Lyrebird

One of the most beautiful and rare and probably the most intelligent of all the world’s creatures is that incomparable artist, the Lyrebird… The bird is extremely shy and almost incredibly elusive… characterised by amazing intelligence.

To say that he is a being of the mountains only partially explains him. He is, certainly, a being of the mountains but no great proportion of the high ranges that mark and limit his domain can claim him for a citizen… His taste is so exacting and definite, and his disposition so discriminating, that he continues to be selective in these beautiful mountains, and it was a waste of time to seek him anywhere save in situations of extraordinary loveliness and grandeur.

Ambrose Pratt, The Lore of the Lyrebird

1

That Morning

‘Are you sure you should be driving?’

‘Yes,’ Bo replies.

‘Are you sure she should be driving?’ Rachel repeats, asking Solomon this time.

‘Yes,’ Bo replies again.

‘Is there any chance you could stop texting while you’re driving? My wife is heavily pregnant, the plan is to meet my firstborn,’ Rachel says.

‘I’m not texting, I’m checking my emails.’

‘Oh well then,’ Rachel rolls her eyes, and looks out the window as the countryside races past. ‘You’re speeding. And you’re listening to the news. And you’re jet-lagged to fuck.’

‘Put your seatbelt on if you’re so worried.’

‘Well, that’s reassuring,’ Rachel mumbles as she squeezes her body into the seat behind Bo and clicks her seatbelt into place. She’d rather sit behind the passenger seat where she can keep a better eye on Bo’s driving, but Solomon has the seat pushed so far back that she can’t fit.

‘And I’m not jet-lagged,’ Bo says, finally putting her phone down, to Rachel’s relief. She waits to see Bo’s two hands return to the wheel but instead Bo turns her attention to the radio and flicks through the stations. ‘Music, music, music, why does nobody talk any more?’ she mutters.

‘Because sometimes the world needs to shut up,’ Rachel replies. ‘Well, whatever about you, he’s jet-lagged. He doesn’t know where he is.’

Solomon opens his eyes tiredly to acknowledge them both. ‘I’m awake,’ he says lazily, ‘I’m just, you know…’ he feels his eyelids being pulled closed again.

‘Yeah, I know I know, you don’t want to see Bo driving, I get it,’ Rachel says.

Just off a six-hour flight from Boston, which landed at five thirty this morning, Solomon and Bo had grabbed breakfast at the airport, picked up their car, then Rachel, to drive three hundred kilometres to County Cork in the southwest of Ireland. Solomon had slept most of the way in the plane but it still wasn’t enough, yet every time he’d opened his eyes he’d found Bo wide awake spending every second watching as many in-flight documentaries as she could.

Some people joke about living on pure air. Solomon is convinced that Bo can live on information alone. She ingests it at an astronomical rate, always hungry for it, reading, listening, asking, seeking it out so that it leaves little room for food. She barely eats, the information fuels her but never fills her, the hunger for knowledge and information is never satiated.

Dublin based, Solomon and Bo had travelled to Boston to accept an award for Bo’s documentary, The Toolin Twins, which had won Outstanding Contribution to Film and Television at the Boston Irish Reporter Annual Awards. It was the twelfth award they’d picked up that year, after numerous others they’d been honoured with.

Three years ago they had spent a year following and filming a pair of twins, Joe and Tom Toolin, who were seventy-seven years old at the time. They were farmers who lived in an isolated part of the Cork countryside, west of Macroom. Bo had discovered their story whilst researching for a separate project, and they had quickly taken over her heart, her mind and consequently her life. The brothers lived and worked together all their lives, neither of them had ever had a romantic relationship with a woman, or with anyone for that matter. They had lived on the same farm since birth, had worked with their father and then taken it over when he passed away. They worked in harsh conditions, and lived in a very basic home of humble means, a stone-floored farmhouse, sleeping in twin beds with nothing but an old radio to keep them entertained. They rarely left the land, received their weekly shopping from a local woman who delivered their meagre items, and did general housekeeping. The Toolin brothers’ relationship and outlook on life had torn at the heartstrings of the audience as it had the film crew, for beneath their simplicity was an honest and clear understanding of life.

Bo had produced and directed it under her production company, Mouth to Mouth productions, with Solomon on sound, Rachel on camera. They’d been a team for the past five years since their documentary, Creatures of Habit, which explored the falling number of nuns in Ireland. Bo and Solomon had been romantically involved for the past two years, since the unofficial wrap party of the documentary. The Toolin Twins had been their fifth piece of work but their first major success, and this year they had been travelling the world going from one film festival or awards ceremony to another, where Bo had been accepting awards and had polished her speech to perfection.

And now they’re on the way back to the Toolin twins’ farm which they are so familiar with. But it is not to celebrate their recent successes with the brothers, it is to attend the funeral of Tom Toolin, the youngest brother by two minutes.

‘Can we stop for something to eat?’ Rachel asks.

‘No need.’ Bo reaches down to the floor on the passenger side, dangerously, one hand still on the wheel as the car swerves slightly on the motorway.

‘Jesus,’ Rachel says, not able to watch.

She retrieves three power bars and throws one to her. ‘Lunch,’ she rips hers open with her teeth, and takes a bite. She chews aggressively, as if it’s a pill she must swallow, food for fuel, not food for enjoyment.

‘You’re not human, you know that,’ Rachel says, opening her power bar and studying it with disappointment. ‘You’re a monster.’

‘But she’s my little inhumane monster,’ Solomon says groggily, reaching out to squeeze Bo’s thigh.

She grins.

‘I preferred it when you two weren’t fucking,’ Rachel says, looking away. ‘You used to be on my side.’

‘He’s still on your side,’ Bo says, in a joking tone but meaning it.

Solomon ignores the dig.

‘If we’re going to pay our respects to poor Joe, why did you make me pack all my gear?’ Rachel asks, mouth full of nuts and raisins, knowing exactly why but in the mood to stir things up even further. Bo and Solomon were fun like that, never completely stable, always easy to tip.

Solomon’s eyes open as he studies his girlfriend. Two years together romantically, five years professionally and he can read her like a book.

‘You don’t actually think that Bo is going to this funeral out of the goodness of her heart, do you?’ he teases. ‘Award-winning internationally renowned directors have to be receptacles for stories at all times.’

‘That sounds more like it,’ Rachel says.

‘I don’t have a heart of stone,’ Bo defends herself. ‘I re-watched the documentary on the flight. Do you remember who had the final words? Tom. “Any day you can walk away from your bed is a good day.” My heart is broken for Joe.’

‘Fractured, at least,’ Rachel teases, gently.

‘What’s Joe going to do?’ Bo continues, ignoring Rachel’s jab. ‘Who can he talk to? Will he remember to eat? Tom was the one who organised the food deliveries and he cooked.’

‘Tins of soup, beans on toast and tea and toast isn’t exactly cooking. I think Joe will easily be able to take up the gauntlet,’ Rachel smiles, remembering the men sitting down together to shovel hard bread into watery soup in the winter afternoons when darkness had already fallen.

‘For Bo, that’s a three course meal,’ Solomon teases.

‘Imagine how lonely life will be for him now, up that mountain, especially in the dead of winter, not seeing anyone for a week or more at a time,’ Bo says.

They allow a moment of silence to pass while they ponder Joe’s fate. They knew him better than most. He and Tom had let them into their lives and had been open to every question.

While filming, Solomon often wondered how the brothers could ever function without each other. Apart from the market, and tending to their sheep, they rarely left the farm. A housekeeper would see to their domestic needs, which seemed an inconvenience to them rather than necessity. Meals were taken quickly and in silence, hurriedly shovelling food into their mouth before returning to their work. They were two peas in a pod, they would finish each other’s sentences, move around each other with such familiarity it was like a dance, but not necessarily an elegant one. Rather, one that had been honed over time, unintentionally, unrealised. Despite its lack of grace, and maybe because of it, it was beautiful to see, intriguing to watch.

It was always Joe and Tom, never Tom and Joe. Joe was the eldest by two minutes. They were identical in looks, and they gelled despite the difference in personalities. They made peculiar sense in a landscape that didn’t.

There was little conversation between them, they had no need of explanation or description. Instead their communication relied on sounds that to them had meaning, nods of the head, shrugs, a wave of the hand, a few words here and there. It took a while for the film crew to understand whatever message had passed between them. They were so in tune they could sense each other’s moods, worries, fears. They knew what the other was thinking at any given time, and they gave the beauty of this particular connection no thought whatsoever. They were often bamboozled by Bo’s depth of analysis of them. Life is what it is, things are as they are, no sense analysing it, no sense trying to change what can’t be changed, or understand what can’t be understood.

‘They didn’t want anybody else because they had each other, they were each enough for one another,’ Bo says, repeating a line she has said a thousand times in promotion for her documentary but still meaning every word. ‘So am I chasing a story?’ Bo asks. ‘Fuck yeah.’

Rachel throws her empty wrapper over Bo’s shoulder.

Solomon chuckles and closes his eyes. ‘Here we go again.’

2

‘Wow,’ Bo says as the car crawls towards the church in its stunning surroundings. ‘We’re early. Rachel, can you get your camera set up?’

Solomon sits up, wide awake now. ‘Bo, we’re not filming the funeral. We can’t.’

‘Why not?’ she asks, brown eyes staring into his intently.

‘You don’t have permission.’

She looks around, ‘From who? This isn’t private property.’

‘Okay, I’m out,’ Rachel says, getting out of the car to avoid being caught up in another of their arguments. The tumultuous relationship is not just with Solomon, it’s anyone who comes into contact with Bo. She’s so stubborn, she brings the argument out in even the most placid of people, as though the only way she knows to communicate or to learn is by pushing things so far that they spark a debate. She doesn’t do it for the enjoyment of the debate; she needs the discussion to learn how other people think. She’s not wired like most people. Though she’s sensitive, she is more sensitive to people’s stories, not necessarily in the method of discovering them. She’s not always wrong, Solomon has learned plenty from her over time. Sometimes you have to push at awkward or uncomfortable moments, sometimes the world needs people like Bo to push the boundaries in order to encourage people to open up and share the story, but it’s about choosing the right moments and Bo doesn’t always get that right.

‘You haven’t asked Joe if you can film,’ Solomon explains.

‘I’ll ask him when he arrives.’

‘You can’t ask him before his brother’s funeral. It’s insensitive.’

She looks around at the view and Solomon can see her brain ticking over.

‘But maybe some of the funeral attendees will do an interview afterwards, tell us stories about Tom we didn’t know, or get their opinion on how they think Joe’s life will be from now on. Maybe Joe will want to talk to us. I want to get a sense of what his life is like now, or what it’s going to be like.’ She says all this while spinning around, seeing the view from 360 degrees.

‘Pretty fucking lonely and miserable, I’d imagine,’ Solomon snaps, losing his temper and getting out of the car.

She looks at him, taken aback, and calls after him. ‘And after that we’ll get you some food. So that you don’t bite my head off.’

‘Show some empathy, Bo.’

‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care.’

He glares at her, then having enough of the argument he senses he will lose he stretches his legs and looks around.

Gougane Barra lies to the west of Macroom in Co. Cork. Its Irish name Guagán Barra, meaning ‘The Rock of Barra’, derived from Saint Finbar, who built a monastery on an island in a nearby lake in the sixth century. Its secluded position meant St Finbar’s Oratory was popular during the time of Penal Laws, for celebrating the illegal Catholic Mass. Nowadays, its stunning surroundings makes it popular for weddings. Solomon is unsure as to why Joe chose this chapel; he’s sure Joe doesn’t follow trends, nor does he go for romantic settings. The Toolin farm is as remote as you can imagine, and while it must be part of a parish, he’s not sure which. He knows the Toolin twins were not religious men; unusual for their generation, but they’re unusual men.

He may not feel it’s right interviewing Joe on the day of his brother’s funeral but he does have some of his own questions he’d like answering. Despite his frustration with Bo for overstepping boundaries, he always benefits from her doing so.

Solomon takes off on his own to record. Now and then Bo points out an area, an angle, or an item that she would like Rachel to capture, but mostly she leaves them to their own devices. This is what Solomon likes about working with Bo. Not unlike the Toolin twins, Bo, Solomon and Rachel understand how each member of the team prefers to work and they give each other the space to do that. Solomon feels a freedom on these jobs that is lacking in the other work he takes on purely to pay the bills. A winter spent filming unusual body parts for a TV show Grotesque Bodies, followed by summer shooting at a reality fat fit club that sucked the life from him. He is grateful for these documentaries with Bo, for her curiosity. What irritates him about her are the very skill sets that help set him free from his regular day-jobs.

An hour into their filming, the funeral car arrives, closely followed by Joe, eighty years old, behind the wheel of the Land Rover. Joe climbs out of the jeep, wearing the same dark brown suit, sweater and shirt that they’ve seen on him hundreds of times. Instead of his Wellington boots he wears a pair of shoes. Even on this sunny day he wears what he’d wear in the depths of winter, perhaps a hidden layer less. A tweed cap covers his head.

Bo goes to him immediately. Rachel and Solomon follow.

‘Joe,’ Bo says, reaching out to him and shaking his hand. A hug would have been too much for him, not being comfortable with physical affection. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

‘You didn’t have to come,’ he says, surprised, looking around at the three of them. ‘Weren’t you in America when I rang you?’ he asks, as if they were on another planet.

‘Yes, but we came home straight away to be here for you. Could we film, Joe? Would that be okay? People who watched your story would like to know how you’re doing.’

Solomon tenses up at Bo’s nerve but she also amuses him, he finds her gutsiness, her honesty, remarkable and rare.

‘Ara go on,’ says Joe, waving his hand dismissively as if it makes no difference to him either way.

‘Can we talk to you afterwards, Joe? Is there a gathering planned? Tea, sandwiches, that kind of thing?’

‘There’s the graveyard and that’s it. No fuss, no fuss. Back to business, I’m working for two now, aren’t I?’

Joe’s eyes are sad and tired with dark circles. The coffin is removed from the car and is placed on a trolley by the pallbearers. Including the film crew, there are a total of nine people in the church.

The funeral is short and to the point, the eulogy read by the priest, who mentions Tom’s work ethic, his love for his land, his long-departed parents and his close relationship with his brother. The only movement the stoic Joe makes is to remove his cap when Tom’s coffin is lowered into the ground at the graveyard. After that, he pops it back on his head, and walks to his jeep. In his head, Solomon can almost hear him say, ‘That’s that.’

After the burial, Bo interviews Bridget the housekeeper, though it’s a title that’s used loosely as she merely delivers food and dusts the cobwebs from their damp home. She’s afraid to look at the camera in case it explodes in her face, looking defensive as though every question is an accusation. Local garda Jimmy, the Toolin twins’ animal feed supplier and a neighbouring farmer whose sheep share the mountainous land with theirs, all refuse an interview.

The Toolin farm is a thirty-minute drive, far from anything, deep in the heart of the mountainside.

‘Are there books in the Toolin house?’ Bo asks out of nowhere. She does that often, blurts out random questions and thoughts as she slots the various pieces of information that come from different places together in her head to tell one clear story.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Solomon says, looking at Rachel. Rachel would have a better visual image and memory than any of them.

Rachel thinks about it, re-runs her shot-list in her head. ‘Not in the kitchen.’ She’s silent while she runs through the house. ‘Not in the bedroom. Not on open shelves, anyway. They have bedside lockers, could be in there.’

‘But nowhere else.’

‘No,’ Rachel says, certain.

‘Why do you ask?’ Solomon asks.

‘Bridget. She said that Tom was an “avid reader”.’ Bo scrunches her face up. ‘I wouldn’t peg him as a reader.’

‘I don’t think you can tell if someone’s a reader or not by looking at them.’

‘Readers definitely always wear glasses,’ Rachel jokes.

‘Tom never mentioned books. We lived their entire schedule with them for a year. I never saw him read, even hold a book. They didn’t read newspapers, neither of them. They listened to the radio. Weather reports, sports and sometimes the news. Then they’d go to bed. Nothing about reading.’

‘Maybe Bridget made it up. She was very nervous about being on camera,’ Solomon says.

‘She was very detailed about buying books for him at second-hand shops and charity sales. I believe she bought the books, I just can’t figure out why we never saw one book in the house and neither of them reading. That’s something I would have wanted to know about. What did Tom like to read? Why? And if he did, was it a secret?’

‘I don’t know,’ Solomon says, yawning, never really hung up on the minor details that Bo dissects, particularly now, as the hunger and tiredness kick in again. ‘People say odd things when they’ve a camera pointed at their face. What do you think, Rachel?’

Rachel is silent for a moment, giving it more clout than Solomon did. ‘Well he’s not reading anything now,’ she says.

They arrive at the Toolin farmhouse and are more than familiar with the land; they spent many dark mornings and nights, in torrential rain, traipsing over this treacherous land. The brothers had separated the work. As hill sheep farmers, they had split their responsibilities from the beginning and stuck to that. It was a lot of work for little income, but they had each stuck to their designated roles since their father died.

‘Tell us what happened, Joe,’ Bo says gently.

Bo and Joe sit in the kitchen of the farmhouse on the only two chairs at the plastic table. It’s the main room of the house and contains an old electric cooker, the four hobs the only part of it in use. It’s cold and damp, even in this weather. There is one socket on the wall with an extension lead feeding everything in the kitchen: the electric cooker, the radio, the kettle, and the electric heater. An accident waiting to happen. The hum of the heater, Solomon’s sound enemy. The room – in fact the entire house – smells of dog because of the two border collies that live with them. Mossie and Ring, named after Mossie O’Riordan and Christy Ring who were instrumental in Cork’s victory in the All-Ireland Hurling final in 1952, one of the few times the boys travelled to Dublin with their father, one of the only interests they have outside of farming.

Joe sits in a wooden chair, quiet, elbows on the armrest and hands clasped at his stomach. ‘It was Monday. Bridget had dropped by with the food. Tom was to put it away. I went off. I came in for my tea and found him here on the floor. I knew right away that he was gone.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I put the food away. He hadn’t done that yet, so it was early enough when he died. Must have been soon after I left. Heart attack. Then I made a call…’ He nods at the phone on the wall.

‘You put the food away first?’ Bo asks.

‘I did.’

‘Who did you call?’

‘Jimmy. At the station.’

‘Do you remember what you said?’

‘I don’t know. “Tom’s dead”, I suppose.’

Silence.

Joe remembers that he’s on camera, remembers the advice Bo gave him three years ago to keep talking so it’s him that’s telling the story. ‘Jimmy said he’d have to ring the ambulance anyway, even though I knew there was no bringing him back. He came by himself then. We had a cuppa while we waited.’

‘While Tom was on the floor?’

‘Sure where would I move him?’

‘Nowhere, I suppose,’ Bo says, a faint smile on her lips. ‘Did you say anything to Tom? While you were waiting for Jimmy and the ambulance.’

‘Say anything to him?’ he says, as if she’s mad. ‘Sure he was dead! Dead as dead can be. What would I be sayin’ something for?’

‘Maybe a goodbye or something. Sometimes people do that.’

‘Ah,’ he says dismissively, looking away, thinking of something else. Maybe of the goodbye he could have had, maybe of the goodbyes he’d already had, maybe of the ewes that needed to be milked, the paperwork that needed to be filled.

‘Why did you choose the church today?’

‘That’s where Mammy and Daddy were married,’ he says.

‘Did Tom want his funeral to be held there?’

‘He never said.’

‘You never talked about your plans? What you’d like?’

‘No. We knew we’d be buried with Mammy and Daddy at the plot. Bridget mentioned the chapel. It was a grand idea.’

‘Will you be all right, Joe?’ Bo asks, gently, her concern genuine.

‘I’ll have to be, won’t I?’ He gives a rare smile, a shy one, and he looks like a little boy.

‘Do you think you’ll get some help around here?’

‘Jimmy’s son. It’s been arranged. He’ll do some things when I need him. Lifting, the heavy work. Market days.’

‘And what about Tom’s duties?’

‘I’ll have to do them, won’t I?’ He shifts in his chair. ‘No one else left to be doing it.’

Both Joe and Tom were always amused by Bo’s questions. She asked questions that had obvious answers; they couldn’t understand why she questioned things so much, analysed everything, when to them that was that, all the time. Why question something when the solution was obvious? Why even try to find another solution when one would do?

‘You’ll have to talk to Bridget. Give her your shopping list. Cook,’ Bo reminds him.

He looks annoyed at that. Domesticity was never something he enjoyed, that was Tom’s territory, not that Tom enjoyed it either, he just knew if he was waiting for his brother to feed him, he’d die of starvation.

‘Did Tom like reading?’ she asks.

‘Ha?’ he asks her, confused. ‘I don’t think Tom ever read a book in his life. Not since school, anyway. Maybe the sports pages when Bridget brought the paper.’

Solomon can sense Bo’s excitement from where he stands, she straightens her back, ready to dive into what’s niggling at her.

‘When you put away the shopping on Monday, was there anything unusual in the bags?’

‘No.’

Understanding Joe’s grasp of the English language, she rephrases, ‘Was there anything different?’

He looks at her then, as if deciding something. ‘There was too much food, for a start.’

‘Too much?’

‘Two pans of bread. Two ham and cheese, sure I can’t remember what else.’

‘Any books?’

He looks at her again. The same stare. Interest piqued. ‘One.’

‘Can I see it?’

He stands and gets a paperback from a kitchen drawer. ‘There you go. I was going to give it to Bridget – thought it was hers, and the extras too.’

Bo studies it. A well-thumbed crime novel that Bridget had picked up from somewhere. She opens the inside hoping for an inscription but there’s nothing. ‘You don’t think Tom asked for this?’

‘Sure why would he? And if he did it wasn’t just his heart that there was something wrong with.’ He says this to the camera and chuckles.

Bo hangs on to the book. ‘Going back to Tom’s duties. What are the duties you have on the farm now?’

‘Same as usual.’ He thinks about it as if for the first time, all the things that Tom did during his day that he never thought about, or the things they used to discuss in the evening. ‘He saw to the well by the bat house. I haven’t been there for years. I’ll have to keep an eye on that, I suppose.’

‘You never mentioned the bat house before,’ Bo says. ‘Can you take us there?’

The four of them and one of the loyal sheepdogs get into Joe’s jeep. He drives them across the land, on dirt tracks that feel dangerous now, never mind during the winter on those stormy days or icy mornings. An eighty-year-old cannot do this alone, two eighty-year-olds were barely managing it. Bo hopes that Jimmy’s son is an able-bodied young man who does more than Joe asks, because Joe’s not a man to ask for help.

A rusted railing stops them in their tracks. Solomon beats Joe to it and jumps out of the jeep to push it open. He runs to catch up with them. Joe parks in a clearing by the forest, Solomon collects his equipment. They must walk up a trail the rest of the way. The dog, Mossie, races up ahead of them.

‘Bad land, we could never do nothing with it, but we kept it nonetheless,’ Joe tells them. ‘In the thirties, Da planted Sitka spruce and lodgepole pine. Thrive in bad soils, good with strong winds. About twenty acres. You can see Gougane Barra Forest Park from up here.’

They walk through the trails and come to a clearing with a shed that was once painted white but now is faded, beaten away by time, and reveals the dull concrete beneath. The windows have been boarded up. Even on this beautiful day it’s bleak, the austere outbuilding at odds with the beautiful surroundings.

‘That’s the bat house,’ Joe explains. ‘Hundreds of them in there. We used to play in there as boys,’ he chuckles. ‘We’d dare each other to go inside, lock the door and count for as long as we could.’

‘When is the last time you were here?’ Bo asks.

‘Ah. Twenty years. More.’

‘How often would Tom check this area?’ Bo asks.

‘Once, twice a week, to make sure the well wasn’t contaminated. It’s over there, behind the shed.’

‘If you can’t make money from this land, why didn’t you sell it?’

‘After Da died, the land was up for sale. Some Dublin lad wanted to build a house up here but couldn’t do anything with that bat house. Environmental people’ – he throws his chin up in the air to note his annoyance – ‘they said the bats were rare. Couldn’t knock down the shed or build around it because it would ruin their flight path, so that was that. Took it off the market then. Mossie!’ Joe calls for his dog, who’s disappeared from view.

They cut filming. Rachel moves close to the bat house, presses her face up to the windows to see in through the cracks in the wood. Bo notices Solomon walk away, equipment in hand, and head towards the forest. She hopes he’s heard something interesting to record and so lets him go. Even if he hasn’t, she knows she’s gotten him and Rachel up early and driven them here with no food, and they can’t function without it, unlike her, and she’s starting to sense their irritation. She lets him go, for a few moments on his own.

‘Where’s the well?’

‘Up there, beyond the bat house.’

‘Would you mind if we filmed you checking the well?’ she asks.

He gives her that same grunt that she recognises as signalling he’ll do whatever she wants, he doesn’t care, no matter how odd he regards her.

While Rachel and Joe talk bats – Rachel can hold a conversation about just about anything – Bo takes a little wander, around the back of the bat house. There’s a cottage behind it, run-down, the outside in the same condition as the bat house, the white paint almost completely gone and the grey concrete dreary amidst all the green. Mossie wanders around in front of the cottage sniffing the ground.

‘Who lived here?’ Bo calls.

‘Ha?’ he shouts, unable to hear her.

She studies the cottage. This building has windows. Clean windows.

Joe and Rachel follow her and turn the corner into the path of the cottage.

‘Who lived here?’ Bo repeats.

‘My da’s aunt. Long time ago. She moved out, the bats moved in.’ He chuckles again. He closes his eyes while he tries to think of her name. ‘Kitty. We tormented the woman. She used to hit us with a wooden spoon.’

Bo moves away slightly, closer to the cottage, she studies the area. This house has a vegetable patch beside it, some fruit growing too. There are wildflowers sitting in a tall glass in one of the windows.

‘Joe,’ Bo says. ‘Who lives here now?’

‘Nobody. Bats maybe,’ he jokes.

‘But look.’

He looks. He takes in all that she has already absorbed. The fruit and vegetable garden, the cottage, the windows that are gleaming, the door painted green, fresher paint than anything else in the vicinity. He’s genuinely confused. She walks around the back. She finds a goat, two chickens wandering around.

Heart pounding, she calls out. ‘Somebody is living in there, Joe.’

‘Intruders? On my land?’ he says angrily, an emotion she has never seen from Joe Toolin or his brother in all her time with them.

Hands in thick fists by his side, he charges towards the cottage, as fast as he can, and she tries to stop him. Mossie follows him.

‘Wait, Joe, wait! Let me get Solomon! Solomon!’ she yells, not wanting to alert the person inside the cottage, but having no choice. ‘Rachel, film this.’ Rachel is already on the case.

But Joe doesn’t care about her documentary and places his hand on the door knob. He’s about to push open the door but stops himself – he’s a gentleman, after all. He knocks instead.

Bo looks in the direction of the forest where Solomon disappeared, then back to the cottage. She could kill Solomon right now, she shouldn’t have let him wander off, it was unprofessional of him. She let him leave because she knew he was famished, because as his girlfriend she knows how he becomes. Grumpy, unfocused, ratty. Again, one of the frustrating parts of being romantically linked with a colleague is actually caring when your decisions mean they go hungry. The sound will have to be compromised. At least they’ll have a visual, they can add sound in after.

‘Careful, Joe,’ Rachel says. ‘We don’t know who’s in there.’

There’s no answer at the cottage and so Joe pushes open the door and steps inside. Rachel is behind him, and Bo hurries after.

‘What the…’ Joe stands in the centre of the room, looking around, scratching his head.

Bo quickly points out singular items she wants Rachel to capture.

It’s a one-roomed cottage. There’s a single bed by one wall, with a view through one of the small windows beside the vegetable patch. On the other side there’s a natural fire, a cooker, not too dissimilar to the one in Joe’s farmhouse, and an armchair beside shelves of books. The four shelves have been filled to the brim and stacks of books are piled neatly on the floor beside it.

‘Books,’ Bo says aloud, wonderingly.

There are a half-dozen sheepskin rugs on the floor, no doubt to warm the cold stone floor during the desperate winters in a house with no obvious heating other than the fire. There’s sheepskin across the bed, sheepskin on the armchair. A small radio sits alone on a side table.

It has a distinctly feminine feel. Bo’s not exactly sure why she feels this. She knows it’s biased to base this on the glass of flowers; there’s no scent but it feels feminine, not the dirty rustic feel of Tom and Joe’s farmhouse. This feels different. Cared for, lived in, and there’s a pink cardigan folded over the top rail of a chair. She nudges Rachel.

‘Got it already,’ she says, the sweat pumping from her forehead.

‘Keep filming, I’ll be back in a minute,’ Bo says and runs out of the cottage towards the forest.

‘Solomon!’ she yells at the top of her voice, knowing there are no neighbours around to disturb. She returns to the clearing in front of the bat house, sees him a short way down the hill in the forest, just standing there, looking at something, as though he’s in a trance. His sound bag is on the ground a few feet away from him, his boom mic leaning up against the tree. The fact that he’s not even working tips her over the edge.

‘Solomon!’ she yells, and he finally looks at her. ‘We found a cottage! Someone lives there! Equipment, hurry, move, now!’ She’s not sure if the words she has used make sense or if they’re in the right order, she needs him to move, she needs sound, she needs to capture the story.

But what Bo hears in response is a sound unlike anything she’s heard before.

3

The sound is a like a squawk, from a bird, or something not human, but it comes from a human, from the woman standing at the tree.

Bo runs down into the forest and the blonde woman’s basket goes flying up in the air, its contents fall out on to the forest floor and her eyes are wide in terror.

‘It’s okay,’ Solomon says, hands out wanting to calm her, standing between Bo and the stranger like he’s trying to tame a wild horse. ‘We’re not going to hurt you.’

‘Who is that?’ Bo calls.

‘Just stay there, Bo,’ Solomon says, annoyed, without turning.

Of course she ignores him and comes closer. The young woman makes a sound again, another unusual, kind of chirping sound, if a chirp could ever seem like a bark. It’s directed at Bo.

Bo is gobsmacked, but a smile crawls to her face with fascination.

‘I think she wants you to back off,’ Solomon says to her.

‘Okay, Doctor Doolittle, but I haven’t done anything wrong,’ she says, annoyed at being told what to do. ‘So I’m not leaving.’

‘Well then just don’t come any closer,’ Solomon says.

‘Sol!’ she says, looking at him with shock.

‘Hey, hey, it’s okay!’ he says to the girl, slowly moving a little closer, getting on his hands and knees to pick up the flowers and herbs from the ground. He places them in her basket and holds it out to her. She stops her chirping but is clearly in distress, looking from Solomon to Bo, eyes wide and fearful.

‘My name is Bo Healy. I’m a filmmaker and we’re here with Joe Toolin’s permission,’ she holds out her hand.

The blonde woman looks at her hand and makes a series of more distressed sounds, none of them words.

‘Oh my God,’ Bo looks at Solomon, wide-eyed, taking out her phone and calling Rachel. ‘Rachel, come up to the clearing, quickly. I need the camera.’ She hangs up. ‘Record this,’ she mouths to Solomon, signalling his equipment with her eyes, afraid to move the rest of her body.

The young woman is firing off one bizarre sound after the next and it is the strangest thing Solomon has ever witnessed. It doesn’t sound like it’s coming from her voice box, it’s like a recording. He’s so stunned and fascinated he can’t stop watching her, he looks for wires and there are none. This is real.

He takes a few steps in the direction of his audio bag.

Rachel appears through the trees, rushing with her camera in her hands, closely followed by Joe.

‘What the hell is going on down there?’ Rachel shouts, coming to an abrupt halt as she sees with her own eyes.

The young woman turns to Rachel and starts making the sound of a car alarm. Solomon looks at what’s happening from her perspective, surrounded by three people, strangers in the forest, she must feel completely trapped. He can’t bring himself to record this. It’s not right.

Bo senses his hesitancy and sighs. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she snaps. She does what she should have done at the outset had she thought of it at the time, and films the unfolding scene with her phone.

Joe joins them.

The blonde woman stops making her sounds, for a moment she looks at Joe and she seems relieved.

‘Who are you?’ Joe shouts, half hidden by a tree. The fear is obvious in his voice. ‘What are you doing on my land?’

She panics again, backing away through the trees.

Solomon watches them all. Bo is filming on her phone, Rachel pointing the camera at her, Joe a fierce face on him.

Solomon is exhausted, he needs to eat.

‘Stop!’ he yells and everybody goes silent. ‘You’re frightening her. Everybody step away. Let her go.’

She stares at him.

‘You’re free to go.’

She keeps looking at him. Those green eyes on him.

‘I don’t think she understands,’ Bo says, still filming.

‘Of course she understands,’ Solomon snaps.

‘I don’t think she can speak… words. What’s your name?’ Bo asks.

The young woman ignores the question and continues to look at Solomon.

‘Her name is Laura,’ he says.

Mossie suddenly comes racing from the direction of the bat house, towards the forest, he’s barking manically, protecting his land from the intruder. But instead of stopping by Joe he continues into the forest and heads straight for Laura.

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, call him off her, Joe,’ Solomon says fearfully, afraid he’ll take a chunk out of her.

But Mossie stops right at her feet, circles her excitedly, jumping up and down for her attention, licking her hand.

She rubs him – clearly the two of them are no strangers – as she nervously keeps her eye on everyone around her. She holds her hand out to Solomon and he looks at her, confused, thinking she wants to hold his hand. He reaches out his hand and then she smiles and looks down at the basket.

‘The basket, Sol,’ Bo says.

Embarrassed, he hands it to her.

Laura sets off with Mossie in tow, trying to avoid everyone. She is tentative at first. As she passes Bo, she growls, a perfect imitation of a dog growl so real it sounds like a recording, or as though it has come from Mossie. Laura examines Joe carefully and as soon as she’s clear of them she runs up through the forest, past the bat house in the direction of the cottage.

‘Did you get that?’ Bo asks Rachel.

‘Yep,’ she removes the camera from her shoulder, and wipes the perspiration from her forehead. ‘I got the blonde woman barking at you.’

‘Where did she go?’ Solomon asks.

‘There’s a cottage around the back of the bat house,’ Rachel explains. Bo is too busy reviewing her video footage to see if she captured the moment.

‘Do you know her?’ Solomon asks Joe, completely confused as to what happened but feeling the adrenaline running through his body and a light tremble within him.

‘She’s trespassing on private property,’ he huffs, the anger steaming off him.

‘Do you think Tom knew about her?’ Bo asks.

That question stumps him. His face goes from certainty, to confusion, to anger, betrayal, to disbelief once again. Then he’s sad. If his brother did know about this young woman living in the cottage on their land, then he was keeping it from him. The brothers with no secrets from each other, it turns out, had one very big one.

4

‘There’s only one way of finding the answers,’ Bo says, rolling up the sleeves of her black blouse to reveal her bronzed skin, as the sun continues to beat down overhead. ‘We have to talk to the girl.’

‘She’s not a girl. She’s a woman, and her name is Laura,’ Solomon says, not sure where the anger is coming from. ‘And I seriously doubt she’ll want to talk to us now after we scared the shit out of her.’

‘I didn’t know she was… that she had a… disability,’ Bo defends herself.

‘Disability?’ Solomon splutters.

‘Oh, come on, what’s the PC term?’ Bo searches. ‘Developmentally delayed, developmentally disabled, unsophisticated. Any of those please you? You know what I mean, I didn’t realise.’

‘Well, she ain’t exactly normal,’ Rachel says, sitting down on a rock, exhausted and sweating.

‘Whatever the word for her, there’s clearly something wrong with her, Solomon,’ Bo says, pushing her hair off her face and redoing the short ponytail in her hair, the excitement bursting from her. ‘If I’d known that, I would have approached her differently. Did you two talk? Apart from her telling you her name. You were there a while.’

‘I think what happens from here is Joe’s decision. It’s his land,’ Solomon says, ignoring Bo’s interview, his stomach grumbling.

Bo throws him an annoyed look.

Joe shuffles around, clearly very uncomfortable with this chain of events. Joe likes routine, for everything to remain the same. Already his day has been very stressful and emotional. ‘I want Mossie back,’ he says finally. ‘And she shouldn’t be living on my land.’

‘Squatters laws are tricky,’ Rachel says. ‘Friend of mine went through it. You have to get a court order to remove them.’

‘Did your friends get rid of the squatter?’ Solomon asks.

‘My friend was the squatter,’ Rachel replies.

Despite his frustration with what’s going on, Solomon smirks.

‘She has no right keeping my dog. I’m getting Mossie,’ Joe says, adjusting his cap and marching off toward the cottage.

‘Follow him,’ Bo says quickly, picking up Rachel’s camera and handing it to her, ignoring the exhausted glare. But as she’s doing that Joe runs out of steam.

‘Maybe it’s better a woman talks to her.’

‘Don’t look at me,’ Rachel warns Bo.

Apart from his mother, Bo, Rachel and Bridget, Joe hasn’t been around many women, and has rarely spoken to a woman for most of his life. Rachel is easy with all people but it took him some adjustments to get used to her, particularly as she’s not the kind of woman he’s used to; a woman married to another woman was a fact that boggled his mind on learning it. Joe doesn’t consider Bridget a woman, he doesn’t really consider her at all; and Bo is still a cause for some awkwardness because of her own social abilities, or lack thereof. Having to talk to another new woman would flummox him. Especially one so odd, who requires care, thought and understanding. The four go to the cottage, their movements less charged and aggressive than before.

Bo knocks on the door, while Rachel and Solomon wait outside.

‘What do you think?’ Solomon asks Rachel.

‘I’m fucking starving.’

‘Me too,’ Solomon rubs his face tiredly. ‘I can’t think straight.’

They watch as she knocks again.

‘If Bo was looking for a new story, then she sure as fuck found one. This is a whole new brand of crazy,’ Rachel says.

‘She won’t agree to an interview,’ Solomon says, watching the door.

‘You know Bo.’

He does. Bo has a way of convincing people who are so sure about not wanting to appear on camera into eventually speaking with her. When she really wants them, that is; the three interviews at the graveyard weren’t important so she hadn’t pursued them. Solomon and Rachel aren’t usually this listless when it comes to a project, but Bo’s typical filming style has severely altered today. She’s jumpy, grabbing at things, obviously without a plan.

Laura appears at the window but refuses to open the door.

‘Tell her I want Mossie,’ Joe says loudly, fidgeting, his hands in his pockets. He’s uncomfortable. It’s been an emotional day, having to bury his soulmate. A day spent out of his comfort zone, a break in his routine that has gone unchanged for over fifty years. His world has turned upside down. It’s taken its toll and he wants his dog and to get back to the safety of his farmhouse.

‘Please open the door, we just want to talk,’ Bo says.

Laura stares at Solomon from the window.

Then everyone looks at Solomon.

‘Tell her,’ Bo says to him.

‘What?’

‘She’s looking at you to see if it’s okay. Tell her that we only want to talk.’

‘Joe wants the dog,’ Solomon says honestly, and Rachel chuckles.

Laura disappears from the window.

‘Smooth,’ Rachel smirks. The two are now delirious from the lack of food.

Joe is about to bang on the door when it opens. Mossie runs out and she closes the door again and locks it.

Joe storms off while an excited Mossie dances around him, almost tripping him.

‘I’ll ring Jimmy,’ Joe grumbles as he passes. ‘He’ll sort her out.’

‘Wait, Joe,’ Bo calls after him.

‘Let it go,’ Rachel snaps. ‘I’m starving. Let’s head over to the hotel. Eat. Actual food. I need to call Susie. Then you can make a plan. I’m serious.’

Rachel rarely loses her temper. The only time she flares up is when something is disturbing her shot – people in the background making faces, or Solomon’s mic boom appearing in the frame – but when she does lose her temper everyone knows she means it. Bo knows she’s pushed them too far.

She gives in, for now.

Back at Gougane Barra Hotel, Solomon and Rachel dig into their dinners, not uttering a word, while Bo thinks aloud.

‘Tom must have known about this girl, right? He was the one who checked that area, that was part of his responsibility, checking the well a few times a week. You can’t check the well without noticing the cottage. Or the vegetable plot, or the goat and chickens. It would be impossible. And there’s the extra items of food on the shopping list, the bookshelves and the book from Bridget. Plus, Mossie knows her, so Tom must have brought him to visit her.’

‘He’s a dog,’ Solomon speaks for the first time since he started eating ten minutes ago. ‘Dogs wander. He could have met her himself.’

‘Good point.’

‘Met her,’ Rachel says. ‘Do dogs meet people? I guess they meet people who speak dog,’ she jokes, then stops laughing when the others don’t join in; Bo because she’s not listening, Solomon because he’s sensitive about mocking Laura. ‘Whatever. I’m going to call Susie.’ Rachel takes her plate of food with her to another table.

‘What is that thing she was doing? The noises?’ Bo asks Solomon. ‘Is it a Tourette’s thing? She growled and barked and chirped.’

‘As far as I know, people with Tourette’s don’t bark at people,’ Solomon says, licking the sticky sauce from his fingers before taking a bite of his pork ribs.

The sauce is all over his face. Bo looks at him in disgust, not understanding his absolute inability to function without food. She stops picking at her green salad.

‘You have your food now, why are you still snapping at me?’

‘I don’t think you handled today well.’

‘I think you’ve been jet-lagged, moody and irritable all day,’ she says. ‘Extra sensitive – which, for you, is saying a lot.’

‘You scared Laura.’

‘I scared Laura,’ she repeats, as she always does, as if saying the words again will help her to process them. She does the same during interviews with interviewees’ responses. It can be unsettling for them, as though she doesn’t believe them, but really it’s her trying to grasp what they’ve just said.

‘You could tell she was frightened. You could see a young woman, surrounded by four people in a forest. Three of us dressed in black for a funeral, like we’re ninjas. She was terrified, and you were filming.’

That set-up seems to occur to her suddenly. ‘Shit.’

‘Yes, shit.’ He sucks his fingers again and studies her. ‘What’s going on?’

‘What we saw today was remarkable. What that girl did-’

‘Laura.’

‘What Laura did, those sounds she made, it was like magic. And I don’t believe in magic. I’ve never heard anything like that before.’

‘Me neither.’

‘I got excited.’

‘You got greedy.’

Silence.

He finishes his rib, watches the news on the TV in the corner.

‘You know everyone keeps asking me what I’ve got coming out next,’ she says.

‘Yeah, they’re asking me too.’

‘I’ve got nothing. Nothing like The Toolin Twins. All these awards we’re getting – people are interested in my work now, I have to be able to follow it up.’

He’s known she’s been feeling the pressure, and he’s glad she’s finally admitting it.

‘You should be happy you made one thing that people like. Some people never get that. The reason you were successful in the first place is because you took your time. You found the right story, you were patient. You listened. Today was a mess, Bo. You were rushing around like a headless chicken. People would rather see something authentic and worthy, than something that’s been thrown together.’

‘Is that why you’re doing Fat Fit Club and Grotesque Bodies?’

The anger bubbles inside him as he tries to remain calm. ‘We’re talking about you, not me.’

‘I’m under pressure, Solomon.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘You can’t tell someone not to feel pressure.’

‘I just did.’

‘Solomon…’ She doesn’t know whether to laugh or be angry.

‘You lost yourself in the forest,’ he says. He hadn’t planned on saying it, it just popped out.

She studies him. ‘Who are you talking to? Me, or yourself?’

‘You, obviously,’ he says, then throws the rib down, it makes a louder sound than he intended, as the bone hits the ceramic plate, and he starts a new one.

Bo folds her arms, studying him for a moment. He doesn’t look at her, doesn’t say a word.

‘We both saw something fascinating in the forest. I jumped into action, you… froze.’

‘I didn’t freeze.’

‘What were you doing there, all that time, while I was at the cottage? Was she there the entire time?’

‘Fuck off, Bo.’

‘Well, it’s a valid question, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. We had sex. In the two minutes I was away from you, we had sex. Up against the tree.’

‘That’s not what I fucking mean and you know it.’

Wasn’t it?

‘I’m trying to figure her out and you’re not giving me anything. You must have had a conversation but you keep ignoring the question. She told you her name. You were alone with her before I got there, I want to know what you talked about…’

He ignores her; the desire to yell at the top of his lungs in front of everybody is too great. He buries the anger, buries it, buries it deep, until a simmer is all that remains. It’s as much as he can manage. He looks at Sky News but doesn’t see it.

Bo eventually leaves the table, and the room.

He could think about what Bo said, analyse it, understand it, look within himself for the answers. He could think about what he said and why, he could think about all of it. But he’s jet-lagged, hungry and pissed off, so instead he concentrates on the news on the TV, starting to hear the words coming from the presenter’s mouth, starting to see the words that scroll by at the bottom of the screen. When he finishes his last rib, he sucks his fingers dry of the sticky sauce and leans back in his chair, feeling bloated and satisfied.

‘Happy now?’ Rachel calls across the empty restaurant.

‘A night’s sleep and I’ll be grand.’ He yawns and stretches. ‘How’s Susie?’

‘A bit pissed off. Weather’s too hot. She can’t sleep. Feet and ankles are swollen up. Baby has a foot in her ribs. Think we’re going home tomorrow?’

Solomon takes a toothpick out of its packet and picks at the meat between his front teeth. ‘Hope so.’

He does want to go home, he knows that much is true. Because he feels spooked. Because he did lose himself in that forest. And Bo saw it happen. And just like Joe wanted to go back to his farmhouse, Solomon wants to return to Dublin, to the Grotesque Bodies show that he despises, to his apartment that constantly smells of curried fish wafting up from his neighbours. He wants normality. He wants to go where he’s used to not thinking about how he’s feeling, where no confusion or analysis is necessary, where he’s not drawn to people he knows he shouldn’t be, or to doing things he knows he shouldn’t do.

‘Are you asleep? Because your eyes are open,’ Rachel says, waving a rib across his eyeline, sending sauce flying on the table and floor. ‘Fuck.’

Bo comes running into the bar, with that look on her face, and her phone in her hand.

‘That was Jimmy – the garda we met earlier. He’s at the Toolin farm. Joe called him to go talk to that girl, but his car hit Mossie on the way up the track. The girl took Mossie into her cottage and she’s doing that crazy voice thing. She’s locked herself in and won’t let anyone near her or let anyone look at Mossie.’

Solomon looks at her in a ‘so what?’ kind of way. It’s all he can summon up, but inside his heart is beating wildly.

Bo fixes him with an intriguing look. ‘She’s asking for you, Sol.’

5

Jimmy is standing by his patrol car, doors open, garda radio on, car directed straight towards the trees at the bat house. It’s still daylight on this summer evening.

He lifts his arms in an apologetic way as they approach. ‘Mossie was running around the car, I didn’t see him.’

‘Where’s the girl now?’ Bo asks.

‘She grabbed the dog, carried it to the cottage, and now she won’t come out or let anyone in. She’s in a hysterical state. Joe said to call you.’

He looks as stunned as they had been when they first witnessed Laura’s vocal outburst.

‘She asked for Solomon?’ Bo asks, eager to move things along.

‘She asked for Tom first. Kept demanding I get him, that he could tell me who she is. I told her that he was dead and she went even more doolally. Then she mentioned Solomon.’

They were in the forest, both unable to break their gaze.

‘Hi,’ he said gently.

‘Hi,’ she said softly.

‘I’m Solomon.’

She’d smiled. ‘Laura.’

Bo is looking at him in that same uncertain way.

‘I told her my name before we had sex,’ he snaps. Jimmy prickles, Bo glares at him.

‘Are you going to get her?’ she asks.

‘Not if he’s going to arrest her.’

‘I’ve nothing to arrest her for. I need to talk to her, find out who she is and why she’s on Joe’s property. If she’s a squatter, those laws are complicated, and if Tom gave her permission, there’s not much we can do. I’m only here to put Joe’s mind at ease. And I went and hit the feckin’ dog,’ he says guiltily.

‘So what do you want me to do?’ Solomon asks, feeling the pressure build.

‘Go to the cottage and see what she wants,’ Bo says.

‘Okay, Jesus,’ he curses, running his fingers through his hair, retying it in a knot on the top of his head. He walks up the trail to the cottage; the other two follow him but stay close to the bat house when he goes to the cottage.

Solomon’s heart pounds as he approaches the door and he has no idea why. He wipes his clammy hands on his jeans, and prepares to knock but before he even lifts his hand, the door opens. He can’t see her, assumes she’s behind the door and so he steps inside. As soon as he’s in, the door closes. She locks the door and stands with her back to it, as if to reinforce it.

‘Hi,’ he says, shoving his hands into his pockets.

‘He’s by the fire,’ Laura says, eyes barely able to settle on him. She seems nervous, worried.

Even though she introduced herself earlier, Solomon is almost surprised to hear her speak. In the woods she had a wild girl feeling about her; here in her home she seems more real.

Mossie is lying on his side on a sheepskin rug before the log-burning stove, his chest rising and falling with his slow breaths. His eyes are open, though he seems unaware of what’s going on around him. The fire blazes beside him, a bowl of water and a bowl of food sit untouched by his head.

‘He’s not eating or drinking anything,’ she says, getting on the floor beside Mossie, arms over him, protecting him.

Solomon should be looking at the dog but he can’t take his eyes off her. She looks up at him, lost, worried, beautiful enchanting green eyes.

‘Is he bleeding?’ He goes to Mossie and slides beside him, opposite Laura, the closest they’ve been. ‘Hiya, boy.’ He places a hand on his fur and gently rubs.

Mossie looks at him, the pain obvious from his eyes. He whimpers.

Laura echoes Mossie’s whimper in an astonishing likeness that forces Solomon to study her again. ‘He’s not bleeding. I don’t know where his pain is, but he can’t stand.’

‘He should see a vet.’

She looks at him. ‘Will you take him?’

‘Me? Sure, but we could ask Joe, seeing as he’s his dog.’ And then, at the look on her face, he adds, ‘Too.’

‘Joe doesn’t like me,’ she says. ‘None of them like me.’

‘That’s not true. Joe isn’t used to change, that’s all. Change makes some people angry.’

‘Change with the change,’ she says, but her voice has drastically altered. It’s lower, deeper, Northern England, someone else’s.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Gaga. My grandmother. That’s what she used to say.’

‘Oh. Right. Will you come with me to the vet?’ he asks. He wants her to come with him.

‘No. No. I stay here.’

It is a general statement. Not, I will stay here. But I stay here. Always.

Her clear skin is illuminated by the firelight. It’s so calm and serene in this room, despite Mossie’s struggle to survive and Laura’s quiet panic.

She strokes Mossie’s belly, which moves up and down slowly.

‘When is the last time you left the mountain?’ he asks.

She hides her face behind her hair, uncomfortable with the question.

‘How long have you lived here?’ he asks.

She takes a while to answer the question. ‘Since I was sixteen. Ten years ago,’ she replies, stroking Mossie.

‘You haven’t left since then?’

She shakes her head. ‘I’ve had no reason to.’

He’s staggered by this. ‘Well, you have one now. Mossie would probably prefer it if you came with him,’ he says.

And as if in agreement Mossie breathes out, his body shuddering.

Bo is outside with Jimmy, pacing, making awkward conversation, watching the flickering fire in the windows, the scent of chimney smoke pumping from the cottage.

‘Interesting Joe never noticed the smoke.’ She looks up at the plume of smoke rising from the chimney.

Jimmy looks up, ‘I suppose farms are always burning something or other.’

Bo nods, good point. ‘So you don’t know who this girl is?’

‘I’ve never seen her before,’ he shakes his head. ‘And I’d know everyone around here. In a rural town like ours with a population of a few hundred, all spread around the mountains. It’s a mystery. My wife reckons she’s a tourist, not from around here, one of those hikers who stumbled across the cottage and stayed. We get a lot of them. Over the years a few have stayed. They fall in love with the place, or someone in the place, decide to put down roots here. She might not be here very long.’

Bo ponders that but his wife’s conclusion does nothing to quell Bo’s curiosity, only further fuels her multiplying questions. Why would Tom lie about renting the cottage? Was it for his own financial gain? She doubted that. She filmed on this mountain three years ago and Tom never brought them here, never even mentioned it. She guesses the girl has been there at least that long or they would have filmed here. ‘Why the secret?’ she asks, confused.

Jimmy looks thoughtful, but doesn’t reply.

The door to the cottage opens and Solomon appears. He fills the tiny doorframe with his physique. The firelight is behind him, he is a dark large shadow. He looks like a hero, carrying a dog from a blazing fire.

Bo smiles at the image.

Solomon turns and speaks to the girl behind him, encourages her to come outside.

‘Come on, Laura, it’s okay.’ And there’s something in the way that he says that, or looks as he says that, that causes Bo’s smile to freeze.

And then the girl appears, in a belted checked shirt-dress, with Converse and a chunky cardigan over it, her long blonde hair falling over her shoulders.

‘We’re going to take Mossie to the vet,’ Solomon tells them. ‘Where do we go?’

‘Patrick Murphy, in the main street. Surgery will be closed now, but I’ll give him a call,’ Jimmy says, studying Laura. ‘Hello, Laura,’ he says kindly, wanting to make up for his earlier approach.

Laura stares down at her Converses. She looks terrified. She reaches out and holds on to Solomon’s arm. She grips him so tightly, he can feel her body shaking.

‘We should go quickly, Garda.’ Solomon starts to move. ‘Mossie isn’t doing very well. I’m sure Joe would want him seen to first before anything else.’

‘Right so,’ Jimmy says, stepping back. ‘Laura, we can arrange to have an informal chat over the next few days. This lad can be here with you if you like.’

Head down, Laura continues to cling to Solomon’s arm, another protective hand on Mossie. She makes a sound that appears to be the crackle of a dispatch radio.

Jimmy frowns.

‘We can arrange a time for you and Laura to talk,’ Bo says to him, walking along with Laura and Solomon. ‘And perhaps you’ll agree to do the interview?’ She’d asked him to talk about finding Joe at the house when Tom was lying dead on the ground, she wanted to hear the peculiar scene explained by someone else. Now is a good time to negotiate. She’ll help him speak with Laura if he speaks with her.

Laura stops walking.

‘Come on,’ Solomon calls to her, gently, in a tone of voice that Bo has never heard him use with her, or with anyone for that matter.

Laura just stares at Bo, which puts Solomon in an incredibly difficult position, but this is getting ridiculous now. He’s exhausted, he wants to sleep. Mossie is getting heavier in his arms.

‘Jimmy, would you mind driving Bo to our hotel, please?’ He avoids Bo’s eye as he asks. ‘I’ll meet you there later, Bo.’

Her mouth falls open.

‘You told me to help,’ he snaps, following the trail that leads to their parked car, adjusting the dog in his arms. ‘I’m helping.’

Laura sits in the back of the car with Mossie. The dog lies across the seat, his head on her lap. Bo gets into the garda car, a scowl on her face. It would be a funny sight if Solomon were capable of being remotely amused by what is happening.

‘Thank you, Solomon,’ Laura says, so quietly that Solomon’s body immediately relaxes and the anger leaves him.

‘You’re welcome.’

Laura is quiet in the car, whimpering occasionally along with Mossie in what he guesses is a show of support. He turns the radio on, lowers it, then decides against it and turns it off. The vet is thirty minutes away.

‘Why was the garda there?’ she asks.

‘Joe called him. He wanted to find out who you are and figure out why you’re living there.’

‘Have I done something wrong?’

‘I don’t know, you tell me,’ he laughs. She doesn’t and he gets serious again. ‘You are living in a cottage on Joe’s land, without his knowledge, that’s… well, it’s illegal.’

Her eyes widen. ‘But Tom told me I could.’

‘Well, that’s okay then, that’s all you need to tell them.’ He pauses. ‘Do you have that agreement on paper? A lease?’

She shakes her head.

He clears his throat, she copies him, which is quite off-putting, but her innocent face suggests no malice, nor any sign that she’s even aware of what she did.

‘Were you paying him rent?’

‘No.’

‘Right. So you asked him if you could live there and he said you could.’

‘No. Gaga asked him.’

‘Your grandmother? Could she support you on that?’ he asks.

‘No.’ She looks down at Mossie and strokes him. She kisses his head and nuzzles into him. ‘Not from where she is.’

Mossie whimpers and closes his eyes.

‘Is it true that Tom is dead?’ she asks.

‘Yes,’ he says, watching her in the mirror. ‘Sorry. He had a heart attack on Thursday.’

‘Thursday,’ she says quietly.

They park in the main street and knock on the surgery door. There’s no answer but the front door to the attached house opens and a man appears, wiping his mouth with a napkin, the smell of a home roast drifts out the door to them.

‘Oh hello, hi,’ he says. ‘Jimmy called me. Emergency, is it?’ he asks, seeing Mossie in Solomon’s arms. ‘Come in, come in.’

Solomon sits outside the surgery while Laura goes inside. He leans his elbows on his thighs and rests his head in his hands. His head is spinning, the ground is moving from the jet lag.

When the surgery door opens, Laura appears with tears rolling down her cheeks. She sits beside Solomon, without a word.

‘Come here,’ he whispers, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him. Another loss in her week. He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, but he would happily remain that way if the vet wasn’t standing at the open door patiently waiting for them to gather themselves and leave so he can to return to his family after a long day.

‘Sorry.’ Solomon removes his arm from around Laura’s shoulders. ‘Let’s go.’

Outside in the now dark night, music drifts from the local pub.

‘I could really do with a pint,’ he says. ‘Want to join me?’

A fire-escape door opens at the side of the bar and a bottle goes flying outside and lands in a recycling skip, smashing against the others inside.

Laura mimics the smashing sound.

He laughs. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

They sit outside the pub, at one of the wooden picnic tables, around the corner from the gang of smokers. When Solomon pulled the door open, and all the heads turned to stare at the two strangers, Laura quickly backed away. Solomon was relieved to not have to sit inside and be examined by the locals. Now she sits with a glass of water, while he drinks a pint of Guinness.

‘Never drink?’ he asks.

She shakes her head, the movement causing the ice to clink against the glass. She imitates the sound of the ice perfectly. It’s something Solomon still can’t wrap his head around, though he’s unsure of how to broach the subject; it’s as though she doesn’t even notice.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks. ‘Tom and Mossie – that’s a lot to lose in one week.’

‘One day,’ she says. ‘I only learned about Tom tonight.’

‘Sorry you had to hear it that way,’ Solomon says softly, thinking of how Jimmy had blurted it out.

‘Tom used to bring the shopping on Thursdays. When he didn’t come, I knew something was wrong, but I had no one to ask. I thought Joe was Tom today in the forest. I’ve never seen him before. They’re identical. But he was so angry. I’d never seen Tom so angry.’

‘You’ve lived there for ten years and you’ve never seen Joe?’

She shakes her head. ‘Tom wouldn’t allow it.’

He’s about to ask why, but stops himself. ‘Joe’s grieving, he’s usually more accommodating. Give him time.’

She sips her water, concerned.

‘So you haven’t eaten anything since Thursday,’ Solomon suddenly realises.

‘I have the fruit-and-veg patch, the eggs. I bake my own bread. I have enough but Tom likes… liked… to supply some extras. I was foraging when I saw you.’ She smiles shyly at him as she remembers how they met. He smiles too and then laughs at himself for his schoolboy feelings.

‘Jesus, let me get you some food. What do you want, burger and chips? I’ll get some for me too.’ He stands and looks across the road to the chipper. ‘It’s been a whole two hours since I ate.’

She smiles.

He expects her to mill into her food, but she doesn’t. Everything about her is calm and slow. She delicately picks at the chips with her long elegant fingers, occasionally studying one before she takes a bite.

‘You don’t like them?’

‘I don’t think there’s any potato in it,’ she says, dropping it to the greasy paper and giving up. ‘I don’t eat this kind of food.’

‘Unlike Tom.’

Her eyes widen. ‘I always told him to fix his diet. He wouldn’t listen.’ She looks sad again as the news of his death and her loss sinks in further.

‘Joe and Tom aren’t the types to listen to anybody,’ Solomon senses her blaming herself.

‘He once told me he had a ham sandwich for dinner and I gave him such a lecture about it when he came back the next week he was so proud to tell me he’d had a banana sandwich that day instead. He thought the fruit would be healthier.’

They both laugh.

‘Perhaps I was wrong,’ Solomon says gently, ‘he did listen to somebody.’

‘Thanks,’ she says.

‘How did your grandmother know Tom?’ Solomon asks.

‘You ask a lot of questions.’

He thinks about it. ‘I do. It’s how I make conversation. How do you make conversation?’ he asks and they both laugh.

‘I don’t. Apart from Tom I never have anybody to talk to. Not people, anyway.’ Somebody at the table around the corner stands, pushing aside the bench, which screeches against the ground. She imitates the sound. Once, twice, until she gets it right. The bar girl clearing the table beside them gives her a funny look.

‘I have fine conversations with myself,’ Laura continues, not noticing the look or not caring. ‘And with Mossie and Ring. And inanimate objects.’

‘You wouldn’t be alone in that.’ He smiles, watching her, completely intrigued.

She makes a new sound, one that makes him laugh. It sounds like a phone vibrating.

‘What is that?’ he asks.

‘What?’ She frowns.

And then suddenly he hears the sound again and it’s not coming from Laura’s lips, though he has to study her closely. He feels his phone vibrating in his pocket.

‘Oh.’ He reaches into his pocket and takes out his phone.

Five missed calls from Bo, followed by three messages of varying desperation.

He puts it face down on the table, ignoring it.

‘How did you know Tom?’

‘More questions.’

‘Because I find you intriguing.’

‘I find you intriguing.’

‘Ask me something then.’ He smiles.

‘Some people learn about people in other ways.’ Her eyes sear into him so much his heart pounds.

‘Okay.’ He clears his throat and she imitates the sound perfectly again. ‘We – me, Bo and Rachel – made a documentary about Joe and Tom. We spent a year with them, watching their every move, or at least that’s what we thought. You seemed to elude us. My experience of Joe and Tom is that they had no contact with anybody at all, apart from suppliers and customers, and even then it was rare for it to be human contact. It was just them, every day, all their lives. I’m not sure how Tom would have met your grandmother.’

‘She met him through my mum, who brought them food and provisions. She cleaned their house.’

‘Bridget’s your mother?’

‘Before Bridget.’

‘How long ago are we talking?’ Solomon asks, leaning in to her, enthralled, whether she’s spinning bullshit or not. He happens to think it’s the truth. He wants to think it’s the truth.

‘Twenty-six years ago,’ she says. ‘Or a little bit more than that.’

He looks at her, slowly processing. Laura is twenty-six years old. Tom did her grandmother a favour. Her mother was a housekeeper at their house twenty-six years ago.

‘Tom was your dad,’ he says in a low voice.

Despite knowing this, him saying it aloud seems to unsettle her and she looks around, imitating the clink of glasses, the smash of bottles in the recycling bin, the cracking ice. All sounds overflowing and overlapping each other as a sign of her distress.

He’s so shocked that his summation is true. He places his hand over hers. ‘I’m even more sorry you had to learn about his death like that.’

She imitates the sound of him clearing his throat, even though he hasn’t made the sound; she has linked it to his feeling of awkwardness, is perhaps telling him she feels uncomfortable, is trying to show him how she feels, connect it to those moments when he feels like that. Perhaps there is a language in her mimicry. Perhaps he’s losing his mind completely, investing such time and belief in someone that Bo considered unsophisticated, or developmentally delayed. But there doesn’t seem to be anything unsophisticated about the woman who sits before him right now. If anything she operates and communicates on more levels and layers than he’s ever experienced.

‘Laura, why did you ask for me tonight?’

She looks at him, those bewitching green eyes. ‘Because, apart from Tom, you’re the only person I know.’

Solomon has never ever been the only person that someone knows. It seems to him to be an odd thing, but a beautifully intimate thing. And something that isn’t to be taken lightly. It’s something that carries huge responsibility. Something to cherish.

6

The following morning the film crew are in Joe’s kitchen. Joe is sitting silently in his chair. Ring is by his feet, mourning the loss of his friend.

Bo has revealed to him, as gently as she could, that Laura is Tom’s daughter. He hasn’t said a word, made absolutely no comment whatsoever. He’s lost in his head, perhaps running through all the conversations, all the moments he could have missed this information, the moments he was possibly deceived, wondering how Tom could have lived a life he never knew about.

It breaks Solomon’s heart; he can’t even watch him. He holds the boom mic in the air, looking away, out of respect, trying to give Joe as much privacy in this moment as he can, despite three people invading his home and a camera pointed at his face. Of course Solomon was against revealing this news to Joe on camera, but the producer has the final say.

‘Laura’s mother, Isabel, was your housekeeper over twenty-six years ago.’

He looks at Bo then, coming alive. ‘Isabel?’ he barks.

‘Yes, do you remember her?’

He thinks back. ‘She wasn’t with us very long.’

Silence, his brain ticks over, sliding through the memory files.

‘Do you recall Tom and Isabel being particularly close?’

‘No.’ Silence. ‘No.’ Again. ‘Well, he’d…’ He clears his throat. ‘You know, he’d do the same as with Bridget: pay her for the cleaning and the provisions. I’d be out on the land. I’d not much to do with that.’

‘So you’d no idea about a love affair between them?’

It’s as though that expression occurs to him for the first time. The only way for Tom to have become a father was to have had a love affair. Something they both had said they’d never had. Two virgins at seventy-seven years old.

‘This girl is sure about that?’

‘After Isabel died, her grandmother revealed to her that Tom was her father. Laura’s grandmother, who was ailing herself, made an arrangement with Tom for Laura to live at the cottage.’

‘He knew about her then,’ Joe says, as if that’s been the burning question the whole time but he was afraid to ask.

‘Tom only learned she was his daughter after Isabel’s death, ten years ago. The cottage was modernised as much as was possible, by Tom, though there’s no electricity or hot running water. Laura has been living there alone ever since.’ Bo consults her notes. ‘Laura’s grandmother Hattie Murphy reverted to her maiden name Button after her husband’s death. Isabel changed her name too, and so Laura calls herself Laura Button. Hattie died nine years ago, six months after Laura moved to the cottage.’

Joe nods. ‘So she’s on her own then.’

‘She is.’

He ponders that. ‘She’ll be expecting his share then, I suppose.’

Solomon looks at him.

‘His share of…’

‘The land. Tom made a will. She’s not in it. If that’s what she’s looking for.’

The infamous Irish hunger for land rises in him.

‘Laura hasn’t mentioned anything about wanting a share of the land. Not to us.’

Joe is agitated; Bo’s comments don’t do much to calm him. It’s as though he’s readying himself for a fight. His land, his farm is his life, it’s all he has ever known his entire life. He’s not going to give any of it up for his brother’s lie.

‘Perhaps Tom had planned to talk to you about her,’ Bo says.

‘Well, he didn’t,’ he says with a nervous, angry laugh. ‘Never said a word.’ Silence. ‘Never said a word.’

Bo gives him a moment.

‘Knowing what you know now, will you allow Laura to continue living at the cottage?’

He doesn’t respond. He seems lost in his head.

‘Would you like to start a relationship with her?’ she asks gently.

Silence. Joe is completely still though his mind is most likely not.

Bo looks at Solomon uncertain as to how to proceed.

‘Perhaps a relationship is too much for you to think about now. Perhaps it would be simpler to consider whether you will continue to support her, as Tom did?’

His hands grip the armrests, Solomon watches the colour drain from his knuckles.

‘Joe,’ Bo says gently, leaning forward. ‘You know this means that you’re not alone. You have family. You’re Laura’s uncle.’

Joe stands up from the chair then, fiddling with the microphone on his lapel. His hands are shaking and he’s clearly upset, becoming irritated by the film crew’s presence now, as if they have brought this nuisance into his life.

‘That’s that,’ he says, dropping the mic to the thin cushion on the wooden chair. ‘That’s that now.’

It’s the first time he has walked out on them.

The crew move to Laura’s cottage. Laura sits in her armchair, the same checked shirt-dress tied at the waist with a belt, and a tattered pair of Converse. Her long hair has been recently washed and is drying, there isn’t a stitch of make-up on her clear, beautiful skin.

The camera is off, Rachel is outside with the gear, on the phone to Susie. The day is drizzly, unlike yesterday’s heatwave, and Solomon wonders how she survives in this place in the depths of winter when even his modern Dublin city apartment feels depressing. As Bo talks, Laura watches Solomon. With Bo in the room, this makes it somewhat awkward for him. He clears his throat.

Laura mimics him.

He shakes his head and smiles.

Bo misses what passes between them as she prepares for her conversation. ‘So, bearing in mind we don’t know how much of an assistance Joe will be to you, moving forward, we’d like, Solomon and I…’

He closes his eyes as she mentions him. It’s a ploy to build Laura’s trust by portraying herself as an ally to Solomon and therefore an ally to Laura. Technically, it’s true; she is, after all, his girlfriend. But it still feels like a ploy.

‘We’d like to make a suggestion. We’d like to offer to help you. I feel you and I got off to a wrong start – and let me explain why. I apologise profusely for how I behaved when I first met you. I got excited.’ Bo places her hand on her heart as she speaks completely honestly, meaning every word. ‘I’m a documentary maker. A couple of years ago, I followed your father and uncle for a year.’

Solomon notices how Laura flinches at that, as if equally uncomfortable with the truth as Joe is.

‘They are, were, fascinating people and their story spread all over the world. Aired in twenty countries, I have it here. This is an iPad; if you do this…’ She swipes carefully, looking at Laura then back to the iPad to see if she understands.

Laura mimics the iPad clicking sounds.

‘Then you press this to watch it.’ Bo touches the screen and the film starts playing.

She allows Laura to watch it for a moment.

‘I’d love to make a documentary about you. We’d love to film you here at the cottage, get a sense of who you are and how you live your life.’

Laura looks at Solomon. He’s about to clear his throat but stops himself. Laura does it instead, sounding like him. Bo still doesn’t notice.

‘There is a fee, but it’s small. I have the terms here.’

Bo takes a page from her folder and hands it to her.

Laura looks at the page blankly.

‘I’ll leave this with you, for you to decide.’

Bo looks at the piece of paper, wondering if she should explain it any further, or if doing so would seem patronising. With Solomon standing behind her shoulder, judging her, maybe not deliberately but she feels the judgement, this cold air that comes from him when she does or says something. She does appreciate that he has a better way with negotiating certain situations but she also wants the freedom to be able to act as she deems appropriate, without fearing or dreading the feedback, the sensing the disapproval and disappointment. Of always letting him down. Of having to check herself. She doesn’t want any more cold air between them, but mostly she doesn’t like to have to second-guess herself at a job that she knows she’s more than capable of doing. In ways, it was easier when their relationship was platonic. She cared more about what he thought, rather than what he thinks of her.

She’s sitting on the edge of her chair, too much in Laura’s space. She pushes herself back and tries to appear relaxed, waits for a positive answer.

Laura is watching the first few minutes of video of her father and uncle on the iPad.

‘I don’t think that I’d like people to know about me,’ Laura says and Solomon is surprised by his relief.

He would never consider their documentaries exploitive, but he’s proud of Laura for sticking to what feels right to her, not being swayed by attention and fame as so many people are. Rarely does Bo have to convince anybody to say anything on camera, she dangles a camera in front of them and they jump to attention, ready for their five minutes of fame. He likes that Laura is different. She’s normal. She’s a normal person who appreciates her anonymity, who values privacy. That, and something else.

‘You don’t have to share anything with us that you don’t want,’ Bo says. ‘Joe and Tom allowed us to follow them and see how they lived and communicated with each other but I don’t think they felt we crossed any boundaries. We had a very well understood agreement, that as soon as they felt uncomfortable, we’d stop filming.’

Like this morning, in Joe’s kitchen. It made Bo feel unwell, as though she’d had a falling out with a friend.

Laura looks relieved. ‘I like to be by myself. I don’t want -’ she looks at the iPad, and newspaper articles and magazine reviews on the table, ‘I don’t want all of that.’

She pulls the sleeves of her cardigan over her wrists and scrunches them between her fingers, and hugs herself, as if she’s cold.

‘Understood,’ Solomon says and looks at Bo, an air of finality to it. ‘We respect your decision. But before we go, we brought you some things.’

Solomon carries the shopping bags over to her and places them on the floor beside her. He’d probably gone overboard but he didn’t want her to be left with nothing, especially if Bridget sides with Joe and doesn’t continue to provide for Laura. He’d run across to the local tourist shop, bought as many blankets, T-shirts, jumpers as he could. He couldn’t imagine how cold it got in here, wind whistling through the holes in the walls, the old windows, while bats are flying metres from her door.

Bo hadn’t commented on his purchases. She’d stayed in the car checking emails, while he’d filled the boot with shopping bags. It’s only now that Bo looks at the amount he places down, takes them in, and looks at him in surprise. He’s embarrassed but she’s impressed by his effort. In Bo’s opinion, it could go a long way to convincing Laura to work with them.

‘I thought it could get very cold up here,’ Solomon explains, awkwardly, faffing his hands over the tops of the bags and muttering about their contents.

Bo smiles, trying to hold in her laugh at her boyfriend’s discomfort.

‘Thank you so much for all of these things,’ Laura says, peering in the bags, then addressing Solomon. ‘It’s far too much. I don’t think I could eat all of this on my own.’

‘Well, there’s three people here who’d love to help you,’ Bo jokes casually, still pushing, always pushing.

‘I’ll have to give them all back to you,’ she says to Solomon and then to Bo. ‘I can’t do your documentary.’

‘They’re for you,’ Solomon says firmly, ‘whether you do it or not.’

‘Yes, yes, keep them,’ Bo says, distracted.

While Solomon is getting ready to leave, doing the thing where he doesn’t want to push, doesn’t want to be seen as being rude, in the way, Bo prepares. That part of it never bothers Bo, it’s a momentary awkwardness in an overall larger picture. Bo feels it in her gut that she can’t let Laura go. She’s a fascinating, beautiful, interesting, ferociously intriguing girl, none of which she has seen the likes of before. Not only has she a personal life that is ripe for storytelling but a unique characteristic which is visually splendid. The girl is perfect. While Solomon says his goodbye to Laura, Bo lags behind, taking her time tidying her paperwork up. Placing the newspaper photocopies in a neat pile, running through her head what she can say next.

‘You go ahead, Sol, I’ll be out in a minute,’ Bo says, placing her folder in her bag, slowly.

Solomon leaves, and closes the door behind him.

Dark disapproving boyfriend gone.

Bo looks up at Laura and the girl looks so forlorn, as though she’s about to start crying.

‘What’s wrong?’ Bo asks, surprised.

‘Nothing, I… nothing,’ she says, a little breathlessly. She stands up and moves across the room, to her kitchenette. She pours herself a cup of water and drinks it down in one.

She’s a peculiar girl. Bo wants to know everything about her. She wants to see the world from her eyes, walk in her shoes, she needs Laura to say yes. She cannot lose her. Bo knows that she is passionate about her work, that it borders on obsessed, but that’s what it takes for her to fully understand her subject. She has to absorb herself in his or her life, she wants to do that. Bo was searching for something new after The Toolin Twins, and here it is, the natural birth of a new story has quite literally emerged from the first story. It’s perfect, it’s right, it has potential to be even better than The Toolin Twins. It’s Bo’s job to make other people see what she sees, to feel what she feels. She must make Laura see that.

‘Laura,’ she says gently. ‘I respect your decision not to take part, but I want to make sure you are seeing the whole picture. I want to help you think this through. This week has obviously been a big week for you, a time of huge change in your life, with the passing of your dad.’

Laura looks down, her long eyelashes brush her cheekbones. Bo notes the reaction when she refers to Tom as her dad, to Joe as her uncle, she needs to be careful when using it. They’re not terms Laura is comfortable with and she wants to know why. Why, why, why! It seems that this girl is built entirely on secrets; created on one, born on one, reared on one, exists on one. Bo wants to break the chain.

‘It’s a new beginning for you. Your life is moving on. There is uncertainty as to whether Joe will allow you to live here, and if he does, uncertainty as to whether he will assist you in living the life you have been living for the past ten years. I don’t know if Joe will take on Tom’s role of acting as an intermediary with Bridget for you, getting your provisions, and paying for them, because I assume Tom covered the costs?’

She nods.

‘If Joe doesn’t, how will you get to the shops with no car? Do you have money? Can you pay for food? Tom, as helpful as he was to you, really did leave you in a very vulnerable situation.’ She leads into the next sentence gently. ‘There isn’t a mention of you in Tom’s will. He has left his share to Joe. Perhaps he intended on discussing your presence here with Joe, but he never did.’

She leaves that to sink in with Laura, who has now reached out to grip the back of the chair tightly. Her eyes dart around the room, deep in thought, everything that has been her world possibly dissolving right in front of her.

‘If you take part in this documentary, we can help you. The three of us will be here, we can bring you whatever you need. We can even help you get set up somewhere else if that’s what you want. Whatever you want, we can help you. You’re not alone. You’ll have me, Rachel and of course… you’ll have Solomon, who I can tell is so fond of you,’ Bo adds, with a smile.

7

‘She’s in!’ Bo sings, from the trail, making her way to where Solomon and Rachel are waiting by the car.

‘What?’ Rachel says, looking at Solomon. ‘He just said she’s out.’

‘Well it’s happening now!’ Bo raises her hand in the air for a high-five. They both stare at her.

‘Ah, come on, don’t leave me hanging.’

Rachel high-fives her, with a surprised laugh. ‘You are unbelievable. You truly are a piece of work.’

Bo raises her eyebrows, enjoying the praise, hand still in the air and waiting for Solomon.

He folds his arms. ‘I’m not high-fiving anything until you tell me how you changed her mind.’

Bo drops her hand and rolls her eyes. ‘Would you ask another producer that question? Or just me? Because I would like to have the same respect from you as you would give to somebody else, don’t you think that’s fair?’

‘If I was in the room with a producer who got a clear no, and then I left, and he got a yes, then yes, I would ask him.’

‘Why is the producer immediately a him?’ Bo asks.

‘Or her. Who gives a fuck? What did you do to make her say yes?’

‘Okay guys, before you both go off on one, can we first get some of the logistics straight,’ Rachel grabs their attention. ‘I really have to get home to Susie – we have an anatomy scan on Friday, I will not miss it,’ she says, fully serious. ‘I need to know what’s happening. Is there a plan?’

Bo looks at both of them, her eyes wide in shock. ‘Guys,’ she says, exasperated. ‘Can we quit the moaning for a second and embrace, truly acknowledge the fact that we have the subject of a new documentary, confirmed. Can we not ruin the moment right now with a thousand questions, and celebrate?’ She looks at both of them. ‘We’re ready to go again. Whoo! Come on!’ she tries to jazz them up until they eventually cave in and celebrate with her, in a group hug, Rachel and Solomon momentarily hiding their reservations.

‘Congratulations you relentless little shit,’ Solomon says, kissing her.

She laughs. ‘Thank you! Finally, the recognition I deserve.’

‘So…’ Rachel says.

‘I know, I know, Susie,’ Bo says thinking it through. ‘Of course you need to get back to her. My feeling is that all the signs are pointing to filming now,’ Bo says. ‘The weather, for a start. We’ve been here in winter, it’s murky, it’s complicated. Rachel, you slipped on your ass more times than I care to remember and, while it was hilariously funny, it was dangerous – as you pointed out.’

Solomon chuckles.

‘And while I want to film what it’s like for Laura living here in all seasons, because I think that’s important, I want to get the principal stuff done now. I want to show people how we found her. Sleeping Beauty in her hidden cottage in the forest. I want the colour, I want light, I want these sounds,’ she says, seeing it all. ‘It’s a summer vibe. Thirdly, if we leave it too long, there’s a chance Laura will change her mind. I want her immediate thoughts, wishes, dreams, not something she’s figured out a few months down the road. Her life has changed now – bam! We need to follow her now, when she’s right on the cusp. And finally, I don’t know how long Joe is going to allow her to live here. If we leave he may just kick her out of the cottage, if we’re here he might be more likely to allow her to stay.

‘So, bearing that all in mind, we go home today, gather ourselves, I’ll prepare the paperwork, Rachel you gather the equipment, and we’ll return Sunday evening. We begin filming here on Monday for a two-week shoot, tops.’

They all agree.

‘Rachel I know that Susie’s due date is three weeks away, if for whatever reason you have to leave…’ Bo says, starting to think of replacement camera people she’s worked with. ‘I could call Andy and see if-’

‘Andy’s a dickhead, his filming is deeply inferior to mine. Don’t replace me with Andy. It would be an insult. Don’t replace me with anyone,’ Rachel says firmly. ‘This is a story,’ Rachel says, pointing up the mountain to the cottage. ‘I want to work on this.’

At Rachel’s show of support, Solomon feels goosebumps rise on his skin. He’s never heard her so enthusiastic, nor has he felt this way about a project before. They are all eager to begin, hankering to dive into discovering Laura’s story. Buzzing with excitement Bo returns to the cottage to discuss the filming schedule with Laura, however, she emerges moments later with less energy.

‘She’s changed her mind,’ Solomon guesses, feeling his stomach drop.

‘Not quite. She’s panicking. She’s doing the noise thing. She wants you, Sol. Again.’

Solomon closes the door to the cottage. Laura is standing, pacing the small area between her bed, the kitchenette and the living area.

‘Hi,’ he says.

She mimics a sound and he doesn’t know what it is until he closes the door and it is exactly the sound she has just made. The latch closing. Her sounds may be things she desires to happen, Solomon adds this observation to his list of studies.

‘I thought it would be starting tomorrow,’ she says, nervously twisting her fingers.

‘The documentary?’

‘Yes.’

‘No, I’m sorry. It can’t happen instantly. We have to go home, and prepare for the shoot but there’s no need to worry, we’ll be back on Monday for two weeks.’

‘When are you leaving?’ she asks, pacing the room.

‘Today,’ he says. ‘Laura what’s wrong?’

‘If you go, I’ll be here alone.’

She starts to make noises, agitated. Bird sounds, distressed.

‘It’s only five days. You’re always here alone.’

‘Joe doesn’t want me here.’

‘We don’t know that Joe doesn’t want you here,’ Solomon says. ‘He’s in shock, it will take him a bit of time.’

‘But what if he comes over here, when you’re gone, and wants me to leave. What if the garda comes back? What will I do? Where will I go? I don’t know anyone. I don’t have anyone.’

‘You can call me, if that happens. Here,’ he roots around in his pockets for a pen and paper. ‘I’ll give you my number.’

‘How will I call you? I don’t have a phone.’

He stalls, the pen hovering over the page.

‘Please stay. I’d like to film tomorrow,’ she says, swallowing nervously. ‘If this is going to happen, it has to happen tomorrow,’ she says, trying to toughen up.

‘We can’t film tomorrow, Laura,’ he says gently. ‘Look, it’s okay. Please calm down. I have to get to my mam’s this weekend. She’s seventy. She lives in Galway, I can’t miss it. Rachel, the one with the camera, her wife is pregnant, she has to get home to her, and Bo, she’s the director, producer, she’s got a lot of work to do for next week, planning, paperwork, a lecture, that kind of thing. We need more equipment, there’s paperwork to be done, permission to be granted, there’s no way we could start tomorrow.’

‘Can I go with you?’ she asks.

He stares at her in shock, unable to think of how to reply. ‘You want to…’

‘Can I stay with you? I can’t stay here any more. It’s all been changed. I have to… change with the changes.’

She’s panicking, her mind working overtime.

‘Relax, Laura, it’s okay, everything’s okay, nothing’s changed.’ He goes to her, holds her by her arms, gently, tries to get her to look at him. His heart is pounding; just feeling her is sending him into a spin. She looks at him and those grassy eyes probe into him, into his very soul.

‘My dad’s dead,’ she looks at him, eyes piercing. ‘My dad is dead. And I never even called him dad. I never even knew if he knew that I was his daughter. We never even…’ The tears spill down her cheeks.

‘Oh, come here,’ he whispers, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close to him so that her head is against his chest and she is completely enveloped in his love and care.

‘How can a place be a home if no one wants you there?’ she asks through her tears. ‘This is not a home.’

He can’t answer that.

He’s the only person she knows. He can’t leave her here.

‘What. The. Fuck,’ Bo says, sitting up, as Solomon walks towards her and Rachel with bags in his hands, closely followed by Laura.

‘She’s coming with us,’ he says, avoiding Bo’s stare, as he puts the bags in the boot of the car.

‘What?’ Bo joins him.

‘She’s scared here. She doesn’t want to wait on her own until we get back. I wonder who scared the shit out of her, Bo,’ he says through his teeth at her, the veins pulsating in his neck. He’s really angry.

‘But – you have to go to your parents’ house.’

‘Yes, and I’ll have to take her with me. She won’t go with you to Dublin,’ he mutters, trying to slot her shopping bags and suitcase into the boot among their recording equipment.

He waits for Bo to tell him no way, this is ridiculous, she is not allowing her boyfriend to travel with a young, beautiful strange woman to his family party, but instead when he looks up, she’s grinning broadly.

‘Laura,’ she calls, holding two thumbs up. ‘This is the best news. The best.’

8

‘Snow White!’ Bo announces, slamming her beer bottle down on the table in the hotel bar, more loudly than she’d intended.

Rachel laughs. Solomon shakes his head and reaches for the bowl of peanuts.

‘Seriously, she’s like a real-life Snow White,’ she says excitedly. ‘I could definitely pitch that. Lives in the forest, sings to the fucking animals.’

Solomon and Rachel can’t help but laugh at that, and at Bo’s intensity. Bo’s tipsy, her eyes are shining, her cheeks are rosy as they discuss plans for the documentary. Instead of going home, Bo managed to talk Rachel into staying for two more days. They’ll stay at the hotel in Gougane Barra for two nights, film during the day at the cottage, go their separate ways for the weekend, return to Cork on Sunday night. She can’t help herself and her excitement is contagious, both Solomon and Rachel find it impossible to say no. Laura is upstairs in her bedroom, a connecting room to theirs, which they’d filmed her entering. Bo had filmed everything. Laura’s first baby-steps into the big bad world, not that there had been anything dramatic to capture. Laura hadn’t been raised by wolves, she knew how to handle herself. Everything remained inside of her, contained. Rachel captured Laura sitting in the car, for the first time in ten years, the cottage disappearing in the background behind the bat house. Laura didn’t look back, though she mimicked the engine starting up. When Laura left the Toolin property her face never changed. She quietly, slowly absorbed everything around her; it was calming to watch, as hypnotic as watching a new born baby. And while everything seemed locked inside of her, her sounds seeped out and revealed a little about her.

‘I feel like we have a child,’ Bo had joked to Solomon, about the connecting room, before shuddering.

‘If Laura is Snow White, who is the evil witch who locked her up?’ Rachel asks.

‘Her grandmother,’ Solomon replies, his tongue feeling loose. Considering he’d been falling asleep all day, he’s wide awake now. ‘But not evil. If anything, well-intentioned.’

‘All evil people think they’re well-intentioned in some shape or form,’ Bo says. ‘Manson thought his murders would precipitate the apocalyptic race war… What about Rapunzel?’

‘What about Mowgli?’ Rachel jokes.

Bo ignores her. ‘Trapped in a cottage, on the top of a mountain, cut off from the world. And she has long blonde hair and is beautiful,’ she adds. ‘Not that it should make a difference, but it does and we all know it.’ She points a finger in both Solomon and Rachel’s faces to prevent them from objecting, not that they were going to.

‘I don’t know why you’re going for Disney movies,’ Rachel says. ‘Is it a commercial thing?’

‘Because this feels fairytale-like. Laura has that ethereal feel, other-worldly, don’t you think?’

Of course Solomon agrees, he’s felt that all along and perhaps he was wrong, foolish even, to think that he was the only one who was affected by Laura.

‘She talks to animals and birds,’ Bo offers. ‘That’s quite Disney.’

‘De Niro talked to the mirror,’ Rachel suggests. ‘Shirley Valentine to the wall.’

‘Not quite the same thing,’ Bo smiles.

‘She doesn’t talk to them, she imitates them,’ Solomon explains. ‘There’s a difference.’

‘The imitator. The imitatress.’

‘Gendered titles, from a feminist such as yourself. You should be ashamed,’ Rachel teases, signalling the barman for another round.

‘Echoes of Laura.’

‘Perfect,’ Rachel says. ‘For True Movies.’

‘She mimics,’ Solomon says, thinking aloud. ‘She repeats things that she hasn’t heard before, a few times, until she gets it right. Maybe it’s to understand them. She makes distressed sounds when she feels endangered, like the barking, growling, car alarm sounds when we first met her. She associates those sounds with danger or defence.’

They’re both hanging on to his analysis.

‘Interesting,’ Rachel nods along. ‘I hadn’t realised there was a language to it.’

‘Hadn’t you?’ Solomon asks. It had seemed clear to him. The sounds were all different. Sympathetic when whimpering with Mossie, defensive, on the attack when she was surrounded. Mimicking Solomon’s throat-clearing when she recognises when he’s uncomfortable or generally an uncomfortable situation. The sounds make sense to him. Entirely peculiar, but there seems to be a pattern to them.

‘Laura’s Language,’ Bo says, continuing her search for a title.

‘So she’s a mimic,’ Rachel says. ‘Laura the Mimic.’

‘That’s deep,’ Bo laughs.

‘She doesn’t mimic actions or movements. Just sounds,’ Solomon says.

They both think about it.

‘I mean she’s not on all fours, growling like a dog, or running around the room and flapping her arms like a bird. She repeats sounds.’

‘Good point.’

‘Our friend the anthropologist,’ Rachel says raising her new pint towards him.

‘Anthropologist, now that’s a good idea,’ Bo says, reaching for her pen and paper. ‘We need to speak to one of them about her.’

‘There’s a bird somewhere, that imitates sounds,’ Solomon says, not listening to the two of them. ‘I saw it on a nature programme a while ago.’ He thinks hard, mind foggy from the jet lag and now alcohol.

‘A parrot?’ Rachel offers.

Bo giggles.

‘No.’

‘A budgie.’

‘No, it imitates all sounds. Humans, machines, other birds, I saw it on a documentary.’

‘Hmm,’ Bo reaches for her phone. ‘Bird that imitates sounds.’

She searches for a moment. Suddenly her phone starts playing loudly and as the customers turn to her again, she quickly apologises and lowers the volume.

‘Sorry. This is it.’

They huddle around to watch a two-minute clip of David Attenborough and a bird that mimics the sounds of other birds, a chainsaw, a mobile phone, the shutter of a camera.

‘That’s exactly like Laura,’ Rachel says, prodding the screen with her greasy salty peanut finger.

‘It’s called a lyrebird,’ Bo says, deep in thought. ‘Laura the Lyrebird.’

‘The Lyrebird,’ Rachel says.

‘No,’ Solomon shakes his head. ‘Just Lyrebird.’

‘Love it,’ Bo grins. ‘That’s it. Congratulations, Solomon, your first title!’

Elated, they call it a night at midnight and return to their bedrooms.

‘I thought you were tired,’ Bo smiles as Solomon nuzzles into her neck, as she opens the door with a keycard. She misses a few times, her aim off. ‘You’re like a vampire, coming alive at night,’ she giggles.

He nibbles at her neck, which reminds him of a bat, which reminds him of the bat house, which reminds him of Laura, who is in the room next door, which knocks him off course, which makes him loosen his grip on Bo. Thankfully, she doesn’t notice as she finally gets the key in the door and pushes it open.

‘I wonder if she’s awake,’ Bo whispers.

Laura close to his mind, Solomon pulls Bo close to him, kisses her.

‘Wait,’ Bo whispers. ‘Let me listen.’

She pulls away and moves to the connecting door to Laura’s room. She pushes her ear to the door and while she listens, Solomon starts undressing her.

‘Sol,’ she laughs. ‘I’m trying to do research!’

He pulls her underwear from her foot and throws it over his shoulder. He starts at her ankle and kisses his way up her leg, licking the inside of her thigh.

‘Never mind,’ Bo gives up on her research and turns her back to the door.

In bed, Bo lets out moans of delight.

Solomon pulls her down to him, to kiss her, and as their lips lock, he hears the sounds of pleasure again. Bo’s sounds. But they’re not coming from Bo, they’re coming from the connecting door. They both freeze.

Bo looks at Solomon. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispers.

Solomon looks at the connecting door. The light from the bathroom is illuminating the otherwise dark room. Though the door on their side is still closed, Laura must have opened her own connecting door and is listening at their door.

‘Oh my God,’ Bo repeats, getting off Solomon and pulling the bedclothes around her protectively.

‘She can’t see you,’ he says.

‘Sssh.’

Solomon’s heart pounds, as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t be. Even if Laura can’t see them, he’s sure she can hear them.

‘I don’t care, that’s sick.’

‘It’s not sick.’

‘For fuck sake, Solomon,’ she hisses, disgusted with him.

They listen out but there’s no further sound.

‘What are you doing?’ she hisses, watching him get out of bed.

He goes to the connecting door and pushes his ear to the cold wood. He imagines Laura right on the other side, doing the same thing. Her first night away from her cottage, perhaps they were wrong to leave her alone for a few hours. He hopes she’s okay.

‘Well?’ she asks, as he gets back into bed.

‘Nothing.’

‘What if she’s nuts, Sol?’ she whispers.

‘She’s not nuts.’

‘Like crazy psycho-killer nuts.’

‘She’s not.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I don’t… it was your idea to bring her here.’

‘That’s helpful.’

He sighs. ‘Can’t we at least finish?’

‘No. That’s freaked me right out.’

Solomon sighs, rests his arms behind his head and stares, feeling wide awake, at the ceiling. Bo lies on top of him, her leg across his body, so he can’t even finish himself off, while she sleeps. Fully awake now, and unsatisfied.

He throws the covers off and moves so that Bo will get off him.

‘If you’re going to wank in the toilet, you better be quiet or the Lyrebird will be repeating your every sound for the next two weeks on camera,’ Bo warns, sleepily.

He rolls his eyes and gets back into bed, the mood completely killed.

At some stage he falls asleep listening to the sound of Laura listening to him.

9

Solomon wakes in the morning to an empty bed. The connecting door is open a fraction. He sits up and gets his bearings. He hears Bo’s voice drifting out to him. Gentle but organisational.

‘Joe has agreed that we can have access to the cottage for today so that we can film you there. We can see you go about your day, what you do, how you live, that kind of thing. And then I’ll ask you a few questions about how you see the future, what you’d like to do with your life. So maybe think about those kinds of things.’

Silence.

‘Do you have these answers now?’

Silence.

Solomon gets out of bed and pads naked across the room to the door. He peeks through the crack in the door and sees them, Laura sitting on the bed, the back of Bo’s head.

‘Okay, that’s okay, you don’t have to answer my questions now. But you do understand what we’re planning?’

‘I understand.’

‘We’ll film today and tomorrow, break for the weekend, and then return on Monday. Is that okay with you?’

‘I’m going to be with Solomon in Galway at the weekend.’

‘Yes.’

Awkward silence.

‘Last night, Laura…’

Silence.

Solomon closes his eyes and cringes, wishing Bo would just let it go. It was the first night in ten years that Laura had slept in a different bed, a different room. Everything was different. Bo’s sounds had been new for Laura, mimicking them was her way of understanding, that was all, he wishes Bo could get that and leave it.

‘Em, last night I heard you make a sound. While I was in bed.’

Laura makes the sound again, an exact replica of Bo’s pleasured moans, as if she had recorded it and was playing it from her voice box.

Solomon bites his lip, tries not to laugh.

‘Yes. That.’ Bo is mortified.

‘You want that in your film?’

Solomon peeks through the crack again, to get a look at Laura, he noticed the change in the tone of her voice. It’s playful. She’s playing with Bo. Bo, on the other hand, misses it.

‘No!’ she says, laughing nervously. ‘You see that, what you heard, was private, a private moment between me and…’ Bo pauses, not wanting to mention Solomon.

‘Sol,’ Laura says, repeating the name exactly as Bo does. It’s Bo’s voice coming from Laura’s mouth.

‘Jesus. Yes.’

‘Solomon’s your boyfriend?’

‘Yes.’

Solomon swallows, his heart pounding once again.

‘Is that… okay?’ Bo asks.

‘Okay for who?’

‘For you. Okay with you,’ Bo replies, confused.

Laura clears her throat awkwardly but it’s not her sound, it’s Solomon’s. She looks quickly in the direction of the door and he realises she knows he’s been listening. He smiles and walks away, to the shower.

They spend Thursday filming Laura’s home. After realising that, under observation, Laura had a tendency to freeze up and look at the camera, lost, Bo has come up with a plan to film her making vegetable soup. This is something that Laura is comfortable with. At first she is wary of their presence, self-conscious of their eyes and camera on her. Then, as she gets lost in what she’s doing, she visibly relaxes. They stay back, trying not to be intrusive, though as unnatural as three people with recording equipment in a forest are. She mimics their sounds less as she moves around.

She tends to her fruit-and-vegetable patch, she forages for herbs; wild garlic is plentiful along the streams and shady areas, she picks the larger leaves and flower heads that have blossomed.

She doesn’t speak very much, sometimes hardly at all. Bo asks her to describe what she’s found in the ground but then she stops, deciding that this is going to be one of those documentaries, much like The Toolin Twins, where their audio will have to be added to the visuals at a later date, when answers can come from direct questions. Laura is no narrator but she does mimic the bird-calls; the birds seem puzzled, or at least convinced by her authenticity from afar, and reply to her.

Bo is buzzing, this much is obvious. They all are. They work together as silently as possible, respecting Laura’s need for that. Between filming, their chat is kept to a minimum, basic communication. Hand gestures, a word here and there. It is possibly the quietest day of Solomon’s life, not just because he’s had to stay quiet – he’s used to that – but most of his days are spent listening to others. Despite filming on the same mountain as The Toolin Twins, there is a distinct difference between the feel, sounds and rhythms. What they’ve got here is a completely different documentary. This is lyrical, musical, even magical. The images of Laura working her way through the forest, her white-blonde hair and calm disposition, are stunning, unearthly. It brings Solomon back to that first moment he saw her, how she’d quite literally taken his breath away. He could watch her all day. He could listen to her all day. He does. And with her sound pack clipped on her clothes, the microphone on her T-shirt, he can practically hear every breath and heartbeat. Yet when he looks at her, when their eyes meet, there’s nothing dainty about her. She’s strong. She’s firm. That mind of hers is solid.

Laura stands up from the forest floor and stretches her back. She looks up at the sky, breathes in and, as if remembering the crew are there, she turns around and lifts the basket into the air.

‘What did you get?’ Bo asks, delighted Laura is ready for conversation.

‘Wild garlic, it’s good for flavouring soups. Also good for coughs and the chest. I use it for a wild garlic, onion and potato soup. I’ve got mushrooms…’ She runs her long fingers over the array of mushrooms.

‘How do you know these are safe?’

Laura laughs, her laugh is older than she appears. She makes a vomiting sound, one so real it plays with Rachel’s gag reflex, yet she doesn’t seem to notice her sound, it’s as if a memory for her has come alive through her own sound, as an image would flash in somebody else’s mind.

‘Trial and error for the first few years,’ Laura explains, then runs her hands over the food in the basket. ‘These are pig nuts, also known as fairy potatoes. They’re good roasted. Alexanders, they’re like celery. Nettles, gorse blossom for blossom jelly and garlic mustard. It’s a wild member of the cabbage family, good for marinating meat. I like this because you can eat all parts of the plant, roots, leaves, flowers and seeds. The root makes tasty garlic mustard root vinegar.’

‘Okay, great, thanks.’ Bo smiles happily.

Inside the cottage, she opens her cupboards to show them her collection of food that has been pickled, dried and canned. She preserves the fruits and vegetables that don’t grow in the winter, when her diet would otherwise grow monotonous. That’s when she really relies on what Tom gives her. Gave her. She pauses, checks herself, before continuing. She is confident, proud of her work on her food and she is happy to talk about it. Her sentences are short and limited, of course, but for her, to offer any information unprompted is a sign of her confidence, which grows throughout the filming day.

She makes her soup that she then offers to them to taste. Bo politely sips a spoonful. Solomon and Rachel finish their bowls.

It is late in the afternoon.

‘What would you do next?’ Bo asks, trying to move things along.

‘I would usually be still out foraging,’ Laura smiles politely, aware that time is of concern to Bo.

‘Don’t feel you have to rush everything on our account, I want to capture you as you’d normally be.’

‘I wouldn’t normally have served three people my soup,’ she smiles, and to Solomon. ‘That’s the first time I’ve done that in ten years.’

‘Four people,’ Rachel says. ‘Can I have seconds?’

Laura laughs. She likes Rachel, this is obvious. She is wary of Bo. With Solomon, everyone knows it’s a sure thing.

Laura suggests cleaning her clothes, something Bo isn’t interested in. She doesn’t scrunch up her nose but it’s a similar reaction.

‘How about we film you reading?’ Bo asks. ‘Books are an important part of your life aren’t they?’

‘Of course, I read every day.’

‘They’re your connection to the world?’

‘I’d say they are the only things that aren’t my connection to the world,’ Laura replies. ‘They’re entertainment, escape.’

‘Yes,’ Bo says, though she’s too busy planning her next shot to process the answer. ‘Where do you usually read?’

‘In lots of places. In here. Outside.’

‘Let’s go outside, show us where you’d go.’

‘It depends on the time of year, on the day, on the time of day, on the light,’ she says. ‘I walk around until I find somewhere that feels right.’

‘Let’s do that then,’ Bo says, smiling and when Laura isn’t looking, she steals a look at her watch. It’s not that Bo isn’t interested – she is, she can’t have enough information – it’s that time has never been her friend. There is too much to do, and not enough time to do it in. The aim is to do everything, quickly, so that she doesn’t miss a thing, and of course in doing things so quickly all the time, she is missing things, as Solomon constantly warns her.

Solomon accompanies Laura to her bookshelf, which is overflowing. Books are piled up on the floor all around.

‘Do you have a favourite one?’ he asks.

She picks up one, an erotic romance A Rock and a Hard Place, and shows it to him. She then makes the sound she heard from the previous night, Bo’s sounds of pleasure. She is quiet enough so that Bo doesn’t hear her. Solomon laughs and shakes his head.

‘You’re in love with her?’ Laura asks.

He’s so taken aback by the question he’s not sure how to answer. He should know how to answer, but he can’t bring himself to address it.

She mimics his awkward throat-clear.

‘I’m surprised Bridget brought you that book,’ he changes the subject.

‘I’ve never met her but I was surprised too,’ she laughs. ‘There was a whole box of them. Second-hand, church sale. A virgin named Betty Rock and naughty Nathan the window cleaner. They get a lot of suds in a lot of places.’

They both laugh.

‘No. This is my favourite. I’ve read it over fifty times.’ She hands him a picture book.

‘There’s no words,’ he flicks through it.

‘Words are often over-rated,’ she says.

‘What’s it about?’

‘A tree that turns into a woman.’

‘Just like Bo said,’ Solomon says sarcastically, studying it. ‘Your connection to the world.’

She laughs.

He looks at the cover. Rooted. ‘What’s it about?’

‘There’s a tree in a park. A busy city park. It’s hundreds of years old and it watches people every day. Children playing with a ball, mothers walking their babies in prams, people jogging, couples arguing. Life. As time goes by, the more she absorbs the life around her, the more human the tree becomes. Her bark turns into skin, her leaves to hair, her branches to arms. She shrinks. Until one day she is no longer a tree, she’s a beautiful young woman. She uproots her feet from the soil and she walks out of the park.’

‘Interesting,’ Solomon says, flicking through the pages.

‘You can read it, if you like,’ she offers it to him.

‘Does she walk out of the park naked?’ he asks. ‘Nudity is a must in a book with pictures.’

‘That’s revealed on the pop-up page.’ She smiles.

He laughs and studies her, curiously.

She looks up at him, not at all self-conscious under his greedy gaze. She doesn’t seem to mind his attention, so he drinks her in a little more.

He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. ‘Thanks for the book. I’ll return it to you in the same condition. Actually, I have a book for you.’ Solomon takes a paperback from his audio bag. ‘Bridget brought it here on Thursday. I’m sure it’s for you.’

Solomon had to hand it to Bo. As soon as Bridget mentioned that Tom was an avid reader, she’d known something was up. He wonders what else she can sense.

Laura takes the book from him, her energy completely changing. It’s the last book she received from her father, even if he hadn’t chosen it, even if he never gave it to her, even if he never touched it, or knew what it was. He’d asked for it for her. She hugs it close to her.

‘Let’s go,’ Solomon says. ‘So, how do you clean your clothes?’ he asks as they pick up their gear and prepare to go outside.

‘The dry cleaner’s at the top of the mountain, beside the nightclub,’ Laura says, seriously. ‘But Bo didn’t want to know about that.’

Solomon throws his head back and laughs heartily.

Laura takes a note of that beautiful sound, records it in her mind, replays it over and over.

10

At night it is astonishing just how dark Laura’s world is, how isolated and secluded she is. What during the day seems remote yet peaceful, during the night seems menacing and cruel, as though she has been abandoned. She has nobody. Nobody. Ring, the surviving sheepdog, comes to her sometimes when he’s not with Joe, perhaps feeling comfortable with her over their shared grief of Mossie and Tom. He is her only company, and the birds and creatures that move around her. She has become adept at sensing them before anyone else does, warning Rachel before she takes a step backwards and uncovers a dead badger, or a fallen bird’s nest. Her senses are so finely tuned to the natural world around her, it seems to Solomon at least, that Lyrebird, as Bo has now taken to calling her, has almost disappeared. It feels to Solomon that Laura doesn’t consider herself to be present in the environment and instead takes on the sounds, the essence, the life of everything around her, just like her favourite storybook. While the tree absorbs human life and becomes a young woman, this young woman absorbs nature and becomes a part of nature, or tries to.

‘There should be a sequel,’ he says referring to the storybook, as they stand together by a window of the cottage. Solomon can’t fight his instinct to look outside every time he hears a sound, he feels responsible to guard her, which is ridiculous as Laura easily identifies every single sound each time he flinches, to put him at ease. He’s not sure who’s protecting whom. Rachel and Bo are sitting on the couch by the firelight, looking over footage they’d filmed that day. ‘I want to know how this shoeless woman who used to be a tree gets on in the world. Does she become a hot-shot business woman in the corporate world and lose all her emotions? Turn into a robot? Or does she fall in love, get married and have five tree children, or…’ he laughs.

‘What?’

‘Never mind.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Or does she step out onto the road as soon as she leaves the park and get hit by a truck, because she couldn’t see traffic from the park.’ He smiles but Laura looks thoughtful.

‘I think she just needs to find someone to trust and she would be okay.’

‘Trust,’ he says, unimpressed by the word. ‘Did tree woman learn about trust in the park?’

‘No,’ she laughs. ‘Well, maybe. She learned about humanity. You’ll have to read it. But she doesn’t need to have learned it from the park. Trust is the kind of thing you feel inside.’

‘Ah. It’s instinctual.’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t give away the ending now.’

‘That’s not part of the story.’

He stares at her, not caring that she sees him doing it. Her eyes glisten even in the dark, her lips so plump and soft he wants to kiss them more than anything. He’s disturbed by how powerful the instinct is, sure he’s never felt this way before. He looks away, clears his throat.

‘Do you want to sleep here tonight?’ he asks.

‘Are you going to?’

‘No,’ he says quietly. ‘I can’t, Laura.’

‘Oh, I know.’ She gets flustered, but he can’t really read her eyes in the darkness. ‘I meant all of you. You’re all welcome.’

‘All of us in there?’ he asks, looking around the cottage.

‘No, you’re right, we’ll go to the hotel,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to be here on my own.’

And to herself she adds, any more.

The following morning, they visit Laura’s grandmother’s house where she and her mother were raised. Far from the main road, twenty minutes from town, it is a remote bungalow away from prying eyes. Like so many homes in the rural area, you wouldn’t see the small track leading to the house if you didn’t know it was there. Even if you did happen upon it, it lacked enticement, and belied the warmth and love that lay within its boundaries. It hasn’t been inhabited since Hattie’s passing nine years previously and it shows. Despite not having been there for ten years, Laura guides them as though she were there yesterday, Bo talking to her delicately as they make their way, aware how fragile this moment is.

Bo parked on the main road, she wanted to capture Laura’s reaction as she walked home for the first time in ten years. Just inside the entrance to the trail there is a gate, which Laura tells them her grandmother added shortly after her grandfather died, for protection.

‘Do you know if your mother or grandmother wrote a will?’ Bo asks, as they walk the long driveway through tall trees to the house.

Laura shakes her head. ‘How would I know?’

‘By asking your grandmother’s solicitor, or the executor of her will.’

‘Gaga didn’t have showers, I doubt she had an executor.’

Rachel and Solomon look away from one another to avoid laughing aloud.

‘If there was no executor, then an administrator would be appointed. An administrator would be next of kin. The reason I’m saying all of this is because you could be entitled to this land and property, Laura. If there’s money in a bank somewhere, or investments or a pension, then that could be yours too. I can help you look into it, if you like.’

‘Thank you.’ She leaves a long silence. She stops and bends to pick a freesia, she twirls it around in her fingers. Rachel moves to capture Laura’s shadowed silhouette in the path of the sunlight, the sun’s harshness dims and then burns behind the trees as they move, like the light on a lighthouse.

Laura moves again, faster this time. ‘Gaga didn’t have anybody else. She was an only child. Her parents long gone. She was born in Leeds, she left school at fourteen, worked in a factory, sewing. She moved to Ireland to mind children for a family nearby, but she didn’t stay with them for long. The summer she arrived, she met Granddad…’ She looks up at the house as it comes into view. She catches her breath.

Solomon gets ready to steady her. At any moment he will reach out, dive forward to catch her.

Silence.

Rachel moves behind her. Dips the camera low. Laura’s view of the house.

Solomon wants to see her face, but he must stay behind the camera. He studies her, takes in everything about her. How her shoulders have risen, frozen, stiff. Her fingers have stopped twirling the freesia. It falls to the ground, lands beside her boot. He listens to her breathing in his headphones. Quick shallow breaths.

Solomon drags his eyes away from Laura to take in the view. The grass has grown so tall it reaches the windows of the bungalow. It’s far from a fairytale: brown bricks, flat roof, front door and two windows either side. Nothing enchanting about it and yet, for Laura, it’s a treasure trove of precious moments.

He expects her words to be as predictable as Bo’s words when she lifted her first award: ‘Gosh, it’s heavy,’ words he teased her about as soon as she’d returned with the first piece of crystal in her hand. She never said it after that, more eloquent, more trained, less surprised. He imagines Laura’s gentle wonderment – ‘It’s shrunk, it’s smaller than I imagined,’ the usual words of an adult returned to a childhood place – but the sight of it brings her somewhere else, a surprising comment.

‘Gaga wouldn’t have left this for me,’ Laura says firmly, ‘Because there is no record of me. The only people who ever knew that I existed are dead.’ She speeds up away from them and wanders through the long grasses towards the house. Rachel looks at Solomon in alarm.

‘Did she just say nobody knew she was alive?’ Rachel asks in a low voice, as they cut for a moment.

Bo nods, not at all surprised, but her pupils are large and dilated with excitement. ‘I’ve been asking around the town and not one person I spoke to knew that Isabel Murphy or Isabel Button as she preferred to be called, had a baby. In fact they all found it laughable.’

Rachel frowns. ‘So is she lying?’

Solomon looks at Rachel, at first angry at her disloyalty but then remembers Rachel is always rational and her question was a sensible one. He panics a little, at the thought that this woman he has grown so attached to, in his mind at least, could be concocting this entire story. He was completely sucked in. While everything spirals away from him, Bo rescues him, reins him in and says something to make him love her all the more.

‘I’ve listened to everything that everyone has had to say about this family, which believe me is a lot of crazy shit, and it’s not that I don’t believe them but I do believe every single word Laura’s saying,’ Bo says firmly. She hurries away to keep up with Laura.

Laura tries the handle on the front door but it’s locked. She looks in the windows of the bungalow, every single one, pushing her face up to the dirty glass, hands blocking out the sunlight. The glass is so grimy you can barely see inside. She walks around the back of the house.

‘Which was your bedroom?’ Bo asks, appearing.

‘This one.’

Inside is an iron bed, no mattress, a wardrobe stripped of its doors. The rest is empty, no trace of Laura’s life. Solomon tries to read her face, tries to get the best angles, but Rachel looks at him annoyed, he’s blocking the light, getting in her way, straying off course.

Finally, he places his equipment down. He unties his sweater from around his waist and wraps it around his arm and elbow.

The glass smashes. Bo, Rachel and Laura turn to him in surprise.

‘Now it’s open,’ he says.

Laura grins at him.

‘Tell us about living here, in whatever way you like,’ Bo says as they settle down outside, after their walk around the mostly rat-infested bungalow. Bo finds a beautiful setting in the long grass, the house and forest behind them. It’s a warm summer day, it’s heavy, as though a thunderstorm looms, and the sky is filled with fast-moving clouds that disappear quickly into the next parish, as if they know something that everything that’s still doesn’t. It looks great on camera. Laura sits on a stool, Bo before her, but off camera. And with the usual prompts to tell the interviewee to try to put the question in their answer for the ease and flow of the documentary, they begin.

‘It hasn’t changed at all,’ Laura says closing her eyes and breathing in. ‘It feels the same. When I close my eyes anyway.’

‘How do you feel about seeing the house like this?’

Laura looks at the house as though it’s a stranger to her. ‘It’s not how I remember. It was never immaculate, Gaga and Mum were house proud, but in a different way. There were always things everywhere: glass jars, collections of things in them, twine, buttons, herbs, stones, fabrics. Potions, lotions, emotions…’ She smiles as if remembering a private joke. ‘That’s what Gaga always said about the house. The three of us filled the house with potions, lotions and emotions.’

‘Gaga and your mum – can I call her Gaga? – ran a dressmaking and alterations business. I spoke to people who live locally, they said it was a successful business, popular.’

Both last night and this morning, Bo had disappeared from the hotel to do ‘research’. It had been left to Solomon to entertain Laura, they’d played cards until Bo returned at midnight, with the smell of beer on her breath and smoke on her clothes. Solomon had been disappointed when she’d returned. He’d wanted more time with Laura, listening to her sounds, her mimicking the sound of the cards shuffling, the ice in his glass melting to find a new place to settle. It was like music. Her company was relaxing, slow, nothing urgent or panicked. Time was no issue, it was as if it didn’t exist. She’d no phone to check, no watch on her wrist. She was simply there, present in the now, the soft line of her mouth, the way her long hair brushed and tickled his arm as she reached across for the cards. Everything subtle was big. His heart had never felt so content yet fluttered so much at the same time. It is only when he is away from her that the guilt, the conflict, the comparison to Bo begins, the inner silent terror that leaves him feeling cold.

‘They ran a successful business,’ Laura agrees. ‘They had a loyal base of customers that they made dresses for – weddings, communions, parties… With so many huge families here, there was always some occasion. I loved the dressmaking. They used me when they were pinning, they couldn’t see movement on the mannequins. I used to love twirling around in them, pretending it was my wedding, or my birthday, and it would drive them crazy.’ She smiles at the memory. ‘When the dressmaking side died down, it was just alterations, and then Mum did some housekeeping for a few elderly people living alone, shopped for them, washed and ironed their clothes, whatever needed to be done. There were a lot of people in remote places, here. Most of their children moved to the cities for university or work. People stopped coming home. Work dried up for Gaga and Mum.’

‘Did the customers come into the house?’

‘No. The studio, there’ – she points at the garage – ‘was their workshop. They didn’t like people coming to the house.’

‘Why not?’

‘They were private. They wanted to keep their business separate to the house.’

‘They didn’t want anybody to see you, did they?’

‘No.’

‘Why do you think that is?’

‘Because they were private.’

‘Do you mind putting the question in your ans-’

‘They didn’t want anybody to see me because they were private,’ Laura snaps a little. It comes out harsh, not something they could use. Too aggressive, too defensive.

Bo leaves her to settle for a moment, pretending that she’s checking the sound with Solomon.

‘It’s perfect.’ He winks at Laura when Bo’s back is turned. Rachel eyes him.

‘I have two questions about that. One I’ll ask you now, one I’ll save for later. What do you think their desire for privacy meant to you at the time?’

Laura ponders that. ‘I could see that they were happy with each other’s company. They talked and laughed all the time. They worked together, lived together, they’d stay up late, drinking and chatting, until the early hours. They always had something to do, a project, whether it was a dress, or a recipe. They liked planning, discussing, looking at a bigger picture. They were patient, they had long-term plans, so many going on at once because if they did that it meant that something was always happening, a project or an experiment was always coming to its end, like being given a gift. They would marinate beech leaves in vodka for months, they’d have bottles and bottles of it in the pantry,’ she laughs. ‘Then they’d have late nights drinking and dancing, singing and telling stories.’

It reminds Solomon of his family, no different.

‘They didn’t need anyone else,’ she says softly, yet it doesn’t sound as though she felt left out, merely that she recognised it was a glorious thing. ‘They were enough company for each other. I think they had a kind of a love affair together. Just the two of them.’

This reminds Solomon of the Toolin twins. Perhaps Isabel and Tom had more in common than anyone thought.

‘Would you sit up late into the night with them? Would you take part in these parties?’ Bo asks, her eyes shining, loving the picture Laura is painting.

‘Sometimes I would stay up late with them. Even when I wasn’t supposed to be there, I was listening. It’s not exactly a large house, as you can see, and they weren’t exactly quiet.’ She laughs, that beautiful musical laugh. She bites her lip and looks at Solomon.

He looks up at her from the grass, beautiful big blue eyes that glint, a strand of hair comes loose and it falls across his eyes, over his long black eyelashes. He looks down at his equipment, moves a dial one way then back again.

‘Tell us some of the stories they told,’ Bo asks.

‘No,’ Laura says pleasantly. ‘That’s between them.’

‘But they’re not here now,’ Bo jokes, conspiratorially.

‘Yes they are.’ Laura closes her eyes and breathes in again.

Solomon smiles. He looks down at Rachel and sees her beaming, teary-eyed. Bo gives Laura a moment before continuing.

‘You were home-schooled,’ Bo prompts.

‘Gaga was home-schooled too. Her dad thought it was a waste of time to have girls educated, so he’d forbidden her from going. Her mother taught her secretly at home. She did the same with me.’

‘Do you regret missing out on the school experience?’

‘No,’ she laughs. ‘I think a lot of people are missing out on the joys of home-schooling. I remember Gaga chasing a frog around the stream; she said that Mum’s school dissected them, to teach students how they looked when they were dead. She wanted to show me how it lived.’ She bites her bottom lip again and Solomon eyes that lip, before swallowing. ‘She was a sight, running around after it. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon. I still know the anatomy of a frog.’

Bo laughs with her. Then. ‘Did you know at the time that you were a secret? That nobody knew you existed?’

‘Yes, I knew. I always knew that I was a secret. They didn’t trust people. They were wary. They said if we stuck together, we’d be okay.’

‘What do you think they were protecting you from?’

‘People.’

‘Did people hurt them?’

Silence while Laura searches for a way to answer. ‘Gaga and Mum were different people on their own. When the customers arrived, I’d hear their voices, sometimes watch from the window, and I’d barely recognise them. They wouldn’t laugh, they were robotic and to the point. There was nothing magical about them. They weren’t funny like they were at home, singing and laughing. They were serious. Sombre. Like a guard went up. It wasn’t just because it was a business; they protected themselves. They were wary of people.’

‘Your mother dropped out of school when she was young. When she was fourteen. Do you know why?’

Solomon studies Bo then. He’s positive that she knows something about it. He can see it in her. Her body has tightened, though she tries to appear relaxed, but she’s got that bit between her teeth. Bo hadn’t told Solomon anything about what she’d learned from the locals, he’d been tired when she returned, grumpy at having to leave Laura. He’d wanted to sleep immediately, while Bo was hyper, unable to relax, moving around the room, making noises that caused him to snap at her. He should have guessed at the time her behaviour was because she had learned something that would affect the documentary, but he was distracted. He is intrigued now, although his defences have gone up because Laura’s have. He doesn’t want Bo to keep digging, he feels ready to protect Laura, like he’s on the wrong side. The effect is dizzying, disorientating.

Laura stiffens. ‘Granddad died. Gaga needed Mum to help her out with the business. Granddad had been a labourer on a farm. They needed more income. So Mum left school and Gaga home-schooled her. They expanded the dressmaking and alterations business. They made medicines too. Natural remedies, which they sold at markets. Mum said children at school called them witches.’

‘Did that hurt her?’

‘No. Gaga and Mum laughed about it. They’d cackle when they were making their potions,’ she smiles, remembering.

‘Children can be cruel,’ Bo says gently. ‘What other things did children say to your mum?’

You don’t have to answer, Solomon feels like saying. Rachel is looking down now at her shoes, occasionally checking the monitor, a sign she feels uncomfortable.

‘Mum wasn’t like most other people,’ Laura says, thoughtfully, speaking slowly, choosing every word with great care. ‘Gaga made the big decisions. Mum was happy for Gaga to take the lead,’ she says, diplomatically. ‘Mum had her own way. If you ask me what some children used to say about her, then I’d say they called her slow. Mum told me that. But she wasn’t slow. It’s such a lazy word. She thought differently, had to learn things in another way, that’s all.’

When Laura’s body language starts to close up, Bo changes tack.

‘How did you end up at the Toolin cottage?’

‘My mum got sick, very sick, in 2005. We never saw doctors, Gaga and Mum didn’t believe in their medicines, they preferred to make their own natural remedies and were rarely ill, but they knew that something was seriously wrong with Mum that their medicines wouldn’t heal so they went to a doctor who referred them to hospital. She had colon cancer. She refused all hospital treatments, she said she would rather go naturally, the way she’d arrived. So me and Gaga nursed her.’

‘How old were you?’ Bo asks gently.

‘I was fourteen when she was diagnosed, she died when I was fifteen.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Bo whispers and leaves a respectful silence.

A bird flies overhead, a fly nearby. Laura mimics them both, showing her distress, as she attempts to gather herself.

‘So then it was you and Gaga here at the house. Tell me about those days.’

‘It was difficult for Gaga, because she had to run the alterations business alone. I helped her but she was still training me, and there was only so much I could do. She was having problems with her fingers, arthritis, her fingers were bending inward and she couldn’t do it any more, certainly not as fast. There were less and less customers too. Mum’s housekeeping money had helped to that point, but that wasn’t something I could do.’

‘Even at fifteen you wouldn’t deal with customers? You couldn’t step out into the world then?’

‘How would Gaga explain me suddenly appearing?’ Laura asks. ‘She couldn’t. She would try and think of ways, but it would upset her. It would make her anxious, nervous. She didn’t want to lie. She worried about tying herself up in knots, forgetting her story. She was forgetting a lot of things by then. She felt that at fifteen I was still too vulnerable, I was still a child.’

‘Where did her fear come from, Laura?’

Again that question, but this time Solomon feels it’s valid. Even he wants to know. But Laura has closed up. Bo doesn’t push.

‘Did you ever ask who your dad was?’

Solomon studies her. Laura gazes down, her eyes gleaming green, as though reflecting the long grasses she is sitting among. He wants to run his finger down her cheek, her chin, her lips. He looks away.

‘No.’ And then, as if remembering Bo’s instructions, she starts again. ‘I never asked who my dad was,’ she says gently. ‘I never asked because it was never important. I knew that whoever he was it wouldn’t make a difference. I had all the people I needed here.’

Rachel purses her lips, clearly moved.

‘What about when your mother passed away?’

‘I did wonder then, when Mum was gone, if I should have asked, because I felt like she was my only way of knowing. I suppose I can never know for sure, but I felt so strongly that Gaga wouldn’t have told me. Mum had the opportunity to tell me and decided not to, I knew Gaga would respect her word. It might not make sense, but I didn’t think about who he was very often. It wasn’t important.’

She thinks for a moment.

‘I thought about him when I saw Gaga getting older, when I started thinking about being alone. She seemed to get old so quickly. Her and Mum were a team. They only needed each other in the world, which was beautiful, but they needed each other. They fed off each other. When Mum died, it’s like Gaga suddenly started to go too. And she knew it. That’s why she started worrying for me. Trying to plan. She wasn’t sleeping, I know it was playing on her mind all the time.’

‘Did they not make a plan for you before she died?’

‘I never asked.’ Laura swallows. ‘But Mum wasn’t ever the one to make plans. Gaga made them, Mum helped see them through. I felt that Mum would have approved what happened in the end. I know it sounds odd, like we didn’t communicate, but we did. We lived so close to each other, in one another’s pockets, we didn’t always talk about things, each of us knew how the other was feeling, we didn’t need to always ask.’ She looks at Bo, embarrassed, but trying to make her see.

‘I understand,’ Bo says, genuinely, though Solomon wonders if she does. Bo is a person who usually has to ask. ‘So when did you find out about Tom being your dad?’

‘When Gaga told me about her plan to move me to the cottage. She told me that Tom Toolin was my dad, that he had never known about me. She had met with him and he’d agreed I could live on his land. She told me that he had a twin brother who could never know. That was Tom’s only request.’

‘How did you feel about that?’ Bo asks, and it’s obvious from Bo’s tone that she’s disgusted on Laura’s behalf.

‘I was used to keeping a secret.’ She offers a soft smile, but her eyes reveal a sadness.

Bo decides to manoeuvre away from the topic of Tom and her new life on the mountain. ‘You lived here for sixteen years before moving to the cottage, did you ever want to get out of the house? Away from here?’

‘We did, many times,’ Laura says, lighting up. ‘Before Mum got sick. We went on holidays to Dingle. I swam in Clogherhead, nearly drowned,’ she laughs. ‘We went to Donegal too. They both liked to fish. They’d catch the fish, gut them, cook them. Make fish oils.’

‘So you did get out?’ Bo asks, surprised.

‘They didn’t lock me in the house,’ Laura smiles, delighted by Bo’s surprise. ‘The opposite happened. They let me be free. I could be who I wanted, without anyone judging, or anyone telling me what to do. I don’t believe there were any sacrifices. There were appointments for the alterations, no drop-ins allowed, so we knew I could play wherever I liked until customers came. They came when I was inside doing my schoolwork.’

‘But you never did exams.’

‘Not state exams.’

‘Because the state didn’t recognise you.’

‘They didn’t know I’d been born,’ Laura says simply. ‘There’s a difference. Mum gave birth to me here in the house. She didn’t register my birth.’

‘Why do you think she kept you a secret? Away from the world?’

Back to that question.

‘Mum didn’t keep me away from the world. I’ve been here all along, fully immersed in it,’ Laura says firmly.

Bo takes a moment, slows it all down. ‘So, I asked you a two-part question earlier: when you were younger, why did you think your mum and Gaga kept you a secret. You answered, but I want to ask you the second part. Now, as a grown woman, with Gaga and Mum gone, what is your opinion of why they kept you a secret? Has it changed?’

Laura doesn’t shut down immediately as she had before. It’s the way Bo has phrased it, she has pointed out that Laura is a grown woman, she’s not a child any more, her mother and grandmother aren’t here, she doesn’t need to keep defending them or answer for them. She can give her own opinions now.

She growls, not at anyone in particular, just in general. A threatened kind of feeling. Then there’s the sound of smashing glass. A walkie-talkie sound, static radio. It’s unclear whether she notices she’s made these sounds.

‘At the time I felt they were happy, wary, but content. When I look back, I think they were scared.’

Bo is practically holding her breath.

‘They were afraid that somebody would take me away from them. They were afraid they would be seen as unfit to care for a child. There were… rumours.’ The glass breaking, the same radio static. ‘People talked about them. They were witches, they were crazy. They let them make their dresses or alter their clothes but they didn’t invite them to their parties or their weddings. They were outsiders.’

‘Why was that?’ Bo asks gently.

‘Gaga said she never really fit in, from the moment she arrived. But she loved my granddad so she stayed, tried. But it got worse. The rumours got worse.’

‘When?’

Laura thinks about it. ‘When my granddad died,’ she says, and she closes down.

And then, almost as if Laura wants to keep talking or she’s tired of the questions that will inevitably come, she continues.

‘Gaga’s health suffered after Mum died. She didn’t want me to be left alone. She wanted me in a safe place, that’s what she kept saying. Sometimes she woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me and I knew she couldn’t get it out of her head.’ She pauses for a moment. ‘I read once that nest-building is driven by a biological urge in pregnant animals to protect their offspring, or themselves, from danger. Nests are designed to hide eggs from predators, to shield them. I believe that’s what Gaga and my mum did. The cottage she brought me to was her bird’s nest. Away from danger, and next to my dad. She did the best she could.’

Silence.

‘Why did you stay at the cottage? You’re twenty-six years old now, Laura, you could have left a long time ago. At this adult age you wouldn’t have had to worry about being taken away.’

Laura looks at Solomon. Bo registers this. Solomon’s eyes don’t leave Laura. He doesn’t care, to break her gaze would be rude, after they’ve listened to her story. Besides, his pull to her is magnetic, not normal.

‘I stayed there for the same reasons as my mum and Gaga did what they did. Because I was happy to stay. Because I was afraid to leave.’

‘You’re not afraid to leave now. Is it because Tom died? Is it because you’re ready for change?’ she asks question after question to help her along.

‘Change happens all the time, even on the mountain. You have to change with change,’ she says, her voice going deeper again, as she mimics Gaga. It’s the first time Bo and Rachel have heard it and their eyes widen as it seems another person takes over her body. ‘I was looking for what Gaga and Mum had with each other. Tom had it with Joe. You just need one person to trust.’

She raises her eyes to Solomon, whose heart is pounding so hard he’s afraid his boom mic will pick it up.

11

On Saturday morning, the four sit together in the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Laura looks around, not exactly as a Martian would, but with the eyes of someone who hasn’t been around this kind of social situation before, if ever.

‘Good morning, are you ready to order breakfast?’ a waitress asks.

She can’t pronounce her R’s, pronouncing them as a W sound instead.

Laura studies her, fascinated, her lips moving to make a W sound.

Solomon watches, hoping she won’t make the sound aloud.

‘Yes,’ Rachel says loudly, ready to eat the leg of the table. She fires off her order first.

‘So let me just read that back: two sausages, two eggs, two tomato, mushrooms, two rashers… the rashers are from Rafferty’s, local farmer. They’re excellent. Award-winning.’

‘Washers,’ Laura says suddenly, mimicking the waitress perfectly. She’s not even looking at her, she’s buttering her toast and speaking as though she doesn’t notice the words are coming from her mouth. ‘Weady… bweakfast.’

The waitress pauses her order-taking and stares at Laura.

Bo feels no sensitivity towards the waitress who thinks she’s being mocked, just watches, amused and intrigued, as hungry for this scene as Rachel is for her double Irish breakfast. Solomon of course feels the sweat trickle down his back from the discomfort of the situation.

‘Wafferty,’ Laura says.

‘She’s not teasing you,’ Solomon says awkwardly, and he can tell the others are surprised he’s even addressed it.

The anger that flashed in the waitress’s eyes calms as she looks at Laura differently. Then Solomon realises that she thinks something else of Laura, that there’s something wrong with her.

‘No, she’s not… you know… She’s learning. It’s a new sound to her. She…’ he looks at Laura to explain her further, and she’s looking at him, amused. As if the joke’s on him.

‘Okay, folks, if there’s anything else you need, let me know. I’ll get this to the kitchen really fast.’ The waitress grins at Rachel.

Laura can’t help herself, she mimics ‘really’ as ‘weally’, an exact copy of the waitress’s voice, and Rachel looks to be in serious pain trying to keep her nervous laughter in.

‘Stop,’ Bo says quietly.

‘I know, I can’t, I’m sorry,’ Rachel says seriously and then starts again, doing a Jekyll and Hyde as she goes from serious to laughter in an instant.

The waitress leaves the table, uncertain as to whether Laura is simple, or if she’s being mocked.

‘She’s going to spit in your cappuccino,’ Solomon says, buttering his toast.

‘Why were you laughing?’ Laura asks Rachel.

‘I can’t help it.’ She wipes the sweat from her brow with a napkin. ‘I do it at awkward moments. Have done since I was a kid. Funerals are the worst.’

Laura smiles. ‘You laugh at funerals?’

‘All the time.’

‘Even at Tom’s?’

Rachel looks at her sombrely. ‘Yes.’

Solomon shakes his head. ‘Unbelievable.’

‘Why did you laugh?’ Laura asks, wide-eyed with curiosity and not at all insulted that Rachel laughed during her dad’s funeral.

‘Bridget farted,’ Rachel explains.

‘Ah now, come on,’ Solomon says, shaking his head.

‘Rachel,’ Bo says, disgusted.

‘Laura asked me a question and I’m telling her the honest answer. I was right behind Bridget. When she got off her seat to kneel down, there it was, a little parp.’ Rachel makes the sound.

Laura imitates Rachel’s fart sound perfectly, which makes Rachel laugh even more. Bo and Solomon join in, against their better judgement.

‘It’s called rhotacism,’ Solomon says when the laughter has died down. ‘Or de-rhotacisation.’

‘What is?’ Bo asks, confused, searching through emails on her phone.

‘The waitress’s “r” sound. I had it as a kid,’ he says to Laura.

Bo looks up, surprised. ‘You never told me that.’

Solomon shrugs, cheeks going pink with the memory. ‘I had to go to a speech therapist till I was seven to sort it out. My brothers have never let me forget it, gave me a horrible time about it. To this day my brother Rory is still called Wawwy.’

‘I was wondering why they always say that,’ Bo laughs. ‘I thought it was because he was the baby.’

‘He was. He was my baby Wawwy,’ Solomon says, and they laugh.

Suddenly a cappuccino machine fires up to steam the milk. Laura jumps at the sound, she looks around for the root of the sound while mimicking it.

‘What is she doing?’ Bo asks quietly.

‘I’d say percolating,’ Rachel replies.

‘Wow,’ Bo says, picking up her phone and recording.

The diners at the table beside them turn to stare, two kids watch Laura, open-mouthed.

‘Don’t stare,’ their mother says calmly, quietly, all the while keeping a close eye on Laura over the rim of her teacup.

Solomon fights the urge to tell more people that there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with Laura.

‘It’s the coffee machine,’ Solomon says, reaching out and placing a hand on Laura’s shoulder, to centre her, calm her.

She looks at him, pupils dilated, scared.

Solomon points behind the counter across the room. ‘It’s a coffee machine. They’re steaming the milk for the latte or cappuccino.’

She watches it, imitates the sound again before becoming comfortable with it and turning her attention to the table again. The children go back to playing on their computer games.

Laura zones in on them, imitating the beeps, the shooting. The little boy puts his game down and kneels up on his chair to peer over the top at her. She smiles at him and once spotted, he sits down quickly. Their mother orders them to switch the sound off.

The waitress brings their food to the table. The full Irish for Solomon and Rachel, a grapefruit for Bo, who doesn’t acknowledge it as she taps away on her phone, and two boiled eggs for Laura.

‘Thank you,’ she says to the wary waitress.

There’s silence as they dig into their food, then Laura looks at Rachel’s plate, examines its content and mimics the waitress so perfectly, innocently and without any cynicism or sarcasm. ‘Wafferty’s Washers.’

The three of them crack up laughing.

‘I really think I should go to Galway with you,’ Bo says suddenly as they’re checking out. Laura is helping Rachel carry the bags to the car and Solomon and Bo are alone at the desk.

‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that about going to my family,’ he jokes lightly, though it is true. When Laura has left the hotel, he runs his hands through Bo’s hair.

She smiles and looks up at him, arms around his waist. ‘Your family hate me.’

‘Hate is a very strong word,’ he kisses her gently. ‘My family don’t like you.’

She laughs. ‘You’re supposed to lie and tell me they adore me.’

‘Adore is a very strong word.’

They smile.

‘I think we’ve got something special here, Solomon.’

‘That’s so romantic, Bo,’ he mimics her dreamy tone, knowing she’s talking about Laura and not their relationship.

She laughs again. ‘I think we should be filming the Galway trip. This is Laura stepping into the world for the first time and we’re missing it. Like this morning at breakfast, that stuff is priceless. She is sound-bite fucking heaven.’

‘You know why we can’t film,’ he shrugs, pulling apart, annoyed by Bo’s greediness all of a sudden. ‘We’re not ready. Rachel has to get home, you’ve got your fancy university lecture. The prodigal student returns.’

She groans. ‘If it wasn’t for the lecture I’d go with you.’

‘I recall you booking this date specifically so you would miss my mam’s birthday.’

‘True.’

‘Karma’s a bitch.’

She laughs. ‘I’m not good at all that family stuff. I’m from a socially repressed family of four. All that touchy-feely singing and dancing, and self-expression, makes me nervous.’

Solomon has three brothers and one sister, all of whom will be there this weekend, some with partners, wives, children. Then there are his uncles, aunts and cousins, before you even count the crazy neighbours and random people who drop in because they hear music when they’re passing. It’s noisy, it’s not easy if you’re not used to it and Bo doesn’t have the kind of easy-going nature that can take an entire weekend of banter. He feels equally uncomfortable in her suburban house. There’s too much silence, watching of words, politeness. Solomon’s family talk about everything, a lively debate encompassing politics, current affairs, sport and what’s happening between the bedsheets of the house next door. His family deplore silence. Silence is used for dramatic effect in a story only. Words, music or song were created to eradicate silences.

But truth be told, Solomon doesn’t mind in the slightest that Bo won’t be joining them. In fact, it will be easier for him with her not there, or it would have been if Laura wasn’t coming with him.

‘I don’t think Laura is going to be a completely changed person by Monday when it’s time to film. She’ll still be making those sounds,’ he says.

‘You think?’

‘Yeah. It’s part of who she is.’

‘Maybe we can help her to see someone about it. Document her therapy or something,’ Bo says, stepping back in producer mode. ‘As part of her moving on. There’s so many ways to approach this documentary, I really need to get my head straight.’

‘Why would she want to lose her sounds?’ Solomon asks.

Bo fixes him with a confused look.

Solomon hears Rachel returning and Bo gives him one final peck before stepping away.

‘You wouldn’t stay here with her?’ she asks. ‘Save all her new first times until I get back?’

Solomon’s heartbeat hastens at that comment, trying to judge her tone. He has picked her up wrong; of course she doesn’t mean that first for Laura, if in fact it would even be her first. But he’s thought about it, a lot, and his conclusion is that she must be a virgin, she’s been at the cottage since she was sixteen. And there wasn’t anybody in her life before? She would have said so. He tries to hide what Bo’s comment has done to him.

He clears his throat.

‘I’m not missing my mam’s seventieth birthday.’ He steadies his voice. ‘Laura can go with you to Dublin, if you really want. You can watch her progress for yourself.’ As soon as he’s said it he wants to take it back. His heart drums even louder in his chest as he awaits her answer, but the reverse psychology has worked. Bo looks alarmed, like a new mother at the prospect of being left alone with her baby for the first time.

‘No, she’s better with you. She prefers you.’

He shields his relief as she guards her terror. He wonders if she can see through him as easily as he sees through her.

Solomon drives Bo and Rachel to the train station. The initial plan had been for Bo and Rachel to drive to Dublin while Solomon was to catch the bus to Galway, however it was agreed that a three-hour bus journey with Laura and a packed bus full of new sounds might not be the best way for her travel. On the way to the train station, Rachel and Laura sit together getting along together amicably, their conversations simple and easy.

‘You’ve just revealed yourself to be one big softy on this one,’ Solomon teases as they unload the car, helping Rachel with her camera equipment. ‘It must be impending motherhood that’s doing it to you. Hormones.’

‘Less of the big, if you don’t mind,’ Rachel says gruffly.

‘Seriously. Laura likes you,’ Solomon says.

‘Yeah. She likes you more though,’ Rachel says, fixing him with a knowing look. A warning look. ‘Be good. See you Monday.’

12

‘Mam. It’s Solomon.’

‘Hi, love, everything all right?’

‘Yes. Fine… Em. I’m on my way to you and I’m bringing somebody with me.’

‘Bo?’ That wary tone, though of all the members of the family she tries to hide it the most, always trying to be respectful to the various other halves she has not taken a liking to.

‘No, not Bo – she’s really sorry, but she couldn’t get out of that guest lecture she has. It’s a big honour, and she can’t miss it,’ he explains, covering all angles, and doesn’t know why he bothers, always apologising to other people on other people’s behalf when none of those people ever care.

‘Of course, of course, she’s a busy woman.’

‘It’s not that she’s too busy, it’s just that it’s important. Not to say that your birthday’s not,’ he backpedals.

‘Solomon, love,’ he hears the smile in her voice. ‘Don’t worry. You worry too much, you’ll tie yourself up in knots. Who are you bringing? Can he stay in your room? I’m tight on space,’ she lowers her voice. ‘Maurice is after arriving with Fiona and his three children. God love him, a widower and all, but the three children. I’ve put them in the room that was supposed to be for Paddy and Moira, but Moira couldn’t come. Her back again. Paddy’s in with Jack and he’s in a right huff – sure the two of them don’t get along at all, but what else can I do?’

Solomon smiles. ‘Don’t worry about it. They should be grateful they’re there at all. I can stay in Pat’s.’

‘You will not stay in Pat’s when your bedroom and home are right here. I’ll hear nothing of the sort.’

‘He’s a she, Mam. So that will make it difficult for you. If you insist on us staying she can stay in my room, I’ll go on the couch.’

‘No son of mine will sleep on the couch. Who is she, Solomon?’

‘Laura. Laura Button. You don’t know her. She’s from Macroom. She’s the subject of this new documentary we’re doing. She’s twenty-six. We’re not, you know, together.’

Pause.

‘I’ll put her in Cara’s room so.’

‘No, Mam, you don’t have to do that, really. She can have my room. I’ll sleep on the couch. She’s better in a room on her own.’

‘No one is sleeping on the couch,’ she says firmly. ‘Particularly not my own son. I haven’t planned this for a year to end up with people on couches.’

As the owner of an eight-bedroom guesthouse, Solomon’s mother is a nurturer, a feeder, someone who insists on others’ comfort almost to the point of their own discomfort. Always putting herself last. But as welcoming as she is, she’s old-fashioned in her views: none of her children are allowed to share a room with girlfriends or boyfriends until they are married.

‘When you meet her, you’ll understand. She’s different.’

‘Is she now?’

‘Not like that.’ He smiles.

‘We’ll see,’ she says easily, with a laugh that’s trapped in her words. ‘We’ll see.’

Solomon ends the call and waits for Laura. They’ll see, indeed. Laura is standing beside the roadwork traffic cones, where four men in high-vis jackets and jeans below the cracks of their arses attempt to work while she stands beside them mimicking the sound of the jackhammer.

When she sees that Solomon is off the phone, and content her mimicry has been perfected, she joins him.

‘We’re going to get in the car now and continue our drive to Galway, if there’s anything else you’d like to stop and see or hear, feel free. In fact, do it as much as you like because the longer it takes us to get there, the longer it takes us to get there.’

She smiles. ‘You’re lucky to have your family, Sol,’ she says in Bo’s voice.

‘Say it your way,’ he says.

‘Solomon,’ she says, and he smiles.

Every time he connects with her he has to purposefully de-link himself. It happens a lot. Then just as he’s in the process of untwining his soul from hers, she mimics his awkward throat-clear and he laughs.

They return to the car that Solomon abandoned in an awkward position when she decided to flee the vehicle while stopped at red lights to explore the source of the jackhammer.

‘What is a lyrebird?’ she asks as they drive.

He looks at her quickly, then back to the road ahead of him.

‘I heard Bo say it when she was on the phone. She found a lyrebird. Is that me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why does she call me that?’

‘It’s the title of the documentary. A lyrebird is a bird that lives in Australia and is famous for mimicking sounds.’ What he really wants to say, what he had planned to say, was, It’s one of the most beautiful and rare and the most intelligent of all the world’s wild creatures. He’d come across that in his research, he’d planned to tell her that, but now he can’t get the words out. He’d spent a good deal of time reading up about the curious bird ever since Bo had decided on the name. It’s the first time he has raised the issue of her mimicry, and he’s too nervous that she may take offence to the comparison. There’s been no sign so far of her acknowledging her own sounds, even as only moments ago a crowd had gathered around her to watch her mimicking the jackhammer.

‘Look’ – he searches through his phone, one hand on the steering wheel, one eye on the road. He hands her the short video of the bird that he came across on YouTube. He struggles to watch her reaction as he drives, thinking Bo will be upset with him for not capturing this moment on camera. She smiles as the bird mimics other birds from the platform that it builds in the woods.

‘Why does it do it?’ she asks, which is a question that intrigues Solomon. He’d love to ask her the same thing.

‘To attract a mate,’ he explains.

Laura looks at him and those eyes almost make him crash into the car that has stopped at the lights in front of him. He clears his throat and brakes hard.

‘The male lyrebirds sing during mating season. He builds a platform in the forest, like a mound, and he stands on it to sing. The females are attracted to the sound.’

‘So I’m a male bird looking for a good time,’ Laura says, scrunching her face up.

‘We’ll claim artistic licence.’

She watches the video of the bird some more and when he starts making the sounds of chainsaws, and then a camera shutter, she starts laughing, louder and larger than Solomon has ever heard her before.

‘Whose idea was it to call me this?’ she giggles, wiping her teared-up eyes.

‘Mine,’ he says, self-consciously, taking the phone from her.

‘Mine,’ she mimics him perfectly, then after a short silence where he’s wondering what’s going through her mind she says, ‘You found me. You named me.’

He cringes at that.

Laura continues. ‘I read a book about Native Americans believing that naming can help enrich a sense of identity. People’s names can change throughout their lives the same way people do. They believe nicknames provide insight into not just the individual but how other people perceive that person. People become a double prism, instead of a one-way mirror.’

Solomon drinks every word in.

She makes the sound of a car beeping, which confuses him, until he hears an aggressive car honk behind him. The traffic lights had turned green while he was lost in her words. He quickly drives on as they turn amber again, leaving the angry driver behind.

‘What I’m trying to say,’ she smiles, ‘is that I like it. I’m Lyrebird.’

13

‘Oh Solomon, she’s a beauty,’ Solomon’s mother, Marie, says breathily, greeting Solomon outside the house, as though he’s brought his first-born home from the hospital. She hugs her son, eyes on Laura the whole time. It’s almost as if she’s astonished, or her breath has been stolen. ‘My goodness, look at you!’ She takes Laura’s hands, no longer paying the slightest bit of notice to her son. ‘Aren’t you an angel? We’ll have to take good care of you.’ She pulls her close and wraps an arm around her shoulder.

Solomon carries the bags inside with his father, Finbar, who nudges his son so deeply in the ribs he drops the bag. Finbar laughs and hurries ahead of him.

‘Where are we going with these, petal?’ Finbar asks his wife.

‘The orchid room for dear Laura,’ she says.

‘That’s my room,’ a head peeks out from the doorway of a room to the right-hand side. ‘Hiya, bro.’ An identical but older version of Solomon, Donal, steps out and hugs his brother and greets Laura.

‘Hannah down the road will take you,’ she says. ‘If you weren’t on your own, Donal, we’d find somewhere else for you here, but that’s how it is now.’

‘Ouch,’ Solomon laughs, punching his brother in the arm. She’s punishing him for leaving the only woman everyone thought he’d marry.

Laura smiles, watching them with each other.

‘Is Solomon in the orchid room too?’ Donal asks innocently, and his mother throws him a look of pure evil that he sniggers at. Solomon busies himself with the bags and tries to usher Laura away from the conversation.

‘Solomon is in his own bedroom,’ Marie huffs, enjoying the teasing. ‘Now, off with the lot of you. Laura, angel, I’ll take you to your room. Don’t be starting anything with him in there, Donal,’ she warns them as they go into Solomon’s room.

Donal laughs. ‘Mam, I’m forty-two.’

‘I don’t care what age you are, you were always at poor Solomon. I know it was you who kicked him off the bunk bed.’

Donal’s grin gets wider. ‘Oh, the poor baby Solomon.’

‘I wasn’t the poor baby and you know it,’ Solomon says, distracted, trying to catch Laura’s eye to make sure she’s okay with all this, concerned that going from no contact with people, to this, in a matter of days, must be affecting her.

‘Wawwy,’ Laura says, a perfect mimic of Solomon’s childhood speech impediment, and Donal howls with laughter. He holds his hand up for a high-five, which Marie drags Laura away from before they see her laugh. A mother’s job, in her opinion, is to be stern; if they ever saw her lose her composure then she would lose her power. Now they try to constantly egg her on and it’s her little game to maintain that composure.

Laura is brought away to the new ‘wing’, which is an extension of two new bedrooms for the B & B after the children had left home, though Rory is the only remaining child and probably will be for the rest of his life, at the rate he’s going.

After giving her a few minutes to settle in, Solomon knocks on Laura’s door.

‘Yes,’ she says quietly, and he pushes the door open. She’s sitting on the double bed, her bags untouched on the floor at her feet, looking around at the room.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she says dreamily.

‘Ah yes. The orchid room is Mam’s favourite,’ Solomon says, stepping inside. His mother putting her in this room says a lot. ‘My sister Cara is a photographer. These are her photos on canvas. For some reason, she likes to photograph flowers. And stones. But they’re in the stone room. Crazy Uncle Brian is in that room. Mam’s not so keen on stones.’

She laughs. ‘Your family is funny.’

‘That’s one word for them.’ He clears his throat. ‘So the festivities will begin in one hour. About all of Spiddal is about to burst in here, with a song to sing, an instrument to play, a story to tell, or a dance to dance. You are free to stay here, in safety.’

‘I’d like to come.’

‘Are you sure?’ he asks, surprised.

‘Will you sing?’ she asks.

‘Yes, everybody has to do a piece.’

‘I want to hear you sing.’

‘Be warned, they might force you to sing. I’ll try to stop them but I can’t promise you anything. They’re a tough bunch and I have zero sway with them.’

‘I’ll hide in the back,’ she says, and he laughs.

‘Why are you laughing?’

‘The idea of you hiding. Even in a room filled with people you’d stand out.’

She bites her lip at the compliment, which he didn’t intend to sound so corny. He backs away to the door cringing internally.

She mimics his throat-clearing.

‘Exactly,’ he agrees. ‘Awkward. Sorry for that. I’ll give you time to freshen up, shower, whatever. Is thirty minutes okay?’ For Bo, thirty minutes would be enough, she doesn’t spend much time thinking about how she looks, she is naturally beautiful and throws everything together to look cool. Preppy. Brogues and turn-ups, thin cashmere sweaters and blazers like she should be going to Harvard, a J.Crew wet dream. But he’s had girlfriends where thirty minutes wasn’t even enough time to dry their hair.

She nods. ‘Wait.’ She looks nervous. ‘Is it dressy? I don’t really have anything fancy. I made some things but… they’re not really right for here.’

‘What you’re wearing now is perfect. It’s casual.’

She looks relieved and Solomon feels bad that this would have been a concern for her all this time. This is the kind of thing Bo would have done better.

‘What’s the deal with the blonde?’ Donal asks, as Solomon steps out of the shower and finds him lying on the bed in his bedroom. Donal is scrolling through Solomon’s phone.

‘Go ahead, look through my personal stuff, why don’t you.’

‘Where’s cow?’

‘Bo is in Dublin. She was lecturing for film students at the university this afternoon. She couldn’t get here on time.’

Donal sucks in air, but sarcastically. ‘Bet she couldn’t get out of that.’

‘I told her not to even try. It’s a big deal.’

‘Sounds like it is.’ Donal studies him.

Unhappy with his brother’s gaze, he drops his towel from around his waist and holds his hands up in the air. ‘Look no hands!’

‘That’s mature.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Solomon roots in his bag for a clean T-shirt. ‘It’s easier for me that she’s not here,’ he says, back turned, while he hears the click of Donal’s phone. ‘You lads make it hard for me.’

‘We don’t.’ He angles the phone on Solomon’s arse and takes another photo. ‘We’re looking out for you.’

‘By calling her cow.’

He genuinely laughs at that. ‘You said speak English to her.’

Bó is the Irish for cow, something Solomon’s Irish-speaking family delight in calling her.

‘You never give her a break.’

‘It’s only banter.’

‘She doesn’t have the same sense of humour.’

‘Wrong. She doesn’t have a sense of humour. And she barely sees us, so she doesn’t have to put up with us often.’

‘Please stop taking photos of my balls.’

‘But they’re so pretty. I’m going to send them to Mam. She can decorate a new room, call it the bollox room.’

Ashamed to find that childish joke funny, Solomon laughs.

‘So, do you go to Bo’s folks’ place, parties, brunches, soirees and the like?’ he asks putting on a posh Dublin accent.

‘Sometimes. Not very often. Once. Me and Bo are better on our own. Away from our families.’

‘Away from each other.’

‘Come on.’

‘Fine. Last question. Are you going to get married?’

‘Are we going to get married?’ He sighs. ‘You sound like an old woman. Why the fuck do you care if I get married?’

‘Man, I think your dick shrunk when I asked that. Look -’ He holds the camera up to show him. ‘Before I asked the question.’ He slides the image. ‘After.’

Solomon chuckles. ‘It’s a fine thing, you asking me all these questions. Single man of forty-two. You should have been a priest.’

‘Might have got more action,’ Donal says and Solomon rolls his nose up in disgust.

Donal chuckles at his own joke.

‘Seriously, I overhead a conversation between Mam and Dad about you being gay.’

‘Shut up,’ Donal says, pretending not to care but dropping the phone.

Solomon picks it up. Thirty-two photos of his own bollox on his phone.

Donal changes the subject. ‘Mam said you were in Boston. How did that go?’

‘The Irish Globe gave us an award.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you.’

‘So you’re happy.’

‘I’m always happy.’

‘So are you going to marry her?’

‘Fuck off.’

‘What’s with the blonde?’ he repeats his opening question.

‘Laura.’

‘What’s with Laura?’

Solomon fills him in on Laura’s background and her lyrebird qualities, everything he knows about her.

‘Why wouldn’t she go to Dublin with Bo?’

‘Because she wanted to stay with me. I was the person who found her. She trusts me,’ he shrugs. ‘Go on, tell me it’s weird.’

‘It’s not.’

Solomon searches his face for the sarcasm.

‘Man, would you put your jocks on.’ He throws a pillow at him.

‘This is what you get for taking photos of my cock. I’m going to text it to you and you can stare at it all you like.’

The door opens and two more brothers squeeze through the doorway. ‘Wahay!’ they all cheer, bundling into the room with a six-pack of beer.

Solomon laughs and catches the boxers Donal throws at him.

‘What’s going on here?’ his eldest brother Cormac asks, looking Solomon up and down. ‘Nice bollox.’

‘Your date is standing at the window of the orchid room imitating cuckoos,’ his youngest brother Rory says, opening the bottle’s cap with his teeth.

‘Yeah. And?’ Solomon tenses up. He slides his legs into his jeans and faces them all, ready to fight, ready to defend. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d punched any of them in the face.

‘And. She’s hot,’ Rory says with a grin, and passes him a bottle.

Going downstairs, Laura hears the sounds of the crowds and stalls a little in fear. The brothers notice but keep on going without a word, which Solomon appreciates. If it was Bo they would never have let her go, probably would have picked her up and carried her down over their heads themselves.

‘It’s okay, I promise,’ Solomon says gently. He wants to place his hand on her waist, guide her, he wants to take her hand. But he doesn’t do any of those things. He looks down at her, seeing the light freckles on her nose through her long lashes. She did change her clothes after all, a dress that she must have made herself. A simple design, long sleeves, but short hemline. Different fabrics sewn together. When she moved to the Toolin cottage she obviously moved with the garage of fabrics.

‘You’ll stay with me?’ she asks him, looking up.

He wants to move the hair that’s fallen before her eyes.

They’re standing so close on the stairs that she feels the heat from him. She wants to press her face against the skin she sees through the open buttons of his T-shirt. She wants to smell his skin, feel the heat on hers.

They stand there just looking at one another. He feels the intensity of her stare. He clears his throat.

‘Of course I’ll stay with you. If you promise to stay with me. I could get eaten alive down there.’

She smiles.

She reaches out and links arms with him, hugging his arm close to her body; she couldn’t stop herself.

‘You’ll be fine,’ he says softly, to the top of her head, so close his lips brush her hair and he smells her faint sweet perfume.

14

The connecting doors of the living room, the dining room, the den and the kitchen have been opened, along with those leading into the conservatory, creating a grand space for the party. The dining table is filled with food that Marie has prepared and that neighbours have brought with them. There are one hundred people squeezed into the ground floor of the house and already Finbar is centre stage and telling a special-edition story of how he met Marie. It’s in English, especially for her family and friends who travelled from Dublin.

After his story he presents her with a wooden heart that he carved himself from a tree that fell during a storm. It’s the tree he claims they shared their first kiss under, but Solomon guesses it’s closer to being a tree that stood in the park they once walked in. Still, the sentiment remains the same. In the four chambers of the heart are four drawers, inside each drawer is an item that represents the four generations together.

There are tears in everybody’s eyes, phones are in the air capturing the moment as Marie, who always sits on stage with Finbar as he acts, loses herself in an embrace. Marie is next to perform. Before having four children and opening her own guesthouse, Marie was a professional harpist who travelled the world, mostly the US, playing birthdays, weddings, stage shows. She played classical, traditional, whatever was required, but Celtic music is her personal favourite; it was thanks to the Celtic show that came to Galway that Finbar first laid eyes on her. This red-haired goddess behind an enormous harp, entrancing everybody. Not to take away from her talent, but Solomon and his siblings have been hearing the same routine their whole lives and, while not bored of it, the sheen certainly has come off. It’s in seeing the delight on other people’s faces as they hear her for the first time that reminds them of her skill to capture a crowd.

Marie starts to play ‘Carolan’s Dream’ and instantly Laura, who has been sitting by Solomon’s side in complete silence the whole time, sits up, utterly transfixed. Solomon smiles at her expression and sits back, arms folded, to watch Laura watch his mother.

His pocket vibrating makes him sit up and check his phone. Bo. He excuses himself, though no one even notices or cares, all eyes are on Marie, as he slips from the room into the kitchen.

‘Hi,’ he says, picking at the party food on the kitchen island.

‘Hi,’ her voice shouts, and he pulls the phone away from his ear as the hum of a crowd breaks into his serene surroundings. Pub noises.

‘I thought you were working at home,’ he says, trying to keep his voice down.

‘What?’ she yells.

‘I thought you were working at home,’ he says a little louder and somebody shushes him and closes the door. He opens the back door and steps outside to the garden. The scent of honeysuckles is strong, reminds him of a life spent playing outside, long hot bright summers, adventures in every corner of the garden.

‘I was. I am. Research,’ Bo shouts, and he can tell by her voice that she’s had a few drinks. It doesn’t take Bo many to get drunk. ‘I’m meeting with an anprothologist,’ she says, then she giggles. ‘You know what I mean. Anyway, I was trying to find one, so I sent footage of Laura off. Jack loves her. He wants her to audition for StarrQuest, he thinks she’d be amazing. We can’t let anyone know he’s seen her because the judges aren’t supposed to know the acts before they audition, but he thinks she’s incredible. I know what you think of the show but I’m thinking of exposure for Laura, you know, what that would do for the documentary?’

Bo’s breathless with excitement and she sounds like she’s walking too. Down the longest noisiest busiest street there is in Dublin. Or perhaps she’s pacing.

Solomon’s blood boils. ‘Hold on. Jack Starr wants Laura to audition for StarrQuest?’

‘It could be great, if you think about it, Sol. We could film her entire journey. She wants a new start, how exciting would it be for her? He doesn’t just want her to audition, he’d want her for the live shows. Definitely. But again, don’t tell anyone, they’re not supposed to say that in advance. Think about it, how exciting would it be for Laura?’

‘I am thinking about it and I think it’s a fucking disgrace that you’re even thinking about it,’ he practically spits down the phone.

She’s silent for one, two, three… ‘I should have known you’d piss all over the idea. I called you, excited, Sol. Why can’t you ever be enthusiastic about the same things as me? Or at least share in my happiness about something. You always drag it down.’

‘What are you doing drinking with Jack?’ he demands. Jack is her ex-boyfriend of five years, the guy she dated and lived with before Solomon. A middle-aged has-been who was the famous lead singer in an American soft-rock duo that had a handful of hits. He moved to Ireland in the eighties, dated a string of models and has lived off his name ever since. Now he’s a radio DJ, fronts a TV talent show that Solomon once worked on, a job for the money, not for the love, and drives Solomon crazy. Jack enjoys that he and Bo were together before Solomon, dropping one annoying and degrading comment after another to taunt him.

‘I wasn’t out drinking with him,’ she defends herself. ‘I emailed the footage of Laura, looking for an anthropologist-’ She gets the word right this time, careful to watch every syllable.

‘Why the fuck would he know an anthropologist, Bo? He’s a washed-up fucking crooner. This is bullshit – you rang him because I’m away and you wanted to hook up.’ He’s not quite sure where the anger is coming from, where the jealousy has surged from. He knows he has a right to feel a little put out, but certainly not this much; he can’t help himself though. It’s guilt for how he’s been feeling for Laura, added to the natural protective role he’s taken on. It fires him up.

She squeals down the phone, her absolute fury and disgust at being accused, but he talks over her, neither of them listening to one another but catching the occasional insulting word and jumping on that. They go in circles. And finally they go silent.

‘If Laura auditions, it would help interest and funding for the documentary,’ she says, businesslike.

‘I thought you didn’t need funding. I think it’s a tacky idea. I don’t see how this will help you as a serious documentary maker. I think it will undo all the good that you have done this year,’ he says coldly, hopefully his iciness comes across, wondering if he should give it more punch.

She’s silent and he’s wondering if he’s made her cry, which would be unusual for Bo, but when she speaks again she’s as strong as before.

‘As producer, I am keeping all options open. So there’s a change of plan. I’m not going to Cork on Sunday, instead you’ll need to bring Laura to Dublin for the audition. Happy birthday to your mother. Good night.’

Before he can speak, she ends the call.

Bo stares at the phone in her hand, the screensaver illuminated, a photo of her and Solomon holding an award for The Toolin Twins. Tears of frustration prick her eyes. She feels such loathing for her boyfriend right now, but mostly hurt. Irritated, frustrated, suffocated, stuck in a box. It is so predictable. She knew that he would act like this, that he would stomp all over this opportunity, but despite knowing it, she still went to him with her enthusiasm and still was hurt by his reaction. She does the same thing over and over again and expects different results, she’s sure that’s the definition of insanity.

She feels arms slide around her waist. She closes her eyes remembering that feeling, savouring it, then slithers away.

‘Jack, stop,’ she mumbles.

He looks at her. ‘Phone call with Prince Charming didn’t go well?’

She can’t even lie, can’t defend herself or him. She feels the weight of his stare on her. He always did that: staring at her until she said things she never planned on saying. Well, she’s not giving in now.

Jack zips up his leather jacket and pulls down his cap as a crowd passing stare and whisper about him. ‘He’s in Galway with another woman, you’re here with me. There’s something wrong with you two.’

‘We trust each other, Jack,’ she says tiredly.

‘Come back to me,’ he says and she laughs.

‘So you can cheat on me again?’

‘I never cheated on you. I told you that. You’re the only person I never cheated on.’

She gives him a suspicious look. She never really believed that. Her definition of cheating and his was always different. Jack in a club, surrounded by a crowd of near-naked young women fawning over him, wasn’t technically cheating, but he never stopped them brushing up, touching up. Never stopped himself either.

‘So what makes me so special?’ she asks, cynically, feeling like it’s a line.

‘You shouldn’t have to ask me that,’ he replies. ‘You should already know what makes you special. You should be told every day,’ he says gently.

‘He tells me all the time,’ she says, her voice flat. ‘Good night, Jack.’

He reaches out and runs his thumb down her chin, the way he always did. She smells the cigarette smoke from his fingers.

‘You should quit smoking.’

‘Would it bring you back to me?’

She rolls her eyes but her irritation with him disappears. ‘Would that make you stop?’

He smiles. ‘Get home safe, Bo Peep.’

She stands outside the pub alone, surrounded by a dozen smokers laughing and chatting, but alone. She thinks about what he said. When was the last time Sol praised her, or told her she was special? She can’t remember. But it’s been two years, that happens, doesn’t it. Things go stale, that’s natural. At least he’s loyal, that she believes, or has always believed in the past. She never worried when he went out at night, came home late; he wasn’t that kind of guy. All she can think of is the times he’s talked her down, the times he’s tried to change her mind, in that soothing voice that now feels patronising. But that’s natural too, that’s the result of working and living together. There is rarely a break from each other, things overlap, lines become blurred, they’re doing well, she thinks. Perhaps they need more rules, more help on how to maintain their relationship while working together. No more talking the director and producer down, he wouldn’t do it on any other job. But then, she knows herself that she often needs it. She runs head-first into things, Solomon helps her to see other angles. Angles that seem obvious as soon as he says them, but that weren’t there for her at the time. They’re a good team.

But it doesn’t feel like it, sometimes, that’s all, particularly now. She’s sure that’s natural too.

As for the StarrQuest idea, despite Solomon’s reservations, which she had too, she still thinks it’s a good idea. Like Laura said, sometimes you only need one person to trust. StarrQuest is Jack’s show and despite everything they’ve been through, Bo trusts him.

Solomon swears and stuffs his phone in his pocket. It’s still bright outside, the sky starting to darken as the summer evening closes in. He takes a deep breath, his mind fuming over what Bo has said to him. Bringing Laura to Dublin to enter StarrQuest seems like the tackiest, cheesiest fucking thing that Bo could come up with, but he can’t flat-out refuse. All he can do is tell Laura and see what she says. It’s her life, not his. He has to stop getting so involved in other people’s issues, he has to stop being so sensitive to every little happening around him. It’s not his job to put out other people’s fires, it’s not his job to feel other people’s problems, but he is that way, always has been. He can’t help it. He was always the lad who tried to get couples back together if there was a misunderstanding and they broke up. He was always the lad to try to cool a drunken argument between mates on a night out. Any misunderstanding that has nothing to do with him, he tries to jump in and fix. The arbitrator. The counsellor. The peacekeeper. It stresses him more than the ones directly involved; he feels the anger, the hurt, the injustice those people should be feeling multiplied in himself. He knows he does it, realises now that he probably shouldn’t, but he can’t stop.

As the anger cools, so does his body heat. The sea breeze causes goosebumps to rise on his skin. He plans on hunting for a cigarette – he only smokes when he’s highly strung, or drunk, and right now he’s feeling a little of both – but suddenly he hears a sound from inside that stops him in his tracks and sends his heart racing.

‘Carolan’s Dream’ is being played again, but he knows it’s not his mother playing. Marie wouldn’t play it twice on a night, never has before, can’t see why she’d do it now. It’s close to her version, but not quite. It’s somebody else attempting it, but he can’t pinpoint what’s wrong. There are no wrong strings being hit, nothing out of tune, but there is something removed, and there is nobody remotely as talented as his mother on the harp who could attempt that. Not in that room. He moves as if in slow motion, as if he’s standing on a camera as it tracks across the scene. He barely feels his feet move, his head is in the music, the music is in his head. He follows it as if it beckons him, as if it’s a beacon, drawing him in. From the kitchen, the kitchen door leading to the session is open again and all he can see is the crowd. All eyes forward, mouths agape, heads shaking, eyes wide and some filled with the beauty of what they’re hearing and seeing. He stands at the doorway and nobody notices him. He looks at the stage and there sits Laura on a stool, alone on the platform, her eyes closed, her mouth open, mimicking the sound of the Celtic harp.

Solomon’s mother, who is standing beside the raised platform next to Finbar, turns to see Solomon. She rushes towards him, a look of what appears to be concern on her face, hands to her mouth.

‘Oh, Solomon,’ she whispers, wrapping her arm around his waist and pulling herself close to him. She turns to face Laura.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks, confused. For a moment he’s afraid she’s going to throw a diva tantrum that Laura is playing her song on her special night. It would be completely out of character, but he can’t place her emotions.

She ignores him for a moment, caught in Laura’s spell. Then she turns to him. ‘I’ve never seen nor heard anyone like her in my life. She’s magical.’

Solomon smiles, relieved. Proud. ‘Now you get to hear how beautifully you play,’ he says to her.

‘Oh my,’ she says, hands to her hot cheeks.

He glances around the faces of the crowd, everybody utterly captivated, experiencing something new and astonishing for the first time in their lives.

Perhaps he was unfair to Bo. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps Laura deserves an audience, and not just the kind that a documentary would provide. She needs a live audience, a real live reaction. Seeing her in person is visceral, it brings her and her skills alive. Perhaps, like the lyrebird, on a platform is exactly where she’s meant to be.

15

As soon as Laura has finished mimicking ‘Carolan’s Dream’, the crowd erupts in applause. They jump to their feet, hollering and whistling, shouting for more. Laura receives such a fright from the reception that she stands frozen on the spot, staring out at everyone.

‘Rescue her, Solomon.’ Marie grips his arm.

He runs up to the platform and takes her by the hand. Flesh on flesh, she looks at him in surprise. Thinking of his argument with Bo, he quickly lets go and she follows him. He tries to leave the stage but his brothers trap him, and everybody, family and neighbours, call for him to sing. He knows there’ll be no getting off the stage until he’s sung at least one song. Rory goes to Laura’s aid and ushers her to her chair, which Solomon watches with uncertainty while he sets himself up with his guitar. Rory is in her ear, and she is leaning close to him to hear what he’s saying. This sets his blood thumping again, but there’s nothing he can do about it while he’s on stage, nothing that he could ever do about it because he has no claim over her. Rory is the baby, twenty-eight years old and closer in age to Laura than Solomon is. He’s also single, permanently single, bringing home sweet girl after sweet girl for family occasions but never staying with them for longer than a few months. Rory can have his pick of just about anybody, and he chooses well, always beautiful, nice girls, taken by his charm. Cute, sweet, is what the girls call Rory, and he laps it up.

Solomon tightens his ponytail on the top of his head to Donal shouting ‘Get a haircut!’ to laughter, and then strums the guitar once to get their attention. Laura immediately looks up. Rory couldn’t be less interested in Solomon about to sing his song for the hundredth time and thinks of ways to get her attention again.

‘I wrote this song when I was seventeen years old, when a girl who shall remain nameless broke my heart.’

‘Sarah Maguire!’ Donal shouts, and they all laugh.

‘You’ve all heard this before, apart from one person, who’s very welcome here tonight, wasn’t she wonderful, lads?’

They all cheer Laura.

‘It’s called “Twenty Things That Make Me Happy…”.’

They collectively ‘ahhhh’.

‘“… And None of Them Are You”,’ he finishes the title and they cheer. They always do, it’s the same every time. All part of the comfort of the gathering, everyone knowing their part, getting involved, playing their role. And despite knowing its title and even the lyrics, they laugh generously.

And he begins. It’s an up-tempo song about the simple pleasures in life, how important they are, how happy they make him. So much more than the girl who broke his heart, now belittled to nothing in his life, exactly what he wanted to do when he was seventeen and angry and hurt after she’d cheated on him with a mate. She wasn’t his first love, he’d had others, but back then Solomon fell in love easily and he was in love with being in love, a young romantic who wrote love songs for himself and rock songs for his band.

His aim had always been to be a rock star, his first backup plan to be a recording studio sound recordist, second, to be a sound man on tour. He’d settled on sound recordist for documentaries for his soul, reality TV lately for his rent. He still writes and plays his guitar, though less now that Bo is living with him as he has less time to himself and the paper-thin walls of his city apartment don’t afford him the luxury of his awkward, often embarrassing ways of finding his way through a song.

The crowd join in as he lists them.

One: Fresh sheets on the bed.

Two: A good hair day.

Three: Finishing work when it’s bright outside.

Four: A day off on a sunny day.

Five: Post that isn’t bills.

These are five things that make me happy – ooooh…

He stops playing and the crowd fills the silence with:

And none of them are you.

They cheer themselves and laugh and he continues.

Six: A bacon bap with tomato ketchup.

Seven: The smell of freshly cut grass.

Eight: Scarface and a pint.

Nine: Jackie’s Army in Italia ’90.

Ten: Finding money in my pocket.

These are ten things that make me happy, oooh…

He stops playing and the crowd responds with:

And none of them are you.

‘SARAH!’ Donal yells, which sends everyone into hysterics.

Eleven: A favourite song on repeat.

Twelve: Catching the morning bus.

Thirteen: Popping bubble-wrap.

Fourteen: Mam’s apple tart. [This gets a cheer.]

Fifteen: Matching socks.

These are fifteen things that make me happy, oooh…

AND NONE OF THEM ARE YOU.

Sixteen: Packie Bonner’s save against Romania. [More cheers.]

Seventeen: Breakfast in bed.

Eighteen: A shower, shit and a shave.

Nineteen: The first day of the holidays.

Twenty…

He strums the guitar speedily, drumming up the anticipation, so that everyone joins in on the final line:

… And kissing your best friend!

The lyrics had always been ‘fucking’ your best friend, which is what he had done to help himself at the time, but it didn’t work of course, and he kept it clean for his parents’ sake.

The crowd erupt with joy and as he leaves the stage, Cormac, his eldest brother, gets up to say a piece from Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel.

As Solomon makes his way through the crowd, stopping to chat to people he hasn’t seen in months, he reaches his place to find Laura gone. He searches around and catches Donal’s eye. He points at the door towards the kitchen. Solomon can’t get into the kitchen quick enough.

The kitchen holds party stragglers picking at the food during Cormac’s performance. Cormac possesses that ability to clear the room, not because he’s not good – he’s great, no one delivers it better – but because he lacks timing. When everybody is about to lift the ceiling off, he does his piece, dark and quiet and sad, which is in direct contradiction to what everybody wants. He kills the atmosphere, lets the energy dip. He does the same in conversation, brings up something sombre when they’re all laughing.

His sister Cara has also escaped their brother’s moment. She notices Solomon looking around, senses his mood.

‘Out there’ – she points out the window – ‘gone to show her the cuckoos, our cuckoo-fucking-expert.’ She does Solomon the decency of not even laughing at that. Solomon controls himself, his pace, tries to control his heart rate as he makes his way through the growing crowd to the door that leads to the garden. Once at the door, he stalls, his hand on the handle.

And what is so wrong with Laura being outside with Rory? Apart from it driving Solomon insane, she’s a twenty-six-year-old woman who can do what she likes. What’s he going to do, break them up? Declare that they can’t be together? He knows his brother well, knows exactly what he wants from Laura, what any man would want from any young beautiful woman they have a private moment with, but his brother is not a sexual predator. He won’t be on top of Laura, pinning her down to the ground; she doesn’t need rescuing.

Or maybe Laura knows exactly what Rory wants, maybe she wants it too. Ten years alone in a cottage without intimacy, would she want sex? Wouldn’t that be natural? Solomon knows that he would. But does he owe it to Laura to protect her? It’s not his job to mind her, or is it? Perhaps that’s a job that he’s given himself, placing himself in a position of importance for his own ego. An argument that is reminiscent of childish brotherly fights: I found her first. She’s mine! But Laura did choose him, he is the one she wanted to stay with, though not necessarily be wrapped in cotton wool by him. He’s not exactly her knight in shining armour either, thinking some of the things he’s been thinking. With a girlfriend. A girlfriend he just accused of trying to hook up with her ex. He was projecting. Bo would see right through him, if she hadn’t already. Most girlfriends would never allow their boyfriends to go away on a trip with another woman, especially to a family occasion, especially a young beautiful single woman. Was she testing him, or did she have ridiculously high reserves of trust and loyalty? Or did she want him to do what he so wanted to do? Was she egging him on, daring him to end it? Do the thing that she can’t do. Because if he didn’t, would they ever break up? Were they going to be together for ever because neither of them had the balls to break up, because there wasn’t a good enough reason to break up?

Things were never bad between him and Bo, but he didn’t exactly know where they were headed. They were working together, tied together through that, living together more as a result of an accident than from anything deliberate or romantic. And who does he think he is, imagining he is even entitled to a chance with Laura, as if that’s something that is there for his taking. Frustrated with himself for sitting on his high horse, he knows he’s entirely to blame and has been trying to justify whatever occurred to him in the forest the day he met Laura.

‘Jesus,’ Cara interrupts his thoughts. ‘If you don’t go, I will.’ Cara hands him her bottle of beer, moves him aside and goes outside to the garden. The chill hits Solomon, which goes straight to his brain, a wake-up call. He downs the remainder of her bottle, follows Cara into the dark night and the security beam comes to life, illuminating the garden. There’s no sign of Rory and Laura.

There are three places to go. Through an archway into the labyrinth; manicured hedging that they used to get up to mischief in, the beach.

‘He wouldn’t bring her in there,’ Cara says. She looks across the road to the beach, then back to the garden. By now Solomon’s heart is racing.

‘Up here,’ Cara says, and they leave the manicured garden behind and climb the rugged wild land beside. No man’s land. They weren’t allowed to go there as children. Everyone knew about the children that were taken by the old witch woman who lived there, who couldn’t have children of her own – Marie’s own version of the Bogie man. It worked to a point. It wasn’t until their teens that they started hanging out there. Cormac and Donal had taken the fourteen-year-old Irish college students there for drinking sessions during the night while they were away from their Dublin homes for three weeks in the summer to learn Irish. It was fairly tame stuff, drinking and smoking, kissing and whatever body parts they were lucky enough to get their hands on, but one night Donal had broken his ankle, gone over it on a rock, so they had to alert their parents, and it was game over. The students’ disappointed parents had come to collect them and, crying, the girls had shamefully returned to Dublin, the talk of the school year, the shame of the school, the stuff of legend. While Cormac and Donal spent the summer grounded, Marie had learned not to allow Irish college students to stay in her house until the children were older.

Solomon and Cara pick their way across the dark land, Cara leading the way.

‘There you are,’ she announces suddenly, and Solomon catches up.

Laura and Rory are sitting on a smooth flat rock, hidden from view of the house, with a perfect view of the beach. The moon is lighting the way, the sea crashes to the shore. Rory’s arm is around Laura’s shoulder. Solomon can’t even speak, he feels his heart in his throat.

‘She’s cold,’ Rory says, with a cheeky smile.

It was always Rory who had the ability to wind him up. Solomon never had much problem with the others – and when he did they were physical fights – but Rory always managed to get inside his head. Not being able to pronounce Rory’s name had made him agitated with his youngest brother from the beginning, ever since he was born. He was bullied by the others for not being able to say it, and Rory used it to his advantage, trying to get under Solomon’s skin in any way he could.

‘It is cold out,’ Cara says. ‘No cuckoos around, though. Bit too late for that, isn’t it?’

Rory bites his lip but it doesn’t stop his smile. He looks from brother to sister, knowing he has agitated them both and enjoying the feeling. Or he’s agitated one, and the other has come to his defence. He seems proud of himself.

‘What are you two doing out here?’ Rory asks.

‘Taking photos,’ Cara says.

‘You don’t have a camera.’

‘Nope.’ She holds her stare with her brother, annoyed with him too.

Rory shakes his head and laughs. ‘Right, Laura, I think we should go inside. Turner and Hooch are worried about you.’

‘Okay,’ Laura says, looking at the three of them, worried by what she’s seeing and making Solomon feel awful for causing her to feel that way.

‘Any time you need me, when this fool is boring you, just call,’ he grins and starts to make his way across the rocks to the house. Cara follows him.

‘Are you okay?’ Solomon asks, finally finding his voice.

‘Yes.’ She smiles, then she looks down. ‘You were worried about me.’

‘Yes,’ he says awkwardly, embarrassed.

They’re so close she feels his warm breath reach her skin through the cool air. She smells beer. It’s dark but his face is half-lit by the lights of the house. Strong jaw, perfect nose. She wants to undo the topknot, run her hands through his hair. She wants to know what it feels like, see how it moves. She sees his Adam’s apple move as he swallows.

‘You didn’t need to worry about me.’

She means that she has no interest in his brother, nothing like the way he makes her feel by merely being in his company, but she knows it has come out wrong. He looks hurt. As if he has understood her to mean that she doesn’t want him to worry, because she doesn’t want him. Her heart pounds. She wants to take it back immediately, explain it properly.

‘Watch out on the rocks,’ he says gently, turning to make his way to the house.

16

The following morning the house that’s filled to the brim with people, every bedroom full, every couch being slept on despite Marie’s planning, is completely silent. It was six a.m. when the party finally ended, and though Laura went to bed after her discussion with Solomon, so annoyed with herself for saying what she’d said, and him embarrassed for trying to be her knight in shining armour, he had stayed up for a few more hours, watching Rory, watching the stairs to make sure she was safe. Rory had given Solomon a wide berth – physically but not mentally, Rory never could avoid that. Whenever they would catch eyes he’d wink or give him a cheeky grin that was enough to send Solomon spiralling into a silent jealous rage. He’d gone to his room around two a.m. and then been kept awake by the singing and shouting downstairs, and by Donal, who collapsed on him somewhere around five a.m., snoring as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Solomon could quite gladly have stayed in bed all day, or taken off somewhere quiet with his guitar to play or to write: he feels something stirring in him. The feelings of inspiration are rare these days, but he knows he won’t settle. He reckons Laura will more than likely rise early, and he doesn’t want Rory to take her off anywhere again. He isn’t planning to act like her bodyguard the entire time, but he certainly isn’t about to let it be his baby brother who gets his paws on her.

He showers quickly and goes downstairs. Every single window of the house is open to air the stench of stale smoke and drink. Marie is sitting at the kitchen table in her dressing gown, with her neighbours, drinking Bloody Marys.

‘Will you have a fry?’ she asks, her voice tired. The festivities have taken it out of her.

‘I’m grand, thanks, Mam. Have you lads not been home yet?’ Solomon jokes, pouring milk into his cereal.

‘Yes, but we came around again for round two, ding ding!’ their neighbour Jim laughs, lifting his Bloody Mary. ‘Sláinte.’ Despite his cheer, the mood is calm as they dissect the goings on of the night. ‘Your Lyrebird is a real treasure,’ he says.

‘How did you know she’s called Lyrebird?’

‘She told us. Said you’d named her that. Not familiar myself, but sounds like a fascinating bird. Nowhere near as fascinating as the girl, though. My word, that’s some set of organs on her.’

‘A great set of organs all right,’ Rory says suddenly, shuffling into the kitchen sleepily and scratching his head.

‘She went across to the beach,’ Marie says, watching Solomon closely, trying to hide her knowing smile as he suddenly throws heaped spoons of cereal into his mouth in an effort to finish quickly and get outside to Laura.

‘Mind if I-’ He stands up and dumps the cereal bowl in the sink.

‘Go.’ She smiles. ‘But don’t forget you promised your dad you’d go shooting today.’

Laura is standing at the water’s edge in another of her interesting fashion concoctions. It looks like she’s wearing a man’s shirt, probably Tom’s, but using her alteration skills she has adjusted it to fit as a dress, added clashing fabric of another shirt along the bottom for length, with a leather belt knotted around her waist, a pair of black Doc Martens with woollen socks pulled up to below her knee, which work on her long lean legs, and a denim jacket. Solomon doesn’t know much about fashion, but he knows she’s certainly not following any trends. Even so, she looks cool. She looks like the kind of woman he’d chat up in a bar, the kind of woman who’d turn his head. The kind of woman who could turn his heart.

Laura feels like she could stand at the water’s edge for ever; it has been years since she has been near the sea, since her last family holiday with Gaga and Mum in Dingle. She could easily stay standing here, but that was the problem with Laura, she could stay anywhere she set her mind to, for ever. Full days spent in the forest, leaning against a tree trunk, gazing up through the leaves at the sky. An entire day, lost in her mind, in her memory, in her daydreams. But not any more; she has to stop this, she needs to change with the change, prepare for a new direction.

She closes her eyes and listens to the water lapping gently, she almost starts to sway with the relaxation. The seagulls sing overhead and she relishes the beauty and perfection of the moment. It’s made even more perfect with the arrival of him. She smells him before she hears him.

‘Hi, Solomon,’ she says before he says anything, before she even turns around.

‘Hi.’ He laughs. ‘Are you psychic too?’

‘That would mean I know what’s going to happen in the future,’ she says, turning to look at him. ‘I wish I knew that.’ He’s wearing a blue long-sleeved cotton top, with buttons open at the top. A few dark hairs on his chest peep out. The sides of his head are shaved short and tight, but the rest of his black waves and curls are tied up in a high ponytail. She’s never seen a man with a ponytail before, but she likes it. He’s still masculine, like a warrior, and it shows off his features, his high cheekbones, his strong jaw that is always covered in stubble. She wants to run her hands over it as he does when he’s thinking, looking lost and intense.

‘What was that?’ he frowns.

‘What?’ she asks.

‘That noise.’

She wasn’t even aware she’d made one, but she’d been thinking of one. The sound of his fingers brushing his stubble, the motion he makes when he’s thinking. She likes that sound.

‘Would you really like to know what happens in the future?’ he asks, standing beside her, looking out to sea.

‘Sometimes I’m more interested in what happened in the past,’ she admits. ‘I think about conversations I’ve had, or have overheard, or even things that I haven’t. I think them through, imagine how they could have gone, would have gone.’

‘Like…?’

‘Like my mum and Tom. How they had this secret love affair, I imagine it – not, you know, all of it, but…’

‘I know what you mean,’ he says, eager for her to continue.

‘I think that was probably my flaw. Why I never left the mountain. I was so busy thinking about the past, I forgot to plan for my future.’

She feels his eyes searing into her and she looks away; she can’t take their heat.

‘What about you?’ she asks.

‘What about me? I’ve forgotten what we were talking about.’ He’s not joking. He’s nervous.

‘Future thinker or past thinker?’

‘Future,’ he says, certain. ‘Since I was a kid, I lived in my head. I wanted to be a rock star, I always thought about my future, being older, leaving school, conquering the world with my music.’

She laughs. ‘Was that your flaw?’

‘No.’ He looks at her again and her stomach flips. ‘I think we have the same one.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Not thinking about the present.’

As soon as he says it, everything feels so now. Like a spell has been cast between them, her body tingles from head to toe, feeling so alive yet faint. She has never felt this way around anyone before, in her rare experiences with people; even she knows this isn’t normal. It’s something special.

He looks away and breaks the spell. She tries to hide her disappointment.

‘Everybody loved you last night,’ he says, almost businesslike, matter-of-fact. She’s lost him again, to whatever goes on inside his head when he gets that intense distant look. ‘They think you’ve landed here from another planet. They’ve never seen such a gift.’

She smiles her thanks. ‘It is your mother who is gifted.’ She thinks of Marie, sitting at the harp, sitting so beautifully straight at the harp, and she hears the song before she realises she’s making the sound again.

‘Did you like being on stage?’ he asks her, captivated.

She can tell he has something on his mind. Like last night when he was angry with her because he found her with his brother. She has never met someone like him who seems to have so much going on in their head that isn’t spoken. It’s all in his eyes and his forehead. The thoughts seem to take shape and move around in his brow, knots of thoughts. She wishes they’d break free of his skin so she could see what they are for herself. She wants to place her hands on his forehead and say Stop. Smooth it down, give him peace. Better yet, touch her lips to his frown. He’s uncomfortable now, something has shifted in him so quickly, going from being relaxed to tense in a matter of a few seconds.

He rubs his jaw. She mimics the sound. She loves that sound. Suddenly the bubbling thoughts are gone and the beautiful straight teeth are grinning at her instead. That’s better.

‘That’s what that sound was you made earlier,’ he says, happy to have placed it, perhaps happy that it’s his sound.

Laura would make that sound all day if it meant he’d smile at her like that all the time. But it wouldn’t work, he’d grow tired of the sound, the spark would eventually wear off, she would have to keep finding new ones and this new world was ripe with new sounds for her. Sometimes too many; it was starting to give her a headache trying to process them all. She was eager at first to hear them, understand them, but then as they moved from Macroom to Galway the sounds intensified. Particularly last night. She felt exhausted by the interaction and she looks forward to returning to Cork. Wherever it is she’ll be staying, at least she’ll be spending time on the mountain, surrounded by familiar sounds.

Though no matter how many times people had sung their songs last night, the spark had never seemed to wear off them. She was hearing them for the first time and it was as though they were performing for the first time. Especially Solomon’s performance. He had brought the room alive. Laura’s heart had been in her throat the entire time at the sound of his singing voice, of the twenty things that made him so happy at seventeen.

Solomon’s concern has returned and she senses something. ‘The reason I ask whether you enjoyed performing last night is because Bo called me last night.’

Bo coming into their conversation has altered everything, the space widens between them. Who made that happen, her or him? She looks down at the sand, sees that her feet have moved from her footprints, as have his. They both have stepped away from each other.

‘She had a change of plan,’ he says, sounding strained, forced.

Laura’s heart thuds, hoping Bo won’t pull the plug on the documentary. She doesn’t care in the slightest about it, but she needs it. It’s the only bridge off her island. If she doesn’t have them, she doesn’t know what will become of her life.

‘She wants us to go to Dublin tonight. She’s lined up some interviews for the documentary there.’

Laura feels such relief that it’s still going ahead that she doesn’t care about not returning to her home. She tries to fight the grin from her face.

‘And she has a friend’ – his face darkens and his forehead bubbles – ‘who has a TV talent show, StarrQuest. They would like you to go on the show.’

He seems so conflicted, she’s unsure. The signal to understanding him is coming and going. He keeps talking while she tries to figure him out.

‘Bo showed footage of you to these TV people. Remember the coffee machine at breakfast yesterday?’

Laura makes the sound instantly as she recalls it.

‘Yeah, that one.’ His smile is tight.

‘They like that sound?’ She makes the sound again, listening to herself more carefully to see what was so special about it.

‘It’s unique, Laura. Nobody else makes that sound. Nothing other than… the coffee machine.’

‘Then that coffee machine would have a big chance of winning,’ she says, trying to ease his discomfort.

He laughs loudly and her joke seems to do what was intended.

‘I’ve heard about StarrQuest,’ she says. ‘I’ve read enough magazines to know who the winners are of every single reality TV show going, and heard about them and their songs on the radio. What do you think of me doing it?’

‘I’ll be honest…’ He puts his hands to his face.

She makes the stubble rubbing sound and he stops, stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

‘When Bo told me about it last night, I was not happy. I thought it was a bad idea. But then I saw you perform, I saw the looks on people’s faces. They were captivated. Maybe it’s wrong to deprive people of that experience, this experience of you that I’m having. Maybe I didn’t want to share you. But the documentary would have done that anyway. Maybe it’s wrong to deprive you of that experience, of that adulation, that celebration of your skills.’

She feels her cheeks glow pink because of his words. He didn’t want to share her. But she’s confused. ‘My skills?’

He’s not sure how to broach the sounds that she makes. He’s not even sure if she’s aware she makes them half the time.

‘Like what you did last night at the party. Did you enjoy it?’

She thinks of the serenity she felt in his parents’ home. The calm as she recalled the harp strings, the shared energy in the atmosphere. The explosive reaction gave her a fright, but she wasn’t expecting it. She felt alone, which she likes, but as though she was sharing being alone with others.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I did like it.’

He takes this in. He seems surprised by the reaction, perhaps disappointed. She’s confused. He’s not making this easy for her. He’s asking her to do something that she’s not entirely sure he wants her to do.

‘Why would you want me to do this show, exactly?’ she asks.

‘It’s not my idea,’ he says quickly. ‘It’s Bo’s idea. Her reasoning is that it would be good for the documentary. If you have a profile, then it will help the success of the documentary.’

Laura cannot lose doing the documentary. Without the documentary crew, she has nobody, she needs to cling to them as she would a life raft.

‘Doing the talent show to help the documentary seems like a great idea of Bo’s,’ she says.

He nods. ‘I suppose it is.’

She smiles. ‘You don’t always like Bo’s ideas.’

He looks relieved to be able to tell the truth. ‘No, I don’t. And, Laura, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure about this one. This is completely your decision.’

‘What do you think of this talent show?’ she asks.

He screws his face up, squeezes his eyes shut while thinking about an answer. ‘I used to work on it,’ he says. ‘Sound.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

‘Nothing gets past you.’ He smiles. ‘It’s a risk. You could do the audition and not get through to the next round. The crowd could love you, the crowd could for some unknown reason take a dislike to you. You could audition and be booed off the stage. You could audition and possibly win. If that happens, your life could go in a myriad of directions. It depends on what you want to do with your life.’

‘And if I don’t win?’

He thinks about it. ‘You’ll be forgotten almost immediately.’

She gives it careful thought. Directions, Laura thinks. Options. Different directions sound good because she can’t go back. If she makes a fool of herself she’ll be forgotten, that’s not so bad. That’s almost a perk.

‘I’ll do it,’ she says firmly, to Solomon’s surprise.

From one bridge to another.

That afternoon, when Solomon’s brothers have risen from their beds and come to life, they make their way to a clay pigeon shooting range nearby. Competition is the name of the game and always has been between the siblings and their dad, Cara excluded; she chooses to stay home and catch up with her mother. A keen poker player, Finbar always has his eye on winning and has instilled this into his children. Every year they go hunting; pheasant, woodcock, pigeon, game, whatever is available, and the amount they hit is the mark of the man. As it’s out of season for bird hunting, they have to settle for clay pigeon shooting, and already Finbar has devised a method of scorekeeping and rules.

Solomon and Laura plan to follow the others in Solomon’s car, but as they are moving out, the car door opens and Rory jumps in. Solomon feels rage but buries it. Laura’s eyes light up and she politely giggles away at the ridiculous jokes and stories Rory tells on the way in. Solomon tries to compose himself while ignoring most of the things his brother says, but he’s unable to ignore how animated Laura has become in Rory’s company.

Laura walks with Rory to the shooting range, which consists of a series of wooden cabins in a row. Solomon stays protectively beside her, though not too close. He’s not sure whether she wants him to leave but he chooses to stay regardless. Five cabins, all holding groups of six, are full. A weekend of good summer weather has brought the groups out.

Laura is content to sit on the bench and watch them fight it out. To Solomon’s irritation, Rory sits beside Laura. Solomon stands nearby feeling like a spare part, trying to hear their conversation. She likes him, he knows that much, and so as the game goes on he moves away, gives them space, feeling pushed out and resenting his brother, and himself, the whole time.

Solomon concentrates intently on hitting the clay pigeons while Rory talks behind him. He feels that Rory is doing it deliberately, a ploy to put him off his game, and then again realises the arrogance of that thought. Solomon misses the first clay.

‘Shut the fuck up, lads,’ he barks, and they quieten. Finbar shushes Rory, which pleases Solomon and he hits every one after that. Five in a row, but that’s only a warm-up round. Rory is up next and Solomon is pleased to have the bench.

Laura holds her hand up for a high-five.

Solomon smiles and meets her hand, allowing his fingers to cave in and join with hers. She smiles at him. They let their hands fall down slowly, still linked. Then he thinks of Bo and wonders what the fuck he’s doing and lets go.

Rory hits every single one.

‘That’s what you get for missing Christmas,’ Finbar teases Solomon, who missed the Christmas hunt.

‘Ah, don’t be too hard on him,’ Donal says, picking up the gun and taking his place. ‘These award-winning documentary makers are jet-setters now.’

‘It wasn’t me getting the award, lads, it was Mouth to Mouth that was receiving it.’ Solomon folds his arms and stands next to Laura. He thinks about sitting down but there’s no room on her side, and he doesn’t want to sit beside Rory, who’s taken his place again.

‘You were receiving mouth to mouth?’ Donal asks before pulling the trigger.

Solomon explains to Laura: ‘It’s the name of Bo’s production company. She sees documentaries as a way of breathing life into stories. Helping them come alive.’

Rory makes a vomiting sound.

‘Grow up, Rory.’

‘Wawwy,’ Laura says, in Solomon’s perfect impression of himself.

She’s not teasing Solomon and hopes he doesn’t feel that, but she’s assessing the atmosphere between him and Rory and puts it down to that. A simple word explains how Solomon feels. Though Rory doesn’t see it that way, neither do the others. The lads laugh thinking she’s mocking him. Solomon folds his arms and looks into the distance. ‘Come on, get a move on, we’ll be here all day.’

Laura looks at him apologetically.

They each have a turn. Their dad is in joint lead with Rory, who always works best when he has somebody to show off in front of. Cormac is last. Intense Cormac who thinks too much before he takes a shot.

‘Cara shoots better photos,’ Solomon teases him.

Solomon likes it when Rory takes his turn because it frees the bench beside Laura. He thinks about sitting in Rory’s place, but then thinks it might be petty, that perhaps they’ll jeer him, they’ll read too much into it. So he remains standing and Laura is more interested in watching his shots anyway. Rory never misses one. As the only son who still lives at home with his parents, he has more time to go hunting with his dad.

To everybody’s amusement, Laura mimics the shotguns, the clay pigeon machine, the sound as they’re released, the sound as they’re hit. It’s interesting to Solomon how quickly everybody gets used to her sounds, and they continue without turning to watch her after every sound. Now and then a sound will rouse a chuckle from one of them, a ‘Good one, Laura!’ from his dad, an impressed, surprised cry of delight, never of jest, and Solomon could kiss them all for this.

Rory is now in the lead. Finbar and Solomon are tied. Cormac and Donal are lagging behind. If Solomon gets six out of six, and his dad misses one, then he’ll tie with Rory. He steps up to the mark. Places the shotgun on his shoulder.

‘Good luck, Solomon,’ Laura says, and this softens him.

Behind him, Rory picks up his own shotgun and motions for her to follow. She frowns, but stands quietly and follows him. He moves to the side, out of his family’s eyeshot, but they’re not watching him anyway because they’re all facing the other way, watching Solomon. Rory points at something a little way away in the grass and Laura smiles with delight. It’s a beautiful hare. A silly thing that has wandered off and found itself on a dangerous battlefield. It leaps wildly, trying to find a way out, the shotguns going off around him from the five cabins. Laura smiles and watches it. She hasn’t seen a hare for years, there were none up on the mountain, badgers and rats being the largest mammals, neither of which were something she wanted to see around her home.

While she’s watching it, Rory raises the rifle to his shoulder. Takes aim.

‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

He fires immediately, causing the others to jump at the sound so close to them, that hasn’t come from Solomon’s gun.

Laura screams. Solomon gets a fright and his finger pulls the trigger. He misses the clay pigeon, not that he cares because he’s so concerned about Laura. He turns around and sees her duck under the wooden rail onto the grass.

‘What’s she doing?’ Donal asks.

‘Laura, no!’ he yells, putting down the gun and running after her.

‘Get back here!’ Finbar yells after him, as do the others, but he ignores them. People are firing all around them, Laura could be hit.

The owner spots them, yells for everyone to hold their fire but word doesn’t reach them instantly, and a few shots are fired as both Laura and Solomon run across the field.

‘Laura! Stop!’ Solomon yells, angry that she has put herself in such danger. He reaches her and wraps his arm around her waist, pulling her towards him, tight to his body. She pushes his arm away, as she looks around the ground in a panic as though she’s searching for something. He lets her go and watches her circling the area, trying to find something, making noises, sounds he can’t decipher. Animal sounds, gunshot sounds.

‘Laura what are you doing?’ He’s calmer now that everybody in the cabins has put down their guns, but they’re all lining up at the rails to watch the spectacle. He doesn’t want her to become a spectacle, part of a circus.

She circles the same patch in the field, eyes down, panicked, making sound after sound, almost in an effort to track it down.

‘Laura,’ he says calmly. ‘I’ll help you. What are you doing?’

He feels his brothers beside him. His dad. He looks at them confused, sees that Rory is hanging behind, looking guilty.

‘What did you do?’ he asks him, roughly.

Rory ignores him.

‘He shot something,’ Cormac says, annoyed with his baby brother. ‘Rory, Jesus, you could have hit one of us. You don’t fire from the cabin.’

‘This isn’t fucking Platoon,’ Donal says.

‘What did you shoot?’ Solomon asks. ‘Did you shoot a bird?’

‘There aren’t any fucking birds,’ Rory says, annoyed that everyone is turning on him now. ‘Why would a bird fly over here?’

‘Ah, don’t touch that, love,’ Finbar says suddenly as he spins around to see her on her knees, on the grass, beside a hare. A hare that has been shot but isn’t yet dead. Laura sobs, tears gushing down her cheeks, as she mimics its dying sounds.

‘Jesus,’ Rory says, looking at her as if she’s weird. ‘It’s only a fucking hare.’

‘You can’t kill fucking hares here,’ his dad snaps at him, trying to keep his voice down with so many eyes on them. ‘Christ, what are you thinking, you’ll have us all banned, Rory.’

‘He was showing off, that’s what,’ Cormac says, annoyed.

‘We really should get back to the cabin,’ Finbar says to Solomon, eyeing Laura worriedly, conscious of the stares they’ve attracted.

‘I know.’ Solomon rubs his eyes tiredly. ‘Just give her a minute.’

He watches as Laura kneels next to the dying hare, mimicking its sounds, sobbing with such sadness. While the others might think she’s crazy, he understands her pain, her loss.

The owner starts to walk towards them, a red, angry head on him.

Solomon goes to Laura, hunches down and puts his arm around her shoulder. ‘It’s gone now, come on let’s go.’

He feels her body tremble as she slowly stands and looks around. At all the eyes on her. At the sniggering, at the frowns, at the raised camera phones. Even Rory won’t meet her eye now, hanging back and starting to head to the cabin without them. She wipes her cheeks and tries to compose herself.

Rory is gone by the time they reach the cabin, he’s hitched a lift with somebody else. The mood ruined, they’re a man down and the game is over, so they return to the house.

Marie and Cara look at them questioningly as they arrive home earlier than expected to shrugs and awkward grumbles. Solomon leads Laura upstairs to her bedroom, he stands at the doorway.

‘Are you okay?’

She lies down on her bed, curls herself into a ball, continues crying. Solomon wants to lie alongside her, wrap his body around hers, protect her.

‘Do you want to leave?’ he asks.

‘Yes please,’ she says through a sob.

It’s a quiet goodbye to Finbar and Marie. Marie gives her a gentle hug and tells her to mind herself, but Laura is silent, aside from a whispered thank you. She insists on sitting in the back seat of the car while Solomon drives to Dublin, and at first it’s because she doesn’t want to be near him, but then he sees her lie down, facing away from him. He plays the radio lightly, a Jack Starr song comes on the radio and though he usually turns it off, he turns it up a little.

‘That’s Jack Starr,’ Solomon says to her. ‘The lad who’ll be judge on StarrQuest.’

She doesn’t respond. He looks in the rear-view mirror and sees her back still turned to him. He turns the music down, eventually changes the station and then decides to turn it off completely. Occasionally she whimpers like the dying hare and the sound merges into Mossie’s whimpers of a few days ago, on the same back seat as they headed to the vet.

He keeps the music off for the remainder of the journey as she deals with yet another loss in her life in the same week, in the only way she knows how.

Laura lies across the back seat of Solomon’s car. Her head is pounding, a migraine that pulsates behind her eyes; her sinuses throb, as if the pain has been transferred and now she’s feeling the pain from the organs that saw it. She can’t make it go away; the best she can do is to close her eyes, fixate on the darkness.

The darkness flickers with images of her mother, Gaga, Tom; all the things she could have and maybe should have said to him. At the beginning, when she moved to the cottage, things between them had been awkward. He was less used to human company than she was. She was gentle with him, took some time to observe his ways; read when he wanted to stay with her longer, read when he wasn’t in the mood to converse. As the years went by, he would often sit with her and eat a meal she’d cooked. She would spend extra time preparing a special meal on Thursdays in case he had time to stay. Sometimes they sat in complete silence, him in his head, her observing him, trying to pick out all the parts of her that she recognised in him. Sometimes they talked constantly throughout his visit, about nature, about sport, about something she’d read in a magazine or heard on the radio. Despite her being the hidden one, she felt she was the one who provided him with more information about the world. His world was his farm, and while hers was the cottage, she listened to the radio, and she read, so she was always connected to what was happening. She just needed him to bring the batteries. She felt that he liked listening to her talk. Maybe he was picking the parts of himself from her too. He wasn’t someone to laugh easily, he was simple-minded, good-natured, a good listener and a keen observer. They were alike that way. She thinks of the last time she saw him, disappearing through the trees with a wave, Mossie at his heels. He was going to return later to fix her window. It needed sealer. He’d walk around the cottage tapping things, banging things, kicking things. At first she felt he was rude, never able to focus on her, then she realised it was his way of helping her, of showing he cared. For so many years he was all she had and she loved him.

She thinks of Mossie, of Rory and the cheeky smile on his handsome face before he shot that hare. The sound it made as it went down. It was far away, and the gunshot echoed in her ears, but she was sure she heard it. The sound it made as it left the world.

Cruelty.

What is she doing in this world? Where is she going?

She knows that she has so much further to go than the distance she has come. She could always go back. Her bridge is wavering, a rope bridge at best, its fragile supports are close to snapping if they take any more weight. She thinks of Joe, who looked so like Tom she thought it was him. She hears his angry shouts, directed at her, the wrong tone coming from his mouth, and her eyes are forced open. She feels Solomon in her space, imagines that his eyes are on her, feels his body pressed up against hers on the clay pigeon field as he tried to pull her to safety, his strong arms around her waist. Even when he’s not physically touching her, he has that presence in her life. His arm around her waist, pulling her away from danger.

She’s not sure about where she’s going, but she knows she can’t go back.

17

It’s evening by the time Solomon and Laura arrive in Dublin. She still hasn’t spoken a word to him during the entire trip, despite him calling out to her a few times, softly checking to see if she’s okay or if she’d like him to stop the car. He thinks she may be sleeping, because the sounds have stopped. If that’s the case, he learns she makes no sounds in her sleep, and there’s an intimacy in knowing that about her, in even wanting to know that about her. He’s never felt he’s wanted to know so much about a person before. He watches her again in the rear-view mirror and then sighs, and settles into his seat.

Solomon’s apartment is on Grand Canal, a newly developed area among swanky office blocks. Beneath each apartment block is a hive of restaurants and cafés, so that the first summer months Solomon moved in, he sat on the balcony with a beer, listening to the conversations of strangers below his balcony. He used to listen to everything, was interested in everything, then one night when the drink-fuelled arguments began, he was stupid enough to go downstairs and try to intervene. Instead of peace, he received a black eye. Those conversations eventually grew irritating. Nothing that anybody said was of any interest to him: prattle, small-talk, gossip, nagging, awkward first dates, silent settled couples, raucous groups of friends. So he avoided the balcony, or he’d cough loudly, clear his throat, turn up his music to alert them to the fact somebody was above them who could hear.

And then he stopped hearing them. He doesn’t know when it happened, but it occurred to him during the first week that Bo moved in. She couldn’t sleep one night because of the talking outside. Then she couldn’t concentrate on her paperwork during the day because of the noise from the wakeboarding in the water outside. And while he was telling her a story over lunch, he could see she wasn’t listening.

‘Did you hear that?’ she’d gasped, before leaving their breakfast table to go to the balcony where she leaned over and tried to locate the source of the mystery phrase.

He hadn’t noticed it happen, but he’d stopped hearing everything outside. And as far as he knew, the same had since happened to Bo. Things happen like that.

Laura sits up as soon as they enter the city, able to tell the difference in the light, the sound, and in the stop-start of the traffic. She stretches and looks around, and Solomon studies her face, the first time he’s had a clear view of her for hours. If she was sleeping, she doesn’t look like it; she looks wide awake, beautiful, innocently looking from one window to another, taking it all in. She’s never been to a city. The lights and action disappear as they drive into the underground car park below the apartment block.

‘My apartment’s above,’ Solomon explains, as she looks around in confusion.

He slams the car door shut and it reverberates around the echoing underground. Laura jumps, startled. Somebody in the distance throws a trash bag into the communal bin and bangs it closed. It echoes and she jumps again.

Solomon watches her from the corner of his eye, concerned about bringing her here. ‘There’s a hotel on the next block. The Marker. It’s nice. Modern, fancy rooftop bar, you can see the whole city.’ He couldn’t afford to put her up, but perhaps Bo could find the funds. She should be able to for the subject of her documentary. ‘You can stay there, if you like.’

‘No,’ she says quickly. ‘I want to stay with you.’

‘Okay no problem,’ he says easily, warmth flooding through him.

He lifts the bags from the boot, and closes it more carefully than he had with the doors. The exit door opens, a heavy fire door that slams and reverberates through the space. High heels walk across the concrete, the car beside them lights up and beeps. Laura mimics it, stepping away from the car. The woman looks at her as she climbs into her car, a scowl on her face, as though Laura’s sound has insulted her. She starts up the engine and Solomon moves Laura away quickly.

‘Okay. Let’s get you inside,’ he says, lifting the bags and leading her to the exit.

Bo is standing at the front door of the apartment. Solomon and Laura should be arriving soon. She feels nervous and she’s not sure why. That’s a lie. She’s pretty sure why, but she’s trying to pretend that Solomon and Laura being together alone for two days without her is not a cause for concern. She wants to be the kind of girlfriend who doesn’t worry about things like that. Jealousy is a killer, a destroyer. She was never a jealous person – not in relationships, she never felt threatened that way. Work is another matter; if someone makes a better documentary, if someone is doing better than her, she’ll admit she feels the jealousy then. She uses that feeling to drive her to do better. But she’s not sure what this feeling can do for a relationship. She doesn’t know how to be better than Laura, nor does she want to be.

And she isn’t feeling this way because of what Jack said to her last night. It wasn’t him that triggered alarm bells about her and Solomon, planting seeds of doubt, whispers in her ear and then disappearing into the night. The feeling was already inside her. Laura has insisted on being with Solomon at every single turn. What girlfriend would allow it to happen? Not just allow it, encourage it. She’s pushing Solomon towards Laura. And that’s what has brought on this anxiety, this twisted feeling in her stomach: the fact that she knows that she’s letting it happen. She’s pretending she’s not, because to admit otherwise would be callous, weird, unfeeling. She’s seeing what’s between them right in front of her and she’s encouraging it, for the sake of her documentary. There. She’s admitted it.

The lift moves into action, ascends to her floor. They won’t be expecting her to be ready for them, at the door. She wants to see their faces, not the ones they prepare before walking into the apartment. She’ll know if something’s happened by looking at them. The doors open. Her stomach twists, cramps. Solomon steps out. He’s alone. He gives her a wide warning look with his eyes, then turns back towards the lift.

‘Come on, Laura, we’re here.’

Bo moves to the left and peers in. Laura is huddled in the corner of the lift with her hands over her ears. She rises, one of her bags in her hand, looking as timid as a mouse. The knot in Bo’s stomach clears immediately. She’s ashamed by her relief, she’s ashamed by the pleasure that seeing Laura in this state brings to her.

‘She doesn’t like lifts,’ Solomon says, a little nervously.

‘Hi, Laura,’ she says gently. ‘Welcome.’

Laura’s thanks is barely a whisper as she steps into the flat.

‘How was your trip?’ she asks tentatively, as Laura looks around.

Solomon shakes his head for her not to ask, but it’s too late.

Laura opens her mouth and a flow of sounds surges out, merged and meshed together, one running into another, like a badly mixed song.

Bo’s eyes widen, not quite sure how to deal with the cacophony of noise. It’s negative noise, something happened, something that has upset her. Stunned, she watches as Solomon leads Laura to the small spare room, as though she’s a fragile broken bird. And all the while Bo tries to decipher one sound from another but can’t. Did she hear a gunshot?

Solomon, however, understands them all, he identifies each and every single one of them as she repeats them over and over, an insight into her confused mind, her hurt heart. Mossie’s whimpers. An angry Joe. The fallen hare, the gunshot, a door banging, high heels on concrete, the beep of a car alarm, the sound of the exit door, the whoosh of the lift when he pressed the button. A police siren.

And in there, hidden amongst them, was the sound of Bo making love to Solomon.

Telltale sounds. A medley of all the sounds Laura doesn’t like.

Dublin city is alive with new sounds for Laura. From the hundreds of people who swarmed out of the theatre down the block, dispersing as they found their cars or hailed taxis to different parts of the city and back to their lives. The taxi drivers gather under the balcony as a sudden rain shower takes over. Even the sound of the rain is different. It falls on concrete and the canal across the road. No leaves to delay its eventual fall to the ground, no soil to soak it up. A police siren in the distance, somebody shouting, a group laughing… each sound sends her rushing to the bedroom window.

She is grateful the room is so small. She doesn’t think she could deal with a large strange space. There is too much of it, she needs her own cocoon. It contains a single bed that’s pushed up against the wall; on the other side of the wall is Solomon and Bo’s bedroom. There’s a rail full of his shirts and so the room smells of him. Bo has the wardrobe in their bedroom, he’d told her. He is good that way, continuing to talk when he knows she’s unsettled. It’s calming for her. His voice is soothing, soft. Especially his singing voice. She closes her eyes to hear him again at the party, to relive the moment, and she’s barely placed herself back in the room when a sound from outside causes her to jump. It’s a girl laughing with a friend. Her heart pounds.

In Toolin cottage there were always sounds. It was never silent, despite what the crew say about its peace. Laura was used to those sounds though. She remembers the first night staying there alone. She was sixteen years old, she had been so afraid. No mother, she had lost her some months before, and she and Gaga had said their tearful goodbyes. She was no longer asleep in the next room but knowing that she was not far away eased her pain and fear. When she had learned of Gaga’s death six months later, she’d plummeted to an all-time low. She felt utterly alone, but her grandmother’s death had strengthened the friendship between her and Tom. Tom had shared the news with her in his usual way, with little sensitivity. He seemed to learn this over time. Knowing that she was alone, he stayed a while longer on visits, offered to help out more, fixed things she didn’t ask him to fix, took more care. Having Tom nearby to help her if she needed him in an emergency was vital too. Sometimes Tom fixed her toilet, provided paint, or nailed something together in the cottage, provided medicine, but she was mostly self-sufficient. She liked that feeling, thrived on it, but she felt safe knowing that the twins were nearby, even if Joe didn’t know about her.

There was never a hug, never a kiss, never even a touch between her and Tom but most important of all he tethered her to a world she sometimes felt locked outside of.

‘He’s not to know,’ was all Tom had ever said about the issue when she’d asked, and that’s how it was.

It had been a long time since she’d remembered her first night alone in the cottage so vividly. She’d lain in bed, looking out the curtainless window at the black sky, feeling like she was being watched even though the only people around for miles were Joe and Tom. Despite the work Tom had done to improve the old cottage before her arrival, it was cold. She had wrapped herself in sheepskin, huddled down and listened to the sounds that were alien to her, trying to place each noise and understand her new world. Ten years later, twenty-six years old, and she is back to feeling how she’d felt the first night in the Toolin cottage.

‘I feel like I’m in Cork, in the Toolin cottage,’ Bo whispers, then giggles.

‘Stop,’ Solomon says gently, not wanting Laura to hear her laughing. ‘An owl,’ he whispers, trying to identify the sounds coming from Laura’s room. He recalls being back in her cottage, standing at the window and flinching at each sound. She had identified each sound for him, to help calm him. Perhaps he should be in her room doing the same thing for her. He starts to listen out, not just to Laura, but to the sounds inside and outside his apartment. He hears things he never even noticed before.

They’re both silent as they listen. Flat on their backs on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

‘Bat?’ Bo says, recognising a sound.

‘Some kind of bird.’ He shrugs. ‘That’s a frog croaking,’ he whispers, identifying the next one.

‘Wow, rain on a roof,’ she whispers, snuggling down. ‘The wind?’

‘Who knows,’ he says, enjoying being here with Bo, their closeness. They’re naked, the covers are around their waists on a clammy night that the rain has tried to clear, listening to the night sounds of a remote mountain. He feels magically transported to another place, just by closing his eyes. It’s an intimate insight into what it would be like to lie with Laura in her cottage at night.

‘This is so romantic, I feel like we’re camping out,’ Bo says, snuggling into him, her head under his armpit, her body fitting next to his. She lifts her thigh across his body, nestles close to him. ‘Ever had sex under the stars?’ She starts kissing his chest, and works her way down his torso, his pelvis.

But it dawns on him that this is not romantic. It’s Laura, alone in a strange place, remembering the things about home that she misses, conjuring familiar sounds to chase away her loneliness. He tries to shake away the thoughts of her, he tries to stop hearing her and get lost in Bo. But he can’t, because even when she’s silent she’s still in his head.

18

The documentary crew and Laura sit in the laboratory of David Kelly of the Irish Ornithology Society. Rachel examines the monitor beside her, a nicely lit set-up, birdcages in the background, scientific equipment placed strategically in the shot while Mr Kelly looks on feeling powerless. ‘Well, okay, but it wouldn’t ordinarily be there,’ he says, a little flustered as Bo moves his bird posters from one wall to another to fit the frame better.

He’s finally in situ with Bo off camera, seated and ready to begin the interview. Solomon is all set, boom mic extended over them both. Laura is over his left shoulder. Everyone is happy, apart from Solomon; it is a sound nightmare. Each time David Kelly speaks, a bird squawks. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Laura mimics it.

Just as Rachel loses her temper when something interferes with her shot, Solomon’s mood is severely altered when something affects his sound. While David Kelly looks at Laura, exasperated at having to begin his response again, Solomon doesn’t feel the slightest agitation. He’s just happy she’s here with him, her sounds a reminder of her presence, which is rather miraculous when it comes to his temperament.

She looks at David, wide-eyed and innocent, as if she hasn’t done anything at all.

Solomon felt before the interview even began that it was inappropriate to bring her here, he’s not sure how much she should be listening to as others speak about her or about aspects of her. Who ever needs to know what people say about them behind their backs? He’s shared this with Bo and while she agreed they don’t have many options; Laura refuses to stay in the apartment alone. She wants to be with Solomon.

‘Okay, Dr Kelly, please go again. Same question, same answer, please,’ Bo says.

‘Certainly. A lyrebird is a ground…’

‘I’m sorry, could you begin without the “certainly”.’

‘My apologies, of course.’ He leaves a silence. Rachel gives him the nod. Rolling. ‘A lyrebird is a ground-dwelling Australian bird known for its-’

‘Hold on…’ Bo interrupts. ‘Sorry, guys. Too fast,’ she stops him. And she’s right. Dr Kelly is trying to get the words out before another bird, and Laura, squawks. ‘A little slower – as you were before was perfect. Please continue.’

Headphones on. Rolling.

‘A lyrebird is a ground-dwelling Australian bird that is famous for its-’

Squawwwwk. Bird.

Squawwwwk. Laura.

‘… powerful mimicry,’ he continues. ‘It makes its home in the densely timbered…’

Squawwwwk. Bird.

Squawwwwk. Laura.

‘… mountains. Very few people see lyrebirds. Though they…’

Tap tap of a beak against the cage, which is mimicked by Laura.

Solomon looks at Bo with frustration. This is a mess. Even David Kelly is looking flustered, continuing to talk while it looks like he’s being constantly prodded in the ribs by an invisible attacker.

‘No,’ Rachel says suddenly, interrupting the entire thing. Solomon removes his headphones and tries to hide his smile. ‘This isn’t good.’

‘Maybe we should try somewhere else where there aren’t birds,’ Bo suggests perkily, keeping the energy up.

David Kelly sneaks a glimpse at his watch.

The boardroom is quiet. No traffic, no people, no phones, no hum of an air-conditioning unit. The elements are good for Solomon. There’s lots of dark mahogany and Rachel has more work to do with lighting, but it works. There are birds in the frame, birds in glass containers, standing on branches. Only problem is, they’re dead, and stuffed, which concerns Solomon.

Laura joins them. She looks at the glass case of birds. Solomon sees the confusion in her face, but she doesn’t say anything. He places the headphones on. Laura’s fingers run over the glass cabinet, trying to get to the birds inside and before David Kelly can even speak Laura’s sounds begin again; the gunshot, the hare that fell, its whimpers, Mossie’s dying sounds. A new sound, the computer gunshots from the little boy’s computer game in the hotel a few days ago, as she links the two.

Dr Kelly stands up and looks at her. ‘Goodness. That is remarkable.’

Laura looks up, sees everyone staring at her and her sounds stop. Her hand falls from the glass. ‘How did they die?’

‘Lie,’ Solomon says through a cough to him.

‘Oh. Um. Natural causes,’ he says.

Laura frowns and looks at Solomon. She imitates the cough he has made, over and over until the word lie is clearly audible. Solomon sighs.

‘Look, I think we should do this in your office. It’s the best place,’ Bo suddenly decides.

‘You said you didn’t like that room,’ David Kelly says, like he’s an offended child.

‘Now it’s perfect,’ Bo says, picking up her things and moving everyone on again.

‘I really should get going. I have a lecture…’

‘Won’t be much longer,’ Bo says with a reassuring smile. ‘And you get more time to spend with Lyrebird. Think of it as research.’

This idea appeals to Dr Kelly, he is so fascinated with this birdlike woman. He examines her as the others move the equipment, and chuckles nerdily to himself.

Laura stares back at him, looking him up and down in the same way as he did to her, then mimics his chuckle. He claps his hands with glee.

Finally, in Dr Kelly’s office – a small room, filled with paperwork, that is dominated by his desk – they sit down to do the interview.

‘Dr Kelly,’ Bo says smoothly, ‘Could you please tell us about the male lyrebird please, specifically about its mimicry talents.’

‘The male lyrebird is a popular forest entertainer, admired and liked by other singers. Much of the vocal power of the lyrebird is devoted to mimicry of the songs of other birds, but he is also a very efficient singer in his own right. Roughly one-third of his singing is original, one-third may be described as semi-original, based quite clearly on bush sounds, elaborated and combined into a harmonious and continuous melody; the remainder of the song is mimicry, pure and simple; mimicry that is so accurate it’s impossible to distinguish between the genuine and the imitated. There appears to be no sound that is beyond the power of the lyrebird to reproduce.

‘Lyrebirds are creatures of habit. They thrive on routine. The mating season begins in May and ends in August. At the beginning of the mating season the male lyrebird builds a number of display mounds and diligently woos the female with song and dance. His mate follows him wherever he goes and watches every performance from a prominent position. When a performance ends, they both search for food, but as soon as the male begins to sing, the female stops to hear her mate. Mate birds are seldom seen apart and their continued devotion to their offspring indicates a family spirit.’

Solomon smiles at this description. Bo’s head turns quickly to look at him, and he looks away, pretending to twiddle with his audio.

‘A pair of lyrebirds, having mated, select a nesting site. Neither will wander. They’re monogamous creatures, once they’ve chosen; they do not change their mates and matehood involves each mated pair in life companionship.’

Solomon purses his lips to hide the growing smile on his face. He turns briefly to Laura and she’s staring at him, green eyes gazing at him intently.

It’s ten p.m. Early for Bo and Solomon to be in bed, even earlier to have already made love, but with Laura sharing the same tiny living space it’s easier to say good night and for everybody to retreat to their rooms for privacy.

They had made love as silently as possible again, particularly after their experience in the hotel. Solomon seemed distracted, and that was okay; Bo was too, with formulating and planning of the documentary taking shape in her head. Now they both lie on their backs, staring at the ceiling and listening to Laura’s nightly song. Bo enjoys this, she finds it relaxing. She twirls a strand of hair around her finger and closes her eyes.

‘She’s going through her day,’ she whispers.

‘That’s the ATM,’ Solomon says, smiling. ‘She came with me while you and Rachel were finishing breakfast. She’d never seen one before.’

Laura beeps through the ATM. Cash is dispensed.

‘I wish she’d dispense real cash,’ Bo jokes. ‘If this documentary ends up being as good as I think it is, she will.’

‘She could probably help decipher people’s codes, by memorising those sounds,’ Solomon says. ‘She could be hired by some secret government agency with skills like that.’

Bo chuckles quietly. ‘Now that I want to film.’ Pause to listen. ‘It’s like she’s flicking through her memories of the day, like I do with the pictures on my phone.’

They listen some more. Relaxed. Calm. Peaceful.

Then they hear Solomon’s laugh. A rare hearty laugh.

‘Is that you?’ She looks at him.

‘Yeah,’ he avoids her stare. ‘Can’t remember what was so funny,’ he lies, remembering as they’d both clung to each other, unable to stop laughing, his stomach hurting, his eyes streaming. While he was getting dressed he thought Laura was cooking bacon, from the sounds coming from the kitchen, the beautiful sound of a sizzling pan, the fat as it popped and hissed. When he stepped out to the living room, Laura was standing alone in front of an empty fridge mimicking the sounds. Laura was hungry. He’d been so confused by the empty hobs, and kitchen table, then so disappointed, she couldn’t stop laughing at the look on his face. When he’d realised what happened he’d joined in with her laughter.

When finished mimicking his laughter, Laura mimics his cough with the hidden word, ‘Lie.’

Solomon cringes.

She contrasts this with the laugh. Back to the lie, then to the laugh. She does this a few times.

‘She’s trying to decide something,’ Bo says, looking at him, her heart racing now that she has understood what Laura is doing. ‘She’s trying to figure you out.’

Laura mimics his laugh again.

‘Sol,’ Bo says, concern in her voice.

‘Mmm?’ He can’t look at her. His heart is pounding in his chest, he hopes Bo can’t feel it next to her, his entire body feels like it’s thudding.

‘Sol.’

Lie. His laugh. Lie. His laugh. Back and forth she goes.

He looks at her. He sits up finally, head in his hands. ‘I know. Fuck.’

19

The following morning Laura is on the balcony, her hands cupped around a mug of tea. She’s making whistling sounds.

‘What’s she doing?’ Solomon asks, fresh out of the shower and joining Bo in the kitchen. He kisses her. He makes it his business to kiss her, no hiding it any more. Last night, he and Bo had decided that it was best he step back from Laura for the time being, try to allow Bo and Laura to bond. He has to work anyway, filming Grotesque Bodies, which requires he travel to Switzerland tomorrow for a few days to film an operation on a man they had been following for a year. And while he and Bo had decided it was healthier for Laura’s sake and the sake of the documentary that he disappear for a while, Solomon knows it’s also better for himself. He’s losing himself, he doesn’t like what he’s becoming, somebody who thinks about another woman when he’s in bed with his own girlfriend. It’s not him. Not who he wants to be. He needs to withdraw from the situation.

‘She’s talking to the bird next door,’ Bo replies. ‘Want scrambled eggs and bacon?’ she asks, placing a plate down in front of him. ‘Laura made them. She keeps asking for things I’ve never heard of. Herbs and things.’

‘You should bring her to the supermarket,’ he says, trying not to look at Laura. ‘She’d like that.’

‘Yeah,’ she says, uncertain of how she’s going to manage the next four days with Laura on her own. She’d almost change her mind about Solomon’s closeness to Laura if it meant he stayed.

Laura chirps on the balcony.

‘What bird next door?’ Solomon asks suddenly, digging in, enjoying the quality of cooking in their home since Laura has arrived.

‘The kid next door has a bird in a cage, a budgie or something. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard it.’

‘What kid?’ he asks.

She laughs and hits him playfully with a tea towel. Then she joins him with an espresso and a grapefruit and keeps her voice low.

‘Do you want to sit with me while I brief her about the audition?’

‘We talked about this last night,’ he says, concentrating on his scrambled eggs, ‘It’s time for you to get to know her better. She needs to start trusting you too.’ Laura made his breakfast, they’re the tastiest scrambled eggs he’s ever eaten. He practically licks the plate. He needs to get out of this apartment fast.

‘Yes, I know, but you really are better at handling her.’

He looks up at her, sees her nervousness. ‘You’ll be fine. Don’t think of it as “briefing” her. Talk to her as you would a friend.’

‘Probably too early for a bottle of wine at eight a.m.,’ she jokes, but her uncertainty is obvious.

He looks at Laura properly for the first time since he sat down. It had taken her a few days after the incident in Galway at the shooting range to come out of her shell again. They’d had fun, he’d enjoyed showing her new things, he’d enjoyed watching her, listening to her, hearing everyday sounds that he had long stopped hearing. The hiss of a bus as it pulled in at a stop, the whistle of the postman, the shutters being lifted on a shop beneath them, the rattle of the keys, a motorbike, the ring of a bicycle bell, high heels against the ground. Her sounds were endless and they flowed from her effortlessly, without her even noticing. Bo’s fears about Laura’s sounds disappearing over the weekend were in vain; if anything, they are more frequent. He’d had fun with Laura. He’d laughed more with her in a few days than he can remember having done in a long time. But then he kept catching himself feeling like that and he’d close up. Laura was right to question his character last night, what was he doing, who was he? One moment he was open with her, the next moment he’d shut down, hot and cold. For Laura’s good, for him and Bo, he’d have to stay away.

Through the open sliding door, Laura’s chirping drifts into the apartment.

‘She’s not talking to the bird, by the way,’ Solomon says, washing the plates in the sink.

‘Hmm?’

‘You said she was talking to the bird.’

‘Yeah. She is.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Sounds like a full-blown convo to me.’

‘No.’ He laughs, but he feels the familiar agitation rising, or maybe it’s heartburn, a burning in the centre of his chest. Is it that which causes him to pick at Bo, or is it Bo that causes the burning? He’s not sure, but he knows the two are closely related.

‘The bird thinks they’re having a chat,’ she says easily, picking up her phone to check her emails again.

‘Well I don’t know what the bird thinks. I only understand humans.’ And not so heavily disguised in that statement is the accusation that she doesn’t understand humans.

‘Fine, Solomon, she’s not having a conversation with the bird.’ Bo laughs. ‘You tell me what’s going on. You seem to have so much more understanding of her than I do.’

She’s not being sarcastic, or cynical, there’s no judgement in her tone.

‘Okay, we’re going to have a “conversation” like the one they’re having now. Right now. Starting now.’

‘You want me to whistle?’ she giggles.

‘You want me to whistle?’ he repeats and giggles too, as much like her as he can.

She laughs.

He imitates her.

‘Maybe I should chirp.’

‘Maybe I should chirp.’

Her smile starts to fade. ‘Okay, Sol, I get the idea.’

‘Okay, Sol, I get the idea.’

‘She’s not having a conversation with the bird.’

‘She’s not having a conversation with the bird.’

‘She’s mimicking the bird.’

‘She’s mimicking the bird.’

She stops talking altogether.

Outside on the balcony, though neither of them can see her, Laura smiles into her mug of tea.

Solomon stares at Bo, waiting for her to speak again, feeling like a child deliberately annoying his brothers.

‘My girlfriend Bo,’ she begins slowly, thoughtfully, ‘Is the hottest producer in the world.’

He repeats it, moving his chair closer to hers, drawing her closer, eyeball to eyeball. ‘With the hottest tits.’

She laughs. ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

Happy, fun. Them at their best. And then Bo ruins it.

‘I’m going to marry my girlfriend, Bo.’

He pauses. Stares at her, pulls away a little from her face to see her properly, to get the whole picture, to see if she’s joking. Her smile is gone, as is his. The tension between them is heavy. Why did she have to say that? Ruin what was a good moment, make it so intense?

‘Is that what you want?’ he asks.

She studies his face, it’s obviously not what he wants, he couldn’t even say it, not even as part of a dumb game. It’s actually not something she wanted. It wasn’t theobjective of this relationship. It had been once, with Jack, but she was younger and liked a project, and that man was a project. The ironic thing is she probably could have walked down the aisle quicker with Jack than she ever could with Solomon. It’s upsetting, not because she especially wanted it, but because it’s clear that he doesn’t. She’s not sure if being with someone who doesn’t want to marry her is an insult even if it’s not what she wants. Double standards. She has a few more of them.

She can hear Solomon’s argument without him saying a word, merely looking at her in a panic, skin shiny as though he’s broken out in a nervous sweat. She can hear his argument loud and clear; in fact, she is using it against herself, but she’d said the sentence for him to repeat nonetheless, to test him, which was unfair really.

‘Now, that’s a conversation,’ she says, standing up. ‘You should go, you’ll be late for work.’

On the balcony, Laura exhales slowly, overhearing the tail end of their conversation.

The bird in the cage on the balcony next to her chirps noisily, rattling around his cage, leaping from a swing to the floor, pecking at his food, pecking at the bars. A little boy sits on the balcony beside it, crashing red cars into each other, making sound effects of the cars and the crashes. Laura mimics his childish sounds.

The past two mornings she has enjoyed sitting on this balcony and thinking. At least she has all the noise with fresh air. It makes it easier to handle, it seems to blow the headache away.

Bo joins her on the balcony. Laura gives her a quick glance. Everything about Bo is precise, neat, tidy, perfect. Not a wrinkle or crinkle on her clothes, her skin is smooth and flawless, her eyes a chocolate brown, her olive skin blemish-free. Her short chestnut hair is always tied up in a high ponytail, though there’s barely enough hair to form it, two front pieces of hair fall down and are tucked behind her ears. Her hair is always glossy. When she smiles and forms certain words, two deep dimples appear in her cheeks. She wears tightly cropped jeans and loafers, a polo T-shirt with the neck pulled up. The fabrics look expensive, everything is well made. A pearl necklace sits on her collarbone. She looks like she should be in a photoshoot for a yachting magazine. She never seems to fumble, be flustered or out of control. She always seems to Laura to know exactly where she’s going. She feels to Laura to be the exact opposite of her.

‘Making friends out here?’ Bo asks.

Laura looks at her, feeling confused. She’s been on the balcony alone.

‘The… never mind.’ Bo’s smile fades and she concentrates on the laptop she has placed on the table. ‘I brought this to show you StarrQuest. It’s important that you go in there fully aware of what’s going on – I don’t want you to do it if you’re not comfortable with any aspect of it.’

Butterflies battle in her belly at the mention. The audition is this afternoon.

‘That’s Jack,’ Bo says, pointing to the screen, and the soft way that Bo says his name makes Laura glance up at her quickly.

‘What?’ Bo’s cheeks pink.

‘Nothing,’ Laura says gently.

‘I’ll, um, get you some more green tea,’ Bo says, and hurries inside.

Laura concentrates on the screen. Bo has lined up a list of YouTube viewings for her. StarrQuest contestants have two minutes to showcase their talent. Incredible acrobats, singers, musicians, magicians, all kinds of talents she never knew existed.

Bo returns and places the mug of tea in front of her. It has practically been filled to the brim with boiling water, water drips from the side. Bo obviously isn’t a regular tea-maker. Laura questions why she’s seeking out her flaws, but she’s never met someone so seemingly perfect before, so self-assured.

‘What do you think?’ she asks.

‘The talent is incredible,’ Laura says. ‘I’d feel out of place joining their ranks.’

‘Laura, you’re more unique than all of them put together,’ Bo says. ‘And Jack Starr, the show’s judge, has asked to see you himself.’

‘And you trust him,’ Laura says. It’s not a question, she has heard how Bo has spoken his name. With warmth. Trust. Love.

Bo freezes a little. ‘Do I… yeah, I mean, he’s… he’s a talent spotter. He’s a musician too. He’s very talented himself, more than people know. He plays the guitar, the piano, the harmonica. He’s known for a handful of hit songs, but there’s a lot more to him. He has so many songs that people have never heard. Better songs. He has a lot of experience and recognises talent in others, and he’s looking for something truly unique.’

Twice Bo said ‘unique’; is Laura being entered because she’s unique or talented? She’s afraid to ask. She’s not sure she wants to hear the answer. She clicks on another link to a video. The show changes people’s lives, the deep-voiced male narrator announces dramatically. Does Laura want her life to change? Laura’s life has already changed, she can’t stop it. She’s trying to keep up.

‘What do you think I should do?’ Laura asks.

Bo doesn’t even take a second to think about it. ‘Do it. Ultimately, it comes down to this: we can do the documentary without you taking part in StarrQuest, of course – this is not a documentary about a talent show – but I think you gaining a profile would not only add to the content of the documentary it would also help the documentary. You don’t need to worry about things like that, but for me as the producer it makes it easier to sell. A successful documentary would give you more options, more directions where you can go with your life. That in itself is a gift. Opportunity, options. Which is what I know you’re searching for right now.’

Laura nods. Bo seems to know her so well. She says all the right things at these moments when she’s confused.

‘Do it,’ Bo says perkily, with a grin, and her energy is infectious. ‘Go on an adventure. What have you got to lose?’

‘Nothing.’ Laura throws her hands up and smiles.

20

Solomon and Rachel arrive at the Slaughter House, the venue for StarrQuest’s live auditions, at noon.

‘Lambs to the slaughter,’ Rachel says, viewing it distastefully.

The venue is famous for hosting gigs with big-name acts; small and intimate, it previously served as a slaughterhouse and was renovated as a live venue. The audition process is different to most talent shows: there are no queues of auditionees snaking around railings for hours on end, instead everybody has already faced a panel of judges and has been selected for the live auditions. It’s a selection process driven by entertainment requirements as much as seeking out raw talent. The format of StarrQuest is that during the live, one-hour show, ten contestants are given two minutes to perform. Jack Starr sits on a throne, the audience sits around the stage like it’s a gladiator arena. After each two-minute performance, Jack hits a button to reveal either an enormous gold thumb up or a thumb down for ‘execution’. The format was devised by Jack Starr and his production company, StarrGaze – a throwback to his band days, when he was lead singer of the Starr Gazers. Last year, after a lengthy court battle, he won the right to resume using StarrGaze as the title of his production company, record company and talent agency, after an unhappy ex-band member raised his dishevelled head to fight him on it.

The StarrQuest franchise has been bought by twelve other countries around the world and is fronted by various presenters with Starr-like qualities and similar histories in entertainment. But the elusive US market still hasn’t bitten, and it’s a target he’s chasing more vigorously now that American Idol has ended its run. As Ireland has become his second home, and the only English-speaking territory that has bought the format, he chooses to appear as a judge on the Irish show. Winners are signed up to his record label and entertainment agency, StarrGaze. It is his moment to shine before the next talent show music don comes along, and he’s enjoying the revival of success almost twenty years after his debut album won Grammys and led him to tour all around the world. He’s making money again, due to the show and the re-release of his debut album. He’s enjoyed the return to playing live gigs, his first love, and tries to include as much of his new material as possible to an audience that has only come to hear their favourite hits. His wish is for his new material to chart; it’s far better than anything he produced in his alcohol-and-drug-fuelled twenties, but his popularity on the show has not spilled into his music career. Since StarrQuest aired, he’s released one song that failed to reach the top forty.

In the centre of the StarrQuest stage is a four-sided screen. A golden glove wavers midway during decision time before becoming a thumbs up or thumbs down. The twist in this is that the audience gets to take part. The audience is made up of those in the studio and people at home who can vote via the StarrQuest voting app. If the audience votes Thumbs Up when Jack has voted Thumbs Down, then they overrule his decision. If he votes Thumbs Up, he overrules an audience’s Thumbs Down, the message being that any Yes rules the day. Since turning to Buddhism after his wild life cost him his marriage, his career, almost himself, he’s tried to breathe positivity into everything he creates. Previous formats of the show saw eliminated contestants who’d received the executioner’s thumbs down leave in a cage carried off by gladiators, but this was abandoned after the first season when viewers protested at the offensive image of a ninety-two-year-old mother of eleven, whose children and grandchildren were in the audience, being carted off after her rendition of ‘Danny Boy’, and a crying ten-year-old boy whose magic trick had failed had a panic attack when forced to enter the cage. The execution cage had, however, remained popular in a Middle Eastern version of the franchise.

Despite the featured acts having been auditioned and scheduled months and weeks in advance, Jack Starr has managed to put Laura on this weekend’s live show. The producers have watched Bo’s iPhone footage of Laura mimicking the coffee machine and some additional footage supplied on request, so they are aware of what she will deliver tonight. But first, a meeting in person, a sound check and run-through to be completely sure. They’re not that trusting.

Security is heavy at the entrance. Michael, Jack’s personal security, decides to deal with Solomon and Rachel himself.

‘You can go through,’ he says to Rachel, but he holds a hand out to stop Solomon. It’s a good twenty years since Michael was winning awards for knocking people out in a ring, but the passing years have done nothing to reduce his enormous frame. He glares at Solomon, who rolls his eyes and hoists his sound equipment on to his shoulder.

‘I’m here to work,’ Solomon says, bored. He’s tempted to add ‘Big Mickey’ – the name he went by in his boxing days in the States. There, it might have sounded cool, but not in Ireland.

‘Funny, I remember your ass getting fired after I threw you out.’ At six foot eight, the American towers above Solomon. He was Jack’s tour manager back in the day and they’ve remained loyal to each other during this revival. Jack’s honourable that way. Can’t stay faithful to a woman, but never forgets a friend.

Ordinarily, Solomon couldn’t care less if he wasn’t allowed into the building. He would be happy to never set foot near Jack Starr again, and he is trying to detach himself from Laura, but he needs to gain access for the sake of the documentary. He tells himself it’s for that, nothing to do with wanting to be near Laura. Tomorrow he will be in Switzerland and he won’t have to continue this battle in his head.

Laura and Bo are already inside. They’ve had most of the day together while he’s been off filming Grotesque Bodies, as Paul Boyle prepares for his pending operation in Switzerland. Solomon thought he would enjoy being away from them both after such an intense few days, but instead he’d spent the entire day worrying about Laura. Short texts from Bo kept him informed, but her last text had been an angry FFS she’s a grown woman, stop it. She hadn’t responded to his reply. He had no idea where they’d spent the day, or what they’d done, couldn’t even imagine the two of them doing anything together.

Rachel steps back outside to stand with Solomon. ‘I think he’s going to let you in, he just wants to let you stew for a while.’

‘Fine with me,’ Solomon says, placing his equipment down and leaning against the wall for what will no doubt be a long wait.

‘Did you hear from Bo today?’ Solomon asks Rachel.

‘I did and I didn’t,’ Rachel says.

‘What does that mean?’

‘She called me a few times when I was at the scan, even though she knew I was at the scan. She left a message asking me to come meet her and Laura.’

‘To film?’

‘No, just to meet them.’

Rachel’s face said it all. She was annoyed about being disturbed on her personal time. Solomon liked the fact that Rachel could talk about Bo as she wished, regardless of the fact they were in a relationship. He liked that she felt comfortable with him enough to say what was on her mind, and they could say what they liked about their boss. Solomon didn’t like to complain about Bo, but Rachel knew, she always knew, when he was bothered. What bothered Solomon about Bo was what bothered most people about Bo.

‘Was Laura okay?’ he asks, frowning at the news that Bo had called Rachel for assistance.

‘I’m sure Laura was fine. It may have been Bo that was struggling.’

Solomon wonders why, in all the texts she’d sent him, Bo never once admitted that she needed him. He gave her plenty of opportunities. Though he couldn’t have dropped work and rushed to be with her. But he would have.

The door opens and Bo finally appears, looking uncharacte‌ristically flustered. Having Solomon and Jack in the same building – one ex-boyfriend, one current boyfriend who’d beaten up the ex-boyfriend and thus gotten himself fired and thrown out of the building – was never going to be an easy situation. But as soon as she sees Solomon and Rachel, the worry disappears from her face. ‘Hi, guys,’ she says, her relief clear, then it turns to confusion. ‘What are you doing standing outside?’

‘He won’t let me in,’ Solomon says, indicating Michael.

‘She can go in,’ Michael says, taking a bite out of an apple. The apple is invisible as his enormous hand wraps around it, the bite he makes almost ends the apple.

‘She has a name,’ Rachel says.

‘My apologies.’ He dips his head. ‘But asshole here, doesn’t.’

‘Apology accepted,’ Rachel chuckles.

‘Michael,’ Bo says, ‘Jack said it’s okay for him to come in.’

‘Well, Jack never told me that.’

‘I bet,’ Solomon says.

‘Why won’t he let you in, Solomon?’ Laura says suddenly, and they all turn to see her behind Michael’s enormous frame. Her eyes are wide and fearful.

‘Laura,’ Bo says, annoyed, as though speaking to a child, ‘I told you to stay in the waiting room.’

‘Asshole’s not allowed in,’ Michael explains to Laura, ‘because last time I laid my eyes on this little girl, she was having a hissy fit. Had to carry her out kicking and screaming.’

‘She punched quite well for a girl, I thought,’ Rachel defends Solomon. ‘I wasn’t here, but I saw the bruises in the photos in the newspaper.’

Michael turns his attention to Rachel.

‘She’s not a fan of Big Mickeys,’ Solomon says, and Rachel rolls her eyes.

‘Jesus, none of us will be allowed in if you carry on like this. Let me sort it out,’ Bo says, rooting through her bag for her phone.

‘Bo, please tell Jack Starr thank you very much for the opportunity, but I won’t go in there without Solomon,’ Laura speaks up, polite but firm.

Solomon looks at her in surprise and doesn’t attempt to hide his grin from Michael.

Laura’s honour doesn’t impress Michael, who has seen enough fame-hungry blonde beauties pass through these doors.

‘It’s okay, Laura, I’ll call Jack,’ Bo says quickly, moving away from them with the phone to her ear, which bothers Solomon because he wants to know what she’s saying to her ex-boyfriend about him. Within five minutes, they’re whisked inside by Bianca, a handler equipped with a clipboard and headset, who is now leading them through a network of corridors.

‘Hey,’ Rachel says to Laura, ‘I didn’t greet you properly out there.’ She throws her hand up for a high-five, which Laura smiles at and meets.

‘How’s your baby?’ Laura asks.

‘Big and healthy,’ Rachel says with a grin.

‘Have a good morning?’ Solomon asks, trying to be casual but studying Bo and Laura’s faces for hints.

‘Yes, great,’ Bo replies, a little too clipped. ‘We went to the supermarket, then for coffee and tea, then a walk around Stephen’s Green. I showed her some great clothes stores in case she wants to, you know, know where to go.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Rachel nods, looking from one to the other.

‘I called you,’ Bo says to Rachel. ‘To see if you’d like to join us.’

‘Oh, really? I didn’t see that,’ Rachel fakes it. ‘I was at the scan.’

‘Of course!’ Bo realises. ‘I forgot. How did it go?’

‘Great. Like I said, the nurse reckons it’s a baby in there, so I’m happy,’ Rachel replies.

Laura laughs.

‘How did it go?’ Solomon asks Laura, as Bo and Rachel walk ahead of them.

Laura looks amused, then opens her mouth and Bo’s voice comes out. ‘Perhaps we should just go back to the apartment.’

It’s the way Laura says it – the tone, the clipped, agitated vibe she captures – that causes Solomon to throw his head back and laugh. He recognises the sound of Bo trying to be polite but at the same time extract herself quickly from a situation.

Bo turns self-consciously to study them both, then carries on walking.

‘Oh no,’ says Solomon. ‘It wasn’t that bad, was it?’

Laura opens her mouth and Bo speaks again. ‘Can you maybe not do that here?’

Solomon’s smile disappears.

‘It’s okay,’ Laura says quickly, hand going to his arm. He’s wearing a T-shirt, her skin touches his and something happens. A tingle rushes through both of them. She looks at his arm so that he knows she felt the same thing. ‘I was doing it more than usual,’ she explains. ‘She makes me nervous.’

‘I think perhaps the feeling is mutual,’ Solomon says.

‘I make her nervous?’

‘You’re different,’ he says, really wanting to say that Bo probably feels threatened, particularly after hearing the way Laura mimicked his laugh, the way she always wants to be with him and clearly and honestly doesn’t trust anybody else. ‘Sometimes people are nervous around different.’

She nods, understanding. ‘Me too.’

‘Are you nervous now?’

She nods again.

‘You’ll be okay,’ he says.

‘You’ll stay?’

‘I’ll stay.’ He taps his audio bag with his hand. ‘I’m always listening.’

Bianca finally leads them into a dressing room with LYREBIRD on the door.

‘So, Lyrebird, you’re here,’ Bianca says. ‘In around fifteen minutes we’ll take you to wardrobe, hair and make-up, then a sound check at around four.’ She looks down at her clipboard. ‘You’re the last act of the show, so you’ll be on stage at eight-fifty for your two-minute audition. You are…’ she consults her notes. ‘An impressionist. Is that right?’

Everyone looks at Laura. Laura looks at Solomon.

‘She’s not exactly an impressionist,’ Solomon explains. ‘She mimics though.’

‘Mimic,’ she writes down. ‘Cool. Are you her agent?’

‘Yes,’ he replies solemnly. ‘Yes, I am.’

Laura giggles. Bo rolls her eyes. ‘No, he’s not. He’s part of the documentary crew.’

Bianca looks at Solomon, clearly not liking him, heavily eyelined eyes narrowing. ‘Cool.’ But it sounds like it’s anything but cool to Bianca. ‘So the producers would like to know how many impressions, or whatever, you’re going to do?’

She looks at Laura. Again, Laura looks at Solomon.

‘We’ll discuss that now,’ he replies.

‘Now?’ her eyes widen, alarmed. ‘Cool.’ Then, ‘I’ll come back to you in fifteen minutes, okay?’

There’s radio interference on her walkie-talkie.

Laura mimics the sound and then sits down. ‘Cool,’ she says, with Bianca’s voice.

Bianca’s eyes widen. Nobody has laughed, everybody in the room is used to it now. She leaves the weird people and goes next door to the twelve-year-old gymnast.

‘I thought you were going to work with her on her audition this morning?’ Solomon says to Bo in a low voice as they set up for an interview with Laura in her dressing room.

Bo gives him a thunderous look. ‘Sol, at the butcher counter in the supermarket she made the sound of every single fucking dead animal that lay on the slab. Then she beeped every single food item on the conveyer belt as if she was a scanner. She confused the poor check-out woman so much, she wasn’t sure what she scanned.’

Solomon snorts and laughs, attracting the attention of Laura and Rachel.

‘It’s not funny!’ Bo says, her voice shrill. ‘How is that funny?’

He continues laughing until she has no choice but to give in and smile.

‘How are you feeling?’ Bo asks Laura.

They’re filming. Bo and Laura’s relationship flows so much better when there’s a camera between them.

‘I feel fine,’ Laura says. ‘A little bit anxious.’ Laura mimics last year’s winner. A seventy-year-old folk singer and harmonica player. Rachel smirks.

‘It looks exciting,’ Laura says, as if she hasn’t sounded like a mouth organ. ‘I feel excited. Like it’s the start of something new. I mean, this whole week has been new.’

‘Do you know what you’re going to do for your audition? Should you rehearse something? Plan a routine?’

Laura looks down at her fingers. ‘I don’t really plan it. It just… happens.’

‘Do you remember the first time you discovered you had this incredible ability to mimic?’

Laura is silent for a moment. Solomon is almost waiting for her to say, what ability? It has seemed so much a part of her, something she’s not conscious of. She thinks hard, eyes flicking left and right as they search. Then they stop and Solomon is sure she has remembered, as is Bo.

‘No,’ Laura says finally, avoiding all eye contact. She’s a bad liar.

The disappointment is clear in Bo’s voice. ‘Right, so it’s something you’ve always done?’

Another pause. ‘Yes. For a long time.’

‘From birth, perhaps?’

‘I don’t remember back that far.’ She smiles.

‘I don’t expect you to,’ says Bo, her tone neutral. ‘What I mean is, do you think this… ability…’

Solomon would have said talent, gift. He’s sure Bo still isn’t seeing it that way. To her it’s an affliction. Interesting only for the purpose of a documentary. Still, it’s a positive that she didn’t say disability.

There’s a knock on the door, a loud quick rap and Bianca enters.

‘I’ll take you to wardrobe now, Lyrebird.’

Solomon wants to tell Bianca that her name is Laura, not Lyrebird, which is clearly the ‘act’s’ name but he stops himself. Detach, Solomon, detach.

Keeping their sound packs on, Laura and the crew follow Bianca to wardrobe where she will try on clothes before her hair and make-up.

As she makes her way down the corridor, she turns and looks at Solomon with uncertainty written all over her face. He winks at her in support and she smiles excitedly and continues.

‘It’s a bit tight in here, ladies,’ the head stylist snaps as Rachel and her camera, then Bo, try to squeeze in after Laura. She’s not lying, the room is filled with dozens of rails of clothes from one wall to the next, there is barely room to turn around.

‘I’ll wait outside. Rachel?’ Bo says.

‘Got it,’ Rachel replies, understanding the tone of voice to mean ‘capture everything’.

‘Wow,’ Laura says. She walks down the rails, her hand running along the fabric.

‘I’m Caroline. I’ll be styling you,’ she says looking Laura up and down, scrutinising her body. ‘This is Claire.’

Claire doesn’t smile and doesn’t speak. Claire is an assistant who has probably learned not to open her mouth unless asked to.

Laura grins. ‘Mum and Gaga would love this. They were dressmakers.’

Caroline doesn’t seem overly impressed. She has ten people to style, in a room with no windows, and very little time to do it in, and a frustrating production team who keep changing their mind and expecting her to be able to pick up the pieces. But Laura moves at a different pace to everybody that’s come through the door and into Caroline’s world. She closes her eyes and suddenly the room is filled with the sound of a sewing machine. It is rhythmic and soothing, like the constant chugging of a train, a sound you want to sway with.

Caroline’s eyes fill. ‘My goodness!’ She places a hand across her stomach and another over her heart. ‘You’ve just taken me right back. That’s a Singer.’

Laura opens her eyes and smiles. ‘Yes.’

‘My mother used one of them,’ Caroline says, her hard voice suddenly emotional, her face softening. ‘I used to sit underneath the sewing table and listen to the sound all day, watching the lace float to the floor beside me.’

‘I did too,’ Laura says. ‘I used to make clothes for my dolls from the scraps.’

‘So did I!’ Caroline says, the stress completely eliminated from her face.

Laura’s not finished yet. There are new sounds, the sound of scissors clipping at fabric, the snip snip, and the tearing and ripping sound of fabric pulling apart, then back to the sewing machine, which rises and falls, quickens and slows as it turns corners, manoeuvres the fabric.

‘Oh. My dear. My love. Let’s get you into something beautiful, you magical creature,’ Caroline says, completely swept away by what she has heard.

Fifteen minutes later, Laura steps out of the makeshift dressing room.

‘Well?’ Caroline looks at Rachel. Of course Rachel doesn’t respond, but her camera does the work. What she sees is Laura as she’s never seen her before, and Laura as she has never been before. Laura looks at their faces, uncertain, but with a shy smile. She likes it, she hopes others do.

Claire sets about accessorising Laura.

‘Wait until hair and make-up get their hands on you. You’ll be hot stuff,’ Caroline says. ‘I’m not sure about the shoes, though,’ she adds. ‘Your legs are shaking, you poor love.’

Laura seems relieved to take off the platforms.

‘Gladiator flats,’ Caroline says finally. ‘You have that vibe. Greek, angelic, goddess. Tall enough to pull them off too.’

By the time Laura’s hair and make-up are complete, the team have created this goddess in a very short white slip, midway up her long toned thighs. If she lifts her arms it travels up past her underwear. Her long blonde hair is tied in a tight knot on the top of her head, gold metallic gladiator flats snake their way up to her knees, and around her bicep is a gold clasp with an emerald stone. Her green eyes gleam.

Everybody is silenced as she stands there before them.

‘That will get you Jack’s thumbs up for sure,’ the make-up artist says.

‘It will get more than his thumbs up,’ Caroline says, and they all laugh before realising the camera is recording, then they quickly hush and disperse.

Solomon is waiting at the stage with Bo. He catches up with his former colleagues while he waits for Laura to arrive for the sound check and dress rehearsal. Laura enters the stage set with Bianca and is guided up the steps to the centre of the stage. Laura, unaware of all the hungry eyes on her, looks around as though she’s landed on a new planet. The lighting, the empty audience seats surrounding the stage, the enormous screen above her head that will display her thumbs up or thumbs down. The gilded throne where Jack will sit and judge her.

Solomon has his back to the stage while in discussion with crew he hasn’t seen since his fight with Jack, but he senses the change of air in the room. It may sound stupid, but he knows that she has walked in. He sees everyone look up, stop what they’re doing, he sees the looks in their eyes, the change in their expression. His friend Ted stops midway through his story, completely distracted by what’s on the stage.

‘Whoa.’

Solomon’s heart started beating faster the second he felt the change in the room. He clears his throat and readies himself. He turns.

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ Ted says. ‘That’s the Lyrebird?’

‘She wins,’ Jason says in a sing-song voice as he passes the two men. Ted laughs.

Solomon clears his throat again awkwardly. He doesn’t know where to look. If he lays his eyes on her again everyone will know, absolutely everyone will know how he feels. He can’t cope with looking at her, he can’t control himself, the sudden tremble he feels, the awkwardness, the downright unsophisticated urge to take her, and have her all to himself, do all the things most men in the room are fantasising about right now.

Bo watches him, he feels her eyes on him, and he turns away from the stage, busying himself with his audio equipment.

‘What do you think?’ she asks.

‘About…’

‘Laura.’

He looks up again as if he’d barely noticed her the first time. ‘Yeah. She looks different.’

‘Different?’ she studies him. ‘She’s unrecognisable, Solomon. I mean, she’s fucking incredible. Even I want to sleep with her, but you know…’

Solomon looks at her in surprise. ‘What?’

‘It’s not what I was expecting…’ Bo studies Laura again, analyses her.

‘Yeah,’ Solomon agrees. It’s not what he was expecting either. Not at all.

While Laura is surrounded by suddenly over-helpful crew members, and Bo is busy again, he takes his time to really study her now. He can see Laura’s nerves. She looks over at him, a question on her face. She’s seeking comfort, confidence, encouragement, and yet he can’t do anything. If he goes near her, everybody will know. She will know, Bo will know. He can’t allow himself to take one step closer to her right now, under these lights and cameras, for everyone to see. He keeps his distance, he glances at her from afar, from the corner of his eye, grabbing stolen moments.

The floor manager takes her attention away and Rachel documents it all. Solomon jumps into action and hurries over, headphones on, the boom mic in his hand, trying to avoid Laura’s gaze.

‘Lyrebird, I’m Tommy.’ The manager reaches out his hand and she shakes it. ‘You’re very welcome. I know this is nerve-racking, every single person on the show tonight is feeling exactly the same way. But there’s no need, we’re a nice bunch. I’m from Cork too. Us Corkonians stick together.’

She smiles and he and she have a little chat as he succeeds in calming her nerves.

‘Your king and executioner sits up there on the throne. When you’re performing, this is your main camera. That’s Dave behind it.’

Dave waves comically and she laughs.

‘This is your place to stand. Do you think you’ll be moving around?’

Laura looks at Solomon for guidance, he quickly looks down at his audio bag, plays with the tuning.

‘Well, we’ll have a run-through and we’ll see for ourselves,’ Tommy says good-naturedly. No panic. Not yet. A few hours till they go live. ‘That’s what we’re here for.’

He explains timing issues with her, where she stands for the ruling, where she walks to when she’s finished. Finally, it’s time for the run-through. Solomon, Bo and Rachel leave the stage, as does everybody else, while the lights and music dramatically leap into action. Laura looks around, jumping slightly at the dramatic music. The ten-second countdown before she begins, while the stage is bathed in red, and then it is bathed in green, time for her two minutes to begin. The timer on the clock on the screen above her head counts down the seconds she has to convince King Jack Starr whether she will go through to the next round of semi-finals.

Laura holds the microphone to her mouth and looks around. She doesn’t say anything. Her breath is audible in the absolute silence.

Tommy stands at the edge of the stage, holds his hands up in a grand gesture. ‘Say something, anything, doesn’t matter what, we just need to hear you.’

Bo looks nervous, Solomon isn’t sure if she’s worried about Laura or about her own reputation. Rachel is biting her lip and looking down at the ground, an angry energy emanating from her. Solomon makes a note to ask her about it later.

They go through the ten-second countdown again.

Laura looks at Solomon and spends the full two minutes making the sound of the coffee machine. Solomon laughs so much Bo elbows him in the stomach, production staff glare at him, and he has to leave the studio because he can’t help himself.

Hours later, when the live show has begun, while four people have had the thumbs up and five have had the thumbs down, Solomon, Rachel and Bo film Laura’s nervous wait backstage. She can barely speak with the nerves. Bianca, her handler, doesn’t leave her side and Laura, jumpy, imitates the sound of the walkie-talkie in Bianca’s hand and just about everything Bianca does. Bianca ignores it as though it’s not happening.

Bianca counts her down to her performance. ‘We’ll go to the studio in two minutes.’

Laura’s breath catches and she moves away.

‘I need to go to the bathroom.’

‘Hold on, hold on, you can’t go now,’ Bianca says, alarm in her eyes, things no longer cool.

Solomon puts the boom mic down, and Rachel too stops filming.

‘What are you doing?’ Bo looks at them, confused.

Rachel refuses to answer. The camera is on the floor beside her, her arms are crossed, her eyes to the floor.

‘Solomon?’

He takes Laura by the arm and leads her around the corner, out of earshot from everybody else, but still just in case, he moves his lips to her ear, so close that he feels his nose brush her hair, his lips brush her soft earlobe.

‘You have the ability to take people somewhere else. Somewhere they can’t see, but somewhere they can feel. If you don’t know what to do, if nothing comes to you, close your eyes, and think of something that makes you happy. Think of your mum and Gaga.’

‘Okay,’ she says, so quietly, he feels her breath on his cheek.

He breathes her in. ‘You look beautiful.’

She smiles.

He moves away quickly, head down, eyes down, Bo and Rachel’s eyes on him.

‘You ready?’ Bianca asks, the alarm still in her eyes. The message being: you better be.

‘Yes,’ Laura says.

‘Cool.’ She lifts her walkie-talkie to her mouth. ‘Lyrebird on the move.’

Laura stands on the stage, the audience’s welcoming applause dies down and it’s silent.

‘Hello there,’ Jack says from his throne, subtly looking her up and down, and not so subtly liking what he sees.

‘Hello,’ Laura says into the microphone. Solomon couldn’t be more proud, Rachel is biting down on her nails. Jack has been generous with their access so far, but they can’t film while the show is airing live, they will have to get their footage from the show.

‘What’s your name, tell us about yourself.’

‘I’m… Lau… Lyrebird,’ she corrects herself, ‘I’m twenty-six and I’m from Gougane Barra in Cork.’

There’s a cheer from a section of the audience.

Jack big-ups the people from Cork in the house. He likes Lyrebird, you can tell. He is wearing his charming face.

‘And tell me, what are you going to do for us tonight?’

Laura is silent. ‘I’m not sure yet.’

The audience laugh. Laura doesn’t. Jack does.

‘Okay, good answer. Well, I hope you decide soon, your two minutes is about to start. Good luck, Lyrebird.’

The studio spotlights turn red and the entire stage is plunged into a blood-red light. The timer on the screen ticks down ten seconds. Then it goes green and Laura’s two minutes begin.

For the first ten seconds she doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t utter one single sound. She’s looking around, almost in shock, stunned, taking everything in. Ten seconds of silence on live TV is a long time. The audience start to turn on her, they start to titter.

Someone shouts, a male voice, deep and a heavy Dublin accent. ‘Come on, Lyrebird!’

Startled, she jumps, and mimics exactly what was just said.

The audience laugh.

The sound from the darkness is so sudden and explosive in her ear that she mimics the audience’s collective laughter straight away. Then there are gasps, and silence. She has their attention. She sees the red light of the TV camera before her, the rest of the studio is in darkness. Jack Starr is lit up in his throne like he’s some kind of king. She thinks of last year’s winner and suddenly the harmonica sound fills the ear to less laughter and more shocked gasps. She knows she can’t do that for the next minute, she doesn’t know all of the winner’s song.

The lights on her face are hot, there’s a heavy expectant air.

She thinks of what Solomon told her. She closes her eyes. Thinks of her dear mum who would never believe that she is here right now, her Gaga who sent her to the mountain for her own safety, thinking being away from the world was going to protect her forever, but now she’s here for the whole world to see, their worst fear for her.

A buzzer suddenly sounds and she opens her eyes in surprise. The lights are on full, no more darkness from the audience and the green has plunged to red again.

She looks around, bewildered, thinking she’s blown it. She didn’t say anything. She has lost her chance. She has embarrassed Bo, even worse, Solomon. She lowers the microphone from her mouth. She waits to be ridiculed, to receive the gold thumbs down immediately. Her heart pounds, she feels mortified. There is no applause, the lights change from red to normal again and she can see the faces in the audience. She has no idea what she has done but the entire studio is silent, looking at her and each other in bafflement and surprise. Some even with admiration. What has she done?

She swallows and looks at Jack Starr, who’s now talking, analysing her performance, but she can’t focus on the meaning of his words. She hears them individually, but collectively they make no sense to her. Her heart is hammering. She feels mortified. Her chance to begin something new and she has failed so soon. The audience have ten seconds to place their vote, as do the people at home. As does Jack Starr.

The audience vote is revealed first. She readies herself to be strong, to lift her chin and take it.

To her utter surprise, the stage is bathed in gold as the audience gold thumbs up is revealed.

Then Jack’s vote is next. A giant gold thumbs up appears on the screen above her, but of course she can’t see this. She hears happy fast music, the stage is bathed in gold light and Tommy the floor manager is standing offstage gesturing wildly for her to go to him. She looks around awkwardly then leaves the stage.

She’s through.

21

‘That was incredible, fucking incredible,’ Jack Starr booms down the corridor after Laura.

They all turn around, camera included, and Bo and Solomon move out of the shot.

Jack goes directly to Laura and places his hands on her shoulders, looks at her square on.

‘Lyrebird, that was unbelievable… magical. Are you sure you haven’t got a tape recorder in there?’ He pretends to look into her mouth. ‘Seriously…’ He tries to calm himself, he is genuinely pumped. ‘That was phenomenal. I have never seen anything like that before, never heard anything like that before. I don’t think anyone in the world has seen anything like that before. I mean, of course we’ve heard it before, but not all from one human mouth.’ He laughs. ‘All those sounds, water, wind, people, laughter, you gotta give me the list of everything. I mean, wow. We’re going to make you a star!’

Laura’s cheeks turn pink. Solomon’s insides cringe and, as if Jack has realised the cheesiness of what he has said, in Solomon’s company, he looks uncertainly in Bo’s direction.

‘Cut,’ Bo says, straight away.

‘Let’s talk in your dressing room,’ he says, quietly. It seems the entire production team and all the contestants have lined the corridors to watch their exchange. They go to Laura’s dressing room; Laura, Bo, Jack and his producer, Curtis. Solomon and Rachel tail behind but the door starts to close in their faces. Rachel doesn’t care and backs away but Solomon pushes against the door. Jack’s head pops around the corner, ‘We don’t need cameras or sound right now, thanks.’ He winks and closes the door.

Rachel eyes Solomon. ‘Easy,’ she warns. She leans against the wall of the corridor, keeping her eye on Solomon.

‘One of these days I’m going to drive my fist up his arsehole.’

Rachel raises an eyebrow. ‘Some men would pay for that.’

He smiles. ‘He probably has.’

‘Nah. There’s plenty of women that would do it to him for free,’ Rachel responds. ‘Anything to be famous.’

‘You really hate it here, don’t you?’

‘I’m all for talent. Susan has a ten-year-old niece who plays Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on the violin with her eyes closed. Incredible. But she plays at school feis’s and family gatherings. No reason to put her on stage and put her through this kind of shit,’ she says, lowering her voice as a twelve-year-old contortionist walks by with her parents, face full of TV make-up and her costume bag over her shoulder.

‘I suppose they’re proud. They want to show the world. Share it.’

‘That’s the thing, people keep asking her parents, why won’t they let her do more with her talent? Put her on a TV show or something. Why? Because she’s good at something?’ She shakes her head, bewildered. ‘Why can’t people just be really good at something? Why do they have to be the best at something? I mean, my feeling on it is…’ She searches for the words, really passionate about it now. ‘There’s sharing a gift, and there’s… diluting a gift. You know? They already have her looking like Helen of fucking Troy. Who knows what they’ll do with her next. But that’s just my unpopular opinion. I don’t watch this shit.’ She sighs.

Solomon grumbles some sort of response and quickly pushes her words out of his head because he doesn’t want to know what she thinks about Laura being part of the show. He doesn’t want to think that she might be right, and that he is responsible for Laura taking part. So instead he dreams about all the ways he can hurt Jack Starr. Punching his lights out was what got him fired from working on the show two years ago. It was over some derogatory comment about Bo, one that Jack had said deliberately, to anger Solomon, and he’d risen to the bait. He’d been glad he’d done it, he still thinks of the moment his fist drove into Jack’s cheek, though he’d been aiming for his nose. Still, the feel of bone and flesh and Jack’s painful girly cry was enough to send him to sleep with good dreams of an evening. He wouldn’t rule out doing it again but he’ll bide his time. He’ll have to make it count, he couldn’t miss out on being present for Laura’s journey.

‘So guys, how amazing was that? Jesus!’ Jack says, sitting on the dressing room table, perfectly framed by the bulb mirror. ‘Laura, I wasn’t blowing smoke up your ass for the cameras, I meant it.’

Curtis nods alongside him, also leaning against the counter, two hands holding on to the edge, staring down at his two feet out before him. He’s a tall angular man, pointed nose, white-blond hair. He doesn’t say much, or anything, lots of head-nodding, arm-folding and looking into space as he listens. He’s just there, a dark force.

‘You are incredible. And don’t worry about the nerves, I get it, first night on the stage, it’s daunting, everybody feels the same, we’ll work with you on that for the next show, okay? We can’t have thirty seconds of nothing next time round,’ he laughs, showing his nerves from earlier.

Laura nods.

‘My head is bursting with ideas right now for the semi-finals. Curt, remind me to tell you about them later at the meeting,’ he says, buzzing, chewing gum excitedly.

‘Sure, Jack.’ Curtis nods, never lifting his gaze from his shoes, which are navy blue suede with orange soles.

Jack talks for a moment about the staging, technical jargon about lights and screens and staging, so fast, so many words per minute, and Curtis nods along as though catching all of it. No problem, Jack, no problem.

Then Jack addresses Laura again. ‘Let’s make this the best damn show together, yeah?’

He stops talking abruptly and looks around at everyone as if trying to find the source of the sound. His eyes land on Laura.

She’s mimicking the sound of his gum-chewing. Curtis looks up and frowns, thinking she’s being disrespectful to the star of the show.

‘No, Curtis, she, um… don’t worry… she is… it happens. Spontaneously. It’s not, she’s not being… we can talk about it later,’ Bo says awkwardly. ‘We filmed with an anthropologist yesterday who explained what Laura does really well. If I could remember how he phrased it… Actually, Solomon explains it much better.’

Laura coughs ‘liar’, mimicking Solomon, then his hearty laugh.

Jack and Curtis stare at her.

‘If this is spontaneous, then can you plan an act for the show?’ Jack asks finally.

‘Good question.’ Curtis rubs his chin, staring at her intensely as though his stare will force a confession from her, as though she’s an imposter who will now be revealed.

Laura makes the sound of Solomon scratching his chin, while she watches him. He pauses and eventually drops his hands briefly, not knowing what to do with them, before placing them on the counter again.

‘Did you plan what you did tonight?’ Jack asks.

‘No,’ Laura says quietly, sitting upright, trying to find a comfortable position to sit in where her tiny dress isn’t rising up her arse. She’s still not really sure what she did tonight.

‘Huh.’ He looks at Curtis, smacking his gum. Jack’s expression is unreadable, but of course Curtis seems to understand it.

Then Curtis’ phone buzzes. He reads a message and his face changes in obvious shock, probably the first genuine look he’s had since he entered the room. ‘Jesus.’ He looks at Jack.

‘What?’

‘One hundred thousand views on YouTube already, of Lyrebird.’

‘What?’ Jack jumps off the counter and grabs his phone. Scrolls down. ‘It’s been, what, thirty or forty minutes since we got off air?’

Curtis nods. Really nods. An engaged nod.

Jack taps away at his phone for a moment, then looks at Laura.

‘Curt and I have a few things to discuss now but, Lyrebird, make sure they take good care of you, here, yeah? Tell me if you’ve any problems?’

Laura nods.

‘Keep me in the loop,’ Bo says, standing and going for her phone immediately, her shock and excitement obvious.

‘As ever, Bo Peep.’ He blows her a kiss and leaves with Curt.

Bo rolls her eyes but she grins. She takes a moment to compose herself and sits down beside Laura. ‘So…’ Instantly, she’s back to feeling how she’s felt with Laura all day: unsure of what to do or say, completely uncomfortable and unable to fill the time or form sentences. It’s not necessary, of course, for her and Laura to become best friends, she’d rather learn about her subjects when the camera is on, not off, and perhaps that’s what makes her anxious and unsettled around Laura. Like a chain-smoker who doesn’t know what to do with their hands without a cigarette, or a musician who feels naked on stage without their guitar, Bo wonders if she has lost the ability to connect with people when the camera is off, then wonders if she ever had that ability.

Another aspect of Laura that Bo is uncomfortable with, apart from her making the sound of every dead animal on the butcher counter, is Laura’s watchful gaze. Bo hates the feeling of being observed and Laura seems to drink everything in, every single little thing. If Bo sighs, Laura can imitate it. She feels under the spotlight, claustrophobic. She is normally the observer, when with Laura she feels instead like the observed and she hates it, it causes her to look at herself too much.

Laura looks at her now, seeing deep into her soul. She should tell her about the YouTube hits, she should talk to her about where they go from here, formulate a plan, but those green eyes make her feel so uncomfortable. They saw Jack blow her a kiss, they looked at Bo questioningly. They saw Bo grinning, Bo pleased by his attention. They seem to see everything she doesn’t want her to see, and nothing that she wants her to see.

‘Why don’t you go to wardrobe and get changed?’ Bo says, instead.

22

Solomon, Bo and Laura are restless that night after her StarrQuest performance. It’s as though they’re all on a high following the reaction. Solomon and Bo sit at computers and at their phones reading out messages on social media about Laura’s act. Laura curls up on the couch drinking one herbal tea after another, completely overwhelmed by the feedback from these strangers. By midnight there have been two hundred thousand views of Lyrebird’s performance and she leads the entertainment news online with the same simple headline on each: LYREBIRD.

Overnight the story grows and grows, gathers speed and gains momentum. Solomon left for his flight to Switzerland before Laura had woken which sends her into a disorientated spin. The internet hits keep growing. Tucked up in the apartment with Bo, Laura watches from her quiet room as her world appears to change without anything happening to her at all.

In the days that follow, occasionally Laura suggests to Bo that they go out, but Bo is keen to keep her out of the public eye, becomes like a paranoid minder when they’re in the open, looking over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at couples raising their phones for photos, or scowls at people sending texts because she thinks they’re taking photographs. She’s uptight, and Laura’s not sure who Bo’s protecting: her documentary or Laura. A few times a day Bo turns on the camera and tries to gain insight into how Laura is feeling about everything, but Laura hasn’t experienced this new, changed life of hers – how could she when she’s been stuck in the apartment day after day. All she knows of her supposedly changed life is what Bo reads to her – the messages on social media, the articles in the newspaper. It’s all just other people’s words.

They go for walks along the River Liffey where it’s quiet, and on the third night Bo concedes more than accepts Laura’s invitation to see the musical in the theatre across the road from the apartment, the one that Laura has been watching people spilling out of with beaming smiles since she arrived. But when Laura unknowingly makes sounds during the show, which leads to a heated discussion between a member of security and Bo, Bo quickly ushers Laura out before the interval.

‘I’m sorry,’ Laura says, pulling her cardigan around her shoulders as the evening breeze hits her. They return to the apartment, Laura feeling like a scolded child.

‘It’s fine,’ Bo says, the stress in her voice saying otherwise. ‘Do you want to get some sushi?’ she asks, looking at the restaurant near their apartment. Laura would love some, but she can tell from Bo’s tone that she’s had enough for the evening.

‘No, it’s okay.’ Laura’s stomach rumbles. Or maybe it’s not her stomach that makes the sound. ‘I’ll get an early night.’ Again. She’s sure that Bo will take her laptop into her bedroom for the evening. She spends all of her time in there since Solomon has been away, as though she can’t stand being alone with Laura.

Bo looks relieved.

Once inside the apartment, Bo does exactly as Laura expected.

‘Good night,’ Bo says, and closes her bedroom door softly.

Laura goes out onto the balcony and watches the world going by.

Five days after Laura’s audition, Lyrebird’s online viewings have reached one hundred million. The media can’t get enough of her. They are hungry for more information about this mysterious person who has caught the world’s interest. The tabloid headlines scream GONE VIRAL BIRD.

Bo’s self-imposed captivity in the apartment ends when StarrGaze Entertainment steps in. They set up base for Laura at the Slaughter House, and for two straight days she does short interviews with the media who have flocked to speak with her, with fans who film her and give her messages, gifts, words of support.

Can she describe herself in five words?

Does she have a boyfriend?

Would she like to have children?

What does she think about the gender pay gap?

If she could be a food, what type of food would she be?

What’s her favourite film?

What are the top ten songs on her playlist?

Twitter or Instagram?

If she were stranded on a desert island, what would be the one book she would bring?

What inspires her?

What are her favourite sounds?

Who are her favourite impersonators?

What are her views on the American presidential race?

Does she have any advice for young women?

What’s the best advice anyone has ever given her?

What is the one question she’s never been asked but would like to be asked?

While Laura is holed up for two days in the press office of the Slaughter House, with Bianca by her side, Bo and Jack begin to argue.

She hears them while sitting on the toilet lid between interviews, with her eyes closed and her legs tucked close to her body, anything to escape Bianca’s constant tapping on her phone. She hears the buttons in her head, they roll together, getting faster and faster, like a ticking time bomb.

‘Hello?’ Somebody knocks on her door, and she realises she’s been making the sound. She quietens.

‘Jack,’ Bo says suddenly, loud and angry, which makes Laura’s eyes fly open. Bo’s voice drifts through the bathroom vent.

‘Bo,’ he says playfully, ‘Good of you to visit me. As if your emails weren’t enough over the past two days, it’s nice to be abused in person.’

‘Jack, keeping Lyrebird here for the past two days is one thing, but your crew cannot take her to Cork.’

A door slams. There’s a pause.

‘Of course we can. We need stock footage for the press and the show. It’s the best way, unless you want Lyrebird going to Cork with every single member of the press who asks for an interview? No, I didn’t think so. This is the best way of handling it.’

‘But I already have that footage. It’s exclusive to my documentary. In fact, for the past two days I have not even been able to proceed with that documentary because you’ve had full media control of Lyrebird.’

‘That’s because she’s part of the show, Bo!’ he says, exasperated. ‘This isn’t a trick. She signed a contract that said she would take part in promotional duties. You knew that, you read it.’

‘It didn’t say that I couldn’t be involved,’ she fumes.

‘Come on, babe, you’re the only person we’ve allowed filming access to Laura. You’re getting all the behind-the-scenes stuff that everybody is begging for. Curt is already breaking my balls for allowing that – how much more do you want from me?’

‘I am not your babe. Curt is not the director of StarrGaze Entertainment, you are. So grow a pair of fucking balls.’

There’s a silence.

‘Fucking balls. Hmm. I think I have them already, and I think you know that.’

Laura hears a light laugh from Bo and she smiles at their interaction.

When Bo speaks again she has mellowed. ‘Jack, my documentary was never supposed to be a fly-on-the-wall documentary, not a reality show or a behind-the-scenes reveal. It will not be some StarrQuest spin-off. It’s an in-depth look at her life. From the inside, not the outside, and if you won’t let me talk to her, then I can’t gauge how she’s feeling.’

‘You live with her,’ he laughs. ‘You can’t gauge it from that?’

The toilet flushes beside Laura and she’s annoyed she misses Bo’s answer.

‘I’ll talk to Curt,’ he says, ‘if you go to dinner with me. This would be favourable to me seeing as the giving up smoking for your attention is really hard work.’

‘Jack,’ Bo laughs, ‘you’re impossible. I have a boyfriend, remember?’

‘Ah yes, the long-haired Prince Charming with the bad temper. But isn’t he away right now?’

‘Jack… please… What I’m trying to say is that I make feature film documentaries. You are compromising my art – you of all people should understand that. How often have you had to fight for what you wanted in your music? I brought Laura to you. I need to be more present. You can’t cut me out of this.’

The hand-drier blocks out the rest of what Bo is saying and then Bianca bangs on the bathroom door, giving Laura the fright of her life. Her next interview is waiting. It’s a game called Come and Have a Go If You Think You’re Hard Enough for the StarrQuest spin-off show, Execution or Freedom. Apparently it involves the contestants smashing a half-dozen hard-boiled eggs against their foreheads. The loser will be the person who discovers they drew the uncooked egg… as it smashes and dribbles down their face.

Laura loses.

Laura won’t appear in the semi-final until the following week. There is one more live audition show this weekend and then the following Monday will mark the start of a week of nightly semi-finals, where one of five acts who perform each night will go through to the final. The live audition show that followed Laura’s drew twice as many viewers, thanks to Lyrebird’s worldwide publicity, the viewing figures overtook the Nine O’Clock News, traditionally the most-viewed TV show on the network. However, the demand for Laura to remain in the public eye is clear, from both the media and from StarrQuest, who recognise that interest in Lyrebird means increasing viewing figures for the show. The crowd of fans gathering outside the studios grows daily; they camp out, hoping for a glimpse of Lyrebird. News stations and other media report on both Lyrebird and the public’s growing obsession with Lyrebird, which grows because of the media’s obsession. Each feeds the other. Requests pour in from the US, UK, Europe and Australia on a daily basis for an interview with Lyrebird, or an appearance of some sort. An offer comes from Japan for Lyrebird to promote a new soft drink. After lengthy negotiations, headed by Curtis, they collapse due to a fee disagreement.

There are also requests for Lyrebird to do private events, corporate events, charity events. Agents and agencies are vying to represent her, PR agencies want to help promote her. Lyrebird needs an agent, and she has one: in accordance with the contract Jack had her sign, she falls under the StarrGaze Entertainment agency, meaning Bo has unwittingly relinquished control of her subject.

Bo phones Solomon, who’s still away filming Grotesque Bodies, and complains, ‘I’m afraid all these ridiculous Lyrebird interviews will cheapen the documentary. I’m used to spending years on a project before displaying it to the world, taking my time, editing, researching, shaping it. But this is moving so fast. I was the one to find Lyrebird, I was the one to hear her personal story first, and I’m afraid it’s going to get out before I get to tell the story. And please don’t say I told you so, that’s not what I need to hear right now.’

‘Well then I’ve got nothing else to say,’ he says, fuming.

She sighs, annoyed. Solomon’s negativity is not helping, she delayed sharing her reservations with him until now for that very reason, but now she needs help, she needs somebody to talk it through with.

It’s only been a week since the initial audition and Lyrebird frenzy is already at fever pitch. But how long will that last? By the time Bo’s documentary is ready, Lyrebird could be old news. Worst-case scenario: there could be a Lyrebird hangover, in which case nobody would want to touch the story. Bo’s afraid that, despite the fact she found Lyrebird first, she’ll be last when it comes to telling the story. She hates that it feels like a race; she has never worked this way.

Bo feels the claws reaching in from all around, trying to tear off a piece of Lyrebird. And if this is how Bo’s feeling, what must Lyrebird be feeling? She can’t even begin to imagine. And since when has she been calling her Lyrebird?

As Bo fills Solomon in on what has been happening since he left, his anger grows. ‘How is Laura?’ he asks.

‘She’s fine,’ Bo says. ‘She’s busy. I barely see her.’

‘Does she know that she doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to?’

‘But she does, Sol – she signed a contract.’ She keeps her voice low so that Laura doesn’t hear her next door.

He goes silent for a moment. ‘Is she happy, Bo?’

‘How the fuck would I know?’ she says, tiredly. ‘She keeps everything to herself.’

‘Her sounds,’ he says, trying to keep calm. If he were there, he would automatically know. ‘At night, what are her sounds like?’

‘I haven’t noticed. I’ve been so tired, I suppose I’m so used to them now, I’ve stopped hearing them.’

She manages to talk Solomon out of coming home. He can’t simply walk out – they’d never hire him again. Besides, things have not reached crisis point here. She also tells him that she’s sure Laura has an infatuation with him and it’s best he stays away. This is not a lie.

Bo knows that nobody has even seen the best of Laura yet, there is so much more she has to give. She only hopes Laura can figure out how to harness it, and condense it all into a two-minute piece for live TV. It will work in Bo’s favour if Laura performs well in the semi-final. If she can’t work one-on-one with Laura, then the show can. She reaches for her phone to text Jack about some ideas for Laura’s next performance.

As she settles down to sleep, her neighbour’s new puppy starts to howl.

And like last night, Laura’s soft gentle sad howls join in. Bo lied to Solomon about Laura’s sounds; she couldn’t have told him that. Anyway, wasn’t it Solomon who’d told her that these sounds were merely mimicry, and not a conversation?

She turns off the light, wraps the covers tightly around her and covers her head with Solomon’s pillow to block out the sounds.

23

Exactly one week since her first live performance, Solomon and Laura sit outside the production office in the Slaughter House studio on plastic chairs, their heads leaning against the wall. He has just returned and they haven’t yet had a chance to talk. Solomon tries to steal glimpses of Laura, to see how she’s doing; he’s not sure he can trust Bo’s instincts as to her wellbeing.

‘I feel like we’re in trouble with the principal,’ Solomon says, looking at her, then realises Laura might not have a clue what he’s talking about, seeing as she never went to school. ‘Sorry,’ he says, ‘Never mind.’

‘Me understand joke,’ she says in a Tarzan accent. ‘Lyrebird see TV. Lyrebird read books.’

He chuckles. ‘Okay. Got it.’

People appear in the corridor from secret rooms, glance down at her, whispering, ‘That’s her,’ then disappear again. Others make obvious detours to walk past her, checking her out with sidelong looks before realising that at the end of the corridor is a dead end, and then are forced to walk by her again.

‘So, any news? Quiet week?’ he jokes. She laughs.

He’s missed her so much. Being away from her has felt like a torture, but a necessary one. Ever since he heard her imitate his laugh that night in bed, he knew he’d have to go away. He owed it to Bo. He owed it to Laura. Going away was the only way he could escape Laura’s sounds at night. Listening to them felt like being invited into her heart, reading her diary, and he had no place being there – all the more so because he wanted to be there. The fascination that the world is experiencing with her now is exactly what Solomon had experienced in the woods that first day he met her. But he has a nervous feeling that, in the brief time since he left last Monday, so much has shifted. Nobody could have foreseen this level of attention, but StarrGaze should at least be able to handle it. He’s wondering now who’s handling it.

‘How are you feeling about all of this?’ Solomon asks as somebody sneakily grabs a photo of Laura, pretending they’re texting, the phone aimed right in her direction. ‘It’s been a crazy week. We haven’t had a chance to speak.’

‘No. We haven’t.’ She mimics his awkward throat-clear and his chin-stubble scratch.

His week away hadn’t achieved the hoped-for goal of helping him to forget her. At the very moment Solomon was trying to get away from her, get her out of his head, the universe started conspiring against him. All week she’d been the topic of every conversation: ‘Did you see that girl?’ Even Paul, star of Grotesque Bodies, the show he was in Switzerland for, had asked Solomon about her in the waiting room one day, off camera.

At first Solomon hadn’t wanted to talk about her, but he soon discovered that pretending he had no idea who she was only led the other person to start telling him all about her, how she looked, how she wasted time before eventually blowing everyone away. So he’d changed his response, admitting that he had seen her, hoping that would end the conversation, but instead he found himself having to listen to conjectures about whether she had a recorder hidden away – and how she managed it when there was no hiding anything in that dress, huhuhuh.

Thankfully, nobody, fans or press, has yet figured out where Laura is living. When not at the studio meeting fans and being photographed, filmed, or being fitted for the next performance costume, Laura has been closeted away in the apartment. She has been photographed buying flowers on Grafton Street – a set-up photo op – and walking in Stephen’s Green. In particular, feeding the ducks. Lyrebird Feeds the Birds. She’ll be getting more than tuppence by the time she’s finished on the show, one clever tabloid journalist pointed out. Lyrebird’s earnings from potential reality shows, magazine shoots, interviews and performances has been totted up. If they knew how she really spent her days – sitting in the apartment with the TV off, or on the balcony watching the water, mimicking the bird in the cage on the balcony next door – he doesn’t know whether they’d be fascinated or bored by her. She would have loved to pass the time by cooking, but unfortunately Bo isn’t an eater, which makes the tension even heavier between them.

‘I’m okay,’ Laura replies. She makes a smacking sound, chewing gum in her mouth.

Solomon knows immediately she’s referring to Jack. ‘What about him?’ he asks.

It’s a relief to be with someone who gets what she means. Bo still doesn’t understand most of what she is saying. She doesn’t understand the connections. She thinks Laura is like a broken machine spurting out random sounds, she doesn’t get the underlying links. Neither does Jack, or Bianca, or just about anyone else, with the exception of Rachel, but most of all Solomon. It’s not complicated at all to Solomon, though Bo makes out he and Laura are speaking a secret language. It’s no secret; he pays attention, that’s all.

‘Jack doesn’t like you,’ she tells him.

‘Shocking, isn’t it?’

She doesn’t laugh. Her heart feels heavy. She knew that making this decision to join the show was hers to make, but the only reason she’d gone along with it was because she thought it would keep her with him. Instead, it has somehow led to him slipping away. She hasn’t seen him all week, and he has felt so far away. Not one phone call.

She plaits the suede fringing at the hem of her dress, undoes it and starts again.

‘You should be in there with them,’ Solomon says. ‘Bo and Jack are talking about you, planning things for you.’

‘I’d rather be here,’ she says bluntly. Then she changes the subject, hoping to lighten the mood. ‘What were you filming this week?’ She’s trying to pretend that she’s not angry with him for leaving her, pretend that she’s not angry with herself for being angry with him. Bo is his girlfriend. Bo is. Not her. Bo is everything Laura is not, could never be, would never want to be.

‘We were filming a man with ten-stone testicles.’

Her eyes widen and she starts laughing.

‘I know it’s funny, but it’s sad. He could barely walk, those things swelled up and wouldn’t stop. He didn’t have a life – not until the operation this week. It will take a while but eventually he’ll be able to walk, get a job, get trousers that fit him. Same as the woman with three breasts.’

‘I think that’s the show I should have been on.’

‘There’s nothing grotesque about your body,’ he says, and though he tries to stop it, he feels his face burn. He leans his head against the wall, closes his eyes and wishes his face would cool down. ‘I mean, there’s nothing grotesque about any of their bodies. It’s a stupid name. They’re just different.’

‘Hmm. I’m weird, though.’

‘Laura…’ He looks at her but she won’t meet his gaze. She’s busy concentrating on the strings in her hands. ‘You’re not weird,’ he says firmly.

‘I read it in the papers. “Lyrebird is mysterious, supernatural, unearthly, strange.” “Lyrebird’s freakish ability…” They’re all saying I’m weird.’

‘Laura,’ he says, so firmly he sounds angry.

She looks up at him in surprise. She stops twisting the strings around one another.

‘Don’t read that shit, you hear me?’

‘Bo tells me I should read it.’

‘Never read that shit. And if you do, never believe it. Not the good, not the bad. You are not weird.’

‘Okay.’

He seems so angry, she remains silent for a moment, not knowing what to say. She can’t help but observe how his neck has gotten wider, how his eyes darken and his eyebrows furrow, his forehead in an angry crease. His voice has deepened, there’s a rough edge to it. He leans his head against the wall and looks up at the light, breathing in slowly, his nostrils flaring, his Adam’s apple seeming larger than usual; perhaps it’s the anger, perhaps it’s the angle. Even his anger has sounds.

He looks at her suddenly.

‘What?’

‘Is that what I sound like?’ he asks.

Laura isn’t sure what sound she made, but she assumes so.

‘I sound like a horse breathing after a race.’

She shrugs. There’s something on her mind.

‘Bo and I went to the theatre across from the apartment.’

He looks at her, surprised, he had no idea. ‘That’s good.’

‘My idea to go. Stupid idea. We had to leave. The security man said my noises were distracting the actors. That they would assist me in sitting somewhere else.’

‘Who was he?’ Solomon asks, thinking he’ll stand outside the theatre and wait for him to leave work.

‘He was perfectly nice. He thought there was something wrong with me. I mean, obviously there is something wrong with me because we had to leave.’ Her eyes fill and she looks away, hating that she’s become upset in front of him, but she’s had no one to share these thoughts with, no one but herself, and she’s driving herself crazy. Talking to Bo is like talking to a non-absorbent sponge.

‘Laura,’ he says gently, taking her hand.

His touch is everything to her. It has the effect of bringing her alive again, her heart lifts from that stuck place.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know, Bo didn’t tell me…’ He’s so angry. At Bo. At the world. His hand grips hers tightly and then loosens, tight then loose, over and over, as though massaging her. ‘Let me tell you about your gift, Laura. People always say they don’t like to hear the sound of their own voice, did you know that? Usually, when people hear themselves, they cringe, or they’re surprised that they sound the way they do. We hear ourselves differently. What you do-’ He stops as another person walks towards them. ‘This is a dead end,’ he says bluntly, and the young girl turns puce and returns the way she came. When she turns the corner there are chuckles and giggles from a group of girls. ‘I think what you do is let people hear people and the world exactly as it is. No filters. And in this world, anything raw and untouched is a fucking rarity. People like to hear you for the same reason people like to watch movies, or look at art, or listen to music. It’s somebody’s interpretation of the world, not their own, and you capture it just as it is. What you have is a gift. You’re not weird – and don’t ever let anyone tell you that.’

Laura’s eyes fill and he wants to take her in his arms, but he can’t because he knows that’s wrong. She wants to lean into him, but she can’t because of that shield that he sometimes puts up, raising it higher and lowering it like a privacy window in a limousine.

The door to the production office opens and Bo steps out. She sees them huddled together, Solomon holding Laura’s hand.

Laura lets go.

‘Jack wants you,’ Bo says coldly.

‘Do you want me to go in with you?’ Solomon asks.

‘No, it’s private,’ Jack replies, from over Bo’s shoulder.

Laura enters the office alone while Solomon stares at the wall ahead of him, fighting the anger that is surging through him. He hears himself for the first time, sounding like a panting horse. He remembers the feel of skin and bone on his fist. Jack is glaring at him, daring him to do it again, egging him on, give him one excuse to throw him off the premises for good. Jack wants him to do it, and Solomon wants to do it. And he will, but he’s biding his time.

‘Didn’t take you long to get back to hand-holding,’ Bo says cattily, sitting in the chair next to him and examining her phone as she speaks. ‘So much for staying away.’

‘She was upset.’

‘So you comforted her. Appropriate.’

Solomon fights the urge to storm out. He sits through it.

‘She told me about what happened at the musical.’

She looks at him, ready for another argument, but she doesn’t have the energy. She rubs her eyes tiredly. ‘She was imitating the orchestra, Sol. She kept trying to get the trombone right, over and over again. I didn’t know what to do, so I took her out of there. I didn’t want to tell you because you’d get mad and upset.’

‘That’s exactly what happened,’ he fumes.

‘And what good was that going to do, when you’re away in another country?’ she says gently. ‘I handled it as best I could.’

‘She was upset about it.’

‘I told her that it wasn’t her fault.’ She sighs. ‘She opens up to you more than me, you know that.’

They’re silent. He calms down. He can’t be mad at Bo. He’s angry with himself for not being there.

‘That was a fucking disaster meeting,’ she says finally, putting her phone down and rubbing her face. ‘Jack’s talking about flying her to Australia in the next few days. Melbourne and maybe Sydney. He says he’ll have her back by Monday for the semi-finals.’

‘Australia? For a few days? That’s ridiculous. She’ll be exhausted,’ Solomon says, sitting up.

This seems to occur to Bo for the first time.

‘Why, what were you worried about?’

‘We’re not allowed to go. Some exclusivity deal with the magazine and TV show in Australia. They won’t allow any media that’s unrelated to StarrQuest. We’re supposed to be making a documentary about her and he’s taking her away from us, again.’

He feels that familiar overwhelming frustration when Bo displays cold selfishness. ‘You’re disgusting, Bo.’ He stands up and walks away from her.

‘How’s my Lyrebird?’ Jack asks, taking Laura by the arm and squeezing her tightly. He grins. ‘What a fuckin’ week we’re having, right?’

She nods.

‘Sorry for swearing, it feels wrong to swear around you. You’re too angelic.’ He helps her to her seat and goes to sit behind his desk. He watches her thoughtfully. ‘You’re not one, are you?’

‘What?’

‘An angel?’

‘No.’ She smiles.

He returns the smile and drums his fingers on the table.

She imitates the sound.

‘You’re right. I need a cigarette. Gave them up a week ago.’

‘For Bo,’ she says.

He looks at her in surprise, then he grins. ‘I swear you don’t miss a trick.’

She makes the gum-chewing sound.

‘Good idea. Where’s my gum?’ While he searches his desk drawers, Laura studies the walls.

‘You don’t happen to know if I’m in with a chance, do you? With Bo?’

‘Bo Peep?’ she raises an eyebrow. ‘She’s with Solomon.’

‘Yeah, her long-haired lover. She should leave that loser. Tell me, you live with them, are they happy?’

Laura growls at him, the same way Mossie did when he heard a sound in the trees that he couldn’t identify.

‘Okay, okay,’ Jack pops a chewing gum in his mouth.

Laura turns her attention to the walls. Framed discs, awards, artists she recognises, others she doesn’t, his own from his band, Jack Starr and the Starr Gazers.

‘You like music?’ he asks.

She nods. She makes the crackling sound of vinyl, like logs burning in a fire, that comfortable, cosy, memorable sound.

His eyes widen. ‘Jesus. You listened to vinyl?’

‘Mum and Gaga loved jazz. Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong…’ She hums the tune to ‘I’m a Fool to Want You’, but her humming is deep and gravelly, not the voice of a young woman. ‘Gaga’s favourite song,’ she explains.

He shakes his head, in awe.

Uncomfortable under his gaze, she looks away.

‘I’m guessing you’ve never been to Australia,’ he says.

‘No,’ she smiles.

‘Well, they want you. Boy, do they want you. Biggest talk show over there has invited you. There is no Australian creature, with the exception of the koala, more firmly established in the public regard than the lyrebird. But you couldn’t be more different. The koala is a hundred popstars you could name, all quaint and approachable, but you are elusive, exclusive. Man, you coming along is… well, it’s the best timing for us, for the show. We’ve been trying to get into the Australian market for a while and I think this gives us a way in. The networks wanted to see that we could stir up public interest, and now they have. One hundred million views…’ He checks his phone. ‘One hundred and eleven million views.’ He laughs. ‘Anyway, you don’t need to worry about any of that, you just get to go on a free trip. Go on the country’s biggest chat show. Pose with a lyrebird for the press. Do a magazine shoot. Then fly home for Monday night’s semi-final. What do you think?’

‘It all sounds… incredible.’ She grins, unable to believe it. ‘Are the others coming?’

‘What others?’

‘The other contestants. I don’t think most of them like me very much.’

‘They’re jealous.’ He smiles. ‘It’s a competition, you blew them all out of the water. And no, they’re not coming. This trip is all about you.’

She chews on her lip, concerned about this.

‘Don’t worry, they’re all doing interviews too. They’ve probably done more, in fact, but you’re getting all the coverage. If I were to ask any of them to come on this trip, they wouldn’t think twice about leaving anyone else behind. It’s a competition, Lyrebird. So, you need to get your passport details to Bianca so we can take care of your flights.’

‘Oh… I don’t have a passport.’

‘That’s okay,’ he says encouragingly. ‘We have a few days, we can organise one. The show has had to organise emergency passports before. The passport office are good that way. Fans of the show. All you have to do is give Bianca your birth certificate. Don’t worry if it’s in Cork, we can pick up a copy from the Dublin office.’

Laura stares at him, open-mouthed, not sure what to say. He takes it the wrong way.

He laughs. ‘I told you not to worry, this show takes care of all your needs,’ he holds his hands out grandly.

Laura swallows. ‘No, it’s not that… I don’t have a birth certificate.’

His smile fades.

Bianca, Curtis and Jack sit in the office in what Laura understands to be a crisis meeting. Curtis and Jack watch Laura, Laura looks at Bianca as she reads from a list of paperwork required to attain a passport.

‘Baptism record?’

‘She already said no,’ Jack says, the irritation creeping in.

‘School records.’

‘I was home-schooled.’

‘Yeah, but state exams would have you on file.’

‘I didn’t sit state exams.’

‘Okay, cool,’ Bianca says, looking down at her printout from the passport office. ‘A letter from someone who knows you from an early age attesting they believe you to be born in Ireland.’ She looks up at Laura. They all do.

Jack laughs. ‘Well, that should be easy. Know anyone who knows you were born?’

Curt chuckles for Jack’s benefit.

‘No.’ Laura’s eyes fill. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Okay, wait. Something’s up here. You need to tell us what’s going on,’ Jack says gently, and Curtis sits up, all ears.