The Birdwatcher

by William McInnes

Genres: General Fiction; Cultural Heritage; Family Life; Humor & Satire; Romance

Synopsis

A novel about love, about twitchers, and about learning to trust from bestselling, award-winning author, William McInnes. This is a story about a bloke who's losing his hearing; a bird that can't fly but likes being read to; and a teenage daughter who doesn't know who to be angry at. It's about a woman living with the echo of illness finding out how much fun it can be to trust someone; a man called Murph who has a secret; and Perry Como. It's part love story, part Hot Diggity moments of discovery, whether they happen in a rainforest or while sitting on a verandah, or in somebody's heart. It's about cold outdoor showers and people not quite being complete. But, most of all, it's about giving yourself the gift to be still while you wait for the lights to change or the rain to stop, so you have time to think. For all of us, there are memories and secrets that can change our lives. If we let them.

Release date: October 29, 2013

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Print pages: 288

Sample

A group of strangers pushed together for a short time usually ignore each other. Think of a lift: even a happily chatting couple’s conversation trickles to silence in the confines of a shared space.

Most trams are filled with people doing just that: not connecting. Some seem actively to repel it – showing a grumpy face, wearing headphones or focusing intense concentration on a book or magazine or tablet. Others don’t necessarily want to connect but do show an interest – staring at someone’s outfit, listening to phone conversations, glancing out the window at the terrace houses and shops the tram is passing. Others seem to be more open, even willing their fellow travellers to connect with them in some way – meeting their eyes, offering a small smile, showing recognition of those getting on and off and whether they need a seat. And then there are those people who are neutral and seem to have almost no awareness of where they are or who they’re with.

David, a tall Anglo forty-something, hangs onto a strap as he stands on the crowded tram. He scans the carriage and its occupants, noting people’s movements and the subtle indications of their intentions. The gentle bend of an elbow by an older woman and her raised shoulder hint at her preparation to stand. She shifts her bag to her left hand so she can pull the stop buzzer.

Sometimes, he thinks, sometimes, the way a person holds themself really gives you a glimpse of their essence – like the young man with the iPad. David regularly sees him on this tram; always dressed in neat fitted suits, his hair styled and his beard as carefully kept as his clothes. Nearly always on his iPad, his thumb sweeping across the screen from left to right, streaming through whatever it is he usually reads. But today his actions are different. David can see his thumb gently falling across the screen both ways. He’s looking at something, yes, but he scrolls to and fro. An image or words? The way the man’s head tilts slightly, almost imperceptibly, suggests he’s looking at an image, David thinks. A photograph. The young man’s hand stays still for a few seconds and then moves back and forth again. Every few minutes he looks away from the screen and sighs, turning to the window, and almost always his left hand comes close to his face, his thumb gently touching a gold band on his ring finger.

Another deep breath. He’s upset.

If David cranes his neck and leans forward he’ll be able to see the image on the screen. He holds his position, uncomfortably contorted but in an inconspicuous way. Good practice, David thinks.

There’s a shuffle of feet as the other passengers hanging onto straps move, like birds perched on a branch, and David sees the image on the iPad screen. It’s a photo of the young man and another man, almost as neatly styled as the man holding the iPad, embracing on a beach. Then an arm covers the screen and the neat young man sighs again. The passengers in the aisle revert to their original positions.

David resumes his relaxed stance and gently swings on the tram’s strap. I was right, he thinks, the man’s upset. Well, I hope something good happens for you today, Neat Beard.

Then a flash as a bird passes by the window. David looks out; a seagull. His eyes dart, his attention drawn away from his fellow passengers. Two ravens sit on a power pole, before one drops swiftly onto a garbage bin below. Imported birds – sparrows and starlings and blackbirds – are everywhere. As the housing density increases, so do the number of feral pigeons.

A nature strip along the tramline has been planted with flowering eucalypts. David stares carefully as he passes. Honeyeaters dive about, raiding the gumnut flowers, and he leans forward to look at them, not noticing his invasion of the seated passenger’s space until he actually touches the man’s head with his body. David pulls back clumsily.

‘I’m sorry.’

The passenger shrugs. ‘No worries.’

David explains, ‘Honeyeaters.’

The passenger looks back to his book. David hesitates, about to say something else, before being distracted by an Indian myna bird flying past.

The tram approaches its next stop. David lets go of his strap and pulls out a very small notebook with an attached pencil. The tram comes to a standstill with the jolt so many Melburnians don’t even notice, but which can easily hurl an unsuspecting tourist to the floor or, perhaps worse, into one or more of the less approachable locals.

As he waits for half-a-dozen people in front of him to get off, David has a last look through the windows and, seeing nothing, writes in his notebook, on a page dated already, Tram 28.

Stepping down from the tram, his awareness of other commuters kicks in again. Some people almost leap off, some hang on to the handrail and take it one step at a time, some look around carefully for cars, while others are already mentally elsewhere, darting around in front of the tram to cross the road. One action, same intent, so much variation.

David joins the other city workers on the footpath, taking his usual route. Though long-legged, he walks slowly; a country man’s mooch, steady and deliberate. He sees a crested pigeon, four spotted doves, blackbirds, a thrush, some white-naped honeyeaters and a seagull. He watches the seagull as it takes flight from a rubbish bin; lit beautifully by the morning sun, it flies across the cityscape. He slows down even further as he walks through a small park, the lawn dappled as the sunlight filters through the trees and bushes. The grevilleas are in flower; their long droopy sprays of beautiful red spiky blossoms stand out against the blue-green foliage.

David automatically veers off the path and pauses below a tall tree. He looks up and checks on a pair of tawny frogmouths, their nest almost invisible. David smiles, as he does every morning that he sees them. A good day then.

Catching a movement in the grevillea, he turns to see, what it is: honeyeaters? No, too small. Silvereyes? He’s never seen them here before. He moves aside to let some people go past him but tries not to unsettle the birds. He watches them flit about. Even though they are only about four metres away, he pulls out a pair of small binoculars and focuses on the birds. Silvereyes. They are definitely silvereyes. Bodies the size of an apricot in shades of green feathering into grey, with sharply rendered white rings around their eyes. David continues to watch them for a while, seeing what they are eating. Insects or seeds? Nectar?

Passers-by glance at him curiously. He’s tall, and though not exactly in a suit, he’s dressed for work, so his binoculars seem out of place, provoking thoughts of a private detective, a spy, a creep, rather than a birdwatcher. As they walk by he pulls out his notebook and turns to a page marked 30th Aug, where there is a list of ten or so birds. He notes down the ones he has seen on his way from the tram stop, then writes, Silvereyes (5). East William St (park).



David climbs up two flights of stairs and walks into an open-plan office, filled with desks and drafting tables. He heads to his own space and dumps his coat, nodding to Rosie, who is working nearby. She smiles at him.

‘Hi, David. There are a few messages for you on your desk.’

David lets his nod be his reply and sits down, turning on his computer. He looks at the screen and after a long moment nothing happens.

Go on, David thinks. Just die.

The computer starts in fits like a fluorescent light then settles to on.

I don’t hate my job, he thinks. I don’t. I am on the side of good.

‘Have a nice weekend?’ Rosie puts a pile of envelopes in his tray.

David shakes his head, shrugging. ‘So-so.’

‘Did you go away?’

‘No, I went to the football. We lost.’

Rosie is about to speak but David raises his hand. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. How was your weekend?’

‘Lovely. We saw that new movie on Friday night, Saturday was Stephanie’s dance final plus Pete’s stepmum’s brother’s fiftieth, which was actually a hoot, even though I was dreading it.’

David doodles on the paper in front of him: a bird. It has an amazing sense of character to it, though sketched in just a few lines.

Rosie watches as she continues, ‘Then on Sunday Josh had football, of course. He has to play in the under-thirteens and the under-fifteens so there goes half the day, but then we —’ She stops. David’s vague attention has been completely diverted from her to the view outside the window, where a bird has flown into a tree.

Rosie follows his gaze then looks back to her colleague, waiting. After a full minute, David faces her again. Realising the list of weekend activities is over, he offers up what he knows is an inadequate reply, ‘That’s a lot. Pretty busy.’

Rosie smiles, nearly forgiving.

He adds, ‘I don’t know how you do it.’

Rosie looks back out the window. ‘What bird was that?’

‘A black-faced cuckoo-shrike.’

‘How can you tell that from here?’

‘The way it shuffles its wings when it lands.’

Rosie looks out at the grey and black bird and shrugs, unimpressed, dismissive. ‘It’s never just a blackbird with you, is it?’

She disappears behind their divider, then David sighs. He pulls the tray of envelopes towards him and starts to open them.

Then he says very softly, as he looks back out the window at the bird, ‘It’s a blackbird if it’s a blackbird.’

And he smiles.



The phone rings. ‘Vic Land and Water Care, David Thomas speaking.’

There is no response for a few moments and then, just as he is about to hang up, he hears a call in the background: a crow call; a Torresian crow – Corvus orru, found only in the northern parts of Australia. The caller must be a birder.

David’s heart leaps a little. Someone has seen something! The crow’s call is a sharp and harsh Ar-ar-ar. It is its aggressive call, probably defending food from a rival. It might be picking at something dead beside the road; it sounds too close to the caller to be in a tree. There is traffic noise as well; a heavy truck goes by and David remembers when he last heard that bird call and that type of engine – it was when he’d passed a troop carrier filled with young soldiers in camouflage uniforms, with short, tight haircuts and wearing wraparound sunglasses. And carrying guns. Army. Army town.

Townsville, David thinks. No, wait …

He hears another call, though this time not a bird’s. It’s a man making a faux bird-call sound, like a mix between a ringing phone and an old ham actor rolling his r’s as some form of voice warm-up exercise.

It’s Don Barrellon. And if anybody should have been a ham actor, it is Don.

David has known him for nearly fifteen years. Don runs birding boat trips out to the continental shelf off Wollongong on the New South Wales south coast. When they first met, David couldn’t quite believe Don wasn’t putting on an act. A large man with a large beard and a large personality, he seemed like the creation of an over-enthusiastic actor, one who was playing Falstaff in an old Illawarra Steelers Rugby League jersey and track pants, and an accent as broad as his stomach. But Don is real and so is his love affair with birds and his knowledge of the creatures. He took to David because David is very good at listening, and if there is anything that Don loves more than birds, eating, wine and the sound of his own voice, it is being listened to.

His bird call is a signal he gives when he has seen something he thinks is special and wants a few of his favourites to know about it before anyone else.

The first time David heard it was via a phone call from Don when a wandering albatross had drifted in. Even now, David thinks it odd that a living creature would fly from the other side of the world to come to Wollongong. Not that he will ever tell anybody that – least of all Don. Just as he has never told Don that he had seen the wandering albatross a fair while before Don had given David his bird-call signal.

David doesn’t wait for him to speak. ‘Don, what’s that crow doing?’

There comes a chortle that sounds like the fat old actor who used to sell Heinz tomato soup in television commercials. ‘Well, what do you think he’s doing, Dave?’

‘It’s hopping about by the side of the road over … a dead possum.’

There’s a pause, then a crow call and then an abrupt, ‘Well, bugger me! It is a possum. I thought it was a cat. You’re in form, Dave.’

‘Don! Long time; how’ve you been? What are you doing in Townsville?’

There’s a disgruntled sigh from Don before he speaks again. ‘Well, now, nobody likes a smart-arse.’ Then he laughs. ‘In very good form. I’ve been good; good and busy. Listen, I’m just giving you the nod on a sighting of a pale pygmy magpie goose up here, north of Port Douglas; I’m driving up to see it now.’

‘A what? Really? Sure it’s not a green-freckled?’

‘I dunno … Thought that at first, but it was Bill Matthews – he brings the minibus up every year. From Adelaide. Bunch of oldies, but they know what they’re doing usually. They saw it this morning, halfway to Mossman. Jeanne Gallie was up there and she just called me. And David – they heard from Neil.’

‘Neil?’

‘Yeah. He left any messages for you?’

David pauses a moment. He reads the notes stuck on his computer screen. David – PPMG here. Neil – call.

‘Shit.’

‘I thought you didn’t have a tick on it. ’S why I rang.’

‘Shit,’ David says again. He is senseless with indecision and frustration. ‘Shit.’

There is another pause. Don begins to sign off. ‘Call me if you come up here.’

‘Call me if you see it,’ David gets in just before Don gives his bird call again and hangs up.

David stares at nothing. ‘Shit!’ Louder this time.

Rosie tentatively pokes her head up over the divider. ‘Are you all right?’

David doesn’t hear her so she repeats the enquiry, louder.

‘Fine. Thanks,’ he says, picking up a filled-in form, at first trying to decipher it, then just pretending to decipher it.

Shit, he thinks. Then shakes his head firmly. He brings up a graph on his computer screen, looks at his watch then back to the form. At his watch. At the clock. At the screen.

He logs into his bank account. It’s a pretty sad sight, but there is some credit available. He brings up a travel site and starts typing, Origin: Melbourne. Destination: Cairns.

There’s a flight at eleven to Sydney and then an onward flight at two to Cairns. He could be there before dark. He looks up car hire for a four-wheel drive. Bloody expensive. It’s ridiculous.

He goes back to his envelopes and pulls out another form but, like a man with a persistent itch, he can’t settle. He glances at the calendar and remembers something.

Shit, he thinks again and kicks the desk leg. Quickly lowering his head before Rosie can respond, he picks up the telephone and dials.

‘Hi, is Genevieve Forti there, please?’ David keeps his back determinedly turned, but he can almost feel Rosie’s stare.

‘Hello?’

He hunches closer to the phone and speaks quietly, ‘Hi, Genevieve. It’s David. David Thomas.’

Genevieve laughs. ‘Hi, David Thomas. I do know which David. Didn’t we sleep together last week?’

David almost winces. ‘Well, yeah. Of course. And, um, yeah. It was lovely. You were lovely.’

‘Were?’

‘Are, of course. You are. Um … This thing on Thursday night, with your friends …’

‘Yes …’ Genevieve’s tone doesn’t give much away.

‘Is it, um …? I know it’s important to you.’

‘Yes.’

David struggles through the silence and the building tension. ‘I just might have to go away. Only might.’

‘Only might,’ Genevieve says. ‘So, is there a choice here? Have you got appendicitis or something? Not sure if it’s going to perforate? Or is your mother on her deathbed somewhere?’

David hesitates, a bit taken aback by the contrast between the neutrality of her voice and the sharpness of the words. ‘My mother’s already dead,’ he says, without thinking.

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ There is an apology in her tone, but one that only admits fault knowing the other is at greater fault. Then there is a pause. Genevieve breaks it first. ‘So?’

‘So, it sounds like I should come.’

‘No, you shouldn’t come; it would have been nice if you had wanted to come. What is it you “might” have to do?’

David screws up his face, knowing he is wrong, already hating himself but unable to stop. ‘There’s a bird I want to see.’

‘A bird.’

‘I haven’t seen it before.’

‘What, and it only shows itself on a Thursday night?’

‘It’s in Cairns. Well, north of Cairns … I’ll be back by Saturday.’

‘Cairns? A bird?’ Genevieve is incredulous.

David lets his words sit.

‘God. The scary thing is I actually believe you!’

David waits, hopeful.

‘Well, hey – don’t come back on my account. There might be a possum you need to check out. Or an island resort. I mean, if you can just fly to Cairns for a weekend, why wouldn’t you want to get out on the reef? Have a strawberry daiquiri or two, find Nemo. It’s meant to be beautiful out there. I wouldn’t know myself.’

‘Nemo’s a fish,’ he says, idiotically. ‘Why would I want to go to see a fish?’ When he hears the sigh of exasperation at the other end of the phone he tries to back-pedal. Or at least buy some time. ‘I haven’t decided whether to go or not.’

‘So you rang me for what? To take me with you? That doesn’t seem to have . . .