Cecelia Ahern
Lyrebird
© 2016
For Paula Pea
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is one that is most reponsive to change.
Attributed to Charles Darwin
PROLOGUE
He moves away from the others, their constant chat blending into a tedious monotonous sound in his head. He’s not sure if it’s the jet lag or if he’s simply not interested in what’s going on. It could be both. He feels elsewhere, detached. And if he yawns one more time, she’ll have no hesitation in calling him out on it.
They don’t notice him break away from them, or if they do, they don’t comment. He carries his sound equipment with him; he’d never leave it behind – not just because of its value, but because it’s a part of him by now, like another limb. It’s heavy but he’s used to the weight, oddly is comforted by it. He feels a part of him is missing without it, and walks like he’s carrying the audio bag even when he isn’t, his right shoulder dropped to one side. It might mean he’s found his calling as a sound recordist, but his subconscious connection to it does nothing good for his posture.
He walks away from the clearing, away from the bat house, the cause of the conversation, and moves towards the forest. The fresh cool air hits him as he reaches the edge.
It’s a hot June day, the sun beats down on the top of his head and is baking the naked flesh at the back of his neck. The shade is inviting, a group of midges do high-speed set-dancing in paths of sunlight looking like mythical insects. The woodland floor is cushioned and springy beneath his feet with layers of fallen leaves and bark. He can no longer see the group he left behind and he tunes them out, filling his lungs with the scent of refreshing pine.
He places the audio bag down beside him and leans the boom mic against a tree. He stretches, enjoys the cracks of his limbs and flexing of his muscles. He lifts off his sweater, his T-shirt rising up with it, revealing his stomach, then ties it around his waist. He pulls the hair bobbin from his long hair and ties it up tighter in a topknot, enjoying the air on his sticky neck. Four hundred feet above sea-level he looks out over Gougane Barra and sees tree-covered mountains extending as far as the eye can see, not a sign of a neighbour for miles. One hundred and forty-two hectares of national park. It’s peaceful, serene. He has an ear for sound, has acquired it over time and has had to. He’s learned to listen to what you don’t immediately hear. He hears the birds chirping, the rustle and crack of creatures moving all around him, the low hum of a tractor in the distance, building work hidden in the trees. It’s tranquil, but alive. He inhales the fresh air and as he does he hears a twig snap behind him. He whips around quickly.
A figure darts into hiding behind a tree.
‘Hello?’ he calls out, hearing the aggression in his voice at being caught off guard.
The figure doesn’t move.
‘Who’s there?’ he asks.
She peeks out briefly from behind the trunk, then disappears again, like she’s playing a game of hide-and-seek. An odd thing happens. He now knows he’s safe but his heart starts pounding; the reverse of what it should be doing.
He leaves his equipment behind and slowly walks towards her, the crunch and snap of the floor beneath him revealing his every move. He makes sure to keep space between them, making a wide circle around the tree she hides behind. Then she comes into full view. She tenses, as if readying herself for defence, but he holds his hands up in the air, palms flat, as though in surrender.
She would almost be invisible or camouflaged in the forest if it weren’t for her white blonde hair and green eyes, the most piercing he’s ever seen. He’s completely captivated.
‘Hi,’ he says, softly. He doesn’t want to scare her away. She seems fragile, on the edge of fleeing, perched on her toes, ready to take off at any moment if he takes a wrong step. So he stops moving, feet rooted to the ground, hands up flat, as if he’s holding up the air, or maybe it’s the air that’s holding him up.
She smiles.
The spell is cast.
She’s like a mythical creature, he can barely see where the tree begins and she ends. The leaves that act as their ceiling flutter in the breeze, causing rippling light effects on her face. They’re seeing each other for the first time, two complete strangers, unable to take their eyes off each other. It is the moment his life splits; who he was before he met her and who he becomes after.
Part 1
One of the most beautiful and rare and probably the most intelligent of all the world’s creatures is that incomparable artist, the Lyrebird… The bird is extremely shy and almost incredibly elusive… characterised by amazing intelligence.
To say that he is a being of the mountains only partially explains him. He is, certainly, a being of the mountains but no great proportion of the high ranges that mark and limit his domain can claim him for a citizen… His taste is so exacting and definite, and his disposition so discriminating, that he continues to be selective in these beautiful mountains, and it was a waste of time to seek him anywhere save in situations of extraordinary loveliness and grandeur.
Ambrose Pratt, The Lore of the Lyrebird
1
That Morning
‘Are you sure you should be driving?’
‘Yes,’ Bo replies.
‘Are you sure she should be driving?’ Rachel repeats, asking Solomon this time.
‘Yes,’ Bo replies again.
‘Is there any chance you could stop texting while you’re driving? My wife is heavily pregnant, the plan is to meet my firstborn,’ Rachel says.
‘I’m not texting, I’m checking my emails.’
‘Oh well then,’ Rachel rolls her eyes, and looks out the window as the countryside races past. ‘You’re speeding. And you’re listening to the news. And you’re jet-lagged to fuck.’
‘Put your seatbelt on if you’re so worried.’
‘Well, that’s reassuring,’ Rachel mumbles as she squeezes her body into the seat behind Bo and clicks her seatbelt into place. She’d rather sit behind the passenger seat where she can keep a better eye on Bo’s driving, but Solomon has the seat pushed so far back that she can’t fit.
‘And I’m not jet-lagged,’ Bo says, finally putting her phone down, to Rachel’s relief. She waits to see Bo’s two hands return to the wheel but instead Bo turns her attention to the radio and flicks through the stations. ‘Music, music, music, why does nobody talk any more?’ she mutters.
‘Because sometimes the world needs to shut up,’ Rachel replies. ‘Well, whatever about you, he’s jet-lagged. He doesn’t know where he is.’
Solomon opens his eyes tiredly to acknowledge them both. ‘I’m awake,’ he says lazily, ‘I’m just, you know…’ he feels his eyelids being pulled closed again.
‘Yeah, I know I know, you don’t want to see Bo driving, I get it,’ Rachel says.
Just off a six-hour flight from Boston, which landed at five thirty this morning, Solomon and Bo had grabbed breakfast at the airport, picked up their car, then Rachel, to drive three hundred kilometres to County Cork in the southwest of Ireland. Solomon had slept most of the way in the plane but it still wasn’t enough, yet every time he’d opened his eyes he’d found Bo wide awake spending every second watching as many in-flight documentaries as she could.
Some people joke about living on pure air. Solomon is convinced that Bo can live on information alone. She ingests it at an astronomical rate, always hungry for it, reading, listening, asking, seeking it out so that it leaves little room for food. She barely eats, the information fuels her but never fills her, the hunger for knowledge and information is never satiated.