the boots and stands to admire the close fit of the leather around her slim calves. Whatever Eve says, Ada’s definitely back to her old self.
Downstairs, the kitchen door is still closed but the front door is wide open. Outside, the poplar leaves rustle. Below the other birds’ racket Nora hears the low creak of a rook. Harry steps back into the house clutching his brown paper package. She’d forgotten his heap of buckets and keys outside in the lane.
‘Drink?’ he asks, with a nod at the paper package.
‘No, I meant,’ Nora begins, ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ But Ada clasps her hands together. ‘What are we celebrating?’ She raises an eyebrow, her hand on Harry’s furry forearm. The paper package clinks.
10
She will call him Rook. Light on her arm, the old willow basket swings as Nora follows Harry along the narrow footpath. She has covered the basket with an old hand towel, beneath which the baby rook sleeps, a bundle of feathers and skin pulsing with each beat of its heart.
‘Birds learn the layout of the stars,’ Harry announces. ‘All of them, the first summer of their lives.’ Tucked into the back pocket of his jeans is a paperback he quotes from constantly, a book written by a woman who has lived for years with a pet rook called Chicken, his favourite of the armfuls of books he’s brought to Creek House from the library since they found the bird.
Perhaps, Nora thinks, birds sense the presence and position of stars with something other than sight, a kind of vibration or magnetic pull, such as the moon exerts on the tides.
‘They use some sort of infrasound.’ Harry seems to have read her mind.
The path they have been following ends in the graveyard of an abandoned church, out in the middle of farmland, the building surrounded by overgrown hedges. The long grass is brittle and yellow as hay, but the high arching brambles loaded with thorns are vigorous, their stems, thick and muscular, stretching over and between the gravestones. Harry stops walking and pulls the book from his back pocket. He turns the pages. Feeling the weight and heat of the air in this enclosed, secret place, Nora moves to stand in the shade of an oak. At her feet, roots lift the ground at the base of a gravestone which leans so far it looks about to topple. No one visits these graves, or tends them, words engraved on stone no longer legible.
‘Here it is,’ Harry says. ‘What she reckons birds can hear: hushed sighs and whispers of hurricanes in far continents, cracks and moans of tremors beneath the earth, the ripping of the fabric of the universe .’ His finger moves along the words, cuticle lined with mud. She has slept with her windows flung wide during the heat wave of the last few days, and the blade of his turf cutter slicing into earth has woken her in the cool of early mornings. Harry has lifted an area of grass, peeling back a large rectangle of the lower lawn, the turf stacked in rolls in the shade. She must ask Ada again what plans she has for the garden.
‘The sounds of sea and wind, of oceans and volcanoes, the explosion of meteors.’ Harry closes the book. ‘Man, that’s some poetry!’ As he gazes towards the trees in the distance, Nora notices flecks of brown in his grey-green irises. Laughter lines spray at the corners of his eyes. He shakes his head. ‘Like they can hear the future coming.’
‘Will our bird learn the stars?’
The baby rook spends his nights in the kitchen by the ancient Aga, sleeping in his basket covered with the black towel. Not a glimpse of the stars.
‘Who knows? We don’t even know if he’ll be able to fly, he’s too unfeathered right now. And,’ Harry looks at her, ‘we have a problem if he becomes too tame, if he gets imprinted and thinks of you as his mother, no chance then of returning him to the wild.’
They leave the churchyard to cross a field of late-sown maize where rooks fly low, the movement of their wings slow and deep as they lift and
Downstairs, the kitchen door is still closed but the front door is wide open. Outside, the poplar leaves rustle. Below the other birds’ racket Nora hears the low creak of a rook. Harry steps back into the house clutching his brown paper package. She’d forgotten his heap of buckets and keys outside in the lane.
‘Drink?’ he asks, with a nod at the paper package.
‘No, I meant,’ Nora begins, ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ But Ada clasps her hands together. ‘What are we celebrating?’ She raises an eyebrow, her hand on Harry’s furry forearm. The paper package clinks.
10
She will call him Rook. Light on her arm, the old willow basket swings as Nora follows Harry along the narrow footpath. She has covered the basket with an old hand towel, beneath which the baby rook sleeps, a bundle of feathers and skin pulsing with each beat of its heart.
‘Birds learn the layout of the stars,’ Harry announces. ‘All of them, the first summer of their lives.’ Tucked into the back pocket of his jeans is a paperback he quotes from constantly, a book written by a woman who has lived for years with a pet rook called Chicken, his favourite of the armfuls of books he’s brought to Creek House from the library since they found the bird.
Perhaps, Nora thinks, birds sense the presence and position of stars with something other than sight, a kind of vibration or magnetic pull, such as the moon exerts on the tides.
‘They use some sort of infrasound.’ Harry seems to have read her mind.
The path they have been following ends in the graveyard of an abandoned church, out in the middle of farmland, the building surrounded by overgrown hedges. The long grass is brittle and yellow as hay, but the high arching brambles loaded with thorns are vigorous, their stems, thick and muscular, stretching over and between the gravestones. Harry stops walking and pulls the book from his back pocket. He turns the pages. Feeling the weight and heat of the air in this enclosed, secret place, Nora moves to stand in the shade of an oak. At her feet, roots lift the ground at the base of a gravestone which leans so far it looks about to topple. No one visits these graves, or tends them, words engraved on stone no longer legible.
‘Here it is,’ Harry says. ‘What she reckons birds can hear: hushed sighs and whispers of hurricanes in far continents, cracks and moans of tremors beneath the earth, the ripping of the fabric of the universe .’ His finger moves along the words, cuticle lined with mud. She has slept with her windows flung wide during the heat wave of the last few days, and the blade of his turf cutter slicing into earth has woken her in the cool of early mornings. Harry has lifted an area of grass, peeling back a large rectangle of the lower lawn, the turf stacked in rolls in the shade. She must ask Ada again what plans she has for the garden.
‘The sounds of sea and wind, of oceans and volcanoes, the explosion of meteors.’ Harry closes the book. ‘Man, that’s some poetry!’ As he gazes towards the trees in the distance, Nora notices flecks of brown in his grey-green irises. Laughter lines spray at the corners of his eyes. He shakes his head. ‘Like they can hear the future coming.’
‘Will our bird learn the stars?’
The baby rook spends his nights in the kitchen by the ancient Aga, sleeping in his basket covered with the black towel. Not a glimpse of the stars.
‘Who knows? We don’t even know if he’ll be able to fly, he’s too unfeathered right now. And,’ Harry looks at her, ‘we have a problem if he becomes too tame, if he gets imprinted and thinks of you as his mother, no chance then of returning him to the wild.’
They leave the churchyard to cross a field of late-sown maize where rooks fly low, the movement of their wings slow and deep as they lift and
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