by Crane, Ben;
*
I generally dislike the feel of water. It makes me itch, like having cockroaches stapled under my flesh. I only go in water when I feel there is good reason. My son likes swimming and wants me to take him. This is the first time I have taken him swimming on my own. When we get into the pool he displays total freedom. I, on the other hand, am deeply self-conscious and embarrassed. I hate it. The noise and cloying heat is painful, loud, brash. The warm, chlorine atmosphere is a drenched chemical overload and faintly suffocating. My senses are bombarded by the bright, bouncing strip lights. The close proximity of other semi-naked humans is viciously uncomfortable. My son does not give two hoots. He bumps into people as he somersaults backwards and forwards off the edge of the pool. It is lovely to watch him be so free. I feel the freedom of his physicality, see it in the small stretches of his muscles. The water washes over his legs and torso like fresh rainwater. Under the water, bubbles roll and fall through blue and green foam and catch in his hair and in the corner of his eyes. He is a pale and perfectly formed fish. He climbs out of the pool with ecstatic smiles, his brown eyes blown wide and bright. He shuffles up and down on his feet in excitement. He jumps on to me and we slide and roll and bounce and glide and move together like otters. He goes on the water slide; we play hide and seek. We float about on large pieces of foam. Time drip-drips away and only then do I realize how long we have been in the pool.
When we get changed it is the first time he has seen me naked. He laughs at my willy, says it looks like an old nose in wire wool. I laugh. I give him a Jaffa cake to shut him up. On the way home he falls asleep in the car and purrs like a cat with its mouth open. He is so beautiful I nearly crash the car, watching him sleep.
*
When I finally remove the creance from Girl we fail to achieve any level of consistency. Her reactions often beggar belief. She changes expression and attitude hourly and will fly three or four hundred yards for a tiny chick leg. Ten minutes later, a whole quail carcass tied to a lure pad and thrown forty feet below her will scare her up through the branches into the tops of trees. She is less a sublime feathered dart, more a badly designed shuttlecock. She remains unlike any other hawk I have owned, trained or seen flown, in England or abroad. Girl is an enigma. She has no inclination towards and little regard for humans. She is the worst falconry hawk I have ever trained. As a hawk to be released, however, one needing to survive on evolved wit and instinct, her belligerence is pitch-perfect. But her stubborn fear forces me to the outer edges of my experience and we arrive at an impasse. I have to admit a kind of defeat. Rather than hold her back, happy that she will haphazardly and violently return fifty per cent of the time, we need to move forwards. We need to catch up with Boy.
Entering
In the wild, sparrowhawks lay, incubate and hatch their young a few weeks after songbird chicks have fledged. Wobbly and unsure of the world, these young birds make easy targets and a regular source of protein for a nest full of rapacious raptors. When feeding their chicks, adult sparrowhawks will bring a wide array of whole carcasses and wounded live prey for them to consume and ‘play’ with. From the moment a sparrowhawk chick breaks its way out of an egg it associates different shapes, movement, textures, tones and tastes with food.
When a sparrowhawk chick has left the nest, is fledged and flying free, its prey grows in matched proficiency. They share an equilibrium, both learning different methods and modes of flight, one of attack and one of escape. The hawk, through repetition in success and failure, learns which quarry is weakest, which is toughest and which gives the biggest meal. A healthy hawk expands psychologically, grows and develops with every success as the season changes. If I cannot match this process exactly, if I inhibit this delicate part of their rehabilitation, it will cost Boy and Girl their lives.
My first sparrowhawk, Daisy, was a pale, slender, feathered barb of a hawk. A few months before she arrived, I reared and released a large number of red-legged partridge. Instead of working the land in a natural manner, it was easier to wander the same fields each day and flush a partridge. Daisy caught them easily and we both enjoyed eating the fresh supply of free-ranging meat. As the seasons changed she built an association between herself and the partridge so powerful that she refused to hunt anything else or indeed make any effort to fly anywhere other than the fields in which they lived. Naïve, and without realizing it was possible, I arrested her development, narrowed her experiences and mind-set down to one species and one location. I failed to understand how and why a sparrowhawk has evolved, how closely they are connected to a diverse range of quarry. Instead of developing her abilities in an expansive, natural way, I sealed off a huge part of her existence. I melded her to what I wanted and not what she resolutely required. She was what falconers call ‘wedded’ to partridge. If lost, she would have been entirely incapable of surviving on her own. The same principle now applies to Girl and Boy. Killing and hunting as if they were free and wild is a critical component in their race for life when free. They have to be able to compete with a wide range of different quarry and win.
*
My son is on the starting line in a race. Set along the one-hundred-metre lanes are various items of clothing the children have to put on before proceeding to the finish line. The flag goes down and my son runs like the wind. On the first and second stages of dressing he is well ahead. For reasons I cannot fathom, I scream his name as encouragement. It has the opposite effect. My voice completely short-circuits his concentration. He hears me, stops running and looks at me with a puzzled expression. All the other children run past him. I am devastated. My presence has destroyed his chances of victory. After the race he agrees that it would have been best if I had kept my mouth shut. He is magnanimous in defeat, neither disappointed nor upset. This is the first sports day I have attended and he seems more delighted that his friends can see that his father is here to watch him run in the races, to compete, to win, or in this case make him lose.
My turn comes around too quickly. The tannoy crackles and announces: ‘Those wishing to attend the fathers’ race, please make your way to the starting line.’ I am hyper, my heart is beating fast and I stand on the starting line long before any other competitors. When all the other fathers are lined up I cannot help myself. I start making highly inappropriate (and untruthful) jokes about running away from the ‘the filth’ for theft and burglary. They do not laugh, they just look at me. I am failing to make a good impression. When the race starts, I also fail to come first. Thankfully, my son is too busy with his friends to notice. His mother, on the other hand, filmed it all for them to laugh at later. I do not care. I gave it my best shot.
*
For four days running Girl and Boy fail to catch or kill. The heat is exhausting, the summer cover high and impenetrable. Moreover, the natural world is now properly attuned to the presence of a hawk and its animals become super-sensitive in order to survive. The world within eyesight reinvents itself and different types of behaviour not normally seen are triggered. As we walk, within a roughly 500-yard circumference there is total silence. It is like being inside a bubble. Birds and mammals remain hidden, sit tight and quiet for surprising lengths of time. In the past, such is this fearful stillness, I have been able to reach into bushes and pick birds out by hand. Outside this silent surround, the noise is one of alarm. Tic-tic-tic whines and the screaming chatter of warning spills out continuously. Swifts and swallows will dart and bomb the head of a released hawk. I have had wild sparrowhawks attempt to swipe a falconry hawk off a perch in the garden; others were chased around trees or grabbed off the glove. All this defensive commotion, the fluctuating behaviour patterns and natural avoidance work against the hunting efforts of Boy and Girl.
With each failure Boy shows infinitesimally small levels of progress. To the untrained eye, it looks like he is repeating the same mistakes. I see slight recalibrations, an awareness of new tricks, and instincts laid dormant begin to emerge. His wing beat changes, as does his posture. His spe
ed of reaction increases, the corners he turns become more acute. The areas he selects for a springing, sprinting chase are well away from protective cover. He eases into trying out all manner of slips. Some short and stabbing, others, long, quick, pulsing pursuits. He begins zigzagging over ditches, down along hedges or up and over on a sneaky surprise. Slowly he becomes his true self, flying and hunting like a line of white light reflected off a spinning disco ball. On numerous occasions, if he misses he boomerangs back through the air and lands on my glove, ready to go again. At other times he crashes bravely into the cover or pulls up over where the quarry has landed. By marking their point of entry he goads me to re-flush, to go again, and again, and again. He gets so close that at times the difference between catching or not is no more than a blade of grass, a twig or a leaf getting in the way. We just need a bit of luck, some slight weakness in the quarry, a missing feather, illness, or a shaft of sunlight glaring into the eye of his chosen targets.
On the fifth day I rise at dawn, weigh him and, as the sun breaks, we set off. Some mornings feel right, a day when a sixth sense kicks in. Not in a mystical way – there is nothing supernatural or spectral in the moment. I make no incantations or promises to invisible gods, but years of flying hawks have attuned me to a very specific state of mind. The feeling remains the same. It never wavers, changes intensity or dips, and I have never felt it in any other sphere of my life.
As we progress, the little details collapse into focus and join together. Every aspect is a one per cent click towards success. I see animals in unexpected places, further out than usual, exposed. The light is right. My feet fall without sound. When we change direction the wind moves with us, always into our faces. The temperature remains cool. The hawk is keener. Boy buzzes on the glove. Etta and Flash move differently, focused, dancing through scent with grace and style. This feeling mounts layer upon layer, overlapping and interweaving. A hundred yards out, Etta shines copper coloured against iridescent green, turns right then cuts across the breeze and stops dead. Her muscles tense, trapped along her spine, chest and legs. Pheromones wash through her nose in an organic chemical overload. Her tail sticks straight out, a dog-shaped statue, marking and pointing. This is it. The world sucks together into a silent, flowing, continuous whole. I adjust Boy’s jesses and reposition him, he twitches, shuffles then grips the glove. My mind unhooks from spinning wheels, from fragments and thought. The light and my eyesight ramp up brighter, clearer. My other senses descend and fall away. I hear no sound, smell nothing, feel no sensation, no cold, or wind. I am out of my mind and absolutely present.
Etta edges forward then stops robotically. I stop. She moves. I move. Flash runs in. Two birds shoot skywards ten feet and turn. One slows and skims parallel to the ground. Boy flies the first, checks, reselects, snatches, catching the second bird in mid-air, and keeps moving.
I work towards the sound of Boy’s bell. Breaking through blackthorn, I find him tucked tightly under a gnarled root, removing feathers from the wings of his kill. The rush of adrenaline and my joy for Boy roll over me in immense gratitude. I force myself forward into the small space, spiking my hands and scratching my face, and lie prostrate at his feet. I reach out, touch his kill and thank it. Boy stops eating, looks directly at me, then carries on delicately stripping feathers. With this small gesture of trust, I feel no separation or distance between myself and the hawk. I have been welcomed inside the electrifying loop where Boy is at the end and the beginning, his life rising as another descends. This little big bang, this tiny bag of feathers, has the gravitational pull of a planet. He has drawn together five separate life forms – a human, two dogs, a hawk and his quarry – across instinct and evolution. We have entered his world, are actively participating in a highly condensed, private moment of survival. It is a privileged position to be in and never loses significance.
On the walk home Etta and Flash trot ahead and Boy is secure on the glove. Small feathers are stuck to his feet and legs. Now he has eaten everything, his head is pushed back and he cannot see his feet. I detect a definite change. I see a definite change. Boy is coiled down with new knowledge, the final piece of his internal jigsaw pushed into place. He is ready to flick out and feast on the whole world. He lifts his left foot up and tucks it into his chest feathers. As my adrenaline drops, my senses return, sweat cools and the pain arrives. Using my teeth, I pick blackthorn tips out of my arm. Several remain in the balls and palms of both hands. In a few days the poison will bubble and turn my skin a bruised blue and the infection will weep pus. Nearing the cottage, my extreme elation sours to sadness. Boy’s journey back to the wild has begun in earnest. This first step to a new world of freedom takes us closer to separation.
*
Bored with computer games, I tell my son of a world with mythical beasts where strange characters exist, one with elemental challenges, puzzles and adventure. For us to succeed it will require the dexterity, focus and hand–eye coordination of a gun-slinger. I explain that the journey, and its prizes, are not without risk or failure. That once he accepts the challenge, once our journey begins, he will enter into extreme levels of vertiginous fear, joy, possible sadness and ecstasy. He doesn’t believe me at first and laughs. Tells me I am talking rubbish and asks for a biscuit. I show him some YouTube clips. He is instantly hooked. So we set sail in preparation.
On the morning of our expedition we collect supplies. I give him a shopping basket and let him forage freely along the aisles. We will be travelling fifteen minutes from home and be gone for no more than two hours but, in case of an emergency, he has collected twenty-four sausage rolls, a tub of trifle, some chocolate mousse, a strawberry cheesecake, ten packets of Wotsits, Kinder eggs, lemonade, apple juice, strawberry bootlaces, roast chicken, Hot Wheels Slime, a scratch card (his first) and a lottery ticket (also his first).
By the time we arrive it is a blindingly hot summer’s day, a day when you sweat in the shade. We crunch down a gravel track, pass through a gate and stand on the edge of a lake. This is the first time I have taken my son fishing. We place our tackle on the ground and take a walk. Like all good fishing lakes, this one oozes ethereal potential. The bankside vegetation is thick and lush. As if by magic, a grass snake materializes, swimming across a flat area of open water. We watch a water rat zip along the grass. Ducks and ducklings skitter across the surface. In a covered corner, the light breaks through alder trees and dapples off the surface. Pin-prick bubbles fizz and pop along the outer edge of lily pads and the water is cloudy with clay particles. Fish are feeding, grubbing about on the lakebed. Huge, pale purple submarines cruise just below the surface, then drift down, disappearing through the water. Instinctively, my son’s behaviour changes. He is pointing and talking in whispers. The only thing that would make this moment more magical is a unicorn.
Sneaking about like bone fide hunters, we come across an old man and his wife tucked behind a huge line of reeds. I quietly ask if he has caught anything. As he turns to talk, the rod in his hand buckles and he strikes into a big fish. The line zings through the water, parting the surface scum and old feathers like cheese wire through butter. Huge boils and swirls appear on the surface. Mud, black sediment and broken leaves rise up off the bottom. My son clasps my side in pleasant terror: ‘What is it? How big is it? Is it a catfish? Will it bite? What is it? What is it?’ The fisherman rises from his seat and with unfaltering generosity offers my son his rod, reel and the hooked fish. It is an act of supreme understanding. Every angler knows the importance of a child’s first fish, how the moment becomes indelibly etched on to the mind and soul for ever. My son pauses, unsure. I hold my breath, don’t say a word and look at him. Curiosity kills the cat. He takes the rod from the stranger and enters a whole new world. The fish bolts, the rod bends at an alarming rate, pulling my son’s arms straight and hard against their sockets. His eyes dilate as wide as dinner plates. He does a little dance in the dust. His mouth opens in the shape of an ‘O’ but no sound comes out. He holds firm. The whizzing, cl
icking buzz as line peels from the reel is the only noise we hear. The water rocks up and a bow wave surges out towards the island. Whatever is on the end is royally duffing up my son. Scared, he wants to give the rod back. Both the fisherman and I decline. Instead, we start shouting snippets of conflicting advice: ‘Turn it left, no right, reel forward… no, the other forward… reel… REEL… NO, STOP!! Let it run… hold on… put the rod tip lower… watch the branches.’ For a few glorious minutes we are totally out of control. The fish runs us ragged, metaphorically tweaking our noses and kicking us in the pants in the most delightful way possible. Eventually, the fish tires, turns and rolls on the surface. The man scoops it up in his net.
On the soft grass, the tench is as wide as my son’s shoulders. It weighs at least eight pounds, double the size of my own personal best. It is a stunning male in deep dragon green, its olive flanks contrasting with circular orange eyes the colour of a goshawk’s. Giggling, my son runs his fingers along its side and tells me the fish feels smooth and slimy. I tell him a tench has magical, medicinal properties. In the days of witches and druids it was called the Doctor Fish, its slime a cure for illness and maladies. I ask if he wants to lick it. He tells me not to be stupid.