Elspeth was in the corner, tucked between
the wall near the window, and her bedside table. She was looking at the white lords and ladies
on the base of her pink lamp, and talking to them, as she did at times like
this. They were dancing to an increasing
crescendo, while she beat the bass drum in time, by flicking a round ball at
the top of one of the tassels on the fringe of the lampshade. She counted as she flicked, as she felt the
sound of the orchestra play faster and louder, stomping along the hall and
crashing through her bedroom door.
Elspeth didn’t hear much of what he
said. From under water, sounds are
muffled. His lips moved, mouth wide,
teeth, spittle, eyes large, face red, neck tight and stretched with rage. Elspeth heard the odd word. “Stupid” mostly, and “selfish”. She saw the hand, raised her arms across her
face and closed her eyes, as she felt her head jerked from side to side. The blows were grey and purple behind her eyes,
but she felt nothing. A disembodied
voice said, “I’m sorry. It was an
accident.” That just seemed to add to
the rage. The force from the tug of her
hair, she did feel. She heard a scream
and “Please!” and heard the thud of her own feet trying to keep up and the bang
of her shoulder against the door frame.
Saw the bird cage fall from the stand by the front door, onto its side –
a flutter of yellow and green. The cage
door fell open.
“Leave
her alone,” screamed a voice from the kitchen, “I’ll deal with it.” She was thrown to the floor. From where she lay, Elspeth could just see
her mother, through the open kitchen door – on her hands and knees, mopping up
the white puddle Elspeth had left there, 10 minutes before.
“That’s
right! Take her side! You always
do! I’ll leave all right. I’m off t’t pub and this lot better be
cleaned up before I get back!”
Elspeth relaxed a little, when she was sure
he had gone. She still lay there on the
floor, staring at the open cage door, marvelling that the budgie didn’t spy his
chance and fly away. In her head, she
was the budgie, Noah, traversing the mountains and running through the mazes of
the green patterned carpet of the hallway floor. But Noah, simply stood up in his upside down
house and sang the “telephone ring” song he always sang, to his friend in the
mirror, just from a different angle.
Elspeth pushed her head and shoulders up
with her arms. She could feel the
bruises on her arms and shoulder begin to ripen, and her head was a ringing
fizz. In her make-believe world, her
mother, a lady dressed in white, would dance over and help her up, cradle her
in her arms and say, “Come on my love, let’s pack our things and leave this
place. I’ll never let him hurt you
again.” But this mother didn’t run to
comfort her. This mother continued to
clean up the broken glass and mop up the milk, with her back to Elspeth, in
silence.
Elspeth got up slowly and picked up the
cage. Noah flapped about again and then
found his perch. “Fly away, Noah, while
you can,” whispered Elspeth. But Noah
wasn’t listening either. She left the
door open for a few moments, watching and willing him.
“Mu-um,”
Elspeth said, her heart beating fast, her tongue feeling enormous and like a
foreign object in the back of her throat.
“Yes,
Elspeth.”
“Why
don’t we leave?”
[silence]
“I
want to go Mum. He scares me.”
“But
where would we go, Elspeth?” said her mother, sounding hollow, like an echo.
“And besides, I love him.”
Elspeth
felt a familiar thud, as her rapidly racing heart plummeted into her stomach
and the grey Nothing worked its way
into her intestines. She turned to walk
back to her room.
Her mother spoke
again. “It’ll be alright, Elspeth. You’ll see.
You’ll just have to learn to be less clumsy.”
Elspeth felt a black stabbing pain in her
chest. The Nothing now seemed to bleed through imaginary wounds and with every
step her veins carried it back to her heart.
“Those are HIS words,” she thought.
As she passed Noah, she closed the cage door. She’d be blamed if he did get out and made a
mess anywhere. “Not this time, Noah,”
she whispered. “It’s just you and me now,
we’ll have to find another way.” Elspeth
walked back to her room without wishing her mother the usual “good night” or
telling her that she loved her. She
closed the door of her room, went to the window, and gazed out at the grey
buildings and the expansive sky, and imagined herself flying.
A boy from one of the flat’s below was
leaning against the veranda, staring at the horizon too. He lit up a cigarette and inhaled
deeply. Elspeth recognised him. He used to call for her and ask her to play,
when they were younger, but she’d never seen him like this before. She watched a
while, standing back from the window.
She liked the way he flicked his fringe.
Less so the way he shoved away a cat, but she’d stop that.
Elspeth lay on her bed, with a smile on her
face, staring up at the ceiling. Now she
was the white lady, dancing, with her sights on a white lord. She thought of her friend, Sue, with her baby
and her own flat. She pictured Noah, in
his cage, in a big kitchen window, as she closed her eyes.
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