The Flight of Birds

by Joshua Lobb

  A boat will come round the southern tip of the island. A small trawler, maybe two or three figures hidden under the red roof of the deck. We’ll watch as the figures cast their nets. Bait fishing, most likely, before heading out to deeper waters hoping to find a school of larger fish. The figures on the boat probably won’t see us, or maybe won’t care that we’ve seen them. But they’ll definitely see the man who’ll step out onto a rock ledge further along the cliff, his long hair waving in the breeze like a halo. His chest will be puffed out; it’ll look like it could be possible for him to stride over to the pinnacle of Cathedral Rock. My supervisor will take his sunglasses off his forehead and use them to flash the setting sunlight into the eyes of the men below. He’ll call out, ‘It’s illegal to net so close to shore.’ They won’t be able to hear, but they’ll get the message. My supervisor will give the men a friendly wave and then jump off the rock back into the forest.

  That night, over rice and vegies, I’ll be looking at my father and my supervisor sitting on canvas chairs leaning against the igloo. Mosquitos will fizz in the night air. We’ll be able to hear the bark of the penguins in the bay below and, once or twice, the whistle of the GPs. My supervisor will have his hair tied back so you can see the line of grey running through it like the bride of Frankenstein. My dad will have collected a few dog-eared books from the igloo library and will be searching for birds that he’s familiar with. They won’t exactly be talking to each other: Dad will locate a bird from a book and my supervisor will spin a yarn about it. ‘The interesting thing about magpies,’ he will say and then launch into an anecdote about how the female does all the work: selecting the nest site, building it, incubating the eggs and feeding the young. Birds of paradise? The male is a tease, flashing a dance to win over the female, fluffing his wings up and fluttering them like a Victorian lady’s fan. But in the end, the female is left to raise the chicks on her own. It’ll be clear that my supervisor is enjoying himself, embellishing the stories like a bird of paradise’s dance. Maybe my dad will be happy, too—well, as happy as he can possibly bring himself to be. I’ll remember the moments of near-happiness of my childhood, little ports in my father’s storm before he drifted off to the other place—wherever it is he drifted off to. My dad will fish out a kookaburra from the books. The page will be loose—the book’s seen better days—and Dad will hold the picture of the bird like an offering. ‘Now, their social group is interesting,’ my supervisor will say, scratching the back of his neck. ‘It normally comprises a dominant pair and a collection of helpers to feed the young: older siblings, usually, or maiden aunts. But unlike other cooperative breeders, when the dominant pair dies the helpers don’t inherit the territory.’

  I’ll flick a buzzing bug away from my face.

  ‘As for the GP,’ my supervisor will say, without even needing a cue from my dad, ‘the incubation and natal periods are completely cooperative.’ Incubation for the Gould’s petrel takes six to seven weeks. The parents take turns to forage for food. The male takes the first shift, which is sometimes thirteen or fourteen days long. The female waits on the egg without leaving it—not even for food. ‘They can go without food for extended periods,’ my supervisor will say. ‘They can manage a loss of a third of their body weight. Like camels. The ships of the ocean,’ and he’ll laugh at his joke. ‘The search for food takes them as far away as South Australia. It’s the convergence of warm and cold oceanic fronts. More nutrients can be held in suspension in cold water; more food lives in the warmer currents: phytoplankton, zooplankton, shrimps, squid. One flies there and back and the other waits. Then it’s her turn: all the way to the bight and back again.’

  I’ll see a question forming in my dad’s mind, the same question I asked when I first heard the story. I’ll ask the question for him. ‘Why do they travel so far? Couldn’t they choose somewhere nearby?’

  ‘They’ve been doing this for thousands of years,’ my supervisor will say. ‘Things were probably a lot closer when they started.’

  In the morning, over muesli, my supervisor will still be spinning yarns. He will be recounting an event from 1995, what he calls the pilchard ‘hiccup’. During that season there was a major drop in breeding success: less than twenty percent, as opposed to the normal more than fifty percent success rate. It was the pilchards, he’ll explain. Fish farmers introduced frozen pilchards into their schools; these had a pathogen—a kind of herpes. The pathogen spread to oceanic pilchards. From the pilchards to the kingfish—‘and then it followed the food chain,’ he’ll say, carrying his wiped-clean bowl into the igloo.

  My dad will be sitting on the edge of his foam-mattress bed, hunched by the curve of the igloo ceiling, listening.

  ‘Of course, that’s got nothing on the megastorms of the 2020s. There, the depletion was—’

  I’ll take a swig of canvas-flavoured water and say, ‘Come on, Dad.’

  We’ll be spending the day in the smaller basalt gully to the north of the igloo. My supervisor will tramp alongside us for a few minutes and then disappear into the scrub, off to his mystery project. The figtree roots and blocks of crumbling granite will create a mazy path. The northern dyke is narrower but lighter than the southern site—there are some gaps in the canopy and, at the opening of the gully below, you can see the orange rocks of the shoreline and the glistening ocean. We’ll be skidding downhill, stepping between wide-leafed ferns and dead palm fronds. I’ll be hoping we’ll find a hatchling in amongst these leaves: it’ll be too early in the breeding cycle, but it’s been documented that the seasons have been shifting, incrementally, over the last fifteen or so years.

  On this particular morning my father will seem less gangly, less tentative with his calls. He’ll stumble over loose rocks but this won’t freak him out. When he nearly steps on a nest and the bird emits a peep of protest his face won’t blanch. When I reach into the nests and ease out the birds he’ll still keep his distance but he’ll be paying more attention. I’ll say, ‘See here—look at the nasal cavities’ and glide my finger along the curved black beak and he’ll nod and almost move towards me. With another bird, I’ll show the underside of the GP, the pure white of her chest, a sharp contrast to the sooty top of the wings. When they fly, the heat of the white feathers gives the bird a subtle lift. The bird will peek her head around, white face framed by a slate-grey cap, and she will clack her beak in Dad’s direction. He’ll barely flinch.

  At one point during the mid-morning, I’ll look over at him. A greeny-yellow glob of sunlight will have made its way through the branches, warming his face. His eyes will be closed and his face will be smooth, pale, like it’s shifted into neutral gear. I’ll want to say something to him, make a sappy comment like, ‘It’s good to have you here.’ But I won’t. I’ll consider saying something my supervisor always says, which is, ‘It’s a place for the birds. Our presence here is a very minor one.’ Instead I’ll say, ‘Where next, Dad?’

  When my mother dies I will, of course, be sad, devastated, but I’ll also have had time to prepare for it. It will have been a proper goodbye. When we’re together—at home, at the hospital, in the hospice—Mum and I will talk about her death as part of the larger scheme of things. She’ll give me her necklace with the moonstone pendant and ask me if I want to keep any of her clothes and scarves, or would it be all right if she donated them to the women’s refuge? We’ll piece together some memories from my childhood, and hers, and we’ll compile a list of invitees for the funeral. There’ll be an obvious gap in the conversation, something that Mum is circling round, and I won’t be eager to lead her towards it. She’ll dip into silence. Eventually, very close to the end, we’ll be in a rectangle of sunlight in the hospice courtyard. A lime-green hospital blanket will be tucked round her angular skeleton.

  ‘Look after your father,’ she’ll say. ‘You know he’s always been…’ She’ll be clutching at the air.

  As I’m growing up, we’ll never talk about what my father has always been. I’ll love him—of course I�
��ll love him—I’ll love the stories he tells me and the family trips to the beach or that time Mum and I will visit him in the bush and we’ll explore the ruined schoolhouse together. But each time he drifts away to that place—wherever it is that he goes—I’ll lose something of him. He’ll come back and he’ll read me another story—or I’ll read him one—but it’ll feel smaller, more distant. He’ll feel eroded. It’ll just get so exhausting. Eventually, I’ll close off thinking about him. This is what always happens—we get caught up in new entanglements, the lure of other lives. I’ll move into share houses and fawn over girlfriends and become immersed in new ideas. But it’ll be a bit more than that. Sometimes when I call home Mum will say something like, ‘Your dad’s been a bit …’ and I’ll deflect the conversation. When we get together for family dinner or Christmas it will be friendly, polite, detached.

  Getting everything arranged for the funeral will be a challenge. He’ll be like this pool of dark matter in the centre of the house; it’ll feel like I have to step over him to get to the kitchen or back to the bedrooms. I’ll have to manipulate him into his suit and drag him into the chapel at the crematorium. I won’t discuss if he wants to do a eulogy. After the minister speaks, there’ll be a cavernous pause. No one will look at him. Slowly, achingly, he’ll shadow his way to the lectern. It’ll start as a mumble, not directed to us. It’ll be a jumble of memories, cramped and convoluted. It’ll be too much about the details. The wrong details. He will say nothing about her as an English teacher, her volunteering at the refuge, the fundraising work she used to do for Planet Ark. Just a meandering anecdote about a bushwalk they took once in the Blue Mountains: her taking him into the depths of Leura valley and getting him to listen, really listen. ‘I always said she rescued me,’ he’ll say. He’ll falter, surprised that he said this out loud. After a few minutes his voice will warble and another sentence—something about a flock of birds he once saw down at Little Bay—will hang, unfinished, in the air.

  ‘Look after your father,’ my mother will say.

  I won’t know what to say back.

  He’ll be standing in front of a silent crowd, open-mouthed, palms pressed into the blond-pine lectern. I’ll get up and take him back to his seat.

  The nest record sheets will take us further downhill, over piles of slippery basalt. There’ll be less of a canopy here and the sound of the ocean will echo in the hush of the forest. The last nest we’ll survey will be in the middle of what seems like a volcanic crater, an amphitheatre of jagged rocks. My supervisor will say that this depression was artificially created. During the Second World War, as they were preparing for the battle of the Coral Sea, troops used the island as a training ground, shooting up the branches—and probably the birds—for target practice. We’ll still find ordinance fragments in the undergrowth; there’ll be a collection on the shelf in the igloo. My supervisor will mention he thinks the indent might be a shell crater. ‘It’s too perfectly round,’ he’ll say, ‘the edges too perfectly level.’ It certainly does feel different from the knotted jumble of roots and branches surrounding it. As we step into the crater, we’ll be captured by the glare of the noon sun. The flat blue sky will seem solid, like Perspex.

  We’ll find a stone ledge and sit in the sun for a few minutes. ‘Dad,’ I’ll say and find myself talking about the life of the Gould’s petrel just after fledging. I’ll be threading an obvious analogy, but you’ve got to start somewhere. After fledging, the young birds leave for three to five years, sometimes longer. During this time, they don’t return to the island. It’s believed they spend the entire time at sea on their own. Like many birds, they even sleep on the wing, shutting down one hemisphere of their brain during flight, keeping the other hemisphere connected to the alert eye. The half-awake half-asleep bird courses her path, on air currents, searching for fish in the middle of the ocean. We don’t know what makes them decide to return to the island. As a scientist it’s not my job to speculate on what they must think when they find themselves spiralling above the cabbage trees. But sometimes I like to imagine what it must be like to dive into the forest and pinpoint the exact location of their hatching, to find your way home.

  My father will listen to my story. He won’t say anything, but I’ll sense a kind of subdiscussion taking place in his mind: his hand, I’ll see, will twitch, as if it might be lifted up and rested on my shoulder. I’ll almost place my palm over the back of his hand.

  On our way back to the igloo we’ll decide not to clamber back up the hill. ‘It’ll be easier to slide down to the ocean and skirt our way round the rocks,’ I’ll tell my Dad. But in fact it’ll be slower-going than I’d imagined. The wind will have picked up and we’ll keep getting sprayed by the choppy water. My dad will seem even less sure of himself on the wet wobbly rocks. We’ll cling to the boulders and lurch our way round the perimeter of the island.

  We’ll find ourselves in a recess in the rocks, momentarily protected by the wind. I’ll suggest that we have a bit of a breather and we’ll crouch on the pale-green and saffron lichen. There’ll be a sugary-sour smell ingrained into the rocks. My father will be peering at something that has been scrawled into the deepest corner of the alcove. It will be a black ovoid shape. Inside the oval will be a smaller oval and then a smaller one, and in the centre a fat black dot. A lopsided target. Spray-painted on, and probably recently. The official status of the island is that it’s a nature reserve and the only access is approved by Environment and Climate Services, but we’ll know others come here. My supervisor will tell me that sometimes he’ll find shards of fish scales on the rocks near the landing site, and he once came across a rusting yellow penknife lying in the sun. Another time he’ll find the lock on the igloo door jimmied and, inside, the floor scattered with the leaves of bird books. Once, even, he’ll discover three breeding boxes knocked over, palm fronds and feathers strewn over the hill. In the alcove my dad and I will notice a cairn of tarnished beer cans, and chinks in the rock face between the black lines of the target. Next to the cans there’ll be small collections of bones, a few desiccated carcasses. I’ll scrutinise the leathery cadavers and note that some of them are the size and shape of a petrel.

  ‘It follows the food chain,’ my father will say, his words reverberating against the rocks. He’ll be as surprised as I am that he said it out loud.

  That night, in the dark, I’ll be lying in my narrow shelf bed. Dad and I will have turned in early—it’ll have been an exhausting day. My supervisor will have stayed up; he’ll be outside sitting on one of the canvas chairs listening to the noises of the evening.

  The darkness will form a solid frame around my body.

  I’ll hear the sound of the canopy creaking above the igloo. Or maybe it’ll be something else: the sound of someone quietly tapping the side of the bed. The tapping will form a sort-of melody in my mind. I’ll find myself slipping into a place I don’t want to go. I’ll be thinking:

  Tap tap tap tap: the rabbits rip up the forest understorey.

  Tap tap tap tap: pilchards dead from herpes float in a black sea.

  Tap tap tap tap: the nets drag away the last remaining fish.

  Tap tap tap tap: the bullets ricochet off the rocks.

  Tap tap tap tap: the storm waves batter and erode the cliff face.

  Tap tap tap tap: the island floats further and further away from the continent.

  ‘Dad, please,’ I’ll cry into the darkness. ‘Will you go to sleep?’

  We’ll be groping our way up through the palm fronds. My dad will be plodding behind me. ‘Pick up the pace, Dad,’ I’ll want to say. We’ll be back in the first gully, surveying the last section of the data sheets. We’ll have doubled back a couple of times: Dad will have missed a few of the markers on the page or I’ll have overlooked a stake in the ground. Edging down the gully, I’ll lose my footing on the scree and take a tumble. I’ll stretch out my arms in front of me and my hands will scrape against the bark of a cabbage tree. I’ll wait for my father to say something, but
he’ll just stand there, gormless, looking at his own feet.

  Most of the birds will have been quiet that day—a few flutterings, but mainly they’ll have been docile clumps of feathers. Some nests will be empty. My dad will make a note on the sheet. Most birds will be brooding, an egg warming underneath. No hatchlings. I’ll place another bird back into her box. My dad will yawn—a big, full-face yawn—and that’ll set me off yawning too.

  ‘Just a few more to check, Dad,’ I’ll say.

  He’ll nod, but it’ll be like he’s not really there.

  The night before, I’ll have crawled out of bed to get away from my father’s insomnia.

  ‘It’s such a balmy night,’ my supervisor will murmur as the canvas chair outside the igloo scrapes against the earth beside him.

  I’ll tell him the stories that have been tapping in my brain. He’ll listen, and nod, and scratch his eyebrows. He’ll wait until all the stories are finished.

  He’ll let his fingers follow the thread of grey in his long hair. He’ll say:

  ‘If you were in dire straits, if the island was up shit creek, and all the birds were dying, which would you pick?’