Longsight

I can hear them overhead. Just a scratching sound at first, then stamping and scuffling starts. They clatter as they hurl themselves from one corner of the ceiling to the other and back again, a brushing, sweeping sound close behind them. Their wings, perhaps, half in flight, feathers skimming the joists. I worry that there are so many starlings up there they will crash through the roof. My bedroom will be full of beaks and claws and I have only a duvet for armour. I think of their long bright beaks and their plumage, like oil on wet tarmac, and how much more beautiful they are in a wide sky. There is a crash, a chorus of shrieks and peeps and then a determined hurtle from one side of the roof to the other. The noise quietens as they tramp over the bathroom but I can still hear it echoing along the beams. I get up.
INDENTThe landing is still dark but a near-lifetime of familiarity guides me to the top of the gloomy stairs. There is a small figure hunched in silhouette on the fourth step. I sit down next to her taking care not to startle her. I know she can be skittish, easy to scare. The hallway is brightening in the early dawn light coming though the frosted glass in the front door. Georgie looks just how I remember and I wonder if that’s how she really was, more like a boy than a little girl. Too tall and too skinny. Her dungarees are muddy at the knees. I know one of the pockets is ripped inside so things tumble down her trouser leg and escape around her ankles. Stones, coins and once a snail. The cuffs of her red and white striped top are folded back to her elbows so they don’t trail in whatever it is she’s engrossed in. This is how she was when she was just about seven, not yet far from six.
INDENT‘Hello,’ I say.
INDENT‘You’re up early,’ she says.
INDENT‘There are birds in the roof again.’
INDENTShe stands up and walks down the rest of the stairs. ‘The big dog is nice. I like her funny name.’
INDENTI can just see Dickinson’s front paws as she lies half in and half out of the kitchen, on warm carpet and cold tiles, watching with her nose on high alert.
INDENT‘Please may you do my shoelaces up?’ Georgie says. ‘They won’t do as I tell them.’
INDENT‘I don’t know why she won’t get you the Velcro ones,’ I say as I lean forward to tie the laces on her canvas shoes.
INDENTGeorgie just looks at me, wondering how I could have forgotten.
INDENTI remember why. She said it was the only way I would learn. If I was ashamed of myself.
INDENT‘What birds are they?’ Georgie says.
INDENT‘Starlings, I think.’
INDENT‘Starlings are the same family as mina birds,’ she says. ‘They don’t sing, they copy the noises that they hear around them, like car alarms. They sound like robots sometimes.’ She makes a noise like broken doorbell and then laughs and does it again louder. ‘I want to see in the roof. Dad let me.’
INDENTHe didn’t. He never let her, not once.

I could see my Dad’s feet coming out of the dark loft as he crawled backwards towards me. He had a lot of muddy field stuck in the pattern on the bottom of his boots.
INDENT‘Get off that ladder, Georgie,’ he said. ‘I want to come down.’
INDENTI climbed down and stood at the top of the stairs.
INDENT‘It was starlings, like we thought,’ he said when all of him was out of the loft and the hatch was closed. ‘I’ve patched up the holes so they can’t get back in. Will you move? You’ve forever underfoot.’
INDENTHe was carrying an ice cream tub.
INDENT‘What’s in there?’ I said.
INDENTHe leant down so I could see inside. It was a nest. It was quite small, like a basket without a handle, tucked into one corner of the tub. Inside the nest were four pale blue eggs, the colour of the sky early in the morning, once the sun has made up its mind that the day’s weather is going to be fine, but still cold enough for me to have to wear a coat. There would be four little chicks inside the eggs and one day they would peck and peck until the shells broke and they could come out into the world and learn to fly.
INDENT‘Can we keep it?’ I said. ‘We could make them hatch.’
INDENT‘Can’t see how. What would your mother say?’
INDENT‘We don’t have to tell her.’ I said.
INDENTHe just frowned at me, then set off down the stairs. No, that meant. I followed him out of the front door to the dustbin.
INDENT‘Go back in the house,’ he said. ‘You’ve got no shoes on.’
INDENTI didn’t want to go back in the house. I wanted to see what he was going to do with the eggs.
INDENTHe lifted the lid of the bin and dropped the ice cream tub into it. Then he put the lid back like nothing had happened and went back into the house.
INDENTI tried to get the nest back but it was right at the bottom and I just couldn’t reach far enough.

‘Do you have this for breakfast every day?’ Georgie says as she tries to squeeze a quarter of lemon onto her pancake and juice squirts across the table.
INDENTI had forgotten how clumsy she is. ‘No.’
INDENT‘You promised you would.’
INDENT‘It’s different, being an adult, from how you think it’s going to be.’
INDENTShe tips a spoonful of sugar into the puddle of lemon juice on her pancake and then spreads it around in a spiral. ‘How?’
INDENT‘There’s not enough time,’ I say, after a long pause. ‘You can feel it leaking out everywhere, taking all the things you wanted to do with it.’
INDENTGeorgie nods. ‘That’s like the end of the summer holidays.’
INDENT‘And you think you ought to know things when actually you don’t know anything. But that’s the same for everybody.’
INDENT‘I know a lot.’
INDENT‘You do,’ I say. I don’t tell her that she probably knows more than me. Better than me anyway.
INDENT‘Mrs Courthauld asked me what I want to be when I grew up and I told her I wanted to be far away.’
INDENT‘I remembe
r,’ I say. She told my mother I’d said it. I remember that bit particularly.
INDENTGeorgie puts a huge forkful of food into her mouth and looks at me with hamster cheeks and curious brown eyes.
INDENT‘Would you like to take Dickinson for a walk with me?’ I say. ‘We can go up to Longsight. You like it up there.’
INDENT‘Can I have another pancake first?’ she says. At least I think that’s what she says through that enormous mouthful.

Longsight is a hill that’s too steep to plough. Georgie thinks that the sheep that used to graze there had shorter legs on one side so they could stand on the slopes without being uncomfortable. The sheep could only live on the side of the hill that their legs fitted. I can’t remember where that idea came from. There aren’t any sheep anymore. Longsight has been returned to meadow as part of the country park that edges the reservoir we’ll be able to see from the top. The view goes on and on until the horizon interrupts and the sky has its say. As we walk through the long, damp grass Georgie finds me sticks to throw for Dickinson who humours us with all the baleful patience of an old dog, bringing them back again and again in her soft mouth.
INDENT‘Are you cold?’ Georgie says. ‘You look cold.’
INDENT‘I’m always cold,’ I say. ‘I’m famous for it.’
INDENT‘You’re famous?’ she stops walking, amazed.
INDENT‘Only for being cold,’ I say. ‘Among friends.’
INDENT‘What friends? Do you have lots of friends, nice friends?’
INDENT‘Not lots, but good friends.’
INDENT‘Who is your best friend?’
INDENT‘I have three best friends,’ I say.
INDENT‘Three? You can’t have three. You can only have one friend who is your best, best friend. They’ll argue with each other about who’s your favourite.’
INDENT‘They don’t know each other,’ I say as we start to scramble more as the hill steepens.
INDENT‘How can you have three best friends?’
INDENT‘Well, I have one for different things. One is a friend I’ve known for a long time so she knows how I’ve changed. One is a new friend so she knows me how I am now, but not how I was and one -’
INDENTGeorgie looks at me, expecting me to carry on.
INDENT‘And one that used to be something more,’ I say.
INDENT‘More what?’
INDENT‘We were in love. I guess.’
INDENT‘Don’t you know?’ she hands me another stick for Dickinson.
INDENT‘Not anymore, no. I’m not sure. But we’re still friends, that’s important.’
INDENT‘You could ask them if you were in love, they might know.’
INDENT‘I couldn’t. That’s not the sort of thing I would ask.’
INDENT‘You look sad,’ she says.
INDENT‘It’s all right. I haven’t thought about it for a while. I used to think about it all the time. But I made myself stop.’
INDENT‘Why?’
INDENTI have to whistle for Dickinson who, now bored with sticks and doggish-duty, has followed a scent too far away for my liking. ‘You can’t go through life being very sad all time. Not like that, it’s impossible.’
INDENTDickinson returns and snuffles around my jacket for a treat. At the bottom of a pocket I find a tiny biscuit she seems pleased with. It makes my fingers smell yeasty.
INDENTcopse on the top of Longsight is the oldest thing in the village. It’s older than the Saxon church that Georgie learnt in school was built in the early seventh century by a man called Sexwulf. I know this will make her fidget and giggle if I remind her of it. There are six oak trees, their upper branches so tangled that the air beneath them is always cold and still, like it hasn’t moved for thousands of years. Between the trees are rocks, sanded and flat, their purpose the source of great speculation and once a television programme. Georgie jumps from rock to rock and I almost have to stop her for fear that she will miss her footing and fall.
INDENT‘I do like it here,’ she stops leaping and flings her arms around herself to match her wraparound grin. ‘It’s magic. I think there are all sorts of things here that grown-ups can’t see, don’t you?’
INDENTI nod.
INDENT‘I think you can see them. You’re not a proper grown-up.’
INDENT‘Thank you,’ I say.
INDENTDickinson has found a rabbit hole, or maybe a fox hole, and her urgent enquiries are raising clouds of dust. She never catches anything and even if she did she wouldn’t know what to do with it. When I turn back Georgie has vanished. I feel as if I had found something vital I had lost, only to mislay it again, unbearably. Dickinson noses my hand, her muzzle is gritty, then she lopes off behind a tree. Stifled laughter. I creep up to Dickinson. Georgie is hiding in her favourite place, an alcove in the trunk of one of the oaks where it has split. She is the perfect fit.
INDENTI take a deep breath. ‘I thought you’d gone.’
INDENTShe smiles. ‘Dickinson gave it away, or you’d never have found me, I bet.’
INDENT‘I used to hide things in there. I forgot. There’s a little ledge halfway up where I used to hide cigarettes and things,’ I stop because I shouldn’t tell her that.
INDENTGeorgie takes my hand and clambers out of the hole. She points at Dickinson. ‘Naughty dog,’ she says. ‘She put her nose right up my bottom nearly.’
INDENT‘Do you want to play hide and seek properly?’ I say. All of a sudden, I am sure that I can’t lose her now.
INDENT‘Count to a hundred,’ she said. ‘And don’t go one, two, miss a few, ninety-nine, a hundred. Like you normally do.’

I could see him coming up the hill in his wellington boots. I could see everything from Longsight so I’d watched him come out the back gate and over the field behind our house. He almost tripped, two or three times, and when the hill got really steep he stopped, put his hands on his hips and looked up to the little wood. He couldn’t see me. I was too big to fit into the trunk any more but I could stand on one of the rocks and get up into the branches of the nearest tree. There were gaps in the leaves like windows but only from inside, from outside it just looked like a normal tree. I could hear an angry squirrel chittering complaints about a human sitting in its tree. It was an emergency though.
INDENT‘Georgie,’ he said. ‘George. I know you’re up here.’
INDENTHe was under the tree. I could see his hair going grey on top and the suede patches on the shoulders of his jacket. The tops of his ears looked funny, like tiny raw sausages. I wanted to laugh at them.
INDENT‘Georgie, you’ll have to come home. You can’t stay up here. It’s going to get dark soon.’
INDENT‘She doesn’t want me.’ I didn’t mean to say anything.
INDENT‘Don’t say that.’
INDENTHe didn’t say that she did, just that I shouldn’t say that.
INDENT‘She’s…’ he said.
INDENTIt was the same as always. He would start to say something and then stop so I was always waiting for him to say what I wanted him to say but he never did.
INDENT‘I’m running away,’ I said. ‘I’ve got food and money.’
INDENT‘You’ve stolen the housekeeping,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t given it to her yet.’ He lifted his hand and rubbed it across his face then over the top of his head. ‘Why do you do these things?’
INDENT‘You don’t want me either,’ I said.
INDENTThere was no answer.
INDENTAfter a while a hand reached up. I had no choice but to take it.

I set Georgie up at the kitchen table with some paper and colouring pens so she can draw while I work. I line up the prototype bottles on the table and flick through the brief again. It is all very uninspiring.
INDENT‘What are you doing?’ Georgie says, an orange felt-tip hanging out of her mouth. She has pen in a range of colours all over her hands already. There is not much on the paper yet but there will be.
INDENT‘I’m writing the blurb for these bottles,’ I say.
INDENT‘What’s blurb?’
INDENT‘Words. Not very interesting words. Like apply a small amount of shampoo to hair, rinse and repeat if necessary. Instructions.’
INDENT‘Do people need instructions to use shampoo?’ she looks amazed.
INDENT‘You be surprised by how stupid people can be sometimes,’ I say.
INDENT‘I bet I wouldn’t,’ she says.
INDENTWe work on. I can hear the clock ticking, Dickinson sighing in her sleep and the brush of Georgie’s pens on the paper.
INDENT‘I need a ruler,’ she says.
INDENT‘In the study there’s one. It’s on the table.’
INDENT‘Where’s the study?’
INDENT‘It used to be the dining room,’ I say.
INDENTI look over at what she’s been drawing. One page is the overhead plan of a garden with a pond in it. She’s even drawn the frogs and the ducks. The page she must need the ruler for is going to be a house, she’s drawn a long, sweeping drive and some trees that from above look like green clouds. Some are apple trees.
INDENT‘What’s this?’ I say as she comes back with the ruler.
INDENT‘It’s the house I wanted to live in,’ she glares at me and won’t say anything else.
INDENTShe’s quiet for a long time. Then she pushes her pens away. ‘What have you written?’ she says.
INDENTI show her. I can’t bear to hear it read out loud.
INDENT‘Is it for children?’ she says.
INDENT‘No.’
INDENT‘Then why have you made it a person, like Mr Matey or something?’
INDENT‘Because that’s what they want,’ I say. ‘Each shampoo like a person. Anthropomorphised. People like it.’
INDENT‘What people?’
INDENT‘The people who spend a lot of money on shampoo in chatty bottles.’
INDENT‘Silly people,’ Georgie says.
INDENT‘Yes. But we need to keep Dickinson in dog biscuits so this is what we have to do.’
INDENTGeorgie gets up and goes to the study and I try not to rip up the blurb. When she comes back she’s carrying a book. She comes around the table, puts the book on my work and leans against my leg like Dickinson does when she needs to be close. Georgie points at the picture of the scrawny, old giant on the cover and the little girl with glasses sitting on his shoulder.
INDENT‘I want to be like him,’ Georgie says as she taps the name of the author, the dark blue letters swirling across the top of the cover.
INDENT‘I know,’ I say.
INDENT‘Good,’ she says, sliding the book off the table and taking it away.
INDENTdoorbell rings and Dickinson howls in reply.
INDENT‘Who’s that?’ Georgie looks frightened as she runs back into the kitchen.
INDENT‘It must be the man about the birds,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t expecting him so soon. A neighbour she might send him our way.’
INDENT‘I hate him.’
INDENT‘We haven’t even let him in yet.’
INDENT‘Don’t.’ Georgie is pulling me back as I go to the door.
INDENT‘I have to,’ I say. ‘He can see I’m in through the glass.’
INDENTGeorgie retreats to the stairs, sits clutching her knees to her chest, as I open the front door a little.
INDENT‘In the roof, are they?’ the man says. ‘I’ll just take these boots off.’
INDENTI can see the top of his red cap as he bends over his feet in the porch. The back half is made of mesh and his curly brown hair is escaping under the edges.
INDENT‘Mr Thomas?’ I say.
INDENT‘Yes,’ he says to his knees. ‘Joan said you was having trouble with starlings. Reckon they’ve moved out of her place into yours.’
INDENT‘Who’s Joan?’ Georgie says.
INDENT‘She lives up the road,’ I whisper. ‘I saw her in the corner shop yesterday. I’m not very good at small talk so I end up saying things I’d rather not.’
INDENT‘I hate her,’ she says.
INDENT‘Don’t say that,’ I say to her.
INDENTThe man straightens up and starts to push the door open. ‘It’s just how starlings are,’ he says. ‘I’ve seen them off once. I can do it again. I’ve even brought my own step ladder.’ Then he laughs.
INDENTHe follows me up the stairs to the landing where the hatch for the loft is and sets himself up. I hover in the doorway to the bathroom, preferring to have that open than the door to my bedroom. Georgie is hiding in the bath, peeping out from behind the shower curtain with eyes like a Halloween moon.
INDENTThe man’s legs are thick and clothed in mustard corduroy. The colour reminds me of the time that Dickinson ate a whole packet of uncooked bacon and had diarrhoea. I try to tell Georgie but she can’t hear me.
INDENT‘What did you say?’ the man says, his voice muffled in the loft.
INDENT‘Nothing,’ I say.
INDENT ‘You’re as bad as me, talking to yourself,’ he says. ‘I think I do it for the company. I live on my own like you, while I’m between things, you know?’
INDENT ‘Yes,’ I say even though I’m not between things.
INDENT His left sock has a hole at the big toe and the nail that sticks out is yellow and thick like a horn. I imagine that I can smell it, a sharp feral smell like a cat has sprayed or yoghurt gone rancid. The knuckle of his toe is covered with thick black hair. It’s very short like stubble. Maybe he trims it, hoping he won’t live on his own much longer. Do people mind things like that? Dickinson starts barking in the kitchen again and scratching the door, trying to get out.
INDENT ‘Let her out so she can eat him,’ Georgie says.
INDENT‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘He’ll be gone in a minute.’
INDENT ‘That’s right,’ the man says. ‘Simple job this.’ He starts to come down and as he’s manoeuvring the cover to the hatch back I move further into the bathroom so I don’t have to look at him. I hear him close the stepladder. Georgie pokes her head around the shower curtain and sticks her tongue out at him. I want to close the door and lock us in until he has gone.
INDENT ‘So,’ he says. ‘Let me put this back in the van and get my pocket book. See you downstairs.’
INDENT ‘He thinks you’re weird,’ Georgie says.
INDENT I almost tell her that everyone thinks I’m weird but she’ll think that’s a bad thing and I don’t have time right now to explain to her why it isn’t.
INDENT The man is back in the porch wrestling with his boots so I have to go downstairs again. Dickinson is whining, her breath comes in snorts under the door.
INDENT ‘That’s your big dog, isn’t it?’ the man says. ‘The one that frightens old Mrs Pimms?’ I can see bits of him through the gap in the door again, but that’s all. He lifts his cap and scratches the bald patch it was hiding, leaving long red marks across his scalp.
INDENT ‘She’s mostly an English Pointer,’ I say. ‘She’s mixed with something big so she’s just really tall.’
INDENT ‘Like you,’ he stands up, clouded by the frosted glass. ‘Tall I mean, not mixed.’
INDENT ‘Make him go now,’ Georgie says.
INDENT ‘It’s all right,’ I say.
INDENT ‘Nothing wrong with being tall,’ the man says.
INDENT Mr Thomas. I remember that Mrs Thomas died. Cancer. Something like that.
INDENT ‘You’re taller than me though,’ he laughs. ‘A man can find that kind of thing difficult.’
INDENT While I’m thinking of something to say he takes his stepladder out to the van. I sit on the stairs next to Georgie and wait for him to come back.
INDENT ‘I’ll not come in,’ he says. ‘Not with my boots on.’
INDENT ‘All right,’ I say. ‘As long as we can hear each other.’
INDENT ‘It’s Georgina, isn’t it? I know Joan calls you George but that’s short for Georgina, isn’t it?’ he says.
INDENT ‘Yes, Georgina,’ I say.
INDENT ‘Ms?’ he’s writing this down.
INDENT ‘Viscount!’ Georgie shouts.
INDENT ‘I’m not a Viscount,’ I say. ‘Don’t be silly.’
INDENT The man laughs. ‘Could be Miss, although not many of you use that nowadays. I know the Viscount. Nice man. Very polite to his staff. Same with everyone they say.’
INDENT ‘I hate him. He hunts foxes,’ Georgie says.
INDENT ‘Not anymore,’ I say.
INDENT ‘No?’ the man says. ‘I haven’t seen him for a while. You known him long?’
INDENT ‘About the birds,’ I say.
INDENT The man leans on the door frame, as if he’s tired, half his face appears between the frame and the half-open door. ‘The law says that I can’t destroy the nests while they’re active. Now, there’s quite a few up there but we don’t need to tell the law about that. It’s more for rare birds anyway.’
INDENT ‘Starlings are red-listed,’ I say and then wish I hadn’t.
INDENT ‘I should think so,’ he says, not understanding. ‘Vermin. So we’ll get rid of the nests and the eggs and then I’ll block up the holes for you. Like I did with Joan.’
INDENT ‘What if there are birds inside still?’ I say. ‘They’ll be trapped.’
INDENT ‘Well, they will die,’ he says. ‘I’ll come back and get the bodies if you like, if you’re squeamish. You seem squeamish.’
INDENT ‘You can’t do that,’ Georgie says. Her chin is wobbling like it does when she’s trying not to cry. Her nostrils flare. ‘You can’t.’
INDENT ‘I won’t,’ I say.
INDENT ‘You won’t what?’ the man says.
INDENT ‘Make a decision today,’ I say. ‘I’ll need to think about it.’
INDENT ‘I tell you what,’ the man says. ‘I’ll just jot down this quote and leave it here for you.’
INDENT ‘Thank you,’ I say.
INDENT ‘Piss off!’ Georgie shouts and runs up the stairs two at a time.
INDENT Dickinson starts howling again, manages to open the kitchen door and bounds into the hallway. Mr Thomas suddenly can’t get out the house fast enough.

I could hear them, even though the kitchen door was shut and they were trying to talk quietly so I couldn’t. I was sitting on the dark stairs in my pyjamas and dressing gown.
INDENT ‘And where did she think she was going?’ my mother said. ‘She doesn’t have anywhere to go.’
INDENT ‘I don’t know,’ my Dad said.
INDENT ‘I shall take that library card away again,’ she said. ‘That’s the only thing that has any effect. Not me being upset.’
INDENT ‘She thinks you don’t want her.’
INDENT ‘I don’t. Why would I want a child that runs away all the time and doesn’t do as she’s told? She thinks she knows everything. Well, she’s right, she’s very right.’
INDENT They go quiet.
INDENT ‘Thank God we never had anymore,’ she said. ‘Small mercies.’
INDENT There was a screech as one of the chairs was pushed back along the floor. I waited for her to yell like she did at me but she didn’t. It must have been her that scrapped the chair. It was all right when she did things. It was all right when she said bad things, or went away, but not if anyone else did it.
INDENT ‘She’s never run away before,’ he said. ‘She just - ’

I tuck the blanket in between the bed and the wall, making sure there’s enough down there so that it doesn’t come untucked in the night.
INDENT ‘You won’t do it, will you?’ Georgie’s voice is muffled under the duvet. She’s pulled it up to her nose and only her eyes and the top of her head stick out.
INDENT ‘No, I won’t,’ I say, sitting on the edge of the bed.
INDENT ‘Promise?’
INDENT ‘Promise. I don’t mind having birds in the roof. Besides when they have chicks it’ll be fun watching them learn to fly in the garden.’
INDENT ‘Can I stay and watch too?’
INDENT ‘You’ll always have a home here,’ I say.
INDENT ‘That man won’t come back, will he?’
INDENT ‘No, and he wasn’t that bad.’
INDENT ‘You didn’t like him.’
INDENT ‘I don’t really like anyone much, so that’s not saying a lot,’ I say.
INDENT ‘He’s a killer.’
INDENT ‘Only of birds.’
INDENT ‘I couldn’t kill a bird. Ever,’ she says.
INDENT She keeps looking at the curtains and I remember that she likes to have them a little open, just a crack so that the light spills across the foot of the bed and she can see if anything is coming out from underneath. I get up to open them.
INDENT ‘Why do they put instructions on shampoo but not on shoelaces? Shoelaces are hard and shampoo is easy. Even if it gets in your eyes it’s not that bad. Not for long anyway.’
INDENT ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’ll try and get a shoelaces job and we can fix that too.’
INDENT ‘Why do you live here?’ she twitches the duvet up to her eyelashes.
INDENT ‘Because they left it to me when they died and it meant I didn’t have to pay any rent. I thought I would have the time to do things I really wanted, or I would save a lot of money and buy somewhere in the city. But then I realised I like it here.’
INDENT ‘But how can you?’ Georgie almost sits up in surprise. Her eyes are so wide they look like they’re trying to see everything, all at once.
INDENT ‘It’s changed. Or I’ve changed. I missed the countryside. The space. More than I realised.’
INDENT ‘What about the city?’
INDENT ‘I love the city. It’s not far. And my friends are there.’
INDENT ‘Your three best friends.’
INDENT ‘Yes. All of three them.’
INDENT ‘But I don’t like this house.’
INDENT ‘It’s different, it’s our house now.’
INDENT ‘It does look different.’
INDENT ‘You see? It will all be all right.’
INDENT She nods and manages to raise a smile over the covers. ‘I guess so.’
INDENT ‘Do you want a story?’
INDENT ‘No, it’s all right,’ she closes her eyes tight. ‘I can do it myself. I’ve got a good one now.’

The sun is setting. I stand in the kitchen doorway with Dickinson leaning on my leg, the weight of her comforting, my hands wrapped around a mug of hot tea. The air is cool but full of the promise of another fine day tomorrow.
INDENT I can see the copse on top of Longsight blackening in the dusk. Above it a dark cloud forms and, at first, it’s impossible to tell what it is. It looks as though the air has been transformed to water, to a great ocean and some lithe giant is undulating through the depths, hunting, a shape-shifting predator. But then it drifts apart, brightens and becomes vapour again, like mist on the wind. Then it clenches and seems to fold in on itself, twisting into new forms. And I understand what it is. It is a murmuration of my starlings. As I watch it changes and changes, never still, tight and dark, then loose and light. Never falling apart, the centre shifting, but holding.