Bird of Passage

by Catherine Czerkawska

  ‘Why have you had your hair cut so short again, mum?’ asked India.

  ‘The hairdresser got carried away.’

  ‘It isn’t very nice,’ said Flora, thoughtfully. ‘You ought to grow it.’

  ‘I’m doing my best.’

  ‘You should tell them,’ said Finn, when they had left the island.

  ‘No. I don’t want any fuss. I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me.’

  She fought the disease long and hard, with every possible treatment. Finn would have moved heaven and earth for her. He would gladly have taken the illness upon himself, if that were possible. But after the last remission proved to be just that – a temporary respite - Kirsty put her foot down. She didn’t want to be away from the island and she didn’t want to be away from Finn any longer. Nothing he could do or say would change her mind. She took such palliative treatment as they could offer her, while she stayed at home, but refused to go back into hospital and her health steadily deteriorated through that winter and early spring.

  At Easter, her daughters came to Dunshee for a few days, and Kirsty rallied all her strength to behave normally with them; so much so that India and Flora noticed little amiss with their mother, beyond the fact that she seemed very tired and needed constant catnaps.

  They spent more time with Finn than ever before. He was shy, but kind to them. Afterwards, India suspected that Kirsty had asked him to be nice to them and, as always, he had obeyed. He carried their picnic things down to the beach, arranged fishing trips for them, and escorted them to and from ceilidhs in the village hall or quiz nights in the hotel, where they could chat up visiting yachtsmen.

  India had finished college by then, had managed to get herself an agent and was intent on making her mark in the world of music. Flora was doing a Business Studies course in Edinburgh. Physically, Flora was the image of her mother, but much more reserved and precise. She had a lustre about her, as though she had just stepped out of a photograph. There was never a hair out of place, and she was never seen in public without carefully applied make-up, in sharp contrast to her sister. India only wore make-up on stage, and even then, usually had to be reminded about it. Once, when they had gone on holiday to Italy with Annabel, their luggage had gone missing, along with Flora’s make-up case. India watched in astonishment as her younger sister dissolved into angry tears.

  ‘But it’s Sunday!’ she kept saying. ‘I can’t buy anything!’

  She was only placated the following day when the shops opened and she was able to replace her lipstick and mascara, even though the missing luggage turned up within a few hours.

  ‘I love her, but she drives me nuts!’ said India, to Finn, in an unguarded moment. ‘She’s so high maintenance. She was never like that when we were younger. I was the neat one. Now she takes an hour to do her hair and makeup. A whole hour every bloody day and then she has to take it all off again at night! What a waste of time!’

  ‘That’s just the way she is’ said Finn, mildly. ‘And perhaps it’s just her way of ordering her world, making herself feel safe and unassailable, you know?’

  By May, Kirsty was desperately ill. Again, Finn suggested that he must tell the rest of her family what was going on, but she refused. She became so agitated when he argued with her that he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but capitulate. She knew that she was being impossibly selfish, but she didn’t care.

  The morphine made her sick and vague and she would only take the tablets when she couldn’t bear the aching in her joints any more. Her temperature fluctuated alarmingly and she had terrible nosebleeds. Just lifting her would cause her skin to bruise. Where Finn had held her – and there was no doubt that she needed his support - there would be two sets of five blue fingerprints on the white flesh. He feared all the time that his touch would damage her. Finn couldn’t bear to think of her illness. He sometimes found himself pretending that it was some minor condition, from which she would recover in time. He couldn’t bear his sense of panic, which could only be controlled when he focussed on caring for her, on her day-to-day needs.

  She was so frail that he wondered how she could stand upright, but she would insist on getting up and going into the garden, so that she could watch the sea from a basket chair, or smell the sweet coconut scent of the whins on the winds that blew down from Hill Top Town.

  ‘I wish I was sitting up there with you,’ she said to Finn, one May evening, when she had been more restless and unwell than usual. ‘I wish we were there, the two of us together, watching the western sea. It would make me better just to be there, I’m sure it would! Can’t you carry me up there? Can’t you? Please Finn !’

  ‘Kirsty how can I? There’s no strength left in you! It would kill you to go up there. I’m as strong as a horse, but I couldn’t carry you up there safely, sweetheart. I’d be afraid that you’d break in my arms. We’ll go when you’re better. I promise.’

  She was silent for a moment, gazing up at him.

  At last, she sighed. ‘Well, Hill Top Town will just have to wait then. But what about the boat? We could go out on the boat couldn’t we? I wouldn’t have to do a thing. You could bring it in to the beach and carry me down there. I don’t weigh very much.’

  ‘You’re thistledown. And just as fragile. But I’m so afraid of breaking you.’

  ‘I don’t care. What’s a few broken bones? I want to be out there on the water with you, one last time.’

  He winced, but said nothing, shaking his head.

  ‘Listen, you have to do what I want.’ She smiled at him, with a look of sheer devilment, a flash of the old Kirsty. ‘You never know, it might be my last request.’

  ‘Don’t!’ he said. ‘Don’t do this to me. I can’t bear it, Kirsty!’

  ‘Well I won’t,’ she relented. ‘But it’s a very calm night. It’ll be alright, really it will.’

  ‘I’ll fetch the boat in,’ he said.

  It was the nut brown, clinker-built rowing boat that had belonged to her grandfather. It was afloat already, tied to the iron stanchion on the beach below Dunshee. Finn wrapped Kirsty in the black and white shepherd’s plaid that he had found in one of the upstairs cupboards.

  She snuggled into it. ‘I’d forgotten all about this. Do you remember how we used to wrap it round us in the barn, when we were young? My grandad used to wear it on the hills sometimes. He once told me that it was more than a hundred years old. I wish I’d worn half so well.’

  Finn gathered her gingerly in his arms. She winced, but set her lips in a firm line, and would not cry out. He carried her carefully down the meandering track to the beach, trying hard not to jar her bones, trying hard to take small, safe steps. Afterwards, he would remember the powerful scent of bluebells. He left her sitting on a low rock, still wrapped in the shawl, while he went down, drew the boat onto the beach, made a nest of cushions there and came back for her.

  ‘How are you?’ It seemed a foolish question, she was so obviously not alright, but what else was he to ask?

  ‘I’ll do. Come on. Let’s go.’

  Lifting her as though she were made of blown glass, he walked across the beach and lowered her gently among the cushions. Then he pushed the nut brown boat over the white sand into the water, and stepped in at the last moment, holding his breath, trying to steady the boat, trying to give Kirsty as little discomfort as possible.

  It was a warm evening and very light. The sea was glassy, the bland, impassive face of the moon just showing in a blue sky. Finn faced Kirsty, took up the oars and sculled quietly out into the bay. Kirsty trailed her fingers in the water and relaxed into her cushions, saying nothing. Finn seemed beyond sorrow, gazing at her as though he could never have enough of the sight of her.

  He shipped the oars and sat very still in the centre of the boat. They drifted below Dunshee, listening to the sharp calls of wading birds along the shoreline, moving with the tide. A big seal came to look at them, popping its head out of the water a couple of times and snorting at them, to Kirsty’s
absolute delight .

  ‘Do you remember?’ she said to Finn, ‘Do you remember how the seals would always come when we were fishing? And you could have seen them far enough because you said they always scared the fish away? But I liked them so much that I didn’t care.’

  When an evening breeze sprang up and ruffled the surface of the sea, he leant forward to arrange the shawl more closely around her. She caught at his fingers and kissed them.

  ‘My darling!’ she said with infinite tenderness.

  ‘All of me. To the last drop of my blood.’ He rubbed at his eyes and cheeks. ‘The wind’s in my eyes, that’s all.’

  ‘I know, my love,’ she said. ‘I know.’

  The light drained slowly out of the sky. He wanted to bring the boat in, but she protested. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Just a while longer. It’s alright. I’m warm enough.’

  She dipped her hand in the sea again and, as she raised it, her fingers left an iridescent trail, a stream of opals, tumbling and shimmering into the water, tiny life forms, each generating its own spark of light.

  I’m sorry’ she said, at last, her voice slightly slurred. ‘You don’t have anything to be sorry about. It’s me who should be sorry. I should never have left you. Never. It was the worst thing I ever did.’

  ‘Forgive me. What possessed me to do that to you, my love? Where is a knife that will cut it? Search the sheathe where you left it. Do you hear it? Do you hear it?’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘The heron screaming and the sad song of the corncrake in the meadow.’

  At last, she allowed Finn to row her back to shore. He hauled the boat onto the sand, lifted her out and carried her tenderly back to Dunshee. As they approached the house, she reached up and clasped his neck so that her head was nestling against him. In the warm kitchen, he tried to put her down on the sofa while he went to get her a drink, but she wouldn’t let him.

  ‘Don’t!’ she said. ‘Don’t let me go, Finn, please. Not just yet. Let’s sit for a while. Till I feel better.’

  He sat down on the nearest chair, her grandfather’s old rocking chair, with Kirsty all bundled up on his lap, his arms fast around her.

  He bent to kiss her. ‘Ah Kirsty, my darling Kirsty! We wasted so many years. We should have had our whole lives together!’

  ‘We have,’ she said. ‘We have been together our whole lives, haven’t we? Just not always in the same place. Don’t be angry with me now. I can’t bear it if you’re angry!’

  ‘I’m not angry with you. I was never angry with you. I would have gone to the ends of the earth for you, Kirsty, my dearest, darling Cairistiona!’ He rocked her gently.

  She tried to say, ‘To hell in a handcart!’ but her lips were dry and she could only whisper the words.

  ‘Listen to me now. Close your eyes. I’ll rock you till you fall asleep. Go to sleep, my darling, my sweetheart. Go to sleep.’

  The room fell very quiet. At last, the only sounds were the muted rustle of the fire in the grate as a log slowly dwindled to white ash, and the squeak of the chair, moving back and forth, back and forth.

  Time passed. When, holding her close as ever, he looked down, he could see that she lay cold and still in his arms.

  Finn carried Kirsty upstairs and placed her gently on the bed, in her old room. She looked peaceful, lying there with the plaid still wrapped around her, but she looked strange and empty as well. Everything that had animated her, everything that had made her so uniquely his Kirsty, had gone and he did not know where to find her. He didn’t stay in the room long. Instead he went downstairs and phoned the island nurse who said that she would inform the doctor on the mainland. Then he called the minister, who seemed very shocked. He hadn’t realised quite how ill she was, but she had hidden her illness well, even from her family.

  The minister came driving up the track in his elderly Golf, said a prayer over Kirsty, and sat with Finn for a bit, but seemed embarrassed by his silence and scared by his stony face. He left just as the district nurse arrived. She was professionally brisk and left Finn a couple of sleeping tablets, promising to send the undertaker up as soon as possible.

  ‘It will be tomorrow morning, now.’

  ‘No hurry,’ he said.

  ‘Will you be alright?’ she asked. ‘Sometimes people get very frightened… you know…’

  She glanced upwards, indicating the room where Kirsty lay.

  ‘I was never scared of her when she was alive, so why the hell should I start now?’

  Nevertheless, he could feel the intense silence in the house, pressing in on his ears. He had never known it so quiet before. He switched on the television, but the foolish babble was unbearable, so he drank a glass of whisky and then went out, climbing up to Hill Top Town. Already, there was a gleam of light in the eastern sky. The short night-time was ending. He stumbled among primroses, violets and bluebells, their colours muted and strange in this light. Gradually they gave way to willow scrub and last year’s dried heather with the wind whistling through the stems. And then he was on the open hillside, with seabirds whirling around him, angrily, and he shouted with them, screamed wordlessly into the breeze that came from Ireland. He lost all track of time, but eventually hunger and thirst and the weakness in his own legs forced him back down to the house. He couldn’t remember when he had last eaten, and all he had drunk had been the whisky. He made a pot of tea, put sugar in it, sliced and buttered bread, set it aside, and forgot about it. Overcome by dizziness, he sat down next to the kitchen fire.

  The old cat came and tried to sit on his lap, but he pushed the creature away, sweeping it off with his hand. It mewed a protest, then crouched uneasily in front of the cold range, looking up at him with accusing eyes.

  Eventually, he went up to the room where Kirsty lay. He thought that he could lie beside her a while, but she seemed so cold, and he couldn’t warm her. He pulled up the blanket from the bottom of the bed and tucked it round her, as well as the plaid, with some confused idea of warming her. The cat had followed him and, before he could stop it, it jumped onto the bed. It crouched beside her for a moment, looking into her face, and then it gave a single, wailing cry and was gone, leaping down the stairs. He followed after, and found it crouched in the hearth, its fur standing on end, its eyes wide and fixed. He sat down again and, presently, it jumped onto his knee and when it padded a bed there, he did not move it.

  He dozed for an hour or so, warmed by the weight of the animal on his lap, until full daylight crept in the window. Then he got up and phoned Nicolas, who sounded shocked but surprisingly calm. Finn wondered if maybe he had seen it coming and then the thought struck him that Kirsty may even have written to her ex-husband without his knowledge.

  ‘Did you know she was so ill?’ he asked.

  ‘She told me she was ill. But she also asked me not to visit. Not until she was feeling better. I thought she was getting treatment. I thought things would improve again.’

  ‘I hoped for the same thing. How do you think the girls will take it?’

  ‘They’ll be devastated.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Just tell me, Finn. Tell me that somebody was with her. You didn’t let her… you didn’t…’ Nicolas’s composure deserted him and he choked on the words.

  ‘I was with her. All the time. What do you take me for?’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘I wanted to. But she didn’t want the girls to know. She was adamant.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She wanted them to remember her the way she was.’

  ‘And do you think that’ll be a comfort to them? Or do you think they might just be furious. Hurt and furious.’

  ‘I don’t know, and to be honest with you, I don’t have the energy to argue with you right now.’

  ‘Alright, Finn,’ said Nicolas, and Finn could hear the capitulation in his voice. They spoke briefly about funeral arrangements and all the people who would want to come. Kirsty would be buried not far from her
mother and her grandmother in the island cemetery.

  He made a few more phone calls and then he sat in the kitchen, listening to the sighs and creaks as the growing warmth of the sun woke the old building. He was aware that he was exhausted, but sleep still seemed very far off. He dozed and woke, made tea, took a shower and then went out, striding down to the beach, and only returning when he saw the undertaker’s car, pulling up at the house.

  ‘I’m sorry for your trouble,’ said Hamish, who had lived on the island for years. He looked narrowly at Finn. ‘You look very poorly, Finn, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘I was looking for her,’ Finn said, thickly, shaking the proffered hand. ‘But I couldn’t find her.’

  Hamish knew something of their history. ‘It’s always a shock,’ he said. ‘Even when it’s expected, it’s always a shock.’

  ‘But she wouldn’t go without me, would she? She wouldn’t go off and leave me all alone. You would think that she would still want to be with me, wouldn’t you?’ Finn covered his face with his hands. ‘But I can’t find her anywhere. She left me. Jesus Christ, what will I do if I can’t ever find her again!’

  Other people began arriving: the minister, the doctor, various islanders, and then friends and relatives from the mainland. Finn sat in the corner of the room and watched while other people came and took charge. Soon, the hotel too was full of mourners but he kept well out of their way. In the days before the funeral he took the boat out and just drifted about with the currents. Kirsty’s daughters came to the island the day before the funeral and stayed at the hotel with their father. Flora sat close to Annabel in the lounge, a damp tissue balled up in her hand, while India seemed more angry and hurt than sad. Eventually, however, and much against Nicolas’s advice, she went up to Dunshee and sought out Finn.