Bone

I'd like to tie a piece of string around my parakeet's foot and carry him along with me, like a balloon, but he can't bear it.

I had a go yesterday and he went bezerk, flapping and squawking like a maniac. It took all my effort to get the string off. He wouldn't come near me for days.

He watches as I collect my walking stick and cardigan and I feel the usual guilt about leaving him, about having him at all. A lively green specimen like that, all cooped up in here.

Arthur brought him home, years ago, as a surprise. I'd caught him screwing around again and we'd decided to work it out. He walked in over-bright and told me to close my eyes. He called me his Fern and I held back a grimace, trying to honour my decision. I pressed standby on the remote and did as I was told, closed my eyes and listened out for the usual rustle of polythene around flowers, but there was barely a noise, just the tiniest gust of air as Bone flew from Arthur's hands into the space around my face. He shrieked and panicked around the room, crashing into the light fitting and curtains, and we laughed feeling cruel and excited all at once.

Finally we got him into his cage. I hugged Arthur and we held hands all the way through Eastenders, then snogged like teenagers in our bed.
“I mean it this time,” Arthur said, “it's just you and me now. And Bone, till the end.”

“I'll bring you back a treat, Bone,” I shout, closing the door.
He doesn't need my pity, I bet he swans around happily when I'm out the way, pecking at the sofa and shitting on his cage. No need to feel guilty at all.
I turn back to see him watching me at the window.
I wonder if this is how my children feel when they leave me.

The sea front is busy with mums pushing pushchairs and students buoyant with youth. I wander along with the help of my stick, thinking about what me and Bone will have for tea. Maybe fishfingers again. I used to give him vitamins and fish oil but now I just give him whatever I've got in the flat.

Two young girls stare at me and I smile, hoping I haven't been talking out loud.
“Lovely day, isn't it?” I say and they smile back, chorus, “Yes, lovely!” like well behaved little girls talking to their grandmother.
They'll soon be back to talking about ecstasy and blowjobs.

It's strange the walls we put up between ourselves, the arenas of appropriate conversation. I've been bored out my mind since sixty because of them. The joys of shocking the young soon wears off when they won't join in.
“Sex!” I used to shout when they took my picture at family gatherings and the group would fall about laughing, but they'd never get involved. It wouldn't pave the way to chat about previous conquests or extramarital sex. I've seen more penises than the lot of them but they can't bare to think about that.

That's what I miss most about Arthur now, ironically. Access to his body, his warmth.

I remember our final fumblings, me topped up with oestrogen and him with Viagra. We laughed at the time but afterwards, lying in our bed, we both smelt the decay. He coughed wet sobs and I held him close, nestled to my empty bosom, kissing his balding head.
We were grateful for our infidelities then, both of us, we didn't say it but we knew. We lay there comforting each other, thinking of other people, of past sexual victories when someone else thrashed around for us.
He pulled himself together soon enough and went to make sugary tea and crumpets. Both of us finally comfortable in our marriage.

A couple walk past, holding hands, looking out to sea. The girl smiles at me and I smile back, but I can barely see her. My throat's heavy in my neck as I try to understand I'll not have that closeness again.

I sit down on Maud's bench.
“I still miss you,” I tell her.
Maud was Arthur's final fling. The last one he could manage. She grew organic herbs and sold them at a stall where he was market inspector. Her husband, Alan, was an accountant. A traditional man. We slept together when we found out about their affair but it was a mirthless, tragic, second-prize shag. A sorry little moment, but it meant we could carry on. It staved off divorce.

At first Maud and I avoided each other, then we started nodding our hellos and a few years down the line I'd forgotten we'd been enemies, was just glad of a familiar face, without judgement.
Arthur was a picture the first time he came home to find her in the window seat with a bowl of her famous stew.
“D'you want a bowl love?” I asked, pushing away thoughts of him coming inside her.

I close my eyes, let the sun warm my eyelids and the world turn luminous pink. Red. I can hear the sea rushing in and out and I think of my blood trudging round my body, knackered and loyal, keeping everything going. It hasn't betrayed me yet.
Alan's was the first to turn, with a peptic ulcer that bled him, secretly, to death, then Arthur's, fuelling a cancer that ran through his lungs and bones and brain, and finally, Maud, who died of leukaemia on the day of her 80th, after three years of just the two of us.
I can list these deaths almost casually, six years from the last. And still my blood carries on like a workhorse. And Bone's. He must be the oldest parakeet in town.

A woman walks by, pulling one struggling child along by the arm and shouting back to another lagging behind. She smiles cheerfully at me, ignoring her child's whinging and I smile back. I don't miss those days. The little lagger passes me and I say, Hello, try to look kindly. She cringes and squirms, running off to catch up with her mother. Such silly little things, children, but then we encourage them to be that way, don't we? To act childish for as long as they can because we don't like being adults.

All the disappointments of my two have pointed straight back to me. Too strict on the first and too lax on the last. Sarah's a barrister now: no time to visit and Christopher's an artist: only visits if I pay. Still, at least they're out there, doing their thing.

A young man walks past, keeping his eyes firmly away from mine. He has important things to do. He does not think it would be nice to have a bit more sense of community. He is Maggie Thatcher's dream.

A group of birds fly low over the sea, stuck in some kind of ritual. They fly round and round in graceful, irregular circles, then sink, suddenly, to land on the reef. Ready to eat or mate or whatever it is the ritual means.
I think of Bone at home, waiting on the windowsill for me to get back. I don't even know if he's ever had sex. He was a baby when Arthur bought him and he hasn't been outside for the last 16 years.

I think of him in my empty flat while this rabble swoop around swapping partners and savaging fish. They wouldn't know what to do with a fishfinger. And nor should Bone. Just because he can say Hello and ask to see your boobies doesn't mean he should be eating processed food. What have I done to him?
I stroke Maud's bench, the wood warm against my skin.
“Got to get back, love,” I tell her. “Bone's by himself. I'll come by again tomorrow.”

The sun spews down on everything, beating on my back as my stick taps home. My flat's in sight and if I could see better I know I'd make out Bone sitting in the window.
Who am I kidding that he flies around when I'm away? He's there when I leave and he's there when I get back. A broken, feathered thing that depends on me for everything.

There he is, waiting, in the window.
I unlock the door and rush in. He cocks his head at me and I cock my head back, stroke the tatty feathers on his neck. Now where did I put those vitamins? I crush a cashew nut between two dessert spoons and sprinkle it on the window sill. He squawks.
“What have we done to you Bone?”
“Boobies,” he says, bending down to beak the bits of nut, and my heart aches.

A robin hops onto the apple tree in the communal garden. A robin. In May. It must be a sign.
“That's right, love,” I tell him, “you eat that. I'll get your vitamins.”

I find them underneath a pile of Radio Times and add a little to his cashews. The robin stares at us with his bright eyes, hopping from branch to branch. And I have a thought. Perhaps it's her bright eyes, perhaps he's a girl.
“Look Bone, she's looking at you.”

I wonder if different species of birds mate. I'm sure pigeons and doves do. You see their spawn in the town, white pigeons bobbing grey heads. And there's not much difference between a parakeet and a robin.
I open the window wide.
“Look Bone,” I tell him. “That's a robin. I think she likes you.”
Bone cocks his head at me and I cock my head back. He shows me his leathery old tongue and blinks, gets back to his cashews.
“That's alright Bone, there's no rush. You eat your vitamins. And when you're feeling strong enough you can just stroll out the window, find yourself a mate.”

I pull Arthur's old wheelchair to the window and sit down, apologising to Bone for all the experiences I've denied him. I soothe him like he's one of my children, woken from a nightmare, shouting and clammy.

Bone hops onto the window ledge and I hold my breath. There's a strange yanking feeling in my chest, like sickness, but sadder, and I know from experience that it's my heart.
“There you go, Bone. You go. It's all yours. No more than you deserve. Don't worry about me. Just get on out there. Be a good man, Bone. Be a good parakeet.”

He cocks his head at me and I cock my head back. We get stuck in a loop of repitition, cocking and blinking and waving our tongues, and I wonder if that's what we've been communicating for all these years: I'm okay. Yes, I'm okay too.

He shakes out his wings and flies out the window, sun shining through his ragged tail feathers. He lands on the apple tree and I watch him, my Bone, making his way in the world. Me inside, in my dead husband's wheelchair, and him out there. The last to leave. I pull Arthur's blanket over my knees.

It's freezing when I wake up and my bones ache. I wipe the leftover cashews from the windowsill into my hand and get a sudden flash of Bone in the apple tree.
I lean out the window but it's too dark to see. He won't be there anyway. He'll be off with that robin, flying around, building a nest. I peer out a bit longer then pull the window shut. He'll be fine. Instinct will take over. He'll be fine.

I close my eyes, feeling my body getting heavy, but an image of Bone sheltering somewhere, confused, makes me get up. I wrap Arthur's blanket round my shoulders and get the torch. I'll just check he got off okay. Make sure he's not still outside. I grab my stick.
A few seagulls are circling overhead, white against the navy black sky. They look enormous and predatory, like pterodactyls. I hope Bone hasn't bumped into any of them. He's not equipped to deal with such monsters. Dear God. I think I've made a mistake.
“Bone?”
I walk around the flats to the communal garden, my stick tapping on the ground. It must be late, there aren't even any drunk people heading home.
“Bone?”

The timed lights from the flats click off and I shine my torch into the apple tree and the bushes but there's just leaves and sky, twisted old branches. He must have made it. I feel sad and exhilarated. To think of Bone somewhere out there, fending for himself, surviving.

I turn around, leaning on my stick to rest, but it sinks into something soft and I lift it up quickly, with a terrible thought. I shine the torch on the ground to check and there he is, lying down, just next to where I put my stick through a dried out old dog shit.
I pick him up and pull my cardigan round him.
“Bone! Are you okay?”
His eyes open and I cock my head at him but he doesn't respond. He's shivering, heart juddering, fast, against my chest. He looks so small and fragile now, I can't believe I left him out here.

His feathers are wet and clumped together, making him look more wretched than ever.
“Not long now, Bone. We'll soon have you wrapped up warm and inside.”
He's never let me pick him up before. Never been still like this. I clutch him to my chest with one hand, tapping my stick with the other, wishing I could go faster.

I put the light on, squinting at its brightness, and rush to the sink, fill the bowl with warm water. I put Bone in it and wet my hand, stroking his green feathers. I cock my head at him but his eyes just close.
“Come on Bone. You can do this.”
The water is turning slowly pink and I realise Bone's bleeding. There's a wound just above his left wing. His wing hangs low beneath the gash, broken.
I wrap him in a towel from the airing cupboard, careful to support the wing as best I can.

I think of Maud. She stayed here towards the end, saying she wouldn't die in the hospice. We set her up in the spare room and I gave her her pills every day, helped her bathe, fed her. Then one night she knocked on my door, low down, where she could reach from a crawling position, and I hauled her up, feeling her bones, her lovely plumpness gone.
“I need an ambulance,” she said and I rang for one, then wrapped her in my dressing gown, warm from the airing cupboard. I got a bowl of hot water and flanneled her face and hands, telling her all the things I wanted to hear, things we both wanted to believe.

I do the same to Bone now, stroking his dishevelled green head with my finger. His eyes open briefly, then close. His shivering stops. His eyes open again and I look into them.
“There, there Bone. That's a good man. Don't you worry. You did your best, you got out there. Now go to sleep, you'll be okay. I'm here. You don't need to worry.”

He closes his eyes, twitches twice and I hold his cold body against my chest. It's starting to get light. I sit down in Arthur's wheelchair, covering us with his blanket, and close my eyes.

I think of Arthur on our wedding day, fresh faced and optimistic, promising to be faithful, and Maud, lying in my bedroom doorway, finally giving in, and poor, quiet old Alan, slinking off so quietly in the night. I think of them and I cry like it's the end of the world. Because if it's not right now, it's coming soon, it's creeping up on me, I can see it, coming in through the windows, disguised as just another sunny day.