2008 - The Bearded Tit (16 page)

He put the notebook down. ‘Let’s have a beer. Your brain obviously needs sedation.’

‘No, I must get on with this. I’m doing a bit of course work precisely because I know if I don’t I’ll spend the entire day on the piss and wake up tomorrow with a stinking hangover.’

‘Suit yourself!’

What a stinking hangover I had the next day! Kramer and I had been up till four o’clock eating chicken soup laced with vodka despite Kramer’s periodic prayers: ‘Oh God, please don’t let Aunt Sadie find out.’ We’d managed to upset the Christians with our noise. At about 11 a.m. they’d sent word to the college authorities and Rex the Chaplain had come round to admonish and counsel us.

He’d staggered off about half three singing ‘Nights in White Satin’. (Or possibly ‘Knights in White Satin’.)

Kramer and I had planned to get up early the next day and make it up to the Christians by attending the morning service. This we didn’t manage, which was a shame. It would have been nice to see what they made of Kramer singing ‘Hava Nagjla’ and me doing ‘Hail Glorious Saint Patrick’. Another time perhaps.

I emerged fully clothed from my bed about noon still snuffling into my pillow for the last lingering traces of Friday. Any effect was spoiled by the presence of neat alcohol and a large crusty stain of what I hoped was dried chicken soup.

I spent most of Sunday washing and debating whether or not to take JJ a present on the following morning. To take a gift would indicate that what had happened on Friday was a special occasion to be marked in some way. Not to take anything would suggest that Friday night, though special, was just something ordinary and normal which should become a luscious but everyday part of our lives together.

I’d ask Kramer.

He’d be full of objective advice and good sense.

What am I saying? No, I wouldn’t ask Kramer.

He’d be full of dismal foreboding. I didn’t want him spreading his diseased karma over my relationship with JJ. He’d probably advise me never to see her again.

‘My advice…’ Kramer shut his eyes in what I assumed he thought was the manner of a sage and put his joined hands to his mouth. ‘My advice is that you should never see her again.’

‘Don’t be daft.’

‘Be strong, move on. That was an episode of your life that’s past. Be grateful for the experience, seek out pastures new.’

‘You sound like a horoscope.’

‘What star sign are you?’

‘Pisces.’

‘Ooh dear. It’s a very bad week for Pisces. Be prepared for a nasty shock. Your life is about to change.’

‘My life
is
about to change. I know that. Things will be different now. Anyway, you don’t believe in all that bollocks, do you?’

Kramer grinned. ‘No, of course I don’t. I’m too realistic. Pragmatic. I’m too scientific and rational in my approach to things. Too cynical really.’

‘I see.’

‘Typical Aries, in fact.’

I held up a small, fluffy toy bird. ‘Look. I managed to get a long-tailed tit. JJ’s favourite!’

‘You’ve already given her a reed warbler. Don’t spoil her!’

I laughed. ‘It was a reed bunting. Reed warbler’s a very different bird. Looks different, sounds different.’

‘Do I look like I care about the difference between a reed bunting and a reed warbler?’

‘Ah, well, that’s because you’re too egocentric. You don’t know the names of things. You don’t engage with the beauty of the living world.’

‘I bet they’re both small brown birds.’

‘Well, yes, they are sort of, but—’

‘There you are, you see. That’s plenty of ornithology for a Sunday.’

I was tiring of Kramer and I had calculated that by now my bath would be ready.

‘I’ve got to go and have a bath.’

‘When did you start the taps running?’ he asked.

‘Twenty-five minutes ago.’

‘Give it another ten minutes.’

‘No, too long. The hot tap will be running cold then or some bastard will have gone in and nabbed it.’

I got up and Kramer left, stopping to ask, ‘Are you going to Rex the Chaplain’s Christmas drinks tonight?’

‘Er…I could do. I don’t want to be hungover tomorrow. A big day.’

He nodded. ‘Oh yes, you’ve got a Spanish supervision, haven’t you?’

‘Oh yes, but also, it’s probably the last day I’ll see JJ before the holidays.’

A big tut from Kramer, a dramatic headshake and exit with door-slam.

I took my towel and toiletries down to the basement where the baths were kept. My bath should be just right by now.

The cubicle door was locked.

I don’t believe this.

I heard singing.

Bugger. Someone had sneaked in and stolen my bath.

I banged on the door. ‘Oi, that’s my bathwater, you know!’

‘Oh, terribly sorry, I’ll leave it in for you!’ The voice was distinctive and instantly recognizable. A third-year English student who was a big noise in the university theatre and in Footlights.

‘Clean the bath after you and fill it up again,’ I shouted at the door. ‘Tosser,’ I added quietly.

‘It’s still warm.’

‘I don’t want your filthy water, Griff. Get a move on!’

‘I’m not all that dirty,’ he said.

‘No, but I’m
very
dirty,’ said a mischievous girl’s voice after some playful splashing.

‘So am I,’ giggled another.

By Monday morning I was sufficiently clean to go and meet JJ for her 10.30 a.m. coffee-break. Unfortunately this coincided with the last fifteen minutes of a supervision on ‘Symbolism in Lorca’. Having postponed this session every week for nine weeks, this was my last chance of the term and I had to attend. I’d even done the essay. My first of the term. It wasn’t a great piece of work: too short and lacking things like insight, facts, comment, thought, originality and decent punctuation, but it was
finished and handed in on time
.

Eventually.

The supervisor for twentieth-century Spanish literature was Dr Clarkson, who was known to be ‘fond of a small sherry’. I had my fingers crossed for a ‘no-show’. He’d been at Rex the Chaplain’s drinks do the night before and had looked destined for a sick-note.

The door to his rooms rather disappointingly did not have a note pinned to it saying, ‘Dr Clarkson apologizes, but due to illness he is unable to supervise today.’

‘Ah good morning, McGrath.’ He swept up the stairs behind and into his rooms, beckoning me to follow.

Damn. Now I’d have to think of some ruse to get out of there early.

‘Nice to see you bang on time, Mr McGrath. No ill effects from Rex’s sherry, I hope.’

Bingo.

‘Er…actually, Dr Clarkson, funny you should say that but I’ do feel distinctly queasy. Obviously I couldn’t miss the supervision but I hope you’ll forgive me if I make an unseemly dash for the lavatory at any moment.’

‘Of course.’

‘Say about ten-twentyish,’ I said under my breath.

He looked at me, frowned then laughed. ‘Come to think of it, you do look pretty damned awful, if I may say so!’

Cheeky bastard. I felt great. And I
looked
great. Well, as great as I could. I certainly looked better than he did. He began pouring himself a coffee and took a nibble of biscuit.

‘I’m afraid I felt your essay lacked a certain something, Mr McGrath,’ he said, spitting crumbs in my direction.

‘What, sir?’

‘Well: ideas, thought, originality. That sort of thing. In fact—‘ He stopped suddenly and went disturbingly pale. ‘Oh my God!’ He put hand to his mouth. ‘I think I’m…’ He stood up gingerly.

‘Look, I’m sorry, can we call it a day, I’m…oh no!’ His dash from the study was as welcome as it was unseemly and within a minute I was walking out of college towards Blackwaters.

My main worry as I approached the shop, giddy with nerves, was how, after the tender heights and erotic depths of Friday night, JJ and I were going to manage to slip back into polite tea-shop normality, sipping our drinks, holding hands, talking inconsequentially of humdrum things, chaperoned by a workaday, drizzly, city-centre Monday morning.

Well, we had the rest of our lives together to solve that problem, I suppose.

Critchley aimed a nervous nod in my direction from the front desk of the natural history department.

‘Morning,’ he said through a weak smile.

‘Morning. Is JJ around?’

He took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes and squinted at me.

‘Oh come on, you know where JJ is today. She’s away. On her honeymoon. She got married on Saturday.’

A
punch in the back of the neck. No karate chop this, but an eternity of pain squeezed tightly into a fist of feathers. Approaching at two hundred miles an hour from nowhere. First there is serenity; there are the everyday things that every day brings in an everyday sort of way; you are going about your humdrum business or, perhaps, you are grasping the day with expectation and joy, perhaps you are even flying, then BANG!

Pain.

And blackness.

Maybe just blackness. Pain would be a luxury. Pain means you still feel. Pain is a message from your brain to say that you are still alive. Yes, pain means life.

The cliff-dwelling pigeon may feel nothing at all. There is wind, there is sea, there is sky, there is a huge expanse of light and sound, then nothing. But you don’t feel nothing. You can’t feel ‘nothing’. You just stop feeling something. But, then, you can’t stop feeling something, because that implies you can feel the feeling stopping. Death is not part of your life. There is your life and then there is death. There is no in between.

But let us think about the peregrine falcon. One of the world’s fastest birds. But it’s only fast with the powerful hand of gravity behind it. It could not catch a spine-tailed swift in level flight. But its deadly mastery of the sky deserves more than a little consideration and respect. Pigeons are very fast fliers, but they don’t manoeuvre in a particularly agile way. The peregrine requires much skill and some very specialist equipment to hunt and kill in its unique style.

Altitude. That’s its first weapon. It needs to be high enough not only to effect its lightning dive, but to be unseen. You surely do not expect an insignificant dark grey dot in the white sky to blossom within a few seconds into your bright red death.

Its victims cannot easily cover the sky above them. They can’t fly upside-down. So the falcon has to gain altitude. For this, of course, the bird uses its wings. But it has virtually two sets of wings. Low-altitude wings and high-altitude wings. It has two broad wings with feathers spread wide, quickly and robustly flapped by its pugnacious breast till it reaches the desired height, and then its wings change. They become narrow and pointed. The commercial cargo plane becomes the jetfighter. It starts its descent, swimming downwards with gravity, gaining speed and then…No wings at all. It is now plummeting vertically in what is known as a ‘stoop’ and the wings are tucked back out of the way. It has what it needs now. The required speed and the required target.

This is all very well. But it’s easy to overlook a few essentials in this stunning piece of aerobatics. The bird has to see. It has to keep its eyes focused on the target until it strikes and after. It has to breathe. This is a high-fuel operation; the bird can’t hold its breath till the deed is done.

We would find it impossible without goggles and visor to travel through the air at that speed. Evolution has provided the peregrine with an ‘extra’ eyelid bathed with thick, viscous, transparent tears which don’t evaporate. At such high speeds it would be impossible for us to breathe: the air trapped in our nostrils would prevent any other air from entering. The peregrine’s nostril contains a coneshaped structure that causes air flowing past it to spin and thus be sucked in.

And one more thing we could not do is to pull out of a dive of two hundred miles an hour and go gently off in another direction. The G-forces would mash our insides. The peregrine is built to withstand these G-forces. Everything about this bird is minutely and perfectly designed for its purpose. And its purpose is to be a peregrine falcon. God would have been very excited about this one. I bet he couldn’t wait to show his mates this one.

And what a great case in favour of birdwatching the peregrine falcon is! Why do you go birdwatching, people ask. Isn’t it boring? At times it may be, but if once, just once will do, you see a peregrine take a pigeon in mid-air, you’ll know it’s all been worth it.

In the Middle Ages, such a bird was the glitzy fashion accessory of the rich and the aristocratic. No nobleman could be without his falcon. What a sleek status symbol it is too. A Ferrari perhaps, or something more deadly to show off to your peers: a gun.

Now, the peregrine, and indeed many other falcons, has a habit that is very fortunate for the falconer. When a falcon ‘downs’ a bird, it tends to stand over it with its wings outspread as if protecting its quarry from others. This is called ‘mantling’—which, for you etymology fans, comes from the Latin
mantellum
, meaning a napkin, towel, blanket or cloak. And while the falcon shields its victim in a feathery cloak, it devours its favourite bit: the head, especially the choice titbits of brain and eyes. Precisely the bits of a game bird the falconer, the butchers, and you and me, have no interest in.

And this bird is not just a bird of the wilderness. Its territory is much closer to home than the remote moorland and the lofty difftops. I have seen one several times—or rather caught out of the corner of my eye the streamlined anchor shape—along the edges of Cornish cliffs. There is a place called Symond’s Yat in Herefordshire where the picturesque river Wye makes a voluptuous bend through a limestone gorge and where it is almost impossible
not
to see a peregrine. And I’ve seen one take a pigeon from its perch on Tyne Bridge in the heart of Newcastle. In fact, in many ways, the heart of the city is
the
habitat. It has two perfect ingredients: lots of high places to nest and keep watch, and lots of pigeons.

The city falcon is such a beautiful example of man and nature side by side. And I mean
nature
, the old ‘red-in-tooth-and-claw’ nature, raw nature rubbing shoulders with bankers and secretaries eating their lunchtime sandwiches on the roof terrace. You don’t have to know anything about birds, but you see this one in the middle of the city and you just know from some distant folk memory, from some dim instinct, that this is more than just a bird.