Starling Days

by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

  “Mum, do you need help? Is there something we can do?”

  “Don’t look at me like that. I have a bit saved up. Just come and refill the bird feeder every now and then, if you’re that bothered about your old mum.”

  How long could she live all the way out here? It would be so much easier in a standard-issue two-parent family. People don’t care for their one-night stands into old age.

  “Mum, are you seeing anyone? A man, I mean. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if you had a boyfriend or a gentleman caller.” He put his hands up, like she was going to shoot at him.

  She splattered oil over the carrots. “A gentleman caller? How old do you think I am?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Mina has an appointment in town, does she?” his mother said.

  Fair play, Mum. Fair play, he thought.

  Mina dreamed. The dream was full of feathers. As if a pillow as large as a train had burst. Fraying feathers clung to her mouth, her hair, battered her eyelids. The first thing she thought when she woke up was, Where did the feathers go? The second was, Why is my phone buzzing?

  “Oscar?” she asked, although the display had already shown her husband’s name.

  “Are you okay?”

  She lifted the device away from her ear to see the time: 3 a.m. “Did something happen?” she asked.

  There was a pause. She listened for her husband’s breath beneath the crackle.

  “Nothing happened,” he said.

  “Why are you awake?” She was the one who woke up in the night. He was the one who slept through car alarms and lightning storms.

  “I was thinking about you.” Oscar’s voice was soft.

  “I dreamt of feathers.”

  “That’s good. Feathers are nice.”

  “I suppose. How’s your mom’s?”

  “It’s fine. You had a nice day with Phoebe?”

  “It was okay. She invited me to see an art thing with her tomorrow. She’s reviewing it.”

  “So you won’t be lonely.”

  “No. I won’t.”

  “You’re okay?”

  “I’m okay.” And she was. The blanket hugged her. “Are you?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I’m sorry for before. With the knife.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. It’s okay.”

  The more they said okay, the more the word deformed. The o inflated, sounding top-heavy.

  “So everything’s okay?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’ll see you on Monday. Sleeper gets in in the morning.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  The Barbican was brown concrete and ribbed with balconies. It put Mina in mind of a crouching animal. Somewhere in the guts was Phoebe. Mina ran her hands through her hair, flattening it. She tucked it behind her ears, then untucked it. It felt bristlier today, as if anticipating trouble.

  Phoebe was in the lobby. No dog. Mina stopped before she was seen. It was special, the moment before the greeting, before smiles, before faces became performances. Phoebe leaned against a pillar, playing with a ring. It was overlarge and hung loose around her finger. She lifted and dropped it. Twirling it.

  Mina approached and Phoebe looked up. Her face shifted into the welcome. Mina was the one expected, the one waited for. That was a pleasure too.

  “Thanks for coming with,” Phoebe said. “I always try to go to these things twice. It’s busier on the weekend and it’s good to see how people react to stuff.”

  “Do you always write about art?”

  “Not always. But I suppose a lot of the blog is art as lifestyle.”

  What was the difference between having a lifestyle and having a life? Maybe everyone had the second and only some people the first. She looked at the deep pink where Phoebe’s lips met. Mina would subscribe to a blog about what made a person like Phoebe.

  Phoebe pulled an expression that might’ve been embarrassment or might’ve been bashful pride. “It’s a bit gimmicky. I go to see an exhibition and then I do a themed post. I link to clothes and food you can buy.” She put on a deep mock-professorial voice. “Costume and Consumerism.”

  When Mina didn’t respond, Phoebe went on in her normal voice: “Like, for example, everyone knows Georgia O’Keeffe was big on flowers and deer. So, for the post about her I found this flowery shower curtain, and an enamel pin of this cute deer skull. Anyway, the exhibit was cool. It had all this early work on cityscapes and stuff about her marriage to Alfred Stieglitz, you know, the photographer. So for the blog, I linked to all this Polaroid and vintage-camera stuff.”

  “You really are a nerd.”

  “What?”

  “Like your brother said the other night. He called you a nerd.” Mina felt stupid for remembering.

  “Hey, at least I’m using my degree.” Phoebe sighed. “Though I don’t know if they really care about the art. What people really like to see is me being happy. Being happy next to an object they can buy. Take a picture with me.”

  Phoebe looped an arm around Mina’s neck and lifted her phone above them. Their faces glowed onscreen. The eyes were large and the mouths small.

  “Smile,” Phoebe said.

  Mina attempted to smile in a way that looked blog-worthy.

  “I’ll send it to you.”

  “Thanks. But I’m not sure your followers will find my face that interesting.”

  “Well, tell me some cute Latin words. Maybe for love or beauty. That sort of thing.” Phoebe shrugged. “I can probably find some mugs or tote bags with them on. Though it’d be better if you made forks or kettles.”

  “What?”

  “Simple stuff gets the most click-throughs. My followers can’t really afford fancy holidays or their own homes so what they really like is super-nice normal stuff. If you spend a little bit more on this kettle or that mug, your life, too, will be a little bit better. They have to buy a kettle anyway, so they feel like they can afford it. And if they have the perfect kettle, perfect cup, perfect filters, then they have the perfect coffee.”

  Mina nodded. Phoebe’s fist opened and shut each time she said “perfect.” Phoebe must’ve been considering this for a long time.

  “So, anyway, it’s my job to tell people how to make their boring lives perfect. And I get advertising revenue for it. Or, at least, that’s the idea.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Well, last month I made at least enough for four perfect cups of coffee.”

  What was Phoebe living off? There was the brother’s sofa, obviously. Could there be alimony? It must be strange to live off the cash of a person you hated. But was an ex-husband’s money so different from a husband’s? Oscar had paid for the plane tickets to London. Mina felt a zigzag of guilt. She should be with him, in Scotland, not buying tickets to see a show with a woman she wanted to stare at more than any painting. But he’d said she should try to be happy. And she was trying. She would save up the sweetness of this day and bring it back to him.

  “Hey, is that a tattoo?” Phoebe took Mina’s arm. “Can I see?”

  Mina pushed up her sleeves. Phoebe’s fingers traced the blossoms and Mina held her breath to stop herself shaking.

  “They’re lovely,” Phoebe said.

  “I got it done the year I turned thirty. A bit old for it, I guess. I’d been meaning to get one for ages but nothing ever seemed right. Then I saw these peonies. Well, not these ones, a bunch pressed up against the window of some ground-floor apartment. It was February and everything was so fucking cold. They must’ve been grown in a greenhouse. But just looking at them . . . it made me think of summer.” She loved the way they started as tight fists and by the end of their lives were loose and sloppy, drunk, even.

  “Maybe I should do a Mina-and-peonies post, then.”

  “I guess.” Mina’s face was hot. “So, what’s this exhibit about?”

  The artist featured was an Icelandic guy with a blond beard. It was exactly the sort of beard you’d think an Icelandic performance art
ist would have. He’d hired pajama-clad young men to sit on the floor and play guitar. In other rooms, videos of his work were projected onto the walls. Phoebe made notes in a pad that sighed as she flipped the pages. At times, she glanced up at Mina, and Mina glanced back.

  “This is my favorite,” Phoebe said. “A few years ago at MOMA, he got this indie band to play the same song for six hours.”

  “That doesn’t get dull?”

  “No. No, it doesn’t.”

  The room was half dark. Couples were pulled together on the floor. Phoebe stepped around them, picking her way over hands and handbags. They sat down in a clearing in the fleshy forest. Onscreen, men in suits sang, strummed and drummed. The singer held his lips over the microphone. For a moment, his mouth met the mesh of metal. His eyelashes were thick, like a doll’s. Music thrummed through the floor and ran up the undersides of Mina’s knees and the small of her back. Phoebe adjusted her position and her arm rested against Mina. Mina thought that the sound must be moving through her into Phoebe or from Phoebe into her. Tiny vibrations. People walked in and the screen’s projection lit their faces.

  “It’s good, isn’t it?” Phoebe whispered.

  Mina thought she’d happily spend six hours watching the space between their bodies expand and contract with their breath.

  The crowd at MOMA stood. They clapped. They waved cell phones. The Londoners surrounding Mina were silent. Onscreen and in life, visitors left and arrived. Bodies replaced bodies.

  The words of the song were about sorrow or loss or not getting over someone. It was mournful and vague in the way of all the music Mina had loved when she was fifteen. Maybe that was the point. Grey flecked the musicians’ hair. These middle-aged men hadn’t just played for six hours. They must have been playing for years, their spines aching as they bent into their sound. They wore yellow earplugs. What would it be like to be so loud you deafened yourself?

  “There’s a bit where the rhythm guitarist cries and the lead singer looks at him and smiles. It’s lovely.” Phoebe’s breath was warm on Mina’s ear. “But I’m not sure we’ll see it.”

  Sometimes one of the musicians would stop and let his body hang while the others continued without him. The camera blurred and focused and blurred again. Had the same cameraman filmed for six hours? Had he found new things to see in the men’s faces?

  The screen was reflected as a silver rectangle curving across Phoebe’s pupils. Mina stretched her pinkie so it brushed the edge of Phoebe’s hand. Phoebe kept motionless. And so the two hands lay just touching, like two leaves fallen from the same tree. The tired men sang about sorrow. Light glimmered across Phoebe’s hair.

  Uptick, uptick, uptick. She could feel the flicker her fingers would make. A great arrowhead of joy.

  Oscar dropped his bag on the sofa. His shoulders ached from the return ride in the narrow bunk. Mina sat at the table, her back to him, staring into her laptop. A mug rested by her side. There was something different about his wife. In the alignment of her neck or the tilt of her head?

  He called out hello. She remained fixed to the screen. “Mina,” he said, louder this time. She presented a wide smile. Her lips were orange-red.

  “You’re wearing lipstick,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  How long had it been since he’d tasted the wax of lipstick?

  “Do you want coffee? I made a pot. But it might be cold by now. I could microwave it?” Mina stood, already on her way to the kitchen. Oscar stepped into her pathway. He pressed her mouth under his. Her lips were smooth. She smelled slightly different. Could it be the lipstick, or a shifting of pheromones? He could feel the pressure of her mouth beginning to smile. Mina pulled away. “Don’t you want your coffee?” she asked.

  “One minute. Shut your eyes.”

  She did. He kissed her left eyelid. The skin there was so soft. Her heartbeat flickered behind the thin membrane.

  “Keep them shut,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  The lashes spiked along the tops of her cheeks. Her chin tilted up at him. He paused for a moment, looking at the face he knew so well. This face trusted him. She bit her lip. She’d be waiting for the next kiss to land. He’d keep her safe. He dipped down, moving closer to her, taking in the wife-smell. Slowly he landed a kiss on her right eyelid.

  “There, you’re balanced out,” he said. “We can have coffee now.”

  “No, my turn.” Mina tiptoed up to him. He closed his eyes. Her kisses were fast—two tickles on each lid. His breath eased and a tingle spread across his forehead.

  They’d discovered the eyelid thing during their first hungry months of love. It was their thing. And then they’d stopped. He couldn’t remember why. They should do this more often.

  As Mina clattered about with the coffee pot, Oscar looked at her screen. He was startled to see Phoebe’s face. She was pouting up at the camera, her cheeks sucked in. Below, there was a second photo of her in profile, kneeling in front of a humungous dog. The animal’s tongue hooked out to lick Phoebe’s mouth. Vaguely nauseating.

  “Have fun with Phoebe?” he called.

  “Yeah. It was nice.”

  “Can’t believe she’s a blogger. Always thought that was for idiots and egomaniacs.”

  “It’s a business. I think it’s quite brave to keep putting yourself out there.” Mina returned with a coffee cup in two hands, handle facing outwards. He was always amazed by her Teflon fingers. She could withstand any heat, it seemed. She looked calm and well rested.

  He took the coffee. Her oval face was tipped up to him. This was the way things were always supposed to have been. The way they used to be.

  He reached for the coffee cup, but she stopped him, taking his hand in hers. “Your poor hand,” she said. Over the weekend, the skin had knitted a brown line. She touched it hesitatingly. “I took a slice out of you. I can’t believe I did that.”

  “It’ll heal,” he said. “What doesn’t kill you, right?”

  “Can I kiss it?”

  He nodded, and she pressed her face into the cup of his hand. It ached where her mouth bumped him. “It’s not a big deal,” he said, and patted her head. He’d never been good at big shows of emotion. He didn’t want the drama of repentance. “Let’s just forget about it.”

  She blinked up at him with wet eyelashes.

  “Mina, let’s paint the flat together.”

  “What?”

  “It’ll look much better with a coat of fresh paint.” It would be easier to pay someone whose job it was to paint. Someone who wouldn’t make mistakes. But they could do this together. Mina could help. Maybe giving her something to do with her hands was the answer, something simpler than all that academic wrangling.

  “Okay,” Mina said. “If that’s what you want.”

  “It is. Let’s do this together.”

  Mina sat on the patient’s chair. A blue strip of paper covered the plastic seat and it slipped about underneath her. The chair reclined like the one her dentist had. The technician smiled at her and said, “Give me a chance to look over your paperwork and we’ll get started.”

  A thin gold band pierced the top of the technician’s right ear. The small braids of her hair were looped into a tight bun. Had the technician always known she wanted to examine women’s bodies and find their failings?

  The technician pulled on a pair of gloves. Her nails were short and round, their outline visible under the latex. The curve of a ring contoured the left ring finger. Mina had never noticed if women were married until she was. Each ring-wearer had promised to be with another person forever. It was strange to be informed of such a large thing by a little metal and rock. Married people always seemed invisibly accompanied by their beloved. Though Mina supposed every person brought with them a spectral cast: families, lovers, friends, cats, past-selves.

  “Have you had a pelvic ultrasound before?”

  Mina shook her head.

  “Okay, it’s nothing to be worried about. I’m going to insert th
is into your vulva.” She held up a dildo-like device attached by a spiraling cord to a larger machine. “There’s a transducer, a device like a very small camera. We’ll be able to see what’s going on inside. It’ll come up on the monitor over there. Any questions?”

  Mina felt she should have questions before she let a stranger stick a long plastic rod into her vagina. But she didn’t. What was there to say?

  The technician smiled. “Great. If you remove your trousers and underwear, and put them on that chair over there, I’ll go outside for a minute and when I get back we can get started.”

  This struck Mina as unnecessarily coy. Surely whether the woman saw Mina’s backside as she slid out of her jeans was meaningless, given the penetration to follow. Alone, she shucked off her clothes, sat back in the patient’s chair.

  When the technician returned, she covered the dildo in a silvery gel.

  “If you part your legs slightly that’d be great. Sorry if it’s cold.”

  It was shivery but not painful. In fact, it was almost soothing, as was the woman’s firm hand on Mina’s knee. Heat rushed to Mina’s cheeks. It felt improper to find it pleasant, disrespectful of the woman and her professionalism. Luckily, the technician was looking away from Mina’s face and at the screen. A display of abstract blobs appeared in grey. The technician rotated the dildo and the view changed to yet more misshapen shadows. Mina tried to make out anything meaningful. It looked a bit like videos she’d seen of coral polyps. The only sound in the room was the whooping of a crow outside and sometimes a gentle squishing from Mina’s vagina.

  “What’s that?” Mina asked, feeling awkward.

  “These are your ovaries.”

  “You’re inside my ovaries?”

  “Not quite. We get a better view of them using this device than we could doing the scan from outside.”

  “So, um, does it look okay?”

  “Well, it’s as your gynecologist suggested in her notes. You’ve got polycystic ovaries.” The technician spoke as if she was confirming something Mina should already know. Why hadn’t the gynecologist told Mina this? She had received no note.

  “Can you say that again?”