. But they are impossible to hold onto for very long; too soon they take flight, disappearing once more into the sky. Nevertheless, some deep, instinctive part of her begins to respond to the voices of these white-coated strangers, to unfurl and reach towards them like a seedling towards the sun.

      At first she tries to offer the birdcalls that had once given her such pleasure in the woods. But although the people smile and nod their encouragement at her whistles and her coos, her chirrups and her twitters, she knows that they’re not right, are not what’s needed now. Sometimes she feels as if a flock of frantic sparrows are trapped inside her chest. In vain she tries to free them, but her throat will not obey her, will only allow, at best, meaningless gurgles and grunts. Her frustration grows until, from out of the strange, dark world that lies beyond her window, into the white, hushed room walks the woman with the pale blue eyes.

ten

       Locust Valley, Long Island, New York, 7 January 1996

      High Barn is very large and made of wood and glass. It stands alone on a hill and from her bedroom window she can see the garden’s well-kept lawns, a winding road, a copse of trees and then in the distance, the quiet roofs of a small town. She remembers little of her journey here. A meal at the hospital, a car ride through dark streets where exhaustion had come from nowhere, filling her eyes and nostrils like mud. She recalls being led through a large, frightening place full of light and people, walls of glass through which she could see monstrous metal birds roaring to the sky. Later she had woken only once, groggy and confused in a small narrow bed, a low drone all around her, a row of closed white shutters, a pale, cold light. And then, oblivion again.

      She understands only that she’s very far from home, that her old life and everything familiar and loved is far behind her now. This bedroom has sloping ceilings and a pattern of rose buds on the walls. Each night she dreams of the silent man, the stone cottage, the forest. Each morning she wakes in this strange, new bed and waits for the woman to lead her down to breakfast.

      The woman is very tall and has yellow-white hair tied tightly back from a face that’s long and pointed as a whittled stick. Her pale eyes are rimmed in pink as if perpetually sore and sometimes the girl will catch little glimpses of the skin on her arms, patches of flaky redness. It’s this tenderness, this rawness that Elodie at once and will always associate with the woman whose name she understands is Ingrid long before she can say the word.

      And from the beginning she understands that Ingrid is all she has now: the one constant amidst the strangeness, the one link to her old life and her only means of navigating this new one. Ingrid’s hands are very white, cool and dry to the touch, and in those first few days, the girl, Elodie, clings to those slender fingers as if to a twig dangling from the highest branch.

      The house has many rooms filled with soft, elegant furniture very different from the few crude pieces left behind in the cottage. On the gleaming wooden floors lie thick, muted rugs. Slowly, under Ingrid’s patient, pink-eyed gaze, the child begins to explore her new surroundings. The shelves full of books, the strange box that fires shockingly into noisy, colourful life at the touch of a button, a large blue bowl filled with dead, perfumed leaves. Each new object she explores tactilely, sniffing and touching until it’s known to her. And wherever she goes she takes the little carved bird with her, her fingers always circling its smooth round head or tracing the delicate grooves of its wings.

      On the kitchen table where they eat their meals, a large silver eagle stands, its half-raised wings perpetually poised for flight. In the window, a glass mobile throws squares of blue, green and red light upon the floor. There’s a framed photograph of a little boy hanging upon the wall. Nothing escapes Elodie’s careful examination. Even Ingrid must sit patiently while the child explores her with slow and careful fingertips. Every day, fastened to her blouse or sweater Ingrid wears a broach. It’s in the shape of a cat and Elodie likes to trace its sharp, sparkly edges, to touch the eyes made from clusters of shiny red stones that glint and twinkle in the light. She notices that a few of them have come loose, leaving behind black, sightless craters. She wonders what became of them – those tiny lost specks of red.

      At High Barn, meals are eaten from large white plates three times a day at the kitchen table. Elodie and Ingrid sit opposite each other, always in the same chairs, and as the small neat portions are doled out to her, she thinks about the man in the forest, of the steaming rabbit stew they would make together then eat from chipped bowls. Afterwards, she would wash them in the river, returning to find the man smiling, waiting for her to sing to him. She sees again his thick fingers nudging tobacco into flimsy squares of paper while he listens. The pain slams into her. On the long, polished table the reflection of the silver eagle gleams.

      One evening when Elodie has been at High Barn for over a week, she follows Ingrid to the kitchen for dinner as usual but stops in her tracks to see a stranger sitting there, a large glass of wine in front of him, a suitcase by his feet. Ingrid’s husband Robert is a thickset, stocky man with curly brown hair only lightly touched with grey. They consider each other for a moment or two and then he raises his eyebrows and smiles, an easy grin that pulls Elodie at once across the room towards him. Ignoring her usual place setting she takes the chair beside him, staring up at him with wide-eyed curiosity, while the man gives a short burst of laughter and Ingrid, her lips pinched into a tight, thin line, slides Elodie’s plate across to her.

      As Elodie eats she takes in the man’s thick wrists, the heavy features of his face, the incongruously small chin. She watches the way he drinks with large rapid gulps, the way he bites at his bread; how when he finishes his meal he drops his cutlery with a clatter, stretches and gives a loud, satisfied sigh. She feels a nip of disappointment when he takes his plate to the sink and then, with a brief word to Ingrid and a smile and a wave to her, takes his suitcase and disappears up the stairs. Left alone Elodie ponders this surprising turn of events. She had thought that only she and Ingrid lived in this large, many roomed house, and is intrigued to discover her mistake.

      It’s some time before she sees Robert again. Every day he leaves early in the morning, often not returning until after she’s in bed. At the weekends he keeps to his study and the only sign of him is the faint rumble of the radio or television seeping from under his door. Often he will disappear with his big suitcase for weeks at a time. And mostly she and Ingrid keep to the top floor of High Barn, in the little room full of mysterious equipment that she will one day refer to as ‘the schoolroom’. Sometimes a whole month can pass where she doesn’t see Robert at all.

      On the rare occasions that the three of them do eat together, Elodie begins to СКАЧАТЬ