Tim Winton - Eyrie

Kai pulled the book to himself a moment and rifled through pages. He presented a double-page spread of two similar birds side by side. Pressed it against Keely’s chest until he accepted the book, surrendered his attention to it. Over the page were diagrams and silhouettes. Tipped into the gutter fold was an old envelope with Kai’s markings in felt pen. They were dihedral representations of a soaring bird, the first with upswept wings and the other with wingtips tilted earthward.

White-bellied sea eagle, Keely read from the text. Hunts on the water. Doesn’t dive under. Did our bird dive?

The boy shook his head solemnly. Keely thought back. The thing had swept down off the bluff, smacked the surface of the river and hauled itself away.

Well, he said with a grin. Inconclusive. But you might be right.

Am right.

Okay, I stand corrected. Even so, this bird’ll still take a rat, so I consider myself in the clear. But let’s just say it, for the record. I was wrong and you, my friend, are right.

The kid didn’t smile. Either he’d forgotten the rodent that set all this off or he didn’t understand. Or perhaps he simply didn’t care.

You’ve been looking closely at this.

Kai said nothing.

Hmm. Preys on reptiles, other birds, mammals, fish .

And carry-on.

Carry-on? he said with a grin. What’s that, like, luggage?

The boy looked at him blankly.

What is it?

Carrion? Well, anything really. Creatures that’re already dead. You know, lying there.

Carrion.

He’ll sweep down, cart it off. There we go: immature individuals often confused with the osprey. Well, Kai, he said, handing the book back. You’re a smart kid.

The boy chewed his lips.

What? asked Keely.

Kai averted his gaze.

Kai, what is it?

The boy drew the book to him carefully.

Is there something you want to say? You look worried.

You mad?

Mad? Keely asked with a dropping sensation.

At me.

Oh, he said with a sick grin. Of course not. Why would I be angry? How could I be angry with you?

Kai hugged the book, his shoulders tipped inwards, his gaze lowered. A screen door clanged up the way. The boy took a glance to his right and though he couldn’t see her Keely knew it was Gemma. Man and boy stood silent, even apprehensive, in the seconds it took her to arrive, clacking down the gallery in hard shoes. She pulled up in something black and short and sleeveless. Her hair was raked back in a barrette and she wore truly high heels, shoes of a sort that could not be ignored, not even by a man like Keely who knew nothing about clothes and for whom women’s shoes were an abiding mystery.

What’re you lookin at? Gemma asked.

Nothing.

They’re just shoes.

They were ridiculous shoes, porn shoes. They showed off her legs. Everything, now he let himself look. Felt a little nutbuzz despite himself.

Just shoes, he said, grinning.

Ignoring him, Gemma addressed the boy.

Told you to ask first.

That’s a good idea, said Keely as much to her as Kai.

She was staring at him now, weighing something up.

What? What is it?

I gotta be somewhere.

Keely said nothing.

I can’t take him, she said.

So lock him in. I’ll keep an ear on him.

Well, he’s here now.

And?

Can you look after him for me?

You really can’t take him?

Forget it, she said, reaching for the kid who sidestepped her effortlessly.

Don’t be daft, he said. Of course he can wait here.

I’ll be twenty minutes.

Take your time.

Just keep him inside, orright? Keep him safe.

We’ll be fine, he said. Won’t we, Kai?

The kid didn’t even shrug.

And then she was gone, clopping down towards the lifts, bum bouncing sweetly, dressed to impress someone else entirely. For twenty minutes. They stood in his doorway a while, Keely and the boy. He could still smell Gemma’s cloying perfume. The boy gave off no sense of having triumphed. He just moved past Keely and went inside. Keely followed, pleased and slightly nervous.

When he looked around for something to feed Kai he saw that all he had in the place was a bowl of oranges. The kid didn’t seem keen until he offered to peel one for him. Perhaps it was a juice thing, or not knowing how to get the skin off. But once the fruit was on a plate, bare and slightly furred with pith, Kai was all action. He was fastidious, almost obsessive, about breaking the orb into segments. He fanned them around the plate, anxious to avoid any juice-letting, and when everything was laid out to his satisfaction he took a piece and began to suck at its point with great care.

Keely did little more than sit back and watch. That round face, the silky hair, the paleness and self-possession. He seemed slightly damaged, and yet he was so bright. Keely knew nothing about kids but this boy was too sharp for his age.

I know all this, said the boy, pausing a moment to look around. I’ve been here.

Keely opened his mouth to speak just as a pair of doves fluttered onto the balcony. Kai flinched. After a moment, as if embarrassed, he recovered his affectless poise.

Doves, said Keely, getting up to wave them away.

Doves aren’t smart.

They’re supposed to be peaceful, said Keely. But they’re always crapping everything up.

Birds are first, said the boy, the orange segment flaccid in his hand.

First at what?

First to die.

Keely was flummoxed. This fixation. How did he get straight to death from a pair of doves? What was happening in his head? A six-year-old. He was scary-smart, but he couldn’t have read Rachel Carson. Perhaps he’d seen something on telly, a show about canaries and coalmines. Keely hoped to God he hadn’t set this off himself with all his faffing on about seabirds.

Kai got up, looked at his bare feet a moment, as if arrested by a thought or a sensation, then stepped up to the sliding door to gaze out. He suckled at the crescent of orange and with his free hand he touched the tips of his sticky fingers to his thumb in steady alternations, like somebody recalling music or the lines of a poem.

I’d never lived up so high before moving here, Keely said. Strange, isn’t it, being able to see so far — out and down.

Kai made no sign of having heard.

Isn’t it weird, the way you look out there and you feel yourself going out at the same moment?

Kai turned and surveyed him and immediately he regretted saying it; this was not the sort of thing you said to a kid ten storeys up, especially not a kid with falling dreams — and, fucksake, not a kid who leapt off the balcony in your nightmares. What was he thinking?

You go out, said Kai, agreeing. But it’s okay. It’s just your eyes.

Exactly, he said, sounding in his relief like a dolt.

Keely had never had a thing about heights but some days up here it was too much to simply stand your full measure without being giddy. Talk like this was not helping. But he was fascinated by the kid, wanted to catch what he was seeing and thinking.

Kai pressed his brow to the screen, wheezing slightly.

So, what’re we looking at down there?

Just me.

You’re down there?

Sometimes.

Like a grownup? Walking around? You imagine yourself like all those people down there one day? You know, being in the big world?

The boy thought about this a moment. No, he said.

Where are you, then, what are you doing when you see yourself?

There, he said, pointing down to the paved forecourt.

What are you doing?

Laying down.

Resting? Asleep? Just lying there?

Kai sniffed, gave the slightest of nods.

Can you see it now? Kai, are you down there now?