Snowbird

The wood was hard, frozen - difficult to cut – the smaller branches were covered with a light dust of snow, but the larger ones had a crust of ice so that Howard’s big-toothed saw blade had to bite through ice first before it cut wood.

He had cut quite a lot of thin willow wood but now he was getting ready to cut a major trunk that appeared to be dead. It had been difficult to find – it grew by a small pond in thick woodland. Lotte had found the dead tree in her wanderings and had brought him to it. She sat in the lemon yellow sun on the edge of the frozen pond a few yards away. He couldn’t see her, being amongst a tangle of snowy branches.

He knew that the ground on which he stood would normally be marsh or even water – for willows are able to grow in water - but now it was frozen. It would be the only easy way to cut this willow – when the pond was frozen. If he wanted to cut it in the spring or summer he’d have to stand in mud or water probably thigh deep.

‘Don’t get cold’ He called through the snowy branches.

‘No’ came the reply. He wondered what she was doing.

‘This will be a difficult one to cut’ he half said to himself. He heard the ice crack under his boots, but he thought he wouldn’t break through. He’d only need to stand at this point for ten or fifteen minutes, he thought. He’d cut through the trunk in that time. But how would he pull the tree from the dense tangle? Perhaps a horse.

But it was more difficult than he thought. The trunk was frozen, perhaps saturated with water originally, but now that water had frozen. He emerged from the tangle having cut about half way through. He was gasping for breath. Fallen snow was melting on his skin.

Mrs Van Dijk was sitting quietly on a cut branch, a blanket lain over it. She was heavily dressed in several coats, but her face, made pink by the cold, was bright.

‘How is it going?’

‘Not easy. It’s frozen’

‘But it’s a good trunk?’ She was anxious that the tree she had found was suitable for cutting.

‘Very good. It will take another fifteen minutes’

‘Don’t get cold’ He repeated. He stretched his back and then blundered back into the tangle of bushes.

She watched a shower of snow cover him. She had expected it to be still here by the water, literally frozen. But no – there was activity. Birds shuffled around in the undergrowth. In a clear patch of ice just in front of her boots, she saw a fish circle slowly in the water under the ice. Then she had seen the tall bird on the other side of the pond. At first she had not been sure. If it was a bird, it was pure white, motionless. It could have been an upright stem mantled with very pure white snow. But she concentrated and watched and she was certain she saw a curve of orange beak and the blink of a black eye.

It hadn’t moved its body – its wing or the tilt of its beak – for a long time. Its shape –  its tall top-heavy shape – like a man in a great white cloak with bulky shoulders – reminded her of a crane, but she wasn’t sure. She would have to wait until it flew off, or until it moved more clearly against the backdrop of the snow. If it was a crane, it wasn’t a typical English one. Those were grey – not so tall – and they would never linger in snow and ice.

The sound of sawing, which she had blanked from her mind while she watched the bird, re-entered her consciousness because of a change in rhythm. Howard must be close to getting through. She had seen him cut thousands of branches and he always slowed down when he was getting through. There was a also a subtle change in the sawing sound perhaps because there was less and less wood to resonate as he cut. Sometimes the end of the sawing would be met with a spectacular crack as a branch or trunk succumbed to force and weight. But the end of cutting brought no noise or fall of branches.

‘Will it fall, Howard?’ she called, keeping her eye on the crane.

‘No, Lotte’ came his snow-muffled voice. It’s held in place by the trees around it. It will be hard to extract. We’ll need a horse to pull it out’

The crane was still not moving. She expected it to be startled when she spoke – to move. But there was nothing. It was like a white statue.

‘Come over here quietly, Howard. I’ve something to show you’, she said.

*********************************

He watched the cut trunk but it didn’t move, held in its cradle of branches. He turned and stepped delicately over a part of the frozen pond and then through brittle frosty grass to where Mrs Van Dijk was sitting. In the sun, away from the cold tangle where he had been working, it was warmer, but still he thought it was freezing. There was no sign of the pond ice melting anyway. It had been frozen for almost a week. Most of the lanes across the Vale were blocked with snow as well, so Earls Court was cut off unless you were able to walk long distances in snow that was knee deep.

Mrs Van Dijk held a finger to her lips and pointed to the other side of the pond. He looked. The pond was ice blue and the wide sky behind was a similar colour. The wood was dark but plastered with ice and some of the canopies were burdened with thick snow. Mrs Van Dijk was pointing to a level just above the surface of the ice.

‘I can’t see anything!’

‘It’s quite well camouflaged. I think it came from the snow. It’s pure white.’ She nodded ahead and pointed again.

‘What am I looking for?’

‘A bird – do you see? I think it’s a crane’

‘Not at this time of year.’ He narrowed his eyes. Amongst the snowy stems of the thick reeds by the water’s edge was a white shape. It looked even whiter than the snow around.

‘I can see something. When did it arrive?’

‘It’s not moved since I sat down’

‘Also if it’s a crane, it’s not English’

‘I thought so too, but I’ve seen white cranes before. In the Black Sea’

‘White cranes in the Black Sea’ said Howard slowly. He couldn’t imagine what she meant by the Black Sea.

‘It’s a sea in the south of Europe. Cranes come from Russia in the north, from very far north to stay in the summer in the Black Sea. The cranes look like this one – tall, white’

‘So it’s very far off course’

‘And it’s not moving’

‘Do you think it’s ill?’

‘Probably starving. Maybe it can’t eat. It hasn’t eaten for a week perhaps – it eats pond plants and animals. If the pond’s frozen then it can’t eat. Perhaps it’s too weak to move?’

As Howard looked more carefully, his eyes focussing sharper, he saw the creature better. It was still like a statue carved out of white ice. He thought he saw its eye blink once, rapidly.

‘Howard I think we should take it. If it stays here a fox will get it, or it’ll simply starve. We could look after it. I’ve seen birds that have been fed before, and then released when they are strong’

Mrs Van Dijk had never shown interest like this in an animal. Howard thought that the bird might mean something more to Mrs Van Dijk than just its poise and vulnerability.

‘What do you think?’ she continued.

‘We can try’ said Howard doubtfully. ‘If you think it’ll allow us to take it. We can walk around the side on the path and then come to the edge of the pond on the other side. Then we’ll not alarm it’

‘Alright. I have my bag. If it struggles try to hold him. I’ll lower the bag over its head. It’ll die, I think, if we don’t. I’m curious as to where it came from, how it got here’

*********************************

The snow poured off the tall brown grass onto their boots and they began to feel its cold penetrating to their feet. On the path the snow was shallow. They walked to the other side of the pond and then back into the wood. Snow slid off the branches as they pressed through the dense bushes. They could see the proud bird’s head in the long grass facing out toward the ice blue of the frozen pond. It was very tall – they quickly realised. Standing in the reeds at the water’s edge, the bird’s head was almost level with Howard’s waist and the complex of white feathers that flowed from the back of its head made it seem even taller. Its powerful wings were folded under its head so that it looked like it had shoulders under a cape of white. Below this, the bird’s upper part tapered to narrow legs and long feet that were partially hidden in the snow. It remained motionless. If Howard had not seen it blink, he would have thought it dead.

‘I’ll try to take its feet and grasp with my arms across its wings. You put the bag over its head’, said Mrs Van Dijk

‘Have you caught birds before?’

‘I once collected birds from an aviary. It’s important that you cover their heads. It calms them’

She edged forward. They were suddenly in the sun again and the reflection of the sun on the pond ice made the light intense. Howard narrowed his eyes. Mrs Van Dijk was inching forward, her head down. In the bright white light her skin was white too; her breath came in milky clouds that hung above the reeds and then floated off.

It did not struggle much. It made some high-pitched screeches that caused other birds – sleeping birds in neighbouring snowy trees – to startle and fly off. Snow fell from upper branches and there were brief sounds of birds flapping and calling in the empty blue air.

Mrs Van Dijk held it across its wings, bending almost double.

‘Howard – quick’ she gasped. ‘Get the bag over its head. It’s weak but if I let him go it’ll try to fly’

Howard was worried that the bird would peck at her, but it seemed to have a sense of dignity and its long beak – its head – remained aloft. It no longer screeched. Its eye blinked rapidly.

He put Mrs Van Dijk’s collecting bag over the head and lowered it carefully over the folded wings.

She said: ‘We’ll have to carry it upright. I can do that. It won’t take long to get it back’

Howard watched as Mrs Van Dijk stumbled through the long grass and onto the path. The bird, partly mantled in the grey felt bag, seemed almost as tall as she.

He wondered if what they had done was wise.

*********************************

The pond was not far from Earls Court. A path followed the edge of a field and then went through a wood. Coming out of the wood into the sun, they saw the cluster of buildings ahead with the mottled white tower of the church above. A cloud of bluish wood smoke hung over the village. A fire in every cottage kept the village warm.

Mrs Van Dijk felt the bird’s rigid body against her side as she walked, and only a few times did she feel it move in a shuddering motion that started at the bird’s head and spread through its body. It was completely silent. She tried to hold the bundle gently, tried not to alarm the bird, but she knew that the shuddering was fear. A bird like this – so wild and free – would never have been held by a human being before.

But she wanted to assure the bird somehow that it was in good hands, that it need not worry. She had seen young orphaned birds being fed once in an aviary in Amsterdam with milk and bread on a thin piece of wood. But never a bird this size.

‘Is it alright, Lotte?’

‘I think so. It’s moving. It’s lighter than I thought, very light. My father used to say that these birds are the highest flyers of all birds. He said that in the mountains – in the Carpathians – he would see them when he was out hunting. He described how when he was very high up – in the snow where the air is thin – he would look up and see cranes flying even higher – just white dots high above the mountains’

‘How did he know they were cranes?’

‘I don’t know. I think by the way they fly’

It was hard to imagine that the cold white bird, so motionless by the pond with its feet in ice, could fly high. But the image was a powerful one and Howard thought of white birds in the mountains as he walked.

The central lane of Earls Court was mud, snow and ice mixed, and there were canopies of snow on the thatch melted only around the chimneys. People had to keep fires going all day to keep warm. It meant that Howard had to bring a lot of wood. Each day the village burnt a huge amount. He was pleased that the willow he’d cut was nearby. It would only take half an hour to drag it across the fields with a horse, if he cut back some of the biggest branches.

The fire in the cottage was low, and cold had already penetrated the living room. Howard lit the candles and Mrs Van Dijk stood the bird in a basket that normally held logs for burning. She took the grey bag from its head and watched it for a second. It was unsteady on its feet. Its beak opened and closed a few times, but it was silent.

‘Howard can you get one of the other baskets? Could it be fitted on top of this one? To make a simple cage?’

‘Do you think it’ll move?’

‘If it starts getting better, yes’

Howard took a second basket and emptied some logs that fell with a clatter on the floor. The bird suddenly shrieked again, very loud in the small room. They watched as the bird leant back a little, its head tilting and its orange beak pointing almost at the roof. Then it raised its shoulders and began to open its wings: pure white, downy and velvet at the base and the outer parts composed of arrays of feathers. They opened like two white flags. They were huge – not even fully stretched they were wider than Howard’s arm span. There was no doubt that a bird like this would be able to fly high and far.

But this single action of unfolding the wings seemed to tire the bird, and it gave a whimper, like the whistle of a deflating ball, and almost toppled over. Its wings went swiftly back.

‘At least it’s warm in here’ said Howard.

He was impressed. He suddenly understood Mrs Van Dijk’s fascination with the great bird. Why was it here and how had it lost its way?

*********************************

But he also had to go back out and get the cut willow. He called at the baker’s house in the village, and asked to borrow the dray horse. He would also have to take his tools back with him and cut some of the side branches, otherwise the tree would be difficult to move. It would be tangled amongst the other trees.

Walking back across the fields, leading the horse to the pond, he noticed that the snow was beginning to melt a little here and there. In the fields it was thinning so that patches of bare ploughed earth showed through the white. The snow piled up against the hedges and stone walls was not so deep and the snow was falling from tree branches. It was slightly warmer he thought.

But it was still cold to struggle amongst the snowy branches cutting branches. Snow fell on his head and down his neck. He felt it melt through his trousers and boots and his gloves were wet through. It was difficult work, freeing the tree from its tangle. After cutting a few large branches he thought he would try to attach a rope to the main trunk and encourage the horse to pull. It would be hard, but if the horse could pull the trunk free, he’d be able to cut it properly.

The horse had a great harness on its back that was used to attach it to a plough. In the spring it allowed the horse to plough with the whole of its body, pulling the iron through the dark damp soil. But now Howard tied the rope attached to the willow trunk to the harness and went around the front to take the horse’s lead and encourage it to walk forward.

The horse’s front legs dug into the thin snow and Howard watched the rope become taut like the string of a musical instrument. It vibrated and powdery snow fell from it. A crashing in the undergrowth followed and he watched a large piece of willow foliage slowly fall. There was more cracking and the cut trunk appeared, dragging through the snow, with a medium sized tree behind it.

The tree had a surprising amount of dead brownish willow leaves still attached and a complex of upper branches that he hadn’t seen. Howard realised it would be hard work to drag the tree intact across the snow back to Earls Court. In an hour he would be able to cut the main trunk into logs. These he would be able to tie together and sling over the horse’s back. It would be more convenient.

He worked into the afternoon cutting the thin branches off, then cutting the main trunk into pieces about a yard long. These he would bundle up and lay over the horse’s back. Because the wood was dry and old it was already suitable for burning. It would need only a bit more cutting for the cottages in Earls Court. This was ideal.

It began to get dark. Clouds had spread from the west as he had worked, and the sky was opaque. It looked like it was made of layers of grey one on top of another. Its lowest surface was purple grey and indistinct. These were clouds that made snow, Howard knew, so despite the small thaw that had happened that afternoon, there would be a new covering by the next morning. It was a good thing that they had found wood and it was so near. Mrs Van Dijk was very helpful sometimes. Then he remembered the crane, the great bird that now rested in the cottage. How had she got on with feeding it?

It was very cold and the horse moved slowly. In a few minutes it had become almost dark. The familiar trees became grey masses and the path ahead was like a tunnel in overhanging snow. For a while he led the horse over a ploughed field. He looked down checking where he was stepping because the plough furrows were deep. Snow had melted into a pattern of strips. It was so cold that he tried to retract his head into his hood looking down, trying to stop the cold air blowing onto his face and his neck. He watched the furrows as his feet crossed the ridges and furrows. He began to imagine that the strips of snow were high mountains and the dark lines between were valleys. It was like he was flying very high over mountain ranges – watching chain after chain recede below him. He imagined small villages in the valleys and cold peaks towering above them. But at his imagined great height they were reduced to a passing display.

He didn’t want to look ahead because of the wind he would feel in his face, and because he knew his vision would be broken. It would help him to walk home through the terrible cold. He thought of the crane that Mrs Van Dijk had rescued. Perhaps this was what it was like to be a crane – flying so high that mountains were just strips of white – so that the edge of the earth curved far ahead. What would it be like to leave winter behind and fly into the warm world? But imagine the cold at great height. Imagine the loneliness of passing over whole landscapes at a height where none of their details could be seen. Did the cranes fly alone, when they flew from Russia to the Black Sea over the Carpathian Mountains? How did they know the way?

Howard, and the horse that walked patiently beside him, reached the edge of the field and so his dream had to cease. They walked on the path the few yards to the village gate which was already closed. But in his mind Howard had already begun to understand the fascination that the rescued bird held for Mrs Van Dijk.

*********************************

Using a piece of cut reed – a blade of coarse grass from the pond – Mrs Van Dijk had managed to feed the crane in the afternoon. On the table there was a small bowl with milk and pieces of soaked bread. She knew she would have to find some better food too.

She was sitting on the low stool by the fire with a book open on her raised knees. The crane was covered by the two baskets so Howard didn’t know whether it was awake or not, whether it had survived the afternoon or not.

But Mrs Van Dijk looked hopeful.

‘I warmed the milk a little and made little blobs of bread soaked with milk. I fed the bird with the bread on a piece of reed. It took quite a lot. I think it is asleep or dormant or something like that’

‘Did it make any more noise?’

‘No. It’s exhausted. It opened its wings again, after you’d gone. They were huge, with a black tip – as if the ends have been dipped in ink’

Howard sat down. He looked outside and snow had already begun to fall.

‘Where do you think its siblings are – the other cranes?’

‘I think this one got lost somehow. Most will be already at the Black Sea or on the inland lakes of Persia, far from the snow. My father used to say that they fly from Russia - from near the North Pole – when they smell the snow coming. He used to say that they stay high in the pine trees, high amongst the cone shaped trees, looking out across the forest, sniffing the air for snow. When they smell the snow they take flight, very high. They fly huge distances, right over high mountains. Even from the highest mountains they look like white dots’

‘And we have one by our fireside!’

She nodded. ‘A snowbird’

The snow was falling rapidly, silently. The mud and slush in the lane was already covered with a fresh layer like a sheet of white paper that had been laid down.

Howard came to sit opposite Mrs Van Dijk at the fire. The book she had was on herbs, not about birds. She was reading about an obscure herb to cure sickness.

He looked into the fire.

‘When you saw the cranes – when you were a girl – what was it like?’

‘It was when I was very young. My father was making a trip trading wool in Anatolia. I told you this once I think’

‘He took me and my mother to Constantinople. We stayed in the city and in places along the coast of the Black Sea. There were great lagoons and the land was flat around. The sea was hard to see when it was warm – there were mirages – false horizons vibrating with light above the true horizon. But I remember seeing the cranes for the first time. There was a line of white at the horizon, like a chalk line with the blue of the lagoon below and the blue of the sky above, and maybe the distant sea. I didn’t know what the white was. But a servant of my father’s – a Turkish man – said that the line was hundreds of white cranes far out in the lagoon. They were so concentrated that they appeared like a pure white line. A horizon of birds…’

Howard looked into the flames trying to imagine. He had seen the wavering horizon on hot days in the Vale, but lagoons of blue with white birds were hard to see in his mind’s eye.

‘Did you want to see the birds closer?’

‘The men said that it was impossible to get to them. When you walked out closer, or when you rode horses into the shallow water of the lagoon the birds moved away. They moved away so you never got closer. A true mirage’

She looked into the fire.

‘You could never get close to them, never’, she said.

*********************************

The snow continued to fall. Howard looked out from the small window. It was thick in the air flying around and alighting silently on hedge, path and lane. If they had not brought the bird inside it would now be covered with snow or lying dead on the ice. Perhaps in Russia, at the North Pole, it was even worse – deeper snow and even colder. He remembered also that it remained quite dark at the North Pole for many months in the winter and the sun was hardly seen. It wasn’t surprising that the birds flew south.

It suddenly felt a bit cold in the room. Howard shuddered and rubbed his hands together. So much wood was needed to heat the cottage when it was cold. He took some cut wood and laid more on the fire.

By the stove Mrs Van Dijk had been cutting some vegetables and ham to make a stew. She must have stopped to look after the bird. She looked tired. She had gone back to her book on herbs but seemed generally anxious about the bird as well. She was very quiet.

Howard thought he would continue with the stew. He took the cut vegetables and added them to some stock, then began cutting more ham and potatoes. He remembered that they had cheese. He thought he would add some cheese to the top of the stew when it was ready. And there was bread.

‘You had horses when you were in Anatolia?’ he asked.

‘For a short time. We rode along the beaches and around the edge of the lagoons. We stayed in a strange house - low, of white stone, on the edge of the lagoon, in the long grass. This is when I saw the birds for the first time’

‘How old were you, Lotte?’

‘About eight or nine. It was the first time I had left Amsterdam. My father visited merchants in Constantinople’

‘Not a holiday’

‘No, I don’t think so. My father was looking for business to trade and sell his English wool. One morning when he was away, and I was in the house by the lagoon with my mother, I saw the line of white on the horizon. It looked like a stripe of ice or snow. When my father returned we rode out to see it. But a Turkish man – our guide – said that they you can never get close to the birds’

‘I don’t understand’

‘They are very aware of intruders. They sense intruders from far off. They slowly move away as you get closer…They stand in shallow water, feeding on fish and shellfish’

‘…and if you rode the horses fast into the shallow water?’

‘Then they would just fly off. They always kept the same distance’

Howard laid down the knife and the potato he’d been peeling. The idea of the flying birds, and of the North Pole – and now of the lagoons of the Black Sea – was vivid in his mind. It was an interesting story. And there was a real crane resting in the cage made of log baskets. But Lotte seemed sad, perhaps because of the sick bird, perhaps thinking of something she had wanted to experience, but had not been able to get close to.

*********************************

The bird had reminded Mrs Van Dijk of a sad time in her life. I was not the visit to the Black Sea but the strained relationship between her father and mother and the fact that her father had been angry for much of the time, though she had never known why. He had managed to agree some kind of trade with a merchant in Constantinople but he had never seemed happy.

She remembered that she had begun to feel very alone. Her mother and father had left her in a series of lodging houses for most days when they weren’t travelling, as they moved southward along the coast. She had been looked after by a Turkish woman who was named Fatima and her husband whose name was Walter, travelling with the family. Walter had been nice, taking her out sometimes along the coast riding, and once even encouraging her to try to swim in the sea.

But she had felt alone and isolated and had turned to her books. She had been an avid reader at the time. She distinctly remembered that this was where she had begun to read the Metamorphoses of Ovid. She had kept the copy for years - the copy from her school days - and then had lost it somehow. But then a few years ago, she had found another tattered copy of a famous edition in a bookshop in Oxford.

She still had that tattered copy, in the bookcase by the fireplace. She would occasionally pick the book up if she felt sad or melancholy – on the long winter nights - and read the old Latin. The stories were so strange, and it had been a very strange coincidence that while reading the book earnestly for the first time in Anatolia, she had learned that this coast was the coast where Ovid had been banished from Rome. The great poet had lived many years on the Black Sea coast and perhaps he had written some of the Metamorphoses stories there in the guesthouses and villas where he had lived. Perhaps he had died there.

The book she had read while travelling was a copy from her school and was meant to be a Latin text for study of the language but she had become captivated by the stories because they seemed so real. She especially liked the ones about people transforming into animals or animals being transformed into other animals. One story she remembered particularly, perhaps because it was so graphic and frightening, was the story of the raven that was once a beautiful and stately white bird that had been the messenger of the god Apollo but had displeased his master and been burnt black to the colour of charcoal and that was why the raven, the crow, was so black. She hated crows and ravens for their harsh calls in the winter – the way they collected in the trees above the bee hives in the far corner of the churchyard. They had nests that were like clots of black in the spindly branches, black against the grey winter sky.

This bird had reminded her of the story, and she remembered reading the story long ago while being in the country of the cranes along the coast of the Black Sea. Perhaps that was why she had wanted to save the white bird. She didn’t know.

*********************************

Mrs Van Dijk’s description of the flying cranes had inspired Howard. While the stew cooked, he imagined the crane sitting high in a tree amongst thousands of other trees that were like a sea all around. He imagined it looking up to see the layers of snow clouds above as he himself had earlier that day: the bird waiting for the signal to fly.

He daydreamed for a while and then thought he would check if the stew was ready and how it tasted.

Mrs Van Dijk looked through the gaps in the basket cage into the darkness at the bird. It was silent, but no longer standing. It had dropped onto its flanks and somehow tucked its legs underneath. She had put an old sheet in the basket. Perhaps it would be too warm for the bird. It had not eaten much. She thought it still might die. But she had done all she could that afternoon.

Howard quietly took bowls and bread from the pantry and poured some of the stew. He cut some of the cheese and left it on a plate in the middle of the table. The candle showed the steam from the stew rising in two columns – like two fires burning in the bowls.

‘It must still be cold in here – look’, he said nodding toward the steam.

She said: ‘a little way from the fire it’s still cold! Look at the snow’

The snow still fell outside. A small ledge had already collected on the sill of the window. A great mass of flakes was falling in the space behind. The sky was dark purple. The trees were silent statues of ice.

‘Perhaps there will be wolves tonight’ said Mrs Van Dijk.

‘Do you think so?’

‘They’ll come from the north – along the valley. There’ll be nothing for them though – all the farm animals must be inside. No farmer would leave an animal out on a night like this. Howard I think it will freeze inside the house if don’t leave the fire burning. Can you build up the fire in here?’

‘I could light it in the bedroom too. I have plenty of wood from today’

They ate quietly and after taking the bowls and putting them in the water bucket, Howard took some burning logs in the shovel into the bedroom and piled them into the fireplace. He carried some of the willow logs into the bedroom and then built the fire in the living room so that it would burn at least until midnight and glow warm afterwards.

At night Howard lay on his back in the bed, looking up into the thatch in the ceiling. He was still thinking about the bird’s flight.

He whispered not knowing if Mrs Van Dijk was awake: ‘I like the idea of the bird flying so high over the mountains. Imagine being so free! And we have one of those birds in the next room. Imagine its long flight from the North Pole to the Black Sea, to Persia’

She said: ‘With this snow we’ll soon be trapped in the house, in the village. We’ll have to tell each other stories, to keep from going mad’

The fire crackled. Howard listened for any sound outside. He thought he heard the harsh call of a crow in one of the winter nests in the churchyard.

He thought that the story of the bird, the snowbird, would have begun at the North Pole or in the forests of the north. Howard was sleepy but began to imagine the bird, the crane – if it was a crane – standing on a high branch of a great green conifer. Howard thought that there would be a long slope below the trees, and then plains of green conifers as far as the eye could see. The clouds were like snow mountains piled up on the horizon. The air was still and quiet and the bird knew that snow was coming, and that the air would be filled with dense flakes the size of a bird’s foot, and the snow would fall for months. The bird would have to leave before the snow. If it didn’t, it would be trapped and freeze to death on the icy forest floor. It would not be able to fly through falling snow, because it wouldn’t be able to see. It would have to fly high in colder air to a height above the falling snow.

Howard began to dream. The bird was strong. It had fed in the lakes and streams of the forest for months and it could fly far and fast. It knew already where it would fly – not following its brothers and sisters which flew all at the same time due south. The crane had flown in the last few years to an island, diverging from the route its siblings took. It would fly west and south – out to the sea and to an island where it had made a nest for years amongst the tall grass and sand dunes close to the sea.

*********************************

Howard moved in and out of a dream of the northern forest. He saw that the forest floor was quiet, sheltered from most of the snow. There was a carpet of pine needles and thick trunks of trees. He thought there were animals, foxes and pine martens.

And then there was an image in his mind, very sharp, almost like a hallucination, of a tiger. It was huge and slow when it moved on the forest floor, with a terrible ferocious face. A tiger that was white with black stripes. The fearsome Siberian tiger, huge, impossible to see against the white of the snow. The fiercest hunter…

‘Tell me about the crane’. It was Lotte’s voice coming from far off, perhaps in his dream.

Howard raised the eyes of his imagination back up onto the green canopy and saw the crane again. It was like a bird made of cloudy ice, pure white, watching the distant snow clouds.

He saw in his mind’s eye the bird opening its great wings and feeling them catch the slight wind, feeling the force of the air. The bird had only to lean forward, and it would be on the air floating over the trees. The start of the journey. It wouldn’t fly high yet. While it was so cold, the bird would fly over the tree tops, always looking for storms of snow ahead. It would feel the moving wind under its wings, always moving south and a little west. But it would know from previous flights that it would be days before it would see the trees disappear under its flight path and then it would fly higher.

‘Why Howard?’ Lotte asked.

He was dreaming and talking at the same time.

‘Because when it reaches the edge of the great forest, there are villages. In the villages live people who shoot arrows up to kill birds. So the cranes – which are the highest fliers – fly high in spirals, sometimes up above the clouds. They fly out of the range of arrows. But for now the forest continues below for days. The bird sees its siblings sometimes – in groups of threes and fours flying like him over the trees, rising and falling with the never-ending tree canopy’

‘Sometimes there are openings in the forest where frozen rivers shine in the low sun; sometimes there are high hills where rocks sprout above the forest. But for long periods – hours of flying – the bird sees nothing but clouds and trees’

‘After a long time, the crane sees the trees beginning to thin out. There are fewer trees and they are less dense. There is grassland below. He begins to ascend into higher, more rarefied air. But the skies are clearer now. The clouds are small and spread apart. The crane sometimes flies through them or around them’

‘Tell me about the landscape below the crane. What’s the grassland like, the hills?’ said Lotte from far away.

Howard tried to imagine the landscape. He knows from his mind’s eye that it spreads far ahead and to the side, not changing much. There are villages, but they are so far below that only the small trees around them marks them out.

The landscape below is now pale and smooth, curving in long graceful slopes and valleys. He was telling the story without having to think.

‘The crane is flying high now. There is a white moon above his head lighting the smooth landscape far below. There are long white ridges and hills catching the light. Their tops glisten. There is a dark valley. Beyond, the hills flatten out into a plain that stretches a long way. The crane wants to rest before he flies far over the plain. He wants to rest. The moon seems to have heated the surface below and the valley is warm’

‘He can rest there, Howard. He can land’ Mrs Van Dijk whispered.

‘The surface is warmer. The crane flies low just over it, not touching it, but he can feel the warmth on the underside of his wings. It is very smooth; flying lower and lower he sees ahead the contours of the landscape catching the rays of the moon’

‘The crane lands, just touching, and glances over the curve of the moonlit fields. The valley stretches a little way down into darkness and there are slopes on both sides. It will be a place to stay until he can take off again. He is alone under the moon’

‘Will he fly further to the sea?’ whispered Mrs Van Dijk

But Howard was asleep. Lotte saw only the light of the dying fire.

*********************************

In the night Howard was disturbed by something; a noise that was enough to wake him but not to register in his memory.

He sat up. He heard an exhalation of air like a low whistle from the next room. Opening the door quietly, he saw the bird. Lotte must have taken the upper basket off the improvised cage before going to bed.

It was still sat, but its observant head on its poised neck regarded him as he entered the living room. There was only slight starlight or moonlight from the small south facing window. The shadow of the table was a dark rectangle over the base of the basket. The bird was hunkered down. Its eyes were small and black, two glints of light in their surfaces.

Howard went to sit in the armchair opposite the bird.

There was lingering heat from the old fire, and it needed to be built up. But Howard was curious. The bird had a certain presence in the room. It was not just its size, its strangeness; there was also a watchfulness about the bird, and a sort of quiet patience and dignity, though Howard was not sure if this was just its straight neck and the way it could hold its head so still.

He sat for a moment hoping that some kind of communication might be able to pass between them, but the bird was still silent and almost unmoving. Howard thought that something had happened in the night when he was on the edge of dreaming. Sentimentally he thought that he had somehow felt the bird’s experience of flying, of the mighty forests of the north. He felt that something might have passed between him and the bird while he had been on the edge of sleep, while this great wild bird had been only in the next room.

But the bird’s silence told him otherwise. The bird’s black eye, with its head turned slightly to the left was cold and inert.

Howard went back to bed.

*********************************

Later in the dark Howard became aware that Mrs Van Dijk was sitting up in the bed.

She said: ‘I wonder what time it is?’

‘Late’ said Howard. He could feel the deficit of sleep still in him. He sat up. He realised that he had left the bedroom door open.

‘You were whispering in your sleep, Howard’ Mrs Van Dijk said. ‘A story about the crane. The crane has taken off from the grasslands around the valley after the moon has gone and the sun has risen’

She turned to Howard. She was smiling, apparently less tired than Howard. The fire glowed at the end of the bed.

‘I’m passing the story of the crane to you’, she said.

He lay down. He thought he could hear the long-drawn breaths of the crane in the next room. He was so tired but he could feel that strange spasm of the mind that he sometimes felt: like that time with the wolf when he had lost himself in the woods. He could feel his mind slowing. A series of images passed his eyes but on the inside of his head, not the outside – his inward facing eyes. He fancied that at these times, his heart slowed or even stopped. It would sometimes happen when he was around wild animals. Lotte knew this. It was one of the odd things about him.

But he felt so sleepy. He tried to concentrate on the images but it was always a balance between falling asleep and keeping some part of his mind active. He thought that he was open to something in these periods, open to some outside influence.

Then the images began to come again: the fields, the gentle valley choked by dark trees. It was suddenly glorious because he felt the delirious acceleration of flight, with the land dropping away from him faster and faster. His heart was slowing. He didn’t know if he could speak because his stomach was being left behind on the climb through the air. But then he could speak: he knew he was mumbling, describing the images he saw behind his eyes, his heart an indistinct occasional thump.

‘The crane takes off’ he whispered.

He felt Lotte move beside him, she was lying down now. Maybe some time had passed, maybe she had been dozing, but he could tell now that she was listening.

‘The warm slopes are soon below the crane. He is very high over the great flat plains. The grass oscillates in long waves that sweep in front of the glancing wind. The crane feels the wind in his eyes. He’s flying against the wind so it’s hard work. Below, small streams sometimes cross the grassland in shining threads. Now and then he sees what look like huts, but which are really the tents of nomads clustered around temporary fields where thin goats graze. Children, their faces red from the cold, play in the grass. Men on horseback sometimes streak across the plains below. The trees, the forest, are a distant memory, but the crane is still far from the sea where the most difficult part of the journey begins’

‘He’s looking down, following a river far below. There are houses along the river. It’s becoming wider and wider. It’s grey and lined with crescent shaped yellow sand banks’

‘Are you sure the bird is a he?’ Lotte whispered. She was beside him.

‘Yes. I think so’

‘There are grey rocks hard and sharp in the river bank. They get higher so that the river in its final miles is flowing between steep rocky sides. Far below the crane can see other birds, white seagulls flying over the water. But the crane is so high that the seagulls don’t see him’

‘And the sea?’

‘At last he’s over the sea, leaving the grey cliffs behind. It happened so suddenly. He must be flying very fast. The cliffs have gone. There’s only grey water far below with wrinkles on its surface which must be waves. Sometimes a small white scar appears then disappears – the top of a wind-driven wave’

Howard’s heart slowed almost to a stop and he thought he would float above his body. The flames of the fire in the grate danced.

‘The journey over the sea is long, very far. The bird only knows that he must keep the coast far down and to his left for a long time. Then he must fly out across the sea for a while, for a day and part of the night. He knows then that he’s crossing a great bay, something like a gulf of the sea. There is land far across – a land of more grass with stony beaches. Behind him is a land with more towns. There are boats far below with white trails behind in the sea’

‘He remembers when he’s coming close. It’s a strange thing. The sea changes colour slightly. Its blue-grey colour becomes lighter. There is a gold colour showing through. At first the colour is almost imperceptible, then it becomes clearer. There is a gold arc in the water. It’s where the sea is shallowing. There is a great dune of sand underwater, coming very close to the surface; and flying high, the bird can see it. As the bird follows its gentle curve, the sea shallows and the sand is revealed above the waves. A long island of sand arches off into the distance surrounded by grey sea. The sand is cream-coloured, curved with cusps and gentle sweeps. There are patches of dune grass’

‘Fly above it a little while Howard - I want to know how it looks’, whispered Mrs Van Dijk. Howard was aware of her again.

He continued: ‘In the flickering light the sand island suddenly becomes clearer. It is creamy and smooth, but he sees the green waters around and the way the island rises above the water. There are smooth plains, sharp sand ridges, lower sand hills, a patch of dense grass’

‘The island is warmer than the forests and the plain. It’s the perfect place for the crane to land. He circles watching the light from the weak red sun glancing over the cusps of the dunes, feeling the warmth under his wings. Along the island he sees the grassy area and then smooth rounded ridges going off into the sea, disappearing under the green water’

‘Can he land, Howard?’

Howard said quietly: ‘The crane flies low almost touching the sand. The sun begins to disappear below the horizon’

Howard stopped. He said slowly, uncertainly, looking at the pale red of the fire in the bedroom grate: ‘The crane has arrived but the other crane, his mate, that he expected to find, is not there’

He tried to make out the details of the fire, tried to understand what he had said. He hadn’t expected it. No idea of another bird had been in his head. The story was telling itself.

*********************************

‘Tell me Howard – what other crane?’

He saw the crane again, standing solitary in a patch of dune grass with small slopes either side, like a white statue of a bird. There was shelter with sand all around and the grass was thick and tall enough to conceal the bird. There were no foxes or dogs.

‘Is the island crane waiting for its mate?’ she asked.

He turned to look into the fire again and saw a low dying sun, red above the cold sea.

‘Yes. He begins to prepare a nest. The nest they made before is broken, blown by the wind and dried by days of summer sun. He takes more dune grass in his beak and lays it in a heap. He makes a small nest before dark. He knows she won’t come in the dark, won’t fly far across water unless it is light. She may come in the morning’

‘The crane stays still and feels the wind slow down. The sun disappears. He remembers a previous winter when two great white birds stood in the dune grass listening to the wind pouring over the sea, howling in the grass. When the wind was strong they could see the waves playing over the low dunes, smashing in grey explosions on the flat beach. For days and days it would be like this. They would even taste the salt in the wind. They would fly only to the shallow water to feed on fish and then fly back struggling to control their landing, feeling sand fly up into their eyes’

‘The sun goes down and now the crane feels very alone’ said Howard quietly. ‘A solitary bird on a sand dune in a big wide sea. He gets ready to wait’

*********************************

Howard slept but woke again. There was no dawn light in the window. He heard the bird moving in the other room, perhaps the rustle of feathers, a long intake of breath. Mrs Van Dijk was asleep beside him.

Howard again began to feel the depth of the bird’s loneliness amongst the low dunes.

The wind is strong enough to blow wisps of sand off the slopes of the dunes that face the sea and up and over the hollow where the bird stands and then into the green sea on the other side. The wind always howls in the grass, day and night.

The island morning comes imperceptively. There are rarely clear days. The island doesn’t have much rain, but there are always thick clouds overhead, grey clouds that seem to form over the big landmasses to the east and west and then extend to meet over the green gulf where the island is constantly washed by waves. So the sun does not rise in the morning. The crane only sees an indistinct lightening of the mantle of cloud in the east. The wind howls and the roar of waves comes from both sides of the narrow sand ridge. Overhead sometimes, even in these wild winds, the crane hears the hoarse cries of sea gulls. These are smaller birds. They are not built for long distance flights, but are adventurous, risk-taking birds that will fly far in dangerous winds just following the smell of fish or of food.

Sometimes gulls fly low over the crane and hover precariously over the patch of grass making minute adjustments of their wings to remain airborne. Their tiny black eyes are curious about the great white solitary bird. Why is it here? What is it waiting for? Then the gulls lose interest and float up on a little air eddy in the sand hollow. At a certain level, they catch the gulf wind and it throws them up and away into the distance over the shallows where the waves throw up splashes almost to catch them.

As the sky brightens, the crane is aware of its hunger and looks around for food. Beyond the path of grass is a flat plain, not very wide, with narrow low dune ridges either side. It’s spotted with grass and small flowers. There is some sandy mud that is damp in the centre and a tiny pool of water. The crane moves over to test the water and finds that it is fresh. There are shreds of algae which he tries to eat. But it’s a poor meal. Amongst the grass are small mounds of sand that seem to have been recently dug, and narrow holes that penetrate the sand at steep angles. There are mice here or small rabbits.

The crane reluctantly takes flight. It’s very difficult to control with the horizontal wind flying over the dune tops. But he uses the wind and faces into it, feeling it lift his wings. He doesn’t want to go too high. He needs just to fly low over the island, looking for shallow, still seawater in which to feed. Hovering just above the dunes, the crane can see his habitat again and sees how small this sanctuary is, just a strip of sand, narrow and sinuous, patched with green, a smudge in the grey-green sea that could be flown past in a few seconds. It’s hardly an island at all. It could be blown away in one storm – or submerged in one great wave.

Days of waiting pass with very little to distinguish one from another. The weather is always the same, the same east wind, the same massed clouds overhead. In the mornings the wind is usually stronger and so it’s cold. The crane feeds in the morning. In the afternoons, with a setting sun behind, the wind drops almost to a murmur and the bird stands and looks about. When the wind is low he hears other birds, flying high above, but he never hears the shriek of another crane. He hears the crash of individual waves rather than the continuous roar of the morning. Even the small mice that live in the low plain come out and feed in the late afternoon, running about, sometimes stopping and raising their tiny heads to smell the wind.

Each evening the crane waits. The crane waits for his mate, but she never comes.

*********************************

In the cottage, the light of the dawn was as bright as the day before - pure white filtered and reflected from snow, glancing through the window - a hard crystalline white light. It was very cold in the bedroom because the fire had burnt down late in the night - the ash of the fire was powdery and blue white and there was no trace of heat. Between the curtains Howard saw that even more snow had collected on the window panes. Ice dimmed the window, and there were star shapes printed by the cold on the glass.

He was tired after his dreaming, after the clarity of his nighttime visions. Mrs Van Dijk was still fast asleep.

In the living room the fire was still glowing. In the basket the crane was sitting in its awkward way with its legs tucked underneath. This was not how he had imagined the crane in his dreams on the island. The bird looked sidelong at Howard with its cold, empty eye. Howard wondered if there was anything in the bird’s mind or was its mind – tuned to flight and finding food – so foreign to his own that he would never understand it. Not for the first time, Howard wondered how the bird was able to fly so far without directions and return to the same nesting place, after thousands of miles of flying, year after year. How did they remember?

He suddenly felt empty of the story. If he had been a container before, he was now empty. He could say nothing more. It was strange because he prided himself in being able to tell a story well and to end a story well too. When a story ended its themes should be reconciled. There might not be a happy ending, but there would be a conclusion of some type – a satisfactory ending. But this story had stopped. The voice in his head had stopped speaking.

He put water in the kettle from the bucket and set it on the hearth. He carried tea into the bedroom.

‘How is the bird?’ She was sitting up. She began to drink the tea.

He sat beside her thinking about the dreams of the night. He didn’t know whether he regretted them or was happy that he had seen something true.

Mrs Van Dijk finished the tea and got up. She put a cardigan over her heavy winter nightgown and went into the living room.

He heard her stop.

‘Howard. Come and look’

She was whispering loudly, almost hissing.

Howard put on his trousers and a shirt quickly. The bird was upright, its wings spread white. It was so strange in the little room.

It was like a statue in the basket its beak held high. It arched its neck as if it was stretching after sleep and its wings were extended completely. Their span must have been equal to Howard’s height. In a minute he realised how this bird was able to fly so high – over high mountains even – because the area of the wings was so huge. With its great wings unfolded the bird looked completely different, heroic and powerful like a god of the air, an emblem of power and beauty.

‘We won’t be able to keep it much longer’ said Mrs Van Dijk. ‘It will want to leave’

*********************************

After midday the weather began to warm up. Darker clouds – not the white heavy clouds of snow – came from the west on a warmer wind. These grey clouds gathered over the fields and the church tower of Earls Court, and began to rain. Streaks of silver water fell and began to puncture the white shell of snow. The rain was cold, very cold, but still it was not cold enough to form snow, and its steady fall began to eat away the snow. The sky looked clearer and patches of blue appeared here and there.

Howard went to stand on the front doorstep. He watched Earls Court people coming out of the cottages. A few children walked along the lane kicking the slushy snow with their boots. Perhaps the snow had outstayed its welcome because no one was sad about its passing. A snowman next to the churchyard wall began to shrink, like a ball deflating.

Mrs Van Dijk joined Howard. She squeezed past him, her hands on her hips, and stood in the cold rain looking around.

‘It’s changing quickly. The wind is from the southwest and the snow will be gone by late morning’

‘Do you think the bird wants to fly now? Now that the weather has changed?’

‘It doesn’t seem to want to’

Because the snow was clearing Howard decided to put on his coat and collect wood. He also had the willow logs to cut and chop. It was not snowing but it was still cold and the village always needed wood. He thought he would walk out along the base of the escarpment where some of the densest trees were. There was always dead wood there, and it was near to the road.

As Howard walked the snow seemed to be melting around him as the rain fell. The clouds overhead became more distinct and blue sky sometimes came and went. The air felt warmer and more humid, and smelt salty as if a slice of sea air was passing over the Vale. The rain pattered on his shoulders and the brim of his hat. But he wasn’t upset by the rain. The green of grass and trees was being revealed as if a cloth of white was being slowly pulled off the land.

He had come out partly to collect wood and also to think. He was perturbed by the events of the night. He thought he’d been some kind of vessel, but that vessel had dried up. He could no longer see the island so clearly. He could imagine it, but not in the intimate way he had before. He felt that the crane was still there, but he couldn’t imagine the world of the crane – the wind, the moving sand and the rustle of the dune grass. He couldn’t put himself inside the mind of the crane.

He thought that perhaps by walking, something would return. He remembered that evening – a few nights before. He had been walking back with the horse with the willow branches. He had looked over the ridges of a ploughed field and down at strips of unmelted snow and had seen long chains of mountains with valleys between. He had imagined that he’d been a high-flying bird. It had been a sort of vision and something like it had returned last night in the darkness or in the light of the fire.

But the visions didn’t return. In fact as he walked listening to the rain falling all around him, he forgot the story of the crane, and a new story began to form in his mind. It was of the sea again, but of ships and wrecks and storms.

Mrs Van Dijk was in the kitchen cooking when he came to the cottage. Three candles were burning on the table and some books had been laid out. Howard noticed the bird immediately. Its demeanour had changed completely. It stood, still in the basket, but its head moved around constantly, and it uttered short, sharp shrieks like metal being scraped against metal. It also raised and lowered its shoulders partly unfolding its huge wings.

‘The noise is terrible’ said Howard. ‘It’s obviously getting better, waking up or something’

‘It is terrible’ she said. ‘I tried to put the bird outside twice. It won’t let me carry it. It’s huge. It seems bigger than it was. It won’t let me near!’

‘Did you try just leaving the door open and staying still – to see if it would go out the door of its own accord?’

‘Yes. I tried. It stays where it is. It shrieks all the time’

‘It’s impatient’

‘Yes. I made some food. At least we can eat. We’ll leave the door open tonight, and hope that it goes outside. I think it can fly now’

The noise of the bird was less while they ate, and while Howard and Mrs Van Dijk sat by the fire after eating, it was quiet. It stood tall in the basket regarding them with a cold eye from its raised head. It was as if it were angry at being held prisoner and wanted to express displeasure to its two jailors. But the bird was free to go. It just didn’t seem to want to go.

Feeling his feet warm up, his wet trousers steaming in the fire’s heat, Howard felt himself falling into a daydream. He was flying again – over the sea – but the sea was so far below that it seemed unreal. White streaks of waves formed and then disappeared. The light from a low and weak sun lit a great circular shaped area and the sea far below was green and cold. He opened his eyes and saw that Mrs Van Dijk had fallen asleep in the chair opposite him.

*********************************

The images of the island didn’t return to Howard when he laid his head on the pillow, as they had the night before. Mrs Van Dijk was already asleep. She gone straight from the chair to the bed without saying a word.

He lay for a minute in the dark listening for the crane in the next room.

Then he remembered that he should leave the front door open. Perhaps the crane would go outside? They couldn’t keep it anymore.

He got out of bed and put his shoes on. In the living room the crane followed him with its cold eye, and ruffled its feathers. Though they had done the crane kindness, he didn’t feel gratitude from the bird. He thought he sensed a frustrated impatience, and perhaps even a lack of trust.

He didn’t like opening the door at night but it was the only solution. He looked out. There were clouds riding on the wind but ragged cold patches of star-filled sky appeared. There was no sound from the village and it felt peaceful.

He looked over his shoulder at the crane inside. It was watching him as if it understood all about the sky and the wind. But it made no move toward the door.

Howard nodded at the bird and thought he might speak to it but knew it was impossible to communicate. He put a brick by the door to wedge it open and then went past the bird again to the bedroom. He shut the door tight to try to keep the draught out and got in bed beside the silent Mrs Van Dijk. He wished he had built the fire in the bedroom again but he’d been too tired.

Before he slept he saw the waves far below for a little while and then clouds covered them.

The sun woke him, shining in a big beam on the floor. Particles of dust danced and circulated in the beam. He lay still listening for the weather. There was wind. No sounds of people, no sound of rain. But no sounds of birds either. That was curious. It seemed strangely silent. The light showed that it was long after dawn but the birds were quiet.

He stood and put on his trousers. The air was warm. The bedroom window was bright. On the hedge outside, by the front door there was a dazzling light. He thought it was some kind of reflection at first, a bright flash from a window down the lane. He looked closer. Blinding white feathers. The crane was perched on the top of the low hedge. It looked huge.

‘Lotte’ he hissed. ‘The bird’s out. Sitting in the hedge. Look it’s white in the sun. So huge’

Mrs Van Dijk stirred, lifted her head, her eyes still half shut.

‘The crane? Outside?’

‘I left the door open. It’s magnificent’

She sat up, brushing her hair back with her hands. It was hard to see the bird through the window from her position. But Howard could see that the bird hadn’t moved. It was so tall. With the hedge as a platform, the bird’s head was far higher that Howard’s.

‘Howard. It’s not our crane! Can’t you see? There’s no grey in the feathers. And it’s bigger. Huge’

*********************************

They watched at the window, being very quiet, thinking that they might frighten the bird away. But down the lane children had gathered and were standing and pointing at the great white bird and it seemed unconcerned by the sounds of their voices.

It had an extraordinarily dignity and even an aloofness that Howard had never seen in a flying creature. Its curved neck was pure white and its reddish brown beak was long and slightly hooked. It looked down from its high position at the little lane and its eye seemed concentrated on their small cottage.

‘You think it’s the crane’s mate, our crane’s mate?’ whispered Howard.

‘I don’t know. Look how it’s waiting’

‘Why isn’t our crane outside?’

‘I’ll go and look’

‘Lotte be quiet. Don’t scare him. He’s magnificent’

She stepped back from the window and peered around the door to look in the living room.

She said quietly. ‘The bird’s still in the basket and the door’s shut’

‘Perhaps it blew shut in the night’

Howard left the window and put on his shoes. In the slightly darker living room, he saw the bird standing as it had been the night before, upright and tense. He watched as Mrs Van Dijk crept around the table and pulled the front door open gently. Light poured in over the tiled floor. There was a screech from outside, similar to the sound the captive bird had made the night before, but louder. Howard heard the shouts of children in the lane. The kids were excited. They had never seen such a bird. It was more than half his own height, and taller than some of the kids themselves. Its wings would be huge – like the sails of a boat. He hoped that the children wouldn’t come up the lane. It would disturb the bird.

Mrs Van Dijk retreated to the bedroom. She and Howard watched from the open bedroom door.

The bird had reacted to the shriek from outside and was already walking in its awkward way to the door. Howard thought it was good that they were such good fliers, and such graceful looking birds – because when they walked they looked ridiculous. These were birds that were not meant to walk.

Through the bedroom window they saw the bigger bird turn its head down so that its curved beak, shiny brick red in the sunlight, pointed toward the door of the cottage.

The female crane stood in the grass by the hedge.

‘What are they going to do?’

‘I don’t know Howard’

Mrs Van Dijk held Howard’s arm because as he asked this question the smaller bird spread its wings and in a hop and a single flap it had jumped up onto the hedge beside the other bird. The two cranes stood side by side, not looking at each other. They arched their necks so that their beaks pointed up at the sky. They did this in an extraordinary way – perfectly synchronised – like a dance. Their two heads were tilted back at exactly the same angle, looking up.

‘They’re going to fly’

‘How do you know?’

‘Maybe…watch…’

Howard was going to say something - something about his dreams - but it was lost in the sudden white dazzling flurry of raised feathers. There was a rush of air as the wings – four wings - cut into the silent air and swiped it aside.

There was a tangle of white, seeming to climb up the air. The bushes shivered with the wind and the curtains of the bedroom flapped. The birds turned in mid-air, somewhere above the hedge and veered off over the churchyard. In a second they had cleared the tall trees on the far side and they were already white splashes in the sky with the church tower beside them. Then they were gone in the blue. Howard continued to watch and then saw maybe a flash of white far over to the west. Then there was nothing but sky.

Two of the local children came running up the lane laughing and shouting. They flapped their arms like wings and shouted and shrieked, their faces turned up to the west.

*********************************

‘What kind of birds were they?’ asked the kids, still jumping in excitement, looking up into the sky pointing and shouting.

‘Cranes’ said Howard. ‘from Russia – from the forest’

‘They’ve gone?’

‘I think so’

They stood for a while talking and then went back to their cottages or down the lane to the fields.

Howard went to look at the hedge while Mrs Van Dijk boiled water for tea. He heard her pouring water from the bucket. In the long grass by the hedge he found a few thin wispy white feathers which he thought had dropped from the birds when they took off. But otherwise there was no sign that the birds had ever been there.

Inside, Howard thought about going out to work. After all, the snow was gone and it would be easier to collect and cut wood. But he was sorry that the birds had flown. He felt a little deflated.

The door was still open. Howard could see the trees past the church tower and the blue of the sky. He searched the blue for spots of white.

Other birds began to twitter and whistle in the orchard behind the cottage. The crows in the tall trees above the bee hives in the church yard began to call and a few took flight.  Howard thought they had been silent before, perhaps watching what would happen. In his mind Howard thought that they might have been awed by the sight of these huge migrating birds, but then thought that was silly. Probably they had not even noticed.

‘Where did it, he, come from?’ Howard asked.

‘What do you mean?’ Mrs Van Dijk looked at Howard over the top of her steaming teacup.

Howard wondered if the bird had flown from the island the night before, but thought it was a crazy idea. He just said: ‘they seem like noble birds, almost arrogant’

Mrs Van Dijk quietly ate some bread. She looked toward the window, and the light reflected in two bright squares in her eyes. The calls of the crows were suddenly quite loud.

‘It’s hard to tell, Howard. We look at them and decide that there’s something human in them, but I’m not sure’

‘But how do they find these places – the places where they make nests – how do they find the same places year after year?’

‘I don’t know. A mystery. I heard that they stay together all their lives – the males and females…’

‘See the feathers’

He laid them on the table.

‘They’re nice’

Howard said: ‘One bird goes, then the mate follows. Like beacons’

He drank more tea. Mrs Van Dijk smiled at him, but he didn’t notice - he was thinking now, sure he was close to an answer.

‘…they receive messages the male – the female’ he blurted out.

‘Then why didn’t she – our crane - go with him at first?’

‘Because she got lost, because she was too weak – when we saw her by the frozen pond…’

‘We’ll never know’ said Mrs Van Dijk, still smiling faintly. She was glad at least that the white bird was saved from the crows, from the foxes.

‘But there is an island like the one I saw – that I described – with a patch of grass, with dunes, with freshwater pools, and rabbits and mice – I’m know I’m right!’

Howard was sure.

Up over the hills the two cranes had already changed direction from west to north east; with the tips of their wings almost together they turned into the wind, very high up. Soon the grey sea slid below them, then after a day and a night, rocky islands, then open sea again. After two nights flying, the rising sun lit the sea below them in an oval of silver light and they began to descend to the sand island a mile below.

© M H Stephenson 2025