You must be Danny, she says, straightening up. I’m Jean. I live round the corner from your old feller.
We kiss awkwardly on the cheek. I look at Yan and he gives me a shrug and a wink.
Is this man bothering you? says Jean, pointing to the bed.
No, I say, he hasn’t suggested we play cards yet.
You watch him if he does, she laughs. He doesn’t take any prisoners. Is it hereditary?
No, I shrug. I’m colossally lousy at cards. I think I’m being clever, but I’m so crap at bluffing that nobody falls for it.
I gave up on making a poker player of him, says Yan. Used to try teaching him fancy shuffles, card tricks, when he was nine or ten. He was fascinated at first, but he didn’t want to put the graft in. Got bored when he couldn’t do it after five minutes.
No staying power, I mimic, rolling my eyes at Jean. Listen, I’m going to leave you to it. You’ve got my mobile. Give me a ring if you need anything.
If I’m out soon we’ll go and get that long-toed stint, says Yan. Make up for lost time.
Thought I’d stay a bit and read to you, says Jean.
I walk down the ward and look back at them, gilded in the reading light like figures in a Caravaggio. The nurse at the desk looks at me as I walk past. I try to smile. She has hard eyes, like knucklebones.
As I drive up to the house I can hear the stereo grinding out dance music. The whole street shakes with it. Fight my way into the living room and kill the volume, rub sweat from my scalp.
Hiya Danny, says Miriam, from the corner sofa.
I jump, because I hadn’t seen her there. She’s slimmer than Kelly, dark, with a decent pair of legs shown off by the leather miniskirt. She catches me looking and tosses her head, and then Kelly sways into the room.
Dan, she says, unsteadily. You know Miriam, don’t you? From the salon.
Raises a half-sucked bottle of vodka to her lips and closes her eyes. She’s in full war paint, curves bubbling from a slinky black number.
You’ve got too much blusher on, I tell her.
It’s daubed across her cheekbones, bright orange and brown.
Like you’re the expert, she says. Hands the bottle to me.
I look at the lipstick smears around the rim, pass it on to Miriam.
You going out?
Kelly fumbles in her bag and lights a cigarette. Sucks on it hard.
Aye, says Miriam from the corner. Girlies misbehaving. I’m busting for a shite here Kel. Can I use your bog?
She meanders out of the room, up the stairs.
No need to ask where you’ve been, says Kelly.
He’s in hospital. I feel guilty.
You poor bleeding heart.
I pushed him away for years Kel. You know, everything’s black and white when you’re sixteen.
Kelly slumps into the sofa, giggling, feet in the air. She draws hard on the cigarette, flecks of ash dropping down the front of her dress.
Isn’t it? she says.
I don’t know. He’s just a man who things have happened to. As much a victim as anybody else. All the shit that kicked off over there – it sent him off the rails.
You’re the only victim here Dan, she says. He’s got you right where he wants you. Running over to the hospital, hanging on his stories like a gormless kid. All you do is talk about him.
Bollocks. I don’t even like him much.
Yeah you do. You are him.
When they’ve gone out I drive over to Norton village, stop in at the Unicorn. Waiting at the bar, I recognize Matt’s broad back and mop of curly hair.
You want the Cask Magnet, he says. It’s like brown treacle, make you all warm and fuzzy. None of that creamflow shit.
I watch the beer rush into the pint glass, turbulence like a stubble field burning, gradually resolving itself. Chestnut like the glistening flank of a horse, the head thick and white. Back at their table I drink, a creamy moustache of foam drifting over my upper lip.
You look like you needed that, says Andy.
It’s a warren of a pub with three small rooms and low ceilings, full to the brim and bright with voices and brash laughter.
I like this place, says Matt. Decent night out in Norton, these days. In town every fucker’s coked-up and looking for chew.
How’s the webcam going? I ask.
It’s dynamite mate, laughs Matt. You’re a genius. We’ve had thousands of hits on the website, from all over the world. Even had an e-mail from some bird wanting a date.
Thought it was just your mam watched it, laughs Andy. It’s a bit weird though, digging away knowing that people are watching your arse sticking up in the air from all over the world. You should come out to site again, see some prehistoric goodies.
Andy and Julie are a couple, both skinny and swathed in too-large overcoats. Andy’s hair is dreadlocked, Julie’s is short and dyed pink. They skin and smoke roll-ups almost constantly, the rich smell of the tobacco drifting across us.
Can’t believe they’re going to ban smoking in pubs, I say. It’ll wreck the atmosphere.
You a smoker Dan?
This is Clare, grinning lazily. Dark unkempt hair and grey smudges beneath her eyes.
Lapsed, I say. But with many happy memories. I smoke vicariously by sitting next to people like you.
Aye, it’s a bit of a bugger, says Andy. Some of the sites you work on, the away jobs. You’re out in the middle of nowhere all day, some quarry full of freezing mud. Bastard of a supervisor, present company excepted of course. And you get back to the digs in the dark only to find that the heating doesn’t work, or that there’s a coin meter and you don’t have any fifty pees. So the pub’s the only bright spot in the day, warm and fuggy and you can make a couple of pints last all night.
Andy’s a genius at spinning out pints, says Matt. Puts us all to shame. I drink three to his one.
That’s because they pay you too much, laughs Julie.
Matt pulls a face.
I’ve got a frigging divorce to pay for, woman, he says. No wonder I drink too much. She’ll be after the beer money next.
Anyway, says Andy, the last place you want to go is back out in the cold to have a smoke. Mind you, some of the places we drink, they’ll probably ignore the law anyway.
Talking of lawless, says Matt, Danny here used to live out at Haverton Hill. You know that pub standing on the corner, all on its own?
I know the one, says Clare. It’s gone now, hasn’t it? Always thought it looked impressively rough. Last pub before the sea.
I stay for another pint before I head home. On the way out I notice something behind the bar, alongside the golden cuboids full of cigarettes, the rolling papers and matchboxes, the quivering packets of peanuts pinned to a cardboard backing like so many butterfly specimens. I fumble for change in my pocket.
Leave the chews alone, I say to Yan, slapping his hand away. They’re for Paul.
Those take me back, he says, stretching in the passenger seat of the van. I didn’t think you could get them any more. That artificial chemical flavour pretending to be spearmint. Sugar dragging the enamel off your teeth.
Saw them in the pub the other night, I say. Thought it’d make a nice surprise for him, next time I’m down there. I haven’t seen these for years. Maybe they’re a lost batch, the batch that time forgot. You could be like the man who shot the last great auk, paddling the islands for ever and never finding another one.
He laughs.
Sure you’re well enough to do this? I ask tentatively.
Fuck off, he groans. I’m fit as a fiddle. Listen Dan, living without fags is doing my nut in. Are you sure I can’t have one of those chews, take my mind off it?
No, I say. Paul’s.
I take the packet from the dashboard and put it in my pocket.
I didn’t know you had a van, he says. Is it for work?
Aye, well, it’s for everything since I sold the car.
Only a two-seater, mind. Won’t be big enough when you’ve got ba
irns.
I don’t reply. Yan leans back again, blunt hands stroking the stubble at the back of his head. He coughs, brings it under control. I make a show of concentrating on the road, the van skimming through reclaimed land, the creeks and pools, the pylons bristling and reedbeds holding up the sky. We pull the car up on the verge just before Greatham Creek. The bird’s been seen further away from the road, in a group of small pools lying beyond flat, wet fields. The van shudders each time another car speeds past. I open my door just enough to squeeze out, run round the front, open the passenger door. Yan gives me a hard look, says nothing. He folds himself out of the car and grabs his bins. His skull is greyer, smaller than I remember. A shrinking nut.
We walk across the field. He’s wheezing with the effort.
Shite, he says. You get. Short of breath. Quickly. Hang on. A minute.
He stands still for a minute or two, breathing beginning to ease. Grimaces at me. Gulls blowing over, loud and harsh, buffeted by the wind. We stamp down the rambling foliage of a barbed-wire fence and step over, careful not to snag our trousers. The pool is on the other side, flat and unruffled, throwing back the white expanse of the sky.
Got it, says Yan, quietly. Long-toed stint. All the way from East Siberia.
A tiny wader moving mouse-like at the pool margins, shallow water almost to the belly, picking its way slow and patient. The nervous energy of the thing, trembling with alertness. It holds its neck extended, peering intently down into the water as if contemplating its own reflection, the white belly like a slice of freshly minted moon, the scalloped wings whittled from tortoiseshell and autumn. Bird and reflection feed in tandem along the pool margins, slender bill tapping the water like the needle of a sewing machine and the mirror bird shimmering below, worrying at this world of air and light with its own slender proboscis.
One more tick for the list, gloats Yan on the way back to the car. I wonder if it’ll be the last. I’ll move. Mountains to make sure. It isn’t. You know you were saying. About the great auk. The hunter who shot it. Didn’t know it was the last one. So he kept on looking. On his deathbed he still hadn’t. Given up hope.
We are back at the car, Yan breathing heavily again.
They’re talking about putting oxygen in. At home, he says. So I can get a fix any time. They try to keep you. At home as long as possible.
He folds himself back into the passenger seat of the van. I start the engine and move off towards Seaton.
Fancy a bag of chips? I say. I’m fucking starving. A big bag of chips with sparkling salt and dark vinegar, smelling of the winter stars. Can of shandy too.
Does a one-legged duck. Swim in circles, grins Yan. We speed towards Seaton.
There are going to be more ticks, I say, as we approach the Seal Sands roundabout. This is Teesmouth. You never know what’s going to turn up.
Hey, he says. I’m the last great auk. When they shoot me, there won’t ever be another one along.
14. Grey Heron
(Ardea cinerea)
Fraser wasn’t at the scrapyard. There was a bored young lad behind the counter in the site office, looked me and Paul up and down and shrugged.
It’s his daughter’s wedding, he said. Mr Fraser’s daughter, that is.
There was a half-eaten bag of chips on the counter, soft and floury and filling the room with the sharp smell of vinegar.
I’ll give you directions if you like, he said. To the house.
So we walked for hours in the glaring heat of the day and stuck our thumbs out to cars but nobody stopped. Straight roads, black soil, prairie fields of wilting root crops yawning away to the horizon, peaty water glowering undrinkably from the ditch bottoms. I felt like the skeleton of a seagull curdling in the sun, delicate fronds clotting into filth.
I wanted that bastard’s chips, said Paul.
We were crouched in the shade of a rhododendron thicket outside Fraser’s house. It was a big place with the look of an old rectory, a four-storey building in muddy red brick with them fisheye Georgian windows.
He was picking at them like an old biddy with no teeth, said Paul. Me, I’d have lobbed them straight down the hatch. Wouldn’t have touched the sides like.
Should have swiped them. What could he have done?
Thought about it, he said. But you were giving me that look.
We were quiet. The sky became translucent with the arrival of evening. We watched cars arrive for the reception, sleek forms in glistening black, navy, silver. Driven carefully, gingerly, like yachts manoeuvring in harbour. Men and women emerged, equally sleek, the women in plunging dresses showing their shoulders and backs, the men like seals in black tie, pastel dress shirts fluttering in the evening breeze. Doors were crisply shut behind them and gravel crunched as they moved away across the drive.
My feet are knacking, moaned Paul. Don’t think I’ve ever walked that far. You’ve caught the sun Dan the man.
It’s the bonehead, I said. Not used to it.
I ran my hand over the top of my bare skull, where the scalp was beginning to feel tight and raw. Hoped it wouldn’t blister.
Away, said Paul. He must be here by now. We may as well get in there.
I held back.
When you’ve picked a scab halfway, said Paul. You may as well rip the rest of the fucker off.
I looked at him, surprised.
Anyway, I’m fucking starving here, he went on. I’m wasting away. There’s got to be scran in there, tons of it.
He grabbed me by the arm and we broke cover, crunching across the gravel, the weakened sun spilling across us once more.
We followed the trickles of wedding guests around to the rear, down a narrow path winding between drifts of cottage garden plants and through an opening in a high wall flanked by yew trees. People looked sidelong at us, said nothing. Then we were in a walled garden, lined with vines and fruit cordons, and on the clipped grass stood a marquee, white canvas flapping gently. We stepped over ropes and ducked into the entrance.
At the far end on a raised stage a string quartet was playing. The scratching of summer insects. There were long trestle tables set for eating and starched waiters and waitresses, some of them no older than us, bustling about with trays of champagne glasses. In front of us a gaggle of guests was trickling slowly into the marquee. A reception line. There were the bride and groom lined up with their parents, and the arriving guests filing past. Handshakes, greetings, guffaws and air kisses. My scalp throbbed. Paul was next to me, tall and rangy, tanned and confident, with those deep, calm green eyes.
The bride was voluptuous, red hair swept up from her face and a simple white dress. The groom next to her with dark oilslicked hair and pale unnerving blue eyes. As we edged our way towards the front of the line I was trying to pick out Charlie Fraser, all the time aware of the smell of my own body, goatish and insistent.
We shook hands with an older couple, the man with a prominent chin and a jutting greyish white beard he kept thrusting down into his collar. The woman was tall and airy and as she peered towards us I recognized the birdlike face and questing blue eyes of the groom. I shook hands awkwardly, Paul behind me, and moved on to her husband, who crushed my hand in a strong grip. They had no idea who we were. We moved on to the bride and groom. I pecked the proffered cheek politely and moved away quickly. Paul was pumping the hand of the groom, grinning broadly.
Congratulations mate, he boomed. Making an honest woman of her at last, eh? Good luck anyways. You’ll need it with her track record like.
He winked, released the hand, and we stood in front of the last couple. The man was stocky and pale-skinned with crisply curled hair like copper wire. I grasped a moist and pudgy hand.
Mr Fraser, I’m sorry to bother you today.
He looked alarmed.
I’m Danny, I persisted. Yan Thomas’ lad. I wanted to talk to you.
I trailed off. A long silence while he studied my face and slowly released my hand. The burnt skin on my scalp tightening. Guests behind us b
egan to shift uncomfortably, waiting for us to move on.
This isn’t the time, he said. Or the place. Come to the yard tomorrow.
I lowered my eyes.
Darling, he said. You remember Yan Thomas. Of course you do. Well these are his boys. Daniel and his brother. Lads, this is my wife, Helena.
There’s a lot of Yan in you, she said. The eyes are just the same. Deep and mysterious.
She was looking at Paul. He grinned, sheepishly.
Erm, no, Danny’s the son, he muttered. I’m just a mate.
She turned to me. Shoulders turned from smooth rosewood, gold circlets about her upper arms. The peacock-blue dress plunged at the back where coltish muscles jumped beneath the golden skin right down to the first swell of her buttocks. Her face a bitter almond, short blonde hair cropped at the jawline. She looked disappointed.
You don’t look as much like him, she said.
It was a calm voice, public school but not harsh. The unhurried contours of southern England.
Perhaps around the mouth, she conceded. Out of the two of you I would have sworn it was him.
She looked Paul up and down again, as if appraising horseflesh. Fraser noticed.
Daniel and Paul were just leaving, he said.
Surely you won’t turn them away. The honeyed voice. You can see they’ve come a long way.
They aren’t dressed for a wedding, he said, crisply.
Poppycock. I won’t hear of it. They’ll behave themselves, I’ll make sure of that.
A smile materialized on Fraser’s face. Emotions seemed to dawn on him slowly, his features taking a moment or two to arrange themselves as required.
Of course, he said. Silly of me. You must stay boys. Help yourselves to food. Enjoy yourselves.
He stretched his arms out towards the interior of the marquee. We moved off, drawing curious glances.
Did you see her looking at me? muttered Paul, a slow smile creeping across his face.
He was flushed when he stood to speak, but the small intent eyes were hard and concentrated. The room subsided into a hush. His wife was seated beside him, long viscous neck tilted towards him, chin resting on one hand. The picture of attention.
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