Collector of Lost Things (41 page)

‘Remember I told you, once, about the place I used to imagine, when I was a child—a place where all the lost things of the world might be found? It’s up to you now, my heart, to find that place, and keep this bird and its chick there. You’ll do that, won’t you, Eliot?’

‘Yes,’ I promised.

She looked back, her eyes bright with bravery and doubt in equal measure. ‘And as soon as I am able to, you know I shall come back here, don’t you? I’ll come back and see what a fine hiding place you have made in these coves and islands. See, you’ll have to work hard, because you won’t want to let me down, will you? I’ll be back to see our bird and … and the chick and I will come back to see you …’

‘I don’t want to leave,’ I said.

She nodded, and sat next to me. ‘I know,’ she sighed. She had let go of her hair—the knot sprang open, half finished. I watched the plait slowly unravelling.

‘What will happen?’

She placed her hand on mine. ‘The egg will hatch,’ she replied.

‘It’s not what I meant.’

‘I know what you meant. But I cannot answer that.’

I had climbed into the whaleboat, as if in a dream. The
Amethyst
’s planks had smelt tarry, and my last touch of them was something I felt on the tips of my fingers for a long time after. I sat in the tender, where the two Herlihy brothers were waiting to row me to shore. I remember the simple push that one of them gave the ship, to cast us off, and the sense that with it I was leaving the one thing that I truly shouldn’t leave, nor should ever leave. And as the brothers rowed me to the quayside, I turned my back upon the ship, tried to listen instead to the soft rhythmic dip of the oars in the still water, the sound of the great auk murmuring from within its container, occasionally adjusting its footing in there. I tried to concentrate on the egg I was keeping warm in the fold of my lap and tried, but failed, to ignore the presence of Quinlan French, standing like a column of dark troubled air behind me, at the quarterdeck rail.

I arranged my lodging at the Castlebay Inn. They had an outbuilding where, above a store, there was a bare loft that could accommodate myself and my luggage. One window, at the end, offered a small view of the loch and the sea beyond. It was through that window that I watched the
Amethyst
preparing to sail. I followed the familiar routines of unfurling the mainsail. The men, from so far away, appeared like a row of knots in the fixed rigging. The window had four panes, and I sat perfectly still, watching the ship lean gradually away from the wind, begin to drift from the bottom right pane into the centre of the window, and then into the upper left pane, further sails becoming loosened, flapping then tightening, being brought under control, the ship growing ever smaller, eventually vanishing, removed from my sight beyond the curve of the world.

I lit a strong fire in the stove and arranged my books on the shelf. I hung my jacket on a peg near the fire, where it would naturally warm. I ate the two coconut biscuits Simao had given to me on leaving, with a jug of hot tea that the innkeeper, Mr MacNeil, had brought over. I sat long into the night, disturbed by aspects of my departure, a separation I felt increasing, second upon second, between myself and Clara. I was perfectly still, seated at my desk, but she was leaving.

In the early hours I fell asleep, not in my bed, but on the armchair next to the fire, with a blanket across my lap, in the same manner that Bletchley had spent most of the voyage. Long into the night I sat there, gazing across the room at the dark bird with the two patches of white plumage above its eyes. Comical indeed, as it regarded me as if I was a puzzling companion. Fellow traveller, both of us a long way from home. In the shadows, I had watched as it occasionally turned its head, the light glimmering a dull graphite shine on the side of its beak. The auk sat on or near its egg, adjusting its posture, sighing or grumbling deep in its throat, keeping vigil. In this room, two days after I had landed, the egg hatched.

We both heard the sounds of movement coming from within the shell. A scratch at first, which soon developed into a tap, a series of taps, then a rhythm that came and went in little bursts. The great auk regarded the event with curiosity, angling its head to watch the egg as if not quite comprehending why it should be emitting a noise. I sat still, not wishing to disturb it. After forty minutes or so, a hair-like crack began to appear, about as long as a small finger, followed by a dense ring of fractures that developed part way along the line, caused by the concentrated stabbing of a beak within. Concentric rings broke the shell further, the way ice will crack under pressure, and a glimpse was revealed, within two parting edges, of a diaphanous membrane which stretched with the single, insistent pulse of life that I had come to recognise for as long as I had known these remarkable birds. The shell took on a flexible, living quality, pushed from within and then rocking from side to side.

I was struck by the hypocrisy of my joy: this was without doubt the most valuable egg in the world, the shell that any collector or museum would gladly fight over, a shell that I had longed to see and hold for the entirety of my life, yet here I was gladly wishing it to be destroyed by the simple life that it held. Oh, if only Clara had been there, at that miraculous moment! Within an hour, watched by the bird and myself, half of the egg had unhinged, unveiling a wet and confusing interior of feathers. What I could see of the chick lay panting, taking breath and twitching with vital energy. Every few minutes it would resume, rocking and pushing and attempting to lever the shell away. It was a most humbling experience to witness. I had seen many chicks hatch before: swallows’ eggs, as fine as the birds that lay them, wrens’ eggs, too, so delicate it seems they are made of wasp paper, but this struggle, this elemental birth, through a shell that seemed as set as china, was one of the most moving things I have ever observed. Every second it took, every movement of the chick, the world didn’t deserve to witness, and would never see again. I felt privileged, and in awe.

When I saw the beak emerge, fronted by the minute appendage of its shell cutter, I was overcome with tears. The head turned within the open egg and, even at that size, the distinct profile of the characteristic beak was clear. With a sudden tipping of the egg the chick tumbled out, damp with albumen, unsteady and spiky, its wings flared against the bare surface of the floorboards. It staggered and fell, its beak hitting the wood as if it was a weight that had not been anticipated. I immediately knew the chick had died, that the struggle of its hatching was too much for it to have endured. For the agony of several minutes it did not move. It lay, wet as a fallen leaf, on the floor. Then with two eyes as black as ink, as precise and as piercing as any I have seen, I saw it perceive its mother, and the chick began its struggle towards her.

I kept all this secret, and until now I have never, in fact, told a soul. These birds were too rare for their existence to be known. I have learnt that man places a special price on the unique, and that it will blind his judgement until it is too late. My job in those first few weeks was purely to keep these birds alive, to record them in every detail I could, to make sketches and notes, observe their behaviour and, above all, to make them invisible. My arrival in Castlebay had created interest among those who lived there. I believe I was viewed as a spy acting for one of the estate landowners, and my enquiries about the area and outlying islands were greeted with some suspicion. To some extent this was useful. I kept my room locked and no one dared pry. I was able to study local maps and charts, explaining that I wished to observe the nesting sites and migration routes of indigenous birdlife, and know that this information was given willingly, because they feared I had a more onerous agenda. It was only after several weeks, with no calamity befalling their community, that I felt I was truly believed. A gentleman naturalist. It was a term that suited me well, and one I could hide behind.

During that first summer I purchased a ten-foot sailing skiff, which I spent several weeks restoring. I arranged for a new standing lugsail to be made and bought two nine-foot sculls. I caulked the keel, stem and sternposts with cotton-wick, which I forced in with a blunt chisel, and addressed the planking with a holding-on hammer, tightening up where I saw fit. I attached air-cases either side of the midship thwart and bought several fathoms of new rope and an anchor. I scraped the little craft down, before applying new coats of varnish inside and out, and finally I painted a black rail and a white underbody, the personal livery of the great auk. My secret homage. It was difficult but instructive work; using my hands upon the boat both restored and asserted a sense of purpose in me.

In several excursions into Castlebay harbour, I learnt the rudiments of handling the boat. In the flat water of July and August I explored the complicated chain of islands that extended, in a series of reefs, grazing islands, cliffs and barren shores, to the south and west of Barra, each day pushing my knowledge of this region further.

On fine breezy days I would leave early, hanging a dog-vane of auk feathers and cork from my hand to feel the direction of the wind. I would raise my simple lugsail and beat to windward into a sea that was as iron blue as the ocean fjords of Greenland. With the sun on my face and my back to the wind, I chopped at the waves, enjoying the spray that splashed me from the bow and the smell of the new canvas of the sail. My lungs felt full of this vital air and sense of achievement. Close to shore I raised the keel board to drift through kelp forests, their wide bronzed arms stroking underneath the boat like horses’ tails, and I would pass mirror-calm bays, fringed with coral-white sand, where the wake of a sea otter would create a single, precise scar.

I learnt the names then explored the islands—Vatersay, Muldoanich and Sandray, Pabbay and Mingulay—noting the coves where I might be able to make a safe landing, and the stacks and bays and cliffs where one day the auks might be placed, safe from predation by land or by sea.

As my journeying increased, I began to overnight on some of these islands, hauling my beloved skiff onto the sand and sleeping next to it by the side of a fire fringed with rocks. I would lie on my back, staring up at the deep azure heavens of the summer night sky, finding there the stiff cruciform silhouettes of shearwaters flying in from the sea in mysterious flocks, making the stars blink as they passed beneath. The eerie callings of the birds, the spitting of my fire and the sighing of the shoreline, the pops of bladderwrack and the settling of the boat next to me were the most peaceful sounds I have ever heard.

Some of the islands were inhabited, and here I would eat with the crofters, sitting in their kitchens while a stew of mutton was prepared, or bread baked in the stove, while through an open doorway I would gaze at the sparkling light of the sun on a lonely shoreline. The crofters told me much about the nature of these islands. How the months could be read with the flowering of the plants, how each wind brought new elements of optimism or strife, how the currents encircled the rocks and bay and promontories like the runes of an ancient language that, given time, could be read like any other.

I performed all these tasks and excursions with diligence and enthusiasm, believing fully that one day I might be joined by Clara. She had hinted as much during the last few days of the voyage.
Believe, Eliot,
she had told me,
remember to believe. It is what you are good at.
I would work hard, I promised her, to build a home for myself and find a haven for the birds, so that all we had strived for would not be in vain. There will be a day when we will be together once more, I had said, and we will know that we have made a difference in the progress of the world. That we might live a simple life next to the birds we had saved spurred me on in those first few weeks. This belief kept me alive in spirit and endeavour, right to the moment when, three months after my arrival, I received a letter from Edward Bletchley.

He had a curious and unkempt writing style, as if his hand was trying to catch up with the race of his thoughts, but I could tell, even within the first few words, that this letter had been written in difficult circumstances and brought news that would be hard to bear. I sat, on the edge of my bunk, as sailing had taught me, in preparation for the unexpected.

I reacted to the news of Clara’s death as if I had been struck. I stared at the words, disbelieving their shapes and message, wishing I could rapidly undo the news they formed.

Bletchley wrote with great consideration for my feelings. He acknowledged that Clara and I had shared a special bond that had developed during the voyage, and it was this which had without doubt restored her health, albeit briefly. He made reference to the fact that he had found the voyage—and hunting in particular—a very difficult experience to bear, and admitted that he had become disengaged from the day-to-day nature of social interaction. ‘I had been withdrawn, for the entire second half of the trip, and I thank you for being able to be Clara’s strength in this period. She benefited greatly from having you to rely upon.’ He had written generously, anticipating my sadness and shock and apologising for all he might have done to exacerbate the situation on board. ‘My soul was dark,’ he wrote. ‘I was hardly the pilot of its woeful direction.’ His sentences were muddled at times, as if the entire experience of the ship and its journey existed as one present and immediate sensation for him. ‘She was ill at the start, from a mental exhaustion which I believed was a result of the escape from her wretched father—and the impending day when she would have to face him again, but I have since concluded that my own presence may also have contributed to her oppression. I am truly sorry for it.’ He wrote of his reliance upon her, and said that it must have taken a toll. And there followed a lengthy passage where he explained the sins we had all committed against the balance of the world, suggesting his recovery was far from complete.

Becoming more lucid, he wrote of the situation on board following the day I had been left on Barra. He described an uneasy truce, with the captain having retired to his cabin for much of the day, and Clara and Mr French in lengthy conversations long into the night. He described French as a leech, sucking the blood of life from whomever he latched onto, and wished that he had thrown him over the side, rather than the pelts of the great auks.
My mistake!
he had written, as an afterthought, in the margin. ‘It seems that Mr French had developed an unhealthy obsession with my cousin,’ he wrote, ‘which could not be easily satisfied.’ In an oddly formal comment he added: ‘Rest assured, Clara did not once lose her natural and splendid dignity.’ But it had been clear, he continued, to all on board, that French was exerting a most uncomfortable pressure upon her, a pressure of expectation, and a tragic air had descended upon the decks of the ship. Near the end of the voyage she had, in his words, ‘been virtually unreachable’.