Nicky Singer - Feather Boy

“Hi,” I say.

“Hello,” she replies.

I once set the dream alarm on Kate. Lay on my back in bed and asked myself how to make that dimple come more often for me. At 3 am I was dreaming that a boy was throwing stones in a lake. Every time he hit the surface it made a dimple. The water was radiating dimples. But the boy wasn’t me. I left it alone after that.

Hey – but who cares about the past? Right now Kate Barber is sitting next to me. The journey to the Mayfield Rest Home is ten minutes. I spend two of those ten minutes trying to open my mouth, which seems to have got stuck on closed. I want to say stuff like: did anyone ever tell you how insanely beautiful you are, Kate? But even I can see that’s nerdy, and I don’t want her opinion of me to drop from woodlouse to unicellular organism. So, after four minutes (Kate’s reading her book now) I say:

“Do you know anything about Chance House?”

“Sorry?”

“Chance House, twenty-six St Aubyns.” It’s not such a wild remark. Kate lives on Oakwood, which is just two roads from St Aubyns. “That big house that’s all boarded up?”

“No.” Kate returns to her book.

“Spooky. Spooky, spooky, creepy, spooky.” Wesley Parr’s face appears around my headrest. “Boy died in dat dere housie, Norbert No-Chance.” He looks at Kate. “Norbert No-Chance-at-all.”

“Oh, that house,” says Kate.

“Boy about your littlie, littlie age, Norbert,” says Weasel.

“So about your age too then, Weasel,” says Kate smartly.

“Oh creepy, creepy, bye, bye, spooky.” Weasel’s head disappears.

“So you do know?”

“Not really,” says Kate. “Or only as much as everyone knows. That a boy is supposed to have died there. And that it’s never been much of a lucky house since. Keeps changing hands.”

“Who was the boy?”

“I don’t know. It was ages ago, Robert.”

“How many ages?”

“Thirty years. Forty years. I don’t know. Why are you so interested anyway?”

“My Elder, Edith Sorrel. She lived there.”

“Oh right. Why don’t you ask her then?”

“Mm. Maybe I will.”

But of course I won’t. Can you imagine it?

Me: “Oh hello, Miss Sorrel, would you mind telling me about the boy who died in your house? I mean the one that fell out of the top-floor window? The plenty strawberry jam one?”

Her: (giving me that witchy look where she appears to be able to see right through me and out the other side) “No.”

End of conversation. But not end of story. Miss Sorrel picks up silver-topped ebony cane, bangs it three times on floor and kazzam! I’m a frog. That would be the happy ending. The miserable one would be the ending where…

“Robert. Robert!”

The bus has stopped. Almost everyone has got off.

“Robert Nobel, you are a dreamer.” Liz Finch is waving her hands in front of my face. She looks almost animated.

I pick up my bags and follow the others into the lounge of the Mayfield Rest Home. Today Catherine has arrived in advance of us. She has set up trestle tables with paper, paint, pencils, scissors, magazines and glue. The protective newspaper she’s laid on the carpet is already rucked up with the traffic of wheelchairs.

“Hello, hello,” she says. “Come in. Find your Elder, everyone. Sit down.”

There is a hubbub of greetings.

“Afternoon, Mr Root,” says Kate.

“Eh up,” says Albert.

“How you been, Dulcie?” says Weasel.

“What?” says Dulcie.

“Hi,” says Niker, tapping Mavis on the chicken-wing shoulder.

“Please explain,” says Mavis. “Don’t keep me guessing.”

“It’s me,” says Niker. “Me, moi, myself. Niker. Jonathan Niker. Double O one and a half.”

“Oh,” says Mavis. “Is that a poultice?”

“Could be,” says Niker.

“Sit down, sit down,” calls Catherine gaily. “Sit down by your Elder please, everyone.”

But I have no Elder. Edith Sorrel is not in the room. I remain standing.

“Sit down, Robert. It is Robert isn’t it?”

I sit.

Behind me Niker sets up a soft hum. Do, do der doo, do der do der do der doo . It’s a funeral march. “Never mind, Norbie,” he whispers. “I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.” Do, do der doo …

“Quiet now, please. Well, today I hope we’re going to move on to actually making some work,” says Catherine. “Some little illustrations of the wisdoms that we were talking about last week. I was speaking to Albert before you all arrived and he mentioned paths to me…”

“Primrose path to hell,” squawks Mavis.

“Right on,” says Niker.

“Well,” says Catherine, “I think Albert was thinking more of paths of wisdom. And path as visual image. Which I thought was a very good idea. Because paths are things that lead us on, take us from one place to another. So perhaps that could be our starting point for today. We might think of an individual paving stone, perhaps with a wisdom inscribed on it, or something growing round it, or something or someone treading on the stone… You can use any of the materials here and…”

People begin to drift towards the tables. In the noise and movement I slip away into the corridor. I remember exacdy where Edith Sorrel’s room is. Third on the right. I knock softly, in case she’s asleep. There is no answer. Quietly, I ease open the door. The room is small and institutional. There is a bed, a chair, a wardrobe, a basin and a bedside cabinet. Except for a toothbrush, flannel and soap, there are no personal items at all: no photos, no china, no knick-knacks, not even a book.

Miss Sorrel is asleep, breathing quietly and evenly. Sitting in the chair at the bottom of her bed is a man.

He rises, as if startled by me. He’s tall, white-haired and, despite the heat of the room, he’s wearing a full-length black overcoat. There’s something hunched about him, something glittering, that makes me think crow, hooded crow. He stares like I owe him an explanation, so I say:

“Hello, I’m Robert. I’m on the project.”

“Ernest,” he replies edgily. “Ernest Sorrel.”

“Oh,” I say. “You must be her brother then.”

“No. Not exactly.” His eyes bore into me. “I’m her husband.”

I try to keep my face neutral but, as Edith Sorrel told me quite emphatically that she didn’t have a husband, it isn’t easy.

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