Little Bird Page 13

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.’

  ‘When I walked in . . . I thought the two of you were having an affair. That threw me, because I was sure I was totally over Spence.’

  ‘I thought I was in love with him,’ I admitted. ‘And that he might fall in love with me. It sounds crazy now.’

  Colette sighed. ‘Well, I can’t talk, can I? It’s not really crazy. Maybe he did sort of like you. Spence has this ability to see the gorgeous that most of us keep hidden, even from ourselves. It’s one of his only redeeming qualities.’

  ‘Well, you’ll be happy to know I’ve talked myself out of Spence.’

  ‘Good for you. But what I’m trying to say is it was misplaced rage. It was Spence I was really angry with, not you. Mum said I depended on you too much. She said that was misplaced too.’

  ‘I didn’t mind.’

  Colette shrugged. ‘Well, it wasn’t right. Maisy’s not your responsibility. She’s mine. And Spence’s.’

  ‘So is Spence paying child-support now?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Colette said. ‘Mum went bananas when she realised that Spence wasn’t paying any child-support. She made me go and see a lawyer, and we’ve had to do mediation, which has actually been good. We’re really talking to each other, for the first time. He’s going to be seeing more of Maisy, with me there at first, but eventually she’ll stay the night at his house, and then we might work out some kind of regular arrangement for shared custody.’

  ‘How do you feel about that?’

  Colette screwed up her face. ‘I have to admit it would be good if it worked out. And I totally need him to pay child-support. I can’t look after Maisy, pay the bills and pay the rent on my own. I learnt that the hard way. But I hope he doesn’t let her down. I don’t quite trust him yet.’

  ‘I’ve really missed Maisy,’ I said.

  ‘We’ve missed you too. So, friends?’ Colette asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  I hugged her, feeling her bones, her brittle frailty, her wiry strength.

  ‘Oi! None of that,’ Shandra said, stepping out of the bathroom. ‘This is my day, remember? The only tears shed today will be tears of joy – for me.’

  21

  Shandra got married in the afternoon sun.

  Stefan gave her away and then sat down next to Mum, looking pleased as punch. Mum was already crying, even before the celebrant spoke. Shandra winked saucily at Damien when she arrived by his side, and he pinched her bum halfway through the service, which made his mum shriek with nervous laughter. William slept in Paula’s arms, and she leaned her head on Dad’s shoulders as Shandra and Damien exchanged their vows. At one point, I met Ed’s eyes and had to look away or I might have cracked up. And then they were pronounced husband and wife and everyone clapped and wolf-whistled while the groom kissed the bride.

  ‘Okay, people,’ the photographer called after the wedding. ‘Family shots.’

  Paula hung back.

  ‘Come on,’ Shandra insisted. ‘You’re family.’

  So Paula stepped in beside Mum and Dad. After the photos she whispered in my ear, ‘I’m busting for a wee. Can you hold Will?’

  So I gathered him up, and he was sleepy and lovely. Ed and Colette and the rest of the band were setting up, positioning speakers and instruments, unfolding music stands, unravelling long extension cords and locating power points. When Paula returned, I passed Will back to her and we both clucked over him for a moment until Ed asked me to fetch a microphone from his car.

  I walked out the front, found the microphone and took a breath, a brief moment away from the wild excitement of the party. A little pink-frocked blob whizzed round the corner. It was Maisy. She toddled along the street on her fat wobbly legs, gathering momentum as if she couldn’t stop. I held my arms out and she ran to me. I caught her up, swung her around and then clung to her, half laughing, half crying, as Colette’s mum rushed towards us.

  ‘She’s growing up so fast,’ Colette’s mum gasped when she caught up.

  I carried Maisy into the party and gave Colette the mike. She leaned over and took it, giving Maisy a big smacking kiss. I held Maisy facing outwards, waiting for the band to finish their sound check and begin playing.

  ‘Hi everyone. My name is Colette Kane, and we are’ – she glanced back at Ed – ‘The Rusty Gates.’

  I laughed as the accordion kicked in, a fast, frenzied tune that made everyone want to ‘yee’ and ‘ha’.

  The band slowed the tempo for the next song and Shandra and Damien danced as darkness drifted over our backyard. The stars came out one by one, and Colette’s

  voice wound upwards like smoke into the velvet sky. I closed my eyes and listened to the words.

  I’m a bird on the air

  and I’m tired up there

  let me sleep on a stretch of the sky

  Let me rest with the wind

  Let me go where it blows

  Let me go, go gently down

  I’m a bird, just a bird

  just a little blackbird,

  but I aint got a song of my own

  just feathers and bones

  and I aint, no I aint

  got a song of my own

  feathers and bones

  I opened my eyes. Ed was looking at me. He grinned.

  I smiled radiantly back. I knew I had a song of my own. I didn’t know what it was yet, but it was in there, ready to burst out.

  I turned to see Maisy climbing up onto my dad’s knee, while on the other side of the garden Mum held baby William. She looked content with a baby in her arms; it suited her. She’d held me like that. One day she would hold my baby.

  I danced with Stefan, and later with Paula, William and Dad in a clumsy foursome. I sat the next one out, and contemplated the garden and the back of the house, and smiled at the rusty gate that Ed and I had saved from the renovations. I’d thought this was a broken home, a broken family. I was wrong. It was just shifting with time, changing shape. It would change again – it would keep changing, as Shandra and I had babies, as Mum and Stefan and Dad and Paula got older, as William grew up.

  The band had a break and Ed and I danced to the stereo instead. All the oldies kept telling us how cute we were together. Ed and I grinned and winked at each other and said nothing, but we danced so close, with his body brushing against mine.

  Later in the night, I rocked Maisy while the band played her a gypsy lullaby, and everyone sang to us. She slept with her fluttering heart next to mine until Mrs Kane took her home.

  And then, at the end of it all, we made a tunnel with our arms for Shandra and Damien to duck through, and there she went, my sister, Mrs Shandra Wilson.

  I snuck into Shandra’s room and whispered another goodbye, to Shandra King, who didn’t live here anymore. Mum and Dad and Stefan and Paula toasted the bride and groom one last time in the kitchen while baby William slept in his pram. And I went to bed and closed my eyes, my head whirling, until I caught my wild thoughts and sent them out into the air, on wings made out of dreams.

  About the Author

  Penni Russon grew up in Hobart. As a young adult she worked in childcare, where she fell in love with countless children, before commencing her studies in Classics. At the age of twenty-one she left the island and continued her studies in Melbourne, intending to be an archeologist. Somehow she became a writer. She now lives on the outskirts of Melbourne with her husband and two daughters, and visits Tasmania often.

  Penni is the author of popular Girlfriend novel The Indigo Girls, and also the urban fantasy novels for teenagers, Undine, Breathe and Drift – a lyrical trilogy about magic, power, desire and possibility.

  You can catch Penni online at

  www.eglantinescake.blogspot.com

 

 

 
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