The Hunger Trace (28 page)

She turned away and looked out of the window.

The next morning Louisa woke to the percolating sound of rain. She could not remember the last dry day; the sleeves of her coat were constantly damp inside. When the shower subsided, she dressed, tied beef to the lure and went out to fly Diamond. He was reluctant in the wet, and she kept the session short. She stood for a while with him on her fist. He shook his feathers and looked to the sky.

She remembered the day that Roy Ogden – of all people – had brought Diamond to her. Louisa had been in her early thirties. Maggie’s age. It was the first time she had seen Ogden since that night in his underground garage. Eighteen years had passed. He had tried to send messages through Nelly and Baz, but she cut them off as soon as they mentioned his name. Until Ogden arrived at her house, Louisa had not considered the reality of the years gone by – it was just a smooth stretch of bitterness for her. But there he was, an old man. He wore a long sports coat bought from the market and he carried a box.

‘What do you want?’ she said, stepping out of her cottage and closing the door behind her.

‘Nothing. But before you boot me off your property, I’ve got a hawk for you.’

She looked down at the box, and then away, but she could not resist. She opened it, and – with some difficulty – took out a first season tiercel peregrine in terrible condition. Louisa examined him: swollen feet, fed-up, stunted feathers, the works. She shot a mean glance at Ogden, who looked down. ‘Did you
find
this falcon?’ she asked.

‘No. He’s mine. Pure perry.’

‘You mean
you
let him get like this?’

Ogden winced. ‘I’ve not the puff for him any more. I can barely walk dog.’

‘You should have brought him in earlier,’ she said.

‘Aye. Happen I should,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to accept though. He had me bound, did Diamond. Right bound.’

Ogden stood, head bowed, as if waiting.

‘Okay. I’ve said I’ll take him,’ Louisa said.

‘Right. Ta.’

Still he did not leave. ‘What do you want, money? Here.’ She took a few notes from her pocket.

‘I don’t want none of that,’ Ogden said, meeting her eye. ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘Cheerio.’

She watched him hobble away. He left the box.

Later that day she gave the bird a thorough health check, coped the beak, and filed the talons. So, she thought, Oggie had become the thing he most despised – a neglectful falconer. It was hardly surprising – hadn’t he neglected
her
when she most needed him?

One thing was certain: Diamond’s story was written on his feathers – nothing sentimental or pretentious about that claim. When a falcon is undernourished, the feathers cannot grow properly. A fault line appears, even if the bird is fed again. The fault is called a hunger trace. Louisa could calculate, from the growth of the feathers, how long Oggie had neglected Diamond for. She was furious with him.

A few weeks later, she saw the notice in the newspaper.
Shirland R. Ogden, 1928–1994. Known as Roy. Finally at peace after a long and painful illness.
The words stretched back over their last meeting. His physical appearance came rushing back to her. He had looked twenty years older than he should have. His skin had darkened, especially around the eyes, and she could see in her memory the rigging of his neck as it fed down into his coat, the papery palpitations of baggy skin. She recalled now that his moustache had gone, revealing the crooked line of his lip.

She put down the newspaper and went out to the weathering, took Diamond to the weighing room. In that cold white space she saw the hunger traces for what they really were – the flaring of Roy Ogden’s illness, recorded on his bird, every half-grown feather a mark of his decline. Diamond had not eaten because Oggie had not eaten; Diamond had not flown because Oggie could not rise from his bed.

She sewed the moulted feathers of her other peregrines into Diamond’s faults. She treated his bumblefoot with Preparation H. It was the last time she would share a bottle of anything until Maggie visited, a decade and a half later, with a litre of scrumpy.

Diamond had always been dominated by his body – its wild needs and marvels. The falcon with its leg snapped in half can breathe through the hollow bone. Its hormones descend before the mind can catch up. A peregrine will kill a bird in the morning and nudge it, confused, until the blood starts to flow. Louisa first noticed that with Diamond. It was as though there was another living thing within him, innocent of the body and its will. Louisa had heard people make such remarks about animals before, and always thought it to be bullshit.

If Diamond was helpless before his desires, they made him do the most incredible things. He gave Louisa the best flights of her career, the ancient whistle of his stoops arriving before his forked frozen self. He had rare wisdom: most peregrines will chase grouse into cover, allowing the quarry to escape while the falcon becomes entangled in the bush. When Diamond put a grouse into the bracken, he pulled up to his pitch, as though borne by water, thousands of feet in the air, and waited for the reflush, waited for Louisa, while the rain of his killing stink settled on the cover like a rumour.

Louisa could feel what he was doing even when she could not see him. That penitent second in the thin atmosphere before he fell backwards: suicidal, cannibalistic, self-enveloping and hungry, the transparent membrane slipping horizontally to sheath the giant eyes against the debris.

Moments later she would sit beside him with the kill, dig out the tiny heart and feed him the rich meat, which he loved.

Looking at him, now, the missing talon, the weak leg bones, the grey abrasions on the feet, she knew she would have to act fast to preserve his qualities for another generation. That’s where Caroline was supposed to come in. It would be another year or so before Caroline could breed, and Louisa had already designed the dual chamber with the viewing window so the two birds could get to know each other. Caroline would be bigger than Diamond by then. If left together without protection before a relationship had developed, she might try to kill him. Eventually, if everything went well, he would court her by plucking a small bird and leaving it at the window.

These plans for the expensive dual skylight breeding chamber, with its nesting sites and courting spaces, were sketched on the back of a utility bill Louisa could not pay. Any thoughts she might have had about pooling finances with Maggie were now forgotten.

She put Diamond back in his weathering, and walked out into the day, where the outside lamp still shone, turning the rain to sparks. Up on the horizon, she saw Maggie, dark against the smoky sky. It looked like a two-dimensional scene, like a crude toy from her childhood, as though Maggie were walking on the thin perimeter of a circle cut from card.

Most days she could see her at this range. She could hold the figure on the horizon between her finger and her thumb.

Maggie was in the Land Rover outside Christopher’s college when the call came. It was Philip. ‘They’ve got the last ibex,’ he said. ‘On the building site where they’d seen him before.’

‘What condition is he in?’

‘They didn’t say. He’s alive, though. I spoke to the estate agent. Bit of pain in the arse to be honest. Should I go up there?’

‘No, I’ll go. Thanks, Phil.’

Maggie could hear the unmistakable rhythms of Christopher’s boots on the concrete behind the Land Rover. She fastened her seat belt and started the engine.

‘What are you in such a rush for?’ Christopher said, climbing unsteadily into the passenger seat.

‘Animal stuff,’ Maggie said.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ Christopher said, rolling his eyes.

They headed for the estate, winding out of town into the greenbelt. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy coming with me next week then, to look at the deer,’ Maggie said.

‘No can do. I’ve got other, erm, plans.’

‘Yeah? What are you doing?’

‘I’m going out with Louisa and Adamski.’

‘Louisa and who?’

Christopher looked out of the window. ‘Adam.’

They had reached a T-junction and it took Maggie a moment to make the connection, so thoroughly had she hidden Adam from the reality of her home life with Christopher. ‘Why is
he
going out with you?’

Christopher held his hands out, to indicate the stupidity of the question. ‘He’s Louisa’s boyfriend. God. It’s blindingly, erm, clear.’

Maggie laughed dismissively. ‘Oh Christopher, he’s not her boyfriend. He’s . . .’ She had never said it out loud, and wasn’t about to now. The words that came to mind were not Christopher-friendly. ‘You shouldn’t be hanging around with him, anyway. Neither should she, quite frankly,’ Maggie said.

‘He
is
her boyfriend. He told me so. He’s round there every day. It’s blindingly, erm. He practically lives there. I know true love when I, erm, see it.’

Maggie tracked back to the memory of Louisa and Adam outside the Strutt. It was a strange place to meet someone like Adam. Maggie herself had never arranged a public appointment with him.
It’s not like that
, Louisa had said.

Maggie put the Land Rover in gear and turned left. ‘You said he’s there every day?’ Maggie said.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you mean every
night
?’

Christopher was becoming exasperated. ‘Both. He stays over. They’re probably going to get a joint account, for Jesus’ sake.’

Maggie bit, and then slowly released her lip. Things began to make sense.

‘This night out has been planned for ages,’ Christopher said. ‘I’m not calling it off now, at the last minute.’

‘I’m not asking you to,’ Maggie said, quietly. ‘I’ll go and see the deer on my own.’

‘You can’t tell me what to do. You have no, erm, jurisdiction,’ Christopher said.

‘I’m not telling you what to fucking do, Christopher.’

‘There’s no need for language.’

The first row of houses on the estate had already been completed, but the rest was a building site. A woman tottered out of the showroom. Maggie got out of the Land Rover, and – to her surprise – Christopher followed.

The estate agent was clearly perturbed. With her scarf ruffled at her collar, and her shuddering fins of hair, she looked like a pigeon cock on heat. ‘You’ll have to come with me,’ she said, and took them towards one of the finished houses.

‘Erm. Oh good,’ said Christopher. ‘I could do with looking at some properties.’ He took a leaflet from the agent, and scanned it. ‘Some, erm, dwellings, I mean.’

Maggie did not understand why they were going into the empty house. Her apprehension grew when she was hit by the odour of scent glands and dung as she entered the hallway.

‘Erm, I like that new house smell,’ Christopher said.

‘I certainly don’t know what is going to be done about
that
,’ the agent said. Maggie noted her use of the passive voice.

The ibex lay by the French doors in the living room, breathing heavily, the metacarpus of his right foreleg snapped and protruding from the skin, and the infection clear to sight and smell.

‘Who brought him in?’ Maggie said.

‘Nobody. We
found
it here this morning. No idea how it got in. It’s certainly made an absolute mess of this living space.’

Maggie ignored the comment and crouched down by the ibex, who looked out of the window at the future back garden, the churned earth revealing caramel swirls of clay.

‘Erm, erm, blimey!’ Christopher said, still examining the property details. ‘Two hundred grand for this flimsy thing. That’s ridiculous. It’s made out of papier mâché.’ He banged on the wall, which shook.

‘Please don’t do that,’ said the agent.

‘Well. Erm, it’s no wonder he’s used the place as a toilet.’

The big grey boards of the floor were dotted with ibex shit, some of it trodden in by a workman’s boot. Sweat and heat from the animal had caused a damp patch to form on the wall by the French doors. Maggots squirmed in the wound. When Maggie pressed lightly on the upper leg, the ibex flinched, the noise startling Christopher and the agent.

‘Christopher, can you give me a hand?’ Maggie said.

‘No way, I’m not touching that dirty article. Erm, it stinks to high Christendom.’

Maggie took a breath. She turned to the agent, who was hugging herself. ‘Do you think you could call a couple of fellas over to help us lift him into the car?’

‘They’re working. We can’t spare men. This is your responsibility.’

‘Okay,’ said Maggie. She stood, and started to walk out of the room.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ said the agent.

Maggie turned and looked down at the woman. ‘I’m going to get a captive bolt gun, or a heavy dose of barbiturates, so I can put this animal out of his misery. Then I’m going to leave him here, because I can’t lift him. There shouldn’t be much blood, but he’ll almost certainly urinate when he’s dead, so you might want to change your shoes before you show the next couple round.’