Birdman's Wife

by Melissa Ashley

  A few moments later we had no need of a telescope, as the inquisitive albatross landed on the rowboat below us. In the blink of an eye, Will managed to throw one of the hunting bags we used to collect specimens over the albatross’s body. I could see its pink feet flapping. No other bird possessed such large air rudders

  ‘Silly bird,’ said John with affection. ‘They’ll do anything for pork fat.’

  The albatross struggled under the canvas like an angry house cat. ‘Down, girl, down, girl,’ said Benstead in a soothing voice.

  Will glanced up at the ship just as the bird found the opening of the unsecured bag.

  ‘That deuced boy!’ said John.

  ‘Do not be harsh, now,’ I chided.

  ‘Grab it by the legs,’ called Gilbert, ‘quickly!’ He leaned far over the railing, the cords in his neck straining, his knuckles white.

  The albatross’s pink bill snapped at the side of the boat, showing its yellow gape; its spiked tongue darted in and out, and it kicked its feet as Benstead struggled to grasp it by the leg. A wing clipped Will in the ear with unexpected force, causing him to stumble towards the edge of the rowboat. ‘Help!’ he cried.

  ‘Don’t move,’ said Benstead, grabbing Will’s arm with his free hand and steadying the rocking vessel with his spread knees. My stomach clenched as I pictured Will’s mother entreating me to look out for her son as if he was my own. I could never face my sister-in-law were Will to fall overboard on account of John’s follies.

  And just like that the danger passed. Benstead had a firm hold of the albatross’s legs. Will adjusted the bag and, with surprising dexterity, used his left hand to tie it off with cord. He put the roped end under his bottom and sat firmly on it while Benstead scooped the expired frigatebird into the net. Rowing the boat close beside the ship, they waited while two crew members helped steady the smaller vessel. Will climbed the wooden ladder, emerging at the top wearing a proud grin, the bag squirming at his shoulder. Benstead followed, dumping the other bag and his fishing net on the deck. The pulleys attached to the rowboat were hauled up and the empty vessel was lashed like an oyster against the ship.

  I turned from the railing to see Mary setting up my drawing easel. Beads of sweat showed on her forehead. She stood a moment, her hand leaning on the top of my easel and wiped a rag across her cheeks and chin. ‘If you’d like to start, ma’am, all’s ready.’

  As instructed, Mary had set out my pencils and clipped sketching paper to the easel’s frame. Although her most important duty was to care for Henry, with the slackening of the winds I had been painting more, and she had provided essential assistance.

  Will struggled to lower the bulging bag to the deck.

  ‘Where’s the birdcage?’ asked Gilbert, holding his boot over the opening like a clamp.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ volunteered Mary. She slipped into the cabin. The top of the enormous wooden cage, stored below deck in two parts, appeared first, its carved roof bobbing under my maid’s laboured steps. Will helped to retrieve the bottom segment, which he placed beside the squirming brace bag. Swiftly, Gilbert shifted the captured bird onto the cage bottom and Will worked the top into place. When the cage was finally secure, Mary carefully reached her hand through the bars, untied the rope and drew back the canvas bag to release the bird. Henry offered Gilbert a fish head, salvaged from the burley pail, to press through the bars. He was careful to keep his fingers away from the albatross’s quick bill. Immediately, the bird commenced a ferocious thrashing and shrieking. It disgorged its prior meal – by the purple ink smearing the bottom of the cage it must have been cuttlefish – and then grew calm. The albatross nosed the fish head with its beak, dropped it to the floor and tore off a strip of cheek.

  This was my moment. As with all specimens brought onboard, I was eager to obtain as much detail from the living animal as I could. Before starting, I made a kind of salute to the albatross with my pencil. Working quickly, I outlined its body shape, sketching the primary and tertiary feathers, then using chalks to get the colourings at the feather tips just right. I worked up the beak and head and eye, taking care to line the mandible and the shape of the nostril, the downward curve of the upper beak, its paler tip. I indented the eye, making a note on the page about the whiteness of the neck and upper coverts, the colours I might mix. I then turned to the pink feet, which were strangely vulnerable like the insides of shells. They were built for flying, not standing on wooden planks.

  The albatross was becoming restless. I looked around to see if somebody could fetch more food and noticed that I had acquired an audience. I thought of Edward Lear painting the parrots in the zoological gardens. My fellow passengers seemed to find my sketching fascinating. Or was it the presence of a large, caged bird? Mr and Mrs Martin had come over from the opposite deck; Captain McKellar had entrusted the helm to the first mate; the boy from the kitchen, Flynn, had escaped potato-peeling duties in the galley. Their eyes shifted from me to the albatross and back. They watched its every move in the cramped cage, no doubt as spellbound as I by their proximity to such a magnificent creature. The rapt expression on Mrs Martin’s face was particularly gratifying. Whenever the afternoon shooting began, I often felt a terrible pang of guilt on her behalf. She skulked immediately to her cabin. If I happened to be in my room I could hear the door slam. But now her joy was unmistakable. It made me think that if birds fascinated and brought such genuine pleasure to people, not just birdmen and collectors, then this enterprise may prove more valuable than any of us realised.

  I sketched several pages of drawings, becoming totally absorbed in my new subject and forgetting my audience. When I glanced up to pause for a moment, the sun had dropped low in the sky. A shadow fell across my papers. It was my husband, eager that I should finish. I could smell the sulphur powder on his shirt. As always, his eyes were restless, darting from the horizon to the heavy bags on the deck, evidence of a successful day’s hunt, and the albatross knocking its head against the bars of the cage. He felt in his pocket and took out a hip flask of whisky, a gift from Mr Darwin before we sailed.

  ‘Good work,’ he called to Gilbert, waving the flask in offering.

  Gilbert, polishing his gun with a cloth, wandered over to accept a mouthful before throwing another fish into the cage. They would both be up late, gutting and skinning and drying, no doubt discussing the day’s gleanings. Gilbert’s shoulders stiffened. I turned to see what had captured his attention – he was gazing intently at a petrel alighted on the railing. The animal’s plumage was deep chocolate in colour, with thick white rings around its eyes, giving it the appearance of wearing spectacles. I had not seen the likes of it on our voyage. The bird hopped onto the ship’s deck and wobbled towards the cage. In a burst of boldness, it poked its bill between the slats and nibbled at the albatross’s fish head. In response, the albatross threw its neck out and made angry hissing noises. But the petrel was too cunning, snatching the remains from the cage bottom and fluttering back to the railing, out of the albatross’s reach.

  I sensed John tensing close by my side. He knew how to creep without disturbance or sound. I felt the warmth of his body, the small fire of excitement ignited beneath his skin. I could see his eyes chisel into the animal, noting its posture and design, the markings on its plumage. He too had observed the curious eye ring. I knew that in one glance my husband would have recorded every nuanced detail of the petrel, a feat no common observer could ever hope to achieve.

  There was nothing at hand to throw over the bird and a gun was obviously impossible. John silently drew a hook from his pocket and knotted it onto a length of fishing line. Attaching a piece of pork fat pulled from a pouch he kept stocked for this purpose, he made a whistling noise as he flung the baited hook over the railing. Unlike the albatross, which we knew would take food without hesitation, perhaps even so far as to let itself be hand-fed, this creature was wary. Sensible, I thought. At that moment our vessel rolled over a wave and the albatross let out a tremendous moan. The petrel
reared back, startled. It sensed danger, and with a swift flap of its wings launched itself off the edge of the ship and into the darkening skies.

  Thunder drummed a tattoo behind a sudden squall. A storm advanced. Silent and still, we lingered, wishing the animal would make a reappearance. When we finally decided to retire, the ship was lurching on the waves. The crew was adjusting the mainsails and laying batons to secure the hatches. Our period of tranquillity was drawing to a close.

  ‘It’ll return.’ I placed my hand on John’s arm. ‘They usually do.’

  I could see his impatience and agitation threatening to spill forth. There was a new bird on the seas and until he had it in his hunting bag, he would not be able to rest. If he caught this one, it would be his second new species for the southern hemisphere. I shared the thrill of our discovery but I did not feel his complete obsession. For John, the romance of the chase brought both intense pain and pleasure.

  ‘What about you?’ John looked into the albatross’s face and whistled, stretching his hand through the bars of the cage. The bird cocked its head and moved its awkward rubbery feet. It pressed its bill into John’s palm.

  ‘Are you going to kill the albatross?’ asked Henry.

  ‘Don’t trouble yourself, son,’ said John, glancing at me.

  My son stood, hands deep in his pockets, his shoulders slumped. I could not quite make out his expression but, judging by the tone of his voice, I sensed he was torn between concern for the bird and a wish to make his father proud. I saw through his bravado to the confused child, unsure how to interpret the heady levels of excitement accompanying the hunt.

  I suspected the trouble was that at home John’s specimens arrived in covered boxes. As often as not they were from Ceylon or Batavia, and their outrageous beaks and bright plumages helped give the impression they were not quite real, that they had never been alive in the manner of our English birds. Whenever John went to hunt in Wye or Edinburgh the children did not accompany him. They had never been witness to the act of taking life. While Charlie turned his nose up at a dead canary or crow prepared by John and brought into the nursery for a laugh, Henry made a point of defending his father’s profession. He was conscious of his position as eldest child. One Easter when John was working on stuffing a beagle for a Cornish matron, I overheard Henry reassuring Charlie in his cot that there was nothing strange about wanting to keep your dead pet in your living room. Its owner could continue to pat and cuddle it, like a toy or knitted doll. Nevertheless, Charlie had found the uncanniness of the dead beast distressing.

  Two crew members walked past our party dragging a fishing net with seaweed, shining fish and enormous shells bulging from the webbed rope.

  ‘Come,’ I said to Henry, ‘let’s see what the fishermen have caught. Maybe there’ll be a shell for your collection.’

  Captain McKellar’s men had brought in an impressive haul. I stepped around lengths of brown twine and the platter-sized cork floats knotted at measured intervals. Gulfweed furred the netting, trapping molluscs and crustaceans and myriad smaller fish. We followed John’s squelching boots among the sea gleanings, examining a ray here or a cuttlefish there. John’s eyes danced as he stepped between the gut bins and water buckets strewn about the deck and surveyed the treasure. He negotiated a price with a grizzled sailor for an exotic-looking fish that he would have Gilbert cure. The catch had brought in a porpoise, its skin a shining musket-grey, its long nose of a mouth serrated with tiny teeth. I had never tried the meat but had heard from sailors that the flesh behind the fins was the most succulent. Beside the porpoise were three small sharks. They, too, were prized by seafarers. Their oil-filled livers were drained and the liquid collected for use as lamp fuel during the voyage.

  Henry was next to his father, his shoulders now mercifully free of tension. They walked in step to the gutting bay, Henry enquiring about what the albatross ate. When he learned that the bird preferred cuttlefish to all else, he probed further, asking how the animal managed to avoid staining its feathers with the ink. He was used to his parents’ perpetually blackened fingers, I supposed. John winked at me and then congratulated Henry for formulating such an excellent question.

  I hung back, forced to confess to myself that I was as concerned as Henry about the fate of the albatross. Somehow I felt the creature turn towards me, as if it could sense my thoughts. When I looked back over the fishing nets to where the large bird sat, sure enough its eyes were studying me, enticing me to the wooden cage. I could not stop thinking that it wished to return to the world it knew. But we had imprisoned it, forced it to stop in our strange world. I hoped the albatross would not injure its head on the bars as it railed against its fate. I was sure this particular species, the royal albatross, formed a crucial part of John’s desiderata and that he had misled Henry. John had no intention of releasing the bird. Distressed, I posed the question: was it perhaps me, and not my son, who was more disturbed by the bloodshed of collecting? I had not been prepared to gaze into the animal’s eyes. Much as I tried, I could not apprehend birds in the same manner as my husband. I shared the thrill of seeing these creatures in the wild, but I was finding it harder to marry my joy at witnessing their free-spirited exertions with an acceptance of their fates, knowing that they were destined to join John’s growing collection of preserved seabirds. I could not tamp down the increasing conflict I was feeling, and neither could I describe the yearning sentiment that the albatross evoked within my heart.

  Henry bent over the nets, John crouched beside him with his hands working in the furry gulfweed. He removed a shining object and held it up for Henry to inspect. Henry whispered in his ear. John paused and nodded, handing him the shell. My son leaned in close to his father, turning the mollusc over, tracing his finger along the ridged shell, happy to be the recipient of such rare attention.

  I stayed up late that evening making a new sketch of the dove-like prion. While the plumage of a bird remained unaffected after death, its soft parts – the eyes, wattles and feet – lost their bright colouring as they lost moisture during the process of preservation. Earlier in the day John had insisted I try to capture the bright blue of its webbed feet before they faded, and I had been more than a little obsessed in completing my assigned task, such that the pencil lines I had made to mark out its form had greatly suffered. I had barely even noticed the slow build of the storm that was now causing the ship to sway, my pencils rolling across the table. It must have been the watercolourist in me, for I was unable to resist adjusting my pigments until the colours perfectly matched a bird’s markings in life. In my first attempts, I had added slightly too much lead white to the ultramarine and had to begin again. The shade of the prion’s feet was like the tropical noon sky, a cloudless blue unfamiliar to a Londoner, equatorial and uninterrupted. I determined to find the exact shade, satisfied with no less than pulling the very sky into my mixing pot.

  A soft cry passed through the walls of the cabin. I lay down my pencil and listened hard, my imagination conjuring an image of Mrs Albercrombie, lying in the cabin adjacent to mine. Had her time come?

  A louder cry issued and then a door slammed. Hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor. Opening my cabin door, I glanced down the hallway. The oil lamps cast eerie, looming shadows. Mrs Albercrombie’s maid, grasping a bundle of sheets, bustled past. Had the child already been born?

  ‘Can I help?’ I called out.

  The lady’s maid turned, her hair slipping from its pins, her expression panicked. ‘Please, ma’am, yes. Go in to her.’

  The ship heaved as I stumbled out into the hallway and pushed open my neighbour’s cabin door. Mrs Albercrombie’s nightdress was rucked around her waist, stockings pushed down around her ankles, her head lolling on her pillow.

  ‘Tell me, what can I do?’ I said to Mr Albercrombie. He sat between his wife’s knees, his birthing kit unfolded on the little table so that its sharpened instruments – boiled knives and gleaming scalpels and forceps – would not scatter. He had bottles
of water tied down with ribbon so they would not slip and slide and spill, rags and towels for the blood and swaddling at the ready.

  The surgeon glanced at me, a look of surprise crossing his face. ‘Quickly,’ he said, recovering himself. He motioned to a bowl on the bedside table. ‘She may be ill.’

  I offered the bowl, which was refused, so I squeezed out a flannel and dabbed it on Mrs Albercrombie’s hot brow.

  Kneeling beside the cot, I prayed the evening storm would not gain in strength. But moments later the barque lurched again, and Mrs Albercrombie let out an animal moan. The bedside lamp grew dark in its sconce and then struggled back to life. There was another bump, and then a further howl. The barque pulled in all directions, a wall of waves smashing against the stern.

  ‘Bear up,’ I whispered, ‘you’re nearly there.’ Though truthfully, I did not know how she stood it – giving birth in the midst of these rotten squalls. I recalled her face during embarkation. She had been swathed in a froth of cornflower-blue silk, bonnet strings and bobbing ringlets trailing, her bust pushed up under her chin, a mushroom of petticoats bulging over her stomach. Her cheeks had been flushed and her lips drawn together in concentration as she made her way to the deck. She heaved herself, hand-over-hand, up the railing. Mr Albercrombie had walked close to his wife’s side, steering her, cornering her, a recalcitrant heifer, over the gangplank and down the narrow aisles and stairs into their tiny cabin. Inside which, I imagined, she had swapped her ruffled outer garments for the embroidered swish of maternity cloth. She only ever emerged from her warm cocoon in the afternoon. Mr Albercrombie was usually found following the captain about, discussing sailing conditions. The only sign the room had been taken up was the sight of Mrs Albercrombie’s maid, rushing back and forth on the scrubbed boards balancing trays laden with ointments, broths and tinctures.