The Bird Woman Read Online Free PDF Page B

the
     summer night. The dayrooms were all on the ground floor, and it wasn’t a heavy-duty part of the hospital, most of the windows
     weren’t locked. After dark people flitted about like moths. The staff must have known, but nothing was said. Perhaps they
     were sorry for us; or perhaps it kept us quiet, and they didn’t care. I’d climb with Michael through a window of the empty
     dining hall, and we’d walk about under the trees and lie on our backs spotting stars through the darker darkness of leaves.
     We told each other stories, sometimes from books, sometimes incidents that had happened in the past. It was lovely, so it
     was. Wordsspoken into the night. Small, soft words, far off and glimmery like the summer stars. Sometimes we climbed into the trees
     and sat in the forks of their branches, swinging our heels. I was better at climbing than he was, more agile, more sure-footed;
     I’d join my hands into a stirrup to give him a start then I’d scramble up behind him.
    After the first week I asked Michael if he fancied having sex with me, but he turned me down.
    “Sorry,” he said. “Nothing doing.”
    “Why not? Are you gay?”
    He gave me his sniffy look. “I don’t fancy you,” he said. “Besides, I’m married.”
    “What’s that got to do with it? Anyway, I don’t believe you.”
    “That I’m married? Or that I don’t fancy you?”
    “Both,” I said. “I don’t think you’re married. I think you fancy me but you can’t get it up.” (It was wonderful, that hospital.
     All your inhibitions went sailing off down the river.)
    “Correct,” he said. “On both counts. It’s the drugs. Why don’t you try Catriona?”
    “Do I look like a dyke?”
    “Silly girl—ugly word. Catriona’s so beautiful. Those red lipstick circles she draws on her cheeks. I’d try for her myself
     if I was able.”
    “Is she a dyke?”
    “Who knows? She might feel like giving it a go if you asked her nicely. Lots of people have a bit of both.”
    “Speak for yourself,” I said. “I certainly don’t.” I was shocked. Besides, I was afraid of Catriona, though I didn’t say that
     to Michael. She saw blood coming out of the taps, which was worse than seeing people being blown to bits.
    Michael stared at me, a long, slow, speculative look fromthose hooded eyes. “You’re very narrow-minded for a redhead,’ he said.
    I wanted to ask him what he meant, but I didn’t. I was afraid of my hair, even then.
    Michael never touched me, never as much as took my hand walking back through the dark. And I was glad enough, for it kept
     things light and simple. My forwardness was really only bravado.
    Robbie came, and when he did Michael vanished from sight.
    “Hubby alright?” he’d ask me afterwards. “Not pining?”
    “Robbie,” I’d say. “His name’s Robbie.”
    But he went on stubbornly calling him Hubby. I wouldn’t answer him when he did. I sulked, but he wouldn’t shift; it was Hubby
     this and Hubby that till I lost my temper.
    “Lay off, would you? You’ve never even set eyes on him.”
    But he had. He’d seen Robbie from a window.
    “I wouldn’t want to meet him on a dark night down a back entry,” he said. “He’s the sort kicks the shite out of people like
     me—”
    He had a point, though I didn’t say so.
    Robbie hated coming to the hospital. Shame made him narrow his shoulders and kick out sparks with his steel-shod boots. His
     wife in that place, labelled forever, was more than he could handle. And no Barbara Allen. He’d wanted Barbara Allen as I
     never had, and now she was flushed down some hospital sluice, gone when she’d hardly started.
    My mother came on the bus from Derry. I told her the doctor had said I could ask for a transfer to the hospital there. That
     way she could visit more often.
    She gave me a long, straight look and told me I had a husband. Then she said Londonderry was just a wee village for talk,and folk said these things ran in families, and what