Bird in the Snow

For Cathy

Contents

Dedication
Title Page
GUSSIE
THE VET
GUSSIE
BIRDIE
HUGHIE
GUSSIE
LOUISE
COMPANIONS
GUSSIE
BIRDIE
Copyright

GUSSIE

1

SNOW IS FALLING like tufts of cotton. Snow beyond measure. Covering the mountains and touching the sky. Falling through the bushes and weighing down the trees. The mountains white and the lakes frozen over. And Birdie, standing in her pale-blue dressing gown and her red tattered slippers, as the snow spirals around her in grainy flecks, like the cosmos coming into existence.

She crumbles the bread as quickly as she can. And before long there are two little robins and a wagtail and three fat blackbirds around her feet. Landing and taking off. Hovering and diving and strutting around her red slippers in the snow. It’s panic stations. The snow is covering the bread as fast as she drops the crumbs. And eventually the little robin, who knows her well, who knows her like a mother in winter, comes and lands on her fingers as she works a crust. And his bravery earns him great rewards. For he can pick enormous chunks from the feast in her hand as he perches on her thumb.

She loves her birds. The grip of their tiny claws on her fingers. The breath of wind as the wings flutter near her cheeks. The peck of a beak on the back of her hand. The cawing and twittering in her ears.

It’s a long time since she had first felt the tickle of their feathers on her nose. That was in Dublin, just outside the train station. She was a little girl. Her father was beside her; they had come up for the day. And as she stepped down onto the platform, she saw dozens of white pigeons making a feathery halo around the silver head of an old lady who was standing in the middle of the platform, her two arms outstretched like Christ on Easter morning blessing the world. A poor old woman, wearing a man’s black coat and laced boots, and smiling a toothless smile at the astonished child.

The old lady asked her if she would like to give the birds some bread, and Birdie pleaded with her father, and her father agreed to a limited experiment. He was a whiskered man from east Galway.

And that was the first time Birdie squealed with delight as the birds landed on her arms and fingers, and dug their tiny claws into her skin. Now she’s over eighty and herself an old woman.

But she can’t delay in the garden. No, she must get back to the house immediately. Not just because the snow is seeping into her bones with alarming speed, but also because today it is her lonely duty to attend the burial of her only son.

There’s always talk at a wake. Everybody gossips about what the corpse looks like and what he died of. Everybody is sorry. And everybody says, what if … As if somewhere in the dark folds of the universe there might be other possibilities. A parallel world where things happen differently.