‘I know what you mean,’ I said. ‘That poor bird just looked doomed. A spectacle in a freak show. Still, it’s one more hoopoe than Gareth’s got.’
‘Oh, Manda.’
I looked sideways at Tom. I wondered if he guessed how much time I was spending watching Gareth’s list mounting up. ‘I know, it’s not about the numbers.’ He was looking at his cup now, slowly shredding the polystyrene edge, worrying away at it with his fingers. I looked down at mine, realized I was doing the same thing. ‘It’s about the birds. It’s about getting out there and looking for them, finding them for yourself, identifying them. Enjoying them. Understanding them.’
‘You know, Gareth never really got that,’ he said. ‘He’d always go for the tick.’
‘I’m just fiddling about,’ I said. ‘Wasting time.’
‘You’re a good birder, when you put your mind to it, Manda. Better than Gareth.’ He looked at me, and I had to drop my eyes, ridiculously pleased by the praise, but guilty too, knowing how little I’d been doing. I felt a sudden desire to fill my year with great birds, ones that Tom would approve of, ones that would earn me his little nod of praise.
‘Well, what are we waiting for, then?’ I said. ‘Let’s go get that firecrest.’ We flicked the crumbled remains of our cups into the bin and set off.
The car park at the supermarket was suspiciously empty. Tom cranked the window down, accosted the elderly man who was pushing his train of trolleys across the tarmac.
‘Seen a bunch of birdwatchers? Looking for a firecrest?’
‘Ah, them, mate. Nah, they went. Their little birdie flew. You could try St Margaret’s Bay. Get a lot of birds round St Margaret’s, you do.’
A younger girl, passing, said, ‘The birdwatchers? They all headed to Sandwich. Sandwich Bay, near the golf course.’ She gave directions, stood and watched as we drove off. I distinctly saw her lips shape the word ‘nutters’ and she shook her head and the old man laughed.
At the toll gate outside Sandwich Bay another old man tried his best to put us off.
‘It’s four pounds to drive in,’ he said, as though he expected that to be argument enough.
For Tom it seemed as though it might be. ‘What?’ he said. ‘Four quid?’
‘Fine,’ I said, reaching over Tom to pass him the money. ‘I’ll get it.’ But the man wasn’t finished trying to put us off yet.
‘It’s a quiet estate, you know. No shops or restaurants.’ I wondered what aspect of Tom’s battered Land Rover made us look like fun-seeking day trippers. I managed to force the money on him and he gave us directions to the bird observatory, Tom shaking his head and glowering all the while.
In the car park I climbed down and stretched my legs, pulling the strap of my binoculars over my head, ready for action. Tom was doing the same. We squared up to each other, and I felt a momentary shyness.
‘So,’ I said.
‘Well,’ Tom said, simultaneously, and we both laughed at the awkwardness. ‘Let’s do it, then,’ and he put his hand out as though to guide me, close but not touching, so close that I could imagine I felt its warmth.
At that moment a familiar shape came sauntering out of the observatory. Bright jacket, bobble hat, and a beaked profile. I realized too late that the only other car there was David’s battered brown hatchback. I ducked behind Tom’s back but he had seen us already.
‘Manda, Tom!’ He greeted us like old friends. ‘You made it at last. Firecrest has been seen on the golf course, bopping about among the bushes at the far end near the bay. Not since about six a.m., I grant you, but I live in hope. Come on, I’ll show you.’
My stomach sank, and I felt a little knot of shame settle there. I cast my mind back hurriedly, checking that I hadn’t betrayed in any way to Tom that I had thought this outing was to be something special, something just for the two of us. Of course, Tom had just been looking for birding company; anyone – me, David – would have done. He must have rung round everyone yesterday. It was only that I’d let Gareth’s teasing go to my head, had thought I had been singled out. I could feel the red rising up my neck and hung back as David trotted off, confident that we would follow him, over the stile and up the slope towards the golf course.
Tom had hung back to wait for me and reluctantly I shoved my hands in my pockets and set off, striding past him to show as much indifference as I could muster, unwilling to walk beside either of them. Still feeling the prickles of embarrassment, I concentrated on the vegetation on either side of the path, pausing every few seconds as half-glimpsed birds caught my eye with a flicker of movement. They were frustratingly elusive, there but not there, flitting through the thick gorse or calling invisibly from a tree. Two dog walkers soon caught us up: groomed, confident women with ringing voices, well able to call their charges to heel. David had let his banter drop, and Tom, after a few muttered words, relapsed into sullen silence. I was too busy still berating myself for my stupidity to say anything at all. The women chatted briskly as though we weren’t there, passing and re-passing us as we made our stop-start progress along the path. Their dogs roamed around us, their noses down and their minds focused on a world of unimaginable smells. The women’s conversation was about things that seemed alien to me – local schools, and vets’ bills, and au pairs – but at least it served to mask our own awkward silence.
Halfway across the course we were all stopped to let a party of four golfers through. They were prosperous-looking men, well fed and, like the dog-walking women, their voices carried the conviction that they would be obeyed. Having first warned us that they were teeing off, they paused to discuss some pressing matter while we stood and waited. Above them a skylark rode its song flight high into the air, the sound soaring up above the rumblings of their conversation. I tipped my head back and scanned the unbroken blue of the sky. The bird was a tiny speck, so high as to be barely visible among the random dots and floaters in my eye, but its voice was still clearly audible.
‘Ah, a skylark,’ one of the dog-walking women said to her friend. ‘Wonderful.’ They were looking upwards, searching for it as it circled. It was still singing, a manic collection of twitters and trills, constantly elaborated as the bird circled.
‘There’s something so joyful about the song of a skylark,’ the second woman said. ‘Just sheer joy.’
The sheer joy didn’t seem to be communicating itself to Tom. He was muttering beside me as the four golfers still stood at the tee, clubs held loosely in their grasp. I tried to ignore him, absorbing myself in the slow final descent of the lark. Its song was undiminished but the energy had gone out of its flight and it was coming ever downwards as it sang, pulled towards earth like a spent firework. Yet even as it approached the ground, seemingly falling in exhaustion, it disdained to land and flew off. A few hundred yards away I could see it climbing to begin the feat again. With such an extravagant display it should have been monarch of all it surveyed from the top of its climb, but the air around us was full of larks – one at least for every hole on the course – all of them flamboyantly singing to defend their tiny domains.
A sudden shout interrupted my contemplation of the skylarks. Tom was striding across the fairway, ignoring the golfer who had belatedly lined up his tee shot and was now waving his club at his disappearing back.
‘What’s got into him?’ David asked. I shrugged. ‘I think he might just be a tiny bit jealous,’ he went on. I gave him a look. He winked at me.
‘Come on, come on, you might as well all go.’ The second golfer was beckoning us impatiently as though it was us who had held them up. The dog walkers tutted. I had to lengthen my stride to catch up with Tom. Small brown birds, pipits, scattered in panic to left and right as he strode on. I felt my binoculars twisting and jumping against my chest. David kept pace easily beside me, and had breath enough to keep burbling.
‘It’s not like our Tom, is it, ignoring a good pipit.’ I didn’t like that easy familiar tone to his voice and a pleased smile on his lips as he contemplated firs
t me, and then Tom’s retreating back, as though he’d just won me in a raffle.
Abandoning the attempt to catch Tom up, I stopped to check out the pipits, hoping that David would move on and let me recapture some of the pleasure of the morning. Meadow or tree is the question with pipits in this sort of area; a matter of bill size and claw length and more or less weight of streaking on the flanks, and the finer details of their parachuting display flights. One of them had hopped up onto a tuft of grass, close enough that in the dark tunnel of the binoculars it stood out sharp and clear, filling the circle of the lens so that everything around me narrowed down to that one point. Now was the time for the rest of the world to fade into the background, the golfers and the dog walkers, David’s smirk and Tom’s stiff-necked retreat, my own embarrassment; everything but the bird. But I couldn’t concentrate. I could hear David’s breathing in my ear, could feel the hunched tension in my shoulders. And in my mind’s eye, I could see the way Tom had stalked off, irritation in every step, and knew the day would be ruined. My attention slipped, the bird had dropped back down onto the ground and I found myself staring at an empty tuft of grass.
‘Tree,’ said David. ‘Look at the streaking on the breast.’
‘What the fuck do you know?’ I asked. The bird shot upwards, startled by the violence of my words. He looked at me almost sadly, then pasted on the silly grin.
‘I bow to your superior knowledge,’ and, irritatingly, he did bow, sweeping his binoculars in front of him, the other hand behind his back. ‘Come on, I want to find that fire-crest before Tom does.’
But Tom seemed to have abandoned the search. He was seated on the shingle bank overlooking the sea when I caught him up. I was expecting something good – an early Sandwich tern would have been nice, for instance – but apart from a couple of young herring gulls there was nothing on the beach, the tide well out, just emptiness in front of us.
‘What’s up?’
He turned, looked past me, craning his head. ‘Who is that guy you’re with?’ he said.
‘I’m not with him. I thought you knew him.’
‘I thought you knew him.’
‘Well, I sort of do. He seems to follow me about like a bad smell. It’s not as though I encourage him.’
Tom’s mouth twitched slightly, but he sulked on. ‘Well, why did you invite him down today then?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘So what’s he doing here?’
The sun chose this moment to disappear behind a cloud and it was cold in the wind without its warmth. It was a good question. What was he doing here? I replayed in my mind his lack of surprise at our arrival, the way he’d seemed to be expecting us. If Tom hadn’t told him, how had he known? I sat down beside Tom on the shingle, feeling the cold chill of the stones beneath me. David was moving along the seafront, methodically checking bushes. I watched him dwindle into the distance, then turned to face the sea.
Now it was Tom’s turn to ask. ‘What’s up?’ He turned to look at me, catching my eyes, frowning in concern.
‘I don’t like the way he does that. Shows up wherever I go. It’s beginning to freak me out. Sorry. Sorry he ruined our day.’
I must have shuddered or something, shivered in the cold, because Tom put his hand out to me, resting it on my shoulder. ‘Hey, it’s OK,’ he said, and almost roughly he pulled me in, enclosing me in a quick fierce hug that was over as soon as I registered it. ‘It’s OK.’ And he pulled away as quickly, standing up, hauling me upright too, so we stood facing each other joined by the warmth of his hands. I couldn’t resist a quick glance over my shoulder. David was still peering into bushes, each movement a parody of stealth. Even as I watched, I saw him freeze, then turn and look towards us.
‘Oh shit,’ I said. ‘I think he’s found something.’ David was waving and pointing into the bush, then started striding towards us. ‘What shall we do?’
‘Come on,’ said Tom, ‘let’s run for it,’ and his smile was as wide as the sea, my hands still caught in his.
We ran, and as we ran I forgot everything except the running, the mad giggling scramble back to the car park. At some point we had dropped hands and just concentrated on running. By the time we reached the car I was still half laughing, half gasping for breath, but I found I was checking over my shoulder again, worried he’d catch us before we were gone.
‘Quick, quick, let’s get out of here.’ I didn’t want to be trailed through Kent like an errant firecrest. Tom pulled out of the car park and we roared off in a trail of half-combusted diesel and exhaust, a clean getaway. Even so, I found myself worrying away at the thought of him chasing us, finding it constantly there at the back of my mind like a loose tooth, something I couldn’t leave alone. Tom was still grinning as we shot past the toll-gate man with a cheery toot of the horn.
‘Now where?’
‘A sandwich in Sandwich?’
‘Ah, no, anywhere but Sandwich. I hate places like that.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’ I didn’t like to admit that I had found its leaning gabled houses charming.
‘Just so fucking perfect. And smug with it. This whole area. Four pounds to get in. . . "It’s a quiet estate, you know. There aren’t any McDonald’s here for you common scum."’ He imitated the guy at the toll booth viciously. I was surprised at his vehemence. ‘Golf courses, Labradors, bankers. Makes me sick.’
‘OK,’ I said carefully. ‘Not Sandwich then.’
‘It’s all right for you, you didn’t have to grow up around those sorts of people. People who think they own the place. People who do own the place half the time.’
‘No, I just went to school with them.’
‘Yeah, I forgot, you’re one of the enemy.’ But he grinned as he said this, and I grinned back and we shot through Sandwich without stopping, barely even slowing for the narrow streets and sharp bends.
‘Is that what pissed you off before, then?’ I asked as we rattled out of the town and I could breathe again. ‘The county set?’
‘Yes. No. Some of it. Anyway, look at this, firecrest in St Margaret’s, now.’ His phone had beeped with the text while he was driving and he’d wrestled it out of his pocket, squinting at the screen and steering with one hand. I grabbed it, fearful for our safety, and had a look.
‘Probably a different one.’
‘Probably.’
‘Worth a look though.’
‘Worth a look.’
We drove on for a while in companionable silence, or as much silence as you can muster in a Land Rover being hurled down country lanes at sixty miles an hour. Up in the skies on either side of us I could still see larks, fighting their battle against gravity, against the imperatives of energy needs and territorial gain, the drive to reproduce even at the cost of survival. People read joy into a lark’s song, Shelley’s blithe spirits. How could such a springing, extravagant flight be the product of anything else? But the scientists who unweave such mysteries have a more prosaic explanation. Where the poet sees joy, they saw a territorial ritual that evolved in the absence of trees to act as more convenient song posts. In cold hard terms it was no more joyful than a fight outside a pub.
St Margaret’s Bay is one of the closest points in England to France, the place where many spring migrants first make landfall, but not the easiest place in the country to see them. The birds are attracted by the steep hanging woods at the bay, the same woods that conceal them once they’ve landed. We found ourselves bumping down a decaying road and parking among curious cattle in a grassy car park in a clearing above the sea. Here the still air carried sounds for miles. I could hear the ritualized drumming of a woodpecker in the trees below us, and as a small flock of jackdaws erupted from a church tower and flew across the valley, their short metallic calls could be heard even as the birds flew far out of sight. With their passing, silence descended on the wood. It seemed as though the migrants had moved on.
We worked our way down through the trees, looking to see what remained. Usually Tom was a s
low and careful birder, rigorous about getting a proper view of something. But this time it was as if he was on fire and he was using fear and speed to flush the birds, identifying them on the wing, pulling me along behind him. We dropped down the slope through a pathless thicket, branches snatching at my hat, birds fleeing before us. At one point Tom caught me by the jaw, turning my head up and round until I could see the whitethroat that I had missed. When I nodded against the pressure of his fingers he dropped his hand abruptly and moved on, wordless, before taking my arm once more, hushing me, and pointing at the skulking shape of a mistle thrush beneath a tangle of dead stems. Both he and the bird were stilled, the bird in fear, the three of us crouching together until the bird calmed and returned to its restless turning of leaves. Then Tom and I watched on, forgotten, feeling no need for words.
By one o’clock, with the lay-by bacon sandwich nothing more than a fond memory, we worked our way back up the hill rather more briskly than we had come down. I could see the sides of the Land Rover gleaming through the trees when I felt Tom’s hand once more on my arm. For a moment I thought he’d seen another bird, but he was looking past the Land Rover at another car, a battered brown car. Leaning against it was David, currently looking the wrong way.
‘Fuck.’
I didn’t know why Tom was getting so worked up about it. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ He was drawing me back through the thin cover of the trees, putting the bulk of the Land Rover between him and us. I was annoyed and hungry and in no mood to play games.
‘Come on, he’s going to see us anyway, he’s parked right next to us.’
Tom just motioned at me to keep my voice down. He drew me back further behind a bush, fingers digging into my upper arm.
‘Meet me down at the beach. There’s a cafe there. I’ll get the car.’ He spoke in an undertone. David, oblivious, continued to look the other way. I wanted to argue, but Tom’s mood all day had been as fragile as spring sunlight and I didn’t want to provoke another outburst, or another sulk. He was strung taut now as he studied David scanning the woods idly with his binoculars. I stepped back and watched as Tom moved round the back of the Land Rover and into the thicker undergrowth behind David’s back. Even knowing where he was going, I found him hard to pick out once he’d gone a few yards, he moved with such silence through the dense bushes. And even suspecting what he was up to, I did a double take when the first perfectly rendered cuckoo call carried across the car park clearing. David started, and turned towards it, and I shook my head and started off down the hill.
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