Birdkill Read online

  Robyn slid down the trunk, spent, her back scraped by the rough bark. She slumped on the bed of damp leaf mould. Tears streamed down her cheeks and her gasping breath tore at her throat.

  Back in her apartment at the Institute, Robyn slammed the door and stood with her back pushed against it, trying to drive the memory of a teenager snuffing out the lives of alighting sparrows from her mind. She wasn’t even sure of how she had got back here, out of breath from running through the woodland. She gazed down at her hands, stained green with lichen, streaks across her top and damp muddy patches on her jeans.

  Dragged through a hedge backwards. She recalled her mother’s favourite phrase before The Fall when she had gone quiet and stopped being as interested in Robyn as she was in Martini.

  She pushed away from the door and went upstairs to wash the chlorophyll stink of lichen off herself.

  Robyn towelled her hair, noting the scratches and red welts on her pale shoulders where she had grabbed at the tree trunk. The shower head was still dripping, reminding her of the water dropping from the leaves in the wood. It all came back to her, the fear and the urge she had felt to give herself up to the darkness, to float in peace. She stared at herself in the mirror.

  ‘No.’ she admonished herself. Turning away from her watery reflection, she repeated the word, more strongly this time. She went into the bedroom and grabbed her dressing gown from the floor by the bed and slipped her feet into her worn faux-fur slippers. She took off flapping down the stairs, sliding her hand along the cool banister for support.

  She found her bag and pulled out her mobile. She dialled Mariam. She hunched against the cold, praying for an answer.

  ‘Hi. This is Mariam.’

  Warm relief. ‘Mariam, hi, it’s Robyn. Look, I—’

  ‘I’m not available right now, but you’re more than welcome to leave a message.’

  Robyn winced. It caught her every time, that stupid message. The secret to comedy, Mariam would always point out gleefully, is… The peep sounded. ‘Sorry, it’s Robyn. Look, I’m down here now and the place is amazing but I have some…’

  Some what? Robyn cursed herself. Some issues? Reservations? Problems.

  ‘I’m just not sure I can, well, you know, make it. It’s all too strange, there’s stuff here I can’t get my head wrapped around and I’m feeling a bit lost, to tell the truth.’ She was gabbling, the machine silently digitising her panic, recording it. Preserving it for posterity. Timing out. Robyn freaks over nothing again. ‘I’m sorry, I just… Look, could you call me back if you get a chance? I’ll try and get you later if you can’t get through or something. Umm, thanks.’

  She took a deep breath. Coffee. That was usually the solution. That and red wine. She wondered where the nearest source of firewood and red wine was, flipping open the kitchen cupboards in the hope of finding a home pack of essentials or something. She fought for a tether, for something that would bring her routine, reality. A rock. She didn’t even have any damn cornflakes and the fridge was empty when she checked it. She slammed the door. You’d have thought they’d put in a pint of milk and a loaf of bread or something. She clenched her hands, trying to still the anger and frustration she knew was unreasonable; the urge to lash out was purely a reaction to her own confusion. She ran her hand through her hair. Even that was too long and brittle. Her mobile rang and she picked it up absently, still lost in her own misery.

  ‘Hi, this is Robyn.’ Her gown had come undone. The kitchen worktop was cold against her belly.

  ‘Hey, babe.’

  Mariam Shadid. She was always so bloody confident, despite having been another of the waifs and strays in Robyn’s trauma counselling group. Mariam’s deep, louche voice stilled Robyn’s hammering heart and the panic that banded her chest abated. She breathed freely, released. ‘Thank fuck. Look, I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I’m doing very well here.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘It’s a bit strange and I’m feeling,’ Robyn glanced around. ‘Unhinged.’ She tried to calm herself, to think rationally. ‘Untethered. Can you come down? There’s a spare bed here, you could stay tonight and go back tomorrow.’

  ‘Sure. That’s no problem. I can be down by lunchtime, I reckon.’

  ‘You’ve no idea how—’

  ‘I do. Believe me, I do. I’ll see you lunchtime. It’s okay, Robyn. Chill the fuck out. Do breathing exercises. Stuff.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Laters.’

  TWO

  A Friend in Need

  Mariam pressed the buzzer and waited, catching the darkening of the little fish-eye security thingy in the door. The security chain rattled.

  She’d made record time down from London, pressing her battered old Ford Focus to its limits and dodging the cameras. Google had said three hours forty eight minutes: Mariam had done it in three on the nail. She was scared for her friend. You’d hardly expect someone on a trauma counselling gig to be quite a hundred percent, but Robyn sometimes appeared so brittle and frail Mariam was scared she’d just shatter into a million little fragments. A porcelain girl, flung down on the hard stone floor to burst into powder.

  They’d been two days into Paul Hass’ trauma counselling sessions at the college before discovering they shared a connection through the Lebanese city of Zahlé, perched prettily up at the head of the fertile Bekaa Valley, the other side of the mountains that rose behind Beirut and its azure coast. Amazed at the coincidence, discovered over a tea and seed biscuit break from a session on coming to terms with the monkey on your back – whatever that was – they chattered through the tinkle of the bell calling everyone back into the room, left alone in the little café, oblivious to the world outside their common link to the Eastern Mediterranean.

  Mariam gained strength from being Robyn’s prop, bestowing a sense of purpose and helping which helped her put her own troubles aside. Taken on the Syrian border by pro-government forces, pitched into captivity by ISIS thanks to the fortunes of war and rescued months later alongside a couple of British journalists who had adopted her, Mariam had earned her place on the trauma counselling course the hard way. Robyn was a project for her to focus on as she healed herself. Mariam, always energetic and bull-headed, channelled her certainty and self-assurance into propping Robyn up when things got too hard. But she’d never heard Robyn, broken as her friend was, snivelling like she did on the phone that morning.

  The door opened and Mariam almost stepped back in shock. Robyn was exhausted. Her shoulders sagged and that dopey grin on the pretty face hardly lifted the care-worn features. She leaned into Mariam’s embrace. ‘Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for coming. You don’t know how much this means to me.’

  Mariam grinned and patted Robyn’s back. ‘Who’s the strung-up bitch at reception? I thought I’d have to shoot her.’ She held Robyn by the cheeks and gazed into the dark-rimmed brown eyes. ‘You look like shit, by the way.’

  ‘You always say the nicest things.’ Robyn stood aside as Mariam strode into the chic apartment. ‘Reception? You mean the blonde lady? Maybe a bit earnest?’

  ‘Earnest? Christ, she’s like the Nazi gatekeeper from hell.’

  ‘That’d be Heather. She’s nice, you’re being hard on her.’

  ‘Whatever. Tell me you’ve got booze in. Wow. This is a serious pad. You’re on the way up in the world, my girl. I told you to stick with me.’ Mariam span on her heel, letting her handbag fly into the cushions around the fireplace. Robyn was laughing, which was something after the way she’d sounded earlier. Mariam worried at her friend’s pallor.

  ‘I haven’t had time to look for booze I wanted to get some firewood, too.’

  ‘Come on, then. Let’s go shopping. You can buy me lunch. There’s a hotel in the town, I passed it on the way in.’

  Laughter freshened Robyn’s pasty face, like she’d just scrubbed with a flannel. ‘You’ve only just got here. You’re impossible.’

  ‘No time babe, got to leave super-early tomorrow, I’m
starting a new job. Come on, lunch before I waste away.’

  ‘I’ll drive.’

  ‘Great. I’ll drink.’ Mariam scooped up her bag. ‘Let’s do this thing.’

  They clattered down the wooden stairs and into the cold air. Robyn clicked the key and Mariam slid into the cold, black leather passenger seat with a whoop. ‘Shit, this thing is cold.’

  ‘Shush! Don’t listen to the rude girl, baby.’ Robyn caressed the dash. She hit the starter and the two litre engine roared into life. ‘Apart from you, she’s probably the only thing keeping me sane right now.’

  Mariam always admired the change in Robyn when she got behind the wheel. She was a driver’s driver, fast and focused. Their roles reversed in the car. Robyn was bursting with quiet confidence and Mariam became passive and vulnerable. A poor passenger at the best of times, Mariam had never experienced a single moment of insecurity being driven in Robyn’s powerful sports car. Even on the day Robyn had taken her to a ‘track day’ when all insurance was invalid and Mariam was made sign a personal liability waiver.

  Speeding through the woodland, an odd thought occurred to her. ‘I never asked you. Did you ever drive? In Lebanon?’

  Robyn’s glance was amused. ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘I just wondered.’ Mariam settled back in the seat happily.

  ‘So why do you have to go back early tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ve got a new gig writing for a news website called 3shoof. It’s the fastest growing site in the Middle East right now. They’re based out of London.’

  ‘Never heard of them.’

  ‘They’re big, aggressive. Punchy.’

  ‘You’re not going back to Lebanon, surely?’

  ‘No, it’s desk based. At least until I get bored.’

  ‘So that’ll be two weeks at the outside.’

  Mariam shrugged. ‘Whatever. It’s a job. And the money’s good.’ She gazed out at the wooded slopes. The road descended towards the pretty little seaside town and the white and black Tudor façade of the Davington Hotel at its centre.

  Robyn pushed at the glass-panelled double doors leading from the street into the warm hotel reception. A fire burned in the great hearth. Opposite was a delicate Georgian table with a little brass plaque proclaiming it to be Reception. Two elegant old ladies were taking coffee. An enormous painting of a bull dominated the space, hanging from a picture rail in its heavily decorated gilded frame. A girl in black and white smiled at them from behind the desk. ‘Good morning. Can I help you?’

  ‘We were looking for some lunch.’

  ‘Certainly. We offer bar snacks in the Davington Arms or meals in the dining room. It’s market day, so there may be a short wait for a table.’

  They wandered together to the dining room for their short wait, but as it turned out there was a table for two free by the window overlooking the street. The waitress cleared a soup bowl and teacup from it and wiped the dark wooden surface.

  Mariam glanced around, her nose wrinkled. ‘Damn but this place is ancient.’

  Robyn smiled. ‘It’s a country market town, you’re hardly going to get Michelin stars or funky macrobiotic quinoa salads here.’

  Robyn slid her bag under the table. Mariam hooked hers on the chair. The restaurant was busy, waitresses dancing between the packed tables with steaming plates. Dark panelled walls, a yellowing ceiling with chandeliers and a royal blue carpet enclosed them; the hubbub of conversation and clatter of hollowware dulled the sharpness of the outside air. Robyn wallowed in the normalcy of it all, closed her eyes and smelled cooking and coffee.

  Mariam broke in. ‘A penny for them.’

  Robyn brushed back a stray strand of hair. ‘I had another dream. It’s really thrown me, sort of upset my grip on things. Something really strange happened today and I’d swear it was all a dream as well except it hurt me and I’ve still got the scratches. It was real.’

  Mariam leaned forward, her hand raised to staunch Robyn’s reminiscence. ‘Slow down there, cowgirl. What happened?’

  Robyn laid her hands flat on the table. She only wore a plain white gold ring on her left little finger. There was a freckle between the ring and her knuckle. ‘I was walking in the woods outside the Institute. There was a bunch of kids playing in a clearing. One of them was calling sparrows to come to him out of the air and, well, killing them.’ She looked up to check for Mariam’s reaction but her friend was attentive and serious-faced. ‘Breaking their necks. He spotted me and I felt this enormous pull, to run to him and be killed like them. To feel peace. It took me apart, reached inside of me and literally tore me apart. I managed to cling on to a tree to stop myself going to him, but it was like being pulled by a huge magnet, full of the urge to let him take me like he was taking them, to let him have my life.’

  ‘Jesus. No wonder you’re in pieces. Did you find out who he was?’

  ‘No, they ran away. I heard someone cry out the name Martin but I was in a sort of, well, state.’

  ‘It’s pretty weird as dreams go.’

  ‘It wasn’t a dream. It actually happened. I’ve even got the scratches from the tree trunk I clung to when I tried to stay back from his pull.’ Robyn pulled her sleeve back and displayed the red welts for Mariam.

  ‘Can I take your order?’ The young blonde waitress stood by the table, pad and pen in hand, her gaze on Robyn’s slashed-looking forearms. Robyn slid her sleeve back.

  Mariam smiled up at the woman. ‘Can we have five minutes?’

  Robyn pulled her hands from the table and held them together in her lap. She bit her lip, gazing at the grain of the wooden table and willing the woman to go away.

  ‘Sure, no problem. I’ll just let you know, the soup of the day is cream of mushroom and the special’s roast beef.’

  ‘Thanks. Thanks very much.’ Mariam reached out and stroked Robyn’s arm. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, fine. Sorry. It’s just everything’s a bit strange right now. I didn’t know what to do, who to talk to. I’m not making it up, but it seems absurd now, sitting in a restaurant and talking about it.’

  ‘Talking of restaurants.’ Mariam picked up the brown leather folder. ‘We’d better have a look at the menu. Fancy a glass of wine?’

  ‘You’ve no idea how good that idea sounds right now.’

  ‘Woah, you’ll never guess what? They’ve got Ksara.’

  ‘No way.’ Robyn reached for her menu. Sure enough, at the bottom of the selection of reds was Chateau Ksara, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. The Ksara chateau was just outside Zahlé. ‘How did that get here? That’s a hell of a price for it.’

  ‘Fuck it. I’m paying. We can’t not drink Ksara.’ Mariam called the waitress over.

  ‘Can we get a bottle of the Ksara, please?’

  ‘Certainly.’ She scribbled in her notepad and waited uncertainly, her pen hovering over the paper with its little blue leaf of carbon paper tucked underneath. ‘Would you like anything to eat?’

  Mariam glanced at Robyn, a flash of naughty schoolgirl in her eyes. ‘No, that’ll be all for now thank you.’ The waitress departed. ‘Her arse,’ Mariam’s gaze followed the girl, ‘does not approve.’

  Robyn wondered at Mariam’s ability to make her feel comfortable, her breeziness and positivity should be annoying and yet somehow Mariam always knew when to let Robyn have quiet and when the right thing to do was be a noisy brat. The frizzy-haired banker’s daughter perennially dressed in baggy long-armed jumpers, battered coats and cargo pants, had never to Robyn’s knowledge let a brush or comb get within a mile of her, let alone wear makeup. And yet she turned men’s heads, seemingly oblivious to the effect she had.

  The waitress brought two claret glasses and the bottle to show them. Mariam nodded at her and she left again. ‘Oh, the theatre of it all. Do you think she’ll bring us the cork to smell?’

  ‘For that price, I hope it’s on a silver salver.’

  Mariam put on an awful Cockney accent. ‘Yer pays yer money, yer takes yer choice.’

&
nbsp; Robyn had a fleeting sense of lifeless brown feathers. Her hands were back on the table, Mariam laid her warm, olive-skinned hand on top. ‘It’s okay, take it easy.’

  The waitress reappeared with the opened bottle and the cork, which Mariam acknowledged with a royal inclination of the head. ‘That’s fine, we don’t need to taste it. Just pour away, please.’

  The wine splashed into the wide glass, curling like surf and splashing back, rippling and slowly calming to a placid, reflective pool. Blood. Flies. Mariam’s hand on hers, squeezing. ‘Robyn. Robyn. Snap out of it.’

  She clenched her eyes shut and grimaced, banishing the thoughts crowding her. ‘It’s okay. I’m fine. Honestly.’

  Mariam released her hand. ‘Great. Now she thinks we’re alcoholic dykes. Here. Cheers.’

  Robyn raised her glass to chime against Mariam’s. She inhaled the heady fruit of the wine, tilted the glass and let it wash against her lip before letting it seep into her mouth. She met Mariam’s eye as she pulled the glass away from her. ‘Oh, God. That’s gorgeous.’

  Wonderment on her face, Mariam put her glass down. ‘There’s something magical to being somewhere like this and finding a little bit of home in a bottle.’

  ‘I once went to the Chateau for a tasting. It’s lovely there.’ Robyn glanced out of the window and back at Mariam, who was regarding her, serious-faced. The brown eyes were turned hazel by the sunlight.

  Mariam leaned forward. ‘So have you been having the dreams again?’

  Robyn nodded. ‘Yes.’ She fiddled with the stem of her glass and took another sip of wine. ‘I don’t remember much in detail, just feeling so very scared and,’ She pursed her lips and stared out of the window at the street beyond, the cars and people. An old woman being pulled along by a wagging Westie in a tartan coat. She looked back helplessly at Mariam. ‘Violated.’