Read Online The Snow Geese by William Fiennes - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: William Fiennes
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who had been switching her attention between tapestry and visitor with impressive, quiet acuity.
‘Well, good luck to you,’ she said. She smiled; her crow’s feet deepened.
*
S TREETLIGHT FILTERED through the blinds into the small wood-walled guest room, picking out the lines of the birdcage on the chest-of-drawers, the curving fretwork culminating at the zenith ring. I tended to wake up early. In the months I’d spent at home, waiting for my strength to return, I’d wake when it was still dark and lie in the small bed, across the sag in the unsprung horsehair mattress, interrogating the chain of events, imagining the life I was missing, fearing further setbacks, my mind grinding its teeth. That room’s curtains had not changed since childhood: they were blue, with parallel bands of giraffes, lions, elephants and apes in browns and dark greys marching from left to right, as if to arks. When you drew the curtains back the animals huddled together in the enclaves of the pleats and folds, and the fact that they were there, and just as I remembered them to be – the fact that
now
was agreeing with
then
– was itself reassuring: a conduit to less equivocal days, a mark of steadiness in the chaos of illness and its treatments. Light gathered in the bands of animals and the intervening blocks of blue, and slowly the shape of Everest emerged, with the biplane hanging like a toy far below the level of the summit. The curtains, the picture, a simple chair with my father’s jacket draped on its shoulders – these objects filled particular vacancies as if designed for them.
Impossible, on such mornings, to imagine that one day I would be in Austin, Texas, on my way towards the Canadian Arctic in the company of a bunch of birds. My early waking at that time may have been a sign of depression, but it persisted as a habit even after the crisis had passed and the strength of my anxieties had waned. So I woke up early in Eleanor’s house, in the room that had been Matthew’s room, and there it was, the birdcage standing on the chest-of-drawers, birdless, gilded even in the half-light, its lines concluding as if in a knot at the zenith of the dome, my glance alighting as no bird could on the dowel rod that threaded the cage, and then on the drawing of the cowboy pitched in the air, his hand on the reins and his feet in the stirrups his only points of connection to the bucking horse.
I hadn’t intended to stay more than a night. But Eleanor encouraged me to settle in, to make myself at home. She taught me some of the house’s quirks – the special expertise required for shutting off a tap; the chest where blankets were kept, pulled two inches out from the wall so the lid’s back edge didn’t scrape on the panelling when you opened it – and I learned others for myself, like the way the puck spun off the wind-chimes, the noise the slatted doors made as they swung to a shut in gradually shorter arcs behind you. I sat at the glass-topped table on the balcony, reading and writing, learning about birds, at ease, finding my feet in America. Several days passed before descriptions of Zugunruhe reminded me of my purpose, and restlessness took hold again. I hadn’t come to settle in. Spring was under way, we were well into March, snow geese were pressing towards Winnipeg. I had to get going.
Eleanor slid back the glass doors and stepped out on to the balcony.
‘What do you think about going to see the bats?’ she asked.
She said that bats arrived from Mexico each spring to roost under a bridge downtown. You could see them at sunset, when they came out to forage for insects.
I told her I loved the idea, but I’d been thinking about moving on.
‘You’re worrying about those birds. They’re leaving you behind, right?’
‘I’ve got some catching up to do.’
‘I guess those geese could be in North Dakota. I guess we better get you on the Greyhound. We better rush you up to Fargo!’
*
T HAT EVENING , we drove to
‘Well, good luck to you,’ she said. She smiled; her crow’s feet deepened.
*
S TREETLIGHT FILTERED through the blinds into the small wood-walled guest room, picking out the lines of the birdcage on the chest-of-drawers, the curving fretwork culminating at the zenith ring. I tended to wake up early. In the months I’d spent at home, waiting for my strength to return, I’d wake when it was still dark and lie in the small bed, across the sag in the unsprung horsehair mattress, interrogating the chain of events, imagining the life I was missing, fearing further setbacks, my mind grinding its teeth. That room’s curtains had not changed since childhood: they were blue, with parallel bands of giraffes, lions, elephants and apes in browns and dark greys marching from left to right, as if to arks. When you drew the curtains back the animals huddled together in the enclaves of the pleats and folds, and the fact that they were there, and just as I remembered them to be – the fact that
now
was agreeing with
then
– was itself reassuring: a conduit to less equivocal days, a mark of steadiness in the chaos of illness and its treatments. Light gathered in the bands of animals and the intervening blocks of blue, and slowly the shape of Everest emerged, with the biplane hanging like a toy far below the level of the summit. The curtains, the picture, a simple chair with my father’s jacket draped on its shoulders – these objects filled particular vacancies as if designed for them.
Impossible, on such mornings, to imagine that one day I would be in Austin, Texas, on my way towards the Canadian Arctic in the company of a bunch of birds. My early waking at that time may have been a sign of depression, but it persisted as a habit even after the crisis had passed and the strength of my anxieties had waned. So I woke up early in Eleanor’s house, in the room that had been Matthew’s room, and there it was, the birdcage standing on the chest-of-drawers, birdless, gilded even in the half-light, its lines concluding as if in a knot at the zenith of the dome, my glance alighting as no bird could on the dowel rod that threaded the cage, and then on the drawing of the cowboy pitched in the air, his hand on the reins and his feet in the stirrups his only points of connection to the bucking horse.
I hadn’t intended to stay more than a night. But Eleanor encouraged me to settle in, to make myself at home. She taught me some of the house’s quirks – the special expertise required for shutting off a tap; the chest where blankets were kept, pulled two inches out from the wall so the lid’s back edge didn’t scrape on the panelling when you opened it – and I learned others for myself, like the way the puck spun off the wind-chimes, the noise the slatted doors made as they swung to a shut in gradually shorter arcs behind you. I sat at the glass-topped table on the balcony, reading and writing, learning about birds, at ease, finding my feet in America. Several days passed before descriptions of Zugunruhe reminded me of my purpose, and restlessness took hold again. I hadn’t come to settle in. Spring was under way, we were well into March, snow geese were pressing towards Winnipeg. I had to get going.
Eleanor slid back the glass doors and stepped out on to the balcony.
‘What do you think about going to see the bats?’ she asked.
She said that bats arrived from Mexico each spring to roost under a bridge downtown. You could see them at sunset, when they came out to forage for insects.
I told her I loved the idea, but I’d been thinking about moving on.
‘You’re worrying about those birds. They’re leaving you behind, right?’
‘I’ve got some catching up to do.’
‘I guess those geese could be in North Dakota. I guess we better get you on the Greyhound. We better rush you up to Fargo!’
*
T HAT EVENING , we drove to
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