Free Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking by Ivana Hruba Page A

issues with all of it. Like I used to. But it’s all been
sorted now and Starling comes instead. At least I’m no longer
alone. My little birdie keeps me company.
    ‘ One efelant, two efelant,
tree efelant, sick efelant… Leady or not, Salah, hele I
come!
    I’m stomping around the house.
Course, I see she’s under the table, covering her eyes. She can’t
see me so I can’t see her, is what she’s thinking. Okay. Let’s give
her some giggles.
    ‘ Hide, hide, hide, little
birdie! I’m coming to get you.’
    —
    ‘Not now. I don’t feel well…
Chris, don’t!’
    Oh dear.
    ‘We’ll… Lil. I love you.’
    Oh Lord. One elephant, two
elephant, three elephant…
    ‘Lilian, please...’
    ‘Don’t touch me!’
    —
    The door opens. He exits the
caravan. Bang! He enters the truck. Bang! He’s reversing down the
path. It’s a stupid move, dangerous in the light of day and we’re
smack bang in the middle of the darkest night. Ah, well. What will
be will be.
    Next door, behind the kitchen
space, in her bedroom space Lilian twists open her bottle of little
magic pills. She takes out, let’s see, one two maybe even three.
She’ll need them. She drinks from her water bottle, swallows.
Noisily her little friends are going down. Soon her pain will all
be danced away, in Oblivion. She puts the bottle down. One
elephant, two… she’s unconscious, I’ll bet. Good for her. It’s the
only way her Starling will appear. To her.
     
     

 
    27
     
     
    Chris doesn’t come home.
Instead, there’s a call from Captain Josh. He tells Lilian Chris is
being interviewed, at the police station in town. He will be there
for a while.
    Lilian tells me. She’s
matter-of-fact about it. It’s just another interview, like before,
you know. Yeah, I know, I just nod. She’s okay with it. She’s gonna
take a pill and chill. So I’m left alone. Which suits me fine. I
like silence, now that it’s just the two of us, mostly. Cause there
really isn’t much to say. Everything that could be said in this
situation pretty much has been said and there is only so much
comforting each other you can do. And you’re always waiting, for
something that never arrives. You want your birdie back but it’s
gone now, flown the coop. And it’s not coming back.
    Lilian goes to lie down. I walk
down to the beach.
    Today, Sliver Moon Bay looks
spectacular. I walk from one tip of the bay to the other, like we
used to with Starling. Course, back then we used to run, right
along the edge. It’s not the same without her so I’m just walking
now. The waders don’t even notice me. It feels different here.
Kinda boring. Nobody’s building sandcastles, nobody’s spying. The
boredom of it, here, alone, makes me tired. So l lay me down and
close my eyes.
    ‘ Come find me,
Salah!’
    Starling’s knobbly head pokes
out of the bushes.
    ‘ Find me!’
    I will. I will find you, my
little bird.
    ‘ I’m coming, Starling, ready
or not!’
    The setting sun gets inside my
eyes. It tickles me behind my eyelids, reminding me that I’m not
dreaming. I’m not. She’s here somewhere and she must be found. It’s
really silly how we’ve all given up on my little birdie. And that
is so wrong. I don’t really care how we do it. I just want her to
be found. But there’s nobody looking anymore. This has to
change.
    I get home and find Lilian
conscious. She’s making me spaghetti, stirring the sauce, slumped
over the stove.
    ‘Mum. She’s here, somewhere
close. I know she is. ’
    She looks up, looks at me like
I’m touched in the head.
    ‘Okay, honey. We’ll go
looking.’ She goes back to stirring the sauce.
    Oh, dear. She has given up.
This is going to be harder than I thought.
    Outside, lights appear.
    Oh dear. Chris is coming
home.
    He walks in, takes off his
jacket, walks past the dinner table to the bedroom space. Behind
the partition, the bed squeaks. I don’t think he took his boots
off. They’ll just be hanging off the bed.
    We eat alone.