CHAPTER 1
The weather had held fine for once, with just a hint of a drop of rain as I left home and none at all by the time I rode down past the speed humps to the Barnes reserve. The lockers were waiting, steel-mesh cages perfect for locking up the Galaxy complete with panniers, and as I changed shoes I felt almost happy.

It was a fine day, getting bluer above by the minute, I was out on my bike, I was about to enter a rather nice bird reserve, and one of my dearest friends was due to arrive in a very few minutes. Pity about her husband. I unloaded my telescope and the bundle of spare binoculars, and just as I started to feed my lock through the door of the cycle cage a pair of arms went round me and a wet kiss smacked into the back of my neck.

“Hiya, Rob! Great day you picked!”

“Ah, I have an in with the weather gods, all except one. The bugger with the winds, of course”

I turned in her arms to see Terry and his son smiling behind her, and I shook the former’s hand. James still had one of his own up by his face, as if inspecting the palm, and I waited quietly.

“James? You remember Rob?”

“There are eight places for bikes here. That’s not enough, Dad. What if everyone comes, all at once?”

“You remember Rob? Hello Rob?”

James turned to look at me, and there was the usual moment of very noticeable adjustment, as his focus shifted sharply from whatever he was absorbed in, to the person in front of him.

“Hello Rob. Why are you here?”

I smiled. “Hiya, James, we are going to have a walk around and look at the birds, remember?”

“Oh yes. Birds. How many are there?”

“I don’t know, James, that’s the fun of looking for them. Shall we go in?”

I led across the bridge, past the statues of Peter Scott and the swans, and with a swipe of my membership card I was in. The Howarths took a little longer, and a lot more money, but soon we were walking through the courtyard towards the exotic collections. Karen walked quietly beside me, as Terry led his son to the first of the big identification notices. That was James in his element, then, picking out each listed bird one by one.

“He’s getting better, Karen. More, I dunno, aware to the world?”

There was a twitch to her cheek. “That cow of a mother didn’t help, did she?”

“Yeah?”

“Her idea of helping him to grow out was to sit him in front of the telly and ignore him. How the hell Terry ever put up with her, I do not know. The cycling’s what’s doing it, I think, that and the camping”

“What, new experiences?”

“No, quite the reverse, I think. It’s different to what everyone else he knows does, so it makes him feel special, but we do it so often now that he’s been able to see a pattern in it, set a routine, yeah? You ought to see him put his tent up. Anyway, what’s been up with you? You come and go on the message board…Rob, are you getting pissed a lot? Some of your late night stuff…”

I looked away. “Let’s just see the birds, yeah? Talk later? Anyway, he has his own tent?”

There was a sudden bright grin. “Of course! I’m a newlywed, right?”

“Too much information, girl! Come on, we’ll do these birds and then grab a coffee and a bite before the wild stuff, OK?”

She linked arms and gave mine a squeeze. “Sounds good, Rob”

There were sedge and reed warblers singing, and Terry asked me how I could tell the difference.

“Easy, right? Reed warbler, relaxed rasta reggae mon, and sedge, spirited singer. Listen to that one: chug, chug, chugga, chug, that’s a reedy, and…yeah, hear the quicker one? That’s a sedge.”

James looked hard at me, as a small bird rose in a short song flight.

“That one’s different, isn’t it?”

“Spot on, James! That was a whitethroat”

“How many are there here?”

“I don’t know, lad. Shall we see ---no, here’s a challenge, right? See how many different types of bird we can see wild today, count types instead of birds, yeah?”

“Types instead of birds? I can do that”

Terry looked across to me and winked, and then he passed his son a sheet of paper and a pen.

“Want to write them down as Rob tells you, son?”

For the first time ever, I found myself warming to the man. He had always struck me as a little predatory, especially around Karen, but that was perhaps a result of my love of her. A true friend, how could I not be protective? His love for his son, though, that was so honest, so deep, despite his problem, and all of a sudden I found myself almost warming to him. Karen noticed.

“Getting to you at last, is he?” she whispered.

I nodded, and she gave my arm another squeeze. “You’re beginning to see what I do, Rob. But not all of it….”

“What do you mean, not all of it?”

“Well, his absolutely HUGE cock is all mine!”

She pulled back a little. “Bloody hell, you are blushing!”

“Well, lycra shorts and all that…bit difficult not to notice”

She turned serious for a second. “Is that what is digging at you, mate? You aren’t trying to say, you know, that you, blokes, yeah? You do know we don’t give a shit about that sort of thing? I mean, Terry had his share of boyfriends, years back, yeah?”

I stopped walking, and looked her hard in the eye. “How do you cope, Kaz? I mean, knowing that he used to, you know…?”

She smiled gently, wistfully. “Because I know that whatever there was one day, this day he is mine. That’s how. I mean, I don’t say I’m living for the now, more for the now and the future, right? Anyway, how are things, you know, with Siobhan?”

“They are going well, kid, really well”

“So what the fuck is up?”

“Ah, not now, yeah? Listen, hear that?”

“Bugger me, that’s loud! Where is it?”

Terry and James were back. James had his pen out.

“That, James, is a Cetti’s warbler, C-E-T-T-I. There’s a mnemonic for the song”

“What’s a mnemonic mean?”

“A way to remember something, like ‘Richard of York…’ for the rainbow. This one goes ‘Listen! What’s my name? Cetti Cetti Cetti Cetti! That’s it!’ “

He repeated the phrase just as the noisy little sod let rip again, and there was a genuine smile there as he linked the two sounds.

“Terry…”

“Yes, Rob?”

“There’s a rude version as well, one that describes the purposes of the song…”

“Go on…”

“Listen! I’m Cetti! Fight me, fuck me or fuck off! Right?”

James’ genuine smile was followed by an even more genuine laugh, and I realised he was entering one of his more lucid periods. As we walked back towards the café, he was inventing his own mnemonics for everything we heard, and at the eider pond he actually made me laugh out loud. As the drakes threw their heads with a rhythmic “Ah-OOH!” he smiled.

“Dad…Frankie Howerd ducks!”

We were still laughing as we entered the café. Karen sorted out a tray of teas and sandwiches as Terry took the lad off to the toilets, and the two of us grabbed a table. She was straight to the point.

“I know you, Rob Carter, and I know when you have something on your mind”

“Nothing really…”

“Bollocks it’s nothing. Look, here’s a trade. One of mine, for one of yours, OK?”

“Maybe…”

“OK. I was never sure about Terry till after I married him, OK?”

“Sorry?”

“I was at a low ebb, self-esteem stuff, you know that?”

Both of her hands had mine across the table. I looked back at her, small and strawberry blonde, freckles across a face with perhaps a little too much lipstick, a Howie’s T-shirt reading “Girls ride bikes too!”

“So why did you marry him?”

“Because I did something right for once, and you didn’t seem interested”

Oh shit. I stayed quiet.

“And Siobhan? Wedding bells there at all?”

“You married him because I was with Siobhan?”

“Sort of. You never let me in, did you? There was that night in my flat, I lay there, thinking, is he going to come into my room or just stay in the spare one, and…”

Story of my life. Shit, what life? 53 years of unreality, people still not seeing, and I knew what I had intended to do that afternoon, but it was all tied up in a heaving mass of snakes that had suddenly nested in my gut.

“It isn’t that simple, Kaz. Me, I’m not someone for marriage, look what happened when I did, yeah? You are happy, though, aren’t you?”

She smiled, and once more it was a little skewed, not certain.

“Very, Rob, very happy indeed, but I still wonder, I will always wonder, what if? I mean, I have James now as well, and I wouldn’t give any of that up, but…”

She drifted off, and then with an obvious effort pulled it back together.

“Your turn. You arranged this outing so you could talk about something, I know that, Terry knows that, and he won’t be back till I text him, OK? Spill”

Breathe. Can I do it? I have to do it. Breathe.

“Look…my parents, yeah? They had three sons, right? Me, Ian, Neil?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, they didn’t. They had two sons”

“Oh, I know your younger brother is gay, but…”

“No, not that”

Breathe.

“Look…where did you get that T-shirt?”

“Howie’s, you know that”

“Well…”

I pointed at the shirt, and then at myself, and gave her a little finger wave ‘hello’. Her eyes widened just for an instant.

“Oh fuck”