Little Bird. Camilla Way

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СКАЧАТЬ and where the wild garlic grows. She watches, delighted, as effortlessly he splits logs with his axe and builds for her a see-saw. He is stronger and taller than all the trees.

      Soon she’s entrusted with her own chores and each morning she tends the vegetable patch, checks the animal traps and fetches eggs from the coop, proudly bringing him her spoils. Later, she will watch in unblinking admiration as his quick, agile fingers expertly skin a rabbit, making light work of its glistening pink flesh and transforming the once hopping, furry thing into a hot and tasty meal. At night after they have eaten and she has grown sleepy by the fire, she hugs him tightly before she goes to bed and his beloved woody, smoky smell lingers in her nostrils as she drifts into sleep.

      The man has shown the girl how far she’s permitted to roam. No further than the river, nor past the very end of the third clearing, behind the cottage where their vegetables grow. She could disobey him. On the rare days that he sets off in his truck and doesn’t return until after the sun has set, on these days she could run without him ever finding her. But where to, and why? Instead the hours of his absence are waited out anxiously; no sooner has the rusty blue truck disappeared from view than she begins to listen impatiently for the rumbling splutter of its return. Perched on the narrow front step or with her face pressed against the window pane she strains her ears and eyes for him, her hands clasped tightly to her chest to calm the twisting, gnawing there.

      Once, when the man has been gone much longer than usual and the sun has long since set, the little girl stares out with growing dismay at the forest that seems to get blacker and denser with every passing second. At last she decides that he is never coming back for her. Panic-stricken she imagines setting out alone through the trees to look for him but she can no more picture a world beyond the forest than she can imagine a life without the man.

      Eventually her anxiety forces her from the cottage and beneath the cold, silent moon she paces back and forth between the path and the river, insensible to the rain that has begun to soak her clothes and hair. And when finally he appears, struggling towards her through the darkness with a heavy sack of supplies on his shoulder, her relief is so great that it takes him some time to prise her arms from his legs, to calm her anguished sobs. He picks her up and carries her into the house, rocking her gently on his lap until at last her tears subside and she falls into an uneasy, clinging sleep.

      Only once do strangers come. She is eight. The man and the little girl are by the river when voices curl their way through the trees. It’s the child who hears them first. She lifts her chin, alert suddenly, her ears straining to identify the strange new sound as words drift towards her like dandelion seeds on a breeze. And all at once something in her remembers; some small part of her stirs: a distant, half-forgotten longing rises inside her. Instinctively she gets up and moves towards the voices, towards something she hadn’t even known she’d hungered for till then. And then the man has snatched her up, is running with her towards the cottage, his hand silencing her sharp yelp of shock. Inside the tiny house he wraps a shirt around her mouth, tying it so tightly that the tears choke in her throat. He pushes her beneath the small wooden bed and pulls the blanket down until she’s in darkness, shivering on the cold stone floor. And then she hears him leave, the bolt of the door sliding heavily in its lock.

      Later, when the fire’s burning in the grate and the sky outside is dark, the man sits and holds her to him and wipes away her tears. Whatever lies beyond the forest is to be feared, she’s certain of that now. She gazes up at him until the anger and hurt gradually leaves her. After a while, she reaches for his wrist and turns it to its white, fleshy underside. It’s something she has done since she was very small, has always been drawn to the soft, white skin there, such a contrast to the rest of him that is so rough and tanned or covered in swirls of hair. She traces her finger along the delicate flesh, where pale blue veins pulse beneath the whiteness. He smiles down at her. All is well again.

      Every night the girl lies on her narrow bed and listens to the sound of the man sleeping on the other side of the hearth, his slow steady breath mingling with the ‘hee-wiiit’ and ‘oooo’ of the owls as they move outside on silent wings. Each morning she wakes before the first light. Quietly, while the man sleeps, she slips out of the cottage and sits on the step, waiting patiently. As soon as the first light appears the forest seems to stretch and sigh expectantly. Mist hangs heavy between the trees; a warm muskiness rises from the bracken, foxes cease their dissolute shrieking and even the gurgling river seems to pause awhile. And then, at last, it begins.

      Each first, tentative note is answered by another and then another. Gradually, the simple calls are replaced by a thousand complex melodies that weave and wind around each other, building layer upon layer until the forest is swollen with sound, the trees are heavy with song, and music falls like rain from the branches of each one. The sun floats higher in the sky bathing each leaf in a soft, pink light. And the forest is transformed by birdsong: it is saturated with music and it’s magical, it’s hers. The sound grows louder and louder until it feels to the child that the whole world is drenched in melody. But then, finally, suddenly: nothing. Only a silence that is as dramatic as the symphony it has replaced. The child rouses herself and returns, satisfied, to the house and the sleeping man.

      At dusk on summer’s evenings, the man and the girl sit together on a little bench in front of the cottage. While he smokes and stares thoughtfully at the fading evening light, the child performs for him the music she has learnt. From the loud, mewing ‘pee-uuu, pee-uuu’ of the buzzard, to the jangling warble of the redstart, to the warm cooing of the cuckoo and the ‘chink-chink, chink-chink’ of the blackbird, the child is able to mimic each one perfectly. Tika-tika-tika, she sings. Chiiiiiiiiiii-ew. She knows the music of every bird from the whitethroat to the kestrel to the guillemot to the lark. And the man smokes and listens, while he carves his gift to her: a little wooden starling whittled from a fallen branch.

      They are happy together, the silent man and the wordless child. The days and months come and go, as the seasons attack, take hold, and then recede. But in the same way that night banishes the sun, and winter crushes summer in its fist, so too does darkness come to the man. It arrives without warning and lasts sometimes days, sometimes weeks, but it seems to her that when it comes it falls with such heavy finality there will never be light again. It is as if the mud from the riverbed has crept up on him while he slept, as if its thick, black muck has seeped into his ears, his nostrils, through his mouth to choke him on its wretchedness.

      At these times, the child can do nothing but watch and wait. When night falls she builds a fire and perches miserably at the man’s side while he sits, immobile in his chair, with heavy, brooding eyes. Sometimes she creeps towards him and, lifting his arm, she brings the naked underbelly of his wrist to her cheek, but when he doesn’t respond, she lets it drop listlessly to his side and returns to crouch by the fire alone. Some mornings he will not rise from his bed at all but will continue just to lie there, his knees bent almost to his chest, his face staring sightlessly at the wall.

      And when finally he returns to her, emerging blinking into the sunlight as if bewildered to find the world exactly as he left it, she will go to him and take his hand and lead him to the river to fish. Later they will tend the vegetables and chickens together, and eat their supper side by side on the little bench beside the cottage while the birds begin again their evening song.

five

       The Mermaid, Dalston, north London, 21 September 2003

      Into the bar she walks, winding between the bodies like cigarette smoke. She’s here to celebrate her last day at the insurance firm where she’s temped for the past six months. She’s tired, would prefer to go home, but Candice and Carmen have insisted: they want to see her off in style. A Gary Glitter song screams suddenly through the room at high-speed like a rampaging gatecrasher. Kate stands by the cigarette machine and waits.

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