Black Feathers

5

Sunday began, as cloudless and warm as the day before. When Jude and Angela had helped to clear away the remains of breakfast – a quiet affair in the aftermath of their father’s rage – Sophie took Gordon outside again. She placed him as she usually did near the centre of the terrace and she sat down next to him in a straight-backed chair to do some sewing. She checked the treetop before she did any of this and even scanned the other trees in the garden for signs of birds. There were none. In the place where the crow had fallen, there was no sign it had ever been there. She assumed a fox had snatched the body in the night.

After a couple of minutes mending a tear in Louis’s gardening trousers, she glanced up. There in the horse chestnut tree, perched on the same branch as the previous afternoon, was another huge crow. If she hadn’t known the first crow was dead, she would have sworn it was the same one; and Louis would have reminded her, had she said as much to him, that she wouldn’t be able to tell one crow from another even with binoculars. The appearance of the bird disquieted her. One hand had flown to her chest in alarm, the other was already gripping Gordon’s basket. The crow was a threat to her child. Since Louis’s response the previous day, it was also a threat to the harmony of her family. Louis had always been a protective father – over-protective at times – but his rage in response to the crow had terrified them all.

She remembered in the instant she saw it that she had dreamed of a crow in the night, its black claws gripping the side of Gordon’s carry cot as it peered inside. From her angle in the dream, she couldn’t see Gordon but she knew he was in there and her fear was that the crow would peck out her defenceless son’s eyes. She reached for the cot, which had become a basket of woven willow sticks, and as she did, the crow began to flap, its wingspan suddenly vast. She felt the downdraught from its wings as it lifted off, still gripping the basket in its claws. The basket rose up beneath the bird as it gained height and she awoke to find herself alone in the bed. From down the hall she could hear Louis’s faint snores from the study. Gordon slept softly in his basket beside the bed but Sophie had pulled his cotton blanket up around his chin. Weeping, she’d clutched a pillow to herself until she fell back to sleep.

Seeing the crow now and remembering the dream, she felt her pulse quicken. She dropped the torn trousers to the ground, the needle still embedded in the fabric, a stitch half finished, snatched the carry cot and ran back into the house.

“Louis?” There was no answer. “Louis!”

“What?”

The reply was muffled and she knew where he’d be. Still clutching Gordon, whose nap had turned into a fairground ride, she trotted to the downstairs toilet and flung open the door. Louis looked up from the Sunday papers, surprise turning to annoyance.

“What the bloody hell is it? Can’t I even have a crap in peace?”

“There’s a bird in the tree again. A crow or rook like yesterday. I want you to get rid of it, Louis. I don’t want them around here.”

“All right.” Louis glanced back at the article he was reading. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“No, Louis. I want it gone. Right now.”

Louis sighed, knowing his precious moment of solitude had come to an end.

“Can you pull the door to, please? I just need a moment.”

Sophie went to their bedroom, closed the door and held Gordon’s head in her hands to deafen him. Angela was watching television and Judith was playing in her room when they heard their father fire his shotgun for the second day in a row. They ran to the windows, too late to see anything.

Louis was the only witness. Anyone watching would have told him he was a useless shot, but Louis knew his skill. He’d been brought up with shotguns. He didn’t miss. And yet, he couldn’t explain what happened.

He’d stepped out of the back door carefully, not wanting to startle the crow. As it had been the day before, the crow seemed unconcerned by his presence. Louis, on seeing the corvid, was struck by the similarity it bore to the crow of the previous day. He had to force the thought from his mind, telling himself all crows looked the same. He had to tell himself because part of him knew it wasn’t true; someone used to seeing crows and living around them would be able to tell them apart. When he raised the gun and sighted it on the crow, it half opened its wings and shifted position on the branch. As he aimed the bird let out a long, scornful cry.

“Krrraaaaa…”

Louis pulled the first trigger. The bird flapped, letting go of the branch. It fell backwards before gaining the air, turning and flying away over the trees in their garden towards the open fields. Certain he’d wounded it, Louis waited for a moment, expecting the crow to fall out of the sky. It didn’t. It beat its wings with great might, unharmed.

He took a bead on it, aimed a little ahead and squeezed the second trigger. The crow was well within range and flying at an angle that had always suited Louis. The shot flew and nothing happened. Nothing except the crow shrinking smaller against the horizon and calling back an occasional caw of derision. Louis looked along the barrels, honestly wondering if he’d somehow bent them. They were straight and true, still hot from discharging. The satisfying, adrenaline-stimulating smell of burnt powder held no reward that day.

As he walked back past the bedroom, Sophie opened the door. Her face still pinched and concerned.

“Thanks, Louis.”

“It’s OK. No problem. How is he?”

“I covered his ears but he must have heard the shot. He’s just started to cry again.”

Louis listened to the noise: such a soulful, drawn-out squall that it brought him down to hear to it.

“Do you think he’s OK?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I think he’s just scared by the noise. It’s understandable.”

“Should we take him to the doctor, do you think? I’ve never heard him sound this way.”

“He was like this yesterday. You know… afterwards. But he was fine this morning.”

“All right. If you think he’s sick, though–”

“Louis.”

“What?”

“He’s fine. Relax.”

“Yeah, OK.”

He gave her a kiss on the cheek and took the gun back to the study.

That morning, the wind picked up and clouds burgeoned from nowhere. In one instant the sun was bright, illuminating every room with pure glare. In the next it would hesitate and fade. There would be a flicker of brilliant return followed by a deep gloom making the rooms dusk-dark in less than a second. Within an hour or so, the sun lost the battle with the weather. The house swelled with midday shadows and darkness and the Black family shivered and ran for extra layers. Soon the wind flung rain and hail against the windows and the roof, turning the house into a prison, and Sunday, usually a day that passed far too quickly, became long and tedious.

Outside on the terrace, Louis’s ripped trousers lay crumpled and squashed to sodden blackness. Every crack in the fabric of the house became a mouth for the wind and it spoke to them all saying but one word over and over with every whine and moan:

Winter.