The Bird Woman (24 page)

“It’s not like that, Ellen. If this was a burn or a cut or the flu I’d have asked, I always do. But this isn’t the flu—it’s
not know
ing how to ride the monocycle. You can’t teach me that with your hands.”

“We don’t know that I can’t,” I said. “The Alternatives come for all sorts of things—tiredness, depression, even because they
can’t stop being angry. They tell me it helps, they come back for more, at least let me try.”

Still he didn’t look up. Then at last he nodded.

I went to the sink and washed my hands, dried them well on the towel, and rolled up my sleeves.

And I tried, but I could do nothing, for nothing came into my hands. After a bit I stopped trying. I said we were both upset
so we’d leave it for now and wait until I was calmer.

Liam was relieved, he didn’t want my desperation. He got up, took his jacket from the hook, opened the door, then stopped.

“I should have told you before, Ellen, but I thought it might come right. It’s hard enough for you… the way things are… what
with never knowing when the money’s coming in and having this thing inside you that frightens you so.” He was looking at me
as he spoke, and I knew then he’d reached the end and couldn’t bear to be pushed.

“I wanted to look after you, Ellen,” he said. “I never wanted to let you down.”

I didn’t move, I only stared at him. It was so unlike Liam—soft talk like this—but I saw he was speaking the truth. I should
have gone to him then, but I didn’t. I sat with no sign or word, and he turned from me and went out into the summer night.
Sometimes now I remember that moment, but I push the memory away.

After he’d gone I sat at the kitchen table drinking tea and thinking of what he’d said. He wanted to look after me; I wanted
to be looked after. More than wanted—I craved it with a hunger like starvation that I knew could never be fed enough to stop
it
craving more. I sipped at the tea. I’d believed he could look after me, had lived for a long time in that belief.

How can something that’s built over years crumble and fall into dust in an hour?

I found I was thinking of my mother, how she’d sit at the kitchen table at night drinking tea after Daddy had died. I’d wake
and come down; I’d see the line of light round the kitchen door with the faulty catch that always unlatched itself, then I’d
stand in the darkness watching her through the crack. I’d watch till I couldn’t feel my feet and my whole body hurt from the
cold. Then I’d creep up the stairs, stepping over the one that went off like a muffled shot. I’d slide into the freezing bed,
pulling the covers up tight round my ears.

At last I understood that she couldn’t forgive my father for dying on her, that what she was feeling alone at the kitchen
table wasn’t grief but anger at his betrayal. Now I saw it had been the same for me—it was why I had watched her with that
blind hostility that possessed me like love. I couldn’t forgive him for dying and leaving me with her, for not being there
to look after me when I needed him. And I wouldn’t forgive her for being the one who stayed alive.

Yet I didn’t know why I had felt like that, for it wasn’t rational. He’d never defended me from the world, nor from her, nor
from anything else. He’d been a gentle man, appreciative of whatever life threw at him, grateful it hadn’t been worse, spitting
in no one’s face. After he died I must have craved his protection, even so young, even though I must have already known, deep
down, that he couldn’t protect me. I’d gone on hoping against hope, defying gravity. And then there’d been Liam, and I thought
I had got what I needed at last.

I made a fresh cup of tea and sat there, sipping away, till I was calm again. Then I settled myself, put my hands flat on
the table
in front of me, and thought of Liam. Nothing. No emptiness, no energy, nothing running through them. I knew without surprise
that it wouldn’t be given to me to help Liam. I sat with my head in my hands feeling more alone than I’d ever felt since the
time I’d lost Barbara Allen and seen Jacko Brennan die before he died. For the first time in a very long time, I remembered
Catherine saying that it wasn’t me and it didn’t belong to me. I was only a channel—not perfect, but one that would do to
be going on with.

J
UNE
1998

L
iam was in the Wildwood. That’s what the pain that lived like a worm in my belly was all about. And it wasn’t anything distant
or controllable; I was nauseated with the dread of what might come.

I knew that the dread was for me as well as for Liam. He is stronger and coarser grained than I am, saner. He’d never let
me down, and he wouldn’t have now if he’d had any choice. Deep down, deep as the sea, I’d believed he was safe from the Wildwood.
Hadn’t he comforted me when its dark trees crowded around me? Hadn’t he taken me by the hand and led me through? So how could
it touch him now? How could he be in the Wildwood, his hounds lying swollen and stiff at his feet?

I knew that the dread was more than it should be, but I never was one for proportion. Trees walk, the Wildwood is always there
waiting, just round that turn in the road or behind the sweep of the hill. Don’t turn your back on a tree, especially one
in its prime, full-leafed and heavy with mystery. That’s the one that moves close when you’re looking away.

But life doesn’t hold itself back till you’re able to face it. It’s inside you all the time, being lived.

I got up earlier, and I went to bed later; I made myself busier and busier. The house was spotless, the garden well tended,
I didn’t mind how many came for my hands. And I tried not to watch what Liam was doing, nor to think of the future; I tried
just to wait, but it was hard.

Liam had always taken on extra work hanging shows in galleries and arts centres. Sometimes he’d helped with theatrical lighting
and sound or with setting up before a concert or a gig. Now the economic boom worked in our favour, and when it was known
that he was available the Ansaphone was busy for him as well as for me. He was competent and reliable, and he didn’t mind
travelling; more than that, people liked him and went out of their way to keep him in mind when work came up. In the old days
he’d cursed when he’d had to abandon the workshop, but now he seemed glad to leave it behind, for he never turned anything
down. But he didn’t stay on after a job for a pint as he’d once have done, and when he came in he was very quiet and tired.
He’d stopped going to the local pubs as well. When I asked why, he said there was no one he wanted to talk to.

When the commission’s delivery date was almost upon him, he made himself write to the government office to let them know he
wouldn’t complete.

“What about the money?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. I’ve never not delivered before; I suppose it’s possible they’ll want it back.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I hadn’t meant the advance, I’d meant the second half of the money, the money that
came at the end. “What about all your work?” I asked when I found my voice. “Months of work, not to mention the cost of the
stone?”

“They’ve paid out for work they thought they were getting. It’s not their fault this has happened.”

“You tried, didn’t you? Does a doctor give you your money back because he hasn’t cured you? Does a dentist when he hasn’t
fixed your tooth? Like hell they do. They charge just for letting them try, then they charge again when you’re back saying
your tooth still hurts. What makes a sculptor so different? Anyway, we haven’t got it.”

“I know,” he said. “If they want it back they can sing for it.”

I had more to say, but I saw his face so I stopped. I did that a lot that summer. Bit my tongue and kept quiet. The problem
was, he knew.

A week or so later the phone rang, and a woman’s voice asked me for Liam. She said she was from the department that had commissioned
his work, and she’d like to speak to him if he was there. I covered the mouthpiece to tell him. I thought he would shake his
head and I’d have to say he was out, but he went next door and took it on the extension.

When he came out he looked angry.

“I told her I thought I was having some sort of a breakdown. I said I doubted I’d ever finish the piece, or work as a sculptor
again. She didn’t seem to understand English. She kept saying the project was running late anyway, and most likely I just
needed a break. She said she has to consult but maybe a year’s extension… ? She’s going to write me a letter.”

I went back to washing the dishes, careful not to look at him when I spoke.

“Why don’t you give it to them the way it is?”

“You’ve been talking to Dermot—”

I opened my mouth to lie, then I changed my mind. “Dermot says public commissions are just bread and butter, no one breaks
themselves over them, that’s why there’s so much bad public art around. He says you’d be mad not to give them the piece, they’re
not expecting perfection. Anyway, most of them wouldn’t know what perfection was if it flew down and sat on their heads—”

Liam looked at me. “He’s right.”

“Then you will—?”

He shook his head. “I’m not Dermot,” he said.

It had rained for days—you would never have guessed it was only the end of August. I had the kitchen door open in protest:
at least the world outside was green through the rain.

Catherine had tucked herself in at the table, a tin of fresh gingerbread close to her hand, which dipped in and out, lifting
slice after slice to her mouth. Catherine’s like me, I thought—her hands do what they want. And she never puts on weight.
But maybe that’s because she forgets to eat when she’s working.

“He told me he’s very depressed,” she said carefully.

“He is.”

“Have you tried to do anything?”

“With my hands?”

She nodded.

“I’ve tried, but nothing comes through. He could be blocking it.”

“Why would he do that?” She was looking at me, eyes questioning. I took a deep breath and steadied my voice. I didn’t want
her thinking that I was being callous when Liam was suffering.

“I think he’s been working up to stopping being a stonemason for ages. I just never saw what he was at.”

She looked up at me sharply. “It’s his whole life, Ellen. You surely don’t think he’d turn his back on it now?”

“He’s been saying on and off it’s a young man’s game—”

“It is, but they all say that. I’d swear he had no real intention of ever laying down his tools till he hit this.”

Silence again, and neither of us breaking it. Catherine licked her finger and dabbed up the crumbs on her plate. She put the
finger up to her mouth, and her tongue flicked out and cleaned it, like a cat’s.

“He says it was that review,” I said. “Pinning it up in the studio, reading it over and over every day the way he did—”

“Sometimes you hit a wall and it feels like the end of the world, but it isn’t,” she said. “The wall’s there because the undervoice
is trying to tell you to change, but you won’t, so it acts to stop you going on as you did before. I think he’ll get past
this block, Ellen. Maybe not in exactly the way he thinks he will, but he’ll get past it. He’ll get back up onto his trick
cycle and pedal off into the sunset.” Her voice was dry. I shot her a look, searching her face for a sign to match her tone,
but it was neutral.

I was angry then, with her as well as with Liam. I should have kept my own counsel, I thought. All these things she thought
she had the right to say because they both lived in this world that I couldn’t enter.

I got up, picked up the gingerbread lid, put it back on the tin. “He says he has to forget trick cycles and learn to walk
like everyone else,” I said.

She stood up and began to collect her things. At that moment Andrew came scuttling in through the rain, dripping wet, smiling
and shy at the sight of Catherine. I glanced at the clock. Usually I heard the school bus dropping him off, but I must have
been too absorbed in the conversation. She sat down again.

Andrew shrugged off his anorak, dumped down his bag, and wriggled himself onto the chair beside Catherine. I threw him a towel,
but he had a new book about trees that he wanted to show
her, his hair got no more than a wipe. He turned its pages, pointing out leaves and twigs.

My heart confused me so that it hurt. Catherine had never tried to woo Andrew, she’d just stayed still and let him walk round
her until he grew used to her. When she talked to him now it was clear that she knew that he’d show her things that would
interest her, because they interested him. She took him seriously and steadily, and he loved her. I had a feeling she loved
him back, but I would never have intruded on their relationship enough to discuss it with either of them. It was separate
from me, and I was grateful to her.

I watched them now, the way she sat close in to Andrew, the way his face was turned up to hers, resting himself in her interest.

You trusted them, and they let you trust, I thought. Well, more fool you. They bided their time, but in the end they cleaved
to their own, and turned against you.