For the Forest of a Bird

Nella stood by the creek and waited. Blue sky above and thistles below that reached her knees, she knew the swallows returned in the second week of spring.

Nella was fifteen and each September, she came here. No one knew about her vigil and she held it private inside her like a thing that might die if it were to flee into the open.

Ghosts, fairies, spirits might visit the creek, but nothing was as special as the swallows: strong, fragile, bursting from the sky in that second week of spring just as their ancestors had for thousands of years. What was it that it made her feel? It was something . . . something like belief, like everything in every other part of the world, of her world, would be all right if she could just witness the swallows.

'Please come home,' she whispered to the darkening sky, and she was sure the birds had heard her. 'Please come back.' And then she stepped away, one damp shoe and then the other, and climbed the track that led from the creek.



Through the streets of North Fitzroy Nella travelled, past the milk bar, the hidden church, the secret children's park and at last into Mark Street with its asphalt footpaths and bluestone gutters. She'd lived here all her life. At number fourteen, she stopped and pushed gently on the gate.

Silently she went into the house. Past the silent gate, the silent front door. Only the small noise of her shoes on the hallway made a sound. She walked past the unused lounge room and then the dark bedroom where her mother lay beneath the eiderdown. How still everything was, but not in the way of the creek or the dragonfly she'd seen holding itself motionless against the sky. This stillness was heavy, immobile, as if even the air when it entered the house stopped circulating and became a solid thing.

Fixed, was that the word? Mired. It hadn't always been like this. For the first twelve years of Nella's life the house had been different, lighter. Sun had filtered in through the curtains and the seasons had shifted throughout. Once, a blackbird had built a nest in the corner of the lounge and her mate had flown in and out as he'd collected worms and slaters, moths and caterpillars for the young. In and out he'd gone, as if there were no boundaries to the house at all, as if there were no difference between inner and outer.

But now there was a difference, there was always a difference. Ever since her father had left and Matthew had grown to fill his space, and their mother had shrunk smaller and smaller. Time had stopped for Nella, then, and the voice inside her had become quieter until now it was almost impossible to hear – unless she promised herself that certain thing.

I will take him with me. This time, this year, I will take him to the swallows.

She'd said it before, in previous years, and then somehow, at the last minute, backed away. The swallows will be frightened, she'd told herself. The swallows will be confused, unsure. But really it was none of these things. What if he doesn't like them? She should have said. What if the swallows are nothing special at all to my father?

This time, this year, though, she would take him. This time it would be different. She touched her fingers to each other in a sign she made secretly whenever she created a promise that she knew she must keep. It was a tiny gesture she'd seen the last of the swallows make with their wings as they left for their northern homes each autumn.

Yes, I will take him with me.

She was comforted, then, renewed. She moved along the passage closer to the kitchen. She'd make herself toast and peppermint tea, her favourite meal. It made her feel clear and weightless like the swallows as they fell through the sky with their bones of air.

She'd sit on the back step and watch the nightly lacewings as they made their way to the neighbours' lit windows and she'd practise what she'd tell her father, what she would say, how she would introduce him to the swallows.

They come back every year, she'd tell him. They never fail to return.

She stopped at the doorway of the kitchen. It was dim inside.

I will call him tonight, she said to herself. And she put her hand into the shadows and turned on the switch.

Lightness, illumination. Everything became sharp and focused. The stovetop with its iron grid, the row of wooden cupboards attached to the brick wall, the calendar with its days divided into boxes.

And there, across the room, she saw the four chairs around the laminex table. Sitting on one of them was a lone figure. Solid, distinct.

'I've been waiting for you,' it said.

Nella stayed very still.

'He's in hospital,' Matthew continued. 'Our father's in St Vincent's Intensive Care. He's had a heart attack.'