Page 117 of Lyrebird

Laura opens her eyes and looks at the folded newspaper that Solomon placed beside her. She felt him leave it there before sitting on the couch to strum on his guitar.

She sees the headline. SUPERB LYREBIRD.

‘You told me never to read these.’

He continues strumming. ‘You should read this one.’

She sighs and removes her feet from the balcony, needing to plant herself, to ready herself for possible attack, though she knows it must have positive content if Solomon is pushing it on her. It’s a piece about the StarrQuest final by TV critic Emilia Belvedere. Laura braces herself as she reads.

My mother was a midwife but related more with being a keen gardener. She dedicated most of her spare time to fighting a war with unwanted plants between the cracks of her pavement, in the lawn, on her hands and knees muttering curses and threats. Cracks and crevasses in pavements are comfortable, sneaky hiding places for weed seeds, carried in the breeze. Pulling them from their cracks is futile. Dandelions, thistles, sticker weed, pigweed, yarrow – these were my mother’s arch-enemies. I think of this analogy in particular when contemplating the part reality talent shows play in our society.

The judges, the finders, are not the breeze that carry the seeds. They have an element of my mother, in that they notice and they pluck, but are (at first) without her aggression or irritation. Their purpose is not to annihilate – though that is all too often the result of their efforts. They see something rare, something pretty, but in the wrong place, and they uproot them. The finders put them in a fancy vase or jar, a place where they will be shown to advantage for all to see. They convince the weed it is where it belongs. They convince the weed to fight with all of the other weeds who always stood out from each other in their own cracks in their own pavements and never had to fight before. This is both the skill and the downfall of the talent show. The finders cannot be keepers. They uproot, they pull, they replant, and it soon loses its beauty in its new habitat. It cannot grow, it cannot thrive, it has lost its chink where once it sprouted with vitality. It is lost to the great unknown, in an unnatural world that doesn’t understand.

The finders’ purpose is to shine a light, yet often the light is so bright it stuns or blinds them.

From their moment of conception, I have despised television talent shows. It is an hour of discovered talent displayed in the wrong place, nurtured, if at all, in the wrong way. It may not have been concentrated vinegar poured on these rare weeds before our very eyes, but it might as well have been. This year, one talent show changed my mind, the finder of the rarest weed, that has grown and flowered in the most distant of fissures …

Alan and Mabel was a worthy winner of StarrQuest, a likeable act, an act you cheer for, chuckle at, cannot help to be moved by with its veiled desperation, but Lyrebird stole the nation’s heart – correction, the world’s heart. I was transported, in that one performance, to my childhood … not something that happens often. Usually it is escape we desire, to get away from what we know so well. Lyrebird brought me to the core of me.

Lyrebird’s sounds came so swiftly, in waves, sometimes overlapping one another wondrously, that it’s impossible for everybody to have heard everything, even in playback. Each sound speaks to every person differently. While dealing with the repercussions of one, another arrives. Doors opened inside of me, feelings came in surprising bursts, here, there everywhere. A flutter in my heart, a pop in my stomach, a lump in my throat, a prick in my tear ducts. I heard my childhood, my adolescence, my youth, my womanhood, my marriage, my motherhood – all in two minutes. It was so great, so overwhelming I held my breath and my tears fell while I watched a still creature on a swing, in a cage, tell us the story of her life. A life in sounds, her sounds, but parts of life that we all share. We came together, it brought us together, a collective gathering of hearts and minds.

It may have lacked the razzle-dazzle of other finals; no doubt the absence of pyrotechnics is something that others will attack, but its subtlety was its strength, its majesty. It took great power to be so refined, and of course with Benoît Moreau at its helm, aided by documentary maker Bo Healy, there should be no surprise. Yet there is. It was filled with humanity, emotion and warmth. It was raw, it was gritty, soft and gentle. It rose and it fell before rising again. Harsh sounds during subtle images, gentle sighs of acceptance when faced with unyielding sorrow.

Lyrebird’s performance was captivating, enchanting, a real moment of not just TV magic, but the kind of magic that rarely occurs in life. Whatever happened in StarrQuest HQ, whatever conversations or alleged altercations took place, it was right, it was fair, it was necessary. Right won out. People will forget, as they usually do, what they felt in those two minutes. It dissipated perhaps in the time it took them to boil the kettle, put the children to bed, send a text message or change the channel, but the feeling was there in the moment, and that they can’t deny.

A change occurred, not just in the TV talent show: it happened within me, too. As a result, I am a TV critic, a woman, in two parts; who I was before I watched Lyrebird’s performance and who I am after.

Asking Laura Button to find the moment her skill arrived would be like asking mankind to explain the moment it was no longer an ape. It is part of her evolution. We know that Laura lived in seclusion for much of her life, ten years on her own, and sixteen years before that in relative seclusion with her mother and grandmother. What we know is that animals that live in seclusion for so long evolve in magnificent and curious ways. Laura is no different.

This lyrebird’s lore travelled far and fast, deep and wide, from a fissure, a crack, deep into the human heart and mind.

It is not the spotlight that encourages growth, it is the sunlight. Jack Starr learned that last night.

The finders found her, the devotees such as I will keep the gifts she gave, now let us leave her be and may she fly free.

Laura finishes reading the piece feeling breathless, her eyes filled with tears. She looks back at Solomon who has stopped strumming while he watches her.

He grins at her reaction. ‘Told you it was good.’

There’s a knock at the door. Ten a.m. on a Sunday morning, he’s not used to visitors.

‘Stay there,’ he says, protectively as he places the guitar down. He pads to the door and looks through the spyhole. It’s Bo.

‘Laura, Bo’s here,’ he says quickly, giving her a chance to compose herself before he answers the door.

‘Bo, hi,’ he says awkwardly, pulling the door open, tucking his hair behind his ears.

She quickly takes in his dishevelled look. ‘Hope I’m not disturbing any …’ Then she sees Laura on the balcony and she seems relieved she hasn’t walked in on anything unsavoury. ‘Can I come in? I won’t stay long.’

‘Sure, sure.’

Laura puts her cup down and goes to stand.

‘No don’t stand for me,’ Bo waves her hand dismissively, seeming awkward as a guest in what was her home only days ago.

‘Please sit,’ Laura pulls the second balcony chair closer to hers.

Bo sits and Solomon hangs back. Bo notices the review on the chair beside her.