For the Forest of a Bird Read Online Free PDF

mean he told me that you told him that . . .’
    â€˜He told you?’ her father cut in.
    â€˜Yes, he told me that he came here last night and you told him . . .’
    â€˜I told him not to say anything, not until . . .’
    â€˜I know you wanted to tell me yourself.’
    â€˜. . . yes, I did.’
    â€˜But why? I always knew that my messages got to you, so I knew anyway.’
    Her father looked at her, half questioning, half waiting.
    â€˜So . . . do you have your things packed?’ she said cheerfully.
    â€˜Well, not yet but it won’t take long.’
    â€˜Good.’
    And then she added, ‘The room faces the creek. How strange, I never thought of that – but anyway . . . of course, that’s perfect because I want to take you there, to the creek, because there’s something special I’ve been wanting to show you for so long and now, after . . . what’s happened to you, it just makes it like I shouldn’t wait any longer . . . and . . . I’m sorry,’ she said, suddenly aware she was probably not making much sense but somehow she felt that she had to speak quickly before . . . before what?
    She took a deep breath and began to prepare herself to tell her father what she had been meaning to tell him for so long – that this year she would take him to the swallows.
    â€˜Dad . . .’ she said, but he began to speak as well.
    â€˜I’m glad you understand,’ he said. It was as if he had not heard a word she had just said. ‘I’m glad you understand,’ he went on, ‘because I really should have told you myself.’
    â€˜. . . but it doesn’t matter, really,’ Nella answered, and then she spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Now, where are your things because I can start taking some with me now . . . those things you don’t need here and that will make it easier . . .’
    â€˜What do you mean?’ her father asked.
    â€˜It will make it easier when you’re ready to leave. I can take them now and put them in the little room and then, when the doctors let you go, you can just come back with me.’
    â€˜But Nella,’ her father said, and he looked at her again with his green green eyes. ‘I’m not going back with you, Nella. I’m going home.’

Home. Nella stood by the creek and she said the word again and again. Home. How could it mean anything but what was here before her? The inky water, black at night. The swallows, lost somewhere between flight and sky.
    What had she even been thinking two hours ago, or was it five, when she had stood by her father’s bed and she had said that she was bringing him home? Was that what she had told him? Was that how she had said it?
    She felt so deeply wrong, so incredibly foolish, so childish.
    And then there had been that awful moment – she tortured herself with the memory of it now – when he had realised what she was saying and she had seen something in his eyes – was it pity? How she wished to disappear right here, right now, not to wilfully harm herself or to cause her own death but simply to disappear, to fade away.
    She had wished for it before, this exile, but never with such force, such heated desire: to go, to end, to stop being.
    She shrunk into the grass around her, witnessed its wet and its cold, but even this remained distinct from her. She was separate, alone. Except for a figure that appeared suddenly on the bridge that crossed from one bank to the other, from North Fitzroy to Northcote. An elderly man with a little white dog. There he stood, pouring a rainfall of breadcrumbs beneath him for the ducks. They would not be there until morning – eight, ten hours from now – but the man emptied the bag all the same. Expectant, anticipating; such a single sense of faith.
    So the