AND THANK GOD: MARITUS EX MACHINA, Liam’s car pulled up half an hour later. When Billy heard it, he drifted to the threshold of his room, sour-faced but, hallelujah, quiet.
Liam came through the door, bringing a bucket of small Cookie Time cookies and a box of Black Macs, then went back out to collect three bottles of Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc: all cheap, irresistible deals, he said, moving from sheepish to watchfully serious.
‘Irresistible?’
‘Yeah. I just — I’m sick of scrimping and saving. And I figured we should celebrate getting through the last few days. How’s it been? Sorry I didn’t call. Thought I’d drive all the way, but finished so late yesterday I was fried. Checked into a place in Ashburton. I could’ve called from there, but I—’
The fight adrenaline from her stand-off with Billy was ebbing away. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I found your phone charger in the laundry basket. I figured you might have run out of juice.’
‘Guess I left in a bit of a rush.’
‘Mmm. Sunglasses in the pantry. Shaving gear in the garage. You must have been travelling pretty light in the end.’
Billy shuffled into the hallway. ‘Dad, did you just laugh with your nose?’
He tried to imitate it.
Liam gave him a quick cuff on the shoulder. ‘How’re you, wee bruiser?’
Billy rubbed at his shoulder. ‘You’re the bruiser.’
Liam raised his fists Popeye-style. ‘Are you a man or a marshmallow?’
Billy pondered. ‘Any other choices?’
Liam pressed his hands at his lower back, then ouffed with tiredness, so they trailed into the lounge.
‘Did you spend the whole day in Ashburton?’ Iris asked, puzzled.
‘No, no. Woke up really late, though. Had to pay for late check-out. And on the way down I did a tiki tour of Kakanui and Moeraki. Went for a dive off Moeraki, actually. Visibility wasn’t great, but it’s good for paua out there. Nice to have a look around, anyway. I even popped through a couple of the baches for sale afterwards.’
‘Baches?’
He shrugged. ‘You never know. If things pick up …’
Billy found a colouring competition that had come with the bucket of cookies, and retrieved his felt pens. He knelt down at the coffee table to start on the pictures. ‘I’m giving the monster head-feathers. Nobody else will think of that. I might win for innovation. Winnovation!’
Liam gave Iris a perfunctory, somewhat dutiful kiss, then studied her before dropping into an armchair. There was disappointment in the air — as if the moment had teetered on its heels a little. ‘You weren’t worried?’ he asked.
‘I’ll fill you in later,’ said Iris.
‘Ah.’
Pause.
He toyed with keys and change in his pocket. ‘Sure you can’t tell me now?’
‘Walls and ears,’ said Iris.
Liam looked at Billy. He seemed completely focused: he was peering down at the small, rapid strokes he was making with purple pen.
‘Robins can hear worms in their burrows,’ Billy said, colouring the monster. ‘I imagine probably fantails can hear when sand-flies take off.’ That imagine: so elderly.
Liam and Iris exchanged a yup-you-were-right look.
Liam swiped a broken cookie from the bucket, glanced at his watch. ‘Gosh, it’s getting late. What about a bath before dinner tonight, Billy?’
‘Some birds can fly with one eye closed and half of their brain asleep. Probably they can hear things in their bath and their sleep, too.’
Liam rolled up his sleeves. ‘Run it for you, shall I?’
Billy tossed down his felt pens. ‘I’ll do it.’ He looked his dad square in the eye. ‘Thanks for the cookies.’
‘Hey, that’s okay, buddy.’
Billy got up and stood there with his legs apart, fists balled up on his hips. ‘Birds show affection by giving each other food.’
Liam uh-huhed.
‘And sometimes, by grooming each other. Their beaks have little nerve endings in them, so they don’t just peck, they can be gentle, too.’
‘Yup.’
‘Sometimes they even regurgitate their food for each other.’
Liam snorted. ‘Let’s not do that one, eh, Billy? But I can comb your hair when you’re out of the bath, if you like.’
Billy twinkled his fingers up in the air and darted off. ‘Okay!’
Soon they heard the sound of rushing water. Iris asked Liam to tell her about the Christchurch end of the trip, but he seemed tongue-tied now. She had the vague sense that he was building up to something. Or was his taciturnity partitioning something off?
She was about to ask, ‘Liam, is everything okay?’ but Billy was in and out of the bath in quadruple quick time. Iris herded him back, so she could scrub the grimy crescent of skin above his T-shirt line. He raced into his PJs, then approached Liam with his comb held out like a small mace. Liam took the comb and gave Billy’s hair a couple of cursory flicks. ‘There you go. Slick as.’
Billy stayed, gazing at his father.
‘What’s up?’
The boy’s pout gently came and went, as if there were a tiny, fibrous problem on his tongue-tip.
‘Off to bed now. It’s late. You can read for a bit if you want.’
‘Dad! We haven’t even had dinner!’
‘Oh. Any homework?’
Iris saw then how Liam’s teeth were gritted, the hollows around his eyes deepened with shadows. He looked like a man holding up against internal strain. ‘Liam, are you all right? Do you need to lie down?’
‘I’m fine. Might just need to eat.’
‘Right! Oh, right.’ She went into a flurry of meal preparation while Billy returned to colouring in. Over dinner, Liam tried to eat at the same time as doing accounts, then reading Steve’s submission against damming the Nevis River for hydro power. He kept zoning out of their chatter: work sucking him into another dimension. Cut him some slack, Iris thought. He’s just got back.
After the meal, Billy asked if Liam could put him to bed; but the phone went: Steve. Already. Iris rolled her eyes at Billy, and he padded off on his own to his room. She followed to find him perched on his haunches in the dark on the bed, his arm curled up as far over his head as he could reach, his eyes screwed shut. He was cooing to himself; a tune Iris half-recognised.
‘Good to have Dad home again all safe and sound?’ she asked.
He carried on with his wordless song.
‘Cooo ooo ooo ooo ooo
Cooo ooo ooo ooo ooo.’
She stroked his head. ‘What would Miss Hooper think of this, eh, Billy?’
‘Cooo ooo cooo ooo
Cooo ooo cooo ooo.’
‘She wants you to concentrate on doing things like a boy.’
He refused to move — and so she heaved him over onto his side, pulled the blankets up as best she could; tucked him in. He played deaf all the way: either pretending he was asleep, or that he was so locked into bird-hood that the words of a human mother couldn’t penetrate.
She left his room, frustration tightening in her chest. When she and Liam finally had a chance to be alone, they both stood dumbfounded. Chores done, boy in bed, no external clamour of texts, phone … the peace was a foreign place.
‘Hello!’ said Liam, hands up in mock surprise, as if there she was, on a busy street, after years of falling out of touch …
He did make her laugh; yet there was still The Conversation hovering. It would bulldoze over everything else, so — let him talk first.
‘How did it really go in Christchurch?’ she asked.
He fidgeted with his keys in his pocket, then forced a smile, gestured for her to come over to the couch. They sat together. ‘Full on,’ he said. ‘Steve was stressing out about a dozen different things, and then there was navigating around the wrecked roads. Poor bloody place.’
She wound their fingers together, marvelling at how blocky and sturdy his hands were: how unfamiliar and other, despite all the years she’d studied them, felt them navigate her skin.
He cleared his throat. ‘Some things give you hope.’ His cool thumb traced in and out of the hollows of her knuckles. ‘Small things. Like a library that’s appeared on a street corner — an old half-smashed bus shelter people have been filling with books for anyone to use. Then you see streets that make it seem … this will never, ever be fixed. Piles and piles of rubble.’ He stared at the floor then passed his hand over his face. ‘Anyway. We got the job done. Steve’s happy enough, I guess.’ He rubbed at a mark on his jeans. ‘I could do with a beer.’ He made to shift off the couch, and Iris said, ‘I’ll get it.’ She fought a small internal tug of war, thinking she shouldn’t drink, given it was only her first week in the job. The glossy curves of the Cloudy Bay bottles were too seductive, and she poured herself a glass.
‘Cheers,’ he said.
‘Rough trip all told, then,’ she said. ‘Here’s to it being over.’
‘Yeah.’ Yet there was something guarded about him still. He lifted his glass to look at the malty fizz. ‘How was it here, anyway? Starting at the shop?’
‘Work was fine, actually. In a way, it was a break.’
‘Eh?’
She sipped her wine, thinking, Here goes. Maybe if I tell all first, he’ll follow suit. ‘Billy’s teacher called me while you were gone.’ She explained everything, picking up the Triple T notebook from the coffee table.
Liam leafed through the pages. ‘That’s progress, isn’t it? Eleven stickers already. What was his first prize?’
‘He asked for gravel paper.’
‘Eh?’
‘To sharpen his beak and claws. He said that given he’s kept inside so much and can’t get out to use bark and stones as often as wild birds, he needs extra cage accessories.’
Liam laughed dryly. ‘Right. And what did he actually get?’
‘Nothing, yet. Miss Hooper says he has to make a sensible suggestion.’ She slipped along the couch a little, turned to him. ‘You know how whenever we ask about lunchtime, who he played with, has he made any new friends, he says, “There’s a game with two guys, it’s called Elements, and we have special powers …”’
‘Yeah?’ said Liam, meaning, Now I do.
‘It’s not true. He went to his favourite place when he panicked. Miss Hooper says he often hides in the bushes, apparently happy, but he fossicks there on his own, or sits there peering out, watching the other children play. Last week he started to build a makeshift nest. She’s tried to introduce him to children from other classes even; children with “vivid imaginations”, she says. But when one little girl, Brianna, tried to pretend she was a bird, too, and brought him some sticks, he flew off and scrambled up into a tree. Brianna couldn’t climb that high.’
Liam guffawed.
She set her glass down roughly. ‘You don’t get it. It’s lost its “quirkiness”.’ She signalled irony quotes on the air. ‘Even though I’ve been, I don’t know, gratefully distracted by the shop, when I spun out at him just before you came home —’ She wrestled with the words. ‘It’s been eating at me, ever since the school called.’
His hand lay like a pale, stunned animal on the couch between them. ‘I thought we agreed it’s just a phase.’
She straightened up. ‘That’s what I thought before. But now if it’s even a problem at school — it’s time to get help.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Advice, counselling.’
‘What?’
‘Visit the GP first, I suppose.’ She looked at her hands. ‘We trust Dr Patel, so I guess we ask her for recommendations.’
Liam said sourly, ‘Knows some good pet psychologists, does she?’
Iris didn’t grace that with a reply.
‘Look,’ Liam said, ‘if we don’t laugh, it’s beaten us.’
Iris turned to him. ‘I thought I was going to wallop him today. And that’s not me. This afternoon, when he was at me, I just thought — I can’t cope with that bird weirdery any more, on top of everything else. It’s too much.’ She didn’t know all this until she opened her mouth, and now she didn’t want to learn any more about her limits.
Iris swore she could feel the new thoughts cascading through Liam. She was the lenient one, the accommodating one. Despite his bluff, let-me-at-’em first response to Billy’s conception, Iris was the one who had found adjusting to parenthood easiest. She’d even adapted better to having Jason in the house. Many people wondered, was it hard, was Liam’s nephew like an interloper? Her sister Carrie asked, several times, did she ever feel, you know, cuckoo syndrome? But she hadn’t. Part of her was joyful that Billy had the companion she hadn’t been able to give him. Yet it had come from such tragedy, she’d never told Liam of her gladness. Despite his challenges, Jason had an openness, warmth, even a gratitude, that leavened his understandably moody times.
Maybe it had been easier for her because they weren’t blood relations. She wasn’t scouring his every move for evidence that he was like his father. Liam, though, was always vigilant for signs of Jase going off the rails. So perhaps when Iris hit the wall, the impact was worse.
Now Liam’s eyes darted around: looking for an exit? These weren’t the roles they played. Where should he stand? What were his lines?
He spoke. ‘It’s really not just Billy, Iris. You’ve been in a state of — what — high alert since Jason died.’
They listened to the after-ripples of his name. Paradox: she felt the not-thereness of him so intensely it was as if he were in the room. Her hand floated up, to let the absence trickle over it. Liam clasped her fingers so they folded like a fan.
‘You’re over-thinking. We’ve both had so much to deal with — for months now.’ There was an uncomfortable lull.‘Let’s not make Billy the scapegoat.’
Regret cramped her throat. Unexpectedly, then, he stood. ‘I’m tired, Iris. I’ve had a totally full-on trip. Let’s just follow the teacher’s advice. Park the rest of it for now, okay?’
Left on the couch, Iris felt very small, very stupid, and consummately dismissed.
