A Funeral for an Owl Read online

  “What’s our robin been up to?”

  “Our robin?”

  “What? Just say if you mind me being here.” She leant over him - so close he had no option but to breathe the scent of her hair - reaching across an eighteen-year divide, as vivid to him as any recent memory. “It was your place first.”

  They appeared to be replaying the scene: he, the thirty-year-old, she the thirteen-year-old - the child - and still, it seemed, she had the upper hand. Conscious that he was dreaming, Jim was happy to play along, reciting words he had rehearsed many times over since that six-week awakening.

  His ‘place’ was down by the side of the railway lines. A scrubland refuge set in a backdrop of brambles and ivy; somewhere Jim had discovered when home no longer provided privacy, where his thoughts flowed uninterrupted. He was used to the silence - or his version of silence, comprised of train and bird and the telltale rustling of leaves.

  “I don’t mind,” he shrugged. Better to be polite. He still wasn’t sure who he was dealing with.

  Obviously unconvinced, she badgered him. And, in the end, just as before, there was no choice but to play her at her own game.

  “Do you mind me being here?” Jim shot back. “I mean, I’m not getting in your way, am I?”

  “No,” she replied, a small shift of her head rearranging a section of unruly curls.

  He ruled the conversation surplus to requirements. “Well, then.”

  But she couldn’t leave it alone. “I like coming here,” she shrugged, toying with the seed-heads in the long grass. “With you.”

  A yellow and black missile zapped angrily past his face. “Is that what you’re trying to get me to say?”

  “What makes you think I’m trying to get you to say anything?” And from this Jim knew that, no matter how much she protested that she was different, he was dealing with a girl.

  “You want me to say that I like you being here.”

  “Well, do you?” she challenged, pouting.

  Jim pretended to consider her question. “Most people would hack me off by the end of the day -”

  “Oh, so I don’t hack you off?” Rolling onto her back, the girl acted as though she had the right to be offended.

  “Like you said.” Jim elbowed her in the ribs. “It’s my spot.”

  They both lay back, ignoring the unfamiliar proximity of their hands; pretending to enjoy the warmth of the sun on their faces, the questioning bursts of birdsong, the low hum of winged insects.

  “You see!” He pushed himself up and started stuffing things into his rucksack, one by one. His mouth twitched as he recognised his bird book, his notebooks, his chewed pencils.

  “Doctor, he’s getting restless.”

  “Keep an eye on him. We might need to top him up.”

  Aimee assumed an expression of surprise. “What?”

  “A bloke would just take it as read that if you choose to spend time together, it must be because you like each other.”

  As he heaved himself to his feet, the ground vibrated. A flurry of wings, camouflaged birds broke cover. He first sensed and then heard the rush of electricity, and backed away from the railway line.

  “Sit down.” She patted the rough ground. Having procured an admission that he liked her, an infuriating smile rounded her face. “Why are you so upset?”

  She was inviting him to stay, as though the place were hers! “I’m not upset, alr-”

  A train thundered past, the force of the pressure-wave hitting him smack in the face, tugging his hair by the roots, rocking him back on his heels, and Jim - thirty years old and a gangling six foot four - dropped to his haunches with the shock of it, the violence of it.

  “Doctor -”

  “Alright, let’s top him up.”

  He hugged his knees hard, pretending the disappearing view of the Sutton to Victoria fascinated him. This was how he imagined he would feel if a ghost had actually passed through him: not a shiver, but something that solidified on impact, a ten-tonne wall of power.

  “‘The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line.’ Do you like the way Hardy puts that?” She acted as if it were perfectly normal to read out loud after what was practically an argument. Still reeling from the aftershock, he wondered what new rules she had switched to. “‘Somewhat to the left of a straight line.’ Don’t you think that’s genius?”

  Jim pictured his father, eight o’clock in the morning, staggering into the kitchen, a can of Guinness in one hand: “Cheers, Jimbo! Breakfast.” “Pissed,” he said.

  “Your trouble is you’ve got no poetry in your soul!”

  “What’s a soul?” Blood still channelling fiercely through Jim’s veins, his heartbeat slowed to the speed of a car running over a pothole: bo-boom, bo-boom. “Look! The only book I’ve ever read that I wasn’t forced to is my bird book. Other than that, it’s just comics.”

  His awareness that this scene was not being played out in real-time allowed him to reflect that this statement was no longer true: because of her, it was no longer true.

  “You don’t have to read to like the way words sound,” Aimee insisted, refusing to succumb to his confrontational tone.

  Seeing where this was going, he shook his head and half-laughed. “Lay off, will you!”

  “It could be a song lyric, or a line from a film. Just one teeny thing.” Head cocked to one side like a robin, she waited.

  Jim’s mouth twitched again with the memory of the lines that he recited, completing his sense of disloyalty: “There are holes in the sky…”

  “…where the rain…” And again, he remembered being gobsmacked when she stole the line straight from his mouth. “What? You’re not the only one who knows Spike Milligan! I’ve got a book of his poems.”

  Something sank. His grandfather - perhaps the person he’d trusted the most - had betrayed him. “That’s a poem?” he asked.

  She laughed, a sound as glorious and carefree as sunshine. “You’re funny, Cheese-and-pickle Jim, you know that?”

  He took the same decision now as then. There had to be rules if they were going to be friends. “Look, the thing is, my mum was never big on bedtime stories. We don’t even own a bookcase.”

  “I get it,” Aimee said, beetroot tinged. “You don’t have to go on.”

  “No, you don’t get it! Look, I’m sorry I tricked you into thinking I’m a boffin by throwing in a few Latin names -”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “God, no! I just find remembering stuff easy.”

  “The way you’re acting, you’d think I’d accused you of stealing or something! Remembering takes work.”

  “Not if you have a system, it doesn’t.” He registered a rustling to his left, a bird or a small rodent. “I make up stories, that’s all.”

  A blackcap emerged, tail feathers twitching.

  “Have you got one for him?”

  “No brainer.” He lowered his voice. “But it’s a her.”

  “Her, then.”

  “Shhhh! You’ll scare her off. She’s a blackcap. I call them mop tops because they’ve got Stone Roses haircuts.”

  “Not the Beatles, then?”

  He pulled back his head, frowning. “They were just a bunch of hippies weren’t they?”

  “Ha!” She fired the first syllable of an astonished laugh.

  “It’s my way of remembering, not yours!”

  “Tell me, then. How come it’s called a blackcap when it’s brown?”

  “Only the males have black tops. The females’ caps are brown, but the shape’s the same.” She was interested. Actually interested. “I call them ‘Sylvias’ because that’s the Latin: Sylvia atricapilla. It’s easy to remember: Sylvia was my gran’s name. Then the ‘atri’ bit’s dead easy: I just picture the bird sitting in…?”

  On cue, Sylvia retreated to a nearby branch to observe them observing her.

  “A tree.” Aimee’s mock-bored voi
ce said she knew she was stating the obvious.

  “Next comes the ‘cap’. Nothing needed for that. And for the ‘illa’, think of Godzilla.”

  Her mouth was gaping.

  “What now?”

  “You’ve made up word connections like that for every single bird?”

  “Aren’t you missing the point? You’re the only person I know who reads because they like the sound of words!”

  “That’s a character flaw, is it?”

  “See? You’re at it again!” She was sitting on her hands, her face so close that it confused him. “And you keep wanting to know what I’m thinking.” He ripped long strands of grass from the matted ground. “Listen, this won’t come out right, but you and me,” - he looked away - “We’re different. Don’t you get that?” And again, Jim didn’t feel he should have to apologise for being who he was. He wasn’t asking her to.

  Having been facing in opposite directions, they turned to each other and both started speaking.

  “You first,” he volunteered, this tea-party politeness feeling fake. After you. No, I insist.

  “I was just wondering if you want to borrow my Spike Milligan book.” Aimee flicked her hair back off her face, a good impression of someone who didn’t care either way.

  “No!” He couldn’t have been more appalled. “I want to go back to thinking my granddad made that poem up for me!”

  “Fair enough!” Her biting tone relented. “Anyway, what were you going to say?”

  “I don’t mind that we’re different. It’s not like it’s” - Jim paused, wincing - “bad or anything.” Realising that, in her roundabout way, Aimee had tricked him into saying what she wanted to hear all along, he added, “I was only going to ask if we’re still going to be friends.”

  But that wasn’t enough: Aimee had to have the last word. “Jim,” she turned on him. “Just because you haven’t done something before doesn’t mean you can’t. Look what you’ve learned all on your own.” She pointed to his book. “I bet you could do most things if you want to badly enough.”

  CHAPTER 6: AYISHA - JULY 2010 - AT HOME

  Not knowing whether the incident would make the national news, Ayisha decided she must warn her mother. It wouldn’t be fair to let her see footage of Ashfield Comprehensive and leave her wondering. She was frustrated to hear the ansaphone kick in:

  “We’re not home at the moment, but leave your name and number and we’ll get back to you.”

  This wasn’t the sort of thing you could leave a message about. “Oh, hi Mum. It’s me.” She addressed a small sandstone figurine on the bookcase in her living room. A figure that might have been a souvenir from an exotic country, but came from her local Oxfam shop. It was difficult to know what to say next. “Do you think you could -?”

  “Hello, darling. Listen to me, all out of breath!”

  “You’re there -”

  “You caught me doing a spot of spring cleaning - or should that be summer cleaning? I don’t know. And your father is waging chemical warfare on the dandelions. We’re both really excited about seeing you.”

  So sweetly sing-song. Ayisha squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the inevitable onslaught. “About that, Mum. I’m afraid I won’t be able to visit this week. Everything’s on hold.”

  “Are you ill?” The voice - noticeably chillier - suggested that this would be the only acceptable explanation.

  “No, nothing like that. In fact, it’s not the sort of thing I’d usually worry you with over the phone -”

  “Oh?”

  “Promise me you won’t overreact?”

  Her mother’s voice was clipped, preparing to be judgmental. “I promise to react appropriately, as I always do.”

  Appropriately? Having been a witness - to the aftermath, at least - Ayisha still wasn’t sure what the appropriate response was. “There was an incident - on the last day of term, would you believe? One of the teachers was hurt when he stepped in to break up a fight.”

  “Hurt? But he’s OK?”

  She tried to pitch her reply midway between reassurance and making her mother understand that she couldn’t just drop everything. “He’s hardly OK, but he’s made it through the night. The knife -”

  “A knife?” Ayisha imagined her mother sinking into her favourite green armchair, the one by the ‘real flame’ gas fire. “What kind of animals carry knives to school?”

  “Thankfully, only a small -”

  “So he’s not hurt: he’s seriously injured!”

  “They missed his heart, but yes, they’ve done a serious amount of damage. And as I was the first teacher to arrive on the scene -”

  “You were there? Ayisha! My God!”

  “No, Mum. I arrived after it happened. But I need to write a report for the Head, and the police want to speak to me.” Every time she opened her mouth, Ayisha’s collection of lies grew. She felt obliged to stay, that was true, but her report was already written. Posted through Mr Peel’s front door with a note, for fear that something in her manner might have given her away, a fear equalled only by the possibility that guilt might cause her to blurt something out to her mother. The minute she set foot in her parents’ house, Mum would detect that something was wrong and she’d chip away until she wore Ayisha down. “To be honest, I don’t want to go anywhere until I know Jim’s out of danger.” That, at least, was the truth.

  “Not your friend, Jim? The history teacher you’ve told us so much about?”

  Ayisha only remembered mentioning that they’d gone for a drink. Perhaps it was her mother’s implied suggestion that she was sad and friendless that had made her invite Jim to the pub in the first place, just so that she could report: I am not a failure; I managed to bribe a man to spend a couple of hours with me with the offer of free beer.

  “And now I suppose you’ll have to spend your summer looking for another job -”

  “Who said anything about another job?” Again, Ayisha felt as if her thoughts were being tapped, although her reason was very different from the one her mother would be thinking of. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep for fear of discovery.

  “Well, you can’t possibly be thinking of going back? Not now you know it isn’t safe!”

  “This sort of thing could happen anywh-”

  “Not here, Ayisha. Think about it: if you were nearer to us, we wouldn’t have to worry about you walking home on your own at night.”

  “I don’t go walking about on my own at night!”

  “But that’s just the point. You’re entitled to live and work somewhere you feel safe.”

  At this juncture, Ayisha became surplus to requirements. “Mum! I. Feel. Safe -”

  “It’s so very sad. What makes children want to kill each other?”

  “This is an isolated incident.”

  “Don’t patronise me, Ayisha. I watch the news. This sort of thing is on the increase. You know better than I do that the worst of it takes place in London.”

  “The school is taking precautions to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Ayisha recited lines, lines she wondered if she actually believed. She saw birthday cards that needed taking down from the mantelpiece. Two weeks was more than enough. “And anyway, I have no intention of leaving! I refuse to live my life as if something bad’s going to happen. It’s that attitude that has kids carrying knives in the first place.”

  “So you admit they’re all at it.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Mum!”

  “What I’ve never understood is why? It isn’t your background. There are plenty of schools in Wiltshire in need of teachers. Good schools.”

  Wiltshire: a million miles away. For a millisecond it sounded tempting, but no. All the time that her parents insisted her bedroom was waiting - just as you left it - it felt more like a threat than an offer. This is my home, she staked her claim. Even if it might not look like much. When her parents visited for the first time, they seemed to fill her living room, turning around and looking as if there was nowhere for t
hem to sit. But here Ayisha’s identity was not just that of someone’s daughter. She was judged as herself, not the wink and the, ‘I know your father.’ To go back to Wiltshire would be…

  “It’s all very worthy, this wanting to make a ‘difference’. But what about us? You know how we worry.”

  “Please!” Ayisha picked up the card from her mother, opened it. May God soften the pillow you rest your head on at night; may he smooth the path you walk by day. She sighed. “Why do we have to argue?”

  “Oh, I suppose you’d prefer it if I hid my feelings!”

  “This was supposed to be a quick call to say that I can’t make any plans yet.”

  “No! To break your plans. You always come for the first week of the holidays.” Her mother’s voice was choked. “I was so looking forward -”

  Knowing that her mother would have said ‘looking after my little girl’ irritated. She was a grown woman. And there was little point protesting that, just because she’d gone home for the first week of the holidays for the past two years, doesn’t mean she always will.

  “I didn’t want this to happen!” Recognising in her protest something one of the kids had said to her, she relented. “And I will come. In a couple of weeks’ time.”

  Ayisha found herself trying to pacify a dead line. Letting out a frustrated cry, she hurled the handset across the living room, paced the Turkish rug furiously and then threw herself down on the sofa, finding her mother’s card crumpled in her fist. If she was the one to phone back, Ayisha would find herself agreeing to something she didn’t feel she should have to do. But if she didn’t? Well, she would have committed the ultimate sin: upsetting her mother. Even smoothed out, the card refused to stand. It was a lose-lose situation. Her mother wouldn’t call. And Ayisha would have to tolerate her father’s lecture on how disappointed in her he was.