by Lewis, Gill
I followed Jeneba slowly into the kitchen.
‘D’you want hot chocolate?’ I asked.
Jeneba nodded. ‘I love hot chocolate. I have it all the time at the hospital.’
She sat down at the table while I boiled the milk and stirred in the chocolate powder. She looked tired, her head propped in her hands, her eyes half closed. I felt tired too. It had been a long day.
‘Here,’ I said. I pushed Mum’s pile of laundry and Dad’s paper to the side, and put the steaming hot chocolate in front of her.
I sat down and wrapped my hands around my own mug letting the warmth seep through me. I was so tired I felt I could have stayed like that, just staring into the steam. I watched it spiral slowly upwards. It made me think of Iris circling high in the sky.
The swirling drift of steam stretched its feathery wings and flew in slow lazy circles into the air. It rose higher and higher and brushed my face with the tips of its wings. It wheeled over the newspaper and ironed shirts on the kitchen table. It soared across the white buttoned mountains and worded valleys. It drifted towards me again. I wanted to hold it in my hands, hold it and keep it for ever. I reached out my fingers but it slipped through them, dissolving into wispy threads and was gone.
Jeneba was looking at me, smiling. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘maybe you are like the marabout. Maybe the bird spirit, she flies to you too.’
CHAPTER 44
I woke early the next morning. I got up from my bed and peered out of the window. A fog had swallowed us up in the night. I couldn’t see a thing outside, just bright whiteness. The farmhouse was strangely quiet and still. I slipped on my jumper and jeans and padded into the kitchen.
Mum was getting breakfast things ready and Dad was sitting in a chair holding his head in his hands.
‘I can’t party like I used to,’ he groaned.
Mum winked at me and put a plate of sausages and hash browns in front of him. ‘Get that down you,’ she said.
Feet sounded on the yard outside and Graham clumped in through the door.
‘Shh!’ whispered Mum. ‘Jeneba and Mama Binta are still asleep.’
Graham sat down next to Dad. ‘You can’t see the nose on your face in that fog.’ He reached over and grabbed a sausage from Dad’s plate. ‘Can’t let good food go to waste,’ he said stuffing it in his mouth.
‘Here they are,’ said Mum.
I turned to see Mama Binta helping Jeneba through the door. Mum pulled out a chair with a soft cushion and helped Jeneba sit down.
Jeneba was dressed in what looked like about ten jumpers, a fleece, a pair of thick trousers, woolly walking socks and an old blue bobble hat.
‘What do you think, Callum?’ she said. ‘Am I ready for the mountains?’
I laughed. ‘I think you’ll make base camp on Everest in those.’
Mama Binta pulled her shawl around her shoulders and leaned against the warm cooking range. ‘You won’t find me up any mountains,’ she shivered. ‘It’s like living in a big freezer out there.’
‘There’s no point going to the loch until after lunch anyway,’ said Dad. ‘The fog might clear by then.’
‘But Dad … ’ I said. ‘It doesn’t give us much time. Rob’s mum and dad are taking Jeneba out this afternoon to the woollen mills, and anyway … ’ I was interrupted by a muffled engine arriving in the yard, and headlights circled by fog. ‘ … Hamish is here.’
Hamish knocked on the door and walked into the kitchen. ‘Morning, all,’ he grinned. He turned to Jeneba and me. ‘Are you ready to go and take a look at the eyrie?’ We both nodded. ‘Come on then, lass,’ said Hamish. He held out his hands to her. ‘Let’s get you into the Land Rover.’
‘But they haven’t had breakfast,’ Mum said.
‘We’ll have it later,’ I called, ‘I’ve got to get something.’ I rushed up to my room to look for my binoculars. I hadn’t used them since last year. I grabbed them from the top of the wardrobe and went back down to the kitchen.
‘You won’t see much with those,’ said Dad as I went out of the door.
The fog pressed against me, damp and heavy, as I crossed the yard.
Jeneba was already in the front seat. I opened the door and climbed in next to her, the crutches between us. The Land Rover rumbled into life and Hamish drove out of the yard and up the field track towards the loch. Sheep loomed out of the mist and stared at us as we passed. Hamish tried switching his headlights on full beam, but the glare bounced back at us. The track swung around the curve of the hill and started to climb steeply upwards.
‘I think we’ve missed the track to the loch,’ I said.
Hamish peered into the mist. ‘Are you sure?’
I looked all around, but there was nothing but whiteness. No landmarks, nothing.
‘I think so,’ I said. ‘We shouldn’t be climbing so steeply.’
The Land Rover side-slipped in the muddy track. ‘I can’t turn round yet,’ Hamish muttered. ‘We’ll go on. If I stop now, we might get stuck.’
He drove slowly on, bumping over the rock and stones. Jeneba put her hands out on the dashboard to steady herself. Below my window, the edge of the track tumbled away into swirling mist.
‘At least I can say I’ve been on the mountains,’ Jeneba said, ‘even if I can’t see them.’
‘It’s a bit brighter in front,’ said Hamish.
The ground was flatter and covered by coarse grass. It was lighter and brighter all around. Colour had seeped into the world again. The outline of an orange sun pierced the mist above. Hamish edged the Land Rover on through the thinning whiteness and out into bright sunshine and blue, blue sky.
He turned the engine off and we sat in silence looking around.
Hamish whistled softly. ‘You don’t see something like this every day.’
The tops of the mountains pushed above the mist-filled valleys. They rose like islands above a sea of white cloud.
‘Please help me down,’ said Jeneba.
She was quiet, a slight frown on her face.
‘I want to walk,’ she said.
Hamish helped her down from the Land Rover. I passed her the crutches, but she shook her head. ‘I must do this on my own.’
She spread her arms to steady herself. And, slowly, she took her first steps, one foot in front of the other.
‘You’re walking,’ I shouted, ‘you’re really walking.’
She stopped and turned to me and smiled the biggest smile. ‘Look, Callum,’ she said. ‘The marabout, he was right.’
Jeneba stepped towards me through the mist-covered heather. The mist furled around her feet like waves.
She was walking above the world, across an ocean of bright cloud.
‘I can see for miles and miles,’ she said. ‘The mountains, they never end.’
‘Try these,’ I said. I tipped my binoculars out of their case. A small gold locket slithered out into my hand. It was Iona’s locket. It lay open in my palm, Iona’s face smiling out at me.
And suddenly, it was as if Iona was with us there on the mountain. It was as if she had always been there. I curled my fingers around the locket and held it in my hand. My eyes burned hot with tears that wanted to come.
‘Here,’ I said. I put the locket into Jeneba’s palm. ‘My friend would have wanted you to have this.’
I turned away and closed my eyes tight, but the tears came anyway.
I’d promised Iona that I would look after Iris. I’d tried my best. A lifetime ago, Iona and I had sat on this hillside watching Iris fly over the loch and valley. And now I’d lost them both.
I jumped when Jeneba put her hand on my shoulder. ‘Kulanjango … ’ she said.
I turned to look at her.
‘Kulanjango,’ said Jeneba again. ‘Look, Callum. She is coming.’
I wiped my eyes and stared through blurred tears. And there, above the sea of white cloud, flew a bird, its broad wings outstretched. It soared above us, its high call piercing the blue sky.
An
answering call came from the mist in the valley below.
‘Osprey,’ I whispered.
It banked around and flew close, above our heads. I could hear the rush of air through feather tips. I knew it was Iris, I just knew it.
‘She’s back,’ I yelled. ‘She’s back.’
I ran along the ground beneath her, my feet flying over the grass.
I spread my arms wide like birds’ wings, and raced behind her, in her shadow.
She turned in flight and called again, ‘Kee … kee … kee.’
And in that one brief amazing moment, her bright sunflower-yellow eyes looked right into mine.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to my fellow MA students and the staff at Bath Spa University, especially Julia Green for her tireless enthusiasm for the course. I am indebted to Nicola Davies for her insight and encouragement while I was writing this book, without whose help the pages would be over-run with sheep. Huge thanks to my agent Victoria Birkett, to Liz Cross and the team at OUP, and to Mark Owen who have created this book from my manuscript. Lastly, special thanks to Mum and Dad for standing in as head chef and head gardener, to my children for hiking across rain-washed mountains in search of ospreys, and to Roger, for telling me never to give up.
Much of my research about ospreys has come from the Highland Foundation for Wildlife (www.roydennis.org.uk), the RSPB (www.rspb.org.uk) and the Scottish Wildlife Trust (www.swt.org.uk). My inspiration for the Gambian part of this story came from visiting the website for the Bansang Hospital Appeal (www.bansanghospitalappeal.com). It is to the dedication of individuals in charities such as these that I owe this story, for having the passion and the courage to make a difference.
Gill Lewis grew up in Bath. For much of her childhood she could be found in the garden where she ran a small zoo and a veterinary hospital for creepy-crawlies, mice and birds. She secretly hoped a golden eagle would land on the bird table in need of urgent assistance. But it never did. Her favourite bed-time reading was The Living World of Animals. Gill followed her passion and studied Veterinary Medicine at the Royal Veterinary College, London. She has worked and studied both at home and abroad. In her travels she has been fascinated by wildlife; from urban foxes to rare rain-forest hummingbirds, and by the stories of the people who live among them.
Gill now reads and writes books for children. She completed an MA in Writing for Young People in 2009, and won the award for most promising writer on the course. She lives in the depths of Somerset with her husband and three children. She is still hoping to see that eagle.
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