The Dinosaur Feather

by S. J. Gazan

  The door to the master bedroom was open and Clive could hear the water running in the master bathroom. He looked into the bedroom and saw Kay’s suitcase on the bed. At that moment, she appeared from the bathroom. She glanced briefly at Clive. They heard a key turn in the front door.

  “Mom,” Franz called out. “Where are you?”

  Kay went downstairs. Clive heard her say something.

  “No, just go sit in the car,” Franz replied.

  Franz climbed the stairs to the landing where Clive stood. Franz was tall and tanned, and he worked out. He walked past his father and picked up Kay’s suitcase.

  “You’re an idiot, Dad,” Franz said quietly, on his way back.

  “And you’re a mama’s boy,” Clive retorted.

  Franz sighed and walked down the stairs with the suitcase. Clive couldn’t understand how he had managed to produce such a useless and pathetic excuse for a man. All brawn and no brain. Shortly afterward, he heard Franz rev the engine and drive off.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, the saucepan had boiled dry and the eggs were blackened.

  The first three days he sequestered himself in the house. He unplugged the telephone, switched off his cell phone, and didn’t check his e-mails. On the third day, the temptation to look became too great, but Kay hadn’t called or e-mailed him. Nor was there anything from Jack.

  The kitchen looked a mess. On his first day alone, Clive opened every cupboard and lined up cans and dry foods to take stock of the situation. He had seemed to be well provided for, he had thought at the time, but his supply was dwindling fast. He went down the road to shop and as he walked, he pinched his nostrils. He and Kay had never had a real falling out. During their marriage she had walked out—once—and had been gone for three hours after an argument, but she had never left the family home for three days. He didn’t like it.

  Inside the supermarket, Clive got a cart and stomped angrily up and down the aisles. He bought plenty of cakes, corn on the cob, packets of cold cuts, toilet paper, two bags of chips, and a case of beer. The supermarket was practically deserted; it was mid-morning and the obese woman at the checkout was in a chatty mood. When all his groceries had been scanned, she helped him pack and when he picked up the bags, she said, “So, welcome to Patbury Hill. Probably won’t be the last time we’ll be seeing each other. You’ll always have to go shopping.” She laughed and winked at Clive. Clive glared at her.

  “I’ve lived here for more than twenty-five years,” he snarled.

  The woman looked at him and giggled.

  “Is that right? I don’t remember ever seeing you before,” she replied.

  Clive turned on his heel and left.

  When he got back, he sat down in his armchair with a small selection of cakes. He looked at his lawn. When he sat very still, the house felt so quiet, it was almost as if he didn’t exist.

  Franz and Tom were both married and Clive didn’t really know them anymore. They had become rather remote since having children of their own. Young children were such hard work. When his own boys had been small, Clive would often sleep at his office to avoid the sleepless nights. Now Franz managed a gym, and Tom had an executive position with Canada Post. How hard could that be? His sons would come over for dinner every now and then, and they saw each other at birthdays and holidays—obviously—but it had been years since he and the boys had done something together. What a pair of sissies! They were always hugging Kay and chatting with her in the kitchen, when they should be manning the barbecue with their father. Somehow Clive had always felt a closer bond to Jack.

  Michael Kramer called to ask why Clive hadn’t been at work. He tried to coax him by telling him they had plenty of promising research results to analyze; the project would finish in two weeks and then they could write their report. With a bit of luck, they could show up at the 27th International Bird Symposium in Copenhagen in October with a poster. They had roughly ten weeks to get it done.

  “Sounds great,” Clive said. “You work it. I’m taking some sick leave. I’ve got an ear infection.”

  “At your age?” Michael sounded surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay?” his protégé asked.

  “Never felt better,” Clive said and ended the call.

  He sat holding the telephone for a while, then he called Kay. “‘New evidence is pouring out of the ground, Clive,’” he mimicked, while the telephone rang in his son and daughter-in-law’s house. Never heard such rubbish. There was nothing “new” about these bones, his idiot opponents had merely invented more fanciful interpretations. Franz’s wife answered. She sounded polite, but a little curt. Finally, Kay came to the telephone.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “How long are you planning on staying away? Come home, Kay. The place is a total mess.”

  “Is that your way of apologizing?”

  “Yes,” Clive said, laughing. “You know what I’m like. I’m a scientist. Come on home, honey.”

  “Clive,” Kay said, “you don’t hit someone you love. And you don’t call three days later and pretend it’s no big deal, like you just did.” She hung up.

  He called back immediately, but no one picked up the telephone.

  During three more days and nights when Clive barely slept, he wrote a paper. His manifesto. When he had finished, he printed it out, placed the document on his desk, and took a nap. He dreamt about Jack, but the dream turned into a nightmare. Jack and Michael had both… they were… no, he couldn’t stand the thought of it. Jack and Michael couldn’t be compared, they weren’t even in the same league, and the mere thought that they…. Clive woke and touched his head. The sun had moved above the house and had been shining directly at his face while he snoozed. His stomach rumbled, but he had no appetite. He had tried every premade meal sold at the supermarket, every frozen pizza and casserole, every can and carton, and he felt sick. Their freezer was filled with food, but all of it required cooking. The previous day Clive had defrosted a leg of lamb and put it in the oven. How hard could it be? He promptly forgot all about it and when he finally detected the smell of roasting meat and raced to the kitchen, the surface of the meat was hard and dry. He picked at it, but it didn’t taste anything like it did when Kay cooked it. It tasted of burnt fabric.

  He rose and fetched his manifesto. He wanted to have it published, not in a journal, but as a small book. On its cover would be a 3D depiction of Archaeopteryx—without this “new” femur that Helland and Tybjerg had conjured out of thin air, and which was now reproduced in every recent print of the bird. In Clive’s edition, Archaeopteryx would look exactly as it did when it was found in Solnhofen in 1877. Obviously Clive had been meticulous when he measured it in 1999. It was the most beautiful little bird in the whole world.

  Clive sat down in the conservatory to proofread his text. His plan was to have it ready by the time he flew to Denmark.

  He was deep in thought when there was a knock on the door. Someone put a key in the lock and Franz appeared.

  “Hi, Dad,” he said, quickly.

  Clive straightened up and reached out for the manuscript, which had slipped into his lap.

  “Hello, Franz,” he replied, pushing up his glasses. “Do you want some coffee?”

  Franz hesitated, then he shook his head.

  “No, I’m a bit busy,” he said. “I’ve come to pick up some clothes and books for Mom.” He went upstairs. Clive stayed where he was and pretended to read. When Franz came back down he was holding a bag in one hand and, draped over his other arm, a garment bag containing Kay’s black dress with polished anthracite stones. Clive loved that dress. It hugged Kay’s hips and on the rare occasions when she wore it, she let her hair down and it would curl around her shoulders. The last time they had had sex had been an evening she had worn it. That was a very long time ago.

  “What are you doing with that dress?” he demanded, hoarsely.

  “Mom asked me to get it,” Franz replied.

  “No,” Clive sa
id. “That dress stays here.” He grabbed the garment bag.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Franz said, firmly. “Mom needs it.”

  “Why?”

  “Molly and Jack are taking her to the theater,” Franz replied.

  “No,” Clive said, snatching the dress.

  Franz got mad and yanked the dress back from Clive. He stopped in the doorway and looked at his father.

  “I don’t understand you anymore,” he said. “Not that I ever really have. But now I don’t understand you at all.” And he was gone.

  Clive spent the rest of the afternoon trying not to think about Kay going to the theater with Molly and Jack. It was impossible. Jack in black tie, clean-shaven, his hair freshly cut, a look of concentration in his guarded eyes, his mouth relaxed and soft for once. Next to him, Kay in that black dress, pale and beautiful, sitting in an upholstered seat surrounded by expectant theatergoers, Molly’s hand resting on hers in sympathy.

  The four of them had been to the opera that spring, and it had been a magical evening. During intermission they had drunk a little too much prosecco and after the intermission, Kay accidentally sat down first, so Clive ended up between her and Jack. Clive was so thrilled to be sitting between the two people who meant the most to him in all the world that he could barely concentrate on the second act. Kay had slipped her hand in his, and all down his right side he could feel a quivering heat from Jack when he shifted in his seat, when he laughed, when he leaned forward.

  Jack and Kay going to the theater without him was an unforgivable act of betrayal.

  This conclusion calmed him down. The human animal was fundamentally lonely, but in contrast to sentimental daydreamers, he had faced up to it. His priority now was the restoration of his professional reputation. Kay would come back sooner or later. Besides, she had no money.

  Three weeks later, Clive was back at the department of Bird Evolution, Paleobiology, and Systematics. He cycled to the university and strode down the corridor. Michael emerged from his laboratory.

  “Clive, my man,” he said. “Good to have you back.”

  “Good morning,” Clive said, marching past the younger man to his office. The air was dusty and stuffy, so he opened the windows. His secretary entered shortly afterward with a pile of letters. Rumors of his return spread quickly, and at lunchtime Clive accepted Michael’s invitation to join him and the rest of the team in the cafeteria. They were all delighted to see him.

  After lunch they started preparatory work on their poster. Clive and Michael reviewed the results from the cartilage condensation experiment, which looked very hopeful. Michael showed him microscope images of the various developmental stages. It was clear the primary cartilage formation in embryonic birds resulted in the carpal bone, the fourth metacarpal bone and the development of the fourth finger, which meant the bird hand couldn’t have evolved from the dinosaur hand, unless it was an example of mutation in both the symmetry of the fingers and in the hand’s existing central axis, and that was highly unlikely—obviously. Clive whistled softly. It was all very encouraging. The scent of cologne rose from the V-neck of Michael’s T-shirt and tickled Clive’s nose. If Michael hadn’t had a wife and two children, it would have been tempting to assume… Clive edged away from Michael a little.

  “I’m buying you all dinner at the steakhouse,” he burst out. “Time to celebrate!” Besides Michael, he invited John, Angela, Piper, his secretary Ann, the two PhD students, and two new masters students. His loyal team.

  None of them could make it. Michael had promised to babysit.

  Clive spent the evening trawling through the program for the 27th Bird Symposium on the web. Tybjerg, that egomaniac, was giving no fewer than four lectures, which came as no surprise to Clive, but he was extremely surprised to discover that Helland’s name didn’t appear anywhere. Helland, who never attended symposia outside Europe, finally had the chance to put forward his nonsense ideas in his home country, so why not take it? Very odd. On checking his inbox, Clive realized that it had been a while since he had last heard from Helland. He started rereading their correspondence but soon stopped. He knew no one as snide and mean as Lars Helland, and it ruined his good mood.

  It was mild outside and when Clive had opened the French doors, he called Michael to discuss the poster. Michael’s daughter picked up the telephone.

  “I’m sorry, Professor Freeman, I’m afraid my dad’s not here,” she said.

  “So who’s looking after you?” Clive asked.

  The girl laughed.

  “I’m fifteen and my sister is thirteen, so we can manage on our own.”

  Clive was affronted.

  “So where’s your father?” he asked.

  “I think he had a meeting at the university,” the girl replied.

  Clive thanked her and hung up.

  He stared into space for a moment. Then he returned to his computer and clicked on the homepage of the Natural History Museum in Copenhagen where he discovered, to his delight, that they were putting on an exhibition about feathers. His joy, however, was short-lived. The title of the exhibition was “From Dino to Duvet.” Would it never end? He bet Tybjerg was the curator of that blasted exhibition. One day, probably when Clive was dead and buried, sadly, natural history museums the world over would hang their heads in shame at how wrong they had been.

  Clive heard nothing from Jack, and Kay remained with Franz. Clive was annoyed she hadn’t bothered coming home yet, but he wouldn’t have time to do anything about it until after the symposium. His future career depended on the condensation experiment and the Copenhagen conference, and he needed space to think. At night he dreamt of Jack. Dark, freaky dreams, filled with sounds and Jack’s face lighting up in flashes, so all Clive had time to see was Jack’s snarling upper lip. He started taking half a sleeping pill and, to his relief, the nights became black and empty once more.

  On October 9 Michael and Clive flew to Copenhagen. He usually loathed the journey across the Atlantic, but when Michael secured them an upgrade to business class, his irritation melted away. Clive had gone to the lavatory and when he returned, there was Michael, grinning from ear to ear, and waving the boarding passes at him. They sat in supreme comfort the whole flight, discussing the presentation, while attractive cabin crew served drinks and snacks. Clive noticed how attentive and deferential Michael was. After Michael had finished his PhD, he had gone through a phase of wanting to decide everything for himself. Clive had been most offended. When you navigated a scientific minefield, as Clive did, you needed loyal support and not childish attempts at independence. He noted with delight that Michael had been brought to heel. He made hardly any objections, and when he did, his observations were insightful and only contributed to honing Clive’s argument. Somewhere across the Atlantic, Clive was overcome by an urge to confide in Michael.

  “I’ve a feeling this will be my last time,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Michael said, stretching out in his seat.

  “I don’t know…” Clive hesitated. What exactly was he trying to say?

  “The presentation is good,” Michael prompted him. “The experiment bears scrutiny.”

  “Yes, perhaps that’s what it’s about,” Clive replied. He looked out of the window. To the west, the setting sun painted the clouds beneath them tomato red, to the east, the European night awaited them, black and alien.

  “My life seems to have reached a turning point,” he said. “I’m thinking of retiring, if the presentation is a success.” He had no idea what had triggered this.

  Michael looked as if he was about to say something and he shifted uneasily, but when Clive finally looked up, Michael was engrossed in a magazine.

  The hotel in Copenhagen was called Ascot and was located in the side street of a large, ugly square. The rooms were tiny and claustrophobic, and the sheets felt greasy, as though the washing machine had a faulty rinse cycle. There was no minibar. Clive called reception to get the code for wireless access, and having uploaded h
is presentation and the latest corrections to his server back in Canada, he fell asleep.

  Wednesday morning Michael and Clive had breakfast in a large hall, which was half-empty and freezing cold. They had just sat down to scrambled eggs and newspapers, when two tall men entered through the revolving doors at the far end of the room. Clive watched them while they looked around. They began strolling in the direction of Clive and Michael’s table. Michael was eating and reading his newspaper and didn’t look up until the men were right next to them.

  “Professor Freeman?” one of them asked, politely.

  Clive stared at him. If Kay had died, he would… he would…. He didn’t know what he would do. He closed his eyes.

  “Professor Clive Freeman?” the man repeated.

  Michael nudged Clive, and Clive opened his eyes.

  “Yes,” he croaked.

  “I’m Superintendent Søren Marhauge from the Copenhagen Police. Could we have a word with you?” His English was perfect and fluent.

  “Is it about my wife?” Clive whispered. The man smiled.

  “It’s not about your wife or any of your family,” he said calmly. “It’s about Professor Helland.”

  Clive was in shock. When the interview had finished and he left the police station, a young police officer had to help him into a taxi, as though Clive were an old man. The police officer placed his hand between Clive’s head and the car for protection, as Clive had seen the police do with criminals. They had all his e-mails. The tall superintendent with the dark eyes had spread them out on the table in front of him. He was about to argue this was illegal, but it occurred to him that it probably wasn’t. Lars Helland was dead, and the police were investigating all options, as Marhauge diplomatically phrased it, but Clive knew perfectly well what it meant. It meant Helland had been murdered. Marhauge had looked at him for a long time, scrutinizing him, Clive thought.