The farmer steps closer. ‘That’s no rook,’ he says. ‘The only good crow is one with its neck wrung.’
‘He is sick,’ I sigh. ‘I will find a way to rewild him, I promise.’
By that afternoon, my skin is crawling. My fingers itch and I scratch until I bleed. It feels as if something is eating the inside of my flesh. Looking up, I see my crow watching me from his small open pen, littered with straw and grass bedding, by the kitchen door. He is too ill to perch so I have piled up some sticks for him to crouch on instead.
I lift him up and inspect him more closely. When I part the downy fluff and newly emerging feathers, his skin is pockmarked and bare, covered in mites so small they are almost invisible. In the folds of a roll of skin in the soft hollow at the base of his shoulders, a dark fly buzzes, fat and soporific, feeding on an open wound in his flesh. I shudder, but I know I have to deal with this. I take the crow out to the roofless barn and clean him with a soft cloth. I find three more flies and no part of his body that is not covered in parasites. I have a medicine cabinet with antibiotic, painkiller and a mite drench, which I administer. ‘I’m sorry,’ I tell him, ‘but you will have to stay here until the morning.’
I make a fresh pen, feed and settle him, and then I strip off outside in the yard and hose myself down with water from head to toe. Afterwards I run to the sea and jump into the waves. Later that night, I burn the clothes I have been wearing. Thankfully, I am no longer scratching. It is such a relief to be rid of that terrible infestation. Until the crow is well, and clear of these parasites, I wrap him in a towel and wear gloves. Each morning, I move his pen out on to fresh grass, under the trees. He sits and watches me, seemingly listening intently to every word I say. It takes five days to clear those bugs from his body. I do not bring him back into the house because I do not want him dissociated from his natural environment. ‘You can’t keep him,’ I tell myself firmly, and yet I long to. He is a beautiful companion, intelligent and affectionate.
I carry him with me around the croft. It is weeks before he can walk or fly, managing only to hop awkwardly. So he is content to sit quietly in my arms. When I am digging outside, he sits on the ground and watches me. He loves to eat egg, black beetles and small pieces of melon, but most of all he loves black grapes. As he grows, his markings become more pronounced.
‘We cannot help who we are,’ I tell him.
I call him Feannag, which is Gaelic for crow, and shorten his name to Fea.
One day, Fea attempts a short flight in the garden. His wings will not carry him. He tries to land in a tree but falls to the ground. I lift him up, feed him and place him in the lower branches of the Scots pine by the wild berries. I have a plan in mind, and this morning I decide to put it to the test. I have read in a wildlife study that, contrary to popular opinion, crows do not attack youngsters in order to maim or kill them. They bombard them simply to encourage them to struggle to safety well above the ground. My research suggests that crows have an extraordinarily complex and sophisticated social structure. They mate for life and have been known to care for, foster and adopt other orphaned, sick or injured juveniles outside their own immediate family networks.
I am hoping that another crow will hear Fea calling when he is hungry, find him and feed him. I am taking a chance, but it is the only chance I have. I do not have long: after about an hour he will start to weaken. It is a bright fine day, windy and fresh. ‘I can see you,’ I tell him, as he watches me from the tree. At first he shuffles about, arranging the smaller twigs for comfort. Shortly before an hour has passed, he starts calling for food, his cries growing increasingly desperate. I force myself not to move, but it is torture to hear him calling and know that he can see I am not coming to help him. Suddenly, a rush of wings lands several branches above him. It is a huge adult hooded crow. I watch as she advances, ducking down to reach him. As she sidles up to him, she stretches out her beak. I am terrified she will harm him. Fea is calling and flapping his wings plaintively. Then, inexplicably, she shrugs away and flies off over the hill. I cannot bear to watch. His voice grows shriller and louder until eventually he stops calling and huddles down. Keep calling, I urge him silently. Use your voice, or how can anyone find you?
Half an hour later, he starts again, and rapidly the same enormous bird approaches him again. Only this time, as he tries to reach her, he slips through the branches. I force myself to keep still. I am terrified that he will hurt himself, but a lower spray breaks his fall. The adult bobs down to meet him, stepping closer until she is facing him. As he stretches his wings, opens his beak and starts to make that deep gargling sound, she tilts forwards and plunges her beak into his gullet. It is an extraordinary moment. I reach for my camera to capture it on film so I can review it more closely later.
After the adult flies off, Fea is settled and relaxed, his hunger assuaged. Over the next few hours, I watch as he is repeatedly fed in response to his calling. I realise that, judging by the increasing intervals, the currency of his food is higher than what I have been giving him. I am elated, because I know that he now stands a chance not just of surviving, but of integrating with his own kind. And I am thrilled that the risk I have taken has been worthwhile and to have witnessed an extraordinary act of compassion, one many would not believe is even possible.
A week later, Fea comes to find me in the garden. He is barely airborne but he manages short, clumsy test flights from the tree to the vegetable beds. I talk to him and he watches me intently. I know he must be fine, and I am grateful that although he has no need of me now, he chooses to sit comfortably close by me. For wildlife, as well as for humans, the main refuge from threat is within the protection of groups or family structures. Isolation is as much of an anathema to the corvus family as it is to us. This experience demonstrates that empathy for and acceptance of solitary, vulnerable individuals from outside blood kinships or familial groups is possible. It is an immensely heartening discovery.
I am standing at the window, watching the birds. The leaves have started to fall, and in the bright sunshine and wind, shadows and torn foliage whirl about the yard. Cleodie, my starling, is learning to feed, clinging on to the wire frame supporting my climbing rose and taking nuts, seeds and grapes from my bird feeders. I found Cleodie as a tiny nestling, only a matter of weeks old, on the ground. I realise that she is unused to the raucous struggle for food, not having experienced competition from siblings in the nest. It is a joy to see her now exploring the skies and trees. But now she is facing her first real test: learning to survive the colder months gusting in as the year dies back.
Suddenly, a sparrowhawk dives on to the feeders and, to my horror, Cleodie flings out her wings and screams for her life. Instinctively, I leap forwards to rap on the window. Before I get there, my moving shadow startles the predator, and it whirls about, its tawny wings elongating into a graceful take-off, swinging away over the roses and vegetable patch. I do not lose a minute. My legs are racing out of the kitchen door into the yard. Immediately, I notice a huge crow sitting on the shed. It is Feannag’s foster mother. She caws abruptly twice, in quick succession. Whilst I instantly recognise this as an alarm call, I realise she is not responding to my presence, which is familiar in this setting, but to a different intruder. She shrugs into the air effortlessly and flies away after the hawk.
I gaze in amazement as she pursues it fearlessly, gaining height and plummeting down to attack it from behind. Slowly, they whirl away over the croft into the distance. I watch them locked in flight, each relentlessly seeking to gain territory and sway over the other. This mortal combat takes them circling high into the wind until they are tiny specks in the sky. When the crow returns to the croft, having successfully established her supremacy, it is a relief to know that, for now, the songbirds will be safe from the sparrowhawk and calm restored.
It is a reminder of the strange forces always at work, often unseen, within the landscape. In that circling flight, I was witnessing how predation and protection are facets of
the same instinct. The crow, too, is a predator. In protecting her domain, she has her own self-interest at heart: in the springtime she will feed on the eggs of the songbirds she is defending now. Today the hawk has attacked the songbirds and the crow has vanquished it. Tomorrow, another duel may ensue with a different outcome. These forces are in constant flux in both the human and the wilder landscape. An island will forever be a closely guarded and shifting domain, of which I and the birds are each an intrinsic part.
6
Stars
Another season has passed. It is late autumn and the ewes’ fleeces are once more tousled and burred with dried leaves, heather and thistles that scratch and prickle my fingers as I untangle their knots. Cobnuts roll across the kitchen table, smooth shining brown balls of dense sweetness. I forage for pleasure now, and the days run as quietly as the leaves falling outside. They are growing shorter, and night falls swiftly after sunset, shuttering in the skies.
I am sitting on a low, rough-made stool by the flickering hearth. The dark skies outside suddenly feel breathtakingly close. In my lap, my hands cradle a box. As I open the lid, the dark wood inside gleams richly against the crimson crushed-velvet lining. I snap the safety catches to release the long bow nestling snug in its hollow. Its bone tip, threaded with a horsehair ribbon, glows pale as winter sunshine. As my fingers smooth its taut edge, it whispers with a soft, crackling sound that reminds me of early summer: of the grasses flowing wild and free over the croft, and the wind breathing through Fola’s mane and tail.
It is a beautiful instrument. Perfectly moulded from rich, burnished wood, rounded at each end like a ripened fruit. My thumb plucks it gently, eliciting a vibrating, humming sound. Its voice is warm, lively, and distinctive, mellower than the sound of a fiddle. Hesitantly, I bring it closer and draw the bow across its body, so I can hear its sap ringing out of the wooden frame. As I tilt the bow, its voice quivers. I listen to its echo, as deep as the dark, porous night skies. To me, this viola is more precious than anything I own. It sings with its own clear beautiful note, transmuting the past into the present, lifting me up and transporting me with it.
The phone call came out of the blue. It was one of Cristall’s daughters in New Zealand. I had been thinking of her, and then she rang as if she had heard that thought. Her voice startled me, it is so like her mother’s. As bright as birdsong, rising and falling, just as I remember it, suddenly so alive and present it brought tears to my eyes. ‘I have missed you,’ I told her. ‘I have missed you, too,’ she said. For a while, we had lost touch with each other. Looking back, I think our grief was too raw for us to bear seeing it mirrored in one another. Sometimes you have to let go of the past in order to create a future. I was stunned as she explained that a sum of money had been bequeathed to me. ‘She would have wanted you to have this,’ Cristall’s daughter told me. ‘You were her other daughter. I know how much you meant to each other. It is right you should have it.’
As I put down the phone my hand was trembling. It was hard to know what to do with such an astonishingly generous gift. I wanted to be sure it was used wisely, and in a lasting way, not frittered away. I walked to the woods and sat in the midst of a circle of balsam trees, where I often go to think or dream. It helps to infuse ideas with clarity.
When the gift arrived, I first made donations to Cristall’s favourite charities, then, for years, I did not touch it as I mulled over what to do with it. I knew in my heart I would like something that would interweave our past with my present, but it was difficult to think exactly what or how. I revisited all of our shared memories, of walking, sowing trees and leaves, cooking, painting, playing chess, emptying bottles of wine over long hours spent talking. One day, I was sitting with Isla outside, watching and listening to the birds. The birdsong reminded me of how much we loved music and how it seemed to allow us to feel the wilds more closely.
Music extracts all that is unharmonious from your thoughts and breaks down barriers. It touches the heart without the need for words. You feel it in your whole being. It offers escape, a visceral freedom of expression, and it helps you to work through experiences that are difficult to speak of. I learned to play the piano as a small child, yet here on the island, for years after Cristall died, I was unable to play. In time I came to appreciate that music keeps you company, too.
Suddenly, I knew what I was going to do with Cristall’s gift.
It is daunting to hold an instrument that you have no idea how to play. I have chosen the viola precisely because it is a stranger to me. I want to start with a blank canvas, to approach the instrument without any preconceptions, prejudices or knowledge. My fingers feel awkward lifting the bow and yet the horsehair makes it familiar to the touch. The first time I draw it across the strings the sound it makes is like a tentative question. I do not know how to answer it, so I draw it again, and again, until the room vibrates with potential. My skin tingles listening to that sound. For the first few months, I only seem to be able to evoke open-ended questions from it. It is comical and frustrating not to be able to establish a dialogue. I keep trying to develop that conversation. Over time my patience rewards me. It is the start of a beautiful relationship.
I promise myself that I will learn to play by ear, rather than from a printed music score. It makes you listen more closely. ‘No paper,’ I tell the viola, shaking my head. ‘I just want us to create together.’
There is an unresolved tension that sings from an instrument when you start to play it. It may sound strange, but although I am unskilled in handling it, the viola unlocks something inside me that has for too long been buried. When you have lived for so many years in solitude, each fresh human encounter can feel awkward and difficult at first. It is like being placed on a stage in the middle of an orchestra. You lift your bow, or open your mouth to sing, but as soon as you begin you realise that the orchestra is playing a different piece of music that you do not know. Like music, social interaction is a skill that improves with practice. Just as you have to learn each note in order to build them all up into a fluid piece of music, the small talk, signals and social constructs that form part of any brief exchange need to be rehearsed. You have to familiarise yourself with the dynamics of rhythm, cadence, pitch and tone. When you are out of practice this can be difficult. I am willing, longing to connect, and yet sometimes I strike a wrong note or I am out of step with my timing. I galvanise myself, even though it is tiring. I am just not used to talking. I never thought language would not come easily to me. It is a shock to realise that something I once took for granted I must now work at.
Playing my viola helps me to step on to that stage, to identify and navigate tricky points in the music. ‘You can do it,’ I tell myself. ‘It is important to live without fear or regrets.’ Yet sometimes it is easier said than done. Loneliness is hard to break down into its component parts, but each day, as I practise a combination of notes, I see how it is constructed of an emotive chord structure of distrust, hurt and lack of social support.
As I gain in confidence, I am able to play more fluently, and to produce a beautiful sound that sings of spiritual and creative growth and nurtures energy and the desire for company. Music is about making yourself vulnerable in a safe space. It is about facing your challenge and playing through it until the notes flow together. I understand now that it is not the number of social relationships you have that can make you feel full or empty, lonely or content, but how these connections play aloud in your heart, and whether the notes are true or false.
The joy of the viola is that, unlike the piano, it is light and portable. Each night, as I play in front of the fire, a thought flickers. I wonder if it is the key that might unlock the door to a wider musical community. I hold tight to that thought. I dream of being able to play with others.
Winter is a time of drawing inwards, yet I start to imagine a different way to spend the long dark colder months. The island is changing and so am I. In November, the cliffs are hewn sharper by salt spray and winds skirling off
the sea. The heather bells brighten as the grass dies back and the browning hills darken. Hare dart furtively, and the bare shores glisten with whelks and limpets, clutching the rocks. Greylag quills litter the shingle and the skies advance north. The wind sings through the old ploughs, left standing, like an invisible loom still winding the threads of the land and its memories together, each day weaving a different past and present. In that metallic vibration, I hear the clink of heavy harnesses and the harsh calls chivvying the bowed heads of the old plough horses patiently working these fields. It is humbling to think of the simple joys and hardships of those bygone years.
My eyes naturally acclimatise to the darkness. The winter land rests quiet and still. Behind a craggy headland, a sharp blade of sunlight cleaves a path, glowing amber like a mythical beast. I watch as the dark line of the landscape deepens and hardens. An ancient ruin that once sheltered men, women and children in fiercer times torches bright against the skyline. I am glad those days of fear and struggle are gone. The landscape wears no airs and graces. It offers no false promises. I recognise in its stark simplicity a way of life I have grown to love beyond words.
I wonder if it is our everyday relationships with others that help to normalise our own quirks and idiosyncrasies. We ask for tolerance of traits that are different from others’. And yet, for all our social habits, we are as wary as the birds of difference or otherness. There were times I used to visualise the small clutch of people here as guillemots perched on a rock: watching the tides pass, squabbling and making our peace as the sun rises and sets each day. Now I understand that, like the birds, we are also following our own calling. There is always a time to take a solitary flight or to search for that wilder space beyond. But still each of us needs others to create a safe haven and home.
I Am an Island Page 25