Vixen. Rosie Garland

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      I feel that mix of wistfulness that I have no wings to spread and join them, yet happy that my journeys are conducted in solitude and not subject to the squabbling whim of birds. I am so wrapped in the drowsy distraction of a full belly that it takes me a while to realise that something is amiss. Their flapping is troubled, unlike their usual joyous dance. They cast themselves raggedly across the sky, first one way and then the other.

      Their cries fill the sky and in them I seem to hear: Come close; follow and we will tell. Half-words, half-news and I must know the whole. The last thing I want to do is venture from the safety of the forest and any closer to the village squatting a stone’s throw away. But something pulls me, like iron to a lodestone.

      I slide from my perch, scrambling down fast as a squirrel. My attention is so fixed on the birds that I almost trip over the body stretched across the path. I leap away shrieking, and hear a dry chuckle above my head. Some would say it’s no more than the rattling of rook’s beaks, but I know better.

      ‘Very funny,’ I grumble. ‘I suppose that’s your idea of a joke?’

      The man’s arms are stretched out as though nailed to the earth; back arched upwards, his body a bow that Death pulled back and never released. I don’t want to look at him. I cannot take my eyes away.

      His scrip is gutted, any coins long gone. His boots must have been fine, for they too have been stolen. His cap bears a leaden badge and just out of reach of his clawing fingers is a tiny book: face down, wings spread, prayers melting into the dirt.

      Don’t you want to step a little closer? whispers my old friend. Smell the roses I have planted in his throat?

      I don’t need to be a clerk to read this riddle. His flesh is swollen, eyes thrusting from his head, mouth gaping in its final shriek and gagged by the thick tongue bloating between his lips. The pustules at his throat broke open long ago and are congealed with black ooze.

      I am muffled in silence, as though the forest is stuffing her fingers into her ears. I wonder if this is what the birds want to show me. I squint through the branches, a dart of disappointment that I have lost them, then spy the flock heading west. The call to be away is clear. I set my shoulders straight, leap over the pilgrim’s carcase and follow them out of the trees.

      I keep pace as best I can: running alongside streams and ducking under hedgerows in case I should meet some worthy peasant who takes it upon himself to ask difficult questions of a strange girl wandering where she shouldn’t.

      The starlings reel in the direction of the sea, a bowshot distant, chattering, We know what’s coming! Follow us and we’ll tell all! I skirt the village and chase them into the saltmarsh, a scribble of whip-grass and vetch heavy with the brackish reek of sedges. There’s not so much as a bush to provide cover. My feet itch to be back in the forest, my neck prickling with the fear some man is watching. But curiosity drags me forwards. I must know.

      ‘Come on,’ I growl. ‘If you’ve got something to say, be done with it.’

      The mere is raked with drainage ditches, digging their talons through the mud. Weak sunlight catches the surface of the water, turning them from black to silver, silver to black. I jump into one, scuttle along out of sight.

      After a few minutes I meet a water rat dashing in the opposite direction, fur sticking out in a shock of frizz. The only thing they fear are dogs, and where there’s a dog there’s a man soon after. I crouch low in the cutting, sending silent thanks to the fleeing creature for its warning. My ears are cocked for barking, for the snuffling of a wet nose on the scent, the encouraging shouts of its master; but there’s nothing save the racket of birds heading further into the marsh.

      More water rats bounce past on tiny paws, then a pair of otters, all running inland. The hindmost otter pauses and hops onto her hindquarters. She peers at me and sniffs.

      ‘What’s afoot?’ I ask her. She pats her broad paws together. ‘That’s right. Tell your old friend. What’s all this business with the birds? I’ve never seen such a commotion.’

      For answer, she ruffles her whiskers and dives back into the waterway. With a flick of her tail she catches up with her mate and is gone. I can’t help but laugh. I have always found the beasts of the field far better company than men. The breeze stiffens and I curse myself for leaving my over-tunic in the fork of the tree. I press on, shivering in under-tunic and half-hose.

      The starlings continue to swirl, crashing into each other with such force that they tumble to earth in a sprawl of feathers. I trip over snapped bodies: beetle-wing eyes already dim, the tips of their beaks pointing in the same direction, towards the sea. They are not alone. A wild parliament of birds is gathering there.

      Lapwings brush the earth with their bellies, curlews flipping over like cakes on a hot stone. A pair of swans thrash their necks so furiously I think they will snap. Even rooks have joined the throng, drawn from the forest as urgently as myself. The air roughens with the okokok of geese, the clattering of oystercatchers, the booming of bitterns, a hubbub of squawking and screeching. In the melee, more and more collide and plummet, raining down until the earth is pillowed with plumage.

      ‘What do you want?’ I shout. ‘Why have you brought me here?’

      At my words, the company falls silent. They stretch their wingtips and pause, hanging in the thickening air. It is the matter of a moment. Then, as if by some unknown command, they draw together like the fingers of a giant hand, from the greatest to the smallest, till they are one flock. Not one touches the other, not by so much as a tail-feather.

      With stately grace they form a circle the breadth of the heavens: no haste, no sound, even the beating of their wings muted. They glide round and round in a dizzying arc, the maelstrom so thick as to make the morning dark as evenfall. I watch open-mouthed, and in the silence I see what is coming. To the west, massing over the sea, is a mountain of cloud, black as the bottom of a well and greater than any I have ever seen.

      ‘A storm?’ I yell at the birds. ‘Is that all? You dragged me out of my warm, comfortable tree to tell me it’s going to rain?’

      I shake my fist and a bellyful of seagull shit lands on my head. I run my hands through my stinking hair, cursing shitty-arsed birds the world over. My fingers tangle in filth.

      ‘Why me?’ I yell, dripping with half-digested fish. ‘What did I ever do to you?’

      The gulls laugh, a raucous rattle like a stick dragged along a gate. A black-faced bird unpicks itself from the whirlpool of wings and dives so close to my head that I have to crouch to escape its attack. It swoops away without striking. Another does the same, and another, buffeting my head with salt air. I have seen birds mob a cat before, and have laughed mightily at the sport. Now the tables are turned and it is not in the least amusing. Drops of rain strike my shoulders, save it is not rain, it is more bird shit. All join in, pelting me with muck.

      ‘I hate you!’ I shriek. ‘I’ll kill every one of you! I’ll set fire to every nest and burn your hatchlings to cinders! I’ll burn down the forest and you in it!’

      Egg-killer! they shriek. Murderer of our children!

      I see the empty nests, all their generations gulped down my gullet. ‘I was hungry!’ I whine.

      They make one more turn of their grand dance. The smallest are the first to leave: sparrows and wrens head back to their hedgerows, СКАЧАТЬ