—So what we gonna do? I say.
—Have a look. And he nods at my coat again. I reach in once more and pull out a dull black metal shaft and a brown wooden handle. It’s a revolver.
—Fuck. What have you got that for?
Ashley takes the gun and aims at me. —To shoot the fucker, he says.
I don’t think we’ll be going back to school today.
Shrikes
We walk through the streets of Weaste. Dodd Street, Peveril Road, along Gore Avenue, past the black barred gates across cobbled back-ins, between the red brick terraced houses, up through Seedley. We jump over the railings on Fitzwarren Street, past the mini-roundabout. We make our way through the market, heaving with punters and stallholders, onto the precinct, past a boarded-up pound shop and a Cash Converters store. We pass the post office with heaps of withered flowers outside from the latest joyride gone wrong.
The rain has soaked the condolence cards and you can’t read what they say any more. There’s a pie shop next door, they’ve had a delivery of mince which has spilled out of the van – there’s a crow picking meat off the road. I watch it hop and strut, and then grab the mince in its beak, gobbling it down like it was a worm.
The sun beats down, the first heat of spring. It bakes the tarmac. A few scabby pigeons wait on the sidelines for the crow to finish its meal. A pigeon is good bait for a sparrowhawk.
—Shit, Ashley says.
I look to where he is looking. It’s Dave’s red car. Dave has seen us but his car is the wrong side of the dual carriageway. Dave mounts the island. He gets out and runs towards us, followed by his brother, Andy. We look around in panic. There’s a man standing by the cash machine. His car is close by. We both run towards his car. Ashley jumps in the driver’s side and I jump in the passenger side. The man sees us and runs across.
—Oi! he shouts, and starts to bang on the window, but Ashley quickly presses the central locking. The man is screaming at us now. Ashley starts the car and drives towards Dave. He swerves to hit him but Dave jumps out of the way. Andy, his brother, is in the middle of the road. Ashley smashes the car into him. There is a dull thud and Andy is flung into the air. I look back at Andy’s crumpled body in the gutter by the spilt mince, as Ashley speeds off. Dave runs over to his brother, kneels over him. I see him feel for his pulse. There is blood everywhere. Dave puts his head in his hands.
We are at the junction waiting to turn left. I watch Dave still huddled over his brother. Then he looks up and sees me watching him. He gets up and starts to run at us. Ashley turns left and speeds off. I see Dave run over to his car and jump in.
My heart is thumping now. I try and find some music on the radio with the same beat. No sign of Dave. I find some banging house and look over to Ashley. He nods his head to the music and smiles to himself. He turns the volume up. I shout over it, —Do you think we’ve lost him? Ashley nods.
—What do you think happened back there? I say. Ashley shrugs. —With Dave’s brother? I add.
—He’ll be alright, Ashley says.
I look at Ashley but don’t say anything. We drive in silence. I watch the bonnet of the car hoover up chevrons. It seems to do this in time to the thumping of the music and the effect is hypnotic, like watching a waterfall’s foam cascading over a precipice. You focus on the whole and it seems to go fast, then you focus on one part and it slows.
And then I see it, and I can’t quite believe it, but its outline is unmistakable and its markings leave me with no doubt at all – it’s a red-backed shrike. A red-backed shrike perched on a fence post by the side of the road. I gasp with delight. A red-backed shrike. A bit bigger than a house sparrow, but slimmer. It’s a male with a bluish-grey head and black bandit eye mask – like Zorro. A bright chestnut back and that bill – a really big hooked bill – more like a hawk’s bill really. It’s almost like a sparrow that’s discovered meat, and is in the process of evolving from one type of bird to another. It’s wonderful. I want to tell Ashley, but fear he will spoil the moment.
I take out my field guide and scan the list. I find it and tick it off. That’s 189 birds now. This is incredible, the red-backed shrike is virtually extinct in this country, you only really have a chance of seeing it in May or June as it migrates north, or August or September when it migrates south. A red-backed shrike in Salford in March – unheard of. I can only really put this good luck down to meeting Ashley. I can hardly contain my excitement.
—Fuck, Ashley says and, for a split second, I think it’s his reaction to the red-backed shrike, but then I look in the rear view mirror. Dave is behind and gaining on us. Ashley puts his foot down and creates distance between us. We approach a crossroads. The lights are on red. He skips the lights, Dave follows, swerving to avoid an oncoming car. The car beeps long and hard.
There are cars in front of us that Ashley tries his best to overtake. He nudges between them but there isn’t enough space. Dave is only a few yards away now. And then, crunch. Dave hits the back bumper. We both lurch forward. My field guide drops to the floor.
—Bollocks, Ashley says. He reaches into his coat and pulls out the revolver.
—Here, cop for this.
I look at the gun, not sure what to do.
—Shoot the fucker, he says, and throws the gun on my lap.
I look down at it. It feels heavy wedged between my legs. Ashley presses a button in his door and my window slides open. There is a dramatic gust of wind.
—Go on, he says.
I take hold of the gun and lean out of the window. I am smacked by a rush of air, I have to gasp to get my breath and my eyes water. I aim the gun at Dave, but I can’t press the trigger. Something invisible is stopping me.
—Shoot! Ashley shrieks.
There’s another crunch as Dave hits the back bumper again and I nearly drop the gun out of the car.
—Do it!
I lean out of the window some more, take aim but can’t bring myself to fire it. Instead, I launch it at Dave’s windscreen. It tumbles through the air like a boomerang then smashes into the glass, turning the glass into a sheet of white frost. Dave’s car veers to the left, mounts the verge and crashes into a lamp post.
—What you do that for? Do you know how much that cost?
Ashley seems shocked to have lost his gun, but then, looking out of the rear window and seeing the smashed up car, his face changes. He laughs and I join in, more out of relief than anything else. Ashley whacks up the volume and overtakes the car in front of us.
—What now? I say.
—Where was that place? he says.
—Cumbria.
I’ve found an atlas and I rip out the page.
—Fuck it, why not, he says.
Ashley winds up the window. —Now do something useful.
—What?
He takes out his stash and throws it at me. —Skin up.
He takes out his box of Regal and some king size Rizla and throws them too. I look at the bag and the box and the papers, not really sure what to do with them. How difficult can it be? I think. And who cares, I’ve just seen my first red-backed shrike.
Kites
I don’t think my mum knew that she liked women when she got with my dad. But I don’t think she ever really liked men, so it was strange that she got with him in the first place. When I asked her about this, she said my dad was different to other men, but she didn’t say how. So I don’t know. I did try and ask her about him, but she blocked him out once he left. She didn’t like me bringing him up so eventually I stopped. All I wanted to know was where he was. I wanted to write to him. She said she didn’t know, and that was to be the end of it.
Things took a turn for the worse when I started puberty. It was quite odd really. I remember walking up the stairs to get something from my bedroom, and I shouted to my mum, —Won’t be a minute, in my usual high-pitched voice. I think it was a jacket. I grabbed the jacket and was half way down the stairs when my mum shouts, —Have you got it? And I answer back, —Yes
mum. But this ‘yes mum’ was really deep, I could feel it vibrate in my throat, it sort of tickled. It felt so weird, but that’s when my voice broke aged thirteen, half way down the stairs.
By the time I was fourteen I was having to shave and my knob had got big. I started having really sexy thoughts all the time. And the only way to deal with them was to have a wank. Mum was seeing Tanya then, and Tanya had this habit of walking round naked. She had a really curvy figure and loads of hair around her fanny. Her breasts were really firm and her nipples seemed huge. I couldn’t take my eyes off them when I saw them. And then I’d have to go to my room and knock one off. I think my mum cottoned on, because she and Tanya fell out. After that Tanya always wore a bathrobe if she wasn’t dressed.
I was sitting reading one of my bird books in the kitchen, I looked up and my mum was staring at me. I asked her what the matter was, but she just shook her head. I kept seeing her doing it and in the end she told me. She said I was starting to look like my dad, I was even sounding like my dad, especially if she rang up and spoke to me on the phone. And my laugh, apparently my laugh is just like my dad’s laugh, and my hands, the way I move them when I talk. The way I hold them when I think. But that can’t really be my fault. I don’t do it on purpose. Besides, I don’t really remember his laugh, or his hands for that matter, so it’s not like I’m copying off him.
But that’s when it happened I think. This distance between us. We don’t really talk any more and we don’t go on holidays. Sometimes we watch TV together though, now that my sister’s moved out. She moved out as soon as she turned sixteen. She’s living with her boyfriend who mum doesn’t like. Actually, I don’t like him either. He’s into sport.
—Pass it here, Ashley says. I pass him the spliff, which I admit, isn’t great, but it’s my third go at it and it will have to do. He takes it off me and looks at it with disapproval, but he lights it and smokes it nevertheless. He smiles. I smile back. We both nod our heads in time to the music.
—Why did you do it? I say.
—Do what?
—Why didn’t you give that man the bag?
—It’s time to branch out, he says. —Go it alone. As of today, I’m no longer Dave’s oppo. He grins at me, but I’m not really sure about this.
I keep seeing Ashley close his eyes, which isn’t a good sign, but I keep getting distracted by what’s out of the window, which seems to be endlessly fascinating. I’m wondering how he can drive with his eyes closed. The car veers towards the barrier in the middle of the motorway. He opens them just in time and steers left. The car jerks.
—Where are we? Ashley shrugs. I look in the wing mirror and I don’t like what I see.
—Oh no.
Dave is behind us in his smashed up car and he is gaining on us. Ashley sits up and puts his foot down and the car lurches forward. I look in the mirror again. Dave seems even closer.
—He’s getting nearer.
—I’m going as fast as I can, Ashley says.
He’s really put his foot down now but Dave is right behind us. Dave’s car is much bigger than our car. I wonder if this is the right moment to suggest flight, but Ashley has an idea and he veers off the road, through a hedge, and across a ploughed field. The car churns up mud and we get about half way across the field when we come to a halt. We jump out, run across the field, but it’s soft underfoot and progress is slow. We run into a wood. I turn around and see Dave’s car pull up behind ours. He gets out. We run.
We’ve been running for about fifteen minutes. I’m tired and have to stop. I lean against a tree. Ashley stops too. We are both panting.
—Do you think we’ve lost him?
—Let’s keep going.
—Look at the map.
—I reckon we’re about here, I say, pointing at a pale grey bit of the map which should technically be a shade of green. —Kendal’s about ten miles this way, I say, pointing at the road going into Kendal which is pale green but should technically be a shade of grey.
—What’s Kendal? he says.
—It’s a town, we can hide there.
Ashley nods his head and we carry on through the woods, only walking this time. My coat feels heavy. I’ve got my field guide in my left pocket and my book on ravens in my right pocket. I’m sweating, but I don’t want to take my coat off in case the books fall out. We walk for another mile or so and we come to the end of the woods. There’s another field and then in the distance, a road. We head towards that.
When we get to the road, Ashley says, —We need some wheels.
We both look around but there are no cars.
—I think we’ve lost him, I say, looking back. We walk for about an hour but apart from a few farm buildings and dry stone walls, there’s nothing. I don’t even really see many birds. There are rooks in a field, and a wood pigeon, but that’s about it. We see jackdaws further up, about four or five. They chase each other and tumble in flight. One of them lands close by, he walks and then hops.
A bit further on we see a kestrel. They’re always a welcome sight. It rises up and then finds a place to hover. True hovering is lift generated through the bird alone, so it’s usually only small birds that can do it. The largest bird that can truly hover is the pied kingfisher. Kestrels hover by flying into a headwind.
—Come on. We need to get a move on, I say. We’ve slowed down a bit, but it will be getting dark soon and we need to reach the town.
It takes us about another hour before we pass a sign that says: Welcome to Kendal. Kendal welcomes safe drivers. Ashley takes off his school tie and puts it in a bin nearby.
—We need to lose these, he says.
I take off my tie and put it in the bin too.
—We need to find somewhere to stay, I say, —Somewhere safe.
We carry on walking and pass Pizza Hut.
—Let’s get something to eat, Ashley says. —I’m starving.
But I ignore him and we carry on walking.
—How much money have you got? I say.
He roots around in his pocket. —Enough.
Eventually I give in and we find a McDonald’s. We order burgers, cokes and fries. We find somewhere to sit.
—So we lay low. Find somewhere to get our heads down. Then we move on in the morning. Ashley says. He eats his burger in four bites. He slurps his coke, then he starts on the fries. —Where though?
—Helvellyn, I say, straight away.
—Where’s that?
I reach for the folded page of road atlas in my back pocket, but it’s not there. Not a good sign. I take out the book on ravens and turn to the maps at the back. It shows where Helvellyn is in relation to Kendal.
—It’s not far, I say.
We finish our food in silence.
—Watch this, Ashley says.
He gets up and approaches a six foot tall Ronald MacDonald clown. No one is looking so he picks it up.
—What you doing? I say.
But he’s already by the door with the clown. A member of staff spots him and shouts. We both run out of the shop, Ashley carrying the clown, me still eating my burger. The man follows us out but we soon outrun him. We run down the street and round the corner. We collapse by some benches near the town hall. It is dusk. I’m wondering where we are going to stay tonight. I finish my burger as I watch the rooks above circling.
Above them in the distance I see a red kite soar, steering its course with its forked tail. It’s too high up to make out its striking chestnut red belly, but you can just make out the white patches under its wings. Red kites have a high body-to-wingspan ratio. They can stay in the air for hours with hardly a beat of their wings.
—Let’s get some booze, Ashley says.
But I don’t respond. I’m just happy watching the rooks circle and the kite in the distance soaring above them.
Swifts
Swifts have sacrificed so much to be masters of the sky. They eat on the wing, breed on the wing, they even sleep on the wing. The swift’s long scythe-like wings a
nd forked tail are superbly adapted for flight. If they land on the ground they can’t take off again. They are trapped. A young swift only gets one chance to become airborne. One chance. And if they don’t make it, death.
It was when we were living in Ordsall in the flats. It felt funny to be living in a high-rise in Ordsall. They knocked most of them down, just kept that one, next to Ordsall Hall, called Nine Acre Court, so we got a good view of the estate. We were on the seventh floor so we were high up. You could see the Quays, all the new buildings and cranes. At night the light from the Quays made one half of the sky bright and the other dark. I found a grounded swift by the car park outside the health centre off Eccles New Road. It was in shock. I took it up to the flats and opened the window. I placed it on the palm of my hand and then I gently raised and lowered my arm. It was a mild evening and the sun was just going down. I let the bird feel the air under its wings. The bird came round from its shock then. It flapped its wings about and then just dropped off my hand and into the sky, flying up so that it was a black silhouette, like a boomerang. Lovely.
I’m thinking about this as we sit on the benches. There are a few swifts now, feeding on the flying insects that appear at dusk. The rooks have settled down for the night and the kite is nowhere to be seen. The way swifts feed is interesting. They have a special pouch at the back of their throats. They collect the insects as they fly, binding them together with saliva, making a little food ball. These food balls can contain thousands of insects. I wouldn’t fancy eating one myself though, not while we’ve still got McDonald’s.
It’s strange to see swifts in March, they don’t usually arrive until late April. Then they’re off again in July or August. They really just come to England to breed. There’s no point in staying around after August because there are no insects. They go all the way to Africa, south of the Sahara, spend most of their year there, and then fly all the way back to England, just to breed. Fancy that.
King Crow Page 5