Flyaway (19 page)

CHAPTER 41

T
he barn gets colder. A wind starts battering at its metal sides. The fluorescent light above me flickers. After a while, I crawl forwards on my hands and knees, through the bits of stuffing. I pile the two wings on top of each other and put them to one side, then make myself lift the body. It feels so long and thin. It's much lighter without its wings, like lifting cotton wool. I don't know where to put it, so I lay it on the old operating table. I stretch it out like a corpse and turn its face away from me.

I sit next to the wings and pick up the instructions. A part of me doesn't want to keep going; knows Jack's right when he says I can't do it. But the other part of me is stubborn and can't leave the wings like this: all chopped up and useless. It feels wrong somehow, a waste. I ignore the really complicated instructions about how to make the leather harness and
instead follow the ones that tell me to make a series of slits along the wings. I dig the knife in quickly and carefully, then get up and start sifting through the boxes, looking for wire to thread through.

I hear the barn door open again. Granddad steps in cautiously. Tries a smile. It's obviously fake, put on to pretend that everything's OK now between him and Mum.

‘Your mum's asking if you want to go home,' he says.

I wonder if he can tell I've been crying. He steps towards me and I see his eyes widen as he clocks the swan's body on the operating table. He frowns as he sees the wings too. He looks at me a little like Jack did, as if he thinks I'm going mad.

I brace myself as he comes closer, ready for him to be angry because I chopped up something that reminds him of Nan. I wait for his face to go red and scary-looking. Suddenly, I wish Jack had stayed. I try to explain about making a model for my art project. And he stops and looks down at the wings, his face not frowning anymore.

His joints click as he kneels. ‘All this effort for a school project?'

‘And I want to give it to Dad too,' I say. ‘When I've finished.'

I hand him the instructions. I don't go on and tell him how I'm hoping, stupidly, that these wings will make Dad feel better . . . how I want them to lift his spirits. I look up at the light, watch the dust particles floating in front of it. When I look back at Granddad, I have tiny stars dancing
before my eyes. He takes his glasses out of his pocket so he can read the instructions better. Then he lifts one of the wings, making a noise in his throat that sounds like a mixture of a laugh and a cough.

‘I never imagined you'd want Swanson so you could chop him up,' he mutters. ‘He's been sitting here for years.'

I tense, still waiting for him to be angry. But instead there's that small cough-like chuckle again. He seems kind of amused. He turns back to the wing and examines the slits I've made there.

‘Not bad,' he says. ‘It wouldn't take much to stitch all that up. A few more cuts here . . .'

I crouch down next to him. ‘You're not mad?' I say. ‘That I chopped it up?'

He peers at me over his glasses, his eyes wider than I've ever seen them.

‘Why would I be?' His voice is low and gravelly. ‘Beth wondered what to do with this bird for years.'

He picks up the instructions again, reads them slowly. ‘I've got most of that equipment. Even got an old climbing harness of your father's somewhere around here. We could use that instead of making our own.'

He peers at the diagram that shows how to attach strips of leather to the wings and wrap them around the wearer's body.

‘It's for you to wear, yes?'

I shrug. ‘I s'pose.'

‘Your father's old climbing harness would fit then.'

The wrinkles in his forehead disappear for a moment as he
smiles at me. He looks so much like Dad, then, that I can't help gasping. He gets up slowly and shuffles back to the stuff around the operating table. He finds a box that has loads of useful stuff, including the strong thread he used for stitching animals.

He finds the harness that Dad used to use for rock climbing and turns it over, checking for damage.

‘Your dad used to climb everything,' he explains. ‘Even when he was younger he was a bit of a daredevil; a bit of a fool.'

He gives it to me to hold. I pull at the straps. It's smaller than the harnesses Dad uses now to chop branches down for work and it would fit me perfectly.

‘We just need to run some more material and straps up the back so we can fasten it around your chest,' Granddad murmurs, turning it to show me. ‘And attach it to the wings of course.'

He's nodding quickly as he looks at it, his expression no longer like the grumpy old man everyone argues with. So I let him help. It's weird, but he seems to change a bit as he does. He smiles more and his voice gets softer. For a moment, I can almost pretend that it's Dad here with me.

His eyes squint as he chooses a needle and tries to thread it.

‘I'll help,' I say, and do it for him.

Then he begins to stitch. He works quickly and carefully, not damaging the structure of the swan's wings at all.

‘Did you know,' he murmurs, ‘that the bones in a swan's
wing are pretty much the same as the bones in a human arm. Isn't that amazing? A few people even argue that our bodies have descended from birds.'

By the time he asks me for the next instruction, there's a grin on his face.

CHAPTER 42

W
hen Mum gets there, Granddad is still stitching thread through the wings. Granddad doesn't turn to acknowledge her and she doesn't say anything to him either. Instead she finds an old coat, spreads it out next to me and sits down. Her eyes slowly take in the whole big wingspan of the swan.

‘Jack said you were making something for school,' she says.

‘And for Dad.'

She nods. ‘They're beautiful.'

It's not long before Jack comes in, too. His eyes widen when he sees what we've done.

‘You cut them off,' he says. ‘Or was it Granddad who did it?' He smirks at me, then sprawls out on the other side of Granddad and starts fiddling with the box of surgical equipment.

I wait for Mum to tell me it's time to go. But she just watches quietly. So I help Granddad with the climbing harness, holding it still for him to sew the wings to. His stitches are so small and neat, I can hardly see them.

‘You're good at that,' I say.

‘Just practice.'

His hands aren't even shaking. Now that he's helping me with this, he seems like a different person. Mum's noticed too, I'm sure.

After a while, Jack starts sighing and looking at his watch. ‘They'll all be waiting for me,' he says. ‘Can we go now?'

Mum leans on my shoulder as she pushes herself up. ‘Come on, Isla, it's almost nine.'

Granddad stops threading the needle, a flash of frustration across his face.

‘I want to carry on,' I say, suddenly having an idea. ‘I want this ready for Dad to see before his operation.'

Mum fiddles with her rings as she thinks.

‘I could drop her back at the house,' says Granddad. ‘Or even drop her straight at the hospital tomorrow morning.'

I look quickly at Granddad, we all do. It's so unlike him to suggest something helpful. For a moment or two, it doesn't look like Mum knows what to say. She raises her eyebrows at me.

‘It's up to you, babe.'

I nod, thinking of Dad . . . wanting to try anything right now to make him feel better. Even if it something as crazy as showing a flying machine I made. ‘I want to finish this.'

And I do. We're so close to the end, it seems crazy to stop. Even if it does mean that I have to stay at Granddad's again.

Mum brushes her fingers through my hair as she goes. ‘Be good.'

But Granddad and I don't sleep. We keep going for hours, turning the wings into a flying model that, gradually, starts to move. At some stage, Granddad fetches a lamp from another part of the barn and puts it near us for more light. He gets old, scratchy blankets, too, and we wrap them around our shoulders. The dust on them makes my throat itch. After a while, the small letters on the instructions sheet blur before my eyes. I bury my head inside the blankets and just watch Granddad work. He looks so focused, so completely concentrated on getting it right. I wonder if he was like this as a vet. Perhaps this focus and skill is why he thought he could care for Nan at home, why he was so angry when Dad took her to the hospital.

I'm pretty much asleep by the time Granddad leans away from what we've made and notices me. ‘Come on,' he says. ‘Let's go inside and get a drink.'

The wind has died down when we get out of the barn. The only sound is our feet, crunching against the dirt path. I screw up my eyes when we get into the lit kitchen, and look down at the lino floor until they've adjusted.

We sit on the couch sipping tea, sweet and hot. Granddad looks tired, but not exhausted. There's a sparkle in his eyes. But I feel myself sinking down and the cup being taken from my hands. My head drops back into the cushions, springs and
feathers beneath me.

And I dream of Dad. Swans are carrying him up into the sky, singing the most beautiful song as they go. It's a swan song to take him higher.

CHAPTER 43

A
beeping sound goes off near my ear and I wake with a start. The room is silver grey and Granddad isn't next to me any more. There's just a cold cup of tea on the carpet, and my phone. I lean over and grab it. The message is from a number I don't recognise.

Swan just tried to fly again, but no luck. Saw a flock flying in the distance, but they didn't land. Harry. PS Wish you were here.

I read it three times. Then I check the time: 6.47am. He's up early. I lie there, looking around at Granddad's shabby lounge room, and wonder what to text back. I stretch my arms above my head. My body aches as if I have been running for hours. I sit up and glance over to the kitchen. The house is silent and still, and empty. I get up and open the back door. There's a robin's clear, loud voice. I scan the
shadowy fields for swans, stand on my tiptoes and try to see the lake.

I reply to Harry.

I'll see you later. I've got a surprise for you.

I stick the phone in my pocket and walk. I yawn in crisp, morning air and feel the dampness of dawn on my cheeks. Granddad is searching through a pile of boxes, but looks up when he hears me.

‘I've finished it,' he says. ‘Just now.'

‘Why didn't you wake me?'

A part of me feels angry. I wanted to make the flying model; it's my project after all. But then I see the swan wings stretched out across the concrete, with the climbing harness in between them, and I'm glad Granddad's done it. There are wires connecting different parts of the harness to the feathers. There are velcro loops running down the middle of each wing for my arms to be attached and gardening gloves towards the wing tips for my hands to go in. The model looks beautiful and complicated and exactly like the picture. I pick up the crumpled instructions and check how Granddad's made it.

‘I don't know where you found those instructions,' Granddad says slowly. ‘But they're good. Whatever they say to do just works.'