Chapter Fourteen #2
‘Tags,’ I say. ‘They’ve been tagged on their legs.
Numbered. We tagged some last year, some the year before, and so on.
’ I insert the camera gently, slowly pushing my arm into the crevice.
It’s tight and uncomfortable, a blood pressure-cuff tightness around the top of my arm, but I’m in.
I hold the small screen in my hand and watch what’s happening inside the burrow.
‘Is there a bird in there?’ asks Milo.
‘Yes.’
‘Won’t they be pissed? Or scared? Your arm going in like that. The camera . . .’
‘The camera’s infrared,’ I tell him. ‘They can’t see it.
But yeah, they probably will be a little pissed, but we’ll try to go as gently as .
. .’ A bird blinks more clearly now onto the screen.
It’s the male. Male no. 32. And . . . Oh my goodness.
Oh my goodness. He’s keeping an egg warm.
There it is. A slice of solid egg, like a ceramic bauble, beneath a puff of feathers.
My heart blossoms, expands, like a sponge in water.
‘Oh well done, guys,’ I say to myself. ‘Well done.’
‘What’s happening in there? They just graduated or something?’ Milo speaks deadpan, his voice deep and croaky the way it is when you’re tired and grumpy. But even his moodiness can’t spoil this moment.
‘She laid one,’ I say. ‘She laid an egg. This is amazing news. Bless her.’
And Milo’s face softens. Because of course it does.
I could’ve laid money on that too. Milo is a feeler.
Emotional. A tortured poet type. He once admitted that even if a novel he reads or movie he sees is boring, if it makes his eyes mist over just once, he rates it five out of five.
‘I feel like you need to appreciate being made to feel something you weren’t expecting,’ he said once, and I think about it every time I watch TV, which is more than I used to since coming here and having more time to pass.
There are many things I stop and think about since Milo actually.
Gratitude for one. I don’t keep a list, but I think about the small things, every morning with my cup of tea.
I stop and take photos too now – bubbles on the surface of drinks, a tiny rainbow on my bathroom cabinet on a sunny day.
Art gets me as well. I used to think it was stupid.
Frivolous. Sian and her old telephones for light fittings, gnomes and taxidermy.
But now, when I see something like Milo’s big bear, like Sian’s gnome, I think, well, if this thing does nothing except bring someone a bit of joy, then it’s served its purpose.
And isn’t that what all humans are searching for anyway?
Joy? So how could that strange but funny picture in a charity shop, that predictable but compelling movie, that overpriced coffee that tastes like Christmas and takes a good picture ever be meaningless if it hands you something that, in that moment, makes you feel like your life is your own.
Three weeks, and Milo showed me that. I held onto it. A consolation prize.
‘So, a baby’s on the way?’ Milo asks. ‘Could I, um – take a look? Like, inside?’
I nod and Milo crouches beside me, close, and moves in near to the burrow, his eyes at the slit.
‘You may need to wait for your eyes to adjust a little,’ I say. ‘Their nests are really deep—’
‘Oh, hey. Ha. Wow. Hello. Hey, you.’ And now I soften. Grumpy Milo has left the building. He turns back to look at me. His eyes are all stars. Wide and caramel and wild. ‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’
‘That’s the male.’
‘Seriously? So, what, the male sits on the egg?’
I nod. ‘Yup. Male 32. That’s his name.’
‘Male 32,’ he repeats, turning back to the slit in the rock.
‘What do you know? Me too, dude.’ I laugh as he carries on chatting.
‘I’m Milo. Also male. Also 32. Looks like you’re over all that toxic masculinity that seems to be around.
No flies on you, eh, man? Just sitting there, keeping your baby warm. Good job. Good boy.’
My heart.
It’s melting, like butter in sunshine.
‘A true fuckin' provider,’ he says.
‘Well, yes,’ I say. ‘He’s using his . . .’
‘Ass.’
‘Familiar to you, is it?’
Despite myself, I laugh, and so does he. Loudly. Both of us, giggling. Proper, true laughter.
‘So, where’s the mom at?’ asks Milo.
‘Mum is out there right now, sourcing them food.’
Then he glances around at me, eyes still wild and glistening with excitement. ‘What’s her name? Is she like . . . Mother 32 or something?’
I take a breath. ‘Female, 33,’ I say.
He smiles. It’s a warm, delicious sort of smile. It’s one of those smiles that slowly, slowly spreads, and I have to fight to stop myself smiling too. (I fail. Miserably.)
‘So. Male 32.’ He holds a hand flat to his chest. ‘And Female 33, huh?’
I nod.
He gestures at me. ‘And look at that. She’s out there hunting and gathering and saving everyone’s ass. Bet she can be a little stick-up-her-ass, too, pretending she doesn’t need anyone.’
‘She actually doesn’t really need anyone—’
‘She needs people like you,’ he says. ‘Right? People who look out for her. People who care about her?’
I swallow. ‘I suppose.’
‘And she needs him. For a time, anyway . . .’
I nod. ‘I guess.’
He looks back into the burrow. ‘And what, you think you’ve got it all together too?
’ he says, as if to the bird. ‘Like, look at my ass, it’s doing such a great job, I don’t need nobody either.
But I dunno,’ Milo carries on, ‘he’s sort of lost without her.
You can tell just by looking at his pissed-off little face.
’ He looks back at me and something flutters in my stomach.
‘He’s waiting for her.’ He stands slowly, boots scrunching on cold gravel.
Silence. Wild winds. Auks squawking. The sounds of home. And Milo. Milo amidst it all. Both of us, and nothing but sky.
‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ Milo says.
‘I’m . . . Me too—’
‘The June House thing, the interview, I just . . .’ He deflates a little.
‘I know.’
‘Allie, I’ve missed you.’ He moves so he’s opposite me.
Something gives up in me almost instantly.
A resolve, once concrete, now a rag that’s whipped off by the wind.
My heart stills. I sometimes fantasised about a moment like this; about a parallel universe where the leak hadn’t happened, where Milo hadn’t betrayed me, where things were just simple.
This feels dangerous. This feels too good to be true.
Because what if he really didn’t do it? What happens then?
‘And I know this goes against our rules,’ he says. ‘Being professional. Being normal. And I know it’s a really, really big mess, and I know we’re both angry, and the trust is just . . . But – I have. And I do. Miss you. Every day.’
I open my mouth to speak. At first, nothing comes out. I feel like I’ve been speared in the chest.
‘You don’t have to say anything. That’s not why I said it. But standing up here with you, not saying it felt harder than saying it.’ Then he straightens, chuckles, a hand at his mouth. ‘Anyway. Male 32 has said his piece.’
Like she sensed I really needed her, the little auk, Female 33, returns, bursting through us, drawing an invisible line between our bodies, and disappears into the darkness of the burrow.
‘There she is,’ says Milo. ‘Right on time.’