Black Bird (31 page)

Now Aline was half pleased with herself for having given the children a chill to tell their parents and all their friends at school about, and half saddened that she might just have overdone it with the young girl.
Oh, well, that was probably enough for the night anyway, since it was getting so late. In her broken English she bid Moonie enter to find his mother, and expected the other child to be off home, but …

Child? With the hallway lit only by a few candles for added spooky effect, Aline couldn’t be sure. A friend of Moonie’s might be another simple soul, and somehow he looked familiar—but he did look too old, and he did look a mess. Was that some kind of costume? With a torn and bloodstained hospital gown, and ragged bandages on his head and elsewhere, and those lines in his skin like wounds and stitches? A homemade, poorly made outfit, surely. Cobbled together from what scraps a destitute family with an idiot son might salvage from their closets and rags. But even Moonie didn’t eat candy from the dirt. And his clothes looked as though they were wet in the darkness. Aline sighed. She couldn’t let this one wander off unsupervised, obviously. She’d have to bring him inside and at least try to clean him up, try to find him something to wear, and shoes too—how can anyone walk the streets without shoes? Aline quickly glanced away from those dirty feet with a feeling of revulsion—his feet were clearly of different sizes.

She pushed him ahead of her down the hallway, past the door to the basement stairs, and thought, Of course. Angus’s things, all boxed and waiting downstairs. She’d find him a completely new set of clothes from head—good Lord, that really looks like a massive wound—to toe, if a pair or a couple of mixed pairs of
shoes might be found, close enough to his various sizes, to fit. But anything might be better than the scraps of his costume. As he entered the lighted kitchen she saw the pallor of his face, and how one leg seemed olive-complected while the other was a pasty white, and his arms were rosy-fleshed on the left and suntanned on the right.

Grace squawked and flew around the ceiling madly and unexpectedly. Aline ducked her head as the bird flew by; never had Grace done such a thing before. She seemed agitated, and veered in a new direction too quickly, colliding with the ceiling light. The bulb snapped and the room went dark. Aline was startled and held still while she heard Grace settle atop the fridge. She moved to the cupboards carefully and brought out more candles. She remembered the momentary glimpse she’d gotten of the newcomer; she was unsure of what she’d seen.

He looked completely made of a patchwork of scraps, as if to match his costume, and he looked innocent and without experience of where he was and what was happening. In fact, he looked so horrible altogether that suddenly she feared his own family might have abandoned him some time ago and left him wandering the streets. She sat him down at the table and looked at the liquid drying on her hands. It looked like blood.

She rooted in the fridge to offer him milk or juice, and when she turned back to her guest at the table, Grace had perched atop his head and was picking with her beak into the wound.

“Oh my God,” she exclaimed, and rushed over to beat the bird away.

But Hubert put his hand up and his palm out and said, “No.”

“She’s hurting you,” said Aline, and made another move forward.

“No. Doesn’t hurt. I like the bird.”

Aline thought, of course it’s not a real wound, it’s just makeup. If this poor simple soul likes having Grace on his head, leave them both be. But it was disturbing to see her beak dip so deeply into the bandaged spot. It seemed as if Grace were trying to pick out a berry or a nut she’d glimpsed among the mess. She seemed to grip something and twist it this way and that as if she were working it loose.

“Burnt toast,” Hubert said.

Aline realized she’d been staring at Grace. “What?”

He looked puzzled. “Burnt toast,” he said.

“Are you hungry?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

Aline sighed. Of course she could give him at least some toast. It would be better for him than all that candy he’d been gorging on. She put two slices in the toaster and pushed the lever all the way to the right, the darkest setting. Burnt it is.

Hubert’s eyes lowered. He seemed to be looking at nothing at all, slumped in the chair like someone totally despairing of life. Aline felt like that sometimes. “Do you have parents?” she asked.

Without looking at her he said, “No.”

“Any family at all?”

“No.”

“Do you have a place to live?”

“No.”

Aline suddenly realized how far she’d committed herself to this disturbing stranger. She really expected him to be simply lost, and that she’d just track down his home or his parents, or whatever institution he might be in care of, and hand him back. But now she was afraid she’d have to actually take him in, at least overnight. It was too late to call anyone now to do anything for him. No social agency or government office or even church would answer a knock or a phone call now.

The toast popped. Grace flew up to perch on the window frame. Hubert handled the toast like a child, unsure of his grip and awkwardly trying to fit it into his mouth. His eyes were still downcast, his shoulders hunched over as if he lacked the will or strength to sit up straight, and he masticated noisily and let crumbs fall from his mouth.

Aline burst into tears and lowered her head to the table, sobbing. It was just like having breakfast with her husband. He was unwashed, uninterested, ungrateful and uncommunicative.

Grace fluttered down to rest on her back. She cocked her head, leaned in behind Aline’s ear and squawked. Aline heaved and sobbed again.

Hubert had finished eating and sat, blankly. Grace hopped across the table, up on his shoulder and eyed the hanging, bloody bandage. She picked. He grunted. Grace prodded.

“Sing,” said Hubert.

Aline raised her flushed face. The wave of despair had ebbed but tears still streaked her face. “What?”

“Sing,” he repeated. “Your voice.”

What was she going to do? How could she take on another burden? The whole household had become her burden: Grandfather, Mother, everyone else. No one looked after themselves, no one lifted a finger to help her. She had no life of her own, no friends, no hope. All she had was Grace. And now this basket case, another helpless burden, had landed in her lap.

He raised his eyes and looked straight at her. Grace had to jump to his head to reach down into the sticky mess. “Your voice is your heart,” he said. “The heart is the strongest part. Follow your heart.”

Aline laughed nervously and wiped her face with her bare hands. “Get off him, Grace,” she said. She got up, walked around the table and held Grace with both hands so she couldn’t fly away. “I can’t stand it, even if you don’t mind. It’s too creepy.”

She brought him to the basement, which was harder than she imagined because he was quite incompetent with the stairs. He stood unsteadily, watching her opening and sorting through boxes until she offered him some clothes.

“I’ll leave you with these, you can change yourself. We’ve no extra beds in the house, but you can sleep here on the floor. It’s hard, but not any dirtier than you already are. Wrap yourself in these blankets, and in the morning we’ll call the welfare people. Somebody else can give you a bath.”

As everyone retired, turned off the television, locked the doors and went to bed, Grandfather awoke and stretched in his bed. It was musty and warm as always, but he took note of it almost for the first time.
Almost
, because as he was feeling the touch of the stale sheets and blankets as never before, he realized they’d always felt that way. And with the window closed, how stuffy and warm it was.

Through the wall he heard his wife crying in her bed. Nothing had changed. But he took no satisfaction in it; that was new. He put his eye in, blinked, felt the paste in his mouth. Why should he now begin to feel guilt, where before her tears had justified his angry pleasure?

Exhausted, Marie had slept on the cot beside the grave. Earlier she’d stirred, half woke on hearing scrapings and bumpings at the wall, and voices in the basement beyond. But it was quiet now. She lay in the darkness in the small room without windows, with the knowledge of what she’d done, and felt how airless and hidden and muffled it was in there, as if she herself were dead and in her coffin.

She might as well be dead. She’d failed at everything, had lost everything. Burying Cross had been her only choice, but it was really a stop-gap measure. She couldn’t leave him here indefinitely; someone would find out someday. Even the false wall she’d built for this tiny hole she lay in was only ever
supposed to be temporary. She must think of what she was going to do.

How do you get rid of a body? Who could help her with that question?

At the kitchen table, Grandfather lit his first cigarette of the night. He opened the previous day’s newspaper and read. He’d never noticed before how quiet it was. He heard the house creaking; he heard the occasional car race past on its way down Park Avenue, or the bus. He opened the window and heard the tree gently rustling in the cool breeze. He heard weeping still, and looked up to the bedrooms overhead. No, it wasn’t Aline. She was silent now. But he still heard it. He moved away from the window and heard it louder in the centre of the kitchen. He moved towards the hallway, and there—he heard it more clearly still, through the basement door. Someone was crying in the basement.

Finally, Marie turned on the light, wiped away her tears and stood up. She was hungry, she needed a bath and she had to pee. She took up Grandfather’s spade to return it before anyone noticed it missing, and stepped into the basement. She reached for the hanging bulb, closed the door behind her, flicked the light on and stepped around the boxes of Angus’s things. She looked up. A man stood slouching, his head down. It wasn’t
Uncle or Father or Grandfather or even Jean-Baptiste.

He lifted his head. It was Hubert.

Marie screamed.

“Marie,” he said.

Grandfather yanked open the door and charged down the stairs. At the bottom he found Marie standing terrified before a stranger. She was holding his spade, in self-defence, he thought. He drew closer and saw the horribly shambling mess that shifted its weight from one foot to the other.

“Give me the shovel,” he said to Marie, but he had to reach over and take it from her hands. As he stepped up beside her he looked the stranger in the face.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he said. This was the man the cops had brought to his back door, the man—the corpse—he’d sold to Dr. Hyde.

Without hesitation Grandfather lifted the shovel and swung it like a baseball bat. He broke Hubert’s nose. Hubert swayed backward and grunted. He lost his balance and toppled over.

Marie ran up the stairs. Hubert! Where had he come from? He was dead, he was dead! How could he be here? She heard noises in the basement. Grandfather was beating him with the spade—should she stop him? Should she help him? Good Lord, she couldn’t let him try to bury Hubert—he might find Cross.

She dashed back down the steps and grabbed Grandfather’s arms. He’d been bending over Hubert, whose head had cracked against the gas
meter and lay awkwardly against the pipes and the grey stone of the foundation. “No, no, don’t!” she pleaded, and held on to Grandfather’s arm as he made a swing right at Hubert’s face. She yanked his arm and he missed Hubert, but he hit the pipes and the soft lead of a fragile solder joint, and after the short clang came a sharp hissing and the pungent smell of gas.

“Christ, we’ve got to get out of here,” said Grandfather. “Wake everyone. Get out of the house. Call the fire department.”

“Are you crazy?” said Marie. “They’ll find him.”

Grandfather looked puzzled. Why would she care? “He’s an intruder. We’ve got a gas leak, we could all be killed. Get out, let’s get out!”

Marie stood still, looking from Grandfather to the unconscious Hubert. She was breathing heavily in short bursts, her mind racing so fast she couldn’t think. Grandfather grabbed her arm and tugged her along after him. He was filled with a sense of urgency and worry; he couldn’t really make sense of the situation, but somehow he felt, above everything, the need to get Marie out of danger. That was new too. Putting someone else first.

Hubert crawled up the wall until he stood unsteadily on two feet. He picked up the shovel and examined the thing that had broken his nose. He could feel the pain, but he wasn’t bothered by it. He dropped the shovel. It struck against the stone of the foundation, and two
tiny sparks shot out. They pleased him. He raised the shovel again, and dropped it.

The explosion threw him to the foot of the stairs. He’d lost an ear, and the other rang painfully.

But the flames were nice and warm.

Aline ignored their pleas. “Open the fucking door, Aline,” shouted Father. “No one’s kidding around here.” But Aline lay still. Grace fluttered around the bedroom cawing, and Father and Uncle pounded harder and harder on the door.

In the hallway they were all shouting at one another:

“How’d he get in?”