Oddbird

Excerpt

Oddbird
Ellie Goforth © 2022
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

It rains all night in a steady drizzle, so by morning, the potholes on the high street are full to overflowing.

Kat pulls the hood of her raincoat over her head and hurries past the bus stop and the newsagent. In her mind, she runs through the list of instructions she left on the kitchen table for Kisi.

– She can’t handle anything but soggy Weetabix for breakfast.

– Give her a double laxative (on the counter near the toaster).

– Make her drink half a litre of water.

– Bring the anti-bac lotion with you and some Carr’s crackers.

– Also, her soft grey jersey.

Thanks, Kisi. You are the best friend ever.

Kat loves London in the rain, especially in autumn and especially in this exact spot—the postage-stamp park wedged between the greengrocer and chemist.

She and Ryan meet here for a quick coffee most mornings before he catches the bus to work.

This morning, she orders herself a double-shot latte from the café and one with extra foam for Ryan, just as he likes it. She waits on the bench.

The rain has brought the leaves of the chestnut tree down with it. They’ll be mush by mid-morning, but now the paving under the tree is a carpet of gold.

A leaf floats down and lands on the sleeve of her coat; it feels like a good omen.

“Morning there, Kat,” calls a voice from over the road. She turns.

Martin-the-butcher stands in the doorway of his shop. “Did you hear that Fiona’s giving up her lease on number twenty-seven?” he says.

“Why’s that?”

“Not a clue…but it might be a good spot for that bookshop of yours.”

She smiles. You’d expect blue eyes with skin as pale as Kat’s, but hers are light brown, like amber. Her hair, too, glows a warm honey-brown. It’s caught up today by a hair slide in the shape of a pink flamingo.

“Yeah, thanks. I might take a look.”

Kat has long dreamt of opening a small bookshop on the high street with its steady stream of passers-by. She pauses as she reaches number twenty-seven.

The striking shopfront with its enormous glass wall floods the inside with light. Kat imagines a cluster of reading chairs right by the window and maybe a small coffee counter amongst the shelves. It makes her heart beat a little faster.

But other things sound more loudly this morning—like where on earth is Ryan? She looks at her phone. No texts, no missed calls. She walks over the road to Martin.

“Can I leave this coffee for Ryan? I’ve got to get going, or I’ll be late for work.”

“Time for the bugger to get a new alarm clock, I reckon.”

“Maybe.”

“Second time this week he’s been a no-show.”

“Yeah.”

“Doesn’t deserve you.”

Kat smiles. Even half-hidden by her raincoat, Kat is sort of luminous, as if she has a light on inside, shining out. It’s always been that way though she is oblivious of her charms.

She waves at Martin and turns to go.

“Don’t dilly-dally, or someone will snap it up,” he calls after her.

“What’s that?”

“Number twenty-seven.”

“Oh, yeah, course.”

Kat walks away through the drizzle.

The walls of the salon could do with a paint job, and some of the showers at the basins need replacing, but it’s a welcoming place.

First in after Kat is the manager, Linda, and her old friend, Chloe, who is good with curly hair. On their heels come the trainees, Raj and Sally.

“We saw a proper celebrity this morning,” says Linda as she packs away her coat and handbag.

“From the top of the double-decker,” says Chloe.

“So who’d you see then?” asks Kat.

“Paul McCartney!” says Linda.

“Nah, can’t be,” says Raj.

“It was him, I swear, crossing the road at the St John’s Wood tube.”

“Looks good for nearly eighty,” says Chloe.

“He’s not eighty years old!” says Sally, offended on his behalf.

“Shh now, you lot,” says Linda as she unlocks the door for start of business, and a trickle of clients come in.

The salon—and a hundred yards in either direction of the front door—is part of Linda’s personal kingdom. She knows everything about everyone on the street and keeps a kindly eye on their comings and goings, so it’s not surprising she’s the first to spot Kisi on the far side of the road, “Your mate Kisi coming in today, Kat?”

“Yeah. For an updo.”

“And is that your mum with her?”

On Kisi’s arm and almost obscured by a voluminous raincoat is Kat’s mum, or a version of her, as tiny as a bird. If Kat didn’t know better, she’d think she was an impersonator, similar-looking, but with none of Mum’s life force.

“She needs a cut,” Kat says quietly.

Linda and Choe gravitate to the door like a welcoming committee, but neither seems to know quite what to say when Mum and Kisi walk in.

Kat takes their coats. Her mum draw herself upright to face Linda and Chloe.

“How are you, ladies?” she says brightly.

“Good, good,” they say in a chorus of two.

“Great hair colour, Linda,” Mum says. Then she turns to Chloe. “And I love the earrings.”

What a pro she is at making others feel comfortable with her ravages.

“Ta, love,” says Chloe. “How are you?”

“Oh, well, there’s less of me,” says Kat’s mum. “But you know what they say about small packages.”

The three women have known one another since Kat started in the salon as a teenager. Later on, she did the training to become a stylist so she could earn a little more during her university holidays.

She hadn’t imagined then that hairdressing would be so much a part of her life, but since her mum had got sick, she couldn’t be more grateful for the comforting sameness of daily life in the salon. That, and the books she turns to in her time off, have kept her intact from one end of the three-year-long roller coaster to the other.

Kat hugs her friend. “Thanks for bringing her, Kis.”

Kisi pecks Kat on the cheek.

Kat crouches to dry off her mum’s boots and asks quietly, “Did you keep some breakfast down this morning, Mum?”

“Three spoons of Weetabix,” says Mum proudly.

“That’s not much.”

“It’s gruel, my love. Three spoons are plenty.”

“It’s more than I could eat,” says Kisi.

“You’re pregnant, Kis; you’re required to be nauseous,” says Kat. “Mum needs to eat three full meals and three snacks a day.”

Mum winks at Kisi and says, “Get me away from her, love, before she talks my ear off.”

Kat is careful not to use water that is too hot when she washes Mum’s hair, or to rub her scalp too hard, but the hair still comes out in handfuls.

Kat looks down at the bird’s nest in her basin, and the tears threaten. She glances up at Kisi, who feels her gaze and looks up from her Hello magazine. She shakes her head furiously as if to say, Don’t cry, no, no, no.

Mum can sense what Kat feels even if she can’t see it. “It’s day thirteen of the chemo, Kat. They said this would happen.”

“I thought we’d get away with longer.”

Her mum turns around in the chair and says, “Shave it off, love.”

“No, Mum.”

“Go on. It’s going to come out anyway, and it’ll look neater if you do it. Feel better too.”

Kisi says, “She’s right, lovey.”

“No.”

But that is what Kat does.

And with every lock of her mum’s curly red hair that falls onto the floor, the ache builds in Kat’s chest.

Raj, the assistant, brings both Kat and her mum a cup of builder’s tea with milk and two sugars. Kat sips at it gratefully.

When it is done, Mum runs her hands across her head and says, “It’s a dinosaur egg.”

“Always said you were a good egg…”

“And egg-squisite.”

“Also, egg-cellent…”

Mum guffaws. Kat smiles—she can’t manage much more than that.

“Now put me in the corner and leave me in peace. I need the comfort of a good book.”

Books are something Kat and her mum have always shared.

Kat and her mum. Her mum and Kat.

“You don’t need to bother with my hair today,” says Kisi softly.

“But you’ve got the dinner with Kwame and his fancy lawyers tonight, and I’m the only one in here who knows how to do Black girl hair.”

Kisi’s parents are from Ghana. Her full name, which she says out loud to herself when she needs a shot in the arm, is Kisi Akuba Naa Adjetey. She’s tall and coffee-brown with a spectacular head of curly hair.

“True,” says Kisi, “but I can also go as I am.”

“Come on, let’s do it,” says Kat.

Kisi stops by the house almost daily now that Mum is having chemo. She’s a nurse, so she’s taken over the G-CFS injections to boost Mum’s bone marrow growth. Truth is Kat would be lost without her.

The book has fallen open on Mum’s lap, and she’s asleep. Her body rests against the side of the chair as if she’s been blown there by the wind.

A square woman in a tracksuit barrels towards Kat. This is Sheila, the mother of Kat’s AWOL boyfriend Ryan—who has a latte with extra foam waiting for him at the butcher shop.

“Hello, Sheila,” says Kat. “You’re looking well.”

“I’m not well at all. My hips are killing me.”

Kat puts the final pin into Kisi’s hair, and her friend vacates the chair so Sheila can collapse into it.

“Ta,” says Sheila. “The surgeon wasn’t from here; let me just put it that way. Made a hash of it.”

“Where’s he from, then?” asks Kat.

“Somewhere in India,” says Sheila. “Or maybe Pakistan.”

“Still, you can walk a lot better now, Sheila. That’s something to be happy about,” says Kat.

“Blimey, I nearly forgot,” says Sheila. “Ryan said to say sorry about this morning.”

“Oh.” Kat wonders why he couldn’t say so himself.

“God knows when he came in.”

“Late, was he?”

“Very. Studying for the exams, you know.”

“Right.”

But it’s not right. Ryan’s accountancy exams are not for three months. But Kat doesn’t say that.

They’ve been together since the last year of Kat’s A levels, through her degree at Bristol University, and the three years since. He’s just a fact, is Ryan.

At the far end of the salon, Kisi gathers the coats from the cupboard and then gently shakes Mum awake.

The arm Mum raises for her coat sleeve is stick-thin.

“Is that your mum, Kat?” asks Sheila, unduly loud.

“Yes. She’s a bit poorly actually.”

“Glad to see her up and about, though,” says Sheila.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Shame the hair had to go.”

“Yes.”

“Buy her a hat. It’ll be less of a shock for friends and family.”

Kat pauses in her work. This is a small world, but its closeness does not make it immune to cruelty.

If she didn’t know better, she’d burst into tears.

Kat sits on the bench outside the salon at lunchtime to eat her sandwich and read. She’s halfway through Pigs Have Wings by P. G. Wodehouse for the third time, and it’s saving her life. This would be true of any one of the books in the Blandings Castle series, or the Harry Potters, or The Little Mermaid (but only in the original telling).

Her comfort books.

As she reads, the world around her, saturated with rain and winter chill, slips away, and Kat finds herself in the gorgeous company of Empress, the black Berkshire pig who rules the manor.

A toddler in a red raincoat wades into the very middle of the large puddle in front of Kat and her book.

He stops and stares down at his feet.

She considers him, then says, “It’s a miracle, isn’t it?”

The boy looks up.

“That the water doesn’t get in.”

He nods

Kat can tell he’s deciding if she’s a mind reader.

“What about you?” the boy asks.

“Me?”

“Your shoes?”

“Oh,” Kat gets up, and she steps into the puddle. She and the little boy watch the water seep into her Converse sneakers, turning the red canvas purple.

“It got in,” he says, and he looks up at her.

“Yeah. And I was hoping for a miracle.” She smiles.

“You got your feet wet, you silly banana,” calls a voice from behind her, and Kat turns as Ryan approaches quickly, with his shining face and flop of red hair.

He scoops her into his arms, lifts her out of the puddle, and plops her onto the dry pavement.

“Hello,” says Kat.

“Thanks for the coffee.”

“Was it still drinkable?”

“No.” He glances up as a London bus lumbers to the top the hill. “Shit, that’s my bus.”

“She’ll be cold,” says the little boy, pointing at Kat’s wet feet and then looking up at Ryan. “Won’t she?”

“Yeah. She needs to have wellies like you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” says Kat.

The bus pulls up. Ryan flies towards it.

Nor does it really matter where Ryan was last night until late because he makes everything recognisable just by being here. If he is in place, there can be no big changes. Her mum’s illness will be more manageable, her self-doubt less pressing, and her wet feet irrelevant.