Hush, Little Bird

by Nicole Trope

  ‘Birdy, Birdy, tweet, tweet,’ he said, and then I stopped smiling. Malcolm checked us off and walked away. We went back inside to have breakfast. I like to have toast and hot chocolate, but I’m only allowed cornflakes now because canteen isn’t for another two days and we need the bread for sandwiches.

  ‘He’s going to be pissed because his fuck buddy has gone home,’ said Jess. ‘He’ll be a real prick today.’

  ‘What’s a fuck buddy?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s like a friend that you have sex with,’ said Mina.

  Mina is going home tomorrow and Maya is sad about that. Someone new will come and live in the unit soon and none of us feel happy about that. We all just got used to each other and now everything is going to change. ‘She’s going to turn into a real bitch,’ said Jess about Maya when we talked about Mina going home.

  ‘When I get out of here,’ said Mina, ‘that’s all I’m going to have—fuck buddies. I’m never getting married again. It’ll just be me and Suresh, and the only time I’ll go near a man is when I feel like a bit of a ride.’

  I didn’t know what Mina was talking about but I didn’t ask her to explain. Jess is patient and she explains everything, just like Lila. Mina is sometimes patient, but sometimes she says, ‘Fuck, Birdy, get a clue,’ and then I know she’s finished being patient.

  ‘Your parents won’t be happy about that,’ said Maya.

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Mina. ‘I married Arjun because my parents said it was the right thing to do. They hated the idea of having an unmarried daughter of eighteen. I was too young to know what to look for in a man but I knew there was something about him I didn’t like. I never would have gone ahead if they hadn’t forced me. When he started giving me a smack every now and again my mother told me to just put up with it because “you cannot bring the shame of divorce on your ‘family’.” When he started hitting Suresh, my dad sat him down and had a talk to him, because no one in my family believes in hitting your kid, and he cried and promised to be a better husband and father. He was so full of shit and he just went back to hurting the poor kid and then blaming me, like I made him hit him. I tried to tell my parents how bad it was but they didn’t listen, and eventually every time I complained my mother just offered me some food or tried to discuss the weather. I’m not doing anything they say ever again. I don’t care if I have to be on welfare for the rest of my life, I’m not getting married again.’

  ‘Aren’t you talkative today,’ laughed Jess.

  ‘I guess so,’ said Mina. ‘I’m getting kind of nervous about going home. I hope Suresh is okay being with me all the time. My parents aren’t going to want to give him back to me, I just know it.’

  ‘They’ll give him back,’ said Maya. ‘It’s the law.’

  ‘Hopefully,’ said Mina, and then she got up to make herself a cup of tea. ‘I don’t know if I should take him to visit his dad or just leave it.’ She was standing at the kettle with her back to us, so I couldn’t see her face, but her voice was nervous. I think she has been thinking about Suresh’s father for a long time.

  ‘You should take him,’ said Jess. ‘He can’t hurt him anymore, so you should take him until he’s old enough to decide. If my arsehole ex wanted to see my girls I would let him. I hate him but he’s still their dad.’

  ‘It’s stupid because I know he’s harmless but I’m still scared of him,’ said Mina.

  ‘You won’t be when you see him again. You’ll know that you’re stronger than he is,’ said Jess.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ said Maya. ‘I’ll be out in two months and then we’ll get a place together and live with Suresh and there’ll be no shit from any men.’

  ‘And lots of nice food,’ I said, because Maya and Mina are the best cooks.

  Maya laughed. ‘Maybe we can invite you and Isabel over, and Jess too.’

  We all thought that was a good idea but I don’t know if I will see any of the women I have met here ever again. ‘Don’t get too close to anyone,’ Allison told me when I got here. ‘For some women a condition of parole is that they don’t associate with anyone else who has been in prison. Be careful.’ I had to ask Allison to explain what she meant. Allison is also patient.

  I was careful, but Jess and I became friends and I’m not sorry about that.

  After breakfast this morning we all went to do our jobs. I took all the seed trays out of the aviary to refill them. Sometimes I just blow the seed husks off the top. They’re so small and light that they fly away in the wind and then the good seed is left underneath. But every two weeks I throw out all the seed and wash out the trays and then give the birds new seed. They like that. They hop onto their perches and bob up and down like they’re happy. I’m always careful to move slowly when I go into the aviary. Sometimes if I stand very, very still one of the finches lands on my shoulder for a bit and then flies away again.

  I was in the shed washing the seed trays when Malcolm came in. ‘Hey, Birdy, Birdy, tweet, tweet,’ he said softly.

  ‘Jess isn’t here,’ I said, because I thought he wanted to count the spades and garden forks. Jess is in charge of that. ‘She’s gone to get some manure for the garden.’

  ‘I don’t want to see Jess,’ he said. ‘I want to see you. I hear you’re going home soon.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘I was thinking, Birdy, that maybe we could be friends—until you go home, I mean. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I’m going to be here for a few days and we could make the time go faster for each other.’

  I turned around to look at him, because I didn’t understand what he was saying. He was smiling at me with yellow wolf teeth. He doesn’t have a nice smile at all. ‘Allison says we mustn’t make friends,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, Birdy, don’t listen to her. You’re really pretty, you know, or you would be if you weren’t so fat. I mean not fat, you’re not fat. You’re just pretty, really pretty.’

  I filled up one of the clean seed trays. ‘I have to go,’ I said.

  ‘No, wait,’ he said, and he grabbed my arm, making me tip the tray, spilling the seed.

  ‘Look what you made me do,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry. I’ll help you pick it up,’ he said.

  We crouched down together and started to pick up the seed. ‘I won’t be able to use it. It’s got dirt in it.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said. I looked up at him. ‘I could make you really happy if you just give me a chance. You must be lonely in here with all these women. Come on, what do you say? Just a little kiss?’

  ‘No,’ I said in a big voice, because that’s what Jess did. But there was no one nearby so no one heard me.

  ‘Ah, come on, don’t be like that. I’ll get you something extra from the canteen.’

  ‘No,’ I said again, but Malcolm didn’t want to listen. He leaned forward and kissed me. I pulled back as hard as I could and I fell over and spilled all the seed I had just picked up.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I heard someone say and I looked up and saw it was Rose. She had used a big strong voice, just like I had, but Malcolm hadn’t listened to me.

  Malcolm jumped up and away from me. ‘Nothing, Rose. Don’t worry yourself. Me and Birdy were just having a chat, weren’t we, Birdy?’

  I didn’t say anything. I just started picking up the dirty seed again.

  ‘You were . . .?’ said Rose.

  ‘Muster soon,’ said Malcolm. ‘You ladies don’t want to be missed in the count, do you?’ He walked out of the shed.

  ‘Are you all right? Did he hurt you?’ said Rose.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘He just wanted a kiss but I said no.’ I put all the dirty seed in the bin and filled up the tray again.

  ‘You should report him,’ said Rose.

  ‘No, I don’t want to rock the boat. I’m going home soon.’

  ‘Why does everyone here keep saying that?’ said Rose. ‘You should rock the boat. You should tell Allison. He can’t treat you like that, it’s wrong. Guards aren�
��t allowed to fraternise with prisoners. It’s in the rule book.’

  ‘Allison won’t believe me,’ I said. ‘He’ll say we were just having a chat.’

  ‘Yes, she will, she has to,’ said Rose. ‘I’ll tell her what I saw. I’ll support you.’

  ‘That’s not how it works. I’ll tell, and then Malcolm will say we were just having a chat.’ My face was hot even though the air was cold. I was angry because Malcolm made me spill all the seed and I was starting to get angry at Rose as well.

  ‘Has he done that sort of thing before? Tried to . . . to have a chat?’

  I shook my head and went back to filling the seed trays. Rose waited and I knew she wouldn’t go away until I looked at her and answered her. ‘He hasn’t done it before,’ I said, ‘but maybe he’s lonely because Paula went home. Jess said that Paula was his fuck buddy.’

  Rose’s face went red. ‘You shouldn’t, um . . .’

  The siren sounded. It was time for muster.

  ‘We have to go,’ I said.

  ‘Okay.’ Rose turned around to walk out of the shed and then she stopped at the door. ‘Birdy,’ she said, ‘if you want to go and have a chat to Allison I could come with you. I saw that he was in the shed and I can tell Allison what I saw.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to Allison,’ I said.

  ‘Okay . . . I mean it’s up to you, but if you did want to talk to Allison or to someone, I mean if you wanted to talk, I’m here to listen, if you want.’

  I nodded my head so that Rose knew I had heard her, and she went out of the shed.

  My heart was beating very fast. I was glad that Rose came in and saved me from Malcolm. I didn’t want him to try and kiss me again and I didn’t want to be his fuck buddy. Up close Malcolm smelled like cigarettes and eggs. Isabel would have said, ‘He smells yuck.’

  I put all the seed trays back in the aviary and then I went back for muster. I was almost late but I couldn’t leave the birds without food. They eat all the time.

  ‘Rose said that the dickhead started with you,’ said Jess.

  ‘No, he didn’t. We were just having a chat,’ I said.

  ‘But Rose said that—’

  ‘Rose talks too much!’ I shouted, and Jess was quiet. I don’t like to shout at Jess. It makes her sad.

  I was angry with Rose but I was also happy with Rose. That was a funny feeling. Not funny so that I wanted to laugh. Funny strange. She shouldn’t have told Jess, but I’m glad she came in and saw what Malcolm was doing. She saved me from Malcolm and his yellow teeth, but I got angry at her. While we were waiting for Malcolm to come past and check us off his list I thought about why I got angry with Rose in the shed.

  ‘It’s good that she was there anyway,’ said Jess softly.

  I nodded, to let Jess know that I’d heard her, but I didn’t say anything. And then I knew why I got angry with Rose. It’s because now I know that she could have helped me; that she could have made him stop what he was doing. Now I know she really could have saved me.

  Malcolm was scared of her because he was doing the wrong thing. Rose is right about it being in the rule book that he’s not allowed to be friends with me. Maybe Paula didn’t read the book, but I did, even though it took me a long time and Allison had to help me.

  Mr Winslow would have been scared of her as well. All she had to do was walk down to the bottom of the garden and she would have seen and then she could have used her big, strong voice and told him to stop. Sometimes his hands would be in my pants and I would be staring at the finches and listening to his raggedy, raggedy breathing and I would wish for Rose to come down to the bottom of the garden. I would stare hard at the colours until I couldn’t even see the birds anymore and I would call to her in my mind. ‘Mrs Winslow, please come,’ I called. ‘Please come.’ I thought that if she came she would say to him, ‘What’s going on here?’ and then she would take my hand and take me back to the kitchen and I would be saved. But even though I called her and called her with my mind, she never came. I knew Mum wouldn’t come, because she was always angry and crying, but Mrs Winslow was so nice and she made toasted cheese triangles. I thought she would come.

  She could have come. She could have told him to stop. Even if she didn’t say the words, she still could have made him stop the way she made Malcolm stop and go away.

  ‘Too little, too late.’ That’s what my mum would say.

  Too little, too late.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’ says Allison.

  I found Allison in her office just after lunch. I’d fretted all the way through my dull cheese sandwich about what to do. Birdy had asked me not to say anything, but I found that I couldn’t keep silent.

  Over lunch, Heather and Sal were talking about Linda, who was in the hospital in town. She’d cut her hand making dinner; we had assumed it wasn’t a big deal, but the wound had become infected.

  ‘She did it to herself,’ Heather said. ‘I’m telling you she did.’

  ‘How do you do something like that?’ said Sal.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe she put some dirt in the wound or something. She just wanted out. She wants to be near all the drugs in the hospital.’

  ‘But there’ll be a guard there, surely?’ I said.

  Sal shrugged. ‘Druggies can always get what they need.’

  ‘Poor girl,’ I said, and then I threw away half my sandwich.

  ‘You’re getting too thin,’ said Sal.

  ‘Oh, I’m fine, just not really hungry right now.’

  Once we’d been checked off after lunch I went to find Allison.

  Allison is finishing off her lunch of what looks like leftover Chinese takeaway. My mouth waters at the smell. I’m finding the endless repetition of the same dishes hard to stomach. I tried to interest Heather and Sal in some different foods, but they don’t want to try anything new or different, and anything other than basic ingredients costs too much anyway. I have never eaten so much pasta in my life, not even when Simon and I spent five weeks travelling through Italy.

  Heather and Sal will both be leaving in a few weeks. I find it galling to look around the prison grounds and know that of everyone here I’m the only one not in the last few months of her sentence. I understand that the Farm is an easier place to be than some others, but it’s no less a prison.

  ‘I saw it with my own eyes,’ I tell Allison.

  ‘Listen, Rose, you have to understand that this is a very serious allegation. If it’s true, he’ll lose his job with us. I won’t have my women treated like that. But if Birdy denies it there’s really no point in pushing it.’

  ‘Birdy’s scared. She’s going home soon and she said she doesn’t want to rock the boat.’

  ‘Yeah, everyone here is big on not rocking the boat. What exactly did she say happened?’

  ‘She said it was only a kiss, but maybe it was more. I think it would have been more if I hadn’t come in when I did.’

  ‘But you did come in, and he left?’

  ‘Yes, but what if I hadn’t?’

  ‘Did she look scared?’

  ‘Not scared, more, I don’t know . . . more irritated, I guess.’

  ‘Well there may have been no real harm done, but I’ll call her in and have a talk with her,’ says Allison.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘She asked me not to say anything. She just wants to leave it.’

  ‘I’ll have to think about this,’ she says.

  ‘You have to do more than think about it,’ I say, only realising after the words are out of my mouth that I have sounded a little imperious, forgetting where I am and who I am talking to.

  Allison picks up the uneaten parts of her lunch and throws them roughly into the bin.

  ‘Shit,’ she says when a few bits miss and land on the floor.

  ‘Look, Rose,’ she says while she cleans up, ‘you’re putting me in a difficult position here. If she just wants to leave it and I bring her in, she’ll deny it happened and he will too and
then both of them will be angry with you.’

  ‘I know, and I don’t want . . .’ I hesitate.

  ‘You don’t want what? This is a serious accusation. You cannot make it and simply go back to the way things were.’

  ‘I just didn’t want to keep quiet about it. It’s wrong. Birdy is . . . well, she’s like a child, isn’t she?’

  ‘Birdy is capable of defending herself. I know that.’

  ‘That’s not really the issue.’

  ‘I know it’s not the issue, Rose. I’m not going to ignore the problem but I need to be able to handle it the right way. If Birdy came to me and told me about the incident herself, it would be a different story. But as of now she hasn’t accused Malcolm of anything so I’m going to ask you again to leave it with me. I’ve said I’ll look into it, and I will.’

  I nod my head, feeling suitably chastened.

  ‘Anyway,’ says Allison, changing her tone, ‘I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to see how you’re going.’

  ‘Oh, I’m . . . I’m fine,’ I say, and I’m surprised by a lump in my throat. Her concern takes me by surprise.

  ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight. Are you feeling all right?’

  ‘It’s just hard to eat, I suppose. I’m adjusting.’

  ‘Hang in there. ’

  I nod my head and leave Allison’s office. I’ve still no idea why I chose to tell her, especially when Birdy asked me not to, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

  Alison said that there might have been no real harm done, but what does that mean? How do you measure how much harm was done? It was such a small thing, a tiny incident that my arrival prevented from going further. I may have even interrupted something that Birdy wanted, although she didn’t seem happy about Malcolm touching her. There was seed all over the floor and I know she’s careful with her seed. But even if Malcolm did come on a little strong, by tomorrow Birdy will probably have forgotten all about it. He didn’t grab her or hurt her. He kissed her, and she—or my arrival—stopped him from going any further. There really wasn’t any harm done.