The Silence of Blackbirds

‘What you doin’, freak?’

Iris doesn’t move; she continues to search the sky. Her breath quickens. Please, not that voice. She knows but doesn’t want to see.

‘I said, what you doin’, freak?’

Iris lies on the grass with outstretched arms; garlands of daisy chains thread her hair like pagan snow. Maybe if she plays dead Sam will get bored and leave.

‘Look at you. What the hell is that you’re wearing? God, you make me want to vom.’

An upside-down face appears above her in the sky, the face of a girl with a hard mouth. A beautiful, raven-haired girl, beautiful in that wicked fairytale queen way. Iris closes her eyes and remains still. The grass grows. She can almost hear it. Then her ribs explode. She rolls onto her side coughing and writhing.

‘Don’t ignore me you weird little bitch. I’ll kick you harder next time; I’ll break your skinny ribs.’

Iris holds her face in the grass, breathing in the soil and wishes Sam away.

‘You know Iris, I can’t wait for your dad and my mum to get married. Then we’ll live together, and every minute of every day, I’ll be there to make your life hell. It’s gonna be brilliant.’

Iris feels Sam’s muffled steps through the ground as she stamps away over the grass.

Iris should have gone further on, hidden herself better. She waits in the grass, listening for the singing to return, but there is silence now, a void, the withering of a heart. Don’t go. It wasn’t my fault. Don’t leave me.

She’ll remember next time. She’ll have to go back to dad and Marta now, pretend nothing has happened, and that she and Sam are the best of friends. She will not be labelled again. She shouldn’t have let Sam see the cuts on her arms, but it’s too late to undo that now. There are so many things she should always keep hidden.

Iris, nauseous, fights the urge to clutch her side as she arrives back at the river bank. Her skin is almost translucent; sun-ripened freckles stain her pale cheeks.

Her father is lying at a right angle from Marta with his head on her lap as she feeds him grapes and strokes his hair. If it were a film, this scene would be in soft focus. Iris thinks of the times that Marta stays over, when she hears them at night. They occupy the bed where the odour of Iris’s mother still lingers on the mattress. The sound of them, together, echoes inside her head. Pain rises in her throat and she bites the lining of her cheek until she tastes blood. Sam is sitting on the rug laughing at some quip just made that Iris arrived too late to hear. She throws an impossibly sweet smile in Iris’s direction.

‘Where have you been, Sis? ’

‘How cute.’ Marta runs a scarlet nailed hand down her daughter’s cheek. ‘You calling Iris “sis”. You’ve always been such an affectionate girl.’ She throws a colder look toward Iris. ‘At least some of us are happy about the prospect of being a family.’

Iris’s father lifts his head and props himself up on one arm. ‘Sam searched all over for you. Why do you always make things awkward?’

Iris doesn’t reply.

The picnic goes on. Iris doesn’t eat. Laughter all around her, but she never speaks. She pulls at the chain around her neck, absently rolling the wedding ring that hangs there over and over her bee-stung lips. Marta tries not to show that she’s watching. Marta and Samantha exchange a look. Iris closes her eyes, blue as her name, and listens to the music of the river, the sound of the water racing out to sea. She wishes she could step in and let it carry her away.