A Funeral for an Owl Page 7

  There was a knowing sigh from Shamayal. “I see what I see, don’t I?” The shake of his head suggested it was a hopeless case he saw. For his part, Jim saw that the boy needed to start shaving. However close to home he hit, much of the swagger was pretence.

  “For one thing, I don’t think a woman’s set foot in this place for a long time.”

  “Is that right?”

  Clearly, Shamayal interpreted Jim’s folded arms as a challenge. “That’s right. You see, women, they like to leave their little reminders.” Except that he pronounced it ‘likkle’. “You find their pink toothbrush and their Impulse in your bathroom cabinet. They plant their Pussycat Dolls and their Take That bang in the middle of your CD collection. They leave their DVDs of Love, Actually and PS I Love You on the coffee table to hint at what they want to watch. They put their bottle of white wine in the fridge, next to the milk.”

  “I like white wine!”

  “Whatever.” His laugh was deep like Frank Bruno’s, a ‘hee, hee, hee’, that he seemed to be trying on for size. “They pin photographs of themselves in bikinis on your noticeboard. It’s territorial, innit? Spells out that any other woman who invites herself back for coffee is treadin’ on someone else’s turf. I don’t see nothin’ like that.”

  “Well, Sherlock, it sounds as if you have more experience in this sort of thing than I do.”

  “Are you surprised, man? The binoculars? All these bird books? Makes you look creepy!”

  “I’m not going to apologise for my hobby.” The boy needed to know the alternatives to playing the tough guy. “Anyway, we ‘creeps’ are called twitchers.”

  “See! Even that name freaks me out.” Shamayal’s elbows pressed further forwards. “Are you gay or somethink?”

  Although Jim shook his head with disbelief, the leap from hobby to bold assumption wasn’t new to him. Still, he would never have asked that of a teacher. He replied with a rebellious, “Would it bother you if I was?” And again, he saw how something said in jest might easily be misconstrued.

  “ME?” It was as if Jim had accused the boy of an outrage. “No, I’m cool with all that. You express yourself whatever way you want.”

  “I’m not.”

  “So, sort your act out, man! You’re not that bad lookin’. You got a good job. A nice enough pad. You could get Mr Stevens some action. Hee, hee, hee.” Shamayal’s eyes settled critically on the Smeg Union Flag fridge - an extravagant buy - its proportions swamping the room. “Except that’s got to go. Girls don’t like that sort of shit.”

  Up until then, Jim had thought his purchase - admittedly made while the European Cup was on - rather cool.

  “Kettle’s boiled,” the boy said, matter of factly.

  Welcoming the opportunity for a breather, Jim added two generous scoops to the pot, inhaling the rich roasted aroma. Shamayal’s eyes lit up as Jim returned with his plate of toasted crusts and the cafetiere.

  “Hey, can I do the plunger?”

  Jim surrendered, saying, “I thought you didn’t like coffee.”

  “I don’t.” The boy grinned, claiming the cafetiere as if it were an exam paper he wanted to protect. “So, who’s the man and the woman in the picture?”

  Ambushed by another subject-change, Jim turned to the cork noticeboard. “That’s my mum and my granddad: her father.”

  “Thought it must be,” Shamayal nodded. “Shame you don’t take after her. Hey, Sir, I din’t mean to -”

  “No, no.” Jim checked his expression. “I’m more than happy to talk about Mum.” So many people avoided the subject. “It’s just… well, you know what it’s like... you can’t help thinking, can you?”

  The boy bunched up his mouth and nodded seriously. “What if she was still here.”

  Jim recognised that his own situation was not dissimilar to the boy’s. It might be the best opportunity he would get to ask about Shamayal’s family. “Exactly. That’s my favourite picture of the two of them. My grandfather was around more than my dad.” Looking at his grandfather’s face, Jim ventured, “I think my dad was probably a lot like yours.”

  Shamayal put both hands on the plunger, one on top of the other. “Hee, hee, hee. Man United supporter?”

  “Away a lot. Drunk.” Seeing the boy’s eyes flash darkly, Jim judged it was too early to say, Handy with his fists. “But Granddad - he was a gentleman.”

  Shamayal’s recovery swift, the mocking manner returned with a vengeance. “Posh?”

  “God, no! He had a face full of stubble and tattoos up to his armpits. I meant in the old-fashioned sense. He was born at a time when showing manners and respecting his elders weren’t seen as weaknesses.”

  Shamayal looked doubtful. This definition implied a loss of face.

  “Granddad understood me better than anyone else.” Jim found himself smiling. “He was just old enough to remember what it was like to be really young.”

  “That don’t make no sense, Sir.”

  The ice cream van’s Greensleeves filtered in through the kitchen window, providing a soundtrack for a string of welcome memories: tadpoles in a jam jar; the new season’s shiniest conkers skewered and knotted on strings; the telling of ghost stories as he sat in the tatty green armchair in his granddad’s shed on the allotment, the nub of a candle welded onto an old lid from a paint can; sledging on tea trays down uneven tracts of snow; the old man’s wink; jumpers that smelled of bonfires; Saturday morning trips to the sweet shop for supplies of Space Dust. But Shamayal wouldn’t even have heard of Space Dust. How could he draw him in?

  “He built me my first bike with parts rescued from the dump, put back together again in his shed and sprayed red.”

  “You must of been seriously strapped.”

  “Compared to what kids have now, maybe.” Try telling a teenager who thinks he can’t live without the latest trainers and gadgets, when he has already seen Jim’s cache, that it was never things that were important. When did that change?

  “Let’s go down the Co-op. They’ve got a new chest freezer and I’ve asked Stan to put the box by for us.”

  “It’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen! How are we going to get it home?”

  “We’ll turn it upside down, see, and carry it on our heads, like a canoe; me at the front; you at the back.”

  “Where d’you go?” The boy was snapping his fingers directly in front of Jim’s face. “I lost you for a moment.”

  “Dreaming.” He poured himself a large coffee, but the truth was Jim was never anchored securely in the present. Often, he would look in the shaving mirror, surprised to see an adult staring back.

  “I was aksin’ if you see much of your granddaddy these days.”

  Finding himself with a view of his folded arms and the table top, Jim felt as if the stuffing had been knocked out of him. But how could he expect the boy to give a little if he clammed up every time Shamayal asked a question? “He died.”

  Embarrassed, the boy shuffled in his seat.

  “It happened in his garden. A neighbour found a robin standing guard on his fork handle. I can’t imagine any other bird doing that.” Jim was touched to see Shamayal reach for the milk carton and angle it above his mug with an enquiring look. He seemed to have acquired a robin of his own. “Thanks.”

  “That sucks, man.” Shamayal said, as Jim drank deeply. “How old was you?”

  “Ten.” He sheltered the mug in both hands. “It was the year Palace beat Liverpool in the semis. One for the underdogs. My granddad was a huge Eagles’ fan and he had taken me to my first game. We won 4-3. Super Alan Pardew scored the final goal. One of the Palace fans had a banner saying, ‘Thank you, God. Now I can die in peace.’ Granddad must have taken it literally.”

  In the pause that followed, Jim remembered how he had saved his tears until after the finals, which he watched on his own, sinking into a bean bag, convinced that his granddad would send him a sign. When Palace lost to Man U in the replay, Jim knew that the extra star his mother had pointed out in the
night sky was just a satellite.

  “I never met my grandparents.” This was what Jim had wanted and yet now Shamayal’s words were a distraction. “Fact, the only family I know is my parents.”

  Sipping his coffee, he forced himself to focus. “Don’t they stay in touch with relatives?”

  “Mum used to send Christmas cards. My dad don’t bother. Says he left all that behind for a reason.”

  “And where is home?”

  Fuelled by anger, Shamayal’s accent was exaggerated. “You know where I live! You turnin’ round an’ sayin’ I don’t belong?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I just thought you might have connections you’d like to explore.”

  “They’d be strangers, wouldn’t they? That’s if they’re still around.” Shamayal’s hands, flat on the surface of the table, flickered. “You can’t get time back, can you?”

  “No.” Jim was happy to let silence take root.

  “Wanna do somethink?” The boy knocked against the table leg as he sat up.

  Unaccustomed to dramatic mood changes, Jim cringed. “I’ve got boring stuff to do today. Housework, mainly.”

  Rejected, Shamayal scraped his chair back. “You should jus’ say if you don’t want to.”

  He hated to have to spell it out, but it needed to be done: “Shamayal, you must realise that we can’t hang out like friends.”

  “Don’t see why not. You said it yourself. We’re not so different.”

  “Listen to me: I’m your teacher. Even you being here?” Jim looked about the room, shaking his head. “If anyone at school were to find out, I could lose my job.” And I worked too hard to throw it all away, he reflected.

  “Who’s going to tell? I’m not, if that’s what you’re bovvered about.”

  “That’s not all I’m worried about,” Jim ventured. “The things you told me last night. What I saw? You know I have a duty to report them.”

  “You don’t need to do that, Sir.” The boy’s voice was stubborn. “I’m fine.”

  Deliberately softening his own, Jim persevered: “You were planning to sleep rough. That’s not exactly fine.”

  “From what you was sayin’ earlier, sounds like you din’t always get along with your old man.”

  “We’re not talking about me.”

  “I can take care of myself. What’s more, I keep clear of trouble and my grades - well they’re not brilliant, OK, but they could be a whole lot worse.”

  Jim had a pretty good idea what would happen if he informed the school’s Designated Person. Shamayal’s home-life would be investigated. Either the boy and his father would be subjected to ongoing monitoring, or Shamayal would be taken into care.

  “I say we both keep quiet,” the boy said.

  Jim knew that he couldn’t promise - or expect - confidentiality. He opened his mouth to speak but the boy cut in.

  “See, you don’t know me. I’m good at coverin’ my tracks. I got your back. Let me tell you what I’m willin’ to do for you. We start a new gang. Very exclusive. You and me.”

  Jim sat forwards, elbows on knees, hands clasped in the space in between, laughing in a way that was painful to him. Why must he distance himself when he was most needed? It was wrong, so wrong. “I don’t make the rules.”

  “You don’t have to make up your mind right now. I’m goin’ to leave you on your own, that’s what I’m goin’ to do. But promise you’ll do one thing for me, Sir.” Jim looked up to see the boy pacing from side to side. “If you decide you gotta pick up that phone, you tell me first so that I can disappear myself. Because I ain’t havin’ none of that. No way.”

  Seeing the boy’s tortured expression, Jim knew he had to take him at his word. And if he was to take him at his word, he couldn’t make the call. “OK. But you’ve got to promise you’ll ask me for help if you’re in trouble.”

  “Fair deal. Do we spit or just shake?”

  “Actually,” Jim took the dry hand the boy offered, “I’ve got to get a move on. You may not believe this but I’ve got someone coming to dinner tonight.”

  “Not a date?”

  “Maybe.”

  “My man!” Shamayal nodded approvingly. “I take it back. You eatin’ in here? Because we’ve got to pack away them books.”

  Under no circumstances should pupils assist with chores or tasks in the home of an adult who works with them. “You don’t need to do that -”

  But the boy had already picked the small pile up and was taking it through to the living room, still fragrant with damp sock and the musty smell of sleep. The empty sleeping bag lay discarded like a snakeskin. “Here, right?” Shamayal pointed to the empty shelf space, then paused in front of the large framed photograph over the fireplace. “I bin meanin’ to aks about that. When I woke up it was starin’ right at me. It’s some kinda owl, right?”

  “A barn owl.” Aimee’s owl, to be specific, because that is how Jim thought of it. Looking at the photograph afresh, he was still struck by the image: the bird’s talons extended, its whole body taut as it landed on a slim post.

  “Right, right. The wings, all spread out and that?” The boy mused. “They’re kind of like an angel’s.”

  Funny kind of angel. If that’s what she was. “In some cultures, people think they become owls after they die. That would make them ghosts.”

  “Ghosts? Yeah, I get that.”

  Standing looking at the owl, Jim lost a moment - just as he sometimes did when driving long-distance. His trance was broken by Shamayal clapping him on the back. The boy’s jacket was slung over one shoulder. “And while I think of it, don’t get started on your stories.”

  He followed the boy down the hall. Although Shamayal thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, the seat remained baggy and low on his hips. From the thighs downwards they were tightly fitted. Jim looked down at his comfortable 501s with renewed affection. “No?”

  Reaching the door Shamayal turned, shook his head. “Girls? They like to do the talkin’. ‘Bout themselves, mostly.” He prodded Jim’s chest playfully, then slapped him lightly under his chin. Made you look. “Just nod every now and then, pretend like you’re listenin’, know what I mean?”

  As the boy shuffled into the lobby, Jim said, “Lucky for me you happened to be here.”

  Without turning, the boy casually raised one hand, then opened the front door. “Laters.”

  Watching Shamayal walk away, Jim worried what the boy would face when he went home - if he went home. It seemed more than likely that he would wander the streets. Challenging a sense of growing unease, he tried to reassure himself: you did the right thing. What else could you have done?

  CHAPTER 9: JIM - APRIL 2010

  But Jim was restless after Shamayal left. Having had his possessions analysed, as he nosed the humming Dyson into corners and under chairs, Jim couldn’t help questioning what they said about him: the floorboards he had sanded; his experimentation with olive in the bedroom; the brilliant white of the living room as a backdrop for Aimee’s owl; especially the Union Flag of the fridge door. To be honest, it was so rare for Jim to find himself firmly focused on the present that he felt in need of distraction. After throwing on an old t-shirt and some shorts, he perched on his bed and doubled over to check the plaster on the sole of his foot and tie the laces of his new Adidas Supernovas. Ghosts confronted Jim at every turn, not just in his kitchen, where the occasional glass got broken (although, some might have blamed the trains). There was little point in hiding. Better to meet them head on.

  Ordinarily, pounding the pavements would have been a good way to stop thinking. His foot appeared to be bearing up. Jim concentrated on his breathing, the length of his stride, the pumping of his arms. But soon these things took care of themselves, and his mind strayed to the boy. Just fourteen, and the only relative whose whereabouts he knew was his father: often absent; otherwise drunk. It was something Jim wished he didn’t know so much about.

  Rounding two corners brought him within view of
the ponds. A row of Mediterranean gulls balanced on the metal chain overhanging the water’s edge. Others bobbed about, tail feathers like the black sails of pirate ships. The honking of Canada geese competed with Saturday afternoon traffic. Occasionally straining their necks to filter the water, the fleet swam in choreographed synchrony trailed by V-shaped wakes. Smaller birds that hadn’t learned how to surf were projected off course. One rebel goose spread its dirty brown wings, generating enough momentum to launch itself onto dry land. It shook its tail feathers free of water, a quiver coursing through its body like an unscratched itch. Approaching menacingly, the goose held its head low as its neck snaked, bulk swaying from side to side with each black scaled step. Snatching at the grass, blinking, its white eyelids stood out: a coalminer’s face.

  It was as if nothing had changed over the past nineteen years. And yet everything had changed - as the shapes of cars queuing on the road built for nothing wider than a horse and cart testified. He sniffed the air, hayfeverish with pollen. Soon enough it would be summer; a string of anniversaries.

  This is where Aimee White had asked him, “Know much about water birds?”

  Outside his comfort zone, Jim fell back on humour. “My granddad used to tell this joke. ‘What’s the difference between a duck?’”

  “I don’t know. What is the difference between a duck?” she droned, feigning boredom.

  “One of its legs is both the same.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “I don’t get it.”

  As he ran on, leaving the echo of their childish laughter behind, a pair of swans sailed serenely from the far side of the small island, their necks arched elegantly, their heart-shaped wings displaying the delicacy of their feathers. And again, Aimee’s voice insisted on haunting him. “Now that’s what I call a proper bird.”

  “They can fly as high as Mount Everest.” He awarded himself another point.

  “How can they measure that sort of thing?”

  “Pilots reported it.”