The Cormorant

by Stephen Gregory

  ‘Well done, Archie, you clever bugger!’

  I was thrilled. The bird disappeared under the water.

  Time and again, over the course of the afternoon, the cormorant surfaced with a fish. And I towed it into the shore. In a couple of hours, the bag was nearly full, with sixteen or seventeen dabs; it wriggled with the mucous exertions of the dying fish. By four o’clock, Archie was exhausted. I carried the bird under one arm and held the bag of fish with my other hand. With the wet rope coiled around my shoulder, I walked back to the van. Archie sat in the crook of my arm, panting. Nobody watched as the collar was removed. From the bag I took the four eels which Archie had caught and fed them to the bird, knocking their heads on the bumper of the van first of all, to make it simpler for the tired cormorant. They rapidly vanished. The light was fading under the beetling sides of the castle.

  ‘Great work, Archie. You can keep us in flatties for the rest of your career. It’s a deal, OK, eat as many eels as you can catch, hand over the dabs to me, and we’ll forget about your board and lodging . .

  We went again to the river mouth at Caernarfon. It was better than ratting in the Nantlle quarries. In any case, I did not want to return there. In a few days, Ann would be home with Harry and perhaps I would not be able to get away fishing. So I thought it best to make the most of this new hobby, hunting with the cormorant. It was gloriously plebeian. As a schoolboy, I had often dreamed of possessing a falcon, learning the ancient laws and traditions of falconry. Now I was reaping pocketfuls of flatfish from the mudbanks of the Menai Straits, seizing them from the beak of the cormorant, alive with bone and gristle. They made a delicious soup, rather coarse and grey, but marvellous with pepper and brown bread. The van stank of fish. My hands were raw from the cold, the salt water and the inevitable contact with Archie’s beak. In the cottage kitchen, there hung the clinging steam of fish broth. And I loved it all, the rusticity of it. I drove the bird from the mountain village to the coast, and I smiled when I thought how I had changed in the few months since leaving the Midlands. What would my old headmaster say if I were to meet him, by some absurd coincidence, in the harbour car park in Caernarfon? I was used to wearing a jacket and tie for school: here I was, parking a smelly van on the quayside, stepping out in tattered jeans and Wellington boots, in such an ancient pullover that big holes had appeared under both arms in spite of Ann’s repeated attention, in a waterproof spotted with fish scales and containing in one pocket the corpse of a forgotten flatfish; to crown the effect of such scruffy clothing, on opening up the back of the van, a dangerous, black villain of a bird would spring out, a cross between a raven and a pelican but most closely resembling a vampire bat (redolent of fish). And the hunt for food: taking the bird with its leash and collar, filling a bag with fresh fish, while other people stood stupidly in a supermarket queue. My beard had improved, I thought: instead of being closely razored under my chin and on my cheeks, I had left it to crawl over my throat and disappear below my ears. The fingernails, which were once so immaculately filed and cleaned, were now neglected. With a frown, I remembered that I had hardly added to my notes for the book during the past week, something I should return to when the business of Christmas and the New Year was over. Meanwhile, I was enjoying the raffish company of the cormorant.

  Leaving the boxes of shopping in the van, once more I walked the bird from the castle, over the bridge and down to the beach. It was high tide. There was a choppy sea driving into the Straits, tossing its white crests a hundred yards from the shore and spitting spray when the waves ran against the wooden piles of the jetty. The wind forced the seas along, threw the taste of salt into my beard. I licked my lips and fastened my jacket. It was a raw afternoon. The beach was deserted and the sea wall was empty of pedestrians and cyclists. Nevertheless, Archie braced itself in the breeze, allowing its wings to fall partly open and flutter. The bird seemed as eager as ever to get into the water, so I checked the knot around its ankle and fitted the collar. My hands were a little blue already. I nudged the cormorant away with my boot, unwinding all the rope until it lay around my feet in the grey boulders. Then I jammed my hands deep into pockets, my shoulders hunched against the cold. To me, the sea looked utterly uninviting: it was whipped to a brown cream, it was angry, unhealthy, the white spume scratched from the surface and spent in the bitterness of the afternoon. But Archie set off. The line uncoiled itself. The cormorant looked lower in the water than usual, lost sometimes in the chop and spray. Splendid … the specialist hunter unperturbed by the conditions, a pitiless mercenary sent into the field. There was something so icily efficient about the bird, cutting through the waves on a day when the gulls and the crows had sought the shelter of the castle walls. It went down, disappeared from sight. The rope paid out.

  ‘Good boy, Archie. Do your stuff . .

  I turned away from the water, to have my back to the wind. There was nobody walking, it was too cold. The wind tugged at my trouser legs and blew up the hair on the back of my head.

  ‘Bloody hell . .

  I was thinking of the cosy cottage living-room, the log fire, the scent of the Christmas tree and the wood smoke. There would not be much fishing today, however much Archie was enjoying it. Just a few dabs, enough to thicken up yesterday’s soup, and some eels for the hunter. I turned to the sea again, squinting into the wind. I could not see the bird.

  ‘Come on, come on, it’s freezing out here . .

  But I knew it would be murky below the surface, a maelstrom of mud and sand, an underwater haboob. At any moment, Archie would reappear, after an unsuccessful chase. Maybe today there would be no dabs. I would at least have exercised the bird, it would have to eat cat food when we got home. No sign of Archie. The rope was slack about my feet. I reluctantly withdrew my hands from my pockets and bent to pick it up. As I did so, the line began to show above the surface of the water, well downstream, towards the jetty at the mouth of the river. The current had taken the cormorant nearer to the castle. I wound in the line, turning it around my wrist. It grew taut. The rope went away to my right and entered the water quite close to the slimy pillars of the jetty. I pulled tighter. It would not budge.

  Quickly striding along the shore towards the bridge over the estuary, I coiled in the line, winding it around my forearm. I broke into a run when I saw the rope disappear into the coffee-coloured sea where it swirled in the legs of the pier. I leaned on the rope, my whole weight on the slender line, until it sang in the cutting wind and the droplets of sea flew from it. The bird was caught somewhere in the currents, with the rope around its ankle, the rope snagged among the weed and slime and barnacles of the wooden columns.

  ‘Archie, Archie, you bugger … where the hell are you?’

  Uncoiling the line again, I ran up to the sea wall, vaulting onto the promenade, and sprinted to the jetty. There was an iron gate whose sign forbade entrance to the pier, except to authorised persons. I sprang over and went to the end, trailing the slack line behind me. Then I was directly over the spot where the rope slid into the water. I wound it in and leaned out, fifteen feet above the sea, with the line taut in both my hands. I strained to see. The tide came forcing up the river mouth, throwing back the feeble currents of the river itself. Around the wooden pillars, where they sank beneath the surface, the eddies coiled and hissed like serpents. Bubbles of brown foam were sucked into the whirlpools. Again I leaned on the rope and pulled it upwards with all my strength, until I thought it gave an inch. The water writhed. If the cormorant was there, it was fighting for breath, seeing its own spark extinguished in every silver bubble which burst from its beak.

  I threw off my waterproof jacket, snatching the clasp knife from its pocket. Having tied the rope to the railings of the pier, I began to clamber over the barrier, to negotiate a descent through the slimy pillars. Outwards I leaned, looking down between my legs for every footing. There were big iron bolts to grip and to stand on, icy cold to the touch, laden with grease. The wind raced through the stanchions, by my face th
e rope quivered. Step by step, I made the precarious descent to the surface of the water, stood there with my arms wrapped around the wet wood, breathing heavily. There was no time to spare. Bracing myself against the cold, I stepped down further, the green boots feeling for the next foothold in the racing water. Down and down, with the water now at my knees, at my thighs, while I groped for another step, tugging at my waist and sinking bitter teeth into my stomach … the currents around my chest … the breath squeezed out of me … I gasped and clung to the jetty, there was nowhere further for me to go …

  Gripping fast, I felt down the rope, first with my hand and then touching the tautness of it with one boot. I plunged my face into the water, one finger pressing my glasses hard against my nose. Again I ducked my head, the aching cold throbbed in my temples and at the base of my neck, my pullover was weighted down with green ice. I leaned down as far as I could with the knife in my left hand and began to saw at the rope. But I knew it was no good, that the currents and the struggles of the bird must have wound the line around the pillar, in and out of the seaweed-slimy bolts of the stanchions, that in straining on the line, in my panic, I must have tightened the tangle of knots, that even the inches it had given from my vantage point above the water were only a clenching of the knots. I worked with the knife. The rope gave. It flew from the surface with the release of tension and dangled from the railings above. But below the water, a boiling of currents gripped at my boots. The rest of the line was fast. And Archie was down there, with the rope around its ankle, among the netted cord.

  I began suddenly to shake with the cold. In front of my face, I saw my own hands, blue and bruised, somehow distant, like someone else’s hands. The knife dropped from my fingers, sank into the sea. I felt that I could only stay there, chest deep in the water, that I would be content to wait there, it was too much trouble to raise my heavy boots, the wood and the iron were too cold, I could not make the effort to shift my grip, it was all too complicated, too difficult … But, in spite of myself, my knees came up and my feet searched for a higher step. The blue hands went like spiders up the column and found a hold on the jutting bolts. When my waist was clear of the surface, the wind attacked me, seeing me exposed in my streaming clothes. The green boots emerged, glistening, slow, sea-slugs. I crooked my knees to let the water pour out, continued climbing. My eyes came level with the planks of the pier. A few more steps and I was there, leaning on the railing before swinging myself over and collapsing in a heap by the jacket I had left behind. And there I lay, with my eyes shut, with the water running from me, with the grey light of a raw afternoon draining to the gloom of evening.

  I must have passed out, exhausted.

  For when I awoke, it was twilight. The wind had dropped. I stood up and felt the excruciating ache of cold through my body. Everything was still, the tide had turned and the surface of the water was silken black. There was no disturbance of the inky river. It was a clear, starlit evening. I knew that I must quickly get home and out of the wet clothes, into the bath. Throwing on my jacket, I trudged to the end of the jetty and painfully heaved myself over the gate. The path along the sea wall was deserted. There was nobody on the bridge as I crossed over. Hardly any cars were parked on the quayside, the castle was not lit. It seemed that the town was empty. It was a place of silence. My own footsteps, the squelching of water in my boots, were the only sound beneath the towering walls of the castle. I shuddered and walked on, spotting the van near the edge of the harbour, leaving my trail of wet footprints and sea water dripping from my clothes. The keys were in my pocket. The blue fingers felt for them, still numb from the touch of the sea-smooth wood and the iron bolts. I took out the keys. The jangling of metal broke the silence.

  At the sound, Archie stepped from the other side of the van.

  I halted. For a moment, the bird stood still, its wings folded. The cormorant and I waited in the twilight. Neither of us moved.

  ‘Archie?’

  And the bird came forward.

  It waddled at first, then it stretched the black wings and sprang along on slapping feet. Archie covered the yards in a series of flaps and leaps, stopped in front of me, beat a pair of damp wings, croaked once, and dropped some twitching thing by my green boots. It was a fish.

  My voice was trembling.

  ‘Thank you, Archie, thank you. Where the hell did you get to, you daft bugger?’

  The cormorant croaked again and folded its wings. When I reached out and touched its head, I felt it was wet. Archie nuzzled my hand, as affectionate as a dog. In a spasm, the fish arched at my feet. I bent down, picked it up and put it in my pocket.

  ‘Good lad …’

  There was no rope around the bird’s ankle. The collar was there on its throat. We started towards the van.

  And from somewhere in the dark sky, there came a little dry applause. Someone, some spectator, was clapping, slow, sarcastic applause, increasing in speed and intensity, slowing, stopping. The clapping stopped.

  I craned my neck and looked up at the castle. My head swam. Among the battlements, leaning over and applauding the reunion of man and cormorant, celebrating the gift of the fish, the silhouette of a man was there against the bright stars. The figure was still. No more clapping. The figure was entirely dark, until there was a movement of an arm, a hand went up to the head, and a pinprick of golden light glowed for a brief moment. My neck was throbbing, my eyes stinging with water.

  The man vanished into the blackness of the battlements.

  And falling through the air, as bright as a comet against the castle wall, falling, falling, falling, to disappear in a shower of sparks on the rocks of the dry moat … the butt of a discarded cigar.

  In a stupor of cold and shock, man and cormorant drove through the suburbs of Caernarfon, into the foothills, and climbed into the mountains of Snowdonia. Archie sat on the front seat, as still as iron, like a dark ruin of twisted metal. I drove quickly at first, gripping the wheel with whitened knuckles, then began to slow down when we had left the town. Perhaps I had seen something that my son had seen, something which had mesmerised the little boy as he looked through the window of the bus in the town square. What had Harry seen in the garden that night? Was the cormorant alone in the backyard? What else was included in the inheritance? I shuddered, as I had shuddered in the crumbling offices of the quarry, as the tremor of fear had run down my spine at the sound of clapping, at the spark which tumbled from the battlements of the castle. The presence of a grey man fell over me, cold as the snow which would soon envelop the mountains.

  But there remained a few days before Ann would return from Derby, when Archie would go back to the security of its reinforced cage. There could still be expeditions to fish for dabs; I would be more careful to watch the weather and tides. I felt my bones aching, the water from my clothes had run onto the car seat and onto the floor. More and more, I was shaking uncontrollably, my teeth beginning to chatter. The heater whirred at full blast, the inside of the van was warm and the windows steamed up, but, until I could get out of my clothes and into the bath, I was desolate. Faster and faster I drove. Still Archie seemed paralysed, a statue of a cormorant. Parking right outside the front door of the cottage, I struggled briefly with the key and flung myself into the living-room. The bird came lamely through, silent, numb.

  I built the fire, using three firelighters to make a quick blaze from the gritty coal before laying a well-dried log on the top. The bath was running. I left Archie in front of the rising flames while I threw off my clothes and scampered into the bathroom. It was wonderfully steamed up, I straightaway felt the soothing heat on my face and in my chest. In a moment, after that glorious agony of sinking into the scalding water, I lay back and allowed the heat to creep into every fibre of my body. I submerged my head: the chill in my skull was quenched, the ache at the base of my neck was extinguished. I must have slept for an hour in my drenched clothes, on the jetty. In that time, nobody had passed and noticed me there, it was not an evening for the ca
sual stroller. Now I dozed in the warmth and steam of my bath.

  And in my dream, I was at the graveside of another family funeral. Looking down through drizzle-dappled glasses, I could see my own feet in their funeral shoes, a long way away, as though I was towering above them, a giant’s-eye view of black shoes in the wet grass. I could hear the droning voice of the minister, familiar words which failed to drown the sound of soil falling from a spade onto the lid of a coffin. Raining … it was always raining at those family funerals. And who was it this time? One of the innumerable aunts or uncles, a foreign cousin flown back from Canada or New Zealand? I did not look into the grave. I continued to study the distant feet and listen to the patter of earth against the wood. Next to my own shoes, to my left, another pair, bigger, wider, an old-fashioned pair of black, laced-up boots, well polished, well used. On the heavy toe-caps, big drops of rain stood and trembled, supported by the thickness of the polish. They made my own feet seem slight, unimportant, the overwhelming presence of those boots. Still not looking up, I saw the legs of a dark suit close to my legs. It was raining harder. Pools were forming in the grass. The voice was blurred by the sound of rain. And to my right, another pair of feet: black, webbed feet, the cormorant standing respectfully at the graveside. I looked into the grave. There was a tiny coffin, the coffin of a little child, almost covered with brown mud. The rhythmic movement of the spade, the gathering puddles … the voices grew, together with the sounds of stone on stone as the spade threw in its layers of rubble and gravel. And the coffin disappeared. The images faded in the increasing rain, but the noises remained: the knocking, the voices, growing and growing until I was awake and shivering in my lukewarm bath …