Read Online For the Forest of a Bird by Sue Saliba - Free Book Online Page A

sense. Beneath all the flux and minutiae, some things – the very essential things – were always returned to, just as the sea returned to shore and the swallows returned to their home by the creek.
    Yes, the swallows. Nella had not forgotten them. She knew they would be back now, she knew they would be preparing their nests. And her promise – the one she had made beneath the bridge on her last morning in Melbourne – came back to her. Of course, I will bring him here to the swallows . . . I will bring him back when the young ones fly.
    That is what she had said and she looked at her father now and she knew that the promise had never left her.
    When he is well, when his heart is completely healed I will take him to the creek, that’s what Nella said to herself. We’ll stand together and watch the swallows’ children. We will watch them with their brand-new feathers, stepping out into sky.
    â€˜Drifting away,’ her father said. ‘What are you thinking, Nella-lamb?’
    Only her father called her that. It came from the times she would wait eager at the door for him to return home from the shearing sheds, eager to see him, eager to hear of his travels and of the enormous properties, the paddocks of sheep, the tiny bleating lambs.
    She smiled at him. She was right; nothing had changed, nothing important.
    â€˜We could sit in the garden,’ she said. And suddenly she couldn’t help herself and she added, ‘Like we always do.’
    He smiled back at her. ‘Yeah . . . like we always do.’
    Nella helped her father up from his chair and then they sat, side by side, she next to the old fridge on the verandah and he on his seat closer to the driveway. They’d spent many hours like this over the last few years since her father had moved to the island and it felt to Nella, for many years before that. Forever, if that could be imagined.
    While he talked of his travels, she would see lines like magic threads that connected them across the distances. He would tell her of the long journey back and forth across the Nullarbor or up to the outback stations of Queensland and she would imagine that next time she could borrow the swallows’ wings to bring him home faster, so she could tell him of school and all the nonsense she was taught. Together the two of them would look out into the garden.
    â€˜Is the leaf-curling spider still up there beneath the eave?’ she asked.
    Her father looked towards the roof.
    â€˜Probably,’ he answered.
    â€˜And the silvereyes. Are they still enjoying their daily baths?’
    â€˜I suppose so. I haven’t been here, Nella.’
    â€˜Hmm.’
    Nella squinted into the sun, her father shielded his eyes.
    â€˜What about Bluey? Do you think she’s out of hibernation yet?’
    Bluey was the blue-tongue lizard Nella had found one summer afternoon, pushing through the grass and leaf litter of the front garden. Nella had bent down and marvelled at the reptile’s strange patterned skin, at her clear unblinking eyes. She’d knelt beside the creature in awe at the ancient memory that must have linked it to a million secret worlds.
    â€˜Bluey?’ her father echoed. ‘I’m not sure, Nella.’
    â€˜Not sure?’
    Nella looked out at the garden. She hadn’t looked closely at it before, but she should have noticed anyway. How could she have missed it? Large parts of the undergrowth had been cut away. The native grasses and ground cover had been ripped out, the logs and branches that formed shelters and hiding places had been collected and put in a pile by the fence.
    â€˜What’s happened to Bluey’s home?’ she said.
    She stared at the bare, neat earth.
    Her father shifted awkwardly in his chair.
    â€˜Linda thought it needed tidying up.’
    â€˜Tidying up?’ Nella could feel her throat tighten.
    â€˜She thought it was a mess.’
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