Page 108 of Lyrebird

Bo smiles at that, she bites her lip. She glances at Solomon, a cheeky look in her eye. ‘Let’s say yes, I do know that feeling. It makes you feel like you’re going crazy. It makes you resent the person who’s saying it.’

Solomon hears her.

‘Even if you know they’re only saying it for your own good,’ Laura says. ‘Even if you know they couldn’t possibly be making it up, because you trust them. It makes you question everything. I made a sound once that really startled Mum. It made her want to talk about it.’

‘What sound was it?’

‘A police radio.’ Laura swallows. ‘The sounds I made were only ever sounds that I had heard. I could have got it from the television, of course, but it felt to Mum like it was real. She couldn’t ignore that sound. That’s the sound they’d both been afraid of for a very long time. She wanted to know where I’d heard it, but I didn’t know what sound she was talking about, I didn’t realise I’d made it. We managed to narrow it down, though. It was the police radio. I’d heard it one day when they’d both left the house. I’d been in my bedroom, the curtains were closed just like they were supposed to be. Living in a bungalow, we had to be careful about who would look in the windows when Mum and Gaga weren’t around.’

‘They left you in the house alone at seven years of age?’ Bo asks, concerned.

‘They were in the woods, they were foraging. I decided to stay home, read a book. I heard a car approach the house. I got down on the ground and hid under the bed. I heard footsteps on the gravel. They were close to my window. I felt like somebody was outside the window. Then I heard the sound of the police radio.’ Laura shudders as she tells the story. ‘I didn’t tell Mum and Gaga about it when they came home, I didn’t want them to be afraid. Nothing had happened, so there was no reason to tell them, but then I revealed it anyway in my sounds.’

‘How did your mother take it?’

‘She panicked. She called Gaga. Made me tell the story over and over, exactly what I heard, over and over again. I was confused. I knew they were nervous around the guards, but I never knew why.’

‘Did they tell you?’

‘I asked them that day. I thought they were afraid I’d be taken away because of the sounds I was making. As soon as Mum heard that, she sat me down and told me the whole story. Her and Gaga. They told me everything.’

‘Everything …’

Laura looks at Solomon. She takes a deep breath. ‘About how my granddad died.’

Solomon takes his headphones off, ‘Laura, are you sure you … Bo, maybe we should turn the camera off …’

‘Already have,’ Bo says, turning to look at him, her eyes wide. She and Solomon had both read the tabloid article about Isabel and Hattie’s alleged involvement in Laura’s grandfather’s death, a story Bo had heard in Cork when she had asked around about Hattie and Isabel. It was the story she had been digging for when she interviewed Laura at the Button cottage, but now she’s afraid to record it. She’s not sure she wants to hear the truth. How everything shifts.

‘Laura,’ Solomon says gently as he places his equipment down, ‘you don’t have to tell this story.’

‘I think that I do.’

‘You don’t,’ Bo urges. ‘Please don’t feel that you have to. I’m not pressurising you.’

‘Neither am I,’ Solomon says firmly. ‘In fact,’ he adds, getting to his feet, ‘perhaps we should take a break, stretch our legs. It’s late. It’s almost three a.m. It’s been a long night, an emotional one. Tomorrow’s a big day, we should—’

‘I have to tell it for them,’ Laura says. ‘He can’t hurt them any more.’

‘Who can’t?’ Bo asks. ‘The garda? Or your granddad?’

‘Both of them. I have to tell the story. For Mum’s sake, and Gaga’s. When they hid me, they hid the truth. They were trying to protect me, but now it’s my turn to protect them.’

Solomon looks at Laura, tries to read her. Laura looks at Solomon and Bo studies them both, as they do the thing they’ve been doing since the moment they saw each other. This non-verbal communication.

She looks away to give them space, to give herself space, to disappear from the weirdness of the situation. From the beginning she saw something between them and pushed them together. She pushed them together to get the story, she used Solomon to get closer to Laura. She can’t deny she did it. He wanted to stay away, he knew what he felt, and she pushed him closer to her. She can’t blame either of them. She certainly doesn’t blame herself, but she sees it all for what it is, realistically and balanced. There is something large between them, something that connects them, something that she’s not even sure Solomon sees himself. Solomon, who is so observant of her flaws and so ready to judge others, can’t stand far back enough to see himself.

Whatever passes between them helps to move a decision along.

‘Fine,’ Solomon says, brushing his hand through his long hair. ‘If this is what you want.’ His voice is so soft, so gentle, so understanding, Bo wonders if she’s ever heard him use those tones with her, if he even knows what he sounds like.

‘It is,’ Laura says firmly. A nod of the head that sends her hair tumbling down over her shoulders. She takes her seat in the armchair in front of the cream curtains that have been drawn, the lamp gives a light warm glow beside her, an earth green cushion and throw are over the back of the chair, helping to bring out the colour in her eyes even more.

Solomon sits down, eyes on Laura the entire time. Bo feels like she’s interrupting something here, realises she has felt that way every time they’ve been in the same room together. She watches Solomon from the corner of her eye as he places his headphones on his ears, adjusts the sound again. She thinks of the countless times he has gotten lost in his own world beneath those headphones, either for work or for his own music. He uses sound as his escape, just like Laura. She looks from her to him. She thinks they really have no idea. Or they do and they have been utterly respectful of her the entire time. In a bizarre twist, she wants to hug them both, then squish them together, the idiots.

Bo turns to Laura. ‘Are you ready?’

She nods firmly, a determined look in her eyes.