Possibly even more stupid than turning up to my ex-boyfriend’s fiancée’s hen night and attempting to convince her not to marry him.
But this wasn’t the time to dwell on my terrible decisions, it was time to make them. When I got to the edge of the terrace, Bel was back in the garden below and Ren was waiting patiently on his little outdoor loveseat, an open bottle of red wine in front of him. I tucked my hair behind my ears and set my phone onthe floor in front of me, speaker on, volume down, like the world’s shittest James Bond.
‘Did I miss anything?’ Bel asked as she positioned herself next to him on the sofa, slipping off her shoes and curling her bare feet underneath her body.
‘I saw a great egret flying overhead,’ Ren replied.
‘Oh yeah? What was so great about it?’
‘A great egret is a kind of bird,’ I whispered urgently into the phone and Bel’s spine stiffened slightly.
‘I’m joking.’ She laughed and cocked her head to one side, curling her hand around the exposed side of her lovely neck. ‘I love birds, don’t you?’
‘I do,’ Ren said, sounding almost suspicious.
‘Ask him what he loves about them,’ I instructed.
‘What do you love about them?’
Ren leaned forward to pour Bel a glass of wine. ‘My grandpa didn’t have money growing up, I mean, he had nothing, but even when he was broke and living on whatever he could get his hands on, the one thing he always had was birdwatching. It’s the perfect hobby. It doesn’t cost anything, there are no barriers to keep people out and when you start looking for birds, you see them everywhere.’
‘That’s because they are everywhere,’ she reasoned. ‘Mostly hanging out by the car wash on Fig waiting to shit on my clean car.’
Ren laughed and handed her the glass, his breath catching as their fingers touched.
‘From their perspective, your car is in the way of their shit,’ he said, challenging her with raised eyebrows. ‘Birds have been here way longer than we have. They’re practically dinosaurs.’
‘Really?’ she gushed, looking utterly dazzled. ‘That’s incredible. I can’t believe you knew that without looking it up, you must be the smartest man in the whole world.’
‘All right, tone it down a bit,’ I muttered into the phone. ‘I said pay him compliments not kiss his arse.’
‘I mean, wow,’ she said, raking her hand through her hair and throwing me a discreet thumbs up. ‘Maybe you could teach me about it sometime.’
‘That could be fun.’ Ren tipped his face upwards, the pinks and reds of the dusky sunset giving way to the blues and purples of the night. ‘I love the way it connects me to my grandpa, looking up at the same sky, watching for the same birds. One day, I’d like to think I’ll teach my kids about it and pass it along. You don’t worry about stuff when you’re watching the birds. They remind me to look up. Everything around us is so crazy all the time but there they are, cruising above it all.’
‘It must be amazing,’ I murmured without thinking. ‘To soar above the world and see everything at once.’
‘It must be amazing,’ Bel echoed in a breathy whisper. ‘To soar above the world and see everything at once.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’ Ren looked back at her and she looked at him and I stared at the two of them. Those were my words, they weren’t meant for her.
‘What’s your favourite bird?’ Ren asked, his deep, warm voice suddenly soft and promising.
‘Uh, my favourite, I don’t know,’ she stammered, pressing her hand against her hair. ‘Whatismy favourite bird?’
‘A hummingbird,’ I answered quickly, pushing my unwelcome feelings down down down. ‘I saw my first one the other day, it was nuts.’
Below me Bel snapped her fingers as though the answer had just come to her and technically, it had. ‘A hummingbird. I saw my first one the other day and it was nuts.’
‘You saw your first hummingbird the other day?’ he repeated. ‘But you live here, right? You don’t see them all the time?’
‘Yeah, I do, I meant, um, what did I mean?’
‘Every time you see one it’s like the first time,’ I babbled, heart in my mouth.
‘Every time I see one, it’s like the first time,’ she said. She moved her arm from the back of her neck onto Ren’s shoulder and the rest of my words tripped off her tongue like silk. ‘They’re like magic. Wings moving too fast for us to see them, in motion and motionless at the same time. So fragile and fleeting and precious.’
She was truly an excellent actress.
