Birdy (5 page)

Bert’s house was huge. There were four floors. Bert led me up to the third floor, and then up a further set of stairs, narrow and winding, that led to the attic.

Her den took up the whole of the attic space and it was completely amazing. In my eyes, it was as close as you could get to paradise within the confines of a family home. Three of the walls were sloping, making the room feel all cosy and snug. In one corner there were three beanbags nestled in between two fully stacked book shelves. On the one vertical wall of the room, there was a big flat-screen TV with a whole pile of technological boxes and gadgets on a shelf below it. The whole room was decorated with framed prints of old-fashioned sketches of ballet dancers and trapeze artists. Most had French captions written along the bottom of them in swirly lettering.

In the middle of the room there was a kind of chair that looked like a giant wooden ball on legs. It had a stand that curled right around the back of it and the main chair – the ball – was suspended from a chain.

Bert went over to it and ran her hand over the smooth, dark wood. ‘This,’ she said proudly, ‘is the Egg. Dad made it. Fab, isn’t it? It’s like a work of art, I think. But so comfy too. Like heaven. Look.’ She hopped up and climbed inside. ‘Come on!’

I hesitated. ‘Will we fit? Will it hold us both?’

‘Yeah, easy!’ Bert said. ‘This thing could hold a baby elephant.’

I took my shoes off and clambered in, letting myself sink down into the soft cream cushions. It really was comfortable.

‘It’s like a little hamster’s nest, isn’t it?’ Bert said, lying back and resting her head against the cushions. ‘It always makes me want to go to sleep.’

The Egg opened up taller on the inside, with the lip of the wood narrowing over the entrance, giving it a closed-in, cosy feel.

‘It is lovely,’ I said, shutting my own eyes and leaning back.

We lay in the Egg for an hour or so I suppose, half-watching cartoons but mostly just chatting. Then Bert announced she was ‘ravenous’ so we went downstairs to investigate when dinner was going to be ready.

Charlie was in the kitchen wearing a clean pair of jeans and a pink shirt that matched his cheeks but clashed with his hair. He was unloading the dishwasher, piling coloured bowls into a cupboard.

‘When’s dinner, Dad?’ Bert said as I followed her in. ‘We’re
starved
.’

Charlie put his hands on his hips and looked around the kitchen, frowning. ‘Uh … I hadn’t really thought about it …’ he said. ‘What do you fancy?’

‘Something
massive
,’ Bert said.

Genevieve appeared at the door. ‘Have we got anything in?’ she said. ‘I meant to go to the market today but I got side-tracked …’

Charlie opened a cupboard and shuffled tins about. ‘Beans?’ he called out. ‘Mushroom soup? Or … more beans?’

‘Takeaway it is then,’ Genevieve said with a laugh.

Charlie poked his head out from behind the cupboard door and grinned at me. ‘Good heavens, Frances,’ he said. ‘What must you think of us? Invited for dinner and no dinner in sight!’

I shrugged and smiled shyly. ‘It’s OK,’ I said.

I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live in a house where you didn’t know what was going to be for dinner, right up until the last minute. Where people hung about in clothes covered in mud and paint. Where people laughed and joked and teased each other. I thought it was all totally brilliant.

I thought of Nan and Granddad at home, sitting down to Tuesday’s meal – fried liver and onions – and I felt a sinking feeling in my chest. I don’t know if it was the dread of going back there that night, or guilt at the thought of them alone. As Granddad got worse, Nan would veer between attempting to keep things normal, trying desperately to think of questions to ask that wouldn’t confuse him, and giving up, losing her temper and snapping at him, which only made him blink in confusion. I hated both. I pushed the image away.

I’d never had a takeaway before and I loved it all, the whole process. I loved choosing exactly what I wanted from the paper menu (not that I had any idea what any of the foreign-sounding names meant – I went for Kung Po and Foo Yung in the end, because I liked the way the words sounded). I loved listening to Charlie order it all, reading out the string of numbers like it was a code. I loved it when the doorbell rang and Charlie carried in a plastic bag full of foil trays and spread them out across the table. I suppose the bit I liked most of all was the way it was all so relaxed – dishes passing between us, great piles of noodles slopped onto plates, everyone talking with their mouths full and laughing.

On the wall next to the table, above a dresser that was stacked with the kind of brightly coloured plates that make you think of an African tribe, there was a photo of a much younger Charlie. A baby with a squashed-up face was perched on his knee, scowling at the camera.

I nodded towards the photo. ‘Is that you?’ I asked Bert.

She pulled a face. ‘Unfortunately.’

‘Hideous, wasn’t she?’ Charlie said, with a grin. ‘As soon as I saw her I said to the midwife, “Take her away. Send her back to where she came from. She’s an eyesore.”’

‘Charlie!’ Genevieve cried, and punched him playfully on the arm. ‘Don’t say that about my baby!’

Bert did an exaggerated comedy pout, her bottom lip sticking out. But then she laughed and her parents smiled back at her. Charlie pulled her in close and kissed her on the top of the head and I knew there was no way that anyone in this family could ever really know what it was like to be unwanted.

After dinner, Bert and Charlie scraped the dishes and loaded the dishwasher, Bert shrieking as Charlie pretended to try to juggle three plates. Genevieve and I stayed at the table. She leant back in her chair, swilling her red wine around in her glass. I sat on my hands and looked around the kitchen, not quite sure what to do with myself without Bert there.

Genevieve looked over towards Bert. ‘I’m so pleased, you know,’ she said. ‘At how well it’s all going for her. With the school, I mean.’

I nodded but didn’t say anything.

Genevieve breathed out and shook her head, then she looked up towards the ceiling. ‘I wasn’t at all sure how it would work out, you know. Such a leap of faith.’

It was more like she was talking to herself than to me, so I just tried to listen politely.

‘I mean, is it really OK to send a kid who’s never really had to conform, who’s never really had to
be
part
of anything, into that kind of … institution? And to just expect them to take to it – to the rules and social hierarchy? God, I don’t know if I could do it. But then, on the other hand, look how things were going here. Maybe it was a mistake, teaching her at home all these years … maybe if she was more streetwise then that Richard business wouldn’t have got so out of hand. But then, well, I always think that someone’s weak points are usually a by-product of all their best qualities and I wouldn’t change Bertie’s exuberance for anything really …’

I wasn’t sure if I’d call throwing a brick through someone’s car window ‘exuberance’ but I didn’t like to say anything. Genevieve trailed off. She shook her head quickly and then she leant forward again, looking at me now.

‘Anyway!’ she said, smiling. ‘Anyway. It all seems to be going marvellously, doesn’t it? And, young lady, I have a pretty good idea that you have something to do with that. You’ve been such a good friend, looking after her like this. I’d so hoped she would meet someone like you. A clever girl. Someone grounded. We’re very lucky she found you.’ Genevieve reached forward and squeezed my hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said, looking me right in the eyes.

I shrugged, feeling rather pleased with myself, although perhaps just a little uncomfortable. I really wasn’t used to this kind of talk from an adult, this kind of openness. ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’m lucky too. Bert is
really
nice.’

Genevieve laughed and looked over at Bert again. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes she is.’

When dinner was over, we went back up to the den and climbed back into the Egg. We had the TV on in the background – some American programme Nan would never have let me watch, about beautiful tanned people driving around LA in open-top cars – but mostly we just talked. I can’t remember what about now, I don’t think it was anything particularly serious or important. I just remember that the time seemed to tumble by. I knew it was getting late and Nan would be working herself up into a stew but I so badly didn’t want to go home. When it got to about half past eight though, I couldn’t take the guilt any longer so I told Bert I needed to get going.

‘Ohhh,’ she moaned. ‘OK … if you really have to.’

I said that unfortunately I did, and we hauled ourselves out of the Egg. As we did so, Bert’s hair got tangled in her necklace, holding her head at an awkward angle and making us laugh. I stood behind her and undid the clasp to free her. I dropped the gold chain into her hand.

‘Hey,’ she said suddenly, holding the necklace up by its gold chain, dangling the charm in front of my eyes. ‘Look!’

‘What?’

‘Look at what it is – I’ve never really thought about it before.’

I peered closely at the tiny bird shape with its outstretched wings. It was black, apart from a tiny speck of gold where its beak was. ‘A bird?’

‘A
black
bird!’ Bert said, her eyes shining. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? I’m Bert Fitzroy-
Black
. You’re Frances
Bird
.
Birdy
. So this is like, what we are together. A blackbird!’

I nodded slowly. ‘Sort of like … our symbol? Our emblem.’

Bert shrugged and smiled. ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ She held the necklace out to me, the delicate metal bird swinging from side to side. ‘Here. You should have it.’

I shook my head. ‘No, I couldn’t take it. It’s yours.’

‘Of course you must!’ Bert said, holding me by the shoulders and spinning me round. ‘I want you to. I insist.’ She passed the end of the chain between her hands in front of me and fastened it at the back of my neck.

‘Well, if you’re sure … Thanks,’ I said, turning round to face her. I held the tiny bird between my thumb and finger. ‘I’ll look after it. Until you want it back, I mean.’

Bert laughed. ‘I don’t want it back, silly. It’s yours forever!’

Looking back, I think those autumn months were probably the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.

What with our matching timetables, our dawdling walks across the field and our after-school trips to town, Bert and I were barely apart. Bert seemed to have a never-ending supply of cash and was quite generous about buying me cans of Coke and bags of pic ’n’ mix. I never accepted any more than that – I suppose Nan’s reluctance to take gifts from others had rubbed off on me – but that didn’t stop Bert offering. Sometimes when we were in shops I’d comment that I liked a particular top or had always wanted to read a certain book and she’d immediately offer to buy it for me.

There was only once when I was really tempted – when we were trying on clothes in one of the designer shops I’d never even looked at before I’d met Bert. It was a jumper made of the softest cashmere in the loveliest shade of blue I’d ever seen. It oozed quality and luxury. And expense. Bert insisted that I try it on and I didn’t see any harm in that, at least.

‘Oh, Birdy,’ she said, reaching forward and stroking the soft fabric of the sleeve. ‘It’s simply
gorgeous
on you. You’ve got to have it. Here, give it to me. It’ll be my treat.’

I hesitated for just a moment, letting myself imagine holding a carrier bag, the jumper neatly folded inside, then taking it up to my room and placing it lovingly on the top shelf of my wardrobe. But that’s as far as it would ever be able to go really. There was no way I could wear it around the house – how would I explain to Nan where it’d come from? I shook my head firmly.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Thank you, honestly. But no. I don’t need it. I’ve got plenty of jumpers. I’m just being silly.’

Almost as if to torture me, I saw the same jumper a few weeks later in the fashion pages of one of Nan’s magazines. I gazed at it, wondering if I’d made a mistake. Maybe I should’ve just let Bert buy the thing – she seemed to have plenty of money, after all. But the moment was gone; I certainly couldn’t ask her for it now. I folded the corner of the magazine to mark its place, though I wasn’t sure why.

There was one big thing I did accept from Bert though and that was a mobile phone.

Bert had been incredulous when she’d asked to take my number a few weeks after we’d met and I’d admitted that I didn’t have one. Of course, the truth was that Nan would never have let me get one, even if she had been able to afford it – ‘What makes you think you’re so special that you need to be contactable at all hours of the day? Who do you think you are, Barack bloody Obama?’. I thought I’d played the whole thing quite well though, making it look like deliberate aloofness on my part – some kind of demonstration of my independence and individuality.

‘But what if someone wants to speak to you?’ Bert had said, frowning as she tried to get her head around the idea.

I shrugged. ‘Then they can come over and talk to me. I don’t want people pestering me all day and night.’

I’d almost laughed as I’d said that, at how ludicrous it was. I couldn’t think of a single person who’d be interested in contacting me at all, let alone all day and night. Bert obviously hadn’t been satisfied with my position on communications though, because when we met to walk to school together the next day, she handed me a small carrier bag.

‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she said quickly. ‘I know you don’t want people phoning you and whatnot but then just don’t give them your number. But
I
want to be able to contact you. That’s OK, isn’t it? I mean, it makes sense really. What if I’m late to walk to school or something? I’ll need to get the message to you somehow.’

I reached into the bag and pulled the phone out. It wasn’t one of the really swish models that people have these days – it was just a little boxy thing really with round plastic buttons – but even so, I could feel my heartbeat quicken. Blimey, I thought, an actual mobile phone of my own. And a hotline to Bert too. How brilliant, to be able to talk at any time. In fact, I was so overcome with glee that I almost forgot to do the polite thing and refuse to take the gift.

‘Sorry, I know it’s a bit of a tatty old thing,’ Bert said. ‘It’s my old one. But it’s in full working order. We can text and ring and everything.’

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘It’s great. It’s just, I can’t take it from you.’

I pushed the bag back towards her but she held her hands up, refusing to accept it. ‘Please, Birdy. Take it, honestly. As I say, it’s just my old one. It’s got heaps of credit on it so it would be a shame for it to go to waste. And I just can’t bear the idea of not being able to get hold of you if I needed to.’

‘Well, if you’re sure …’ I said, my stomach somersaulting with the excitement of it all.

At some point around this time I realised that even when Bert and I weren’t together, she’d still be on my mind. It wasn’t always a concentrated, conscious kind of thinking, but it was fairly constant. She was just always there somewhere – I’d wonder what she was doing, I’d replay conversations we’d had that’d made me laugh. Or, more importantly, where I’d made her laugh. I’d store up things I’d seen or thoughts I’d had, ready to tell her the next time we were together. I worried about her too, hoped she was OK and not getting into any trouble. I had to keep reminding myself that she’d managed for fifteen years before she met me.

I know it’ll sound very strange if you haven’t been in the situation yourself, but I suddenly felt that I knew what it must be like to have a religion. That sort of reassuring sense of always having someone on your side. A focus. A sense of meaning at last. ‘What would Jesus do?’ asked big black letters on one of Nan’s old chipped mugs.
What would Bert do?
I found myself wondering, anytime I had to make a decision. And it couldn’t have come at a better time, because at home, things were worse than ever.

Granddad’s vagueness, his tendency for random comments or repeated questions, seemed to step up to a new level. He wouldn’t just ask a question and repeat it half an hour or so later, he’d now started asking the same question over and over again, incessantly. ‘When are we going home?’ he’d say, fidgeting irritably in his chair.

‘You are home, Granddad,’ I’d say, trying to use a light tone, one that suggested this kind of question was perfectly normal and that we all forget where we are from time to time.

He’d leave it for a minute or two, but then he’d ask again. ‘When are we going home? I told them, I want to go home.’ He’d also started calling me Bridget – my dead mum’s name. This had happened once or twice before, but had always seemed more like a slip of the tongue than anything more troubling. Now though, he’d call me Bridget more often than Frances and it felt like he truly believed I was his dead daughter. This made things really uncomfortable, not just because it showed that Granddad was definitely losing his grip on reality but because for as long as I could remember, it had been one of Nan’s rules that we do not talk about Bridget.

These days I wouldn’t dare mention her, but I remember even when I was small, if I asked questions – what did Bridget look like, where did Bridget live – Nan would shut me down. She’d pretend she hadn’t heard, change the subject. Granddad though … sometimes he’d mention her from time to time – always when Nan wasn’t there. He didn’t generally go into any detail or take long rambling trips down memory lane, but sometimes, occasionally, he’d drop in a detail here and there: ‘Bridget couldn’t stand blackcurrants either,’ he’d tell me after I’d turned down a glass of Ribena. ‘Bridget had a lovely singing voice, you know,’ he’d mutter, almost to himself, as we passed a lady busker in town. I decided that if I wanted answers, Granddad would be more likely to provide them than Nan, so one afternoon, when I was about nine, I brought up the subject.

I waited till Nan was at the shops and Granddad and I were in the garden sorting out his tools. We’d emptied all three of his toolboxes onto an old sheet spread out on the lawn and we were carefully cleaning each one with an old sock before placing it back in its proper place. I can’t remember if it was deliberate but it was probably good timing – Granddad was sitting on the ground with his legs stretched out in front of him and his creaky old knees would’ve made it too difficult for him to just up and leave to avoid the question.

‘Why don’t we talk about Bridget?’ I’d blurted it out quickly, before I had time to chicken out.

Granddad looked at me for a second. Then he touched my cheek with his grubby hand before going back to cleaning his hammer. I thought that was it – that he wasn’t going to answer me at all. But then he started to talk:

‘We never thought we’d have a baby, your nan and me. We wanted to, of course we did. Nan especially. But we waited and waited, year after year, and it just didn’t look like it was going to happen. Until your mum came along, right when we were least expecting it. We were getting on a bit by then and we’d long given up hope, so we were delighted, Frances. We were beside ourselves! Your nan set about with all the preparations straight away – cribs, prams, teddies, you name it. We weren’t well off but Nan was adamant – our baby would have everything. Everything. And then she was born, the baby. Bridget. Beautiful little thing, she was. Dark hair, brown eyes like chocolate buttons. Our little princess.

‘She was naughty though, wilful. She was always that way. But that was fine, she made us chuckle. Nan lost her rag with her from time to time when she wouldn’t eat her tea or put her shoes on to go to school, but they’d always make it up. They both had tempers so sometimes they’d …’ Granddad pushed his fists together at the knuckles, like two bulls fighting each other. ‘But they’d always sort it out.

‘But then, Bridget got older. Thirteen or fourteen I think she was when she started staying out. Not all night, not then, but later than she said she would. And we tried to talk to her but she wasn’t having any of it – we were too old to understand, she’d say. Past it. And that really got to your nan ’cause that was her big hang-up, you know – that we were old. Out of touch. Doing it wrong. Your nan so badly wanted to get it right, Frances, to be a good mum. But Bridget just … Bridget was wilful.’

Not for the first time in my life, I found myself feeling angry with Bridget. Who did this girl think she was, turning up, creating havoc, making everyone feel bad?

‘Then it got harder,’ Granddad went on. ‘Bridget got older. Out more and more. In with a bad crowd, boys, drink … all of it. And you can’t make someone, Frances. You can’t make someone do what you want even if you know it’s best for them. And Nan tried, believe me. Even locked her in her bedroom once! But she just went out the window. She’d stay out for longer and longer – two nights, four nights, a whole week. She’d come back a mess. Drink. Then drugs too. Every time we’d worry. We’d call the police but they didn’t care, not really. She was known to them by this point. Just another tearaway teenager. No good.’

Granddad breathed out hard. He frowned and scrubbed at the blade of his palette knife.

‘Then, when she was sixteen, she didn’t come back at all. Two weeks went by, three weeks. A month. Three months. We looked, of course we did. The police said they were helping but I couldn’t tell you to this day what exactly they were doing. She was a runaway. It was our fault she’d gone. They didn’t say as much but you knew they thought it. We’d walk the streets for hours, asking everyone. We had leaflets – Nan got them all done up proper in the print shop. We took the bus all around. Even did a week in London – Bridget always talked about London – but where do you start with a place like that?

‘We hadn’t seen her for exactly one year when Nan flipped. I’d been expecting it really, in a way. I just came home once and found her sitting on the floor. Smashed glass everywhere. All the pictures, all the baby photos, first day of school, blowing out the candles on her ninth birthday, roller-skating on her eleventh … all broken. And Nan, just sitting there, cuts on her hands. Crying. Crying her heart out.’

Granddad’s voice cracked then. I looked at him, alarmed, but he dragged his sleeve across his eyes and seemed to pull himself together.

‘So I picked her up. I tidied away the photos, in albums, in drawers, tucked away for when she wanted them again. Then I washed her hands in the sink and tied them up with bandages and when I was doing it Nan says, “She’s gone, hasn’t she? She’s gone.” And she had, Frances. Bridget had gone from us. And that was it. No more searching, no more tears, no more photos.’

I’d never seen Nan cry. I couldn’t even imagine it. I didn’t want to. ‘Poor Nan,’ I said quietly.

‘You’ve never known your nan how she was, Frances love. You never saw the best of her. What she is now … she’s not the same. She’s just a shell. When we found out Bridget had died, there were no tears, even then. Not from Nan anyway. She’d already accepted it. I hoped that when we got you home, it would … I don’t know, snap her out of it. Give her a second chance or something. But it was too late. She’d already shut down.’

I looked at my hands then and swallowed hard. I was just so angry. That
stupid
cow
Bridget. She thought she was so special but she was horrible. She’d ruined everything. She’d broken Nan. She’d broken them both.

Granddad must’ve seen me looking strange and assumed I was upset because he put down his dirty rag and held my hand. We stayed like that for a minute but it started to make me feel funny, so I wriggled free and placed my screwdriver in the drawer at the top of the red toolbox.

‘Have we got time to have ice cream before Nan’s home?’ I’d said, forcing myself to be bright and cheery. I didn’t want Granddad to say anything else. I didn’t want to hear any more about Bridget, not ever. She’d taken up enough of everyone’s energy as it was.

‘I expect so, love.’

At first, we’d ignored it when Granddad got my name wrong.

‘Hello, Bridget love, how was school?’

‘Get Bridget to help you with the sweeping.’

Once though, I caught a look at Nan when he did it and I saw the expression in her eyes – a brief flash of something that looked a lot like alarm. Panic, almost.

Then, one evening, we were sitting in the living room after dinner watching some awful quiz programme, and Granddad turned to me and said, ‘Turn it up, would you, Bridget? Can’t hear a word over here.’