barbs became white and fluffy, like down feathers.
I held it in my right, writing hand, quill gripped between thumb and forefinger, resting on the groove of the middle finger, the rachis curving back over my wrist.
‘Keep it,’ Eleanor said.
I put the hawk’s feather in my shirt pocket, quill first, and we stepped through the doorspace, across the concrete threshold, into the house. Matthew was holding a measuring tape against a piece of pine, marking off lengths with a pencil, sun glaring off the concrete planes.
We all heard the belchy bass chugging of a digger approaching through the cedars.
‘Here’s Mr Harper,’ Matthew said. He thumbed a button – the metal tape rattled back into its palm-sized box – then dropped the tape and pencil into one of his belt pouches. Eleanor and I followed him out of the house as a yellow Caterpillar digger entered the clearing, its driver invisible behind tinted black windows. The driver lowered the loader and set to extending the driveway, pushing earth and rubble into ridges, dust rising around the machinery.
‘This guy’s the best dig-truck driver I’ve ever seen,’ Matthew shouted. ‘Those teeth at the front end? He uses them like fingers. Like his own fingers, it’s so delicate.’
The two turkey vultures were still soaring overhead, hanging on updrafts created by wind deflecting off the hills, or on thermal columns rising off roads and clearings in the cedar forest. Their wings were held upwards in flat Vs, the slotted feathers at each wing-tip curving upwards. The vultures sometimes rolled from side to side, riding the gusts and currents, but I never saw them flap their wings. Their gliding was poised and effortless: weight, lift, drag and thrust – the forces essential for flight – were in perfect balance. Now and again the shadows of vultures slid across the concrete planes.
The yellow Cat chugged up a track into the cedars, then reappeared with a smooth-sided limestone slab in its raised, toothed trough. Matthew wanted his driveway to loop around a cedar, the only tree left standing on the building site. Mr Harper drove towards the cedar, stopped the Cat and lowered the trough, and the limestone slab tumbled over the teeth like an old tomb, coming to rest on the rubble and shredded bark, raising a cloud of dust.
Matthew wanted the stone to be in just the right place, and Eleanor and I stood a few steps back as he communicated with Mr Harper by means of an antic semaphore, a repertoire of pointing and waving gestures, and Mr Harper used the trough to nudge and coax the slab according to these instructions. Matthew devoted all his attention to the placing of the stone. He was building a house. Trees, windows, doorways, statues – these were to be his life’s fixed marks, unchanging and dependable, his points of reference. He had to get it right. Slowly, in line with Matthew’s signals, Mr Harper worked the stone over to its allotted place next to the cedar.
‘That’s it!’ Matthew shouted. ‘Right there!’
The Cat drew back from the stone, tracks clanking. Matthew stood with his hands on his hips, nodding with approval. He looked at the stone, then at the house, the canvas tent, the red and white mast, as if contemplating the distribution of landmarks, registering just what was here and what wasn’t. The vultures kept gliding round and round, birds circling on a child’s mobile.
‘OK?’ Eleanor yelled at Matthew.
‘Yeah,’ he shouted. ‘Looks good.’
We got back into the Mercedes. Eleanor drove across the clearing towards the opening in the cedars, and I looked back over my shoulder at the house, the mast towering above it, Matthew striding towards the Cat, towards Mr Harper. The cab’s door opened as Matthew approached, but cedars blocked my view from the car the instant before a figure emerged.
*
A FTER SUPPER , which we ate in the kitchen, sitting on stools at the sideboard, Eleanor filled the larger of the two skillets with
I held it in my right, writing hand, quill gripped between thumb and forefinger, resting on the groove of the middle finger, the rachis curving back over my wrist.
‘Keep it,’ Eleanor said.
I put the hawk’s feather in my shirt pocket, quill first, and we stepped through the doorspace, across the concrete threshold, into the house. Matthew was holding a measuring tape against a piece of pine, marking off lengths with a pencil, sun glaring off the concrete planes.
We all heard the belchy bass chugging of a digger approaching through the cedars.
‘Here’s Mr Harper,’ Matthew said. He thumbed a button – the metal tape rattled back into its palm-sized box – then dropped the tape and pencil into one of his belt pouches. Eleanor and I followed him out of the house as a yellow Caterpillar digger entered the clearing, its driver invisible behind tinted black windows. The driver lowered the loader and set to extending the driveway, pushing earth and rubble into ridges, dust rising around the machinery.
‘This guy’s the best dig-truck driver I’ve ever seen,’ Matthew shouted. ‘Those teeth at the front end? He uses them like fingers. Like his own fingers, it’s so delicate.’
The two turkey vultures were still soaring overhead, hanging on updrafts created by wind deflecting off the hills, or on thermal columns rising off roads and clearings in the cedar forest. Their wings were held upwards in flat Vs, the slotted feathers at each wing-tip curving upwards. The vultures sometimes rolled from side to side, riding the gusts and currents, but I never saw them flap their wings. Their gliding was poised and effortless: weight, lift, drag and thrust – the forces essential for flight – were in perfect balance. Now and again the shadows of vultures slid across the concrete planes.
The yellow Cat chugged up a track into the cedars, then reappeared with a smooth-sided limestone slab in its raised, toothed trough. Matthew wanted his driveway to loop around a cedar, the only tree left standing on the building site. Mr Harper drove towards the cedar, stopped the Cat and lowered the trough, and the limestone slab tumbled over the teeth like an old tomb, coming to rest on the rubble and shredded bark, raising a cloud of dust.
Matthew wanted the stone to be in just the right place, and Eleanor and I stood a few steps back as he communicated with Mr Harper by means of an antic semaphore, a repertoire of pointing and waving gestures, and Mr Harper used the trough to nudge and coax the slab according to these instructions. Matthew devoted all his attention to the placing of the stone. He was building a house. Trees, windows, doorways, statues – these were to be his life’s fixed marks, unchanging and dependable, his points of reference. He had to get it right. Slowly, in line with Matthew’s signals, Mr Harper worked the stone over to its allotted place next to the cedar.
‘That’s it!’ Matthew shouted. ‘Right there!’
The Cat drew back from the stone, tracks clanking. Matthew stood with his hands on his hips, nodding with approval. He looked at the stone, then at the house, the canvas tent, the red and white mast, as if contemplating the distribution of landmarks, registering just what was here and what wasn’t. The vultures kept gliding round and round, birds circling on a child’s mobile.
‘OK?’ Eleanor yelled at Matthew.
‘Yeah,’ he shouted. ‘Looks good.’
We got back into the Mercedes. Eleanor drove across the clearing towards the opening in the cedars, and I looked back over my shoulder at the house, the mast towering above it, Matthew striding towards the Cat, towards Mr Harper. The cab’s door opened as Matthew approached, but cedars blocked my view from the car the instant before a figure emerged.
*
A FTER SUPPER , which we ate in the kitchen, sitting on stools at the sideboard, Eleanor filled the larger of the two skillets with
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