Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology(2)

She heard him climbing the stairs and reached for the switch to turn off her bedside light. Lying in the darkness, she heard his carefully weighted footsteps approach their bedroom door, stop for a moment and then continue past. She heard him stop outside the baby’s room, where he would be listening for the sound of Henry’s breathing, and then continue on down the landing to his own study at the rear of the house. She heard the door click shut and imagined him sitting at his desk, raising the lid of the laptop and then staring alternately at the screen and out of the window. She had stood at his open door one night, watching him divert his attention from one to the other and back again, until he had caught sight of her reflection in the window and spun around on his chair, blushing. She had allowed her eyes to drop to his computer screen, but instead of the lurid insult of pornography she had seen nothing more unsavoury than the boxy iconography common to social networking sites.

“You know, you really should get more sleep,” Gwen murmured in the morning as Andrew brought her a cup of tea.

“I know, but . . . you know,” he said.

“What?”

“The professorship thing. I might not get it anyway, but I certainly won’t if I don’t get these papers done.”

“Mmm.”

In the bathroom, Duffy the cat lay on her back on the bath mat. Legs extended at either end of her glossy black body, she looked like a giant skate egg case. Gwen tickled her tummy and Duffy’s head darted forward to nibble at her wrist.

Gwen checked in the baby’s room and then went downstairs. A floorboard creaked as she entered the kitchen. Andrew had paused in the act of emptying the dishwasher and was staring out of the window at the garden. She went up behind him and threaded her arms under his and held him tightly around the chest, resting her chin on his shoulder.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Gwen said.

Andrew’s head swivelled around on his neck.

“About Henry,” she said, pulling back.

“Oh,” he said. “No. I know.”

They disengaged and Gwen watched Andrew’s back as he continued to empty the dishwasher. His shoulders were tense, hunched up. When he had finished, he closed the door of the machine with a quiet snap.

“It’s all going to go, you know. All that,” he said, looking out of the window again. “Not our trees, obviously, but everything beyond, in the old railway cutting.”

He turned to look at her. She didn’t know what to say.

“I mean, I know it’s a good thing,” he continued, “extending the tram system, or at least I thought it would be, but now I’m not so sure. Not now that I think of the ecological cost. All those trees. Countless nesting sites.”

She looked at him without speaking for a moment before saying, “I’ve got to go to work.”


At the hospital, Gwen sat in the canteen with Angela.

“How’s Henry?” asked Angela.

“We won’t know for a while,” Gwen answered. “Thanks for asking.”

“Fingers crossed, love.”

“Thanks.”

“What about Andrew?” she asked.

“He’s under pressure at work. Going for a professorship.”

“Ooh, professor, eh?”

“Doesn’t half make him sound wise.” Gwen thought for a moment. “Andrew’s changing, though,” she said. “Whether in response to Henry or what, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

Gwen looked at the fine lines fanning out from the corners of Angela’s eyes, which deepened as she smiled.

“I saw an exhibit in the Didsbury Arts Festival,” Gwen said. “It was in that new food shop on Burton Road. There was a bamboo cage hanging from the ceiling with a tiny little screen in it playing a video of birds filmed in Beijing. Apparently, according to the artist’s blurb—Daniel Staincliffe, his name was—old men meet up in the mornings to play chess all over Beijing and they take their songbirds with them in little cages. They hang the cages up in the branches of nearby trees and while the old men play chess the birds sing to one another.”

“Aah.”

“Yeah, cute, isn’t it?” Gwen said. “But it made me think of Andrew. He’s like one of those birds stuck in his cage tweeting to other lonely people trapped in their own cages.”

“Tweeting?”

“You know, Twitter, Facebook.”

“Waste of time.”

“I know.”

“Something’s happening to him. He’s changing. We hardly talk any more; we never have sex. I almost wish he’d raid the savings account and buy a sports car or have an affair.”

Angela laughed.

Gwen looked at her watch.

“Better get on,” she said.


Gwen was standing at the kitchen table checking through the post.

“Anything?” said a voice behind her.

“Christ!” She spun around. “You made me jump. You creep around so bloody quietly these days.”

“Sorry.”

Duffy joined them in the kitchen.

“She’s got something,” Andrew said, bending down.

Duffy opened her jaws and dropped a dead mouse on the wooden floor.

“Well done, Duffy,” Gwen said. “That’s a good girl.” She knelt down to tickle her and stroke her.