Chapter 6
HAL
As soon as we arrive at the entrance to Marquenterre bird park, I realise I’ve made a mistake.
In my head I have a fixed idea of what birdwatching is – sitting in a hut with binoculars, trying to identify different species.
But of course, it isn’t as if you can roar up to the huts in a VW camper-van.
There are paths on the way, the shortest of which is meant to take forty-five minutes.
I booked a guide, which cost an arm and a leg, a few weeks ago, and hadn’t thought to cancel or enquire about accessibility.
But as I pull on the handbrake and glance over at Sarah, I sense she’s thinking the same thing.
She broke her leg just a few days ago and is barely mobile with her crutch.
Plus, although she doesn’t always admit it, I think she’s in quite a bit of pain sometimes.
‘I tell you what,’ I say to her, ‘shall we blow this off and just visit the beach instead?’
She studies me, her eyes darting over my face in a way that makes me feel completely exposed. ‘No, you were looking forward to this.’
‘I know, but…’ I look down at her leg, and she follows my gaze. I feel like a bit of an idiot suddenly, as if I’m just pointing out that she has an injury. As if she might have forgotten.
‘I’ll be OK.’ She juts out her chin and just for a moment I’m treated to a flashback from twenty-three years ago.
The pair of us in Maths class, me offering to help her with algebra, her stubbornly refusing to accept any support.
Twenty minutes later, I remember her suddenly making a kind of gasp as the method finally fell into place for her.
The woman’s stubborn. But perhaps, like then, she knows herself well enough to be right too.
We make our way to the long wooden cabins that serve as a reception area and café.
It’s early afternoon and people are making the most of the outside courtyard, eating ice creams and sipping coffee, chatting animatedly.
A couple of small children weave their way around the metal chairs and tables, giggling. It’s busier than I thought it would be.
‘Hardly the tranquillity of nature,’ I murmur to Sarah who’s half-walking, half-hopping at my side.
I feel a flash of guilt as I watch her struggle a bit, her face fixed in that same determined expression. The car park had turned out to be down a small track opposite the bird park entrance so we’ve already had a bit of a walk.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ I ask, and she shoots me a look that almost freezes my blood.
After standing in a queue, during which time Sarah refuses to sit on a chair and let me sort out the tickets, we’re told in broken English that our guide Antoine will be with us soon.
Finally, now that I’m going to be sitting too, Sarah allows herself to sink into a chair, barely disguising her sigh of relief.
‘Are you…’ I begin – about to once again ask her the same question I’ve been asking on repeat.
I stop myself just in time – ‘…looking forward to it?’ I finish, lamely.
‘Yeah,’ she says, nodding. She looks about as enthusiastic as a cat faced with the prospect of a bath.
‘Maybe we should…’ I start.
But then the door at the back of the reception area opens and a tall man with black curly hair and an impossibly white smile appears.
He’s wearing a turquoise T-shirt, with a light green gilet over the top embroidered with the words ‘Parc du Marquenterre’, and after a brief glance at the receptionist who nods towards us, he strides in our direction, sticking out his hand for a hearty shake.
‘Madame, monsieur!’ he says, beaming with a very un-French-like level of enthusiasm.
Sarah and I stand, her reaching for her crutch to support herself, and I see Antoine notice. His handsome brow creases. His eyes are a deep, bottomless brown and framed with lashes that no human should have naturally. ‘But you are hurt, madame,’ he says, all concern.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Non, madame, you are not fine.’ He shakes his head with a look of grave concern.
Now you’re for it! I think, waiting for Sarah to bite back and tell him to stop patronising her or something. But when I glance at her, her shoulders are slumped, her head drooping a little.
‘Let me help,’ Antoine says. ‘Please, sit.’
She sits obediently. I find myself plonking my arse back into the seat next to her; not wanting to be left out I suppose. Antoine marches purposefully to the door and disappears, and we’re left in silence.
‘Sorry about this,’ I tell her, for no reason at all.
‘What for? My leg? Or the fact that the hot guide wants to help me?’
‘Hot?’ I ask, and she grins.
‘Hot enough to make me much more interested in birds than I was ten minutes ago.’
I feel a strange prickling sensation and a sudden and spectacularly unfair hatred for Antoine with his easy smile, tanned legs, and T-shirt that sets off his skin tone.
And how come he seems to have calf muscles when I’ve never been able to build mine?
Before I can say anything, the door opens again and he’s back, brandishing at us, like a trophy, a set of keys on the end of a perfectly manicured finger. ‘Got it!’ he says.
It turns out to be the use of one of the park’s golf carts, usually a no-no for visitors but released to Antoine no doubt due to his pretty privilege. He proceeds to offer a sturdy arm to Sarah, who leans on it like some helpless damsel in distress as he helps her into the passenger seat.
And I can see where this is going. I’m going to be in the back, aren’t I? Like some sort of overgrown child out with his gorgeous mother and father. ‘Can I drive?’ I ask, but both Antoine and Sarah shoot me a look.
‘I’m afraid our insurance wouldn’t allow it,’ Antoine replies sadly, shaking his head as if – were it in his power – he’d hand over the keys in an instant. I look at him, steadily, and he darts his eyes away and I know, through some unwritten man code, exactly what his intentions are.
And if I needed any confirmation, it comes seconds later as I’m settling myself into the back seat which faces the other way from theirs, and reassuring myself that I’m actually in a pretty good position to photograph birds, which is what I’m here for in the first place.
‘Do you and your husband often go to bird parks?’ he asks.
‘Oh!’ Sarah answers with a flirty giggle. ‘He’s not my husband.’
‘Your brother?’
‘No, just a friend.’
The father of your child, I think sullenly to myself, although why I’d want her to describe me in those terms I have no idea.
‘Oh, I see,’ he says, giving her a wink. ‘Then he is a very lucky friend.’
Oh, do fuck off, I don’t say.
We bump off along one of the half-gravelled walkways, with Antoine keeping up a steady stream of conversation with Sarah, a conversation that I’m only included in as an afterthought. Where he grew up, why he loves birds, what brought him to Marquenterre, blah blah blah.
‘Don’t you think? Hal? Hal?’ Sarah’s voice breaks through and I jump.
‘Oh. Yes. Sure. Absolutely,’ I say, with no idea about what I’ve just agreed to. Probably that she and Antoine should spend the night having passionate sex or run off into the sunset together. And why would that bother me?
Despite having doubts as to whether I want to see Georgie again, I get out my phone and scroll through my messages, perhaps to remind Sarah that I also have romantic options.
‘How’s it going?’ I type and send. The tick turns blue, confirming receipt, but nothing is forthcoming.
‘I’m in a bird sanctuary!’ I add, rather desperately.
But when this fails to pique her interest, I shove the phone back into my shorts miserably.
‘Look! Over there! A little ringed plover,’ Antoine shout-whispers excitedly, pulling the golf cart to a stop. Sure enough, there’s a little speckled bird with an enormous bill standing on the edge of the water, regarding us with its bright yellow eye. ‘And beyond in the tree, the nests!’
I quickly take a snap.
But this is not enough for Antoine who is helping Sarah from the cart.
He then reaches under his seat and pulls out a sizeable telescope and, afterwards, a small, folded canvas chair.
He sets both up by a fence close to the water, then gallantly holds Sarah’s arm as she hop-walks over the scraggy grass and lowers herself into the chair.
Antoine begins to adjust the telescope so that Sarah can use it from a seated position and it occurs to me that if I were to disappear right now, it might be hours before anyone noticed.
Then I look at Sarah. She’s peeking into the viewfinder, her mouth stretched into a grin. ‘Oh!’ I hear her say. ‘They’re beautiful!’ She’s pointing to a series of trees on the far edge of the water, and even with my binoculars, it’s hard to tell what she’s noticed.
I push aside my surly resentment and join them.
Antoine, smiling, adjusts the telescope to my height, noting that I am ‘a little smaller’ than he is in the process.
Then I put my eye to the viewfinder. The telescope is trained on a small nest atop one of the lush-leaved trees across the water.
Inside, I just catch a flash of yellow, a scurry of movement.
‘They are golden oriole,’ Antoine informs me.
‘What, like a golden tit?’ I say. ‘You know, in English.’
He shakes his head gravely. ‘Non, monsieur, golden oriole is the name in English too, I believe.’
‘Oh, because I thought… You know areola? Like nipples. So…’ I gulp, sensing that I am simply digging myself into a deeper hole. ‘You know… tits.’
‘Tits?’ Antoine asks, his thick accent making the word elongate to ‘teets’.
I perform the universal mime for boobs, curving my hands under my own, almost flat, chest.
‘Oh!’ Antoine says knowingly. ‘You mean breasts. Oh non, monsieur. It is not the same at all.’
Sarah is watching me when I finally tear my eyes away from Antoine’s confused face. Hers is a little flushed and I wonder whether it’s embarrassment for (or of) me, or something about Antoine’s proximity that’s bringing so much colour to her cheeks.
I soon find out it’s neither of those things. She lets out a shout of laughter that causes a flurry of bird activity in a nearby bush. ‘Oh my God, Hal!’ she says. ‘You’re such a dick!’
I’m about to be offended but instead find my mouth twitching. Because she’s not wrong, let’s face it. I was trying to compete with a professional guide’s knowledge of birds, for some reason. And not only did I show off my own ignorance, but I made an idiot of myself in the process.
And her laughter is infectious. I find myself grinning, then giving in to waves of laughter.
And suddenly we’re in Chemistry again and Mr Clark has accidentally set fire to his tie with a Bunsen burner; we’re seventeen years old, with our whole lives ahead of us.
Not thinking about kids and weddings and bald patches and getting older.
But simply living in the ridiculous, hilarious moment.