The Lonely Life of Biddy Weir

by Lesley Allen

  ‘Birds,’ she shouted as loud as she could.

  ‘. . . irds,’ came the echo back.

  Biddy was startled, both by the sound of her own voice, and by the echo. She so rarely spoke aloud, except to talk to her father, or to answer questions in class on the very odd occasion when she was asked something by a teacher, or to get her bus ticket, or buy something from a shop which she absolutely had to ask for. The only person she’d ever had proper conversations with was Miss Jordan. But she’d never used her voice like this before, to shout. She liked it.

  ‘Birds,’ she shouted again, even louder this time. ‘ . . . irds, irds,’ went the echo. She laughed. This was fun. ‘Birdies. Birdies. Birdies.’

  ‘. . . irdies. Irdies. Irdies.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘. . . R u r u r u.’

  ‘It’s me, Biddy.’

  ‘. . . iddy iddy iddy.’

  ‘Biddy Weir.’

  ‘. . . Iddy eir Iddy eir.’

  ‘Biddy Weirdo.’

  ‘. . . Iddy eirdo Iddy eirdo.’

  ‘Bloody Biddy Weirdo.’

  ‘. . . Eeirdo eirdo eirdo.’

  Biddy clapped her hands together and shrieked with laughter. Even her laugh echoed back. She laughed again and spun around on the rock, her arms outstretched, her head thrown back, the darkening sky hanging just above her. Suddenly it was OK to be a bloody weirdo. The mountain liked her. It was talking to her. Maybe mountains were where bloody weirdos belonged. Maybe Rory was right after all, and Paddy Joyce was one and that’s why he’d been happy here, and why he’d never left. She spun around and around, laughing and laughing and calling out ‘Biddy Weirdo, Bloody Biddy Weirdo,’ and the mountain called right back. She’d never felt this happy in her life. This free. As free as a bird.

  Eventually the spinning made her so dizzy that she stumbled down onto the rock, breathless and giddy. She lay there panting, waiting for her breathing to settle and her heart to stop thumping. She looked up at the sky, which was spinning too. There were still some evening clouds dancing around before the black darkness of night finally swallowed them up. They were shaped like birds, really big birds with wide, fluffy wings. Suddenly a dark shadow passed over the clouds, then another, and Biddy felt a breeze blow over her face. She sat up with a start, her heart almost bursting with joy.

  ‘You came!’ she shrieked. ‘You came. I knew you would.’ She watched the two falcons circle above her, then glide down and perch on the turret they had occupied earlier. ‘Kek-kek-kek,’ they called. ‘Kek-kek-kek.’

  Biddy grabbed her sketchbook and pencil and began to draw the birds in a frantic, manic rush, despite the fading light. She sketched them flying, perched on the turret, together, alone. Before long, the mossy rock was covered with pages flapping around in the breeze and soon there was no more blank paper in the pad. She was exhausted, but exhilarated. A sudden gust of wind lifted most of the pages and scattered them around the mountain. Some blew down towards Paddy’s Wall. Some soared up towards the peak high above her. Others danced and fluttered around Clundaff Point.

  ‘They’re flying’, shrieked Biddy, ‘my birds are flying.’

  One of the falcons glided towards Biddy to take a closer look. ‘Kek-kek-kek,’ it called, as it soared over her and back to the turret. The second falcon took flight and repeated the actions of the first. Then they flew together. ‘Kek-kek-kek,’ they cried in unison, as they settled back on the turret.

  They want me to join them, thought Biddy. They’re calling to me. ‘Come-come-come,’ they’re saying.

  The turret was about 300 feet away from the mossy boulder where Biddy stood. It didn’t look too far if you could just jump or fly straight over to it, but the terrain was rough and uneven, with deep drops and ragged rocks. When they’d been there for lunch earlier, Mr Price and Mrs Abbott had warned them not to stray from their picnic spot.

  ‘This is as far as we can go,’ Mr Price had said. ‘You need special training to go any further. We do run residential mountaineering courses for young people during holiday periods, in case any of you are interested.’

  Biddy had thought it strange that you needed to learn how to climb a mountain. She was sure that Paddy Joyce hadn’t been on a mountain-climbing course. And as she stood now on the boulder, looking at the falcons, she knew she didn’t need any special sort of training to get over to the turret. Suddenly everything made sense. The crows down at the big house had sent her back here to the mountain. The bird clouds in the sky had told her that the falcons were coming. Her drawings had flown away, and if they could do it, so could she. And Paddy Joyce was here to look after her. She could feel him.

  A gust of wind swirled around Biddy, smearing her face with thick, coarse curls. She wobbled slightly and jumped down from the boulder, frantically pushing back her hair with the tips of her fingers. She didn’t want to lose sight of her falcons for a second. The temperature was dropping rapidly and the light fading quickly, but Biddy wasn’t cold at all now, or scared. Her heart was pounding, but with excitement for once, not fear; and the blood thudding through her veins was ablaze with adrenaline.

  ‘I’m coming,’ she shouted up to the turret and the waiting falcons. ‘Wait for me, I’m coming.’ Then, in a frenzied flurry, she began her ascent. The terrain was treacherous, but Biddy scarcely noticed. Stumbling over rocks, sliding on moss, pulling herself up a steep incline with her bare hands, she didn’t think twice about what she was doing. Her concentration was focused on the turret. It was getting closer. ‘Kek-kek-kek,’ the falcons called in encouragement.

  Biddy didn’t wince when a sharp jutting rock tore through her jeans and ripped down her right leg, drenching her with blood. She didn’t feel the thorns from the bracken she grabbed at to pull herself along, as they stabbed at her palms and pierced beneath her fingernails. When her footing slipped, and a black plimsoll slid from her left foot and tumbled down the slope, she carried on with one shoe.

  The falcons, still perched on the top of the turret, tapped their yellow-clawed feet on the rock and watched intently as Biddy edged closer. They didn’t seem at all startled. Perhaps they really were expecting her. Perhaps they’d brought her here after all. They watched and waited, and waited and watched. Then there she was, just a couple of feet away, her hair a mass of matted tats, her hands scratched and bleeding, her right leg saturated with blood, a filthy sock half-covering her dirty left foot. She looked like she’d been mauled by something on the mountain. She looked like something the falcons might well maul themselves. The swelling wind began to howl, and heavy dense clouds gathered at the top of the mountain. As the last of the light filtered away, the falcons turned from Biddy in perfect unison, spread their expansive, glorious wings and sailed away from the turret. Dipping down into the valley below, they parted company from each other, and soared back up towards the top of the mountain, one veering to the right of Biddy and the other the left.

  It was the most beautiful thing that Biddy had ever seen. They were like kites, dancing in the sky, gliding and soaring with the grace of ballerinas. Her heart was so full she felt it might burst. She clapped her hands together, laughing and screeching with joy. Every nerve in her body was tingling with excitement, and energy shot through her veins like electrical charges. She felt more alive than she’d ever felt in her life. She clambered up the last few feet to the ledge where, until a few moments ago, the falcons had surveyed her journey. Pulling herself upright, she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at the top of her voice, ‘I’m coming. Wait for me, wait for me. I’m coming with you.’ Then she spread out her arms, inhaled a long, deep breath, smiled up at the heavens above her, and jumped.

  Part 2: a death and a rebirth, of sorts

  Ballybrock, January 2000

  26.

  ‘We therefore commit . . .’

  Splat. The first handful of earth to hit the coffin was not only slightly premature, it was also so wet from the pouring rain that it made rather more nois
e on impact than it should have. The minister, Reverend Barker, paused and glanced up at the small troupe of mourners. He wanted this over as quickly as possible. He wasn’t good with rain, and, as none of the mourners had brought umbrellas with them, he didn’t think it appropriate to use his. Consequently, the rain was trickling down over his thin, fine hair, dripping onto his neck and running down the back of his dog-collar. He wished the girl had gone for a cremation. Clearing his throat lightly, he continued.

  ‘. . . body to the ground, earth to earth,’ he nodded at Biddy, acknowledging that now was the time to throw the soil, ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to Eternal Life.’

  When Reverend Barker’s job was done, he closed his sodden prayer book and looked over again at the mourners. All three of them. It was unusual these days to see such a small group at a funeral. He sometimes thought that people would go to the funeral of their bin man, if it meant getting a couple of hours off work. He didn’t know the Weir family, as they weren’t churchgoers (although one of his elders at the church, Bill Dodds, had told him that his father recalled old Mr Weir’s own father being a regular at the outdoor mission meetings the church used to hold many years ago). He was surprised, however, that no one else seemed to know the family either. At least they weren’t having a reception that he would feel obliged to attend. There wasn’t even any talk of going to the cemetery café for a cup of tea, thank goodness. Still, he needed to say a few final words of condolence. He owed them that. He’d have a quick chat and then he’d be off.

  The rain was really pelting down now. A horrible, heavy, relentless wetness. Reverend Barker cleared his throat again, hoping for some kind of response from someone. He wasn’t the only one who wanted to go home. The rain was agitating Mrs Thomas’s arthritis. And Dr Graham, the Weirs’ GP, needed to dry off before his afternoon surgery. But nobody wanted to make the first move. Nobody wanted to say, ‘Right then, must be off.’ The gravediggers had long since taken shelter under a huge oak tree some distance away and showed no sign of moving in to cover the grave. Dr Graham looked at his watch and glanced over at Reverend Barker who raised his eyebrows as though to say, ‘I don’t know what to do, do you?’

  Eventually it was Dr Graham who spoke.

  ‘I’m afraid I really do have to go. I’m so sorry.’ He touched Biddy’s elbow lightly and felt her flinch. ‘My clinic starts shortly. I’ll, ahem, I’ll be in touch. Soon. I promise.’

  ‘Yes, I really must be off too,’ said Reverend Barker. ‘If there’s anything else I can do, well, you have my number. God bless.’

  The two men, getting no response, turned to Mrs Thomas.

  ‘Off you go, Reverend. Doctor. Don’t worry. I’ll stay,’ she said, brushing the rain off the end of her nose. ‘I’ll go to the café, if need be.’

  Relieved to be excused, the men dashed off to find their cars. At the brow of the hill, Dr Graham glanced back at the pathetic graveside scene, hesitating momentarily before pulling his car keys out of his pocket. Such funerals were rare these days, but then again, why was he surprised, given his knowledge of the Weirs? And what was going to happen now? Thank God he’d come. He couldn’t often go to the funerals of his patients, but, despite his drenching, he was glad his morning off had coincided with this one. Taking off his sodden overcoat and throwing it in the back seat, he resolved to call at the house on his way back from work one evening this week.

  Mrs Thomas lingered for a few moments longer. She was soaking and shivering, and her joints were aching. She needed to sit down.

  ‘How about you and I go up to the café and get a cup of tea?’ she asked Biddy softly. ‘Well, tell you what,’ she said, getting no response, ‘I’ll go on up myself, and you come and join me when you’re ready. Then I’ll take you home.’ She reached out and gently placed her hand on the thin, bony shoulder of the pitiful figure standing in front of her. She felt her flinch. Poor child, she thought. Well, she’s not a child, but she could be. What on earth will become of her now? She pulled up her coat collar, plunged her hands into her pockets, and trudged up the hill to the café where she had three cups of tea, a fruit scone and a caramel square.

  It was almost an hour later before a drenched and dishevelled Biddy slumped into the chair opposite Mrs Thomas, dropping her wooden walking stick on the floor. Mrs Thomas looked at her neighbour’s pale, translucent skin. Her eyes were dark and hollow and her long, wet, straggly hair was plastered all over her face. She looked like a ghost. Like one of the newly dead who had just risen from a recently covered grave. Mrs Thomas shivered.

  ‘Ready to go home, love?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Biddy.

  27.

  Biddy was startled when she heard the rap of the door knocker. She looked up at the kitchen clock. It was 3 p.m. She must have been sitting at the kitchen table for a couple of hours now, maybe more. She remembered hearing the clock in the sitting room strike noon. She knew that she’d gone to the toilet shortly after that as she’d noticed there was hardly any tissue paper left on the toilet roll. She’d come downstairs and scribbled ‘toilet roll’ on the notepad that lay on the kitchen table, below ‘tea bags, eggs and bread’. Had she slept? She wasn’t sure. She rubbed her eyes and took a sip of tea from the mug in front of her. It was cold. She didn’t remember making the tea. Was it before or after she wrote ‘tea bags’ on the list? The rain was still pelting down outside, making a droning noise like background music. It had been raining like that for four full days now, ever since the day of her father’s funeral.

  The front door rapped again. Perhaps it was Mrs Thomas. Perhaps it had been Mrs Thomas yesterday too. And maybe it was Mrs Thomas who kept on phoning. She had said she would ‘pop round, just to check’, when she’d brought her back after the funeral. She had also invited Biddy to her house for tea that evening. Her son Ian was coming with his new girlfriend, Shirley. This was the first time she’d met Shirley, she confided to Biddy in the car on the way back from the cemetery, and she was sure she wasn’t going to like her one little bit. Ian’s ex-wife, Penny, Mrs Thomas had said, was such a lovely girl. Biddy had smiled, for the first time in days, maybe weeks. Longer, probably. She’d never been much of a smiler, especially since the accident. But the name Penny made her smile.

  Mrs Thomas, of course, didn’t know that was the reason. She thought Biddy’s smile indicated that she was accepting her invitation to tea, and, truth be told, was somewhat shocked by this response. She wouldn’t have offered if she’d thought there was any chance the girl would accept. Yes, she felt sorry for her, yes, she would do anything she could to help out at this difficult time, but the girl was odd, no doubt about it, and she didn’t want her to get too close. And Ian, who was a few years younger than Biddy, wouldn’t be one bit happy. She knew he had no time for Biddy, and really she couldn’t blame him. She remembered overhearing Ian and one of his school friends – she couldn’t recall his name – sniggering about her years ago when they were at school, not long before the girl’s bizarre accident on that field trip, calling her ‘Bloody Weirdo’. Naturally she’d scolded them and told them not to use such bad language. ‘But it’s what everyone at school calls her, Mum,’ Ian had pleaded in his defence. ‘Well, that doesn’t mean you boys have to,’ Mrs Thomas had admonished, but secretly she’d agreed. Ian hated it when she made him go round to number 17 to cut the grass; how on earth was he going to react when she told him that Biddy was coming for dinner? Tonight would be tricky enough without Biddy to deal with, and without Ian giving her dirty looks throughout the meal. How was she going to get out of this hole?

  ‘So, you’ll come?’ she asked, feigning brightness.

  ‘Oh. No. No, thank you very much, Mrs Thomas.’

  Mrs Thomas was relieved. ‘Well, if you’re sure,’ she said.

  Biddy didn’t answer, so Mrs Thomas took that as a ‘yes’. They had driven the rest of the journey back to Stanley Street in silence.

  *

/>   The person at the front door was really hammering now. Biddy thought they might actually break the door down. Maybe after all these years they should finally get a doorbell, so that people wouldn’t have to hammer, she thought. Then again, they didn’t normally get callers, apart from the postman who would knock now and again if he couldn’t get something through the letterbox, although that was rare – or the man from NIE who needed to come in to read the electricity meter. Sometimes people would call at the door to try and sell them something or talk to them about God, but her father would always close the door in their faces without ever saying a word. Biddy knew he was really starting to get ill when he let a young man trying to sell him a discount voucher for some local restaurants actually come into the living room last year, and then left him sitting there and went to bed. Mrs Clarke and Mrs Farmer, the district nurses, always knocked on the door. But they wouldn’t be coming anymore, so it couldn’t be them. And anyway, they never banged like that. She didn’t think that Mrs Thomas would bang like that either.

  Anyway, there was no they anymore. There was only her.

  Eventually the banging stopped, and Biddy breathed with relief. She took another sip of the cold tea, but a loud knock at the back door made her spit it out all over the table.

  ‘Biddy?’ a man’s voice called.

  Who knows me? she thought, suddenly scared. What man knows my name?

  ‘Biddy?’ the voice called again. ‘Are you in there?’

  She jumped up and stood against the wall opposite the back door. Through the glass panel at the top of the door she could make out the frame of a tall man wearing a big heavy coat. The rain and the fading light made it impossible for her to see his face. She twisted her fingers into the palm of her right hand and shoved her hand into her mouth. Screwing her eyes shut, she bit down hard, breaking the skin on her knuckles with her teeth. She’d stopped using the pins long ago – after the fall, when Alison couldn’t get to her anymore and the need for them abated. Besides, following the fall, there’d been other pain to deal with. But in recent years, as the anxiety of dealing with her father’s illness increased, she had taken to biting her knuckles as a form of relief. They were a mess.