The Dinosaur Feather

Søren didn’t take much notice. But the genie was out of the bottle. Vibe’s biological clock had started ticking and soon the putative child became a sore point. Søren didn’t want children. He explained why: he had no parental urges at all. He thought that in itself was a good enough reason. Vibe began screaming at him. Vibe, who had been good-natured and sweet all through their time together, refused to accept his ridiculous position: there are two of us in this relationship, she argued. Søren tried to explain again. Needless to say, he only made matters worse. He went for a walk to think it through. He felt no desire to be a father, but
why?
For the first time since meeting Vibe, he wondered whether it was because he didn’t love her enough. That evening – without screaming – she made the very same point: if she wanted a child so badly and he wouldn’t give it to her, then it was because he didn’t love her. I do love you, Søren protested, desperately. But you don’t love me
enough
, Vibe had replied. She had her back to him and was taking off her earrings while Søren thought about what she had said. Slowly, she turned around. Your hesitation says it all, she declared, I think we should split up. Her eyes were challenging him.
    Obviously they weren’t going to split up. Vibe was his best friend, his closest and most trusted ally. She knew Elvira and Knud, she knew why he had grown up with his grandparents, she was family and he loved her. Søren hugged her tightly that night and they agreed to give it some time or, more accurately, they agreed that if Søren didn’t change his mind very soon, he would have to go.
    Søren was born in Viborg in Jutland. For the first five years of his life he lived with his parents. His maternal grandparents, Knud and Elvira, lived nearby in his mother’s childhood home which lay outside a small village, on a hill, with a garden that sloped steeply down behind the house. The lawn was impossible to mow and the long tangled grass offered numerous places to hide. Søren had hardly any memories of his earliest childhood, but he remembered Knud and Elvira’s red house vividly, probably because it was there Knud had told him that his parents had been killed in a car crash. Knud and Elvira had been looking after him that weekend; Søren’s parents had borrowed their car and driven off on an adventure. He remembered being told in the far end of the garden one summer’s evening with Spif, the dog, standing next to him, barking. The next childhood memory he could clearly recall was their move to Copenhagen, to the house in Snerlevej. Knud and Elvira were teachers and both got jobs at the nearby free school, which Søren also attended. Søren lived in Snerlevej for the rest of his childhood. Far, far away from the red house.
    Søren and Vibe had been together for almost six months when Vibe worked out that a generation was missing betweenSøren and the couple she – up until that moment – had assumed to be his parents. She twigged one summer’s day when Søren was in the kitchen making squash to drink outside. Elvira had gone on ahead, they could hear her spread a cloth over the garden table and insects buzz in the uncut grass. While Søren mixed squash in a jug, Vibe studied the wedding photograph of Søren’s parents that was standing on the sideboard in the dining room. Suddenly, a dark cloud of wonder spread across her face and she scrutinised the photograph as if seeing it properly for the very first time. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but then thought better of it.
    Later, they were lying on Søren’s bed listening to records.
    ‘Who were the people in the photograph?’ Vibe asked, at last. Søren turned over and folded his hands behind his head.
    ‘My parents,’ he said. Vibe was silent for a moment, then she jerked upright.
    ‘But they can’t be,’ she burst out.
    ‘Why not?’ Søren looked at her.
    ‘Well, because you can’t change your eye colour and in that picture, Knud has brown eyes and . . .’ she frowned. ‘And now they’re blue. Your parents have blue eyes.’ She looked at Søren. ‘And yours are brown,’ she whispered.
    Søren rolled over, rested his elbows on the mattress and cradled his chin in his hands. It would only take a minute to fetch the dusty box from the attic and show it to Vibe. After all, it was no secret that Elvira and Knud were his grandparents, though they never talked about it. It was just the