2008 - The Bearded Tit (34 page)

‘Nicotine stained fingers crossed.’

‘You know what,’ I said, putting my arm around her, ‘I think I’ve watched enough birds. Let’s do something else. We can always do it now and again. Not every day, every week or whatever. We don’t have to upgrade our spotting-scope. We don’t have to get on the rare-sighting paging network. Let’s just go out for a walk and see what flies across our path. But I don’t feel like being a ‘keen’ anything at the moment.’

‘OK, what shall we do instead?’ asked Tori. ‘I mean, what would you
like
to do? What have you never ever done that you’d like to do before you die?’

‘Fuck a black girl.’

‘Apart from that? Anything sensible? Any pastimes you fancy? Ballroom dancing?’

‘No fear. That is sad!’

‘Hey, steady on, Mr Ballroom-Dancing’s-Sad. Remember what your children said about birdwatching.’

‘Yeah, that’s true.’

‘And anyway, ballroom dancing’s sexy now.
Strictly Come Dancing
’s a hugely popular show.’

‘I hated that.’

‘Yeah, but I haven’t heard that they’ve commissioned
Strictly Come Bird-watching?

She was right. Not even Bill Oddie in a gold, sequinned, skintight ballgown was going to sell twitching to the masses. No prime ministerial candidate would be clamouring to be photographed birdwatching, instead of shaking hands with babies or having the Arctic Monkeys round for tea. There was no doubt about it that there was something cool-proof, sexy-proof about birdwatching. Perhaps that’s why it appealed so much to me. It was so unconnected to the false, glam, empty, tawdry, superficial world of ‘cool’. It had just about come within nodding distance of ‘right-on’ status by clinging to the current mania for things wildlifey, conservationalist and save-the-planety. But joining a local nature club or ornithological group was not going to replace speed-dating as an effective way of meeting potential life-partners.

‘Anyway, is birdwatching really our hobby? When did it become a hobby as opposed to just something we’d do occasionally when we were out walking in the countryside?’

‘When you bought me the spotting-scope and tripod,’ I answered confidently.

‘Which we’ve never used. Apart from dropping it in the water. So it’s never really been our hobby then?’

She was right again. I kissed her and said, ‘I hate the word ‘hobby’, anyway. It sounds like what people did in the fifties.’

Tori did mock indignation ‘I was still in nappies in the fifties!’

‘So was I. Being in nappies was obviously one of the most popular hobbies back then.’

Tori sighed one of those big sighs of life that people who were born in the fifties did a lot of in 2007. We fell silent and surveyed the pretty summer landscape.

As it was a bad time of the year for birdwatching, there were not many twitchers about. No hearty ‘good mornings’ interrupted our closeness and privacy.

‘The trouble with birdwatchers is they’re people,’ I said as Tori put her hand in mine.

‘Well, a lot of them are,’ she said, holding me back to look at a little brown jobbie flitting among the reeds.

‘It’ll be a sedge warbler,’ I said, trying to walk on.

‘No, this was very different.’ She seemed quite certain.

‘But look at this. An empty bit of the North Norfolk coast. No people, just land, sea, sky and birds.’

‘Well, two people. You and me.’

‘One person: you!’

‘Eh?’

‘Well, I can’t see me.’

‘Oh, I see, do you want me to go so you can be alone with nature?’

‘No, I want you here all the time.’

‘Ah, thank you.’ She squeezed my hand.

‘But just don’t stand where I can see you.’

She let go of my hand to point into the reeds. ‘There it is again.’

I was not that interested. ‘Yes, that’s the second time I haven’t seen it now.’

‘It’s not a sedge warbler!’

We sat down on the grass bank and faced the expanse of reeds.

She nudged me hard. ‘I knew it; we should have brought the binoculars.’

‘We’re not twitching though, are we? We’re just being. Just walking in the country. Being with each other. We can still look at birds.’

‘But we’ll never see what that thing was unless we have the bins!’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t care. It was a small brown bird. Yes, I’m sure it is beautiful and unique and all that and I bet it has an interesting scientific name. But I’m happy not to see it. Or find out what it is. I like a bit of mystery.’

‘OK.’ She rested her head on my shoulder. ‘Do you really want me here all the time?’

‘Of course. You’re the only girl I ever wanted to share my life with; you know that.’

‘I’m sorry about JJ.’

‘We’ve been over that loads of times; what happens, happens.’

So much had happened between now and that remote moment when JJ left my life that it took a real effort to recall it. Of course, she was engaged to be married. I didn’t ask her about her private life because I was frightened of losing what we had. And she didn’t tell me about it because she didn’t want to lose what we had. Every time she didn’t tell me about it, and every second I didn’t ask her about it, it got harder for both of us. I was sure I knew what I wanted; she was sure she didn’t know what she wanted. We had an unspoken pact that would lead us as close to each other as was possible. It was doomed. As shocking and upsetting as it was, it was not an act of cruelty. It was an act of kindness, of generosity, of love. At least every moment leading up to that last moment was. We were very young and had that infernal curse of the very young, which is not knowing how very young they are. What makes remembering the days of JJ so difficult now is not remembering her or the events, it’s remembering me and trying to work out, to confirm, that that person was in fact me. But for the next twenty-five years, life, in that annoying little way that life has, bombarded me in each waking minute with shocks, disappointments, surprises and delights. And things turned out for the best. No, things turned out better than ‘for the best’.

Tori’s voice seemed to come from miles away. ‘I bet I know what you’re thinking about.’

‘You’ll be right.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Stop saying ‘I’m sorry’; it wasn’t
your
fault! It was just the situation. What happened to that bird you were tracking?’

‘It’s still in there, somewhere.’ She turned to me, pulled my head towards her and kissed me firmly.

‘That was an unexpected pleasure. You couldn’t have done that wearing binoculars!’

‘I wouldn’t have done it if I’d been wearing binoculars. I’d have been finding out what that bird is.’

‘A sedge warbler.’

‘It’s not a sedge warbler!’ She held her hands up to her eyes and made little round imaginary binoculars and squinted into them. ‘Ah that’s better. Right, where are you, little bird?’

I hugged her and she put her arm round me.

‘JJ’s a stupid name anyway.’

I laughed. ‘Tori’s not great, is it? Sounds a bit right wing!’

‘But it
is
my name,’ she reminded me. ‘Well, my middle name is Victoria and Tori is its most agreeable abbreviation.’

‘True; I couldn’t go out with a Vicky!’

She laughed. ‘Apart from that Welsh girl in the Love Bar. She was called Vicky.’

‘You know what I mean. I wasn’t having a relationship with her.’

‘Would you if she’d changed her name?’

‘No. Well, I might have if she’d changed her face and her personality.’

‘That’s not nice!’

‘Sorry, Vicky.’

‘Victoria, to you.’ And then she added, ‘Juliet Victoria Jameson, in fact.’

‘Yes, I can see why you chose ‘JJ’.’

She smiled a smile that wanted to be something else and looked away. I turned her face back towards me and she was crying.

‘Oh my lovely.’ I kissed her as if it were our first kiss ever. Though, as our first kiss ever was twenty-five years earlier, I hope this one was better.

‘Come on, let’s not go down that road again. We made it, didn’t we?’

‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘we made it.’

‘Divorce, agony, pain, disaster, more agony, alcohol, crisis, torture, more alcohol and we’ve even survived being twitchers. We made it, JJ!’

Through a tear, she smiled the smile to end all smiles. Then she glanced up.

‘Look, there it is! Wow.’

I looked and there it was. A bird neither of us had seen before. Perched obligingly in the open and easily visible to the naked eye. A pretty bird, too. Not a sedge warbler. An impressive, long-tailed, orangey-brown bird, with black and cream wings, a pale, blue-grey head and black ‘moustaches’ either side of its bill.

It was unmistakable.

‘Ah, that’s sweet,’ said Tori. ‘It’s a reedling.’

‘A what?’

‘A reedling.’

‘I’ve never heard of a reedling. No such bird!’

She scoffed. ‘It’s a bearded tit. Reedling’s another name for a bearded tit!’

‘Oh I see. Why did you say reedling?’

‘I didn’t want to say ‘bearded tit’ in case you made a puerile joke.’

‘Moi?’