Page 7

7

BIRD IN FLIGHT

Two people step into view, staring up at me.

‘What are you doing up there?’ the woman calls, panicked. ‘Are you crying?’ I wish. ‘Do you need help?’

It’s Steve and Paula. The neighbours with the son that fancies me. Oh joy. And … yep. There he is, joining them.

All three of them gawp up at me. OK. This could be an issue.

‘Hi!’ I wave.

They look tiny. Like terrified finger puppets. I, in contrast, am not even remotely scared. I was so close—

‘Why are you dressed like that?’ Paula shouts. She turns and I see her lips move as she mouths something to her husband. I don’t catch all of the words, but two of them definitely read as potentially psychotic . She turns back to me. ‘Is your mum in, Elias?’

‘No – she’s out running with Dad. It’s all fine. Honestly!’ I wave again. Just wave .

They don’t look convinced. Paula is whispering to Steve, while rooting through her handbag. She takes out her phone. I can’t quite bring myself to look at Peter, but I know he isn’t taking his annoyingly kind eyes off me.

Wait. Paula’s calling my mum. She ’ s such a snitch .

‘Stop!’ I cry. My feet slip a little on the tiles. ‘You don’t need to—’

‘I think it’s best your parents know, Elias. They might be worried.’

‘There’s nothing to worry about!’

‘Oh, yes, I know!’ She smiles patronisingly. ‘But let’s just make sure.’

‘But—’

‘I love your little costume!’ She cuts me off. ‘You look very sweet.’ Pipe down, Paula. I never liked you.

I smile back, mirroring her condescension. ‘It’s not sweet, Paula. I’m a mentally ill clown who’s lost touch with reality and has the simple mission of wreaking anarchy and chaos.’ Oops. Couldn’t help it. They all look petrified. ‘The character – the Joker. Not me.’ Well, maybe a little bit. ‘I just like dressing up.’

I sound like a three-year-old.

‘OK, Elias!’ Steve puts his hand up like it might stop me from hurtling to the ground. ‘You look very cool!’ He assumes his wife’s patronising tone. Not you too, Steve. I believed you were different. ‘We’re just going to call your mum. Just want to make sure everything is A-OK!’ He makes an OK sign with his fingers.

God, can these people back off and let me feel the fear of a ten-metre drop alone? I was so close .

‘Honestly, it’s all fine! Don’t be concerned! I’m in the middle of something and can’t be disturbed. Neither should you be.’ I nod encouragingly. ‘Please, on with your day, good people.’

Paula stares. Steve stares. Peter stares, but in a gentle way. Why are they not moving? Quick , think of something. ‘This is part of an art project!’

‘ Art project?’ Paula sounds confused.

I must un-confuse her. ‘Yes!’

‘Oh? And what project is that?’

‘It’s called … Mangled Perspectives.’ Just keep lying. Good things happen to those who lie. ‘I want to document how different the world is from up here.’ More. They need more. ‘I’m going to apply to art college with it. Goldsmiths.’

‘ Goldsmiths? Elias! That’s wonderful news!’

‘I know! It’s a great day for everyone!’ I lower my voice and pull a concerned face. ‘But my parents can’t know…’

Paula raises her eyebrows. ‘Why not?’

I pause. ‘Because, Paula… I don’t…’ I shake my head sadly. ‘I don’t want to disappoint them if I don’t get in. I’m still quite…’ I make the next word sound like it’s very painful to say, ‘ vulnerable .’

Paula’s face softens. She lowers her phone. ‘Oh, Elias…’

Oh, Paula. So fickle.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I hate disappointing them.’ I wipe my dry eyes.

Paula looks like she might cry herself. ‘Your mum told me how good at art you were. That’s so lovely. She’ll be so pleased.’

Peter’s eyes are lingering. Kind. So kind. Please stop.

‘Well, let’s see. I hope I can live up to her expectations.’

‘OK, Elias,’ Paula says, then winks. I watch the phone go back into her bag. ‘I think what you’re doing is very brave.’ Brave. Yes. Yes, I am, Paula. I always liked you. ‘Will you get down safely? And we won’t say a word.’

‘But of course.’

She nods. They’re all nodding. Please leave now.

Steve looks at me cautiously. ‘So, you’re going to climb down the drainpipe, Mr Poppins?’

Shut up, Steve. ‘No, I came up through the—’ Hang on. They can’t know I’ve been in the attic. They might tell Mum. ‘Yes. Exactly , Steve. Chim chim cher-oo.’

‘We’ll leave you to it,’ Paula says, taking Steve’s arm.

‘Have a wonderful day!’ I shout.

‘Do you fancy hanging out at some point?’ Peter suddenly says.

Paula’s face looks like it might melt with the reality of what this would mean. The course of her future altering as she understands she could potentially invite this unstable man-child into her family.

‘No need to rush anything, Pete,’ she says quietly. I watch her take his sleeve and together they begin to head off up the street.

When they’ve gone, I take a small step back to resume my trauma-experiencing position and find myself dropping backwards, falling down through the open skylight. My back cracks on the wooden frame of the chair.

It takes me a second as I lie sprawled across the carpet. A second to feel the pain. And fuck my life does it hurt. That’s more like it. The chair didn’t break. My back might have.

Once I’ve stretched it out, checking all bones are still working correctly, which they annoyingly seem to be – a broken back might have made me feel scared – I stand.

Nothing. What a kick in the teeth. Actually, a kick in the teeth might have been better.

As I regain my focus, I scan my eyes over the storage boxes, each neatly labelled: MISCELLANEOUS, BOOKS, KITCHENWARE, ADVANCE brITAIN. My gaze fixes on to one in particular.

MEDICAL DOCUMENTATION

E.G.P.

Elias Gollum Pew.

OK, fine. My middle name is Gordon, but I’ve submitted an application to the Deed Poll office to change it to Gollum. It has a better ring to it.

A whole box of my very own medical documentation. I hadn’t realised there was so much of it. I know I was in the hospital for a while, recovering. But still.

Before I can stop myself, I’m hobbling across the carpet towards it, ignoring the shooting pain in my back. The box is open. A cut line runs though the Sellotape that joins the two cardboard flaps, revealing a small gap through which I can see a heap of papers. A Stanley knife lies on the carpet beside it.

My first thought is: there seem to be an increasing number of knives in my life lately. My second thought is: I know Mum said she wants to try to support me as best she can, but do my medical records really need to be her night-time reading? Can’t she just enjoy something a little more commercial like Jane Austen or Sally Rooney?

Something behind the box catches my eye, where the slanted roof meets the carpet. Another box. It’s tattier than the rest and there are drawings all over it. Vampires, gargoyles and other gruesome winged things.

I kneel down to get a better look. There’s a label stuck on its side, but this one is handwritten.

The handwriting is my own.

MY STUFF – DON’T TOUCH

Huh? My body involuntarily shudders. A real shudder.

OK. That’s … new. Or old. Depending on how you look at it.

I pick up the Stanley knife. And then I’m crawling (creep crawling) until I’m right in front of the box. I click the knife so the blade shoots out of its safety and press the tip into the Sellotape. It makes a small, satisfying puncture sound: a slow pop. I move it along the tape until the cardboard flaps open. When they do, I’m hit with something. A smell.

I smell paint.

My stomach clenches. All my old paints. So many tubes of them.

I sift through them. Half used. Endless leaking colours, lids missing, paint now dried. There’s something at the bottom of the box.

A sketchbook.

I turn in the direction of the hatch. No sound of my parents as yet, but I don’t have long. For some reason, this strange feeling in my stomach pulls at me. A dull ache that feels… Well, it feels .

I take out the sketchbook, brushing off flecks of dried paint, and open it.

Pages have been torn out. I flick through the back ones. Blank, mostly. Then I stop as I see a sketch, done in charcoal. It’s only half of one. Torn like someone has pulled at it in a hurry, leaving the remaining paper crumpled and smudged.

Half a picture.

Half a body. A chest. A torso. Naked.

No face.

The remaining hand is turned upwards. On the inside of the wrist is a tattoo – a silhouette of an m-shaped bird in flight. I look down at the tattoo on my own wrist. A self-portrait. Interesting. I never liked drawing myself that I can remember.

It seems like I’ve been very generous with the muscle definition.

I lift it up so I can see it in the half-light beneath the eaves. As I do, the smell of the paper, the feel of its texture on my fingertips, does something to my brain. Suddenly, a flash of memory. Me. Drawing. In a room I don’t know. And someone is there. Someone I can’t quite—

A shadow. A familiar shadow.

My breath catches and then I sense it. A faint pulse. Deep and tender, dangerous and sharp, right in the centre of me.

I know this feeling .

The pulse grows into a terrible throb and I’m overwhelmed by the pressure – its veracity making me dizzy, its familiarity knocking me sick.

This is fear. This is terror .

I know it so well. It’s unmistakable.

Yes. Yes .

But why now?

Something falls from behind the torn page on to the carpet in front of me, twisting as it descends like a helicopter seed.

A photograph.

Tatty and worn, with creases through it like it’s been folded and unfolded many times.

I lean down, squinting.

It’s my family. Mum, Dad and Lucas, beaming into the camera. A long time ago, back in Lewes.

They’re standing on the gravel drive of our cottage, in front of Dad’s green Cadillac with the yellow stripe. He looks so proud – arms folded, shirtsleeves rolled up. Mum is smiling, actually smiling. Not the hard smile she uses for other people, but the soft one she reserves only for us – her family. Lucas has his head back, mouth open, eyes tightly shut, mid laugh.

They look so happy.

I don’t feel anything. I know I should be filled up by its warmth, but nothing comes.

I think I must have taken it. I have a vague recollection of the day Dad got the car. I must have been about twelve.

I pick it up and turn it over. There’s something on the back.

Handwriting. My own again, but shaky and scrawled like I was rushing when I wrote it.

Don’t forget. Never. Never forget. You can’t – please – remember him. Shave your head.

The air catches in my throat, a sudden heat drying it out.

I don’t … remember writing this. It’s intense. And unsettling.

Remember him ? Shave your head?

Suddenly, a bang from somewhere downstairs. The front door. Shit. My perfectly exact and in-sync parents are back.

Always keep your eye on the time.

I’m about to put the photograph back when I pause. I fold it and slide it into my pocket. Quickly – carefully – I slip the sketchbook into the box and push the lid shut. It won’t stick, but that’s fine – it’ll have to be.

And then I’m moving the chair back into place and hurriedly climbing, creeping, back down the ladder. When I’m at the bottom I give it a shove to make it fold in on itself and disappear up into the ceiling. I close the hatch with my attic-opener then turn to the window. I throw the coat hangers out of it, down into the back garden, then descend the stairs.

Shit. I forgot to close the skylight.

My parents stand in the hallway, by the lilies, their matching fluorescent hi-vis jackets flashing at me. Sweaty, energised, ready for the day.

They mumble to each other about an important meeting Dad has later. Something to do with public-private partnerships. They then look at me and stop.

‘Have you been upstairs?’ Dad frowns slightly as he wipes his dripping forehead. ‘Elias?’

‘Yeah, sorry,’ I say. ‘I wanted to feel calm before the session with Melinda.’ My voice sounds odd. Far away. ‘The hallway by your room. The colour of the walls.’

‘Oh, sweetie,’ Mum says softly, walking towards me.

As she places her hand on my shoulder, I ball my fists and shove them in my pockets. She tells me that I’m going to do brilliantly. That she thinks what I’m wearing is possibly a little inappropriate, but that if it makes me feel comfortable, I should keep it on. I nod and smile. Because that is what we do in this family. All the while, I feel the photograph against my fingers, sending a tingling up my arm and into the back of my neck.

As Mum tells me she’s going to set up the living room and put some croissants in the oven to warm them up, I feel that flicker of fear lingering deep inside. But I still have no idea why a flimsy piece of paper, rather than a ten-metre drop to the ground, was the thing that ignited it.