Little Bird

by Camilla Way

  A flurry of voices on the Tube: The next station is Moorgate. You’re probably looking at about four-fifty for a decent two-bed these days. Will passengers in the rear carriages please make their way to the front of the train. I mean, he didn’t even know how to pronounce Goethe for fuck’s sake. Pronounced it gotha. Fucking peasant. Moorgate will be the next stop. I feel awful. Like my brain’s going to explode. Will passengers for the Hammersmith and City Line please change here?

  Sitting on a park bench she listens to two old women’s conversation: Go to the cinema did you then, last night? Nah, didn’t fancy it. Stayed in and watched that thing on ITV, the one with the paedophiles. Oh yeah, I sky plussed that. Any good? Nah, bollocks.

  A boy on the bus, his cap pulled far down over his eyes, his acne-rimmed lips almost devouring his mobile: Sometimes you just pop into my head and I can’t breathe, he says.

  On Primrose Hill, one very hot June day, two lovers lie upon the grass. The girl leans over and whispers something to the man, murmuring words like caresses into his neck, and Kate watches as his face is transformed, is flooded by a kind of light, so that she wants to run to them and ask, ‘What, what did she say? What caused you to look like that? What was it, what was said?’

  And sometimes she will study people who are alone, will just stare as their faces gently undulate like a field of corn beneath the breeze of their own, silent monologues. A middle-aged man in paint-splattered overalls, sucking on a cigarette and staring at his shoes. A woman glaring at a boy carving his name on a nearby bench. An elderly lady walking painstakingly slowly amongst an impatient crowd of commuters. What words shape their thoughts, she wonders.

  One day on Clapham Common she watches a young girl sitting on a bench, while her baby sleeps in a pram by her side. She’s about sixteen, has a black eye and her hair is lank and greasy. She puffs nervously on a cigarette and stares into space while absentmindedly jiggling her pram back and forth, to and fro. But a soft mewling snaps her from her reverie, and the girl bends down to gaze at the child within. At that moment, an expression of such love transforms her face that Kate is reminded suddenly of something that happened one day long ago on Long Island.

  When she first began to speak, she would point at things at random and say to Ingrid, ‘This!’ Sitting on Clapham Common, Kate smiles to herself at the memory. ‘This!’ she would demand, urgently, pointing at a cat, a car, a box, a ball, until Ingrid had provided the word she was looking for. Her hunger had been limitless. One day they had walked to Oyster Bay. It had been early evening, and nobody else had been around as they’d watched the sun drop slowly over the horizon. Gradually before her eyes, shade by shade, the sky and the sea had filled with pink, gold, red and purple light. She had tugged at Ingrid’s sleeve. ‘This!’ she had said, pointing at it all. ‘This?’

  ‘Sky,’ Ingrid had replied.

  ‘NO!’ she had protested, because she already knew the word for sky, and that hadn’t been what she meant. Nor did she mean, when Ingrid offered them, ‘Sunset’, ‘Ocean’, or ‘Red’.

  Seeing the mother with her child, Kate realises that the word she had been searching for then was not simply ‘beauty’, just as the word she wanted now, was not simply ‘love’. And just as that vast sky had made her feel suddenly so small, now the expression in the woman’s eyes as she gazes at her baby fills her with an immense sadness.

  She has been living in Kilburn for over two years when she finally plucks up the courage to visit the shabby offices of Nelson and Fisher employment agency on the High Road. As the morning of her first assignment draws near – a six-week placement where she is to file, type and answer the phones for a small accountancy firm in Willesden – her nervousness increases. Although she has spent her time in London watching and listening closely, perfecting the art of blending in, of observing mannerisms and accents, she nevertheless feels acutely, always, her difference. On the afternoon before her first day she cuts and dyes her hair again and buys a selection of nondescript office clothes. That evening she stares at her reflection in the mirror. ‘Hi,’ she says, with a brief, noncommittal smile in her quiet, accent-less voice. ‘I’m Kate Eaves. Pleased to meet you.’ She stares back at herself doubtfully.

  She needn’t have worried: in the accountancy firm in Willesden, and then later in her next post – a call centre near Wembley – and indeed in every job she’s subsequently assigned to, it soon becomes clear that her carefully bland exterior is like a mirror for all but the very shrewd to gaze into. Other people, she realizes, will always prefer to talk about themselves, given half a chance. With the more inquisitive of her colleagues she soon becomes skilled in the art of deflection. So, too, are after-work drinks or office parties easily evaded, with tales of fictional waiting boyfriends or appointments with non-existent friends.

  There is a certain peace in this new life she has constructed, an enjoyment to be had in the uncomplicatedness of her days. She finds that she can float upon the surfaces of other people’s lives quite contentedly. Sitting quietly at her desk, her eyes on her computer screen, she’ll listen avidly to her colleagues’ chatter, inhaling their families, friends and lovers, their plans for the weekend and next summer’s holidays. She collects every banality and big deal – first dates, engagement parties, squabbles with the in-laws, interfering neighbours, husbands’ promotions – taking them home to her flat at night to sift through when she’s alone.

  And it’s almost enough for her, this safe, vicarious way of life. Almost. Because in the streets and on the Tube, in the café where she buys her lunch, in the aisle of the supermarket, she sees them. The strangers whose hungry eyes slide over her breasts, hips and legs like oil, or hover greedily over the surface of her face like mosquitoes. And she in turn watches them. A body next to hers on the Tube, the line of a stranger’s back or the flash of bare skin beneath a T-shirt’s hem. Even a hand gripping a rail or the curve of a mouth will be enough. It is the physical pull of these slivers of masculinity, the naked desire in their faces that triggers her own longing, a compulsion to touch that once ignited becomes impossible to fight. And so, in bars or cafés, in the street or on the Tube, in the supermarket (once, even, at a bus stop), the connection will be made. It’s easy once she begins: they always seem to know instantly what she offers, these hopeful strangers, and they rarely turn her down, following her gratefully back to her flat.

  And afterwards, as soon as the sweat has cooled, the sheets are smoothed, the door has closed on another departing back, the search begins all over again – the next second glance across the bar or street, the next enquiring smile, the approach, the always accepted invitation.

  Once they’ve gone she sits and smokes in the dark and listens to the sounds of Kilburn below. One night a heavy burst of rain thuds abruptly upon her bedroom skylight, bringing with it an unexpected memory of the forest, transporting her instantly back there with a sudden overwhelming vividness. It had always seemed to rain twice in the forest, she remembers now. There would be the first, heavy release from the sky, followed by a sudden silence, and then would begin the second steady, slow, drip, drip, drip from the leaves. Standing by her bedroom window in Kilburn she hears once again the raindrops thudding on the trees, the long pause, the second ponderous falling, the gradual slowing towards silence, and then at last the birds’ resumption of their evening song. She has not thought of the forest for a long time, and the speed and power with which she is returned there leaves her reeling. Abruptly she puts out her cigarette and switches on the TV, turning the volume up higher and higher, keeping her eyes fixed upon the screen.

  But in the coming weeks, the unexpected memories keep returning. More and more frequently the forest begins to encroach upon her dreams like ivy twisting through her sleeping mind. One Sunday she walks across Hampstead Heath and passes through a copse of trees. It had been raining heavily that morning and after a while she stops and inhales the smell of damp bracken, wild garlic and toadstools. The memories return with such vividness that
she has to reach out for a trunk to steady herself. There she is again, suddenly, in the forest, and it is so real that ahead of her she can almost see the little stone cottage, the smoke curling from its chimney. To her right is the river where they used to fish. She cranes her neck, searching for him, longing for him. And then, as instantly as it fell, the spell breaks. Ahead of her, two men emerge from behind a tree, giggling and holding hands. They look at her curiously as they pass and she staggers away, running out from beneath the trees, back the way she came, towards the road and the low roar of traffic.

  It’s half past six, and most of her colleagues at the insurance firm in Dalston have left for the evening. She looks at the words that she’s just typed into the search engine. ‘Little Bird’. Taking a glance around her to check that nobody can see her screen, she hits Return.

  It’s not the first time that she has made this search in recent weeks and as usual, a number of articles are thrown back at her. ‘Who is Little Bird?’ ‘Disturbed Loner who Caged Little Bird.’ ‘Snatched tot Elodie is Bird Child of Normandy.’ But she has read these accounts before. Scrolling down through the pages she finds at last what she had been looking for, the name of a site that had caught her attention a few nights before. Taking a deep breath she double-clicks her mouse. And there it is.

  The site offers such an embarrassment of riches that at first she doesn’t know where to start. There they all are, her fellow savages. A freaks’ hall of fame that spans the globe and offers more than two centuries’ worth of cases. ‘An anthropological and sociological examination of feral and socially isolated or confined children,’ the sites intro promises. She looks at the long list of names, from Kaspar Hauser, to Victor of Aveyron to the Wolf Children of Bengal. Clicking on it at random, she begins to read their stories.

  First is Genie, a Californian girl locked up by her family until age thirteen, half-feral and without speech when she was rescued. Next is Oxana, a Ukranian child discovered roaming the streets with wild dogs, running on all fours, barking and howling and eating scraps from the floor. The list is endless: children living in chicken coops and found pecking and squawking like hens, children raised by monkeys, or locked up by their families in cellars, attics or sheds. Attached to each case is evidence of the media frenzy it attracted: links to documentaries, TV news coverage, endless press reports.

  There in the little Dalston office the minutes tick by and still Kate reads on. It is the photographs that fascinate her most; the combination of vulnerability and wildness in the children’s eyes that inspire in her both repulsion and recognition. And gradually it dawns on her that they all share one thing: not one of these rescued children had been successfully rehabilitated, not entirely. Every one of them remained dependent in care homes and institutions, staying forever in the public consciousness as figures of wonder and fear.

  Finally, as she knew she would, amongst this sad, unsettling catalogue she finds herself. ‘Elodie Brun: Little Bird,’ she reads. The first article she clicks on is from a science journal and mainly illustrated with pictures of her brain. Each caption explains the neurological changes and developments that took place as she acquired language. The only photograph is the one of her standing next to Ingrid on the stage at the conference. With furrowed brow Kate works her way through the complicated text, reading about neurological lateralisation, hemispheric specialisation and a hundred other technical terms that she doesn’t understand. Throughout, Ingrid’s work is described as ‘groundbreaking’, as having ‘huge scientific significance’. She feels a stab of shock when she discovers that she has been the only such child to have ever successfully been taught to speak and that, had she been taken earlier by Mathias, or left the forest later, she would never have learnt to do so.

  She magnifies the photograph of herself at the conference. She can tell by her half-open mouth that she’s in the middle of delivering her speech, and once again she feels the hot spotlight on her face, her sweating hands clenched in fear before the sea of faces staring back at her. At her side, Ingrid, her eyes blazing with pride as she stares triumphantly back at the crowd in front of them. Kate stares and stares at the photograph, and with a sudden start of recognition she realises that what looked like a tiny circle on the lapel of Ingrid’s blouse is actually the little cat brooch, the one with the missing stones that had been Ingrid’s favourite. Her eyes prickle with tears as the familiar guilt and sorrow engulfs her. Switching off the computer her head sinks to her hands. After a long time she looks at the clock and is amazed to see that it is ten o’clock. Stiff from sitting, she gets to her feet, picks up her bag and at last goes home.

  ‘I am not like them,’ she reassures herself as she lies in her bed that night. She thinks about the faces of those animal-children who had staggered half-naked from out of the wild, or the snarling freaks locked up alone for years. ‘I was never like them,’ she says. She turns over in her bed and looks at her neatly ironed blouse hanging on the back of her door, the polished shoes sat side by side on the floor, ready for another day at the office.

  But the next evening and for the rest of the week after that when everyone else has left for the night, Kate remains at her desk, scouring the internet for more stories of these strange, wild creatures. The next weekend she visits her local library, pouring over every book she can find on the subject. Soon she gets into the habit of buying a newspaper each day, combing them tirelessly for news of recent cases. ‘I am not like them,’ she tells herself over and over as she searches. And yet still she cannot stop herself from thinking about the forest, how it was the last place that she felt she belonged, nor rid herself of the thought that, no matter how carefully she tries to imitate the people who surround her every day, she never truly feels that she is one of them. Often she will take out the computer printout of her mother’s face and pour over every detail of it, staring at it until the colours and lines and shadows blur.

  One morning she reads about a Romanian boy found living in the Transylvanian countryside, running wild with a pack of stray dogs. When discovered he had been eating one of the very animals that had taken him in as its own. The story horrifies her. She feels a churning in her stomach as she comes to the end and is about to fling the paper from her when suddenly the by-line catches her eye. With a pang of recognition she realises that the writer’s name is the same one she had seen beneath dozens of similar articles and features she had read in recent weeks. Tentatively she looks around her to check that none of her colleagues are looking, then copies the name into the search engine.

  The picture on Martin Chambers’ website shows a serious looking man in his forties with a beard, glasses, and kind, intelligent eyes. She stares at his face for a long time. The site tells her that he is the author of the book Wild Children: A Study of Human Nature, and she frowns, certain that she had already read everything her local library had to offer. Her eyes return to his face and as she stares at him the faintest beginnings of a fantasy begin to brew inside her brain. She wonders what it would be like to meet this man. Her head spins with a thousand questions she would ask, the fears that he might be able to put to rest. But even as the thoughts take shape, she knows that it would be impossible: he would be bound to recognise her.

  Just then, as she is about to exit the site, a little box headed ‘News’ catches her eye. The book will be out next week, she reads, and Martin Chambers will be signing copies at its launch the following Saturday. Her eyes land briefly upon the address. She will not go, of course: the risk would be too great. She exits the site and gets on with her work.

  The hood is pulled far down over her eyes. She walks slowly but deliberately as if the little bar on Upper Street were emitting some kind of magnetic force. She had not meant to come, and will only stand outside for a little while, she tells herself, once she gets there. She will look through the window and then return to her flat. To another night alone in front of the TV. Or perhaps on the way home she will call in at a bar, perhaps she will meet a man there to spend a f
ew hours with. There in the street she loiters in the shadows and stares through the window. People mill about inside holding little plastic glasses of wine and talking noisily to each other. She edges closer for a better look. Just inside the door an elegantly dressed woman sits with a clipboard, ticking off people’s names as they enter.

  At the far end of the room, Martin Chambers sits behind a desk, a pile of books in front of him, a pen in his hand. He is looking hopefully around at the chattering, wine-drinking guests, but they are ignoring him. She sighs, and is about to turn when she feels someone jostling behind her. ‘Sorry, excuse me, are you going in or not?’ The voice is imperious, impatient. She looks up to see a smartly dressed middle-aged couple behind her. Before she knows what’s happening, she is being bustled in, the woman with the clipboard is looking at her doubtfully but waving her in alongside the couple and a plastic glass of white wine is being thrust into her hand. And there she is, standing alone amongst the chattering people, only metres away from Martin Chambers and his hopeful pile of books.

  It is only then that she notices the photographs. On every wall, in various shapes and sizes, of various quality and age, in black and white or in colour, some of them actual paintings or sketches, the faces of the ‘wild children’ that she has now grown so familiar with stare back at her. There they all are: Genie, Oxana, Kaspar, Amala and Kamala, Victor and the rest. Around thirty of the most famous cases. Their wary eyes, their odd, discordant grins or grimaces. Few of them are looking at the camera, indeed it is as if the lens has just snared them like a net, plucking them from their natural habitat with a savagery of its own. Her heart twists with pity to see them there, pinned against the wall while the people chatter and smoke below. And then, suddenly, she sees it. She takes a step forward. There it is, her picture, the one taken outside the Rouen hospital. There she is for all to see, displayed upon the wall amongst all the other children. The room begins to rock and lurch around her. She feels ice cold.