Hush, Little Bird

by Nicole Trope

  I’ve no idea where Ellie and the girls went after they sold the house. ‘Some ghastly little hovel far away from here,’ Ellie told me when I asked her where they were going. ‘I’ll call when we’re settled.’ But she never did. I think I heard that they later moved interstate, but I could be wrong about that. Now, of course, I would be able to look her up on Facebook and find out all about her life.

  Simon was depressed for months after they left. I didn’t connect the two things. Should I have connected them? There was talk about the show being cancelled. There was always talk about the show being cancelled, but this time it seemed quite certain, and it turned out to be Simon’s last season. He spent hours in front of the finch cage, sipping a glass of whisky or a cup of tea.

  ‘I’m feeling my age,’ he told me. ‘Who will want an old man like me?’ He was only fifty-one at the time, but that was old for the television industry.

  ‘Retire,’ I said. ‘Go out on a high. We can travel and you can write. There are so many things we can do. I can hire someone to look after the girls.’

  ‘I’m not quite ready to be put out to pasture.’

  He did work for a few more years after that. They tried him on one thing or another, but nothing lasted very long. He went on to become a spokesman for an insurance company and a health fund and some other things. It kept the money coming in, and despite the humiliation he felt in having come down so far in the world, he was always able to justify it to himself. ‘At least my face is still on television. You never know when some executive will see an advert and think of me for something else.’

  After an hour of distracted weeding around the carrots I decide that my mind is just playing tricks on me. Birdy’s daughter probably doesn’t look like Lila at all. The last time I saw the child I was in my thirties. I probably imagined the resemblance.

  At dinner I am once again unable to eat. The child or what I saw in the child has forced me back into the circular thinking of the months before Simon’s death. It never does me any good, but round and round my thoughts go. How could I have missed what he was doing? Who was he really? How could I have been so wrong? It is exhausting.

  When the second woman came forward to accuse Simon of touching her when she auditioned for My Kid Can . . ., we waited for the interest to die down as quickly as it had after the first woman. But it didn’t. This time the media grabbed hold of the story and it began to appear everywhere, and then more women came forward with the same allegations. Articles appeared in newspapers and on the internet. Websites were set up to condemn Simon, and an equal number of them were set up to support him. Journalists began to call the house, first during the day and then at odd hours, hoping we would pick up. We had to change our phone numbers. News vans took up residence outside the house. Letters and emails arrived, some wishing Simon dead and others wishing him luck.

  ‘This is disgraceful,’ Simon said to Eric. ‘They cannot tell these lies about me. They must be stopped.’

  ‘Why is this happening to me?’ he said to me. ‘What could I ever have done to deserve this?’ It felt surreal, like some badly plotted movie where the protagonist is accused of something he didn’t do and must fight to clear his name. I would wake up some mornings convinced that we would receive a call that very day from Eric telling us that it had all been a huge mistake.

  I shook my head at what was being said. I shook it at the first article and the second. But by the time the whole country was interested, I found it harder and harder to shake off. This is not my husband, I thought when I read an article on the internet after he had gone to sleep.

  In the article, the woman described him as a predator. I was crying because I had failed at the audition and he pulled me aside into a corridor and gave me a hug. He said, ‘You will make it next time, my dear,’ and then before I knew it his hands were up the back of my shirt and then around the front, squeezing my breasts. I didn’t know what to do. I was only thirteen and I was terrified.

  This is not my husband, I thought. How can this be? I read story after story, trying to find the one thing that I could use to tear each account apart, but the only thing I found was an eerie similarity. All the women were upset in some way. They were all nervous or sad about being passed over or unhappy that they had lost. All of them needed comforting and Simon was always right there. Right there where he needed to be.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I worry about the finch all night long. I know it’s sitting on the floor quietly waiting to die. I want to run over to the cage and take it in my hands and keep it warm until its little heart stops beating, but I’m with Isabel and Isabel is more important than finches. Isabel is more important than anything.

  In the morning I wake up and Isabel’s nose is next to my nose. I laugh at her eyes going all crossed.

  ‘I don’t want cornflakes for breakfast,’ she says.

  ‘If there’s bread for toast then you can have toast,’ I say, ‘but if there’s only enough bread for sandwiches you have to have cornflakes.’

  ‘I’ll be mad,’ she says.

  I laugh again, and then she gets up to jump on the bed. Isabel doesn’t stay mad for very long. She’s happy all the time. I look at her and I wonder what it would be like to feel like that. Isabel’s life has changed because I’m here and she has to live with Lila, but she’s still happy because she knows that we can see her. She doesn’t try to be quiet and she doesn’t try to be small and she never has to hide away. She can eat and eat and still feel light and free like the finches because there’s nothing to pull her down.

  ‘I saw Gran,’ she says when we’re eating breakfast.

  ‘Did you?’ I say, and I take a big sip of my too-hot tea so that it burns my tongue. I need to stay calm.

  ‘Her face looks funny. It looks funny because you hit her.’

  ‘Really?’ I say.

  ‘Yep. Aunty Lila says that it was a bad day and that’s why you did it. Was it a bad day?’

  ‘It was, Isabel. It was the very worst day ever.’

  Isabel bites off a corner of her toast and chews and chews. ‘Will there be more bad days?’ she says.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Not ever, I promise.’

  ‘Is Lester gonna come and live with us and get married to you?’

  ‘No. You never have to see Lester again.’

  Isabel asks me about Mum and Lester every time she comes. I don’t mind. I am patient with Isabel.

  ‘Me and Suresh are gonna draw some pictures now,’ she says, and she goes to the table where all the pencils and paper are kept.

  I clean up the breakfast dishes and think about Lester. I got a letter from Lester last week. We don’t get many letters, because we’re allowed to use email, but sometimes Isabel sends me a drawing in the post.

  When Jess came into the living room she saw me holding it and said, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s from Lester,’ I said.

  ‘That bastard won’t give up, I see.’

  I shook my head. ‘I didn’t answer any of his emails so now he’s written me a letter.’

  ‘Yeah, well, if I were you I’d just chuck it in the garbage. He’s lucky you haven’t told the police about him.’

  ‘Lila wants me to tell the police about him, but I’m scared.’

  ‘What are you scared of?’

  ‘I’m scared they won’t believe me and they won’t believe Isabel. I think they won’t hear me and they won’t hear Isabel.’

  Jess sat down next to me on the couch and sighed a big sigh, ‘I suppose you have to try, Birdy. Even if they don’t listen you have to try. You said Lester is a teacher and if he does do these things then he shouldn’t be a teacher. Kids should be safe at school.’

  ‘I don’t want to rock the boat,’ I said. ‘I just want to go home and be with Isabel and Lila.’ When I said those words I knew that it wasn’t the truth. I felt bad but I couldn’t tell Jess about my agenda.

  ‘Some boats need to be rocked,’ said Jess and I wanted to tell her th
en but Mina came into the room and I couldn’t talk in front of Mina.

  If I told Jess about Mr Winslow and my secret agenda she would know that I’m very good at not rocking the boat. I know how to not rock the boat but sometimes I would like to jump up and down and maybe sink the bloody boat.

  I took Lester’s letter and threw it in the garbage. I didn’t need to read any of his words. They would have said the same things that all his emails did. I love you. I miss you. I don’t know why you won’t talk to me. What did I do wrong? Why won’t you email me back? I want us to get married. I want you and Isabel to come and live with me.

  He tried to come and visit me at the other place but I wouldn’t let him. The only thing we could decide on at the other place was whether we wanted to see people from the outside or not. They tell you when to get up and when to go to sleep and what to eat and what to do all day long, but you can say who you do or do not want to see. It’s strange to think that when I was little I couldn’t say who I did and did not want to see. I wasn’t in prison, but if Mum said, ‘Go and play next door,’ then I had to go. If Mr Winslow said, ‘Come down to the aviary and help me feed the finches,’ then I had to go. I wasn’t in prison but I couldn’t decide about anything.

  I met Lester when Isabel was three. I was still working at the fruit shop, but Frank had gone away. His wife was very angry about Isabel and she made him get another job.

  ‘He needs to pay child support,’ said Mum. Child support means money. Babies and children need lots of things and now Isabel likes My Little Pony toys and they cost money as well. Isabel is lucky that Lila likes to spoil her. Sometimes I wish that I was Isabel.

  ‘This child is his mistake as much as it is yours,’ said Mum, but I didn’t think that Isabel was a mistake. I thought Isabel was my own special present. I didn’t mind if I had to use all my money for nappies and toys for her. I didn’t want Frank to get into more trouble with his wife, so I didn’t ask him for any money for Isabel. I worked hard in the fruit shop and I made money for Isabel, and Lila gave me money as well.

  One evening just before closing time a man ran into the shop. ‘I’m looking for small red apples,’ he said to me. ‘Do you have any small red apples?’

  I was standing at the till watching the clock. Closing time was at seven pm. The big hand was on the twelve and the small hand was on the seven already. ‘It’s closing time,’ I said.

  ‘Look, please, they’re for my mother. She’s in the hospital and she said that she wanted a small red apple. She’s very sick, please help me.’

  I felt sorry for the man with the sick mother, and so did Amina who was the supervisor. We told him about all the red apples we had and then I found him a bag of small red apples. They were very small because they were supposed to be for children to put into their lunchboxes when they went to school. ‘They may not be very good,’ I said. ‘They’re really small.’

  ‘They’ll be perfect, thank you,’ he said, and I put the code into the till and took his money. He smiled at me and I smiled back. He had a nice smile and green eyes with lines at the side. He also had brown curly hair and he was a little bit fat.

  ‘I’m Lester,’ he said, and because I know how to be polite I said, ‘I’m Felicity,’ even though my name was on my badge. My badge said, Hello, I’m Felicity. How may I help you? I liked that the badge said things for me.

  ‘You’re very pretty, Felicity,’ he said.

  I was small then. I didn’t eat much at all. ‘You can’t live on nothing,’ said Mum all the time, but I hardly ever felt hungry. If I ate an orange for breakfast I could feel it trying to hold me down. I needed to be light so that I could fly away fast if I had to, but I couldn’t tell Mum that. When we moved to the shitbox I made sure I didn’t eat too much. I grew taller and taller but I stayed light. Mum took me to the doctor and he said, ‘She’s just a fussy eater, she’ll grow out of it.’

  When I was a teenager I still wouldn’t eat and Mum took me to another doctor, who said, ‘This is very common in teenage girls, watch her carefully.’ But Mum had to work and I had to take care of Lila in the afternoons and cook dinner, and when Mum came home and asked if I had eaten I said yes and she didn’t ask again. I ate, I just didn’t eat a lot.

  Some days I would get really, really hungry and then I would eat a lot. I would eat chocolate and cakes and biscuits, and then when I had finished the biscuits I would make myself pieces of toast with peanut butter. One day I had eleven slices of toast in a row. Then I felt sick and very, very heavy. I felt too heavy to walk even one step. I crawled on the floor to the bathroom and put my head over the toilet bowl but the toast wouldn’t come out so I stuck my finger down my throat and it came and came and came. After that I knew that if I had a day when I needed to eat everything, I could make it all go away afterwards. I liked to vomit. I felt empty and light afterwards.

  ‘You’re very pretty,’ he said again.

  The big hand was on the five and the small hand was moving past the seven. ‘It’s after closing time,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, and then he smiled at me again and left.

  I was pretty. Everyone always said I was pretty. I dyed my hair black and my eyes were big and brown. Now my eyes look smaller but only because my face is so much bigger. I didn’t like it when my hair was brown. ‘Such beautiful hair,’ Mr Winslow would say to me. ‘Such a beautiful colour.’ And he would run his fingers through my hair and then massage my shoulders and then . . .

  Before I was sent to prison, Lila took me to the hairdresser once a month and she dyed it for me. Now I have to do it myself and Jess helps me. I make a really big mess otherwise.

  The next day Lester came back into the fruit shop. He bought apples and grapes and bananas. The code for bananas is 3201. He came and stood in the line for my till even though that line was the longest because sometimes I am slow. I am slow but I don’t make mistakes because I know all the codes.

  ‘Come have coffee with me,’ he said when he put all his fruit in front of my till.

  ‘I have to go home when I’m finished working,’ I said. ‘I have Isabel at home.’ I had to talk and do the codes, so I was slower than usual.

  ‘Who’s Isabel?’

  ‘Isabel is my little girl.’

  ‘Are you married?’

  I shook my head to say no because I was taking his money and I needed to pay attention.

  ‘Please have coffee with me, and I’ll drive you home, unless you have a car.’

  ‘I don’t have a car,’ I said. Mum didn’t want me to have a car but I could have had a car. I could have learned to drive but Mum wouldn’t teach me and Lila didn’t have the time to teach me, and Mum said that lessons were really expensive.

  I knew that I wasn’t allowed to go in the car with strangers. ‘Strangers may try to hurt you,’ Mum had told me and told me and told me.

  ‘How will they try to hurt me?’

  ‘They will do things to you, touch you and things. Just don’t get in the car with one, okay? Or go home with one. Stay away from strangers.’

  ‘Will anyone else try to hurt me?’ I asked.

  ‘What? No, of course not. Now, just go and play next door or something, Felicity. I can’t have any more questions today.’

  I knew Lester was a stranger but I liked his green eyes. I let him take me for coffee, except I had a milkshake. I don’t like how coffee tastes.

  Lester talked about his mother who was going to die and he told me he was lonely. He asked all about Isabel and Mum and Lila, and then he drove me home and he came inside to meet Mum.

  Mum wasn’t happy about Lester at first but she said I could go to dinner with him the next night.

  We went out to dinner lots of times. And we went to the movies and sometimes Isabel came with us and Lester would talk and talk to Isabel and she would talk back to him. I liked that Isabel had someone else to talk to.

  One night Lester came to dinner and after we had eaten I went into the kitchen to get dessert pl
ates and when I came back I opened the door slowly because I was carrying so much and I heard Mum say to Lester, ‘I’m sure you’ve realised she’s not exactly smart.’ I stopped opening the door.

  ‘I understand who she is, Mrs Adams,’ said Lester. ‘I know what to expect, but I really like her and I like Isabel. I think we could all be good for each other. I have experience with people like Felicity.’

  Lester worked at a school. He was the special needs teacher. I didn’t know why he wanted to be with me, because I was slow and I knew that he had to talk to children who were like me all day long. But then I thought that maybe he didn’t care if someone was quick or slow. He liked me because I was pretty.

  ‘I would be so happy to see her married and settled,’ said Mum.

  ‘Well then,’ said Lester, ‘we’re on the same page.’ I didn’t know what that meant because they weren’t reading a book.

  After that, Mum and Lester were best friends. He came over all the time and he even helped to babysit Isabel. She liked him. He played all sorts of games with her. He knew lots of games because of being a teacher.

  ‘It would be so wonderful to have a wedding,’ said Mum. ‘I don’t know that Lila is ever going to take the plunge.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It just means that I don’t think she’ll get married. But now with Lester around, you just might. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? You could move out of here and have a home of your own, and Lester would take care of you and Isabel.’

  ‘Lester didn’t ask me to get married,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I know, darling, but he will. He loves you and he adores Isabel. You’re really lucky to have found such a man, and he seems willing to overlook your . . .’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Just your ways—you know. You’re very lucky to have him.’

  ‘I don’t know about him,’ said Lila when she came to tea. ‘He’s just a bit funny.’

  ‘Lila,’ sighed Mum, ‘you don’t like anyone, and you’re so protective of her. Let her have a life. You’re not here with her all the time. I know this man, and he wants to provide for Felicity and Isabel. He should be admired for that.’