Birdy Flynn Read online

  It took me twenty-six minutes after school to cycle into town. I saw three cats. I never usually saw cats. Each one looked at me like they hated me but it helped me pedal fast.

  Our shopping centre was two rows of shops with slabs of concrete in the middle where no cars could go. It smelt of the vinegar on chips mixed with the sweetness of jam doughnuts. There were Union Jacks everywhere, hanging from lamp posts and across the windows of shops. They were there for the royal wedding the year before and because of the Falklands some people put them back up.

  Halfords was hot and rubbery. Red, sweaty men stood talking, jangling the keys and coins in their pockets. It used to be me and Martin’s favourite shop. That was where we got the spray paints for our graffiti tribute to the girl who worked in Peacocks.

  The spray paints were still in the same place, but the gold can was missing. My head spun at the thought of failing, but I was on a mission, I told myself, and no way was I going to give up. When I pulled the other cans aside, there it was. At full stretch I reached it, snatched it and pushed it up my top.

  Someone in a Halfords uniform walked towards me, so I twiddled with hanging air fresheners, asking myself out loud, ‘Lemon or orange? What one would Mum want?’ The man smiled and carried on.

  Outside I grabbed my bike and kept moving and didn’t look back and turned left after Dixons, rode behind the bakery, through the bins, then alongside the library and through the covered car park, where the market was finishing. I stopped at the traffic lights because the road was super busy and I saw, when I looked up, Gypsy Girl stood on the other side.

  The traffic lights took for ever to change and all that time I wished her away. She was staring in my direction, but I was counting passing cars and when the bleeping finally started I veered to the left to make a gap between us. But she came closer and waved and stopped, and it made me turn a little towards her, and she said ‘Hi’ and sort of smiled.

  I held up one hand and gave a half wave and grunt and my feet slipped, but I steadied myself.

  I got my pedalling into a rhythm, and when I looked back she was gone. As I cycled home I took in deep breaths and filled my lungs. It took me only fourteen minutes to get back and I felt like I could’ve cycled on and on.

  In my room I spread out a layer of newspapers and made a careful construction with elastic bands and pencils, and placed two hoops from my tub delicately just above the floor. I shook the can hard until the little ball bearing stopped rattling and sweat dripped down my neck, and I sprayed the hoops with a light mist of gold and blew them dry with slow warm breaths. They looked smooth and perfect. I sat back, leant against my wardrobe and admired my brilliant effort.

  The afternoon breeze came through my open window and helped break up the choking smell. Outside I heard little girls playing: ‘Six, five, four, three, two, one. Coming to get you, ready or not.’

  Downstairs I found Mum at the kitchen table. Two fingers from her left hand were holding a thin burning ciggy. Two fingers from her right hand were dipped in an egg cup of whiskey. It was the way Mum cured every illness or injury. Whiskey numbs everything, she told me. From heartache to toothache. The tips of her fingers throbbed with nicks and cuts from the Stanley knife she used to open boxes of sheets at the factory. I wanted her to stop that job and all her cleaning jobs, and sometimes she said maybe. But I knew that even if she chopped all her fingers off, we still needed the money.

  ‘Hello, love,’ she said.

  I made her another mug of tea.

  ‘Shall I peel some potatoes, Mum?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ She winced at her stinging fingers. ‘And turn the oven on. I’ve to do some baking for Eileen’s birthday party.’ She grabbed the table as she slowly got herself up. ‘I saw our Liam down the parade today.’

  ‘Liam? Why?’

  ‘No why, love. I just did.’

  ‘He’s an idiot,’ I said louder than I intended.

  ‘He’s your cousin, so you’ll mind your tone.’

  ‘Why? Just because he’s my cousin? Why do I have to be nice?’

  ‘Have you fallen out?’

  ‘No. It’s no big deal. I just don’t hang around with him no more. Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘I was saying to him . . . Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I was saying that he hadn’t been round for his tea in a while.’

  ‘Mum, don’t listen to him, OK?’

  ‘He said nothing.’ Mum looked baffled and tried to read my mind. ‘What shouldn’t I be listening to?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Mum,’ I said and tried to leave the kitchen.

  ‘Is that gold on your fingers?’ She took hold of my hands. ‘It is. And your uniform – look there on your sleeves.’

  I pulled myself away.

  ‘What are you up to? It’s them earrings. Who are you making them for? Tell me now.’

  ‘No one you know, Mum. It doesn’t matter,’ I said and I knew Mum was so exhausted she’d have no more questions.

  ‘Eggs,’ she muttered as I walked out of the kitchen.

  ‘Eggs?’

  ‘Will you get some eggs from Edna,’ Mum said, only just able to get the words out of her yawning mouth.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And, Birdy.’

  ‘Yes, Mum?’

  ‘Will you tell her gently that we’ve no sign of Murphy just yet.’

  Edna’s door was open. She was slumped in her chair by the cooker, her head flopped down, knitting needles jabbing out from her fingers, only inches from her eyes. The house was darker and more foggy than usual, like a cloud of smelly dust was trapped inside. Murphy’s dish was still under the kitchen table with food that had dried to hard lumps. Her toy mouse, made out of a sock, was sat by its side, like it was waiting patiently for Murphy to arrive.

  Mum told me never to wake Edna if she was snoring, for fear of a heart attack or a stroke from the shock. But she was not. If she was asleep, it was the quietest sleep she’d ever done. I couldn’t hear her breathing over the buzzy radio station so I turned it off. I leant in close to her face. There was nothing. No murmur. Around the room ashtrays had half-smoked cigarettes resting on them but none of them were still burning and her mug of tea was gone cold and so was her skin when I touched her shin and felt the bone.

  I sprinted back out the door and got to the gate and lifted the latch and heard: ‘Who’s that?’

  It was Edna’s call.

  ‘It’s me.’ I ran back, almost tripping on her doormat. She was awake with her arms held out. I knelt down and gave her a hug and she clamped around me. ‘I thought you were –’

  ‘What, lovey?’

  ‘You were out for the count.’

  ‘’Tis the pills they give me. Put the pot on, love.’

  She shuffled her bum in the chair and got herself comfy and I turned on the tap. Edna refused to let an electric kettle in her house; she liked to heat water in a pan on the cooker, because that was the way her mother did it. Except her mum had a monster of a cooker in a farmhouse in County Cork, and instead of electricity they kept it fired with lumps of soil.

  As the water bubbled, Edna cleared her throat. ‘So where is it you’ve been lost to?’

  I took a few seconds to unravel Edna’s jumbled words. ‘Where have I been lost?’

  ‘Isn’t it days since you’ve been here?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Feels like weeks,’ she said, ‘with no Murphy as well.’

  ‘Oh yes. Anyway, I haven’t been hiding and I’m here now. Is there biscuits?’

  ‘There’s fruit cake in the fridge. I’ll have butter also.’

  I tidied as I went, as Edna’s kitchen was always a mad kind of messy, the surfaces covered with spilt sugar and sprinkles of tea and tobacco and packages and tubs of things and empty milk bottles and flowers she’d been given and boxes of fudge and half-emptied tins.

  ‘Have you found yourself romance? Eh? Is that it now?’

  �
�I’m here to get eggs, Edna.’

  ‘Eggs, is it? Because that’s what I was dreaming just now. You gone off, romancing. You know I have a knack for knowing what’s going on.’

  ‘Have you got any eggs?’

  ‘Oh, I have none, lovey.’ Edna paused to think. ‘I’ve a whole load of suet? I have no need for dumplings now.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ I gave Edna her white china cup, with its spindly green ivy, on its matching thin saucer. She took it with her shaky, bony hand and carefully lowered it to the table.

  ‘You have a drink?’

  ‘I have, yes.’

  ‘We have helped her in her struggle,’ Edna started singing, holding up her cup, ‘sure we answered to her call.’

  ‘And because we loved her freedom,’ I sang my bit.

  ‘We are placed against the wall,’ Edna bellowed, then laughed, coughed and laughed again. She sipped from her cup and smiled. ‘Best cup of tea I’ve ever had.’ She sipped again. ‘Are you happy?’

  ‘Happy?’ I said as if it was a stupid suggestion. ‘Can we sing some more Irish songs?’

  ‘You seem distracted. Not your normal self. Have you fallen in love?’

  ‘No,’ I said too fast.

  ‘You have. Come here till I feel your cheeks.’

  ‘Shall I take down your crosses and give them a polish?’ I said, and Edna laughed as if that confirmed she was right all along. She had crucifixes above every door and lucky horseshoes nailed to the frames. She had paintings of horses and small white bungalows on every wall mixed in with photos of family and friends.

  ‘How’s school?’

  ‘It’s well.’

  ‘The truth.’

  ‘I’ve got one good teacher.’

  ‘That’s a start.’

  ‘I’m trying to be good.’

  ‘Brilliant.’ She paused and took a sip of tea. ‘You know I’m always proud of you.’

  I nodded, but my heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach. She didn’t ask about the Missing Cat posters and I didn’t tell her. It was easier to not say where we’d put them and what a grand job we’d done. I couldn’t tell her that Murphy would probably turn up, because I knew she was dead and gone.

  We let the kitchen go quiet. Edna mumbled songs, shopping lists, bits of poetry and prayers and, as sometimes happened, her voice took her off in a dream somewhere. Until she clicked back to wide awake. ‘Now listen here, good-looking.’ She held her arms out to me. ‘Are you there?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  She touched the skin of my arms. ‘Now, don’t be running off with your new love. Not without saying goodbye to me.’ She took both my hands and squeezed them together. ‘You hear me?’

  ‘Loud and clear,’ I said, and her saying that made me grin.

  Edna raised her hand to feel the movement of my lips. I smiled at the thought of love and me, and running off and any of those impossible things.

  ‘With Murphy gone missing, I can’t be losing you as well.’

  ‘No.’ I stood up to go. ‘Edna, is it OK to give teachers presents?’

  ‘Is this the good teacher?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Well, why not, if he’s been kind and treated you well?’

  ‘She has, yes. She seems to look out for me.’

  ‘Well, grand.’ She held up her arms.

  ‘Shall I put that cat food in the bin before I go?’ The smell was mixing with the flat air and getting up my nose.

  ‘No,’ Edna shouted. Then she slapped her own thigh. ‘I’m sorry, love. My head’s a terrible fog. It’s daft, so it is, but I’m holding on to every bit of Murphy, you know? Until she comes back.’ She paused. ‘Are you there? Birdy, are you there?’

  ‘Yes, sorry. I’m here.’

  ‘I miss the sound of her breathing, even her smell.’

  ‘Sorry, Edna, I –’

  ‘It’s OK, love. She’ll soon be home.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, which was a lie, but Edna talked so certainly about Murphy I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t stay to lie again, so I kissed her cheek. ‘Bye, Edna,’ I said. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘You’re a brilliant cook, Aunty Martha,’ I heard Liam say as I walked through our back door.

  ‘Thanks, son,’ she said. In front of her she had a box of six eggs.

  ‘What you doing?’ I prodded Liam.

  ‘Aunty Martha phoned us for eggs.’

  ‘OK. You can go now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What took you so long?’ Mum said with her head in the mixing bowl.

  ‘Come here,’ I said to Liam, pulling him towards the front door. He looked at me like I was an alien, using alien words. ‘Can you go, please.’

  ‘What you doing?’

  ‘Go.’ I pushed him forward.

  ‘It’s Martin that will grass.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘He will.’

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘He said he’s going to tell your mum and the police and everyone,’ he whispered and he flinched like he expected a punch.

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘All right, all right. You’re pinching my skin.’

  ‘Get lost from my house.’

  ‘All right, all right. I was talking to your mum about our school trip.’

  ‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘Leave me alone.’ I pushed him out the door.

  ‘Birdy.’ He reached towards me but pulled his arm back when I slammed the door.

  Mum called me back but I went upstairs, closed my bedroom door and wedged it shut with my stool. I sat on my bed and looked down at Mrs Cope’s gold earrings.

  I reached for my tin and opened it, found Murphy’s name tag then hid it again. There was a Swan Vestas matchbox where I normally kept dead bluebottle flies, but I emptied it in my bin so I had something to put the earrings in. I held them in my palm and inspected them closely for smudges or speckles before carefully putting them away. I tucked the box under my Young Angler’s Handbook and put the tin’s lid back on.

  I took the top newspaper from the stack on my floor and spread it out across my bed, like a crunchy ancient map.

  The Daily Telegraph had places in it that I had never heard of. I wanted a globe in my room so I could find all the places on earth. There were stories about very important people who were also on the TV news. I wrote each discovery in my notebook: test-tube babies, football fights, wars, strikes and battles. There were lots of people that needed saving. That’s what Nan would have said. At the back I wrote words that I wanted to understand, like traitor and carnage and Islas Malvinas. I cut out the best articles and pinned them to my wall. Eileen said it looked creepy. I thought it looked cool.

  It was the letters page I liked the best – people with opinions on everything. The colonels and sirs and the ladies and lords.

  The Pope was coming to England, it said in the paper, so Martin was right. He was coming to London in a car with no roof. The Pope looked like a friendly grandad. I liked his smile. Dad wouldn’t let me, but I thought that I would like to meet him, and I wondered if Mum would do a family tea or bake a special cake or if everyone would go up London on a special coach.

  Underneath the story about the Pope there was an advert for Friskies cat food. If you love her, spoil her, the advert said. Beside it was an advert for diamond rings. The ring was in a little box. Delicate long fingers held the box open and even in black and white you could see the diamond sparkle. It looked like it was from London, from a big jewellery shop, and I wished Mum had that ring so she could show it off. Mrs Cope had one. She had a big gold wedding ring and another one with a diamond. It must have come in a box like that. That was what made the jewellery extra special, I thought. Then I got thinking of an even better plan.

  Mum and Dad’s room faced the sun in the afternoon and when it was shining all their things had a marzipan glow. I’d never seen Mum with any jewels, except her wedding ring. But I knew that in the chest of drawers beside her bed she kept her silver bracelet an
d pearls.

  The top drawer wouldn’t open at first and everything wobbled as I gave it a hefty tug. Then it flew open and I nearly pulled the chest of drawers over and the soft, flowery smell of Mum floated out. A Holy Bible sat looking up, a big brown block. Next to it was a tiny bottle with Holy Water handwritten on its front. There were Holy beads and Holy bookmarks with pictures of Jesus and Holy holiday postcards. And wrapped in a white cloth was a picture of Noely in his christening clothes. He looked like he was wearing a dress. He would hate the picture, I thought to myself, and he’d want to rip it up.

  The second drawer opened easy, but the handle came off. I found where the screws had fallen and repaired it so quick I was proud of myself. In there were Nan’s green brooch and Mum’s St Christopher necklace laid across a white hanky. In the corner of the drawer there was a little box. A purply-coloured with swirly gold lines around it, and when I opened it two dangly earrings fell out. It was exactly what I wanted. Like the one in the advert. Inside it was smooth pink silk. A tiny bed for two earrings. It made me tingle when I touched it. Mum had never worn those earrings, I told myself. She wouldn’t miss the box and I wanted everything perfect, and I didn’t want to stop.

  My long walk to school the next day was ten minutes shorter. It was like I was being pulled along and I held tight to my bag and shut out the noise and stormed through the gates and, although I didn’t say it out loud, I was ready to take on anyone that day.

  My plan was to give her the present before school. That would stop me from telling myself that it was a stupid idea or losing the earrings or getting them stolen. But the first bell went, and Mrs Cope was nowhere. Her car wasn’t there. She wasn’t patrolling the playground like a tough army guard.