Tiny pieces of enid, p.23
Tiny Pieces of Enid, page 23
Enid was stretched the length of the bed, her head heavy on the pillow. The bruise had turned from purple to black, but still she looked peaceful. Her body and expression relaxed and at ease. Her breathing was heavy, but it was also slow and steady. Her arms lay on the bed either side of her, palms facing down, touching the sheets. Her clothes had been loosened and she was covered up to her torso with a sheet and blanket.
Dillon looked up from the phone.
‘Mum, where’s the toilet?’
Olivia glanced around. The sign for the toilets was outside the ward, pointing down the corridor. Oona lay peacefully on the empty bed next to Enid’s. ‘Can you hold it, for your sister?’ she asked, and Dillon shook his head, no.
She couldn’t let him go alone – not after what he’d been through. He wouldn’t leave the room without her, she was sure. Olivia looked again at her daughter, sleeping peacefully, having just had her second dose of infant paracetamol from one of the nurses, and then she looked up at Barb.
‘Can you,’ she wasn’t sure how to ask, ‘watch my…’ Barbara smiled an agreement. ‘She’s asleep,’ Olivia said apologetically.
‘Of course,’ Barb said quietly. ‘Anything.’
50
Enid looked at the clock on the fireplace, and then at the television. The adverts would be on soon. She had continued scanning the A to Z, but she couldn’t find Birdland anywhere, and it wasn’t listed in the appendix. She heard the side door open. The bells on the end of the string of birds jangled, and then stopped abruptly.
‘Roy,’ she called, ‘Barb’s just gone outside, can you go back out?’ Roy didn’t reply. Enid heard him walk through the kitchen and into the hall. ‘Roy,’ she called again, still looking at the television and waiting for the adverts, ‘go and see Barb. She’s outside, love.’ Enid heard the heavy breathing in the lounge doorway before she heard the voice.
‘Enid, love,’ Donald said, his voice heavy with alcohol. Enid turned and froze. She watched him lean on the door frame.
‘Get out,’ Enid said quietly. ‘Get out.’
Donald looked at her confused, like he couldn’t understand why she would make such a request. ‘She left me,’ he said, walking into the room and sitting on Enid’s sofa next to the record player. Tom Jones winked at him from the shelves.
‘You’re drunk,’ Enid said flatly. ‘Roy is outside.’ She went to shout, but Donald cut her off.
‘Our daughter’s outside too,’ he said, and Enid recoiled, disgusted.
‘She’s not your daughter,’ she said, and Donald shrugged.
‘Maybe,’ he said. The clock ticked. Donald sat forward. Enid could smell him. ‘But maybe she is, Enid, and look,’ he shuffled uncomfortably, ‘I’m single now.’ He closed his mouth, pressing his lips together tight to stifle wind.
Enid watched his chest rise and fall.
‘So, she left you,’ she said. ‘Can you blame her?’ Enid remembered the nights she’d spent alone, wondering where Donald was. Worse, she remembered the nights he’d come home. There had been something about Enid that made him angry. It didn’t seem to matter what she did, or what she said. He’d hated her.
‘Come on,’ Donald said, smirking, ‘when we were good, we were good.’ His eyebrows raised in a way that made Enid feel sick.
‘You’re drunk,’ she said coldly, her eyes narrow, focusing on him as if he were a bomb, and she was waiting for the explosion.
‘Give me another go, eh?’ he laughed. ‘We could be a proper family now: me, you and the kid. Everything we ever wanted.’
The television screen to the left of him cut from eagle to owl, from hawk to buzzard, and Enid noticed a familiar middle-aged straight-faced man in a thick rainbow-striped jumper looking directly at the camera.
A parrot stood on his shoulder, eyeing him.
Roy stood back and admired the hole he’d made in the soil. There was some levelling to be done, but he was satisfied with the lack of remaining roots. The full bush lay behind him, a scattering of mud browning the lawn around the leaves. Roy pictured pristine rows of white and pink flowers, and smiled. When they were in bloom, Enid would be able to see them from the kitchen window. The garden was his gift to her.
‘Barb,’ he called up the lawn to his daughter. She was sitting on the front edge of a patio chair, watching the nest in the weeds. It was an image Roy was used to seeing. She hadn’t heard him over the portable radio, so he made his way up the lawn. She turned when she saw him.
‘Daddy,’ she said, excitement in her voice.
‘Barb, love,’ Roy replied. ‘Shall we go inside? Get a sandwich?’ He walked around the back of his daughter, placing one hand on her head and the other on the patio door, ready to open it.
‘No, Daddy, it’s happening. They’re leaving the nest.’ Roy let go of the patio door. He looked down at Barb, pulled out another patio chair from under the table and sat down next to her.
‘Are they now?’ he asked, looking towards the nest in the weeds. Sure enough, one of the chicks was perched on the side of the nest. The other was behind, watching with both parents. Roy watched the chick move from one foot to the next and then back again. It looked up into the sky, and then across the garden. It looked up towards the garage roof. For several minutes in fact, the chick prepared itself. Roy marvelled at this unique moment, a milestone in the chick’s life, and indeed in the lives of the older birds. The delicate wings stretching as the bird prepared for independence. The simplicity of the moment and yet the complexity of everything that had led to it. Nature, family and life, all contained on top of a single patio slab. Then, in a fraction of a second, the chick darted into the air. The flurry of feathers and the batting of wings was instant, and then it took off. Only one chick remained in the nest.
Roy looked up at the garage roof where the little bird had landed. It didn’t look back to the nest. Instead, it faced down the drive, flapped once more, and then it was gone, a new life cycle beginning.
Roy looked at his young daughter and smiled. She had waited for this moment, and he was glad that he’d been able to share it with her. Barb was still looking at the nest, and Roy followed her gaze. There were only two birds left. The two adults. The male, his orange and black eyes gazing blankly out of the nest and down the lawn, and his smaller brown mate, hopping up and down, side to side.
‘They both left,’ Barb said. Roy smiled at her. The second chick must have fledged when the first was on the garage. Barb’s voice was quiet, and Roy sensed a hint of sadness in it. He put his arm around her. ‘Will they come back?’ Barb asked. Roy shook his head, looking back at the nest.
‘Probably not,’ he told her. They continued sitting together as the air grew cold. The two remaining birds moved closer to each other, and then one flew away. The last brood of the season.
Enid stood up in the middle of the lounge, full of suppressed rage. The A to Z scrunched under her toes. She looked at her ex-husband slumped on the sofa. He was smaller than she remembered.
‘Barb is not your daughter,’ she spat, quietly and clearly. Beside her, on the TV screen, the parrot leaned in closer to the presenter’s head.
‘Join us at Birdland, for hundreds of spectacular displays,’ the man said. The parrot pecked his ear.
‘Barb is kind and caring,’ Enid whispered. ‘She notices people around her. She notices animals. She cares about them. She feels love, has empathy. She could never be your daughter.’ She stepped forward, towards Donald, looming over him. ‘And I could never be your wife.’
The man on the television looked back at the parrot.
‘Did you try for a baby again?’ Enid asked, coldly. Donald didn’t reply. His eyes were weathered, unfocused and…was that fear? ‘You did,’ she said, seeing the answer written in his face. ‘And nothing, I suppose. Did you blame her for that too? Like you blamed me for all those years.’ A sadness washed over her, and the spite and anger left her voice. ‘I’m glad she’s left you, Donald,’ she told him. ‘She deserves better.’
Neither of them spoke.
‘…and the finest exotic birds in the world.’ The parrot on the television extended her neck, put her head to one side and picked at the presenter’s hair with her beak. ‘Like this fine beauty here.’ The presenter leaned away from the bird.
Enid remembered the night that Donald had come home drunk, smelling as he did now. She had cowered from him then, scared of what he might do. She had been desperate for his affection.
‘Barb doesn’t know you,’ Enid said, eyeing the parrot on the screen. For a second she saw flashes of red, blue and yellow, a macaw spreading its wings, shaking its head, and smashing through Enid’s own lounge window. Enid paused, gathering herself. She wasn’t going to miss this chance. She’d waited an hour for this sodding advert.
‘Stay there,’ she said quietly, raising one finger to Donald. She knelt on the floor and picked the pencil up from the carpet. She looked away from Donald, holding her hand up to him once again. She turned the pages of the A to Z and found the inside front cover. Plain white card. Then she looked up at the television.
The screen filled with a logo, followed by the directions needed to visit Birdland. Enid squinted her eyes, and then looked back to the blank page.
‘Junction 14,’ she said, as she wrote it. When she looked up, Donald was stumbling to his feet, holding on to the sofa arm for balance. Slowly, drunkenly, he stumbled towards the hallway, banging his shoulder on the door frame as he left.
Enid just watched and shook her head.
Roy slid open the patio door. He felt Barb dart past as she ran straight through the dining room and into the lounge to see Enid.
‘Mum,’ he heard his daughter shout excitedly as he followed her into the house. ‘The chicks have done fledging, they’ve done their fledging, Mum.’
‘They’ve fledged,’ Enid corrected her. ‘They’ve fledged the nest.’
‘Yes, but Mum,’ Barb continued, ‘you’re not listening; they did it. They’ve gone.’
‘Oh Barb,’ Enid smiled. ‘I’m so glad you saw it.’ She was holding one of the sofa’s cushion covers in her hand, and Roy nodded questioningly towards it. Enid tilted her head at him. ‘When was the last time we properly cleaned the sofa?’ she asked.
She was good, was Enid; she thought about the things Roy never would.
‘It really was something,’ Roy told his wife. ‘Those chicks. Such strength in something so fragile, and just like that, they’ve gone.’
‘Just like that,’ Barb repeated sadly, ‘they’ve gone.’ She looked close to tears. Roy knelt close to her and went to say something, but Enid interrupted.
‘It’s OK, Barb,’ she said, breaking into a wide smile, ‘because me, you, and your dad can see more birds – when we go to Birdland!’ Barb’s face instantly lit up, Roy saw her eyes fill with excitement before she started to dance around the living room. He frowned at his wife above their dancing daughter. They couldn’t go to Birdland – not now, not with Donald outside their house, watching them every day. Enid pulled him close and kissed him.
‘It’s fine,’ she told him. ‘Honestly, it’s fine,’ and with these simple words, Roy knew that it was.
51
Enid lay motionless on the hospital bed with her eyes closed. She wasn’t sure if she could move; she hadn’t tried, and she didn’t want to.
‘She’s been showing all the right signs,’ a voice said. It sounded distant, soft, but also authoritative. Someone assured. Enid couldn’t guess how old they were. In fact, she couldn’t recall any numbers at all. ‘We’ll keep her in obs,’ the voice continued, ‘but it is just a case of waiting now.’
There was a pause and Enid felt someone holding onto her forearm. Not Roy. She knew the feel of his fingers.
She tried to open her eyes, to see who it was, and where she was. She didn’t know what she was expecting to see, couldn’t remember falling asleep. She couldn’t remember where she lived in fact, but she could remember who she lived with. The same man she’d lived with for most of her life. Her Roy.
But her eyes didn’t open. They didn’t even twitch. The voice spoke again, this time much louder. It took Enid by surprise, but still, she didn’t move.
‘It’s nice to meet you, finally.’ It was almost a shout. ‘A pleasure,’ and then, louder again. ‘A pleasure.’ Although the words were loud, they weren’t unfriendly.
Enid heard a distant low grunt.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ the voice said, quiet again.
‘Thank you so much,’ another voice said. Enid knew this voice. It was her daughter’s. Always busy. Barb had such a fast-paced life, but there was a subdued sadness that Enid couldn’t quite put her finger on. It was Barb alright, but as a child, needing her mum.
Enid wanted to say her daughter’s name, to offer comfort for whatever was wrong. She wanted to ask for Roy, but her mouth didn’t move.
‘Thank you,’ a third voice said. Enid began to lose track of the noises, of the voices surrounding her, and then they all stopped, and she was engulfed in the silence.
Enid saw nothing but darkness, heard nothing but a ringing in one of her ears. She felt empty. She felt the loneliness down to her bones.
Slowly, other noises came into focus again. A few shuffles. Clatter from a different room. Pages turning somewhere. Enid’s face felt numb, and her arms and feet began to sting. She felt sure that she was positioned flat on her back with her arms by her sides, arranged like a corpse. It was not comfortable.
Enid’s mind screamed. She screamed for help. Then she screamed for Roy.
Her lips moved. She had heard her own voice, she had felt it – just a whimper. Another hand, this time on her leg. It was heavy and clumsy, painful on her skin, but her heart jumped; that was Roy’s hand.
‘Lover,’ a new voice, low and more stifled than she’d expected – more air – but it was Roy. The accent, the flow, the familiarity of those two syllables. Enid made another noise; just air escaping her lips, and she opened both eyes.
‘Mum?’
‘Enid?’
Enid tried to reply. Her mouth was moving better now, but the words weren’t forming. She managed a loud groan, then breathed deeply, trying to suck in saliva that wasn’t there. Her mouth was so dry.
‘Don’t worry, Mum, you’re alright.’
‘Look who it is,’ another woman said. Enid’s eyes scanned the room, face tense, her body motionless: a bed, a screen with a continuously moving line across it, an unrecognisable woman, Barb, some children. On the windowsill Enid saw a macaw, a bright beacon against the grey sky outside. She heard a loud caw, and then a scream which quickly soothed to a calm clucking. Enid watched the bird soar through the glass and away, up into the sky. Finally, right at the bottom of her bed, Enid saw Roy.
PART FOUR
TWIGS AND WEEDS II
52
Roy’s wheelchair was lowered out of the back of the minibus, and he found himself perched on a steep hill overlooking the sea. He hadn’t been expecting to go anywhere today, and he couldn’t remember anyone telling him that he would, but he was appreciative of the trip anyway. It was good to feel the sun on his skin, the glare of summer on his face. He wondered if he’d ever been taken anywhere else since he’d moved into the home, but there was nothing that he could recall.
He’d been taken somewhere picturesque – there was no doubt about that. The line of trees that stretched along the road, just before the sea’s horizon, felt familiar. There was something second nature to the shape of the landscape and Roy knew that were he able to see far enough, there would be a pier jetting out into the sea, hiding his own life’s memories in its cracks.
Barb leant in front of his view and started to say something, but Roy couldn’t decipher what.
‘Mmm? Yes yes, very good,’ he replied, pretty sure that the response had been appropriate. Barb stood again and Roy felt a jolt as someone released the brakes on his wheelchair. Another jolt, as someone grabbed the wheelchair handles and then, slowly, Roy was turned away from the sea to face uphill.
An old Victorian building loomed above, and Roy found his eyes instinctively drawn to the lower right side of it. His eyes wouldn’t allow him to make out any details past the bush partially obscuring the building, but he knew that if they would, he would see a window, and occasionally, just occasionally, he might even be able to make out the wispy grey curls of his wife.
The door in front of him opened, and a short, dark-haired woman walked out, leading a young boy by the hand. With her other arm, she was cradling a fresh-faced toddler against her chest. Blonde curls bounced across the toddler’s pale features as the woman walked. Then, on seeing him and Barb, the woman stopped. Roy didn’t know her, but she seemed to know him, or maybe Barb.
‘Enid said it was today,’ she shouted, and although Roy thought he’d heard, he found himself suspicious. He often misheard things these days.
‘Yes, yes, very good,’ he replied.
‘I didn’t want to assume,’ the woman said as she lifted her head up to look at Barb, behind him. Then, as she and Barb engaged in conversation, Roy found himself lost in his own thoughts. She couldn’t have said Enid. He had just been picturing his wife in the window, he must have misheard, a mere daydream seeping into reality.
The woman turned around and Roy saw that the door had opened again. There was a man in a knitted jumper and dark tinted glasses walking out. He was holding onto someone else, steadying them by their arm. A thin, frail body stepped slowly out of the door, looking down, watching her step.
