A 10-part short story about learning in relationship, beginning at part 1/10
Louise closes the glasshouse door behind her and wrinkles her nose in the summer drizzle. She can't miss Romford: he has appropriated a rickety step ladder and is fettling the birds' vent with a screwdriver. The clatter is reverberating throughout the glasshouses.
She folds her arms and opens with, "You could use the door like everyone else."
He doesn't miss a beat. "Not everyone: a chaffinch was tapping away and eyeballing me this morning to sort this."
"From the Arid House it sounds like you're dismantling the roof."
"If needs must. The chaffinch was insistent." He lifts the front plate away and a small screw drops into the bushes below. "Drat."
Louise starts hunting while he pokes the screwdriver into the vent. Something about his way of wielding the tool seems familiar.
He murmurs, "I can see... it's a sycamore seed or— Yep, gotcha!" He extracts the blockage and pockets it, then repeatedly opens and closes the vent with satisfaction.
She hands him up the dropped screw.
"How did you find that so quickly?"
"Magpie genes."
She likes how, even after months apart, they just snap back into rapport.
Before descending, Romford taps out an all-clear notification and looks about, expecting a round of avian applause. Louise waits till he's safely back on terra firma, beaming a proud welcome at any birds in the vicinity.
"You know how you were saying about coming here as a child – kind of associating it with happy times?"
"Still do."
"Did you ever meet anyone here?"
"Apart from you?"
She's startled.
He spots his first vent explorer alighting. "You're the one, eh?"
She stares at him, then realises he's calling to the chaffinch.
He continues addressing the bird, "Up to your standard, I hope?"
While he's distracted, she blurts out, "Do you think— Is it rude not to ask my boyfriend to my mum's for Christmas?"
His head snaps around but he twists his face for a while before responding. "I think... I maybe shouldn't comment on that since I'm not a disinterested party—not objective."
"What do you mean?"
"A friend."
With that topic shut down, she decides to probe carefully before mentioning another idea. "When you were coming here as a child, was your father around?"
"He vanished shortly after I was conceived."
"Where's your mum now?"
He watches the bird intently. "She died... almost ten years ago now."
Louise's heart aches.
"So, I trained as a teacher thinking I could give kids some fun in their lives." He smirks ruefully. "Then I married a woman with mental illness so I could not leave her and instead fix her."
"What terrible, virtuous motivations! You're supposed to follow a selfish path to happiness!"
"Can't do it. Ingrained. Mum was forever telling me 'Don't be selfish, Hil!'" He chuckles.
"'Hill'?"
"Ah. Whoops."
"Ah!" She plays pantomime pondering. "Hm… Hm… Hildebrand!"
"No!"
"Hm… Hilbert!"
"No!"
"Hillman!"
"Knock yourself out."
"Hildenstern!"
Louise continues for some time. Romford indulges her, wondering but definitely not asking why she's here, when she doesn't work here anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment