Chapter 2
CHAPTER
‘It’s not fair, is it, little one?’
The Australian boobook owl, named for its call, is considered small for an owl, but the brown and white male lying on his back on the table in the surgical unit is over twenty centimetres long.
He died a few hours ago. Even before confirming the cause of death, I’m confident he’s eaten a mouse or rat that had been poisoned by bait; the anticoagulant would have passed through the other animal to the owl.
‘It’s criminal these products are still on the market.’ Finn Blackwood, one of the senior vets at Dubbo’s open-plains zoo, stands on the other side of the table.
I smooth the bird’s feathers. ‘He’s around ten years old and in great condition. There’s nothing to suggest he’s been injured in any other way.’
‘Let me know when you have the toxicology results.’
After I’ve finished taking samples from the owl, I check my other patients: a wedge-tailed eagle, an ibis, two ducks, a sulphur-crested cockatoo (with attitude) and a pelican.
By the time I leave the treatment rooms, it’s lunchtime.
A group of school children, chatting and laughing, walk in pairs towards the elephant exhibit.
Other visitors, many riding bicycles, take paths that lead to enclosures for rhino, takhi horses and giraffe, among others.
Many of the enclosures have conventional fencing; others have moats so visitors can admire the animals eye to eye.
Cockatoos, pied currawongs, willie wagtails, eastern rosellas, magpie-larks, speckled warblers and many other species voluntarily make this place their home.
I feel at home here too.
Would I feel at home in Antarctica? No, but I’d love to go there. A week has passed since I saw Sebastien Thorsen. He told me I could call.
Nothing has changed, so I haven’t.
It’s a two-hour drive from the zoo to Roxburgh Estate.
Sometimes I stay overnight with one of the keepers and her family, but as I work half-days on Wednesdays, today I take the back roads to Denman: long spring grasses that’ll be cut for hay; newly planted crops with bright green shoots; post and rail fences for horses and barbed-wire fences for cattle and sheep.
I’m home by two—plenty of time to check on Martin’s rescue cockatiels and ride his retired racehorse.
I told Sebastien Thorsen I had work here. Spending time at the aviary isn’t strictly work, but it makes me feel less guilty about staying rent-free. When I pull on gloves and open the cage, Charlie climbs down the wires to the lowest perch and, eyes wary, flaps his wings.
‘I’m no threat, Charlie. Don’t you know that by now?’
The other cockatiels Martin agreed to sponsor, now they have an appropriate diet and large aviary, are gaining weight and growing new feathers, so they’ll be released into the bush in the next few weeks.
Cockatiels are the smallest of the cockatoo species, but Charlie, less than the length of my forearm, is smaller than most and is missing a foot.
He was isolated from other birds and has few social skills, so he wouldn’t survive in the wild.
But the more he’s handled, the more likely it’ll be that he can find a home with someone prepared to take him on for the twenty-odd years he could live.
As I ease my arm into the cage, Charlie, the distinctive orange feathers beneath his eyes resembling rosy cheeks, puts his head to the side. A couple of minutes pass before he hops along the perch and bounces onto my hand.
‘There you go, Charlie. I’ll find you someone who appreciates how quirky you—’
He pecks at the gap between my sleeve and the glove.
‘Ow!’
I withdraw my hand and press a cloth against the bright red mark. Then, after adjusting my glove and sleeve, I sit back and wait for him to hop back onto the perch. When he does, I rub my thumb up and down his chest. He stretches his neck, arching it.
‘You like that, don’t you? Soon you’ll learn that playing nice gets you a reward.’
After another thirty minutes, I leave Charlie on the perch and give him an early dinner, a combination of seeds and vegetables, before securing the cage. I pull off the gloves and examine my wrist.
‘You found a chink in my armour, Charlie.’
How many chinks do I have? The thought comes out of nowhere but falls into line with other thoughts I’ve had since Thorsen turned up.
I’d come to terms with not going to Morrison Island.
Refusing to face my fears was a cautious and possibly cowardly decision, but a responsible one.
I didn’t want to revisit it because it hurt too badly the first time around.
I find antiseptic and, even though the skin doesn’t appear to be broken, clean my wrist.
‘What’s going on here, then?’ Martin Roxburgh, with his shock of white hair and a warm, avuncular smile, pulls up a chair next to mine. ‘Has Charlie attacked you again?’
‘It was my fault. I should’ve worn longer gloves.’
‘Might I render assistance?’
‘It’s only a bruise.’
‘I understand Sebastien Thorsen called in earlier this week. A frosty meeting, according to Ben.’
‘Was it you who told Thorsen I was living here?’
With a wince, he raises a hand. ‘Guilty as charged.’
‘He said my name came up at a social occasion.’
When a sliver of carrot pops out of Charlie’s dish, Martin pushes it back. ‘Seb mentioned one of the reasons he was in the district was to recruit an ornithologist to join him at God knows where. An island?’
‘Morrison. Midway between Tasmania and mainland Antarctica.’
‘When I bragged that I happened to have a talented ornithologist here at Roxburgh Estate—’ Martin winks, ‘—Seb’s companion lost his attention.’
‘He wants a second ornithologist to work with a team of scientists on Morrison Island. I said no.’
‘I should have kept my mouth shut, shouldn’t I?’
‘Thorsen already knew about me, just not where I lived. No harm done.’ I check the latch on Charlie’s cage. ‘It came up that I had a criminal past. You didn’t tell him that, did you?’
‘Certainly not.’ Martin purses his lips disapprovingly. ‘Why would he bring that up?’
‘I didn’t know how to take him,’ I say as I stand. ‘What did you think?’
‘He’s a confident fellow who is not only charming but smart as a tack and fit as a fiddle.’ Martin sucks in his tummy as he stands. ‘Naturally, I invited him to join me at the dinner I’m hosting on Friday week. Care to join us?’
‘Thank you, Martin, but—’
‘No need to fabricate an excuse.’ Another wink. ‘You’d only been here a fortnight when I surmised that dinner parties weren’t your cup of tea. I asked Sebastien’s famous brother to come along too, but he was—’ Martin draws quote marks in the air, ‘—“unavailable”.’
‘Kit Thorsen?’
‘Scientist and documentary maker extraordinaire. There’s a third brother too, the youngest. Another scientist, I believe.’
‘I didn’t make the connection between Thorsen and his brother Kit until I’d looked him up. He told me he was on secondment from the air force for a year.’
‘Which I doubt Norway is happy about. Mother an Olympian, father a well-regarded geneticist. Quite the pedigree, those Thorsen men.’ He smiles. ‘As Seb had a very attractive woman, name of Natasha, on his arm, I invited her to my dinner party, too.’
‘He seemed to have a contact at the zoo. Do you know who that would be?’
‘His Antarctic work revolves around preservation of the natural environment. I imagine that would slot in with the zoo’s conservation work.’
‘I don’t know why he’s so interested in me.’
‘At twenty-two, you were shortlisted for Young Scientist of the Year,’ Martin says. ‘That could have had something to do with it.’
‘I was working on a team.’
‘It was your idea that inspired the research. Not that the media acknowledged that.’
‘They were briefed by my supervisor.’
‘Who was offended you wouldn’t enrol in his PhD program.’ Martin throws up his hands. ‘You’d spent months in the wetlands doing field work. Why should an absent professor get to add his name to your scholarly papers?’
I smile. ‘All two of them.’
‘With a considerable number of footnotes. You don’t fancy academia yourself?’
‘The field work, yes; the bureaucracy and teaching, not so much. Which is another reason it’s odd that Thorsen wants me. He could take someone with a much longer string of letters after their name.’
‘We all enjoy your company here, and your expertise, but your position at the zoo is of limited duration. Working offshore can’t hurt your career. Not only that, you specialise in waterbirds and the impacts of climate change. Doesn’t it tempt you at all?’
Two aeroplanes, six days on a ship. The thought puts a lump in my throat. ‘I couldn’t make it work.’
‘You’d miss your darling niece, certainly, but she’ll be at school much of the time you’re away. As to your mother, it might not hurt her to stand on her own two feet.’
When I was a child, a brown-headed honeyeater nested in one of the gums in the park between our rental and my school.
Every morning and afternoon, I’d sit on my bag near the tree trunk so the ants wouldn’t bite and stare through the foliage.
I couldn’t see the eggs or the newly hatched chicks, but before too long, the honeyeater’s offspring, mouths wide open, were teetering on the edge of the nest. Not long after that, they had feathers and were flying.
The hatchlings left their mothers behind.
I was ashamed of my thoughts, but that’s what I dreamt of too.
‘My mother needs me.’
‘I don’t know the circumstances, but the consensus around here is that—’
‘They don’t understand,’ I say firmly. ‘I can’t abandon her.’
‘I’m terribly sorry.’ His gaze is sympathetic. ‘I’ve crossed the line.’
I shake my head. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘I’m sure you’ll get another job.’ Martin injects enthusiasm into his voice. ‘A better one!’
Another job, yes.
A better one, no.