49. Crow
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CROW
We meet one final time.
Back to basics: under the big oak tree, the park where we first gathered under cover of darkness, the park where the five of us once rescued a bird.
I wonder if it is still alive? If, right now, it’s in the park, watching us? Would it want to say thank you? Did it taste freedom like no other during lockdown, like us, and wish it was still in that time, enclosed forever in a world where it didn’t have to be frightened?
There is a distinct before and after to all our lives now.
Wren has told us about the students she used to teach.
Absentees are more common than ever. Kids stand in packs on the playground and show each other reels from their phones and don’t make real conversation.
Everyone is afraid to be, and far more comfortable to observe.
They are all, it is strange to think, how we once were.
Other than Cuckoo, who always had no trouble being, and Goldie, who always knew what she was going to become.
Nowadays there is all so much more fear, and anger too.
We know all about anger.
Everyone is different. Changed. The world turns anyway, eager to forget, to push what was lost into the past and pretend it never happened. Moving on, nothing to see here.
It is early in the morning, and it was raining before but isn’t now, so the air is fresh and dewy and the ground is wet.
Gray clouds still threaten the day, lurking in the sky like swaths of spoiled paint, but otherwise it’s quite beautiful.
Leftover raindrops glitter on the gate bordering the children’s playground, sprinkle the leaves on the tree above me, create small puddles in the uneven terrain of the grass.
There are a couple of joggers and one mother with a pram, out so early I wonder if she even had any sleep and decided to give up on the prospect.
She sits on a bench near the playground, one hand pushing the pram back and forth, the other holding her phone while she stares intently at it.
I am here first, of course, so I have time to observe.
Wren is next. She’s changed her look, had her hair cut into a short bob that really suits her, and her nails done, painted a vivid purple.
It’s mad to think that the reason we’re meeting today is because Wren has finally done it.
Left her job, found a new one teaching English as a foreign language, and is off to Japan tonight.
“Look at you,” I say when she reaches me. “You look fantastic.”
“I should have done this years ago,” she says, slightly breathless. Her cheeks are pink, and I realize this is Wren really, truly content. “I should never have gone to Cambridge.”
“You didn’t have a choice.” I shrug, surprised at how easily I can toss aside the old resentment about her gaining the place I never did. “The world decided to turn everything on its head.”
“And us too, I think.” She smiles. “You know I’m sleeping through the night now? The insomnia’s practically gone.”
Cuckoo arrives carrying armfuls of flowers and chocolates and practically launches them at Wren. “For the jet-setter! And wow, I love the new hair! For a second, I was like, Crow with a stunning new friend? How dare she!”
“Oh, Cuckoo, you shouldn’t have got me these,” Wren says. “Thank you. But I’m leaving tonight! What will I do with the flowers?”
Cuckoo laughs and smacks her forehead with her palm. “Oops. I guess I can give them to Starling. Have you all heard the news?”
“No, they haven’t!” Starling calls, jogging toward us. “I’m going to tell them now.”
“What news?” I ask.
Now that we’re all together, we sit beside the oak tree, in a circle, cross-legged, as we did before.
My legs aren’t as flexible as they used to be—I haven’t sat like this in a long time—but it feels right.
The ground is damp, the back of my trousers will absolutely be stained with grass and mud, and yet I decide I don’t care.
“So being an influencer is apparently, like, really hard if you guys didn’t know,” Starling says. “You don’t just wake up one day with a million followers. How about that?”
I’m not sure where this is going, so I don’t say anything.
Wren speaks instead. “You’ll get there. You’ll make it work.”
Starling shakes her head. “Here’s the thing. I think if I really cared about it—I’d be doing a lot more. Posting every day. Recording more content. And I’m just not. With everything that’s happened, the court case and Patricia and all of it, I think I know now what I want to be. And it’s not that.”
“What?” I ask.
“A detective.” She offers us a sheepish smile. “Don’t make any comments. Cuckoo, I’m looking at you. It’s something I think I’d be really good at, alright?”
But there are no comments from Cuckoo. No mocking ones anyway.
She returns Starling’s smile with a broad one of her own. “I think that’s a great idea.”
“You do?”
“Definitely. You’re ever so nosy, and you never let things drop.”
Alright, maybe one mocking comment. But she means it lightheartedly, and Starling playfully punches her.
“You two think this is a good idea?” she says to Wren and me.
“I really do,” I say, truthfully, at the same time Wren gives an enthusiastic yes. Because Starling is nosy and she never lets things drop—but she’s also deeply investigative, careful, and precise. She’s obsessed with true crime; she always wants to discover the truth.
And, of course, she has experience in the other side too.
“Like Clarice,” Starling says, “but without the brain eating.”
“Honestly, look at you two,” Cuckoo says. “Wren’s off to Japan, and Starling’s off to be a top detective, and Crow, I bet you’re going to be a famous author soon, and I’m still working at the supermarket.”
“Uh-uh,” Starling says. “Not anymore, you’re not. Come on, Cuckoo. What do you want to do with the rest of your life?”
Cuckoo blinks, as if the thought has genuinely not occurred to her. “I have to work. Look after my dad. My siblings.”
“Carly is an adult,” I say, gently. “Dean is doing well. And so is your dad. You did good, Cuckoo. You can be your own person now.”
Her lip trembles, and it is this tiny movement that shows me, despite all her bravado, her big words about being happy staying put, she does want more. She’s just never allowed herself to voice other dreams because she didn’t think she was allowed them.
“When my mother died,” Cuckoo says, “I was so mad. At the pathetic ruling, the lack of justice Hugo received. I want to help change that. I thought about being a barrister.”
“Cuckoo,” Starling says. “You would make a perfect barrister.”
“You reckon?”
“I don’t reckon. I know.”
“But I can’t,” she says. “Dean is still in school. I have to be here for him. And Carly’s only just getting started. And Dad—”
“Will be okay,” Wren finishes. “They’re all brilliant because of you. But you can put yourself first now.”
“But I—”
“It’s what your mum would want,” Starling says, “isn’t it?”
“I . . .” Cuckoo bites her lip. “Yes, but . . . surely I can’t.”
“For God’s sake, Cuckoo, you’re the smartest of all of us,” I say. “If you don’t do something with all that potential, I’ll scream.”
Cuckoo’s head swivels toward me, something triumphant in her expression, and I realize what I’ve said. “I’m sorry, what was that, Crow?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“I believe”—Cuckoo is luxuriating in this—“I heard Crow say I was the smartest of us all. Wren, Starling, did you catch that?”
“Sure did.” Starling cackles.
“Absolutely,” Wren says.
“Oh, shut up or I’ll take it back,” I say. “You know you are, Cuckoo. I never wanted to admit it when we were younger because I was jealous. There, are you happy?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier,” she replies, laughing. But then she is suddenly soft, reaching out and wrapping me in a hug. “Do you really think I could do it? Go to university, train as a barrister? Am I not too late?”
“It is never too late,” I say. “You’re a cuckoo, don’t forget. Sacred animal of Hera, protector of women. Go out and protect them.”
“Then I will. I’ll do it. Holy shit, I’m going to do it.”
Later, when we drive Wren to the airport and wave her off, I will tell them my future too.
That the book I’ve been furiously writing throughout this past year is written but not complete.
I can tell, finally, that I’m not ready yet.
There are the bones of something brilliant in that manuscript, but I need someone else to help me dig them out.
I’ve enrolled in a free writing course, I’ve joined several writing groups, and I’m finding my people.
If I have time at the airport, I’ll head into a bookshop and run my fingers along the spines of books and know I’ll be there someday.
I’m making a plan, and it’s going to work.
But right now I bask in this moment instead: Cuckoo teary-eyed and still embracing me, Starling and Wren cheering and clapping, the four of us celebrating the bright futures we were promised so long ago and are only now beginning to grasp.
It isn’t fair; it won’t ever be fair that so much time has been wasted, snatched away, gobbled up in a way we aren’t allowed to acknowledge.
So much was taken from us, and we can’t cry about it.
Can’t scream, can’t vent. The world is so different.
Altered. Don’t look back is the solution. Pretend it didn’t happen.
It did happen. All of it.
“Goldie would be so proud of us,” Cuckoo says, serious now, and I wonder how long it will be before that name no longer twinges at my heart, like a puppet master pulling an already worn-out string. “Imagine what she’d be doing now if she hadn’t . . .”
Rocks into dust . . .