The Crane Wife(32)
Author: Patrick Ness

‘How else can we live with the extraordinary?’ George murmured.

‘Yes,’ Kumiko said, seriously. ‘Exactly that. The extraordinary happens all the time. So much, we can’t take it. Life and happiness and heartache and love. If we couldn’t put it into a story–’

‘And explain it–’

‘No!’ she said, suddenly sharp. ‘Not explain. Stories do not explain. They seem to, but all they provide is a starting point. A story never ends at the end. There is always after. And even within itself, even by saying that this version is the right one, it suggests other versions, versions that exist in parallel. No, a story is not an explanation, it is a net, a net through which the truth flows. The net catches some of the truth, but not all, never all, only enough so that we can live with the extraordinary without it killing us.’ She sagged a little, as if exhausted by this speech. ‘As it surely, surely would.’

After a moment, George asked, ‘Has something extraordinary happened to you?’

‘To me,’ she said, ‘and to everyone. To you, too, George, I’m sure.’

‘Yes,’ he said, feeling the truth of it.

‘Tell me,’ she smiled, a smile so kind he felt as if he could live in it for the rest of his life.

He opened his mouth to tell her about the crane in his backyard, a story he’d been shy of up until now, especially given Amanda’s sceptical reaction to it, but maybe now was the moment to tell her of the strange bird whose life he may have saved, whose origin he could never know, whose appearance had marked the beginning of this impossible segment of his life, a segment his heart was in continual danger of breaking over in fear that it would end.

But instead, he surprised himself by saying, ‘When I was eight years old, I was run over by a car. But that’s only one version of it.’

And as she cut his hair, he told her.

‘There once was a lady,’ George said, holding JP’s hand as they walked together around the pond, ‘who was born in a cloud.’

‘Well, that can’t happen,’ JP said.

‘It can. She was born in a cloud. Like this one.’ He blew out a warm, steamy breath into the cold air.

JP’s eyes lit up and he did the same, puffing out long streams of clouds, then a row of small ones. ‘Are clouds made from breathing?’

‘I wish they were, kiddo, but it’s something to do with evaporation over the ocean.’

‘But I breathe clouds. I make clouds.’

‘Maybe you do.’

‘Grand-père?’

‘Yes?’

‘Does farting make clouds?’

George glanced down at him. JP’s face was entirely sincere.

‘Mama says farting is just stinky air,’ JP said, ‘and that everyone does it, even the Queen, but she also says my breath is sometimes stinky so that makes it stinky air, too.’

‘Impeccable logic so far.’

‘So, and if, so, if my breath makes clouds . . .’ JP paused, letting the conclusions line up in his little head. He looked up with a grin. ‘If I farted, it would make a cloud, too.’

‘A stinky cloud.’

‘A stinky cloud where the lady was born.’

‘A cloud she’d want to leave very quickly.’

‘Did you bring bread?’

‘Did I what?’

JP pointed. ‘For the ducks.’

A few shivering geese who should really have flown somewhere for the winter by now were looking hopefully up at them.

‘Damn,’ George said.

‘Is that a swear word?’

‘No. It’s something beavers make.’

‘Beavers have flat tails,’ JP said. ‘And buck teeth.’

‘You used to have a flat tail.’

‘NO!’ JP said, astonished.

‘Yeah, we were all worried about it. It fell off after you were born.’

‘After I was born in a cloud?’

‘Absolutely. A stinky cloud.’

‘Je suis une nouille,’ JP sang.

‘You’re a noodle?’

‘A cloud!’

‘Ah,’ George said. ‘Nuage.’

‘That’s what I said!’ JP said. ‘Je suis une cloud!’ He ran around in a circle for a moment, arms out, shouting it over and over, before stopping suddenly. ‘Grand-père!’ he said, thunderstruck. ‘You spoke French!’

‘Not really. I just remember a little from high school.’

‘What’s high school?’

‘Secondary school. It’s what they call it in America.’

JP’s eyes dimmed a little as a very-small-person’s calculation was made. ‘You were American?’

‘Still am.’

‘Whoa.’

‘That’s how most people react. Now, I need your help, remember?’

‘The tall bird!’ JP said and looked ferociously across the pond, standing on tiptoes to see over the heads of the geese who thought his circle-running was some kind of prelude to feeding. ‘I am not a goose, grand-père!’ JP shouted.

‘If you’re too loud, you might scare the tall bird away.’

‘I am not a goose,’ JP whispered, very loudly.

‘I believe you.’

‘I am sometimes a duck.’

‘I believe that, too.’

‘I don’t see the bird, George.’

He looked down at his grandson. ‘What did you call me?’ he asked, a bit too sharply.

JP’s face fell, his mouth stretching tight across his little jaw. ‘That’s what Mama calls you,’ he said, two tiny tears fleeing down his cheeks.

‘No, no, no,’ George said, kneeling down. ‘I’m not mad, JP. I’m just surprised.’

‘She calls you that because she loves you. Is what she says.’

‘That she does, little one,’ George said, taking JP in his arms and picking him up. ‘But for you? For you, the best love I feel is when you call me grand-père, and you know why?’

‘Why?’ JP sniffled.

‘Because you, Jean-Pierre Laurent, are the only person in this whole wide world who can call me that.’

‘The only one?’

‘The only one.’

‘I’m the only one,’ JP said quietly, trying it on for size.

‘How do you like them apples?’

JP’s smile blazed. ‘I LOVE apples! Pink Ladies are the best! Sometimes I’m a Pink Lady!’