This is the story I won’t tell you.

I was watching you from the upstairs window as you moved through the garden. You stood in the vegie patch, bare feet pressing into soil, wearing only last night’s jeans. Your hair was still tousled from my fingers. You bent to pull at the basil leaves, crushing them and lifting them to your nose before moving to the plump little tomatoes.

I turned back to your bedroom. I knew I had enough time.

I went for your bookshelves first. I didn’t bother with those at eye level; the peacock books, designed to impress and influence. My hand reached to the highest shelf, and pulled down a paperback with a dozen corners curled over like beckoning fingers.

I frowned.

Hemingway.

I knew about men who loved Hemingway. They were men with loud voices and fierce brows, forever furrowed as they drank their whiskey straight and tried to hide the shudder.

I placed it back on the shelf, and looked around. Above the fireplace were two small ink drawings, with achingly fine lines in dark frames. One was a young man with his face in his hands, the whorl on the top of his head visible. The other was of a violin, leaning against a wall patterned with blood poppies. I reached out a hand to stroke the frame, wanted to pluck at the strings within.

I could hear you in the kitchen below, chopping the basil and singing to yourself, at home in your bare chested skin. I wondered whether the omelette you were cooking for me would hold the fierce kick of chilli. I wondered what this would say about you if it did.

But mostly, I wondered why I’d agreed to stay for breakfast, instead of slipping away with my shoes in my hand and my hair in my eyes, the burglar down the back stairs.

On the mantlepiece was a silver ring. I took it between my fingertips and held it up to the light, eyes narrowed for an inscription. When I placed it back, I saw a postcard leaning against the wall, almost hidden behind a stack of CDs. I reached for it, and tilted my head.

It was an old black and white photo, the edges curved. It showed an alley in a city that could be anywhere, the railings of the fire escape thick with soot and grime. Wires gripped the top of one building and reached across the alley to another, and on a wire sat a lone blackbird. Its sharp little eyes seemed to be looking right into the camera, a dare from the skies to keep looking, keep staring, there’s something to be known here.

I remembered someone telling me once that in ancient mythology blackbirds were responsible for the pairing of humans. I ran my hand over the point of his beak, twice, and then held the card up to my ear to hear his quiet song.

When I turned it over, I saw a delicate script winding across the bottom left corner in small dark letters.

I want to be with those who know secret things, or else alone.
Always, X
December 2007

I placed the postcard back on the mantlepiece.

I turned to the bed, to the pillow thrown against the night table in our urgency last night, to my dress a crumpled streak of green against the carpet. I could still hear you clinking coffee cups downstairs, could smell the richness of garlic coming through the cracks in the old floorboards.

And I thought, if you are the kind of man to keep a card like that, I want to know more.

I peeled the sheet back and slid both legs in, toes pointed. I tucked the sheet around my chest and plaited my hair into two thick strands as I listened to you climb the stairs, heavy with the tray in your hands. And when you came into the room, I smiled without even thinking.

And though you’ve asked me many times since, this is the story I won’t tell you.

When you want to know, I just shake my head, and kiss the tip of your nose.

But I don’t tell you, that first day, I stayed because of the blackbird, and the secret things you know.