Read Online Anchor Point by Alice Robinson - Free Book Online Page B

birds have their own voices too .
    â€˜Swallows come back,’ Bruce said.
    Her nails were white on the rung.
    â€˜Year after year, they’ll just keep returning.’
    She wanted nothing more than that they might just remain talking, back against front.
    â€˜Problem is,’ Bruce continued, ‘birds don’t come back if they smell people. It’s a safety thing, I guess. It wouldn’t have mattered, you see. Except for now we’ve gone and put our smell up here. Accident of course, but the mother bird will sense it. She might abandon the nest once she gets a whiff of us.’
    All of a sudden Laura’s knees turned to rubber. She had to hook her arm around the rung and hug it in. ‘I’m getting down,’ she said. ‘Dad, we’ve got to get down.’
    But Bruce’s body blocked the way. ‘No point worrying now, love,’ he said gently, touching her hair. ‘Damage done. If we leave these birds here, chances are the mother’ll desert them. ’Course,’ he went on more cheerfully, ‘swallows aren’t native. No point worrying ourselves too much, I suppose.’
    That night, Laura lay in the dark listening to the cheeps of four blind swallow chicks. Bruce had said to feed them breadcrumbs soaked in milk. But no matter how much soggy bread she dropped into their open mouths, it never seemed to be enough. They looked like tiny plucked chickens, their skin so thin and translucent she could just about make out the shape of their hearts through their chests. Laura had set up the straw-lined shoebox in which they now floundered, beaks upturned, gaping.
    Vik called across their darkened room, ‘You awake?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜But, Lor, what was that song Mutti used to sing us?’ Vik hummed the first few lines.
    â€˜Leave it, alright? You’re so annoying.’ Laura spoke thickly, breathing through her mouth. She put a hand to the corner of her pillow, squeezing. The birds called out.
    â€˜Are you – are you crying?’ Vik said. ‘What’s wrong?’
    â€˜Shut up. I said leave it.’ Laura rolled away. The birds rustled in their box. Their eyes were still sealed closed. They had no way of knowing where they were; she hoped that they believed themselves to be at home. She tried for a moment to conjure her mother’s face, to see Kath standing in the room. But all she could see was the outline of a woman. The harder she tried, the darker became the shadows obscuring her mother’s face.
    Kath’s notes had kept coming, though Laura resisted the urge to read what her mother wrote too closely. Each Liebe felt like a poisonous little dart sent to hurt her. After she discovered that the envelopes contained cash, she had made sure to open them carefully, burning the rest of the evidence. Deja vu, like fatigue, overcame her every time she opened the door of the oven and thrust a letter in.
    Watching Kath’s handwriting go up, Laura understood how her life would unfold: caged by mail. She would receive Kath’s letters, would burn them. Nothing would ever change.
    But the notes had grown shorter, drying up. Six months in, they had already become one-liners. Kath made dutiful contact, but when she got no response, it seemed to suit. It suited Laura too, keeping her secret.
    As the notes shrivelled, the cash continued to arrive. It hurt Laura to count it, knowing how badly they needed each dollar. Bruce trusted her now to buy groceries and pay bills from the allowance he had once supplied to Kath, but money was tight. It wasn’t easy to spend extra without raising suspicion, not in a district mortgaged up the wazoo. When Vik needed a new winter coat, Laura pulled a woollen jumper from her own drawer, knowing full well that there was enough of Kath’s money saved to dress them both in shop-bought clothes. But then the tank started leaking, the toilet backed up, the tyres on the ute grew bald. Laura