The Cormorant Read online

  ‘Here we are. Come on, Archie, don’t be shy. You’ve got a visitor.’

  Inside the wire-mesh cage, the crate stood among the threads of straw. There was no movement or sound from the box. The cage and the silent crate were like an odd work of sculpture in some modern gallery, the box standing centre stage, the whiteness of the wood smeared with yellows and greens and browns. Mr Knapp had never been inside an art gallery, but his daily newspaper sometimes ridiculed the idiocies of abstract sculpture. He glanced at me, thinking perhaps that this was my idea of a joke, the sort of Christmas game which schoolteachers played. If so, it was as daft as those prints hanging on the living-room wall.

  ‘Hey, Archie, it’s Christmas Day. Don’t be an unsociable bugger … come on, Scrooge!’

  There was a rope which led from the box, through the wire, coiled up and then attached to the drainpipe by the kitchen window. The ladies moved like ghosts behind the steamed-up glass. I took the rope and pulled it tight, began to tug it gently, rocking the crate.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Archie!’ I called, and started to sing Good King Wenceslas, my voice oiled with sherry. The crate rocked more and more, there was no response. It swayed and toppled over. The cormorant fell out. It stood up and stretched, beating its wings and sending up the blades of straw, then stopped in mid-beat to adopt its more picturesque heraldic pose for the benefit of its new admirer. And Archie hissed.

  ‘Hell’s teeth …’ whispered Mr Knapp, taking a step backwards.

  Hiding a smile behind my hand, I nodded my head in appreciation. ‘A cormorant,’ I said. ‘Phalacrocorax carbo, a second-year male, I think. We call it Archie. Quite a beast, eh? I’ve been fishing with it a few times from the beach at Caernarfon, caught bags of dabs and eels. I put a collar round its throat and a line to its ankle, wait until it’s got something and then tug it in. Then you confiscate the fish and push the bird back out to sea. Make a lovely soup with the dabs and Archie eats all the eels. You should come with us next time we go: you’d be impressed.’

  Mr Knapp was impressed. He was staring, open-mouthed, at the cormorant. Archie remained still, wings outspread, head erect, beak agape.

  ‘Can be a bit temperamental,’ I continued, ‘a bit moody, you know what I mean? Not a goose, not a crow, not a gull … a cormorant, something of a sea-crow. In fact, the name’s derived from the Latin, corvus marinus, which means exactly that. Great fisherman, with a disgraceful appetite: it’ll eat almost anything.’ I went to the wire. ‘Come on, Archie. Don’t be snooty, come and say hello.’

  The bird folded its wings and waddled forward. It put its beak through the mesh. Moving my hands slowly, I touched the beak and stroked the glossy head. ‘There’s a good lad. I’ll get you some tasty scraps when we’ve had our dinner. Haven’t forgotten you, so there’s no need for you to sulk in your box all day.’

  The other man came to the cage.

  ‘Always move really slowly,’ I warned him, ‘or it gets a bit jumpy. Seems pretty relaxed today though. Must be the Christmas spirit …’ Mr Knapp ran a finger along the cormorant’s bill. I raised an eyebrow at the bird’s patience with this stranger. The finger caressed the short feathers of Archie’s throat. It closed its eyes. ‘Well, well, you’ve made a conquest there,’ I admitted. ‘You’re the first person, apart from me and its previous owner, who’s had the honour of coming so close and actually touching the thing. Hope you’re not getting soft, Archie.’

  Just then, with the rattle of an opening window, there came Ann’s voice: ‘Come on, you two men, dinner’s ready. We need some carving done …’

  As though to prove it understood the words, the cormorant reacted. Archie withdrew the beak into the cage, away from the soporific movement of the finger, withdrew it with the same deliberate accumulation of tension of a man who pulls back the string of a longbow, and shot it forward again at the loosely dangling hand. The tip of the dagger-beak stabbed and raked, there was a sharp crack, like splintering wood. Mr Knapp leapt from the wire, bellowed a single obscenity and jammed the wounded hand under his armpit. Archie retreated into the furthest corner, shaking its head from the gloom. The man shouted a string of particularly unseasonal blasphemies at the cormorant. He exhaled a series of hisses from between whitened lips, looking as fierce as he often did at the end of a cross-country run, squeezing the hand under his arm and mouthing his favourite oath. I had watched the cormorant strike. Something told me that the beak was destined for the finger, just as Archie closed its eyelids and swooned in the luxury of the man’s caresses. There was something so inevitable about it at that moment that I had been unable to speak a word of warning. So I simply watched.

  We hurried into the kitchen.

  ‘Your language, gentlemen …’ began Ann, but I cut her off.

  ‘Take a look at this hand, Ann, will you? That bugger Archie got him.’

  She added her own choice of expletives to those of the injured man, glaring first at me and then out of the window, at the cage. Mrs Knapp went very pale, but she managed to extricate the hand from her husband’s armpit. Harry came to the kitchen, on hearing the commotion. He stood at the door, smiling like an angel. Among the numerous pots and pans which were empty and awaiting washing, with steam rising from three dishes of vegetables, different sauces and gravy, with the golden carcase of the turkey crackling gently to itself in a bath of its own juices, somehow a space was cleared so that the wound could be attended to. The man hopped from foot to foot at the touch of cold water, hissing like a kettle. His wife washed and dried the hand, dabbed some disinfectant on the broken skin. At this, Mr Knapp yelped, and Harry chuckled so loudly that I felt it was tactful to shoo him back into the living-room. In fact, the extent of the cut was not severe: it seemed that the beak had struck a hammer blow rather than a stab: there was the first flowering of a big bruise and the suspicion that the little finger was fractured. His hand was bandaged. He accepted a glass of sherry to replace his customary orange juice. The colour returned to his thin cheeks. Ann and I could not apologise enough; she gave her guests another kiss each and sat them down at the dining-table we had set up in front of the fire. Returning to the kitchen to collect the vegetables and the meat I was carving, she wheeled on me, her eyes ablaze.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, what do you think you were doing out there? You let him touch that crazy bird? The thing’s a killer!’

  ‘It seemed to be alright today. He stroked it, so it closed its eyes and let him carry on. You startled it by calling out of the window …’

  ‘Oh, charming!’ she exclaimed. ‘Was it my fault then? Did I frighten your darling bird? The poor sensitive little thing . .

  ‘Of course it wasn’t your fault, love. I didn’t mean to sound like that. It all just happened in a flash. It needn’t spoil our day, he’ll be OK, he’s got a broken finger, that’s all. He’s a tough guy, he’ll tell everyone who goes into the shop and love every minute of it.’ I kissed her cheek. ‘I’ll carve, you take everything through to the patient and his wife.’

  She shrugged, forced a wry smile. ‘This is madness. You know, not one of my friends in the suburbs of Derby has got a bloody cormorant in the backyard. The poor deprived souls, they don’t know what delights they’re missing . . Still muttering to herself, she went into the living-room with two dishes of vegetables.

  It was a delicious meal. Ann had excelled herself. She pointed out that it was her wonderful husband who had done all the shopping, making the arduous journey into Caernarfon several times, with no thought for his own entertainment. I responded by reaching under the cloth in the pretence of retrieving my fallen napkin, to run my hand along the inside of her thigh.

  She was a little red-faced when I emerged again with the napkin. There was plenty of wine. Mr Knapp declared a lifting of his personal ban on the drinking of alcohol, brandishing the wounded hand. The blood was seeping through the bandage and had stained the table-cloth as well. He wore it like a badge. ‘Don’t fuss, dear,’ he said, waving away the attentions
of his wife. ‘Bit of blood and a broken finger, that’s all. I’ll be pounding those roads again tomorrow morning, you’ll see …’

  Harry was subdued. He ate what Ann gave him, but kept his eyes on the man and his growing blossom of blood.

  The courses came and went with the opening and emptying of more bottles of wine. I got up to fuel the fire, Ann was back and forth to the kitchen, Harry watched us all from within his private world of silence. He flinched at the pop of the corks, and he smiled to see me throw each cork among the flames, signalling our intention of finishing a bottle once it was started. The child seemed to be studying us all, from a great distance, almost as though he were a towering adult intent on the stirring of an ant-hill. Once or twice, his eyes flickered from the bloodstained bandage to meet my eyes, and he would smile a lazy smile, as if we were sharing a private joke. Just as Ann had said before: he was like an adult, withdrawn and somewhat vacant, content to watch us and smile knowingly to himself.

  It was the longest and most leisurely meal that we had had in the cottage. More wine, a drop more brandy, then the coffee pot lingered on the table and was replenished in the kitchen. Harry was encouraged to leave the table. He continued his exploration of the breaking points of his new toys; only a few gurgling cries were heard from behind the sofa, and his little blond head appeared now and then to remind us that he was still there and aware of every gesture we made.

  The Queen’s speech began on the radio. We four adults sat in silence and listened, the Knapps with sombre faces, while I walked my errant hand along Ann’s thigh. She pushed me away with one of her fierce teacher’s glares, but locked her fingers into mine. ‘Amen,’ I said, as soon as the speech was finished, and quickly turned off the radio before the anthem started, to avoid the possibility of the Knapps’ jumping to their feet.

  Outside, the light was already fading on a grey afternoon. There was no traffic. The village was as silent as the mountains. As soon as the debris was cleared into the kitchen and Ann had firmly refused all offers of help with the washing-up, we sank back into our armchairs. I put two logs on the fire. For a minute, the flames were muted. Then the golden tongues locked round the dry wood and the room was splashed with their glow. The lights of the Christmas tree shone. On the carpet were the scarlet and purple ribbons of discarded wrapping paper, the litter of pine needles, the wine bottles which twinkled in the growing blaze, the confusion of Harry’s toys. The room was warm and full of colour. Ann looked as though she would begin to purr loudly at any moment, curled up in her armchair, the red dress and its glimpses of her breasts. Mr Knapp put his head back; he seemed to have forgotten the throb in his hand in the fullness of food and wine. His wife was already asleep. Silence, save for the occasional spitting of the logs. My eyelids were heavy, becoming heavier, my head swam a little when I closed my eyes. Silence, and the inviting oblivion of sleep …

  Only Harry remained wide-awake.

  He came round from his toys behind the sofa, stood on the rug in front of the fire. He looked at the four adults, one after the other. The fierce-looking stranger was asleep, making a whistling noise through his beard. The lady was asleep too. His mother was asleep. Harry looked at me. I watched him through flickering eyelids. Again our eyes met, and he smiled his grown-up smile. He turned to the tree, took a handful of the needles and put them in his mouth. Then he blew them onto the carpet. It was lovely, close to the fire. For a while, he just looked into its magic places, all the different shapes and colours, faces, animals, birds. He put his cheeks nearer to the flames, withdrew them at the blast of heat. There was such a groaning inevitability about the way he turned from his study of the fire to look again at me, such deliberation in his straightening up and his reappraisal of the slumbering adults, that I felt myself weighted down, sucked irresistibly into the softness of my armchair. And, just as I had known of the cormorant’s intention even before it withdrew its beak from the stranger’s caresses, as I had watched it strike and been unable to speak, again I was frozen into inaction by the shape of the smile on Harry’s face. There was nothing I could do. I simply watched him from my armchair. His smile showed that he knew I would do nothing to stop him. The room was quiet, the house was silent. Only the regular breathing of the sleepers, a fall of embers from the fire. Harry stood on the hearth-rug. He was listening. His little body quivered in the strain of listening. He sniffed the air. He sniffed again, more than anything else in the world like a rat in a sewer, the nostrils twitching, the lips a-tremble.

  With a final dismissive glance in my direction, he stepped over the splayed-out legs of the sleepers and went to the living-room door. He opened it, standing on tip-toe and stretching up to the handle. I heard him go into the kitchen.

  I closed my eyes. I knew what Harry was doing.

  In the kitchen, he halted. Completely still. Listening, listening. Sniffing the air. He walked the few steps to the back door. Stretched up. Opened it.

  Harry stepped into the backyard. It was dark and very cold. Everything was still. He waited in the utter stillness.

  Something was moving in the darkness.

  A black thing was moving among the enveloping blackness of the yard. The thing creaked and hissed. Harry looked and listened and sniffed, went towards it, deeper into the dark.

  He was lost in the shadows.

  Someone was shaking me. It was Ann.

  ‘Come on, sleepy head,’ she said, tugging my elbow. ‘Come on, rouse yourself.’

  I sat up and leaned forward. It was cold, there was a fearful draught from somewhere. Five o’clock. The fire had burned right down, the room was gloomy. My tongue felt woolly, too big for my mouth. I had a thick head.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said very quietly. I said it again, rubbing my forehead.

  Mr Knapp awoke with a start and stared around the dark room, as though for a moment he could not remember where he was. His wife was the last to emerge from sleep, as slow as a bleached porpoise.

  ‘Stoke up the fire,’ said Ann. ‘I think some good strong tea is needed.’

  She got up and went to the door.

  ‘Are you there, Harry?’ she called out vaguely, expecting an answering cry from behind the sofa or from near the tree. Shutting the door and shuddering at the chill which was coming through from the kitchen, she turned back towards the fire.

  ‘Poor little Harry, have we been ignoring you on Christmas Day? It’s naughty daddy’s fault, with all his brandy …’ She cuffed me on the shoulder. ‘You naughty man, sending us all off to sleep.’

  She sat down again.

  ‘Harry? Come on, Harry, are you there?’ Then she sprang to her feet. In a second, she reached the switch and put on the light. Mr Knapp groaned and covered his eyes. Ann was through the room like a panther, behind every piece of furniture, glancing under the tree.

  ‘Oh Christ …’ and she went up the stairs three at a time. Then she was down again. ‘Oh Christ, the door … he’s gone out!’

  I was on my feet, quite unsteady, listening to the rumbling of surf inside my head. But I was right behind Ann as she burst into the kitchen. She turned on the light, gasped at the sight of the open door. The room was bitterly cold.

  ‘Go on … go and look!’ She was transfixed, urging me past her. ‘Please, go and look! I’m . .

  She was quivering. The muscles in her face were all moving, her hands fluttered like terns at the corners of her mouth. Before I could galvanise myself, dispel the cobwebs of sleep from around my eyes, she began to sob, her face twisted with fear, tumbling tears through every line in her cheeks.

  I went out. The light from the kitchen lit the yard and some parts of the garden. With a quick look at the cormorant, which was standing quite still by its crate, I dashed past the cage and down to the stream. I bellowed at the torrent of black water. ‘Harry! Harry! Are you there, Harry?’

  There was Ann’s voice at the door, cracked with bewilderment and horror. ‘Find him, find him! Is he there? Oh, find him, please, please . .


  The Knapps were in the kitchen, peering through the window. I came back up the garden, halted and searched through every bush and brake of bracken, kicking aside the tangles of fuchsia. I must have been sleeping still. There was a whistling in my ears. Ann was there too. She tore out great clumps of honeysuckle which had grown over the fence and onto the ground. She was crying very loudly. Mr Knapp ran past us to the stream. I nearly shouted out to him, to stop him, but my mouth formed the words and there was no sound. He went splashing into the water, pushing aside the overhanging branches of the trees. Through her sobs, Ann was yelling, ‘Come on, Harry! Where are you, Harry? Oh fucking Christmas . .

  Dripping wet from his thighs downwards, Mr Knapp came up to the light again.

  ‘Can’t see anything by the stream. Got a torch?’ He shouted to his wife. ‘Run and get that torch from the shop! Run, woman!’ But before she could move, there came a commotion from the cormorant’s cage. Whereas Archie had been standing still, seemingly dazzled by the sudden glare from the kitchen and confused by the shouting, now it clapped its wings and launched itself at the wire. Hissing like a nest of vipers, it forced its head through the mesh, scrabbled on the wire with its black feet. Mr Knapp shook his bandaged fist at it. ‘And you can stay away from me!’ he stormed. Turning back to his wife, ‘Get the torch, what’s the matter with you, woman?’ And I intervened. I had been staring at the bird, at the cage.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Wait. We don’t need a torch.’

  The cage door was open. The section of mesh, which I could remove and replace when taking Archie out of the cage or putting it back in again, was loose. Ann was holding her breath. I went into the cage. The cormorant retreated from the wire and stood by its crate, the white box which was still on its side since the bird’s rude awakening that morning, stuffed with straw. Archie bristled and came forward, head held low, the beak brandished like a razor in the hand of a drunk. This time there was no retreat: the bird shot at my ankles with the speed of a snake, and the beak cracked on my shin. In a second, it was by the crate again. The cormorant spread its wings across the tumble of straw.