Nest

by Inga Simpson

  ‘Good,’ he said. His eyes were a little red. ‘Great to have so many of us there.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jen said. ‘He would have liked that.’

  Phil returned with their beers. A middy for himself.

  ‘Cheers.’ They clinked glasses.

  ‘To Michael,’ Phil said.

  ‘To Michael.’

  ‘You’re a brave man ordering a New in this town,’ Glen said.

  Phil held the beer up. ‘You can tell by looking at it?’

  ‘Saw the barman’s face,’ Glen said. ‘And his hand on the tap.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have it if they weren’t prepared to serve it.’

  Glen turned away to talk with his football pals, more gut than muscle these days.

  ‘Glen said you live in Sydney?’ Jen said.

  Phil nodded. ‘Have done since I left, except for a stint in the Blue Mountains.’

  ‘Do you like it?’

  He sipped from his beer. ‘Not much. But my work has been there. And my daughter’s in her final year of school. I felt like I had to stay put when her mother died. Keep as much as I could the same.’

  ‘She’ll appreciate that. Later, I mean.’

  ‘Do you get down to Sydney at all?’

  ‘No.’

  His eyes crinkled at the corners. Amused at her country ways, perhaps. ‘My daughter wants to go to uni in Brisbane,’ he said. ‘To do astrophysics of all things.’ He smiled. ‘So I’m looking at moving back this way.’ He watched her over his glasses.

  ‘And what’s your work?’ she said.

  Glen turned, as if to catch the answer, though surely he already knew.

  ‘I lecture at Sydney Uni now. But I’m an ornithologist by training,’ Phil said.

  Jen had to concentrate on keeping her face blank and her hand tight around the slippery glass. ‘Really?’

  He grinned. ‘I gather you’re still quite fond of birds yourself.’

  Glen manoeuvred back between them. ‘Phil here paid a visit to the gallery yesterday,’ he said.

  Phil had gone quite pink about the cheeks.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I went to your exhibition,’ he said. ‘It was wonderful to see so many pieces, and the sense of development over time.’

  She smiled. ‘Including one of yours on loan, I understand. Thank you.’

  ‘Another beer?’ Glen held up his empty glass.

  ‘Sure,’ Phil said.

  ‘Jen?’

  ‘Please.’

  They watched Glen’s back as he threaded his way to the bar.

  Phil cleared his throat. ‘Jen, I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend back then.’

  Jen filled her mouth with beer, swallowed it. ‘But you were.’

  Notebook

  Jen heard the car turn in and for a moment thought she had forgotten Henry’s visit. She put down her pencil and focused on the world. It was Monday, and Henry didn’t come for classes anymore. She pushed her chair back from the desk and stood. A policeman was walking down the path, hat under his arm, a yellow package in the other hand.

  Jen shut her studio door, checked herself over. Her drawing shirt was worn and stained but covered her sufficiently. Her shorts were cleanish. Her hair not too greasy. She greeted him through the screen door. ‘Morning.’

  ‘Morning, Ms Anderson. Sergeant Evans, we met at the station a few months ago.’

  She could hear her blood rushing in her ears. Feel her breath shortening. ‘Of course, come in.’

  He wiped his feet and followed her into the kitchen. ‘Nice and cool in here,’ he said.

  ‘Tea, water?’

  ‘Water would be good.’

  She poured them both a glass from the jug in the fridge.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I saw something in the paper about you doing some work for the mayor?’

  ‘A commission, yes. Something for the council chambers and the new library foyer.’

  ‘Well, that’s one decision people will be happy with.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Jen sat, perched on the edge of the chair, hands folded in her lap.

  ‘As you probably already know, Mathew Fergusson has now been charged with the murder of Caitlin Jones, and his uncle, Callum Fergusson, for the murder of Michael Wade.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In the course of our enquiries, we did find some information about your father and I see no reason why we can’t now share that information with you.’

  Jen’s throat constricted, to the point where she could only get out a squeak.

  The sergeant lowered his voice. ‘First. He does not appear to have had any involvement with the murders of either child.’

  She breathed in, eased the air out.

  The sergeant sipped his water and set the glass down on the table. ‘As you know, your father would now have been in his seventies.’

  Past tense. A tear escaped, despite her best attempts to sniff it back in. Ridiculous. To have hoped. Still. She was a slow learner.

  ‘In June 1977, your father relocated to Perth. He appears to have begun a new life.’

  Jen looked up.

  ‘He worked in the forest industry over there for a time, under the name of David Jenner. And in 1988 he remarried and had another family. Two boys.’

  Jen stood and reached for the tissues on top of the fridge. ‘Sorry.’

  He waited for her to compose herself. ‘He retired in 2004, moved down to Albany.’

  She blew her nose. The cicadas quietened outside.

  ‘Unfortunately, he passed away last year,’ he said.

  ‘Last year?’

  ‘In April. I’m sorry.’

  She blubbered now and couldn’t rein it in.

  He sipped his water and set the glass back down on the table. ‘We have no firm evidence of this, but there were some problems around a development site in town at that time,’ he said. ‘Some work your father was doing?’

  Jen blew her nose. ‘Yes?’

  ‘There were some questions about the site. It had been an old depot, and the soil was never tested. The men clearing it knew it wasn’t safe.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Someone called the press. There was an investigation, and the thing never went ahead. Some people around here lost a lot of money.’

  How had she missed all that? It must have been in the papers.

  He opened his hands. ‘I’m really just guessing here, but I think it might have been your father. The timing. The name change. And he was a bit of a greenie?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It would have been difficult for him to come back,’ he said. ‘He pissed off some pretty serious people. It might have brought trouble for you and your mother, too.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Some of those people are still around.’ He pushed the package across the table. ‘There are a few things here his family thought you might like to have.’

  Jen touched the stapled yellow edge. Another envelope. She was the curator of her father’s life. Lives.

  ‘The family would like it if you got in touch. There’s a number in the parcel,’ he said. ‘One of the sons lives on the east coast.’

  Jen blinked.

  ‘If and when you want to.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He looked at the clock behind her. ‘Will you be all right? Is there someone you can call?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said.

  He hesitated but stood. Required elsewhere, no doubt. ‘I’m sorry it wasn’t better news.’

  ‘I’ve waited a long time with no information at all.’ A lifetime. ‘Thank you.’

  She sat staring at the package. Held hostage once again by the possibilities of the contents. The day had escaped her now, she was outside its rhythms. She put on the kettle for tea, made it strong and sweet. Half a capful of brandy for good measure. ‘For shock,’ as her mother used to say.

  She slit the end with the kitchen scissors. Tipped it all out on the table. She placed a finger on one item at a time,
dragged it closer. Two photographs of her, one as a child, the other her individual school photograph the year before he left. The one with the stupid grin.

  A notebook containing a handwritten list of J. Vogels: phone numbers and addresses, with lines ruled through them. Dates. Fuck. He had begun looking after she had changed her name.

  And there was his old watch, with the pale blue face, the glass dull with scratches and chips – but still ticking.

  She snuggled into the doona, curled around her pillow. The sun was up but hidden by light cloud, giving the world a gloomy feel. Mist ribbons clung in the valley, water dripped from leaf to leaf. Her bedding was damp – her nest water-resistant rather than waterproof – but gaps in the weave allowed air and light to filter in. She was a nesting bird.

  Perhaps, from here, she could take flight and leave the land altogether. Leave this life. She swung a little, and turned.

  A robin landed on the opening, head cocked, feet hooked over a stick within the nest she had woven. That cheery splash of yellow.

  ‘Morning,’ she said.

  The bird stayed, looking right at her, and chirruped.

  Release

  Jen walked around the garden, admiring all of the new growth and noting new invasions to be tackled. It was pretty good, being here. Being back here. Birds, after all, leave and return, build new homes in old places, their lives defined, in the end, by a relatively small patch of territory. Their patterns, flight paths and habits were their own, though driven by something larger, and shaped by the seasons, the forest, the rain, the earth.

  She stopped beneath her nest. The colours had already dulled, such that it would soon be almost invisible to anyone else. It swung in the breeze, tempting her to climb up with a book and pillow.

  ‘Ha.’ She found the leaf she had been looking for. Dry but undamaged, and large enough to write on. From a brush box. She carried it up to the house, bird and cicada song building to full-pitch. How had she ever thought her forest a place of quiet?

  She wrapped Robins Bathing in newspaper and found some green hemp ribbon to tie around it, and sat down at the table to write on the leaf-card.

  She had been up at five to bake chocolate cake while the air was still cool, all the fans on to keep the humidity down. She iced it now using a palette knife; melted chocolate was somewhat easier to work than oils. Her veins were raised across her wrist. Cicada song rose to a shriek then fell away, like a pulse.

  Scrubwrens chittered about the lomandra by the deck, a new generation or two swelling the numbers.

  She fetched the drill box from the shed, wanting to hang Flightless Bird before she tripped over it again. The drill battery was flat, and she had to grip the machine between her legs to pull it free. Like most tools, it was not designed for a woman’s hands. Although hers were not particularly small or fragile, she could not reach around the battery to push both lugs and release it one-handed. She could have bought a smaller one but it lacked the power for drilling into brick and hardwood. And the spare battery only came with the larger ‘tradesman’s’ models.

  Craig had once said women weren’t suited for power tools. He had been in a bad mood at the time. She had left the drill bit in the chuck, instead of returning it to its little stand, though she suspected it was more to do with her finishing off the bird feeder that he had left in pieces in the carport for five weekends.

  Jen exchanged the battery for the spare, jamming the other on its roost to charge. Any woman could operate a drill or a sander. The real problem was that men didn’t bother building tools to suit women, thereby enforcing their own rules.

  The bit struck some sort of knot or burl and complained. She had to finish driving in the screws by hand, sweating even in her singlet. She hung the frame, adjusted it and stood back. Polished the glass with a soft cloth. It wasn’t the perfect spot, the afternoon light glaring a little on one side, and she worried about hanging what was essentially a self-portrait in the dining room, but it would have to do. She returned the drill to its box, the bit to its roost, and packed away the battery and charger.

  Aunt Sophie had pronounced the painting her best work. It wasn’t true, but most people responded better to portraits than trees and birds. And oils were always so much more definite.

  Aunt Sophie had left a book about Stan. He was a painter, too. Abstract. Large scale. Not her thing – but quite big in the States in his day. Apparently he didn’t paint much anymore, which was curious. As if you could stop what you do. Who you are. Soph had given her his email address, too. ‘For when you’re ready,’ she’d said.

  Henry was running down the steps, thongs flip-flopping, although there had been no car in the drive. He was in the door before she had even filled the kettle. ‘Hey, Henry.’

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Your mum didn’t drop you off today?’

  ‘She said now that I’m going into high school I can walk. And Dad bought me an iPhone! So I can call if I’m running late or whatever.’

  Jen wiped her hands on her shirt front and leaned over his shoulder to peer at the bright screen. ‘Wow.’

  ‘We’ve been buying all my things for next year,’ he said. ‘This year.’

  ‘That sounds like fun.’

  ‘We got the stuff you said, plus everything on the school list,’ he said. ‘I wanted to bring it all, but there was too much to carry. I took pictures, though.’ He held up an off-centre shot of brushes and inks and paints and blades and pencils all laid out on a table.

  She smiled. His parents were really getting behind him now. ‘It will be nice to have all your own gear,’ she said. ‘How long till you start?’

  ‘Week after next,’ he said.

  ‘The holidays have gone fast.’ She hadn’t done anything about looking for another student. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. Maybe if she had a couple at once, she wouldn’t get so attached to them. Though, with the commission, she could probably manage for a while

  ‘Reckon,’ he said.

  ‘So, let’s have some afternoon tea.’

  She walked to the stove and clicked on the gas. ‘I baked chocolate cake.’ She cut two large slices. If there was an upside to the end of the lessons it was that she would eat less sugar, without the baking. But then, she had become fond of a few slices of cake each week. Her elbow poked a hole in her worn shirt, inviting mosquito attack.

  ‘What about your other subjects?’

  ‘I got into the Summit program, too. So I’m in the top English and maths, and I’m going to do Japanese.’

  ‘Hey, that’s great. Your mum must be pleased.’

  ‘We didn’t really think I’d get into both.’

  ‘It’s fantastic, Henry.’

  He shoved cake in his mouth and washed it down with milky sweet tea.

  She touched the sketchbook he had brought with him. ‘Have you been doing some drawing?’

  ‘A comic strip,’ he said, his mouth still gluggy with cake.

  ‘Let’s see it, then.’

  He flipped the cover open. The title page featured a boy and girl either side of a gnarly tree. The Black Forest.

  ‘The title was Dad’s idea,’ he said. ‘There’s a fire, but they save the town.’

  Jen turned the book around to flip through the pages. ‘This is really good, you know. Your ink work is great. And I like the trees here,’ she said. The girl’s face was a little like Caitlin’s, though more elfin. And the boy a taller, squarer-jawed version of Henry.

  ‘I haven’t quite finished it,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure about the ending.’

  ‘It will come,’ she said. ‘More cake?’ She stood.

  Henry pointed at the portrait behind her. ‘She looks good there,’ he said.

  ‘It’s the only wall long enough.’ She placed the cake in front of him. ‘Tuck in,’ she said. ‘I have something for you.’ She fetched the parcel from behind the laundry door. ‘A good luck present for high school,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks!’ He ripped off the paper but sto
pped when he caught a glimpse of the robins. ‘No one bought it?’

  She laughed. ‘It was never for sale. It’s yours.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He stood and leaned towards her for an awkward hug. ‘But it had a sold sticker on it, at the gallery.’

  ‘I put that there,’ she said. ‘When you weren’t looking.’

  ‘Sneaky.’

  Maureen had said several people had asked about the piece, and Flightless Bird, including the city fellow who had bought Bird Man, hoping she would change her mind and let him have the pair.

  ‘Good cake.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Henry nodded at the birdbaths. A king parrot pair; one bath each. For a moment, it looked as if the female was going to step into the water, but then she dipped her beak and drank. And dipped again.

  ‘Nearly,’ Henry said.

  Kay pulled into the drive. Henry’s shoulders dropped, and Jen had to subdue a fluttering in her chest.

  She followed him up to the car, focusing on the sun on her face, the breeze shifting her hair. He threw his bag in the back and climbed in next to his mother, still holding the robins.

  ‘Look,’ he said, holding up the picture.

  ‘That’s very generous of you, Jen.’

  ‘Great news about school,’ Jen said, through the open window.

  Kay smiled. ‘It is, isn’t it?’ She patted Henry on the back. ‘He’s done well,’ she said. ‘You’ve been a great influence on him, Jen. Thank you.’

  ‘Henry is very talented. And a good worker.’

  Henry raised his hand in a peace sign. ‘Later.’

  ‘Good luck, Henry,’ she said. ‘Drop in sometime and tell me how you’re going.’

  She turned her back on the car reversing out of the drive and away onto the road, the crunch as it hit tar and then faded away.

  The afternoon light was softening, the sun slipping behind the mountain. She stopped at the top of the steps. A pair of black cockatoos swooped low and close, right across the clearing. The slim trunks gathered in a little closer. Her robins chirped and piped their evening song.

  Waterways