by Alex Horne
We parked the car at 6.50 a.m. feeling pleased with ourselves – we’d made good time. But as soon as we opened our doors we heard the honks of what must have been a million geese. We’re too late, I thought. They got up even earlier than us.
It was basically still night-time, so we stumbled down to the hide, feeling our way with frozen fingers, thrilled to be so far from home so early in the morning so near to Christmas.
Ten minutes later we were sitting, alone, in the igloo-like hide, watching the sun rise and cast its light on the geese. There were lots of geese. ‘Blimey!’ said Tim, ‘there are bloody loads of them!’ We started spotting them slowly at first, a couple on the mudflats, a few in a field; then, as our eyes started to work properly, they were everywhere. Each bit of land had a goose on it, and each goose was muttering to himself, as excited as us by what was already a stunning sunrise.
But I was disappointed. There were lots of geese and that’s always nice, but I’d wanted to see them arrive. That’s what David had recommended and I’d missed it on my final trip. I’d made Tim get up at 4 a.m. on the first day of his holiday to witness the spectacle but we hadn’t got there in time. I’d failed again.
But then, at 7.30 a.m., just as people all over the country were staggering out of their beds towards the kettle, the geese went mental. They started screaming. Our spines started tingling. ‘What the hell are they doing?’ whispered Tim. I didn’t know. It was as if they were all listening to a Norwich match on tiny headphones – perhaps their great Milk Cup final against Sunderland at Wembley in 1985 – and thirty-four-year-old Asa Hartford had just scored his winner, they all went crazy, flapping their wings, shrieking their lungs out and then, unable to stand still any longer, invading the pitch. Inspired by one fearless goose, they all took off, thousands of them, flying as one up into the sky, they swarmed the dawn, swirling this way and that in celebration.
‘So are they all just pissing off?’ Tim asked me.
‘I guess so,’ I replied.
I realised I’d misunderstood David. I’d thought the geese were going to arrive at dawn. Actually they were going to leave and we’d had to get here before they departed, en masse, a mighty march across the sky. We watched in awe for another hour as they split into groups of Vs, zooming in and out of the sun like the helicopters in Apocalypse Now. It was an unforgettable sight: blue sky, red sun, white frost and a black cloud of 20,000 pink-footed geese and bean geese – not a bad way to start the day or the Christmas holidays. Or, indeed, to end the year. I can still make myself smile by recalling their movement, their cries and Tim’s face. That’s priceless. This was my ornithological Istanbul.
As a reward for his loyalty, I’d given Tim my new bird guide to use in the hide so I was looking through Mat’s old Collins. As I fumbled my way through to the bean goose page, I found two things in the front that I’d never spotted before. The first, this note to Mat from Grandpa:
The second was a dedication from the authors:
To our long-suffering wives:
‘she laments, sir … her husband/goes this morning a-birding’ Shakespeare – Merry Wives of Windsor
For some reason these made my spine start to tingle all over again.
Eventually we emerged blinking from the hide and went for a quick circuit of the reserve, alternately walking and jogging to keep warm, spotting the odd bird as we went (including ten curlews flying in perfect formation), mainly enjoying cracking the frozen puddles with our boots.
On the way home we stopped in a town called Swaffham for an enormous ‘double bubble’ fry-up, served by terrifying tattooed women clutching babies and cigarettes while cooking. That was also, unfortunately, an unforgettable sight.
I dropped Tim back at his home, got to Kensal Green in time for lunch and went to bed, two more species tacked on to my list. I was now forty-seven ahead of Duncton and far too wound up to sleep.
20 December
Midhurst doesn’t have a train station. It did, for ninety-eight years and one day, but after the decline of the railways and the rise of the motorcar, it was closed to passengers in February 1955, then to freight in October 1964. So, whenever I wanted to buy Doc Martens from Carnaby Street or Iron Maiden T-shirts from HMV during my regrettable teenage Kerrang! phase, Duncton or Mum had to drive me up to Haslemere and I’d catch the train from there to Waterloo.
On the day of my museum appointment, I felt surprisingly pensive as I made that trip again, in reverse. Speeding down through New Malden, Woking and Guildford, out of the city this time, back towards the countryside I’d hurried away from as a kid, I tried to work out why I was returning, why I was looking for this small piece of pot after all these years.
By the time we pulled in I’d almost worked it out, and as I ambled down from the station, along streets silent but for sparrows, past Haslemere Hall – where we’d all watched Dances With Wolves back in 1991 (it came out in 1990 but films always took about twelve months to make their way down to us) – I came to my conclusion. I wanted to identify the fragment myself this time. I wanted to amend the records. I wanted to make it known that this was a shard of Roman pottery found not on the North Downs near Kemsing by an eight-year-old boy, but by his grandfather, in an unknown location. It was important that the real facts were known. I didn’t want to be a stringer or a dude.
I reached the museum thirty minutes early for my appointment. This, I should point out, was my first ever ‘appointment’ at a museum and I was nervous. My palms were sweaty, as if something bad were about to happen – the dentist maybe, or a telling off.
The Assistant Curator came down to collect me.
‘Sorry I’m early,’ I said.
‘That’s fine,’ she replied. (I’ll say it once more: she was so kindly.) ‘Let’s go.’
This time she led me up a different staircase, through one door marked ‘Staff Only’, another marked ‘Quarantine Area!’ (note the warranted exclamation mark) and into the vaults of Haslemere Museum. This was exciting stuff. Vaults! I thought. Modern, functional, well-labelled vaults rather than dark, dusty, Indiana Jones vaults, but vaults nevertheless. The Assistant Curator turned a wheel on one of the large metal doors which slowly slid back to reveal row upon row of neatly stacked cardboard boxes.
‘So we’ve got quite a lot here,’ she said modestly. ‘But I’ve got a couple of boxes out over here if you want to start with these. Good luck!’
‘Thanks,’ I said and gulped.
‘Oh yes, and if you wouldn’t mind popping on some gloves …’
Mind? I thought. Gloves? Brilliant!
‘No, of course,’ I said. ‘I must wear gloves.’
‘Cotton or latex?’
‘Oh, cotton definitely,’ I replied, sounding, I hoped, like I did this sort of thing all the time.
I popped on the cotton gloves, the Assistant Curator popped into her office, and I popped open the first box. Nestled like eggs among layers of protective paper were numerous plastic bags, each holding a shard, sometimes several shards, of what the label said was Roman pottery. Each box contained numerous bags, there were countless boxes and this was just the first locker. There was a lot of Roman pottery here. I gulped again (partly for effect, admittedly – I was having fun).
I began to rummage, carefully. Most pieces I could dismiss with just a brief inspection because they were the wrong shape, size or colour. Some were glazed and marked with a hint of a picture; mine had been rough, grey and plain. But even though I knew they weren’t right, I couldn’t help but spend a few extra seconds examining each piece, trying to picture the person who’d once used the pot to hold water, ashes, jewellery or, if they were anything like me, worthless foreign change, biro lids and empty Pritt Stick tubes. Or I’d think of the person who’d rediscovered it, who’d been walking, digging maybe, and had noticed, held, appreciated and brought what was left of the pot to the museum, where someone, perhaps the Assistant Curator, had identified, labelled and gently placed it in this box.
E
ach set of shards was accompanied by a piece of A4 paper covered in rows of neat handwriting in pencil:
‘Pottery – handle of pot’
‘Miner’s lamp with eagle – in pieces’
Or, most commonly, a simple:
‘Roman pottery fragment’
Using this as my guide, I looked in box after box, gradually speeding up my (still careful) rummaging, scanning the bags more efficiently, seeking out the familiarity, the jizz, of my piece. I got better at skimming over the bulk of the bits, stopping only when something caught my eye. Even so, one fruitless hour later I’d still barely made a dent in the museum’s enormous reserve. I was tiring. Something had to give. I’d wanted to find the shard on my own this time round, but I was forced to admit that I needed help again. As usual, this meant phoning my mum. She’d know what to do.
‘Hi Mum,’ I began. ‘Do you remember ages ago when I found that piece of Roman pottery?’
There it was again: The Lie. This isn’t the moment to admit the truth, I told myself, I’m in some vaults!
‘Oh yes,’ said Mum, ‘on the Downs near Kemsing, I remember.’
I listened for any flicker of doubt, any hint that she might know my secret, but could detect nothing.
I pressed on. ‘Well, I’m here at Haslemere Museum now …’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes, don’t worry, it’s fine … I remember us bringing it here together – to be identified – but do you remember anything unusual about it, anything noteworthy that might distinguish it from all the other Roman bits and bobs? Like a handle or an eagle?’ Perhaps it did have some marking I’d forgotten about.
‘I don’t remember much,’ she said, ‘but I also don’t know what you’re doing there. I’m pretty sure we brought it home. I’m almost certain we just brought it in for the museum to identify then took it back home and put it in your museum in the playroom. God knows where it is now though, it could be in the loft I suppose. But then I might have thrown it out …’
Right then.
I thanked her, hung up and returned to the boxes, half-heartedly (maybe even carelessly) digging around for another twenty minutes while trying to piece together my own cracked memories.
Gradually, it all came back to me. The fragment of pottery had been in our museum the whole time. I could picture it now, on the same shelf as that sheep’s skull and all those fossils from Dorset. I’d kept the fragment. The kindly curator had said that it was indeed Roman and that I should look after it. We’d taken it back to Silvertrees, to our museum.
Soon I’d be back in Silvertrees too. Christmas was coming and I could look after it all over again. The only trouble was that our playroom was now Duncton’s study, and the museum had been moved to a location even Mum didn’t know. I would have to start digging again. The wild goose chase wasn’t over yet, and perversely, I was glad. This time, at last, I was putting the hours in – I was working for my Roman pottery. And, inevitably perhaps, the trail was taking me home.
24 December
Once I’d mentioned the shard to Mum, she became determined to help me find it. She didn’t question why I needed it – maybe she did know the whole story after all – she just wanted to help, despite Duncton’s constant protestations of: ‘I’m sure we’ve thrown it out.’
On the drive down to Silvertrees with Rachel on Christmas Eve I probably wasn’t very good company. Again I was thinking about the past and my pot in particular, trying to convince myself that if it had been chucked out, if it had been thrown on to Midhurst’s dump, that would be fine. At least then someone else would have the chance to discover it in another thousand years. Luckily there were Christmas songs on the radio, so she might not have noticed.
But then another text lifted my spirits:
Museum found! But not examined. In box in the study. AML Mum xxx
Of course she hadn’t thrown it away. She keeps things together.3
In fact, she’d sent Duncton up to the loft and there, in a corner under some green matting, an old toy castle and a camping stove, he’d found another cardboard box, this time with a sheep’s skull peeking out of the top.
Back home, alone in the study, I rummaged carefully once more, putting each piece on the centre pages of the Midhurst and Petworth Observer I’d laid out on the floor: the sheep’s skull from our holiday in Northumberland next to a sea urchin we’d found in France, a tribal necklace that Duncton had brought back from Brazil beside a rabbit’s skull from the garden, two large mussel shells leaned against a couple of unimpressive rocks. But already the box was almost empty. I pulled out a handful of shiny stones, an Irish coin, possibly a punt, from 1928, and a small blue piece of eggshell – but no pottery. I could now see the bottom of the box and the only things left were fossils – crumbly chunks of ancient shell, mostly broken, some almost dust – and that was it.
But that wasn’t it. It wasn’t just the pottery that was missing, it was my spectacular shells, the sharks’ teeth, the unbroken fossils. I ran upstairs and started digging again. Rachel, sensibly, ignored my strange, probably worrying behaviour and ate a mince pie with Nana, my mum’s mum, in the kitchen.
It only took me about twenty minutes to unearth another cardboard box from beneath a pile of unread books in a corner of my bedroom, and this time I knew I’d struck gold (literally). As soon as I opened the lid I saw what I’d treasured as a kid – an enormous fir cone from the floor of the Vendeé region of France in 1981, a ram’s horn from Cornwall found in 1986, that shark’s tooth sleeping on a bed of cotton wool in an old black camera film case marked ‘Bracklesham Bay – October 1991’, and a small vial containing a few specks of gold that Mat, Chip and I had panned for in a place called Shantytown, New Zealand.
There was a guide to shells from the Channel Islands that we’d picked up from Herm Island in the spring of 1991, and a dozen envelopes marked ‘dog cockle’, ‘cup and saucer limpet’ or ‘variegated scallops’, each containing examples of the various shells. That was a very early obsession. I smiled as I remembered how we’d had to find every shell, how we’d had to finish our collection.
There was a compact battered tin with a handwritten sticker that read ‘semi-precious stones’. Inside Grandpa, presumably, had placed six smaller pots (marked ‘purple’, ‘white’, ‘pink’, ‘orange’, ‘green’ and ‘dark’) each holding their own delicate selection. In fact, there were several rocks that Grandpa must have given us (I can’t have stolen them all) – no moon dust, but those same heavy meteorites that had fascinated us back in South Cottage, one whole and heavy, another sliced into three pieces.
And finally, at the bottom of this cardboard stocking, wrapped in kitchen roll and sealed in a sandwich bag, I found my pottery. It was in two pieces – I remembered it breaking now – but safe. I fitted the pieces together so that they made one smooth rim of a pot, about four inches long, with slightly curved edges and that satisfying feel. I recognised it instantly, just like the red kite, and even though it now looked a little smaller in my hands, even its weight felt familiar.
Before wrapping up my family’s presents I parcelled up the museum once more.4
25 December
The remainder of Christmas at Silvertrees was rather tense. I’d seen far more birds than Duncton, but he was off to Africa in that surreal post-Christmas, pre-new-year gap, when everything can change. Meanwhile, we were at a stalemate. I had originally planned to use the holiday as an opportunity to admit the shocking truth about my pottery both to my family and to Rachel, but I couldn’t tell them. In fact, I still haven’t told them. This book is my signed confession.
It was also Rachel’s first Christmas with the Hornes. Almost a year after getting married we’d spent our first in Fermanagh, relaxing with her friends and family, drinking, eating and even sleeping a lot. We’d celebrated Christmas in style and nobody had mentioned birdwatching. Here in Midhurst, we tried not to talk about our challenge but it hung over us like an axe. Birdwatching was the elephant in our already cr
owded Christmas living room. Sometimes I would catch Duncton gazing out at the garden and would desperately scan the flowerbeds in case he’d seen something new. I’d disappear up to my bedroom at odd times to stare out of my window, hoping to find one last rare species – maybe a magical merlin, maybe an out-of-season willow warbler, maybe that murrelet, back in the UK for a quick dip in our pond.
It’s probably odd for a father and son to spend their Christmas surreptitiously birdwatching, each secretly trying to spot birds without the other one noticing, but at least it gave Rachel, Mum and Nana a chance to spend some quality mother-in-law-daughter-in-law-grandmother-in-law time together.
29 December
By the time the magic Christmas dust had settled and the presents and turkey (yes, that did seem a little odd) had all been devoured, neither Duncton nor I had spotted a single new bird. This wasn’t all that surprising as we’d also barely left the house – we were lazy and the weather was typically festive fare, wet and miserable. So, with just a couple of days of the year remaining I drove Duncton, Mum and Chip to Heathrow, still forty-seven birds in the lead. They were flying to Accra, the capital of Ghana, where Mat and Morri were to spend the next six months teaching in a small town called Brenu. Morri’s parents were taking the same plane over and I waved them all goodbye, wishing them a bon voyage and a happy new year, thinking that this must be how fathers feel when they send their kids off on their first trip abroad. But then I remembered that most fathers don’t whisper, ‘I hope you don’t see as many birds as I did,’ as they go.
In South Africa, we’d seen forty-six species in a single day thanks to David. My total was easily within reach. He needed about a bird an hour. I was nervous.
I spent my remaining days of the year with Rachel, resolutely not birdwatching. In fact, soon after leaving my family at the airport, we set off to the birdless Alps to spend our wedding anniversary skiing with her lovely non-birdwatching family. Ours was a calmer journey than Duncton’s.