Cecelia Ahern - Lyrebird

She thinks about it then fires a machine-gun drill of angry words into the phone.

As she does, Solomon opens the sliding doors and crouches down to Laura, who’s still huddled on the ground, hugging herself even tighter at the sound of the door opening. Her face is buried between her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs, which are tucked tight to her body.

‘It’s okay,’ he whispers, moving close, trying to see her face.

‘I was trying to set it free,’ she says, weeping.

‘Trying to set what free?’ He frowns.

‘The bird.’ She finally looks up. ‘I could hear the bird. It woke me up. It was trying to get out. I was trying to set it free, but it wasn’t there…’

He realises what she was trying to do. ‘Oh, Laura.’ He wraps his arms around her and pulls her close to him. He squeezes her tight, feeling her skin beneath her top where it has raised on her waist. He kisses the top of her head, breathes her in. He could stay like that for ever. She clings to him as hard as he holds her, and he’s feeling this embrace with every fibre of his being, wanting this moment more than anything.

She moves her face from where it is nestled to his bare chest and looks up at him. Her forehead brushes his chin as she moves, his skin tingles, hers is on fire. Their hearts pound with the closeness. She lifts her chin to gaze at him, their lips so close, their breaths already touching. She searches his eyes and finds her answer. His pupils are dilated, she sees the want in them. She smiles.

Then Katja comes to the door, the baby still crying on her hip.

‘Let’s go,’ he whispers, not wanting to move but wanting to get out of there before the husband returns. Laura moves with him, their hands finding one another and linking tightly. As they stand, Solomon sees a figure on the balcony next door. On his balcony. It’s Bo. She’s been watching them.

‘I’m sorry,’ Laura sniffs, pulling her legs under her body as she curls up on the armchair. She wraps a blanket around herself, shudders. She can’t look them in the eye.

Bo and Solomon view her from the couch. And while it’s back to two against one, the positions have changed. Bo sits as far away from Solomon as she can, perched at the very edge of the couch.

‘I had a nightmare, I woke up feeling trapped, I could hear the bird.’ She shakes her head.

‘What did it sound like?’ Bo asks, testing her.

Laura thinks about it, then shakes her head, no sound coming. ‘I think I’m going crazy.’ She rubs her eyes tiredly. ‘What was I thinking?’

‘No, you’re not,’ Bo says quietly, and Solomon looks at her in surprise.

She ignores him. She takes a chair from the kitchen table and moves it close to Laura’s armchair, so that she’s in front of her. Solomon’s not sure whether she’s deliberately blocking his view of the woman he hasn’t been able to take his eyes off since he met her, or if she just wants him out of her own eyeline. ‘What has happened to you has been crazy. How on earth you’re expected to deal with it is beyond me. This has been your way. Becoming a cat burglar.’

Laura looks at Bo in surprise and they both start laughing, breaking the nervous tension.

‘The bird is a canary. I had one as a kid. It stays in the cage. It sleeps inside at night,’ Bo explains.

‘Oh.’ Laura sniffs. ‘I should have known that.’

‘I think it was less about you releasing the canary and more about you feeling trapped, you wanting to get out of there,’ Bo offers.

Solomon is stunned by this exchange. He remains silent, feeling, probably for the first time, that Bo can handle her.

‘Everyone has been so kind,’ Laura says. ‘I didn’t have any reason to feel that way. You and Solomon have been so good to me, welcoming, hospitable.’ Her eyes flicker quickly in his direction and then back to Bo again, not wanting to betray the woman who is being so understanding. ‘I didn’t want to ruin things for you, embarrass you, let you down.’

‘You haven’t,’ Bo says, annoyed – but not with Laura, with herself. ‘We… I can only speak for myself, but I should have protected you. I threw you to the lions, I watched it happen. I told myself it was for your own good, but it wasn’t.’

Laura and Solomon look at her in shock.

‘No, you didn’t, you saved me,’ Laura says. ‘I’m so grateful for everything.’

‘Don’t be,’ Bo says quietly. ‘Please. We all got so excited about you, about how precious and rare and exciting you are, that we lost ourselves in you. Your talent-’

‘Oh, I don’t have a talent,’ Laura interrupts. ‘Alan, he has a talent. He’s up all night, every night, working on his routine. He writes it, performs it, even sews his own dummy when it needs to be repaired. He’s travelled the country for the past fifteen years, taking every gig imaginable. He’s been shouted at, laughed at, paid next to nothing, just to hone his skill.’

As she says the word hone she sees Gaga with her knife, but no sound comes to her or from her. It’s gone. This enrages her even more.

‘Alice, for all her shortcomings, spends four hours in the gym every day – every single day. Nothing passes her lips that isn’t for a purpose, she folds herself into a thousand little pieces, has dedicated her entire life to her craft. Sparks has been doing card tricks since he was seven. Seven! He spends six hours practising every day. Selena sings like an angel, and there’s a twelve-year-old girl who leaps through fire on the lawn. That’s talent. What am I? Some weirdo who opens her mouth and mimics sounds. There’s nothing original about me. I’m like a parrot, or a a a… monkey. I’m a freak of nature. A weirdo, I belong in a circus, not in this talent show. I’m a con, a liar. They’re right in what they say about me. I’m not original, I’m not unique or authentic. I mimic sounds and half the time I don’t even notice what I’m doing. I shouldn’t be here, I know that. I shouldn’t have forced my way into your lives, I shouldn’t have forced you two apart – I know that’s what I’ve done and I’m sorry…’ The tears fall. ‘But I didn’t know what else to do. I don’t have anywhere else to go, I can’t go back. I’m trying to move forward all the time but I’m grasping at everything and can’t catch on to anything…’ She trails off as the tears fall.

Solomon’s eyes fill. If Bo wasn’t here, he’d stand up, he’d go to her, he’d take her in his arms, he’d kiss her, every inch of her, tell her how beautiful she is, how talented she is, how perfect in every way she is. How she is the most unique, talented, authentic person he has ever met. How she captivates him just by being. But he can’t, Bo is in the room and any sound he makes or any move he makes will betray him, betray Bo. So he sits in silence, feeling trapped in his own body, watching as the woman he loves falls apart at the seams, in front of the woman he tried to love.

And the woman he tried to love speaks for him, stronger than him, stronger than he’ll ever be and he’s grateful to her for that.

‘Laura, let me tell you about your skill,’ Bo says, speaking with conviction. ‘Part of your ability is that you showcase the world’s beauty. You recognise the tiniest details in people, animals, objects, everything. You hear things that we don’t even notice or that we’ve long stopped hearing. You capture those things and you display them to the world. You remind us of what’s beautiful.

‘People say that’s what I do in my documentaries. I show the world characters and stories that have been hidden. I find the story, the people, then I help them to tell the world. You, you do it all through a simple sound. One whiff of my mum’s perfume and I’m transported back to my house as a kid. One sound from you moves every single person to another time and place. You touch everyone, Laura. You have to understand that.