The Last House on Needless Street(2)

Olivia’s head butted my palm. I laughed and picked her up. That made me feel even better. But overhead in the attic, the green boys stirred.

The next day I was in the newspaper. The headline was suspect’s HOUSE SEARCHED. And there I was, standing in front of the house. They searched other houses but the article made it sound like it was just mine and I guess those people were smart enough to cover their faces. No picture, no story. They put my photograph right alongside the one of Little Girl With Popsicle, which was a story in itself.

The picture didn’t show the name of the street but people must have recognised it, I guess. Rocks and bricks came through the windows. So many. As soon as I replaced a pane another rock came through. I felt like I was going crazy. It happened so many times that I gave up and nailed plywood over the windows. It slowed them down. Not as much fun throwing rocks when there’s nothing to break. I stopped going out during the day. That was a bad time.

I put Little Girl With Popsicle – the newspaper with her picture in it, I mean – in the closet under the stairs. I bend down to put it at the bottom of the pile. It’s then that I see it on the shelf, half hidden behind the tower of newsprint – the tape recorder.

I recognise it immediately. It’s Mommy’s. I take the machine off the shelf. Touching it makes me feel strange, like someone’s whispering nearby, just below the level of my hearing.

There’s a tape already in the machine, part used – about half of one side has been recorded. It’s old, with a striped yellow-and-black label. Her faded formal handwriting. Notes.

I don’t listen to the tape. I know what’s on it. She always spoke her notes aloud. Her voice had a slight hitch around the consonants; she couldn’t quite get rid of it. You could hear the sea in her voice. She was born far away, Mommy, under a dark star.

I think, Just leave it there, forget I’ve seen it.

I ate a pickle and now I feel a lot better. After all, that stuff happened a long time ago. The light is growing and it’s going to be a beautiful day. The birds will be arriving. Each morning they pour out of the forest and descend on my back yard. Yellowthroats, kinglets, buntings, red crossbills, sparrows, blackbirds, city pigeons. It’s crowded and beautiful. I love to watch it. I made the peephole just the right size in just the right place in the plywood – I can see the whole back yard. I make sure the feeders are always full up and that there’s water. Birds can suffer in this hot weather.

I am about to look out like I do every day, when my stomach lurches. Sometimes my insides know things before my mind does. This is wrong. The morning is too quiet. I tell myself not to be weird, take a deep breath and put my eye to the hole.

I see the jay first. He lies in the dead centre of the lawn. His bright mess of feathers shine like an oil slick. Twitching. One long wing strokes the air, desperate for flight. They look weird when they’re grounded, birds. They’re not meant to stay put for long.

My hands shake as I turn the keys in the three big locks on the back door. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Even now I take a moment to lock it behind me. The birds lie all over the yard, scattered on the parched grass. They twitch, caught helpless on what looks like pieces of tan paper. Many are dead, maybe twenty. Some are not. I count seven hearts still beating. They gasp, their narrow black tongues stiff with pain.

My mind runs like ants, everywhere. It takes me three breaths to make sense of what I see. In the night someone went to each feeding place and put glue traps down, wrapped them around the wire cages, attached them to the balls that hang from string. When the birds came to feed in the dawn their feet and beaks stuck to the adhesive.

All I can think is, Murder, murder, murder … Who would do this to the birds? Then I think, I have to clean up. I can’t let Lauren see.

That stray tabby cat crouches in the ivy by the wire fence, amber eyes intent.

‘Go away!’ I shout. I throw the nearest thing to hand, which is an empty beer can. The can flies wide and hits the fence post with a noise like dunggg. She goes slowly, in her uneven clawless limp, as if it is her own idea.

I collect the living birds. They stick together in my hands, bound into a twitching mass. They look like a monster from my bad dreams, legs and eyes everywhere, beaks drinking the air. When I try to separate them, feathers part from flesh. The birds make no sound. Maybe that’s the worst part. Birds aren’t like people. Pain makes them quiet.

I take them inside and try all the things I can think of to dissolve the glue. But it only takes a few tries with the solvent to see that I’m making it worse. The birds close their eyes and pant in the fumes. I don’t know what to do now. This kind of stuck is for ever. The birds can’t live but they’re not dead. I think about drowning them and then hitting them on the head with a hammer. Each idea makes me feel weirder. I think about unlocking the laptop cupboard. Maybe the internet has an idea. But I can’t figure out where to put the birds down. They stick to everything they touch.

Then I remember the thing I saw on TV. It is worth a try, and we have vinegar. Working with one hand, I cut a length of hose. I fetch a big Tupperware box, baking soda and the white vinegar from under the sink. I put the birds carefully in the box, seal it and pass the length of hose through the hole I pierce in the plastic lid. I mix the baking soda and vinegar in the bag and fasten it to the hose with a rubber band. Now it is a gas chamber. The air in the box begins to change, and the feathered twitching slows. I watch the whole thing, because death deserves a witness. Even a bird should have that. It doesn’t take long. They had half given up already, from the heat and the fear. A pigeon is the last to die; the rise and fall of its plump chest grows shallow, and then it falls still.