Cecelia Ahern - Lyrebird

‘How old were you?’ Bo asks gently.

‘I was fourteen when she was diagnosed, she died when I was fifteen.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Bo whispers and leaves a respectful silence.

A bird flies overhead, a fly nearby. Laura mimics them both, showing her distress, as she attempts to gather herself.

‘So then it was you and Gaga here at the house. Tell me about those days.’

‘It was difficult for Gaga, because she had to run the alterations business alone. I helped her but she was still training me, and there was only so much I could do. She was having problems with her fingers, arthritis, her fingers were bending inward and she couldn’t do it any more, certainly not as fast. There were less and less customers too. Mum’s housekeeping money had helped to that point, but that wasn’t something I could do.’

‘Even at fifteen you wouldn’t deal with customers? You couldn’t step out into the world then?’

‘How would Gaga explain me suddenly appearing?’ Laura asks. ‘She couldn’t. She would try and think of ways, but it would upset her. It would make her anxious, nervous. She didn’t want to lie. She worried about tying herself up in knots, forgetting her story. She was forgetting a lot of things by then. She felt that at fifteen I was still too vulnerable, I was still a child.’

‘Where did her fear come from, Laura?’

Again that question, but this time Solomon feels it’s valid. Even he wants to know. But Laura has closed up. Bo doesn’t push.

‘Did you ever ask who your dad was?’

Solomon studies her. Laura gazes down, her eyes gleaming green, as though reflecting the long grasses she is sitting among. He wants to run his finger down her cheek, her chin, her lips. He looks away.

‘No.’ And then, as if remembering Bo’s instructions, she starts again. ‘I never asked who my dad was,’ she says gently. ‘I never asked because it was never important. I knew that whoever he was it wouldn’t make a difference. I had all the people I needed here.’

Rachel purses her lips, clearly moved.

‘What about when your mother passed away?’

‘I did wonder then, when Mum was gone, if I should have asked, because I felt like she was my only way of knowing. I suppose I can never know for sure, but I felt so strongly that Gaga wouldn’t have told me. Mum had the opportunity to tell me and decided not to, I knew Gaga would respect her word. It might not make sense, but I didn’t think about who he was very often. It wasn’t important.’

She thinks for a moment.

‘I thought about him when I saw Gaga getting older, when I started thinking about being alone. She seemed to get old so quickly. Her and Mum were a team. They only needed each other in the world, which was beautiful, but they needed each other. They fed off each other. When Mum died, it’s like Gaga suddenly started to go too. And she knew it. That’s why she started worrying for me. Trying to plan. She wasn’t sleeping, I know it was playing on her mind all the time.’

‘Did they not make a plan for you before she died?’

‘I never asked.’ Laura swallows. ‘But Mum wasn’t ever the one to make plans. Gaga made them, Mum helped see them through. I felt that Mum would have approved what happened in the end. I know it sounds odd, like we didn’t communicate, but we did. We lived so close to each other, in one another’s pockets, we didn’t always talk about things, each of us knew how the other was feeling, we didn’t need to always ask.’ She looks at Bo, embarrassed, but trying to make her see.

‘I understand,’ Bo says, genuinely, though Solomon wonders if she does. Bo is a person who usually has to ask. ‘So when did you find out about Tom being your dad?’

‘When Gaga told me about her plan to move me to the cottage. She told me that Tom Toolin was my dad, that he had never known about me. She had met with him and he’d agreed I could live on his land. She told me that he had a twin brother who could never know. That was Tom’s only request.’

‘How did you feel about that?’ Bo asks, and it’s obvious from Bo’s tone that she’s disgusted on Laura’s behalf.

‘I was used to keeping a secret.’ She offers a soft smile, but her eyes reveal a sadness.

Bo decides to manoeuvre away from the topic of Tom and her new life on the mountain. ‘You lived here for sixteen years before moving to the cottage, did you ever want to get out of the house? Away from here?’

‘We did, many times,’ Laura says, lighting up. ‘Before Mum got sick. We went on holidays to Dingle. I swam in Clogherhead, nearly drowned,’ she laughs. ‘We went to Donegal too. They both liked to fish. They’d catch the fish, gut them, cook them. Make fish oils.’

‘So you did get out?’ Bo asks, surprised.

‘They didn’t lock me in the house,’ Laura smiles, delighted by Bo’s surprise. ‘The opposite happened. They let me be free. I could be who I wanted, without anyone judging, or anyone telling me what to do. I don’t believe there were any sacrifices. There were appointments for the alterations, no drop-ins allowed, so we knew I could play wherever I liked until customers came. They came when I was inside doing my schoolwork.’

‘But you never did exams.’

‘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.’