‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘No problem.’ I could do this. I’d worked in a falconry centre, for God’s sake. All I did for months was show people hawks. But as the day drew closer I started to fret. How will Mabel cope? Two months ago she was a bomb-proof, crowd-proof goshawk. But goshawks aren’t like other hawks: they need constant carriage to stay tame. Now we’re living in the empty suburbs we’ve not seen people for weeks. She’s forgotten how not to be scared of people. And so have I. My teeth are clenched so tight in the face of the crowds I feel pain blossoming up my jaw.
After twenty minutes Mabel raises one foot. It looks ridiculous. She is not relaxed enough to fluff out her feathers; she still resembles a wet and particoloured seal. But she makes this small concession to calmness, and she stands there like a man driving with one hand resting on the gearstick. She looks pathetically small next to the birds beside her. To her left is a golden eagle, a hulking great thing with chest-feathers like armoured scales and taloned feet the size of human hands. To her right is a male martial eagle, an antelope-killing black and white monster with piercing white eyes. It is enormous, bigger than most of the dogs walking past the mesh fence in front of the marquee, and it watches them them go by with its black chrysanthemum-petalled crest raised in idle speculation of murder.
Stuart has brought his tiercel peregrine. Greg has brought his barbary falcon, a tiny jewelled dusty-blue and copper falcon with thin golden toes. While it preens he sits cross-legged, chatting with members of the public, his red cashmere jumper holed wildly at the elbow. Alan the eagle-man is drinking tea from a plastic cup, resting an arm on the tall perch of a saker falcon, which looks up at him with a mild and playful eye.
I can’t sit still. I go for a walk round the fair. It is not very big, but it is full of surprising things. Smoke from an oil-drum barbecue curling through drying chestnut leaves. Beneath the tree an ancient wooden cider press pouring apple juice into cups. The crushed apples fall into mounds of oxidising pulp beside it and the man working the mechanism is shouting something to the craggy plantsman on the next stand with stripling trees for sale. I find a cake stand, a face-painting stand, a stand of vivaria full of snakes, spiders and stick insects the size of your hand. A stall of orange pumpkins by an ice-cream van. A boy kneeling by a hutch staring at a rabbit under a paper sign that says MY NAME IS FLOPSEY. ‘Hello, Flopsey,’ he says, bringing his hand up to the wire. I walk into a white marquee, and inside, in dim green shade, find trestle-tables displaying hundreds of apple varieties. Some are the size of a hen’s egg; some are giant, sprawling cookers you’d need two hands to hold. Each variety sits in a labelled wooden compartment. I walk slowly along the apples, glorying in their little differences. Soft orange, streaked with tiger-spots of pink. Charles Ross. Berkshire pre 1890. Dual use. A little one with bark-like blush markings over a pale green ground. Coronation. Sussex 1902. Dessert. Miniature green boulders, the side in shadow deep rose. Chivers Delight. Cambridgeshire 1920. Dessert. Huge apple, deep yellow with hyperspace-spotting of rich red. Peasgood’s Nonsuch. Lincolnshire 1853. Dual use.
The apples cheer me. The stalls have too. I decide the fair is a wonderful thing. I wander back to my chair, and as Mabel relaxes, so do I. I wolf down a burger, gossip with my falconer friends. Stories are told, jokes are made, old grievances aired, the qualities and abilities and flights of various hawks discussed in minute detail. It strikes me suddenly how much British falconry has changed since the days of Blaine and White. Back then it was the secretive, aristocratic sport of officers and gentlemen. In Germany, falconry had fed into the terrible dreams of an invented Aryan past. Yet here we are now in all our variousness. A carpenter ex-biker, a zookeeper ex-soldier, two other zookeepers, an electrician and an erstwhile historian. Four men, two women, two eagles, three falcons and a goshawk. I swig from a bottle of cider and this company is suddenly all I’d ever wished for.
‘Excuse me? Is that a goshawk?’
He’s in his forties, with glasses. A thickset, cheerful man holding a wriggling toddler. ‘Hang on, Tom,’ he says. ‘We’re going to get an ice-cream. I just want to talk to this lady for a second.’
I grin. I know how it feels to hold onto a creature who wants to be somewhere else. And then my heart falters, just a little.
No father, no partner, no child, no job, no home.
Get over yourself, Helen, I hiss inwardly.
‘It’s yours?’ he says. ‘Wow.’
I tell him about the goshawk. He listens. Then his face turns serious and sad.
‘You are so lucky,’ he says. ‘I’ve always wanted to do falconry. All my life. I’ve got books and everything. But I’ve never had the time.’ There’s a pause. ‘Maybe one day.’ He hugs Tom a little closer. ‘Come on then, you,’ he says, and they walk away to the ice-cream van.