CHAPTER 34
He looked drained, and for the first time ever I saw him look uncertain, and I wondered if he had actually been following us or just stumbled into our group as he rounded the corner. He had a copy of the Helm “Shorebirds” open in his hands, so I assumed that it was the latter.

“Hello John”

“Er...Rob…Rachel….”

I thought I’d attack, rather than wait.

“People, this is John, he was my boss till recently. Karen and Terry, their son James, my other half Larinda”

“Ah. I thought you…Rachel, hello”

Rachel was eying him sharply, her earlier sympathy evaporating under the hot glare of suspicion.

“You not back with the other twitchers, John?”

He shrugged, the weight of his satchel distorting it.

“Someone suggested there was a semi-palmated sandpiper here, and I haven’t had one this year”

She took a step forward. “So you weren’t following us, then? I know you saw us, back at reception”

He pulled himself up at that, almost back to full MAC state. “Why would I follow you, after what you did to me on my retirement do? You didn’t just not come, you organised another bloody do!”

This was the Rachel I had grown more used to, and despite the way she was dressed, her posture was pure skirt, heels and cleavage-flashing strut.

“You say that to us, ‘mate’? After every fucking…sorry, Karen, after every thing you did to us over the years? You even let Rob’s tyres down, you bastard! How fucking petty is that?”

She drew a breath. “Oh, fuck it, John, why did you have to be such a cunt? Sorry, people, I can’t have this conversation without swearing. If you want to walk on a bit, I can catch up”

Karen sighed. “After forte-fortissimo, we are sort of used to it, so do carry on. Would this be ‘Man’s a Cunt’? Rob’s told us so much about him. Pleased to meet you, MAC. Sort of”

Larinda squeezed my arm, and I realised what was happening. In-group, out-group, the herd closing ranks. Rachel was building up to a real blast, and it wouldn’t be the right thing. Wilkins was bristling back, but behind his eyes lay the fact that he was no longer the boss, the big man with the sanctions, he was just a rather small 58-year-old twitcher in an ill-fitting camouflage smock. I tried a new tack.

“I should explain that the boy here gives his own names to birds, like. Forte-fortissimo is a Cetti’s warbler”

He looked puzzled. “Yes, it is very loud, but why that name”

I turned to James. “Why that name, son?”

“I call it forte-fortissimo because it is very loud and the mnemonic Rob taught me is fight me fuck me or fuck off which is not just the way the song sounds but it is what the song means because it is a male bird calling to females to mate and telling other male birds to go away because they are in its territory”

John blinked at that. “Where did you hear a Cetti’s warbler…James?”

“At the Wildside in Barnes reserve which is in London and run by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust”

I was astonished. Every time we met, James had always had his period of adjustment, where he had to warm to my presence, and yet he had simply accepted Wilkins without a flicker. All I could think was that it was the subject under discussion. He had already been locked into his naming ritual, and MAC had slotted in just right. James was in full flow, though.

“I have made a book of my birds but I will be adding butterflies even though they are not birds but insects and not primates”

Shit. I realised James was starting to loop, and caught Terry’s eye. He nodded.

“Son, want a drink? John, is it? We have tea, if you would like some”

I look back now, and I realise that if I ever truly warmed to Karen’s husband, it was right then. For us all, and for his son, he stepped in and broke the mood that had raised storm clouds in Rachel’s eyes and set MAC…I realised I couldn’t keep calling him that. Set John on his back foot. The man himself looked surprised, and suddenly, pathetically, grateful.

“Yes, that would be nice. I have Tunnock’s teacakes with me, I always take them when I bird”

That was the first bit of personal information I had ever heard from John, I realised, and it also struck me that I had been both blind and stupid. He shared more than an initial with James. I coughed, theatrically.

“There’s some seating about a hundred yards ahead, folks. Picnic tables, like. Shall we sit for a while, enjoy the sun?”

John shuffled his feet. “There’s a semi-palmated…”

“John, I think that a sit and a talk might be more important, just this once?”

It was actually visible in his face, the struggle, obsessive need against simple neediness.

“All right, but you must share my cakes”

Terry led him away with James, and we girls followed slowly behind. Rachel was still simmering.

“We should just tell him to fuck off, Jill”

“What happened to all that sympathy from the curry house, Rach?”

I got a sharp look for that, but it was followed by a softer, more wistful one.

“I don’t know, Jill. Perhaps…perhaps seeing him through the glass, it’s easier to take him than having him pop up in front of me?”

“We’re not at work, kid. He doesn’t work with us anymore, more to the point, aye?”

Larinda gave my arm another squeeze. “He looks lost, that’s what I feel. How long was he in the job?”

I thought for a while, thinking back at some of the lectures he had given me. “Best part of forty years, I would think, if not more”

Rachel was still coming down. “Jill…he’s so small, yeah? Smaller than at work. There’s more, though, isn’t there?”

I chose my words as carefully as I could. “I don’t want to belittle anyone, aye, Karen? But everyone talks about autism as if it were one thing, and it isn’t, is it?”

Karen nodded. “I had to do one shitload of research when I met James, and Jill’s right. Stop me if you know this, but it’s actually ASD, autism spectrum disorder. There are people at one end that are effectively lost to the world, there are people right at the other who have just a bit too much of an interest in one thing”

She laughed. “Football supporters, for example. They collect everything to do with their team, they obsess about its players, and even though they all claim to love the game, some of them will only watch it when their own team are playing. Then there are birdwatchers”

I bristled a little at that. “That’s not obsession, that’s just love of nature!”

She grinned. “Indeed. In your case, that’s true. You do all that stuff with the voles and the butterflies, it’s clear it’s a whole nature thing with you, yeah? But I bet you keep a checklist of what birds you’ve seen each year. Am I right?”

She was, and she knew it.

“Aye, I do, but it’s more…it tells me what is changing in the year, like. I was over at Dunkirk, and there were fan-tailed warblers, and there shouldn’t be, so we’re looking at global warming, aye? That’s why I keep a check list. Twitchers…no, very different”

Karen laughed at that. “Now I know for sure you are a bloody woman! Gestalt, Gaia, whole-world shit, that’s what we do. Men, they focus on the bits that stick out”

Larinda laughed in her own turn. “So do I, Kaz! That’s sort of the problem with this one”

Karen gave her a long examination. “I think, whatever happens, you’re staying the course, though. I just have that feeling”

Once more, the squeeze to my arm. “I can’t be sure, love, but I sort of think she’s right. Look, we have a twitcher to sort out. Not fair to leave him with the boys, yeah? Rachel, you gonna be sweet?”

That one stood for a while, then shook herself. “James needs a good day. For him, yeah? Sweetness and fucking angelic light”

We rounded the last corner of the path to the picnic tables, and found John and James in deep conversation over James’ book, and for the first time ever I saw real softness in John’s face. He looked absorbed by the book, and as we approached he looked up, and I realised what he was doing: he wanted someone else to share his ‘discovery’ of the boy’s creation. I couldn’t get a handle on him. One moment, he was a frightened, lonely old man. Right then, he was an animated enthusiast. At work, he had been a consummate arsehole, and that still lived in him. Something was very, very wrong with him, but as he spoke and pointed with James, all I could see was something small and hidden, trying to get out. Something very, very right.