Page 35 of Lyrebird

‘Not state exams.’

‘Because the state didn’t recognise you.’

‘They didn’t know I’d been born,’ Laura says simply. ‘There’s a difference. Mum gave birth to me here in the house. She didn’t register my birth.’

‘Why do you think she kept you a secret? Away from the world?’

Back to that question.

‘Mum didn’t keep me away from the world. I’ve been here all along, fully immersed in it,’ Laura says firmly.

Bo takes a moment, slows it all down. ‘So, I asked you a two-part question earlier: when you were younger, why did you think your mum and Gaga kept you a secret. You answered, but I want to ask you the second part. Now, as a grown woman, with Gaga and Mum gone, what is your opinion of why they kept you a secret? Has it changed?’

Laura doesn’t shut down immediately as she had before. It’s the way Bo has phrased it, she has pointed out that Laura is a grown woman, she’s not a child any more, her mother and grandmother aren’t here, she doesn’t need to keep defending them or answer for them. She can give her own opinions now.

She growls, not at anyone in particular, just in general. A threatened kind of feeling. Then there’s the sound of smashing glass. A walkie-talkie sound, static radio. It’s unclear whether she notices she’s made these sounds.

‘At the time I felt they were happy, wary, but content. When I look back, I think they were scared.’

Bo is practically holding her breath.

‘They were afraid that somebody would take me away from them. They were afraid they would be seen as unfit to care for a child. There were … rumours.’ The glass breaking, the same radio static. ‘People talked about them. They were witches, they were crazy. They let them make their dresses or alter their clothes but they didn’t invite them to their parties or their weddings. They were outsiders.’

‘Why was that?’ Bo asks gently.

‘Gaga said she never really fit in, from the moment she arrived. But she loved my granddad so she stayed, tried. But it got worse. The rumours got worse.’

‘When?’

Laura thinks about it. ‘When my granddad died,’ she says, and she closes down.

And then, almost as if Laura wants to keep talking or she’s tired of the questions that will inevitably come, she continues.

‘Gaga’s health suffered after Mum died. She didn’t want me to be left alone. She wanted me in a safe place, that’s what she kept saying. Sometimes she woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me and I knew she couldn’t get it out of her head.’ She pauses for a moment. ‘I read once that nest-building is driven by a biological urge in pregnant animals to protect their offspring, or themselves, from danger. Nests are designed to hide eggs from predators, to shield them. I believe that’s what Gaga and my mum did. The cottage she brought me to was her bird’s nest. Away from danger, and next to my dad. She did the best she could.’

Silence.

‘Why did you stay at the cottage? You’re twenty-six years old now, Laura, you could have left a long time ago. At this adult age you wouldn’t have had to worry about being taken away.’

Laura looks at Solomon. Bo registers this. Solomon’s eyes don’t leave Laura. He doesn’t care, to break her gaze would be rude, after they’ve listened to her story. Besides, his pull to her is magnetic, not normal.

‘I stayed there for the same reasons as my mum and Gaga did what they did. Because I was happy to stay. Because I was afraid to leave.’

‘You’re not afraid to leave now. Is it because Tom died? Is it because you’re ready for change?’ she asks question after question to help her along.

‘Change happens all the time, even on the mountain. You have to change with change,’ she says, her voice going deeper again, as she mimics Gaga. It’s the first time Bo and Rachel have heard it and their eyes widen as it seems another person takes over her body. ‘I was looking for what Gaga and Mum had with each other. Tom had it with Joe. You just need one person to trust.’

She raises her eyes to Solomon, whose heart is pounding so hard he’s afraid his boom mic will pick it up.

11

On Saturday morning, the four sit together in the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Laura looks around, not exactly as a Martian would, but with the eyes of someone who hasn’t been around this kind of social situation before, if ever.

‘Good morning, are you ready to order breakfast?’ a waitress asks.

She can’t pronounce her R’s, pronouncing them as a W sound instead.

Laura studies her, fascinated, her lips moving to make a W sound.