Pippa and I clutch one another. The cat’s silent now. The ravens lift together into the sky and all that remains on the grass are steaks of blood and tufts of fur.
I remember later that the magpies left us a gift, a task which made them careless of their long collective memory of their past persecutions by gamekeepers and farmers.
The key they left on the crow palace shines as if calling to me. The metal’s so cold that it hurts to hold it, as if it’s just come out of a freezer.
I have the queasy feeling that I know what it’s for. It slides into the padlock on the steel box with ease and I feel its teeth catch as I turn it.
Everything I know about Mum is distilled from scant memories. I’m shaking at the prospect of something concrete. I open the lid. Here’s where Dad buried her significant remains.
It contains a random assortment. A lady’s dress watch. A pair of pearl earrings. A silk patterned scarf. An empty perfume bottle. I open it and the stale fragrance brings Mum back to me on a drift of bluebells. I wipe my eyes. I’d forgotten she always wore that. There’s a birthday card signed With more than love, Karen.
What is there that’s more than love?
We weren’t a photographed family. There aren’t any happy snaps that feature Pip and me. This pile of photographs are of Mum and Dad when they were young, before we were born. I shuffle through them. Mum and Dad at the beach, on bicycles, another in formal dress. Their happiness grates. Why couldn’t they saved some of it for us?
The last thing out of the box is a handkerchief. Whatever’s knotted within clinks as I lift it out. It’s a pair of eggs. They’re unnaturally heavy, as if made of stone. And they’re warm.
I can’t resist the impulse to crack one of them open. Fluid runs over my fingers. I sniff it. Fresh egg white.
A baby’s curled up within, foetal like, her tender soles and toes, her genitals displayed. She’s perfect. I don’t know what she’s made of. Something between rubber and wax that’s the color of putty.
I break open the second one. Another girl. This one’s different. She has massive, dark eyes that are too wide set to be normal. There are sparse, matted feathers on her back. Faint scale cover her feet.
I carefully rewrap the pair, trying not to touch them, and put them back in the box.
My phone rings. Then stops. Starts again. There’s nothing for it. I answer it.
“Chris.” I try not to sound irritated.
“How are you?”
“Busy. You know.”
“No, I don’t. Tell me.”
“Stuff to sort out. Dad and for my sister.”
“You have a sister? What’s her name?”
“Phillipa. We call her Pippa.”
“What’s she like?”
Pippa? She likes birds, me, the color turquoise, chocolate, having a routine, crow gifts, sunshine. She gets frustrated when she can’t make herself understood. Her eyes are hazel brown and she has eczema.
“She has cerebral palsy. My dad took care of her.”
“Will I meet her at the funeral?”
I’m about to say Of course she’ll be at the funeral but then I realize that Chris is assuming he’s invited.
“Why do you want to come? You never met him.”
“Not for him, for you. Tell me your address.”
“I don’t need you here.”
I don’t understand. It feels like an argument, full of unspoken baggage that I didn’t even know we were carrying.
“Julie, what are we doing?”
His tone sets off an alarm bell in my head.
“You must know that I—” Don’t say it. Don’t say I love you. He falters, “You must know how much I care about you.”
I feel sick. I thought we were alike. Just my luck to find a man who falls in love with the one woman who’s not chasing him.
“I’m not talking about marriage or children.”
Children. For all the carelessness of my affections there’s never been a child.
“I told you at the start that I’m not like other people. You promised me that you understood completely.”
“There’s more to us than just sex.”
I can’t believe he’s doing this.
“Don’t you get it?” I should be angry but a column of coldness is solidifying inside me. “There is no more. I’m not broken, so you can’t fix me. I don’t love you because I can’t love anyone.”
“Julie, please…”
I hang up and bar his number.
There’s never been so many people in the house. I don’t like it. I wanted it to be just us, but Elsa went on so much that I relented. I wish I hadn’t now.
I forgot to pack a black dress so I had to buy one in a hurry. I took Pippa with me, there being nothing suitable in her wardrobe either. The shop assistant stared at her while she touched the expensive silks. The woman’s tune changed when it was clear that I didn’t have to look at the price tags.
I picked out a neat black dress myself and a black tunic, leggings and ankle boots for Pippa. On impulse, I took her to a salon to get her hair dyed and styled. She was more patient than I expected. She liked being somewhere new. My favorite part was Pippa’s smile when the shampoo was massaged into her scalp.
It was a nice day.
Today isn’t. When we went out to the funeral car, Elsa said, “Look at the two of you. Pippa, you look so grown up. And Julie, wonderful. Black suits you more than any other color. You should wear it more.”
Grief fucks people up.
The mourners come in, folding up their umbrellas like wings, dripping rain on the parquet floor.
“Elsa, are any of the neighbors coming?”
“God, no. All the one’s you’d know are dead or moved away.”
I don’t know the people here. Some used to work with Dad, apparently, others knew him from Pippa’s day center or through Elsa. They all greet her like she’s long lost family.
It’s unnerving that they line up to speak to me, something more suited to a wedding than a funeral.
The first is a tall, broad man, dressed in a shiny tight suit and winkle pickers. Spiv’s clothes but he’s gentle, paternal even. He takes my hand and looks right into my eyes, searching for something.
“My name’s Charlie.”
“Thank you for coming.”
“I’m so very pleased to meet you, my dear. You’re as lovely as I thought you’d be. I understand you’re a smart lady too.” Then as if he’s just recalled why we’re here, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
A pair of elderly ladies are next. They’re twins. Both have the same bob, cut into a bowl shape at the front, hooked noses and dowager’s humps that marks their identically crumbling spines.
“Do you have children?” says the first one, which isn’t the opener I expected.
The second one tuts and pushes her sister along. They’re followed by a couple who call themselves Arthur and Megan. A first I think they’re brother and sister as they’re so alike, but the way he hovers around her suggests their relationship is more than familial. Her arm’s in plaster.
“How did you know Dad?”
“Through my father.” The man waves his hand in a vague gesture that he seems to think explains everything.
Young men, a few years younger than I am, come next. They’re all in designer suits. Each is striking in his own way. They stand close to me as they introduce themselves. One even kisses my hand. The last one interests me the most. He’s not the tallest or best looking but I like his quiet confidence and lively face. There’s a yearning in his voice when he says my name that tugs at me. To smile at him seems weak, so I nod.