‘To attract a mate,’ he explains.
Laura looks at him and those eyes almost make him crash into the car that has stopped at the lights in front of him. He clears his throat and brakes hard.
‘The male lyrebirds sing during mating season. He builds a platform in the forest, like a mound, and he stands on it to sing. The females are attracted to the sound.’
‘So I’m a male bird looking for a good time,’ Laura says, scrunching her face up.
‘We’ll claim artistic licence.’
She watches the video of the bird some more and when he starts making the sounds of chainsaws, and then a camera shutter, she starts laughing, louder and larger than Solomon has ever heard her before.
‘Whose idea was it to call me this?’ she giggles, wiping her teared-up eyes.
‘Mine,’ he says, self-consciously, taking the phone from her.
‘Mine,’ she mimics him perfectly, then after a short silence where he’s wondering what’s going through her mind she says, ‘You found me. You named me.’
He cringes at that.
Laura continues. ‘I read a book about Native Americans believing that naming can help enrich a sense of identity. People’s names can change throughout their lives the same way people do. They believe nicknames provide insight into not just the individual but how other people perceive that person. People become a double prism, instead of a one-way mirror.’
Solomon drinks every word in.
She makes the sound of a car beeping, which confuses him, until he hears an aggressive car honk behind him. The traffic lights had turned green while he was lost in her words. He quickly drives on as they turn amber again, leaving the angry driver behind.
‘What I’m trying to say,’ she smiles, ‘is that I like it. I’m Lyrebird.’
13
‘Oh Solomon, she’s a beauty,’ Solomon’s mother, Marie, says breathily, greeting Solomon outside the house, as though he’s brought his first-born home from the hospital. She hugs her son, eyes on Laura the whole time. It’s almost as if she’s astonished, or her breath has been stolen. ‘My goodness, look at you!’ She takes Laura’s hands, no longer paying the slightest bit of notice to her son. ‘Aren’t you an angel? We’ll have to take good care of you.’ She pulls her close and wraps an arm around her shoulder.
Solomon carries the bags inside with his father, Finbar, who nudges his son so deeply in the ribs he drops the bag. Finbar laughs and hurries ahead of him.
‘Where are we going with these, petal?’ Finbar asks his wife.
‘The orchid room for dear Laura,’ she says.
‘That’s my room,’ a head peeks out from the doorway of a room to the right-hand side. ‘Hiya, bro.’ An identical but older version of Solomon, Donal, steps out and hugs his brother and greets Laura.
‘Hannah down the road will take you,’ she says. ‘If you weren’t on your own, Donal, we’d find somewhere else for you here, but that’s how it is now.’
‘Ouch,’ Solomon laughs, punching his brother in the arm. She’s punishing him for leaving the only woman everyone thought he’d marry.
Laura smiles, watching them with each other.
‘Is Solomon in the orchid room too?’ Donal asks innocently, and his mother throws him a look of pure evil that he sniggers at. Solomon busies himself with the bags and tries to usher Laura away from the conversation.
‘Solomon is in his own bedroom,’ Marie huffs, enjoying the teasing. ‘Now, off with the lot of you. Laura, angel, I’ll take you to your room. Don’t be starting anything with him in there, Donal,’ she warns them as they go into Solomon’s room.
Donal laughs. ‘Mam, I’m forty-two.’
‘I don’t care what age you are, you were always at poor Solomon. I know it was you who kicked him off the bunk bed.’
Donal’s grin gets wider. ‘Oh, the poor baby Solomon.’
‘I wasn’t the poor baby and you know it,’ Solomon says, distracted, trying to catch Laura’s eye to make sure she’s okay with all this, concerned that going from no contact with people, to this, in a matter of days, must be affecting her.
‘Wawwy,’ Laura says, a perfect mimic of Solomon’s childhood speech impediment, and Donal howls with laughter. He holds his hand up for a high-five, which Marie drags Laura away from before they see her laugh. A mother’s job, in her opinion, is to be stern; if they ever saw her lose her composure then she would lose her power. Now they try to constantly egg her on and it’s her little game to maintain that composure.
Laura is brought away to the new ‘wing’, which is an extension of two new bedrooms for the B & B after the children had left home, though Rory is the only remaining child and probably will be for the rest of his life, at the rate he’s going.
After giving her a few minutes to settle in, Solomon knocks on Laura’s door.
‘Yes,’ she says quietly, and he pushes the door open. She’s sitting on the double bed, her bags untouched on the floor at her feet, looking around at the room.