The Gift of Stones

16

THE FIRST THING that my father noticed was the stench. The saltland heath — sodden and yellowed by the winter — was sweating in the sun. It smelled like rotten fruit, like beer, like cow’s breath. The earth was passing wind; it belched at every footfall; its boil had burst; it was brackish and spongy with sap and pus and marsh. And then he saw new people in the distance, their makeshift shelters, and their fires. Last year, at summer’s end, there had been none — just her, the dog, the child. The heath was home to six or seven families now.

‘They’re waiting for the geese,’ the woman said. ‘I’m waiting, too. They come back every year, the geese, those people there. It means that summer’s come. We’ll eat fresh food again. I’m sick of nuts and crabs.’

Once more she was obsessed with food. Goose eggs, goose fat, goose meat. She talked about the feast that there would be once the geese came in. Mesmerized, she said, by the ripe and rotten odour of the springtime heath and lured by choruses of frogs, the birds would plummet from the sky. The males would fly in first to squabble over nests and to preen themselves in readiness for mating. Then — two, three days later — the females would arrive. There’d be the rough-and-tumble of feeding, breeding, rearing young, and then, before the shortest day, the tribe of geese would rise again, their goslings too, and fly away, inland. Where to? The woman did not know. Nor could she solve the mystery of where the geese flew from, nor what there was beyond the sea, nor why the birds were not like sheep, homelovers, fearful of the outside world, faint-hearted, calm.

‘Those men and women think,’ she said, pointing at her springtime neighbours on the heath, ‘that geese are people that have died. They say my husband and my boys are geese.’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows? I’ve also heard them say that geese bring babies, that geese bring dreams, that geese are blessings to the poor. I’ve heard it all. Myself, I know the truth. I’ve seen it every year. The geese bring summer and take away the frosts. You’ll see.’

The spring was early but the geese were not. My father waited for three days before the first skein passed overhead and went inland.

‘Those aren’t ours,’ the woman said. They waited three days more and, finally, at dawn, an arrowhead of geese came in from off the sea, chuckling amongst themselves and calling ahead to the people there — cowl-yar, cowl-yar — that winter had pulled up its roots and fled.

My father stood and watched their flight, the nomads on the wing. They were the great pea geese. He’d seen a stray before, a single bird, exhausted, blown off course by starvation and by storms. It had fallen — just as the woman had described — onto the causeway of his village, by the market green. No one had known quite what to do — until a stoneworker had strode from his workplace and struck the goose across the head with a wooden mallet. Then everybody knew what next. Goose meat was such a treat. They’d cooked it there and then. Its flesh was drenched and tasteless from the flight.

But he had never seen such a buoyant, stately fleet of birds before, not in such numbers, not in such rhythmic unison. He looked up at their heavy breasts, their long necks and at the slow and ponderous greeting of their wings which seemed too brief and effortless to keep such heavy birds aloft. They passed across the elderberry rocks so low that a man on horseback could have picked them from the sky like pears. And then they rose a little on the heath, repulsed it seemed by the pungency that they encountered — re-encountered — there. This was their annual resting place. A single, leading goose swooped down like a hawk, its wings half-folded, its body dropping in a whiffling spiral dive. And soon its companions had spiralled, too, and dropped exhausted on the heath like pigeons hit by stones. Already there were other arrowheads spread out above the sea and soon the pungent heath was throbbing, panting, with the brief distress of voyagers whose voyage now was done.

‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Catch us a goose.’ She handed him a heavy, knuckled stick. ‘They won’t taste at their best until they’ve fed. But I can’t wait. Just the thought of goose is making soup inside my mouth. Go on, go on. Pick something plump.’

My father had not killed before. His village had been fed by trade, not harvesting or slaughter. Already several neighbours were walking with their sticks down to the weary geese. My father followed them. He’d watch and learn their craft.

The geese were tired — but they were not entirely senseless. They understood the purpose of this human delegation armed with sticks. They scattered. They lowered their heads and necks and hissed if anyone came close. The trick, it seemed, was to stand quite still and wait. Goose-brained is what the villagers called a man whose memory was poor. There was good cause. These geese forgot the danger of the sticks once there was no noise or movement. They shuffled back to graze the grass and reeds at the butchers’ feet. Six or seven paid the price. One clout across the shoulders was the best. Their weaving bodies — so sinuous and subtle on the wing — were dumplings on the heath. Killing those few was simple. It took no skill. My father stood stone-still. Quite soon he had a trusting congregation of grazing geese. He chose the plumpest, took one deep breath and grasped his stick.

Of course my father could not allow his butchery to be a speedy, plain affair. One blow, one goose, one feast. He could not — at least, in his retelling of that day — resist the role of the buffoon. ‘That wretched dog of hers,’ he said. The dog, it seemed, was just as keen as all the people there for goose. It had sunk down, its nose far-stretched, its tail tucked in, and followed father across the heath. It had found a spot in thigh-length grass where, out of sight, it could come close to father and his congregation. It took the lifting of the stick as some command. It came out of the grass with the speed and manners of a thunderclap. Its single bark sent every goose haywire. Save one. The plumpest in the congregation. It seized the bird by its wing, which was as inefficient as catching lobsters by their claws. The goose began to beat the heath with its free wing. My father’s stick came down, and struck the dog a glancing blow across the back. It opened up its mouth and let its prey — except some feathers — go free. The goose — unable to distinguish man from dog — went for my father’s legs. Its black and yellow bill was stronger than it looked. It bit. My father fell. The goose tugged on his coat and the dog — unnerved by father’s blow — stood back and barked.

We would be fools to swallow such a comic tale — the dog, the stench, my father down and caked in sap and pus and marsh — but catch a goose he did. He swears to that. Perhaps the dog regained its courage and seized the bird again. Perhaps my father and his flailing stick struck lucky. Perhaps a springtime neighbour, taking pity on the one-armed clown, simply stepped across and dealt the final blow.