by Heide Goody
Owen drew up by the island and tossed a rope to Bastian. Once tied up, Owen lowered the gangplank.
Carol practically bounded down the gangplank and nearly tripped into Bastian’s arms. Bastian found himself bizarrely disappointed that she hadn’t, which was an entirely impure thought for a monk to have and quite unlike him.
“Glad to be back?” he said.
“Wish I’d never left,” she grinned. “But here we are.”
“All thirty-eight of you.”
“Thirty-nine now, actually.”
“Thirty-nine?” said Stephen.
A broad-shouldered and jowly figure wearing a many-pocketed fishing jacket and what looked like snakeskin boots strode down the gangplank and enveloped Bastian’s hand in a meaty handshake.
“Chuck Katzenburger,” he said. “And you would be Brother Sebastian.”
Bastian was stunned.
“The Chuck Katzenburger?”
“I should hope so. I took out copyright on my own name when I opened my first shop.”
Katzenburger laughed at this but Bastian couldn’t tell if he was joking.
“Oh, you know each other?” said Carol.
“This is Chuck Katzenburger,” said Bastian unnecessarily. “Possible descendent of King Arthur.”
“Sir Gawain, please,” said the Texan. “I have some modesty.”
“How did those skeletons work out for you?” asked Bastian, and had to forcibly stop himself from automatically declaring that it was too late for a refund.
“The guys at MIT say the DNA tests are inconclusive, but what do those wet liberals know? I’ve shipped them off to a science lab in France. Expensive, for sure, but they promise positive results. Say what you like about the French –”
“Armpits!” shouted Father Eustace.
“– but they don’t screw around when it comes to science. They invented that black hole machine, didn’t they?” He stamped his foot on the beach. “So, this is Wales, is it? Do I need to show someone my passport?”
Bastian swung his arm to indicate the mainland.
“This is all Wales.”
Katzenburger grunted to himself.
“Don’t reckon much to the border security. Didn’t even notice it.”
“I’m not sure they’re particularly worried about people trying to sneak in and out of Wales,” said Carol. “We met Mr Katzenburger in Aberdaron.”
“Came to my ancestral homeland and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see your rare bird,” said the American.
“Well,” said Stephen with a nervous grin, “the yellow-crested Merlin stilt is quite an elusive bird.”
“Dead!” declared Father Eustace.
“Dead hard to spot,” Bastian agreed without a pause.
Katzenburger laughed throatily and patted a large pouch at his side.
“Not with these bins, brother. Sixty mil lenses and fifteen times magnification. Would have cost me at least three grand even if I’d bothered to haggle.”
“Oh, good,” said Bastian. “High powered binoculars.”
“Great,” said Stephen.
“Gangway!” called Owen and strode ashore with a fat, square cardboard box. He placed it down between Bastian and the abbot. Owen looked Father Eustace up and down.
“Hello. You’re a new face. Don’t recall bringing you across.”
“Well, you didn’t,” said Stephen. “You remember, this is –”
“What is this?” said Bastian, looking at the box.
“It’s marked Oporto,” said Owen. “I’ve got another four boxes on the boat.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Bastian. “They’ve arrived.”
“What?” said Stephen.
Bastian ripped the box open.
“My Portuguese business partner has come through. Two thousand souvenir models.”
He thrust his hands into the packing foam and pulled one free.
“Rubber chicken!” declared Father Eustace which was, unfortunately, a more than accurate description of what Bastian held in his hand.
“No, this can’t be,” whispered Bastian. “Scale models of the yellow-crested Merlin stilt made from quality synthetics. That’s what I ordered.”
Katzenburger leaned over his shoulder.
“Rubber chicken, brother,” he concluded. “I hope the real thing is more impressive.”
“Me too,” said Bastian sadly. “Now, if everyone would care to follow me. Brother Stephen and the abbot have other matters to attend to.”
The second chick had indeed pipped and, on the kitchen table, each in its slipper cocoon, the two yellow-crested Merlin stilt chicks were slowly but surely breaking out of their shells. Tiny beaks appeared at the holes they had made, nibbled at the shell, and disappeared again.
Manfred did not have long to wait. He shucked off his robe and began to pull on his mother bird costume. It was a one-piece outfit, not wholly dissimilar in form to his habit. However, the similarity ended there. Manfred’s bird costume was made from white linen and covered in more than three hundred feather-shaped tassels. He had hand-stitched all of them, adding silver thread and sequins to more than a few of them. His hood was topped with an outrageous comb of yellow woollen dreadlocks. His arm sleeves, far longer than his arms, ended in sealed feather-trimmed wingtips. His hands poked through embroidered slits in the undersides of the wings and it was with these that he placed his balsawood beak mask over his face.
He admired his reflection in the base of a hanging saucepan.
“Just like the real thing,” sighed Manfred happily, whilst inwardly admitting that his glittery confection wouldn’t look out of place at a Rio carnival or a Gay Pride parade.
One of the eggs cracked further and one of the chicks cheeped.
“Don’t worry,” he called. “Mummy’s here!”
Brother Vernon peered over the ridge and looked down. Several dozen assorted birdwatchers were wending their way along the island’s coastal path. At Bastian’s distant cry of “Look over there!” Vernon turned to Brother Gillespie.
“That’s the signal, daddio. Launch Robo-Bird.”
“I thought we agreed on Aviatronic One,” sniffed the infirmarian.
“It was always Robo-Bird,” said Brother Vernon.
“Only in your head. Look what it says on the plans.”
Brother Gillespie pointed at the drawing sketched on a paper bag and some indecipherable scribble in one corner.
“Just press the bloody button,” said Brother Vernon.
“Look over where?” said Carol.
“Oh,” said Bastian, scanning the ridge. “I’m sure I saw something.” He cleared his throat and bellowed. “Look! Over there!”
A shape pinged up from ground level and began circling the island hilltop. There was a collective intake of breath and the sound of thirty-plus binoculars and cameras being brought to bear.
“What’s it doing?” said a twitcher, behind Bastian.
“Hard to say,” he replied.
“Its wings are barely flapping at all,” said Katzenburger.
“I’m sure they are.”
“And it’s just going round and round over that one point.”
“Maybe it’s spotted some food.”
“Doesn’t it eat fish and the like?” said another birdwatcher.
“Who can say?” said Bastian. “We are the first to study its behaviour in decades.”
“Damn odd behaviour,” said Katzenburger.
“Go on,” said Brother Vernon. “Don’t be a square. Give it some welly!”
Brother Gillespie wiped away a runny nose with the back of his hand and dutifully turned up the power on the dismantled strimmer. The engine spun faster, spooling out more strimming wire and sending the papier mâché bird higher, wider and faster.
“That’s more like it,” laughed Vernon.
“I’m getting dizzy just looking at it,” said Gillespie, taking a much-needed lie down, safely out of the reach of the spinning wire.
“T
hat is astonishing behaviour,” said Carol.
“Isn’t it just?” said Bastian.
“What could be its purpose?” asked a birdwatcher.
“Maybe it’s riding on volcanic thermals,” suggested Katzenburger. “Staying in the one spot to gain height.”
“I’m not sure there are any volcanoes in this part of the world,” said Carol.
“No,” agreed Bastian, “otherwise that would have been a believable explanation.”
The bird whirled round in ever faster circles, pushed outwards by centrifugal forces.
“It can’t keep doing it forever,” said a twitcher.
“No,” said Bastian. “I suppose eventually it must –”
He hoped that he imagined rather than heard the snap of the wire tethering the bird but certainly everyone saw the bird cease its crazy gyrations and shoot off in a high arc across the island.
“Blimey! Look at the speed of that thing!” exclaimed someone towards the back.
“Where did it go?” cried another.
“To the other end of the island perhaps,” suggested Bastian. “Maybe we might be able to spot it again if we go to the hide.”
A shape wheeled over Rutspud’s head and smacked against the rocks behind him.
“What was that?”
Stephen picked up the pulverised model.
“I guess it means it’s our turn.”
Rutspud’s bird-arm pecked absently at an outcropping of grass.
“I’m not a gifted puppeteer, you know,” he said.
Stephen stuffed the papier mâché evidence in his habit pocket.
“You’re the best we’ve got,” he said. “You’ll be great.”
“So, this is your second hide?” said Carol as they approached the cove.
“Yes,” said Bastian. “We rebuilt it after deciding that the original simply wasn’t robust enough for our needs.”
“I thought you said it fell down,” she said.
Bastian see-sawed his hand as he led Carol, Katzenburger and half dozen others inside.
“More sort of fell off than fell down,” he said. “Some bits of it are still washing up on the island.”
The new hide was indeed a sturdier and more safely secured affair than its predecessor, but Bastian, rocked by one bad experience, still felt uneasy inside it. Carol fearlessly approached the viewing window in the far floor of the hide and looked down the cliff side.
“It’s amazing that the collapse didn’t strike the nest, destroying the eggs or killing the birds.”
“Yes,” said Bastian, finding himself oddly able to tell the truth for once. “The hide completely missed the nest and, in no way caused the death of either bird.”
“There are eggs in the nest,” said one of the birdwatchers.
“Indeed,” said Bastian. “Due to hatch any day now.”
“For the life of me, I can’t help but think that they look like ping pong balls with splodges of blue paint on them.”
“They do, don’t they?” agreed Bastian, laughing.
It was only then that he spotted a small tin of blue paint and paintbrush among some rags and tools in the corner of the hide. He shuffled sideways, ostensibly to make room for others, and placed himself in front of the incriminating tin.
“There it is!” said Katzenburger and pointed out of the front viewing slit in the hide. “Over on the other side!”
Bastian felt his chest tighten. This would be Stephen’s puppet bird, a creation that Bastian had not yet seen or had the opportunity to approve. He knew in his heart that if Katzenburger could focus his super-binoculars on it for more than a second, the ruse would be uncovered and the game would be up. Bastian crouched, grabbed, and stood again, preparing to ‘accidentally’ throw paint on the lenses of the Texan’s binoculars.
“My God!” said Katzenburger. “Are you guys seeing this?”
Bastian offered up a silent prayer and brought his arm back in readiness to throw.
“Truly magnificent!” said Katzenburger.
“What?” said Bastian.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Carol.
“Is it?” said Bastian and scrabbled for his own binoculars that he had been previously afraid to use.
On the western side of the cove, Rutspud and Stephen lay down beneath a rocky outcrop, Rutspud with his bird-arm held up over the edge of the rocks. Rutspud paraded his resurrected bird appendage back and forth, bending, pecking and preening in a remarkably lifelike display. For no discernible reason, in a throaty voice from the corner of his mouth, Rutspud provided a little ventriloquist commentary for the bird ...
“Oh, what’s this? I’m going over here. Peck, peck. Mmmm, delicious grass. What’s that? Is it another bird? Look up. Is it a female? I’m so lonely since those sodding monks electrocuted my mate. Sigh. Peck, peck.”
“You’ve clearly missed your calling,” said Stephen.
“I should have been a bird?”
“You should have been a puppeteer.”
“No thanks. We have whole pits full of puppeteers, shadow players, and Punch and Judy men down in Hell.”
Stephen considered this.
“Is this because puppetry is a mockery of life and only God has the right to create true life?”
“No,” said Rutspud. “Because they’re horrible and nobody likes them.”
“What about clowns?”
“Don’t get me started.”
By late afternoon, the birdwatchers had been on the go since their arrival and, having had at least one good sighting of that rare and beautiful bird, were ready for a break.
Bastian led them to the monastery, through the walled gardens, and down to the visitors’ centre and the new dormitories. Once settled, they were directed up to the refectory for an early tea.
“Ambient sea sounds?” said Carol, cocking an ear to the sounds emanating from the kitchen.
“The prior’s an old hippy,” said Bastian. “It’d be all joss sticks and chanting nonsense too, if we let him have his own way.”
“Isn’t being a monk all about joss sticks and chanting nonsense?” said Carol.
Bastian was about to rebuke her and then saw the smile on her face.
“It’s called incense, Miss Well-Dunn,” he said. “Incense and prayer.”
The birdwatchers found their own tables, or slotted themselves among the monks who had come in for tea. Chuck Katzenburger sat down on a table of brothers, taking up space enough for three monks, not because he was a big man, but because he had a certain presence and a way with his elbows that generated room around him.
“Hi guys,” he said. “Or toodle pip or whatever you Englishmen say.”
“Afternoon,” said Brother Henry. “A successful day out on the hills?”
“Saw the rarest and most beautiful sight,” said Katzenburger and patted his binocular pouch. “But there’s not much that escapes these bad boys.”
Brother Desmond, on kitchen duty, came out and laid plates of rough bread chunks and bowls of brown soup down on the table.
“And what have you been up to today?” asked Katzenburger. “Illuminating your manuscripts or something?”
“Painting seagulls yellow,” said Brother Terry, sniffing at the soup.
Katzenburger frowned.
“And why you do that?”
Brother Cecil kicked Brother Terry’s knobbly knees under the table and grinned gappily at Katzenburger.
“Brother Terry here is an impressionist painter. He likes to sketch and paint the local wildlife. And, it turns out, he’s painted the seagulls … yellow.”
“Ah,” said Katzenburger and tucked into his soup. “Interesting flavour.”
“It is,” said Brother Roland. “Not had this one before.”
“Meaty,” said Brother Cecil.
“And yet earthy.”
“And this bread,” said Katzenburger. “Is it baked with Parmesan or something because it smells of …”
“Feet,” said Brother
Cecil. “Almost as though it’s been cooked in the same oven as a pair of old slippers. Funny that, huh?”
Brother Roland turned toward the kitchen and called out, “Manfred, what soup is this?”
“Mealworm,” said Brother Desmond, returning with further bowls.
Manfred leaned out of the kitchen swing doors and gave the monks a questioning thumbs up.
“I think he’s trying out recipes for foodstuffs for the chicks,” said Brother Desmond.
“Ah,” said the assembled monks, utterly mollified, and tucked into their food.
Katzenburger put down his spoon.
“And you’re happy eating mealworm soup and foot-flavoured bread?”
Brother Cecil looked the American in the eye.
“There were whole months when we had nothing to eat but seaweed cake and camomile tea. Bread and worms? This is bloody luxury, mate.”
“Fair enough,” said Katzenburger gamely. “But another thing …”
“Yes?”
“That man in the kitchen. I couldn’t help but notice that he was dressed up like a giant bird.”
“No, he wasn’t,” said Bastian, drawing swiftly near.
“I think he was,” said Carol.
“Ah, yes. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for that.”
“Is there?”
Bastian’s mind had gone into freefall and even he was surprised at where it landed. “He’s on an exchange visit.”
“He’s what now?” said Katzenburger.
“Brother, um … Popo. Brother Umpopo is on an exchange visit from Papua New Guinea. He’s simply wearing the traditional garb of his local order of monks.”
“My!” said Katzenburger, impressed.
“But wasn’t that Brother Manfred in there?” said Carol. “He’s from Germany, not New Guinea.”
“Was it?” said Bastian. “No. Definitely not. That would mean I was lying to you and that’s clearly not the case.”
Carol folded her arms. The otherwise delightful lady was turning into a small compact block of angry woman.
“Maybe you ought to bring Brother Umpopo out here so we can discuss the matter with him.”