Murmuration

I was on my hands and knees trying to hide a twelve-piece dinner set under my single bed when I heard Mum calling from the bedroom next door. She’d been in bed for two days, suffering from either a bad back or codeine withdrawals. I pushed the crockery behind a box of stainless steel cutlery and some gingham tea towels I’d bought from Woolworth’s the day before. 

“I’ll be there in a minute,” I shouted, tugging my continental duvet until it came unmade and draped onto the floor. 

I walked into Mum’s bedroom. It was musty and smelled of stale smoke and Old Spice aftershave, yet with a comforting smell of Mum impossible to recreate. Standing in the doorway I could tell she was in a foul mood. I’d normally have squeezed in beside her, rested my head on her pillow and let her tell me stories of when she was a little girl or of her first love. But I felt guilty, and she had that look in her eye. I looked down at the floor- beige carpet, full ashtray, ash on the carpet, burns on the carpet. 

“You’re moving out aren’t you.” she said. My Mum was a genius. She had a way of just knowing things. Although, thinking about it now, she probably noticed my “new home” stash hidden in various places around my bedroom.

My stomach lurched and my face burned red. 

“Well?”

I looked at her face, sallow, mouth turned down, eyes staring. 

“Yes,” I muttered.

“Did you say yes?” 

I nodded. “I’m moving in with Mandy in two weeks.”

“Two weeks!” She sat up quicker than I’d seen her move in years.

“We’ve bought a house just around the corner.”

“Bought?”

“Yes. Bought.” I dug my hands into the pockets of my jeans and walked to the bedroom window. A woman in a brown coat was walking a boisterous collie dog down the old railway while a kid in red wellington boots threw stones at some tin cans stacked up at the edge of the farmer’s field. 

“I’m sorry Mum, but I’m nearly twenty-one now.” I didn’t turn around but I could hear a match being struck followed by the sucking sound of a first drag. I wiped the sweat from my top lip. I turned around.

“Are you going to tell me why you're moving in with HER?” she said, waving the plume of smoke from her face so I could experience the maximum effect of her glare. A line of ash fell onto her cotton nighty.

“I’ve been seeing Mandy for about six months now,” I said and prepared to leg it out of that room if she got out of bed. 

“So, you’re queer now, are you?”

“No,” I said. “Well, kind of, but, I don’t know.”

“Who else knows?” She asked then shouted, “Ian, Ian.”

Ian is my stepdad who was in the bath. I heard the water slosh and the plug being pulled followed by him saying, “I’ve known for months. It’s obvious.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” She shouted at the closed bathroom door, then turned to me. “I cannot believe that bitch has turned you into a lemon.”

“Shut up.” I moaned. 

Mum continued. “And after I put a roof over her head for the last five months. Do I not get a say in this?”

“It’s not really…” I started.

“I mean, what about grandchildren? Eh?”

The bathroom door opened and Ian came out in a white toweling robe. He ruffled my hair as he passed. 

“Leave the girl alone,” he said to Mum. “I think it’s kind of cool.”

“It’s not normal. And as for that other lemon, I don’t want her back in my house.” 

I started to cry. “Thanks, Mum,” I said and walked out of the room. 

 “It’s a phase.” She shouted after me. “There’s no room for queers in this family.” Her words echoed down the stairway. 

I sat on the coal bunker in the back garden and watched the birds fly in a murmuration over the field. Black wings, white bellies, flipping from dark to light, circling and twisting in the still air. I watched those birds for a long time, spinning patterns and unscrewing the sky. The wind changed and droplets of rain fell onto my face. Then I went back indoors, ready to help Mum make room for the new queer in the family. 

- Eilidh Clark

Eilidh G Clark is a writer and poet who lives in central Scotland with her soon-to-be-wife Helen. Eilidh has had work published in print and online including magazines such as Capsule Stories and Fairlight books. In 2019, the writer came second place in the Scottish Mental Health Art's Festival Creative Writing Competition and was shortlisted for the Crossing the Tees creative writing competition. Eilidh looks forward to the day when she doesn't have to “come out” to every new person she meets and when queer lives are just lives.