Lyrebird

Laura stares down at her Converses. She looks terrified. She reaches out and holds on to Solomon’s arm. She grips him so tightly, he can feel her body shaking.

‘We should go quickly, Garda.’ Solomon starts to move. ‘Mossie isn’t doing very well. I’m sure Joe would want him seen to first before anything else.’

‘Right so,’ Jimmy says, stepping back. ‘Laura, we can arrange to have an informal chat over the next few days. This lad can be here with you if you like.’

Head down, Laura continues to cling to Solomon’s arm, another protective hand on Mossie. She makes a sound that appears to be the crackle of a dispatch radio.

Jimmy frowns.

‘We can arrange a time for you and Laura to talk,’ Bo says to him, walking along with Laura and Solomon. ‘And perhaps you’ll agree to do the interview?’ She’d asked him to talk about finding Joe at the house when Tom was lying dead on the ground, she wanted to hear the peculiar scene explained by someone else. Now is a good time to negotiate. She’ll help him speak with Laura if he speaks with her.

Laura stops walking.

‘Come on,’ Solomon calls to her, gently, in a tone of voice that Bo has never heard him use with her, or with anyone for that matter.

Laura just stares at Bo, which puts Solomon in an incredibly difficult position, but this is getting ridiculous now. He’s exhausted, he wants to sleep. Mossie is getting heavier in his arms.

‘Jimmy, would you mind driving Bo to our hotel, please?’ He avoids Bo’s eye as he asks. ‘I’ll meet you there later, Bo.’

Her mouth falls open.

‘You told me to help,’ he snaps, following the trail that leads to their parked car, adjusting the dog in his arms. ‘I’m helping.’

Laura sits in the back of the car with Mossie. The dog lies across the seat, his head on her lap. Bo gets into the garda car, a scowl on her face. It would be a funny sight if Solomon were capable of being remotely amused by what is happening.

‘Thank you, Solomon,’ Laura says, so quietly that Solomon’s body immediately relaxes and the anger leaves him.

‘You’re welcome.’

Laura is quiet in the car, whimpering occasionally along with Mossie in what he guesses is a show of support. He turns the radio on, lowers it, then decides against it and turns it off. The vet is thirty minutes away.

‘Why was the garda there?’ she asks.

‘Joe called him. He wanted to find out who you are and figure out why you’re living there.’

‘Have I done something wrong?’

‘I don’t know, you tell me,’ he laughs. She doesn’t and he gets serious again. ‘You are living in a cottage on Joe’s land, without his knowledge, that’s … well, it’s illegal.’

Her eyes widen. ‘But Tom told me I could.’

‘Well, that’s okay then, that’s all you need to tell them.’ He pauses. ‘Do you have that agreement on paper? A lease?’

She shakes her head.

He clears his throat, she copies him, which is quite off-putting, but her innocent face suggests no malice, nor any sign that she’s even aware of what she did.

‘Were you paying him rent?’

‘No.’

‘Right. So you asked him if you could live there and he said you could.’

‘No. Gaga asked him.’

‘Your grandmother? Could she support you on that?’ he asks.

‘No.’ She looks down at Mossie and strokes him. She kisses his head and nuzzles into him. ‘Not from where she is.’

Mossie whimpers and closes his eyes.

‘Is it true that Tom is dead?’ she asks.

‘Yes,’ he says, watching her in the mirror. ‘Sorry. He had a heart attack on Thursday.’

‘Thursday,’ she says quietly.

They park in the main street and knock on the surgery door. There’s no answer but the front door to the attached house opens and a man appears, wiping his mouth with a napkin, the smell of a home roast drifts out the door to them.

‘Oh hello, hi,’ he says. ‘Jimmy called me. Emergency, is it?’ he asks, seeing Mossie in Solomon’s arms. ‘Come in, come in.’

Solomon sits outside the surgery while Laura goes inside. He leans his elbows on his thighs and rests his head in his hands. His head is spinning, the ground is moving from the jet lag.

When the surgery door opens, Laura appears with tears rolling down her cheeks. She sits beside Solomon, without a word.

‘Come here,’ he whispers, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him. Another loss in her week. He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, but he would happily remain that way if the vet wasn’t standing at the open door patiently waiting for them to gather themselves and leave so he can to return to his family after a long day.

‘Sorry.’ Solomon removes his arm from around Laura’s shoulders. ‘Let’s go.’

Outside in the now dark night, music drifts from the local pub.

‘I could really do with a pint,’ he says. ‘Want to join me?’

A fire-escape door opens at the side of the bar and a bottle goes flying outside and lands in a recycling skip, smashing against the others inside.

Laura mimics the smashing sound.

He laughs. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

They sit outside the pub, at one of the wooden picnic tables, around the corner from the gang of smokers. When Solomon pulled the door open, and all the heads turned to stare at the two strangers, Laura quickly backed away. Solomon was relieved to not have to sit inside and be examined by the locals. Now she sits with a glass of water, while he drinks a pint of Guinness.

‘Never drink?’ he asks.

She shakes her head, the movement causing the ice to clink against the glass. She imitates the sound of the ice perfectly. It’s something Solomon still can’t wrap his head around, though he’s unsure of how to broach the subject; it’s as though she doesn’t even notice.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks. ‘Tom and Mossie – that’s a lot to lose in one week.’

‘One day,’ she says. ‘I only learned about Tom tonight.’

‘Sorry you had to hear it that way,’ Solomon says softly, thinking of how Jimmy had blurted it out.

‘Tom used to bring the shopping on Thursdays. When he didn’t come, I knew something was wrong, but I had no one to ask. I thought Joe was Tom today in the forest. I’ve never seen him before. They’re identical. But he was so angry. I’d never seen Tom so angry.’

‘You’ve lived there for ten years and you’ve never seen Joe?’

She shakes her head. ‘Tom wouldn’t allow it.’

He’s about to ask why, but stops himself. ‘Joe’s grieving, he’s usually more accommodating. Give him time.’

She sips her water, concerned.

‘So you haven’t eaten anything since Thursday,’ Solomon suddenly realises.

‘I have the fruit-and-veg patch, the eggs. I bake my own bread. I have enough but Tom likes … liked … to supply some extras. I was foraging when I saw you.’ She smiles shyly at him as she remembers how they met. He smiles too and then laughs at himself for his schoolboy feelings.

‘Jesus, let me get you some food. What do you want, burger and chips? I’ll get some for me too.’ He stands and looks across the road to the chipper. ‘It’s been a whole two hours since I ate.’

She smiles.

He expects her to mill into her food, but she doesn’t. Everything about her is calm and slow. She delicately picks at the chips with her long elegant fingers, occasionally studying one before she takes a bite.

‘You don’t like them?’

‘I don’t think there’s any potato in it,’ she says, dropping it to the greasy paper and giving up. ‘I don’t eat this kind of food.’

‘Unlike Tom.’

Her eyes widen. ‘I always told him to fix his diet. He wouldn’t listen.’ She looks sad again as the news of his death and her loss sinks in further.

‘Joe and Tom aren’t the types to listen to anybody.’ Solomon senses her blaming herself.

‘He once told me he had a ham sandwich for dinner and I gave him such a lecture about it when he came back the next week he was so proud to tell me he’d had a banana sandwich that day instead. He thought the fruit would be healthier.’

They both laugh.

‘Perhaps I was wrong,’ Solomon says gently, ‘he did listen to somebody.’

‘Thanks,’ she says.

‘How did your grandmother know Tom?’ Solomon asks.

‘You ask a lot of questions.’

He thinks about it. ‘I do. It’s how I make conversation. How do you make conversation?’ he asks and they both laugh.

‘I don’t. Apart from Tom I never have anybody to talk to. Not people, anyway.’ Somebody at the table around the corner stands, pushing aside the bench, which screeches against the ground. She imitates the sound. Once, twice, until she gets it right. The bar girl clearing the table beside them gives her a funny look.

‘I have fine conversations with myself,’ Laura continues, not noticing the look or not caring. ‘And with Mossie and Ring. And inanimate objects.’

‘You wouldn’t be alone in that.’ He smiles, watching her, completely intrigued.

She makes a new sound, one that makes him laugh. It sounds like a phone vibrating.

‘What is that?’ he asks.

‘What?’ She frowns.

And then suddenly he hears the sound again and it’s not coming from Laura’s lips, though he has to study her closely. He feels his phone vibrating in his pocket.

‘Oh.’ He reaches into his pocket and takes out his phone.

Five missed calls from Bo, followed by three messages of varying desperation.

He puts it face down on the table, ignoring it.

‘How did you know Tom?’

‘More questions.’

‘Because I find you intriguing.’

‘I find you intriguing.’

‘Ask me something then.’ He smiles.

‘Some people learn about people in other ways.’ Her eyes sear into him so much his heart pounds.

‘Okay.’ He clears his throat and she imitates the sound perfectly again. ‘We – me, Bo and Rachel – made a documentary about Joe and Tom. We spent a year with them, watching their every move, or at least that’s what we thought. You seemed to elude us. My experience of Joe and Tom is that they had no contact with anybody at all, apart from suppliers and customers, and even then it was rare for it to be human contact. It was just them, every day, all their lives. I’m not sure how Tom would have met your grandmother.’

‘She met him through my mum, who brought them food and provisions. She cleaned their house.’

‘Bridget’s your mother?’

‘Before Bridget.’

‘How long ago are we talking?’ Solomon asks, leaning in to her, enthralled, whether she’s spinning bullshit or not. He happens to think it’s the truth. He wants to think it’s the truth.

‘Twenty-six years ago,’ she says. ‘Or a little bit more than that.’

He looks at her, slowly processing. Laura is twenty-six years old. Tom did her grandmother a favour. Her mother was a housekeeper at their house twenty-six years ago.

‘Tom was your dad,’ he says in a low voice.

Despite knowing this, him saying it aloud seems to unsettle her and she looks around, imitating the clink of glasses, the smash of bottles in the recycling bin, the cracking ice. All sounds overflowing and overlapping each other as a sign of her distress.

He’s so shocked that his summation is true. He places his hand over hers. ‘I’m even more sorry you had to learn about his death like that.’

She imitates the sound of him clearing his throat, even though he hasn’t made the sound; she has linked it to his feeling of awkwardness, is perhaps telling him she feels uncomfortable, is trying to show him how she feels, connect it to those moments when he feels like that. Perhaps there is a language in her mimicry. Perhaps he’s losing his mind completely, investing such time and belief in someone that Bo considered unsophisticated, or developmentally delayed. But there doesn’t seem to be anything unsophisticated about the woman who sits before him right now. If anything she operates and communicates on more levels and layers than he’s ever experienced.

‘Laura, why did you ask for me tonight?’

She looks at him, those bewitching green eyes. ‘Because, apart from Tom, you’re the only person I know.’

Solomon has never ever been the only person that someone knows. It seems to him to be an odd thing, but a beautifully intimate thing. And something that isn’t to be taken lightly. It’s something that carries huge responsibility. Something to cherish.

6

The following morning the film crew are in Joe’s kitchen. Joe is sitting silently in his chair. Ring is by his feet, mourning the loss of his friend.

Bo has revealed to him, as gently as she could, that Laura is Tom’s daughter. He hasn’t said a word, made absolutely no comment whatsoever. He’s lost in his head, perhaps running through all the conversations, all the moments he could have missed this information, the moments he was possibly deceived, wondering how Tom could have lived a life he never knew about.

It breaks Solomon’s heart; he can’t even watch him. He holds the boom mic in the air, looking away, out of respect, trying to give Joe as much privacy in this moment as he can, despite three people invading his home and a camera pointed at his face. Of course Solomon was against revealing this news to Joe on camera, but the producer has the final say.

‘Laura’s mother, Isabel, was your housekeeper over twenty-six years ago.’

He looks at Bo then, coming alive. ‘Isabel?’ he barks.

‘Yes, do you remember her?’

He thinks back. ‘She wasn’t with us very long.’

Silence, his brain ticks over, sliding through the memory files.

‘Do you recall Tom and Isabel being particularly close?’

‘No.’ Silence. ‘No.’ Again. ‘Well, he’d …’ He clears his throat. ‘You know, he’d do the same as with Bridget: pay her for the cleaning and the provisions. I’d be out on the land. I’d not much to do with that.’

‘So you’d no idea about a love affair between them?’

It’s as though that expression occurs to him for the first time. The only way for Tom to have become a father was to have had a love affair. Something they both had said they’d never had. Two virgins at seventy-seven years old.

‘This girl is sure about that?’

‘After Isabel died, her grandmother revealed to her that Tom was her father. Laura’s grandmother, who was ailing herself, made an arrangement with Tom for Laura to live at the cottage.’

‘He knew about her then,’ Joe says, as if that’s been the burning question the whole time but he was afraid to ask.

‘Tom only learned she was his daughter after Isabel’s death, ten years ago. The cottage was modernised as much as was possible, by Tom, though there’s no electricity or hot running water. Laura has been living there alone ever since.’ Bo consults her notes. ‘Laura’s grandmother Hattie Murphy reverted to her maiden name Button after her husband’s death. Isabel changed her name too, and so Laura calls herself Laura Button. Hattie died nine years ago, six months after Laura moved to the cottage.’

Joe nods. ‘So she’s on her own then.’

‘She is.’

He ponders that. ‘She’ll be expecting his share then, I suppose.’

Solomon looks at him.

‘His share of …’

‘The land. Tom made a will. She’s not in it. If that’s what she’s looking for.’

The infamous Irish hunger for land rises in him.

‘Laura hasn’t mentioned anything about wanting a share of the land. Not to us.’

Joe is agitated; Bo’s comments don’t do much to calm him. It’s as though he’s readying himself for a fight. His land, his farm is his life, it’s all he has ever known his entire life. He’s not going to give any of it up for his brother’s lie.

‘Perhaps Tom had planned to talk to you about her,’ Bo says.

‘Well, he didn’t,’ he says with a nervous, angry laugh. ‘Never said a word.’ Silence. ‘Never said a word.’

Bo gives him a moment.

‘Knowing what you know now, will you allow Laura to continue living at the cottage?’

He doesn’t respond. He seems lost in his head.

‘Would you like to start a relationship with her?’ she asks gently.

Silence. Joe is completely still though his mind is most likely not.

Bo looks at Solomon, uncertain as to how to proceed.

‘Perhaps a relationship is too much for you to think about now. Perhaps it would be simpler to consider whether you will continue to support her, as Tom did?’

His hands grip the armrests, Solomon watches the colour drain from his knuckles.

‘Joe,’ Bo says gently, leaning forward. ‘You know this means that you’re not alone. You have family. You’re Laura’s uncle.’

Joe stands up from the chair then, fiddling with the microphone on his lapel. His hands are shaking and he’s clearly upset, becoming irritated by the film crew’s presence now, as if they have brought this nuisance into his life.

‘That’s that,’ he says, dropping the mic to the thin cushion on the wooden chair. ‘That’s that now.’

It’s the first time he has walked out on them.

The crew move to Laura’s cottage. Laura sits in her armchair, the same checked shirt-dress tied at the waist with a belt, and a tattered pair of Converse. Her long hair has been recently washed and is drying, there isn’t a stitch of make-up on her clear, beautiful skin.

The camera is off, Rachel is outside with the gear, on the phone to Susie. The day is drizzly, unlike yesterday’s heatwave, and Solomon wonders how she survives in this place in the depths of winter when even his modern Dublin city apartment feels depressing. As Bo talks, Laura watches Solomon. With Bo in the room, this makes it somewhat awkward for him. He clears his throat.

Laura mimics him.

He shakes his head and smiles.

Bo misses what passes between them as she prepares for her conversation. ‘So, bearing in mind we don’t know how much of an assistance Joe will be to you, moving forward, we’d like, Solomon and I …’

He closes his eyes as she mentions him. It’s a ploy to build Laura’s trust by portraying herself as an ally to Solomon and therefore an ally to Laura. Technically, it’s true; she is, after all, his girlfriend. But it still feels like a ploy.

‘We’d like to make a suggestion. We’d like to offer to help you. I feel you and I got off to a wrong start – and let me explain why. I apologise profusely for how I behaved when I first met you. I got excited.’ Bo places her hand on her heart as she speaks completely honestly, meaning every word. ‘I’m a documentary maker. A couple of years ago, I followed your father and uncle for a year.’

Solomon notices how Laura flinches at that, as if equally uncomfortable with the truth as Joe is.

‘They are, were, fascinating people and their story spread all over the world. Aired in twenty countries, I have it here. This is an iPad; if you do this …’ She swipes carefully, looking at Laura then back to the iPad to see if she understands.

Laura mimics the iPad clicking sounds.

‘Then you press this to watch it.’ Bo touches the screen and the film starts playing.

She allows Laura to watch it for a moment.

‘I’d love to make a documentary about you. We’d love to film you here at the cottage, get a sense of who you are and how you live your life.’

Laura looks at Solomon. He’s about to clear his throat but stops himself. Laura does it instead, sounding like him. Bo still doesn’t notice.

‘There is a fee, but it’s small. I have the terms here.’

Bo takes a page from her folder and hands it to her.

Laura looks at the page blankly.

‘I’ll leave this with you, for you to decide.’

Bo looks at the piece of paper, wondering if she should explain it any further, or if doing so would seem patronising. With Solomon standing behind her shoulder, judging her, maybe not deliberately but she feels the judgement, this cold air that comes from him when she does or says something. She does appreciate that he has a better way with negotiating certain situations but she also wants the freedom to be able to act as she deems appropriate, without fearing or dreading the feedback, the sensing the disapproval and disappointment. Of always letting him down. Of having to check herself. She doesn’t want any more cold air between them, but mostly she doesn’t like to have to second-guess herself at a job that she knows she’s more than capable of doing. In ways, it was easier when their relationship was platonic. She cared more about what he thought, rather than what he thinks of her.

She’s sitting on the edge of her chair, too much in Laura’s space. She pushes herself back and tries to appear relaxed, waits for a positive answer.

Laura is watching the first few minutes of video of her father and uncle on the iPad.

‘I don’t think that I’d like people to know about me,’ Laura says, and Solomon is surprised by his relief.

He would never consider their documentaries exploitive, but he’s proud of Laura for sticking to what feels right to her, not being swayed by attention and fame as so many people are. Rarely does Bo have to convince anybody to say anything on camera, she dangles a camera in front of them and they jump to attention, ready for their five minutes of fame. He likes that Laura is different. She’s normal. She’s a normal person who appreciates her anonymity, who values privacy. That, and something else.

‘You don’t have to share anything with us that you don’t want,’ Bo says. ‘Joe and Tom allowed us to follow them and see how they lived and communicated with each other but I don’t think they felt we crossed any boundaries. We had a very well understood agreement, that as soon as they felt uncomfortable, we’d stop filming.’

Like this morning, in Joe’s kitchen. It made Bo feel unwell, as though she’d had a falling out with a friend.

Laura looks relieved. ‘I like to be by myself. I don’t want –’ she looks at the iPad, and newspaper articles and magazine reviews on the table, ‘I don’t want all of that.’

She pulls the sleeves of her cardigan over her wrists and scrunches them between her fingers, and hugs herself, as if she’s cold.

‘Understood,’ Solomon says, and looks at Bo, an air of finality to it. ‘We respect your decision. But before we go, we brought you some things.’

Solomon carries the shopping bags over to her and places them on the floor beside her. He’d probably gone overboard but he didn’t want her to be left with nothing, especially if Bridget sides with Joe and doesn’t continue to provide for Laura. He’d run across to the local tourist shop, bought as many blankets, T-shirts, jumpers as he could. He couldn’t imagine how cold it got in here, wind whistling through the holes in the walls, the old windows, while bats are flying metres from her door.

Bo hadn’t commented on his purchases. She’d stayed in the car checking emails, while he’d filled the boot with shopping bags. It’s only now that Bo looks at the amount he places down, takes them in, and looks at him in surprise. He’s embarrassed but she’s impressed by his effort. In Bo’s opinion, it could go a long way to convincing Laura to work with them.

‘I thought it could get very cold up here,’ Solomon explains, awkwardly, faffing his hands over the tops of the bags and muttering about their contents.

Bo smiles, trying to hold in her laugh at her boyfriend’s discomfort.

‘Thank you so much for all of these things,’ Laura says, peering in the bags, then addressing Solomon. ‘It’s far too much. I don’t think I could eat all of this on my own.’

‘Well, there’s three people here who’d love to help you,’ Bo jokes casually, still pushing, always pushing.

‘I’ll have to give them all back to you,’ she says to Solomon and then to Bo. ‘I can’t do your documentary.’

‘They’re for you,’ Solomon says firmly, ‘whether you do it or not.’

‘Yes, yes, keep them,’ Bo says, distracted.

While Solomon is getting ready to leave, doing the thing where he doesn’t want to push, doesn’t want to be seen as being rude, in the way, Bo prepares. That part of it never bothers Bo, it’s a momentary awkwardness in an overall larger picture. Bo feels it in her gut that she can’t let Laura go. She’s a fascinating, beautiful, interesting, ferociously intriguing girl, none of which she has seen the likes of before. Not only has she a personal life that is ripe for storytelling but a unique characteristic which is visually splendid. The girl is perfect. While Solomon says his goodbye to Laura, Bo lags behind, taking her time tidying her paperwork up. Placing the newspaper photocopies in a neat pile, running through her head what she can say next.