Mesmerising, mythic and timeless, the most unmissable debut novel of 2022 now out in paperback - for fans of Arundhati Roy, Toni Morrison and Monique Roffey. 

Darwin is a down-on-his-luck gravedigger, newly arrived in the Trinidadian city of Port Angeles to seek his fortune, young and beautiful and lost. Estranged from his mother and the Rastafari faith she taught him, he is convinced that the father he never met may be waiting for him somewhere amid these bustling streets.

When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo: An extract.


Darwin 
 

Some days Darwin can’t work out how long he in the city. The calendar say nearly two months, but Fidelis have a different  kind of time – the hours longer, the days deeper, and digging  graves and lowering coffins in the ground is like watching  whole lives fast-forward beginning to end. Fidelis make him adopt its rhythm instead of his own. And is not just Fidelis.  Port Angeles crackle and spit like oil on a fireside and he start  to like how he could disappear into it, just another one of  the many somebodies that come here for whatever it is they  come for. 
 

He learning that even death in Fidelis does work in sync with the city. Payday? That mean hospital, courthouse and  graveyard. Heavy rain? That mean road accident for so and  they too busy to even laugh and old talk. Then it have other  times when something start to ripple through the city – the  wrong man get kill, the blocks get hot and is only sirens blar ing out through the night. Them times they digging grave  three, four a day and have to send for temporary workers so  they could do more than one funeral same time. 
 

But now as it get closer to November, around All Souls’ Day, is like the dead and the living come to a kind of a truce.  All the graves quiet and sometimes he don’t see the other  gravediggers at all for a couple days. He know they does work  other jobs and get little contracts when things light in Fidelis,  but nobody let Darwin in on the cut. True, he could use the money, but he don’t mind. The days when it was just him, even the weight of the keys in his pocket make him feel good.  And when the street lamps come on, the outer edges of Fidelis  gild in borrowed light, he stand at the crossroads right at the  centre of the cemetery in near- darkness and feel his whole  body relax, like how a man must feel when he finally reach in  his own home after a long day and smell food cooking. Not  that he ever know that feeling but he figure it must feel a little  bit like this, like Fidelis at twilight. 
 

Maybe everything does just get easier the longer you do it. True, some nights he still dream the heavy scissors in his  hand, his head getting lighter with each cut, his locks spread ing out amongst the zaboca leaves in the dirt yard. But each  time he shave his head over the sink, he get more used to his  reflection in the mirror. He make sure to gather every last  strand and put them into a small clay bowl, say a prayer, strike  a match and set it on fire. The bitter scent of burning hair somehow make him feel restful and safe. He was a man without law, without vow, but he was still his mother’s son. But no matter how much he feel like he getting used to it, his life always half in shadow. Errol still giving him a little extra after each burial and he still taking it, although each  time he feel a bit more uncomfortable. He tell himself, the  same way somebody have to clean the streets, and somebody  have to collect the garbage, and somebody have to pave the  road, somebody have to bury the dead. He say it over and over  till he believe it, and think of the envelope for his mother in  his dresser drawer, getting fatter through the weeks and then  slimmer each time he deposit some in her account, praying her  pride don’t stop her from withdrawing it. He put his uncom fortable feelings in the envelope with the hundred-dollar bills  and try not to look at either of them too hard.
 

Fidelis half in shadow too. Parts of it he could see plain,  like how to dig a grave –  how deep, how wide; how to deal  with the grave paper; how to keep enough distance from the  grieving so he there but not there; how to leave the stray dogs  to sleep in an old crypt when he see them but run the lovers  who looking for a little action; how to recognize the young  boys who want to vandalize or stay in the cemetery at night  on a dare. 
 

But other things about it he not so sure, not sure at all. Like  one day he clearing up on 4th Street and he notice a grave  looking fresh, earth piled high. The rain fall for the last two  days straight, and everything else flatted down and waterlogged, but this one look like they now finish fill it. And it  wasn’t the first time either. He ask McIntosh about it and the  man look him dead in his face and don’t answer, just move  on to talking about something else like Darwin never ask him  anything at all. 
 

A next time he notice a concrete angel fall off the pedestal  and smash on the roadway. Grey stone splinters scatter along  the path, the face of the angel bash in. He look around and it  don’t seem like anything missing. Just the statue tip over. It  don’t make sense. He remember Errol talking about people  breaking in an trying to steal things but nothing looking like  it gone. The grave was old; he don’t think anyone bury in  there for a while. He sure it eh dig while he was there so what  knock over the angel? 
 

He find himself looking over his shoulder, peering around at the graves, searching for anything out of place. He know it  not possible to remember everything exactly the way it was,  but he get into the habit of marking them, trying to memorize details, his eyes combing over the plots to figure out what  was real and what was not. Maybe if he just look sharp enough he will catch the answer lurking just out of the corner of his  eyes. 
 

One week before All Saints’ Day, he at Fidelis first thing  like always. He push one side of the iron gate all the way open  and then the other so cars could drive through. He fetch the  name, plot number and funeral time from Shirley since yesterday. He have maybe about fifteen minutes before the boys  arrive. Half an hour if he was lucky and they all late. He unlock the admin building and enter Shirley office.  Everything neater since he fix the filing cabinet and bring in  another one that he scavenge from an office throwing away  old furniture down the road. They could put in a request for  a new one with the regional corporation but, with everything  strapped and stressed, finding new things for people who does  deal with the dead wasn’t a priority. He was glad to see Shirley face light up when he bring it. He even fix the broken clock  above her desk and help her put the files in order so she could  get them easier. 
 

He get a mug and the nice Jamaican brew she like from the  cupboard, and set up the timer on the coffee maker so it would  be ready for her when she come. 
 

From Shirley window, the hills that surround the city look  clean and lush and Fidelis peaceful with nobody there but him.  But no – a figure catch his eye, someone that not supposed to  be there. The dreadlocks man he see before. How he reach  here so early? Darwin wonder if he make a mistake closing up  yesterday, miss the man sleeping among the graves and leave  him here overnight. 
 

Darwin feel kinda irritated that somebody else there to dis turb his peace, but the man just walking around the graves, no  scene. It early but sometimes people does come to visit their  dead before they go to work or use Fidelis as a shortcut from one side of Queen Isabella Street to the next. Something about  him, though. Moving in no regular pattern but fast, flowing  strides like he almost running. Passing behind the mausoleums and miniature spires, in between the statues of the Virgin  and the cherubs and the thick stone crosses, disappearing and  then reappearing further away, each time just a little further  than Darwin eyes expect. Even from high up, he could see the  set of the man back, the dread, the way he walk, legs long and  lean. And then he stop, turn back toward the admin building,  look straight up at Darwin. He hold his eye unblinking for a  long moment. And then he raise his hand. 
 

Darwin don’t even know he decide before he running  down the stairs, bursting out the admin building and taking  off after him. The man stepping over each grave like it easy,  not sticking to the roads at all. Darwin try to follow him, but  he can’t bring himself to run on people grave. He try to get ahead of him, run two streets up on the main road then duck  back in, cut him off, but he lose him for a second time. Where  he going? Darwin sprint back to the main road – he must be  able to see him if he look down each street – but every time he  catch a glimpse he lose him again, first behind two huge mausoleums, then again behind a big samaan tree. He must cross  one of the streets sometime, just a matter of waiting him out. 
 

Finally, he spot him. The man emerge onto 12th Street and  stop. He standing with his back to Darwin, looking down at  the first grave Darwin ever dig. The memory clear. The old  man, the white lilies, the way the marigolds had blaze gold in  the late- afternoon sun. Whatever remain of them long gone  now. And yet even from here he could see Mrs Julius grave  look fresh, the mound of dirt still high and round like if some one just finish it. 
 

Darwin don’t dare call out. His heart beating so loud he feel the man could hear it all the way across the road. If he shout,  maybe the man would turn around and he could be sure, he  could be sure of what he seeing. But he never turn around and Darwin start to feel like a fool just standing there staring at a  stranger. He force his heartbeat to slow. Stop being foolish. Is  a good thing. Just somebody come to visit Mrs Julius grave, a  family friend, somebody from their church. Must be that. He  shake his head and walk away. This place making him crazy.  Running behind people just minding their own business this  hour of the morning. He almost reach the main road when  he turn, just one more look before he head back to the office. The man gone. 
 

• Shirley meet him sitting on the steps of the admin building  in a daze. ‘Morning, Darwin! Nice day, eh?’ Her voice sunny like somebody who never give a second thought to whether  they going mad.
  
  
  *******
  
   

Yejide 
 

Is three days Yejide curl up on her bed under the mosquito  net, listening to the storm outside. Three days since the  wind set up and the first few fat raindrops pound the roof. Three days since her mother Petronella lie down in her bed to die. 
 

Soon as the storm start, Yejide feel her belly begin to rise  and swell with a weight that feel like a hole. She have no other  way to describe it – a hollowing, a dread, slow emptying out.  She hear about mothers who lose their children to early, unexpected death. They washing dishes, cleaning the house or at work in town, and the minute the child gone they feel a hole in that keening place, feel it pull taut, like the womb know the second the child leave the world. Yejide womb empty, and  she have no dead children to mourn, but that is how it feel,  like something in her anticipating absence. It pin her to the  bed. The storm outside, the mosquito net and the half- light  of dawn press down against the air above her. 
 

She tell herself is not grief. Grief is a thing that come from  love and love simple like breath. But what she feel for her  mother was never simple. She don’t know if she have enough room for a big, solid word like grief along with everything  else that exist in her heart for Petronella. 
 

She toss and turn in the bed, in her room at the end of the  corridor, sheets wrap around her body like a shroud, and listen  for a knock on the door. She think she hear footsteps on the landing, whispers on the stairs, someone stopping outside her  bedroom, listening and then moving on again. Every creak  of the floorboards, every shudder of the windowpane ask the  same question: why her mother don’t call for her? Petronella  can’t go before she call, but what stopping her, even now,  from calling for her only daughter? Every time Yejide open  the door to look, hoping that they send for her, she find the  long corridor dim, yawning and empty. 
 

It hard to know if she asleep or awake, what real and what  is only dream. First day of the storm, she see her mother’s  twin sister, Geraldine, dead more than a year now, walk into  her room wearing Petronella clothes – a long green dress  with lace at the collar – a cup of tea in her hand. Yejide could  almost smell the earthy turmeric root and feel the heat of the  steam rising from the cup. Geraldine put the tea on the bed side table, walk to the window and step out through the glass  pane into the night air. 
 

Second day, she thought she wake up in a bamboo patch  in the middle of the forest, no storm, no vigil, just cool breeze  blowing sweet and the smell of green on the wind. 
 

Now, in the soft early-morning light of the third day, she remember the great storm, many years ago, that take Granny  Catherine away. Yejide was only nine then but she remember like it was yesterday. 
 

The rain had start after church on Sunday. The baubles around  her plaits too tight and she hate the stiff, white ribbons wrap  around their ends, but the first few drops of rain mean free dom. She look around for her best friend Seema so they could  walk home together but Seema had already head off with her  own mother, Laurence. Yejide feel a stirring of excitement.  She pull off the shiny patent-leather shoes, drag the knee-high socks off and start to run up the hill for home, feeling the wet  earth squish under her bare feet. 
 

Mud splatter her white dress and she don’t even know  where she leave her socks. If her mother see, she would be  vex with her for running barefoot in her good church clothes  and losing yet another pair. Granny Catherine would pretend  to make a fuss too, for Petronella’s sake, but Yejide know she  wouldn’t really mind. Once Petronella back turned, she and  Granny would giggle together and snuggle in the big wooden  rocking chair in the front room. 
 

She run up the drive out of the rain and tiptoe through the  side door of the kitchen. In a house as sprawling and bustling  as theirs, with everyone coming and going, with big people  always doing big- people things – some who live there and  some who just passing through – and Petronella and Geral dine lock away in their secret world that no one else could  enter, Yejide know she could slip in unnoticed. But that day  was different. She didn’t even need to sneak in; the house was  in uproar. A woman she don’t know rush past her from the  laundry room, through the kitchen into the drawing room with  a pile of fresh sheets in her hand. Peter, who always pull her  plaits and say, ‘How the princess going today?’, walk past her  and head upstairs with his arms full of black sage bush like if  she invisible. Laurence was there too with a whole set of people  that Yejide never see before. Even Seema creep past her up the  stairs, trying to balance a cup of tea, her eyes full of confusion.  The kettle screech in the kitchen; no one care enough to take it  off the heat. She could not find Granny Catherine anywhere. 
 

The storm reach its height and daytime turn to night before Peter find her, still wearing her damp church dress,  sitting in Granny Catherine chair. His eyes flick from her to  the living-room door, down at his feet and back to her face.
 

‘How the princess going today?’ 
 

But the words sound wrong. Like they hiding things. Peter love Petronella for as long as Yejide could remember; he was  not her father but was as good as. She never see him look ner vous before. 
 

‘What happen, Peter? Where Granny?’ 
 

Peter shift from one foot to the other. Keep looking around  to see if anyone else there, like he not sure if it is his place  to say anything to her. 
 

‘The storm come for your granny. She going.’ 
 

‘Going where?’ 
 

‘Where she must.’ 
 

She should have known better, but she ask anyway. ‘Where  Mummy?’ 
 

Peter look down at her with a half- smile that she recognize even then. 
 

‘Your mother doing what she must too. She waiting for her  mother to call for her.’ 
 

‘Granny Catherine going to call for me too? I want to see  her.’ 
 

Peter shake his head. ‘Only person Catherine calling is her daughter.’ He take her hand. ‘Come. Let’s find somebody to  get you out these clothes.’