The Cormorant by Stephen Gregory Read Free Book Online Page A

I could only assure Ann that I would reinforce the wire mesh of Archie’s cage or erect a second barrier to deter the child from approaching the cormorant.
    The tears came. She sobbed like a child for the death of her pet. When the tears dried up, she swore at the memory of Uncle Ian, a frustrated malicious pervert, she rained curses on the cormorant. Struggling to rise from the sofa, to storm through the kitchen and into the backyard, she reached for the poker as a weapon of revenge. I prised it from her fingers and replaced it by the fireside. She breathed deeply, some colour returned to her lips. I held her close.
    ‘Tomorrow I’ll fix the cage. Don’t worry now . . .’
    We went upstairs. Harry was sound asleep, his cheeks rosy pink, his little blond head framed in the whiteness of the pillow. Outside, the night was still mild, a gentle December after the bitterness of the November frosts. All was quiet: no wind, no rain, no traffic, only the village which hugged itself to sleep under the slopes of Snowdon. We went to bed. Ann called out for the cat in the last seismic efforts of lovemaking. I watched the grimaces of her face in the halflight, saw the tears run into her mouth and onto the lines of her throat. She gripped me hard, I loved her with all my strength. She released a long sigh, a whisper broke from her chest. She shuddered and was still. Together we lay in the hot confusion of our sheets. With my hand I wiped a bubble of saliva from her lips, leaving a trace of blood from my injured fingers. Ann moved away, touching me unconsciously, like a young animal . . .

    ‘Wake up, wake up! Look, it’s Harry . . .’
    I sat up with a start at Ann’s frantic whispers, and rubbed my eyes. A moon had risen, filling the bedroom with a strong blue light. We were wide awake and watching the little figure, pyjama-clad at the foot of our bed. The child was oblivious to us. Harry had come from his cot in the next room, walked to the window, to stare into the garden behind the cottage. He did not turn towards us, even with the commotion of our waking. With his hands on the sill, he leaned forward to peer down into the backyard. Moonlight bathed his face. His eyes narrowed a little at the gleam. Harry concentrated on his object in the yard.
    We crept up behind the child. Still Harry was unaware of us. We looked over him, at the blue-black garden, the purple shadows. The cage was lit by the light of steel.
    Archie too was awake. The cormorant stood in the full silver beams of the moon, head and beak erect, wings outstretched. Utterly motionless. Utterly black. Not a tip of a feather trembled. It was an iron statue, a scarecrow. It was a torn and broken umbrella, a charred skeleton.
    Father and mother and child stared at the bird. Harry suddenly hissed loudly, forcing the air like steam. He reached out his right hand and touched the window-pane. With the passage of a heavy cloud, the garden was in darkness. When the sky became clear again, when the cage was washed with moonlight, Archie was gone.
    There was no statue, no skeleton. No cormorant.
    Harry turned from the window. He walked between us as though we were invisible to him, into his own room, and clambered onto the cot. We followed and saw the child tug the blanket over him. In a second, he was sound asleep.
    He slept soundly until morning.
    Ann and I did not.
Ill
    A nn was a formidably determined young woman. When she declared that she was leaving with Harry, going to the safety of her mother’s for at least a fortnight so that the boy would forget the cormorant, there was nothing I could do or say that would change her mind. I argued that Archie would be completely secure behind strong wooden bars, that I could clean and feed the bird without releasing it, that I would never take it out for exercise except when the child was asleep upstairs. None of this was enough. Harry’s moonlit communion with the cormorant had shaken her. For a few minutes, possibly longer if