Little Wing (2 page)

Emily fingered the serrated blade of the knife. She knew from experience that it was hopeless for chopping vegetables, but it was the one that Charlotte always gave her. The chair made a rasping sound as she stood up suddenly. She found herself at the drawer where Charlotte kept her knives. She knew them all by heart: the one with the short blade for fruit; the bread knife made of one piece of continuous metal; the older, blunter bread knife with the wooden handle; a set of six steak knives they never used since neither of them liked steak; and the old Chinese cleaver with the wooden handle polished smooth from years of use.

She took the handle of the carving knife that was kept at the back of the bench and drew it out of its holder. The blade was smooth and fine. She pressed the tip to a finger and a bead of blood appeared on her skin. Quickly, knowing just how much pressure was enough, she drew the blade across the top of the finger. Her heart flipped over at the sting of pain; she felt a thrill at the line of blood that welled out. She stared at it for a moment, and then reached for a teatowel.

Charlotte came into the room.

‘Oh, Emily, what on earth are you doing? That's a carving knife for meat!'

Without a word, Emily allowed Charlotte to wash the blood away and cover it with a bandaid.

They ate at the dining table, which Charlotte always set with linen placemats and a small vase of flowers, a glass of wine for herself and juice for Emily. After making an attempt to eat the pasta, Emily excused herself and went to bed. Charlotte stayed up listening to music and poring over her books of paintings.

Emily lay very still in her narrow bed. The house had only two small bedrooms, and the spare one was now Emily's. Or so Charlotte told her. To Emily, it didn't feel like hers. It was simply a place to be.

Like the rest of the house, the room was full with the overflow of Charlotte's earlier life – a sewing machine, stacks of photo albums, and lamps with frilly shades. She'd offered to move it all out to the garage to give Emily more space, but Emily had told her not to bother.

Apart from a few clothes, the only thing Emily had brought with her to the mountains was a cloth-covered notebook patterned with blue stars, which she kept wrapped up in a tiny baby singlet in a suitcase under the bed. Most nights, unable to sleep, she took it out, held the bundle to her face for a moment, and breathed in the odour of it. She had no need to read what was written in the book. She knew very well, since she'd written it herself, at a time that seemed far away from this time and the person she was now. She put the bundle back into the suitcase and stowed it away, then lay listening to the soft music of a symphony playing in the living room. The bandaid was a little too tight on her finger, which throbbed pleasantly, like a heartbeat.

If her finger throbbed, she must be alive.

The grey cat settled down on her chest. It was a young cat, dense with muscle, and it let her know that she'd invaded its space by sleeping on top of her every night. First it trod in the one spot with its front feet, and then it turned itself round and round in a circle before it settled, purring heavily.

Now, the feeling of contact with a warm, living being made her cry, and she lay on her back in the shadowy room with tears trickling silently into the pillow. Then, because she was so exhausted, she fell asleep.

If she dreamed, it was a dream of leaving, a dream of a bus station and the interior of a darkened bus where she slept fitfully, in between the flash of lights appearing along the highway. She didn't think of what she'd left behind, and as for arrival – for Emily there was no arrival, no place where she was happy to be.

She woke with the house still and silent, her face wet with tears, and lay in the dark, crying, as she did almost every night. She huddled there, unable to move, feeling the darkness almost crushing her.

D
ear You,

You are here. i don't know how i know that this is the beginning of

you. i just do.

i should be afraid.

But all i feel is, we can do this. You and i.

Nobody knows about your existence yet but me. You are my secret.

We'll be all right. i'll look after you, always.

3

Emily woke late, tipping the cat off her chest. It landed on the floor, tail flicking back and forth.

In the bath, she lay back and stared at the orange and green tiles on the wall through the mist of steam. Her hair floated out behind her. She tugged the bandaid off and squeezed until blood seeped from the cut.

Her knees were pale and sharp, her legs thin.

She squeezed a blob of shampoo onto her hand. When she rinsed her head under the tap, little islands of foam floated in the water. Her hair felt slimy to touch.

She dressed, and went into the silent kitchen. Charlotte was up already; she'd be out in the shed, with her paintings. On the kitchen table a white cereal bowl floated on pale green placemat with a spoon laid ready beside it. Emily went out to the windy garden, stopping for a moment at the door of the shed. Charlotte stood with her back to the door, at her easel.

‘Emily? Emily?'

But Emily was already away, up the pebbled garden path and through the fishtail ferns that flopped damply in front of her. She went out the gate and up the road, head down, hands in pockets.

She walked down streets lined with winter trees, and reached the town centre, where rugged-up shoppers seemed to float past her. Her world was full of floating people, who parted as she approached. She avoided looking at faces, which had a habit of looming at her.

She bumped into someone.
Sorry
, she said, but only silently, to herself.

‘Idiot!'

Emily flinched. It was her fault. Everything was her fault.

A fat man in a maroon windcheater walked past. ‘Girls are sharks,' he said. Emily turned to watch him. ‘Girls are sharks.' She walked around the block and encountered him again. ‘Girls are sharks,' he repeated, casting a furious glance in her direction. ‘Girls are sharks.' He made her feel that she ought not exist.

Emily walked back towards Charlotte's place and passed the house that she was sure (or almost sure) she'd seen the night before. The front door was open the way it had been last night before the little boy ran out and slammed it shut.

She went through the front gate, up the steps, and paused at the open doorway. The hall held two bicycles, one with a child's seat at the back, pairs of boots in many sizes, and a hallstand full of hats and scarves. She knocked.

No one seemed to hear, but there must have been someone home. She could hear music coming from the back of the house. She was about to turn and leave when Martin appeared from a room at the far end of the hall with a tea-towel slung over his shoulder and an egg-slice in his hand. His face had an enquiring expression. ‘Hello?' he said, and she could see that he didn't recognise her. But then he smiled. ‘Emily, come in!'

‘We were just making pikelets,' he said, leading her into a big old kitchen at the back of the house. ‘Pete – look who's here. It's Emily. You remember Emily?'

‘Yep!' said Pete. He was kneeling on a chair at the kitchen table, watching a batch of pikelets in an electric frypan. ‘Dad,' he said urgently. ‘I think these need to be flipped over now. Can you give me a hand?'

Emily found that she was afraid of this child. He was so sure of himself. And she wasn't used to children; she had no brothers and sisters. She wanted to turn right round and walk out.

Martin smiled at her apologetically. ‘Pete's too interested in the pikelets to be polite,' he said, flipping them over. ‘They'll be ready in a minute, and then we can eat.'

Sitting with Martin and Pete in the warm kitchen with the radio playing soft music in the background gave Emily an appetite. She smothered several pikelets with butter and honey and ate one after another, before stopping, suddenly full, with a burp.

‘Excuse me!' said Pete. He had huge dark eyes, with feathered brown eyebrows, and a way of glaring at her.

‘Sorry . . .'

Martin smiled and took another pikelet.

There were photos on a pegboard on the kitchen wall. Emily looked at them surreptitiously while Martin washed the dishes and she wiped them. There was a young woman holding Pete's hand.

‘That's me!' said Pete. ‘With Cat.'

‘Cath?' Emily wasn't sure she'd heard properly.

‘No. Not Cath. Cat! Like the
animal!
' Pete yelled.

‘Pete . . . shoosh . . . not so loud. You don't have to yell,' said Martin.

‘She's my mum. She's at work today.'

There were other pictures. Of friends and relatives, at lunches, dinners and picnics. Of Cat holding a baby. The sight of it made Emily's skin turn cold. Pete started to explain them all, but Emily wasn't listening. She threw the teatowel onto the table and went out the back door, standing with her head pressed against the timber wall of the house. Her eyes were dry, but inside she was all turmoil.

‘Are you all right?' said Martin, who had followed her out.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I just remembered I have to go.' She fled down the side of the house without looking back.

When she arrived back at Charlotte's place, it smelt strongly of carrot soup. The cat was curled up on a wooden chair in the kitchen, and the old glass bottles on the window ledge were coloured bright blue, or green, or clear.

‘You didn't eat any breakfast,' said Charlotte, with a frown. She had cleared everything from the cluttered table and seemed to be in the middle of a bout of house-cleaning.

‘I ate something out.'

Emily felt the world loom darkly around her, as if something terrible was about to happen at any moment. She leaned against the sink and closed her eyes to make the feeling go away. She felt Charlotte gently remove a dishcloth from her hands; she'd been wringing water all over the floor.

‘How about I run you a nice warm bath?' said Charlotte.

In the bathroom Emily turned on the tap to make the water even hotter and lay back and stared at the orange and green tiles through the steam. She closed her eyes. If she thought of nothing she could get through the next bit of the day before bedtime.

i 've been thinking about all the things that i'll be able to show you. Like horses.

There is nothing quite like the smell of a horse. It's all hay and sunshine and sweat. A horse's skin is something else, too! There's a sort of shiver it gives sometimes, when the muscles move under the surface, that's like wind rippling the surface of water. It's just so . . . sexy somehow!

i'll be able to take you to the beach. The colour of waves is amazing – never the same two days in a row. i look for shells there – i always hope for a perfect, unblemished one. We'll start a shell collection, and i'll teach you all the names.

One day i rode a horse bareback on the beach. It was magic. Just me and the power of the horse galloping, and the smell of its sweat and the smell of the sea. i wanted to ride up the beach for ever, but i turned round and came back.

4

Emily went back to Martin's place. The front door was again open, next time she turned up. The house had polished floorboards, and bright paint on the walls. Everything was clean and bare. Charlotte's house was like a cave, but Martin's was a broad plain, full of light and air. She glanced into rooms as Martin led her through to the kitchen. The bathroom had an old claw-foot bath and worn lino. In the living room there was no proper furniture, just beds for couches, and chairs that didn't match. But they were covered with colourful throws, and the place was tidy. There were cane baskets on the floor filled with toys and children's books.

The shabby, old-fashioned kitchen reminded her of her grandfather's place. The cupboards had peeling green paint, and there was a chimney where a wood stove had once sat. A wobbly laminex table with plastic-covered chairs sat in the middle of the room.

Martin told her the house had been a deceased estate. Even in this shabby condition it had been expensive enough to buy, and it would be ages till they had the money to fix things up properly. He thought it was fine the way it was, anyway.

Pete was at pre-school that day. Martin walked about the kitchen with his bare feet poking out from the bottom of frayed jeans and a teatowel slung over his shoulder. He went out to the laundry and put on the washing, then pottered around the kitchen while she watched. He rinsed some seeds sprouting in a jar, and put some lentils to soak in a bowl.

That day, they started painting Pete's room yellow. Martin had already moved all the furniture and covered the floor with newspaper. He found a big old shirt to protect Emily's clothes, and a spare brush. She took off her shoes, and started to paint. Martin worked on one side of the room and she on the other; every so often she glanced over at him, and he smiled at her.

Because she said very little, Martin did all the talking.

He told her that he and Cat took it in turns to be the one with a full-time job, so that someone would always be there for Pete, even though he was at pre-school three days a week. Cat had been working since Pete was two – he had just turned five, and they thought he'd be ready for school next year. She was a theatre sister at the hospital; Martin was a teacher.

‘But I just do a bit of relief work now and then when Pete's in pre-school. We can get by on less money.'

He went back to slapping yellow paint on the walls, and the only sound for a while was music from the radio in the kitchen.

The timber walls had gaps and Emily had to press the bristles into them to fill them with paint. Her wrists began to ache, and a blister formed on one of her fingers.

When they stopped for a cup of tea, the mist had lifted and the back yard was filled with sunshine. Emily took off her paint-shirt, pushed up her sleeves, and sat on the back step with the sun warming her bare feet.