‘Over the wall,’ said Mr Deering, ‘and across the bumpy grass. So far, so easy. Now let’s see how much your German’s love is worth.’
The daylight faded and Bracken’s blood spread across the floor. When it was too dark to see, even with the aid of the binoculars, Mr Deering came away from the window. He fell into the rocking chair with an exhausted moan and let the shotgun slide from his hands. It clattered to the floor and slid a few inches towards the settee, but nobody bothered to pick it up. It was as if nobody cared about it any more, or believed in its power, and so they let it lie between their feet like a toy.
They sat on and on through the evening without speaking a word. They sat for so long that Virginia thought they’d never move again. She imagined the attic in a hundred years’ time, and the three of them just the same, like figurines in a neglected doll’s house.
Lorna was the first to move. She sat up straight and said, ‘Get out of my house.’
Her tone was blank, but it must have carried some kind of authority because Mr Deering got up immediately. He ran his palms over his jacket and moistened his lips as if to speak.
‘Get out,’ Lorna repeated, in the same lifeless way, and he did. He slunk away without a word. The singing wind hid his footsteps and the slamming of the front door, but they knew when he’d gone.
Virginia reached for Lorna’s hand. At first it felt cold and heavy, like a stone from the sea, but after a while it stirred, and then their fingers touched and linked and locked together.
New Year’s Eve, 2015
My dear Joe,
I know it looks odd, an old woman disappearing into the marsh on a night like this. I’ve just poked my head out of the front door, one last time, and I’ll grant you it’s cold: a proper ‘bed socks and cocoa’ sort of a night, as Mrs Hill would have said. But you never knew Mrs Hill.
It’s cold but it’s not so very dark; I shall be able to see where I’m putting my feet. The wind has blown those low clouds away, at last, and the sky is awash with stars. I suppose that’s why the snow streaks gleam so white, is it, along the wall and out on the marsh? They look like they’re lit from within, but I don’t know the science. There’s also a light on the horizon, very low and yellow, which might be a ship.
So yes, I suppose you’re bound to think it odd, but I do hope you won’t be all tragic about it. I was feeling a bit that way myself when I woke up this morning, and I even filled my dressing-gown pockets with bits and pieces to make myself sink more quickly. For one reason or another, I feel quite differently tonight and I’ve emptied my pockets again, which is why the kitchen table is so untidy.
Do whatever you like with the house and its contents, Joe. Salt Winds has served its purpose, and if you want to let it go then do so with my blessing. There’s one thing I should like you to keep, however, and you’ll find it beside this letter. I used to keep it tied up in a scroll – that’s how it was when your father gave it me – but the ribbon has frayed terribly over the years, and the last threads snapped just now as I was putting everything ready. No-one other than me has ever read ‘Call of the Curlew’ – not even your mother – so consider yourself privileged!
It was a good life the three of us had, wasn’t it, Joe? I wish I’d said as much to your mother, before she died, but I wasn’t conscious of it at the time.
Look after yourself, Jozef Leonard Friedmann, and enjoy what’s left of the whisky.
Love, Vi.
P.S. Take care of Silver, won’t you? I know you’re not overly fond of each other, but he can’t have many years left, and I shouldn’t like to leave him orphaned.
The cat knows that Salt Winds is his for the night, and there’s nobody to shoo him off the kitchen table. He circles the clutter delicately, inspecting it all with trembling nostrils, but there’s nothing of interest. It’s just papers and photos, and a few pebbles.
Midnight, and fireworks flare over Tollbury Point. The cat’s ears twitch uneasily and he turns his head, but it’s only a distant rattle, and a few dilute flashes that turn his eyes red and gold. He decides he doesn’t care; he’s seen it all before.
The wind has dropped, but every now and then a gust will shiver in from the sea, carrying some fragment – a feather, a straw, a grain of sand, the scent of snow, the dainty bone of a bird – by way of an offering to the house.
Call of the Curlew
Once upon a time, a king lived with his daughter in a castle on the edge of a marsh. The daughter’s name was Isla.
It was a windy and desolate spot, but it was home and they loved it. Every morning the two of them would take a telescope to the window in the highest tower and sit for hours, studying the shifting lights on the waters and listening to the cries of the birds, until they understood the marsh as well as they understood their own thoughts.
Their nearest neighbour was the Baron, who lived half a day’s walk away, in a palace built of granite. Dark rumours swirled about him. It was said that if you looked carefully, you could see where his tongue forked at the tip. It was said that the rooms of his palace were painted black, and that he dined every night on raw gulls’ eggs. It was said that he’d had a wife, many years ago, and that he’d kept her in a cage.
The Baron pretended to be a friend to Isla and the king, but everybody knew he was eaten up with envy of them, and that he wanted nothing on earth so much as to have their castle, their lands, and all their possessions for himself.
One wintry afternoon – the very last of the year – Isla was sitting by the fire in the great hall with her chin in her hands. She brightened when her father appeared, and brightened even more when he placed a gift in her lap.
‘For you,’ he said. ‘A little wooden curlew. I found it on the path when I was out walking. I trod on it before I saw it, but it’s barely damaged; there’s a tiny crack along one wing, but you can hardly tell. Goodness knows whose it is, or where it came from.’
Isla was delighted with her father’s gift. The little bird was entirely lifelike, from the curve of its bill to the lie of its tiniest feather.
‘I hope nobody is missing it,’ she said, looking at the curlew this way and that.
‘I hope not,’ her father agreed. ‘But it seemed a shame to leave it lying when there’s snow on the way. Besides, the Baron will doubtless come riding along our path tomorrow, shooting game-birds with his crossbow and bringing us his New Year greetings. I’d be loath to let him crush it under his horse’s hooves.’
Isla nodded her agreement and said no more. She knew that the Baron was a false friend and the very mention of his name plunged her into a quiet gloom. She kept the curlew on her lap all evening, and when bedtime came she took it upstairs and placed it on the chair by her pillow.
By midnight the castle ought to have been dark and quiet. The king was asleep, and so were the servants, but Isla was up and dressed and creeping from her room with a candle in one hand and the curlew in the other. She made her way to her father’s door and knocked softly.
‘Isla?’ said the king, leaping in alarm as she entered. ‘What is it? Why are you wearing your coat and boots?’
‘Father,’ said Isla, setting the candle down. ‘Something extraordinary has happened. Just now, when I was putting my book away and blowing my candle out, the curlew began to speak.’
The king snorted.
‘No, really,’ she insisted, placing the bird in her father’s hands. ‘He spoke my name and started to sing, and when I asked why he sounded so sad he told me he was homesick.’
‘You’ve been dreaming,’ said the king, but the voice that answered was not his daughter’s. It was the voice of something strange and magical, like the cold whistle of the marshes mingled with the sighing of the sea.
‘Your Majesty,’ said the curlew, bobbing his head. ‘Your daughter is telling the truth.’
The king shuddered and his mouth fell open.
‘Saints preserve us!’ he cried, as soon as he’d found his voice. ‘Speak to me again, strange crea
ture! Tell me who you are, and how you come to be homesick?’
‘Oh, that’s a simple story, Your Majesty, and easily told. I am a piece of decorative carving from the bottom-left-hand corner of a four-poster bed. I left my proper place out of sheer curiosity, because I’d never been outside before, and I wanted to know what the wind would feel like on my wings. I shouldn’t have done it, but the door was open, and I couldn’t resist. Well, so much for curiosity. The wind whisked me up and whirled me across the marsh, dropping me on the path that leads to your castle. I lay there stunned, until you came stomping by in your boots and trod on me. So now my wing is cracked and I can’t fly, and since I can’t fly, I can’t take myself home.’
The king narrowed his eyes.
‘You say your home lies across the marsh?’
‘Yes, Your Majesty.’
‘But that’s impossible. There aren’t any lands across the marsh. There is only ocean, stretching on and on, to the edges of the earth.’
The curlew ruffled his finely carved feathers.
‘Maybe so,’ he replied. ‘And yet my beloved home does lie across the marsh, not three miles from where we are. It wasn’t there before sunset, and it won’t be there after midnight, but it is there now.’ And he snapped his bill shut in such a way that the king didn’t dare argue.
‘Father!’ Isla said. ‘Why argue with a magical bird? It’s clear we must take him back home at once. It would be wrong to keep him here against his will.’
The king cast a longing look at his bed, but he was a man of honour and he knew his duty.
‘Very well,’ he shivered. ‘Bring me my coat and boots.’
Isla smiled as she obeyed. She was young enough to enjoy the prospect of a nocturnal adventure.
‘Don’t worry, Father,’ she said. ‘Everything will be all right. You can walk in front with the lantern, and I’ll follow behind with the curlew.’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ the king replied testily. ‘Do you suppose I’m going to let my only child come too? I’ll go alone, or not at all. Return to your bed at once.’
Isla protested, but to no avail. The king wrapped himself up in his warmest clothes and put the curlew in his pocket. He kissed his daughter once upon the forehead, deaf to her pleas, and left the castle through a door in the outer wall.
Isla didn’t sleep a wink that night. She rose before dawn and began pacing the snowy battlements with her father’s telescope, torn between fear and hope. Every so often she would stop to squint at the marsh for some sign of his return.
At last, towards noon, when she was ready to despair, something moved at the corner of her eye. Eagerly she raised the telescope and swept it along the path, and bitterly she stamped her foot because it was not her father, but the Baron cantering towards her on his black mare, a crossbow over his shoulder and a brace of pheasants bouncing on his saddle.
Isla was just about to turn away when something else caught her eye. She refocused the telescope as quickly as she could, and watched whatever it was dart from the clouds and fly like an arrow at the Baron. The horse whinnied and reared, and the rider landed on his backside in the mud.
‘The curlew!’ Isla exclaimed.
She watched as the little wooden bird circled its furious victim, dodging the flailing whip and driving the horse to a frenzy. The Baron could not remount his frothing steed, nor (for he was vain) could he carry on to the castle with his breeches plastered in mud. He had no choice but to take hold of the horse’s bridle and walk all the way home, leaving the pheasants behind with their feet in the air. Isla almost laughed, despite everything, for she’d never seen anyone get the better of the Baron before.
‘Bravo!’ cried Isla, as the curlew flew to her. His body sagged when he landed on the battlements, as though he’d flown a thousand miles without rest. She stroked his wing, noting as she did so that the crack had healed to a trace-like scar. ‘But what of my father?’
‘He is safe on board the Curlew,’ said the bird. ‘He nearly drowned, but the crew managed to haul him over the side, and he is warm, dry and well.’
Isla shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. What is the Curlew?’
‘The Curlew is my home: a magical ship that sails the world, guided by its own sweet will. Your father will want for nothing on board – neither company, nor comfort, nor adventure.’
‘But when will he come back here, to me?’
The curlew shuffled uncomfortably and looked away. ‘Nobody has the power to change the ship’s course. Nobody. Not even the captain. And as for me – who am I? I’m nothing. A minor bit of decor off a four-poster bed.’
Isla stared at the bird.
‘What are you telling me? Do you mean to say that my father is gone for good?’
The bird dipped his head and Isla buried her face in her hands.
‘I will stay with you, in his place,’ said the curlew sadly. ‘It isn’t much, I know, but I’ve nothing else to offer.’
Years passed, and Isla never stopped thinking about her father, or wishing for his return. Every day – once upon waking and once before going to bed – she would stand on the old sea wall and scan the horizon. She saw a great deal: herons and geese and clouds of skylarks; approaching storms and primrose-coloured sunrises and a million different moods of sky and sea. Occasionally she saw ships, and if she peered very hard through her father’s telescope she sometimes made out their names. But she never saw the Curlew.
Meanwhile, the Baron longed with all his black heart to be master of the castle on the edge of the marsh. He was delighted by the king’s disappearance, because he thought it would be a simple matter to wrest the kingdom from a mere girl. He was surprised (though not greatly disheartened) when Isla resisted. He began to flatter and wheedle and threaten, and his determination did not flag, however often she said ‘No.’
In this matter, as in everything, the curlew was Isla’s friend and ally. When the Baron rode to the castle, the curlew lay in wait to frighten his horse. If the Baron came on foot, the curlew darted at him with his rapier-like bill, or dropped stones on his head, or sent him packing with his handsome clothes soiled.
On the rare occasions that the Baron reached the castle unharmed he complained to Isla, but she only laughed – and with more scorn than humour.
‘What sort of man allows himself to be humbled by a common wading bird?’ she demanded. ‘And a small specimen at that!’
It was a brave woman – or a foolish one – who mocked the Baron to his face. He joined in Isla’s laughter, but he clenched his fists as he did so, and his determination to best her only grew.
And then, one bleak December day, the curlew disappeared.
Isla was out walking and the curlew was at her side as usual, swooping over the marsh and making the emptiness echo and ring. Isla was so deep in thought that she failed to notice when his whistling stopped, and it wasn’t until she reached the gatehouse and looked around that she was struck by the depth of the silence.
‘Curlew!’ she shouted. When there was no reply she called again, and again, before retracing her steps. She climbed on to the wall and gazed over the marsh, but there was nothing to see. Everything was as still as usual: the browns and silvers of the flat expanse, the dead sky, the far-off hulk of the Baron’s palace.
All so still, except – what was that? Isla stood on tiptoe and craned her neck. Something was moving away from her, miles along the road, a tiny speck, no bigger than a fly.
After a moment she said, ‘Oh,’ and rocked back on her heels. She knew what that was. It was the Baron on his black horse, galloping away at breakneck speed, the crossbow bumping on his back.
As soon as she got back home, Isla ran to the highest room of the highest tower, where she knew she could think in peace. She took the telescope with her and searched the sky, but she did it without hope. The Baron was behind the curlew’s disappearance. She knew it.
Overcome with despair, she dropped into the chair by the window. This castle wasn’t built
to keep people out. With her father gone, and the curlew too, there was nothing to stop the Baron from doing as he pleased. He would come and take her father’s place, and she could scream and struggle all she liked – it would make no difference in the end.
The winter afternoon passed into night, and Isla sat in the dark, turning the telescope round in her hands and awaiting her fate. She didn’t cry, not even when she heard hooves on the path and the rhythmic, clinking beat of the Baron’s approach.
Isla couldn’t bear to watch him arrive, so she looked at the horizon instead and glimpsed a light, far away, on the other side of the marsh. A golden light, like a fallen star, dancing on the edge of the sea.
Her mouth went dry. ‘It’s just an ordinary ship,’ she said aloud, lifting her father’s telescope to her eye. Some time passed before she was able to keep the instrument steady, and in the meantime the Baron knocked with his fist on the castle door: boom, boom, boom.
It was a ship, Isla was right about that. It was a great galleon, painted in rich colours, and starred all over with lanterns. She tried to read the name on the prow, but the ship was rolling as it strained against its anchors and she couldn’t make it out.
Down below, the black horse whinnied.
The wind dropped for a second and the ship abandoned its battle with the waves. It was a tiny pause, but it was enough.
‘The Curlew,’ she whispered, as she lowered the telescope.
Isla emerged into the wind and clambered over the flint wall. She began to run across the squelchy grass, holding her lantern high. After a minute she stopped to catch her breath and look back.
The Baron had seen her, and he was cursing and thrashing his horse, trying to force it over the wall and on to the marsh in pursuit. The creature pranced backwards and sideways and neighed with terror, but its master was too strong. Together, they flew over the wall and broke into a gallop.
Isla began to run in earnest. She should have been more careful; should have tried to manage without a light. If the horse kept up this pace, the Baron would catch her in no time. To make matters worse, the ground was getting sticky underfoot, and each step felt heavier than the last. She blundered on, but the horse’s hooves thundered ever closer and she could hear the Baron’s shouts above the crack of his whip.
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