R OB E RT LO CK
Murmuration
Legend Press Ltd, 107-111 Fleet Street, London, EC4A 2AB info@legend-paperbooks.co.uk | www.legendpress.co.uk Contents Š Robert Lock 2018 The right of the above author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available. Print ISBN 978-1-78-719824-1 Ebook ISBN 978-1-78719823-4 Set in Times. Printed by Lightning Source. Cover design by Gudrun Jobst | www.yotedesign.com All characters, other than those clearly in the public domain, and place names, other than those well-established such as towns and cities, are fictitious and any resemblance is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Robert Lock began a degree in Applied Biology, but decided science wasn’t for him. He worked in Paris and then as a tour director taking US students round Europe. He eventually became a professional photographer, writing three novels in his spare time before Murmuration. The story is set in a seaside resort, its characters inspired by those he has met through his job on the local newspaper. The title came to him while watching the starlings dance over and around North Pier.
To Caroline, for always knowing when I needed to write
Yesterday Murmuration 1865 The New Frontier Zlatka Victoria The Pebble An Ocean Of Forgetting Hannah 1941 Observer Corps 1965 The Inscrutable Glass The Corrosive Powers Of Birdshit Nightmares As Old As My Tongue ‌ Centenary 1989 Hats The Rusting Truth Angel Delight The Euphoria Of Uncertainty Home Sweet Home Counting The Seconds The Plausible Tide
Today The West Wind TV’s Very Own Glitterball The Karmic Imperative A Heart Less Rosy The Spanish Carrot The Friable Fabric of History … And A Little Older Than My Teeth Destiny’s Alembic Murmuration
Yesterday
Murmuration “Roll up! Roll up!” Look! There he stands, scarlet frock coat flapping in the breeze, a circus ringmaster balanced, improbably, on top of the promenade railing. In one white-gloved hand his top hat continues the line of his outstretched arm as he gesticulates towards the birds now gathering on the pier theatre roof, while with the other he beckons to his audience, drawing them in. “Roll up!” he hollers again, moustache flexing. “See the artistry of nature displayed for your delectation and delight! Take your seats for the greatest show in town! Never the same performance two nights running! A miraculous demonstration of timing and synchronisation in such numbers as to take your breath away! Watch these masters of the air as they perform their mysterious dance only inches from disaster!” But is this merely circus ballyhoo designed to lure the gullible? Indeed it is not. Not here, not as a mauve-coloured dusk settles on the resort, like the house lights dimming. The birds assemble in their hundreds, their thousands, and the wind quietens, for it feels something akin to love towards the starlings. There is something of the wind made visible in what the starlings do. They come, until the theatre’s white roof is black with them, drawn irresistibly to this priapic statement of Victorian engineering. But is it merely instinct that calls them? And why the pier? The town possesses any number of edifices that would suit their purpose just as well, so why do the starlings choose 11
the pier? Perhaps it is simply easier to target from the air, a bold exclamation mark standing out from the resort’s jumble of rooftops. Perhaps the clear air around the pier affords the birds a broader canvas on which to work. Or maybe it is simply that they recognise the resort’s heart, its defining venue, and know their nightly show deserves top billing. Then, as though on some secret signal, the birds take off. For a moment there seems only chaos, a dark explosion above the theatre, but within seconds the starlings settle into their shifting cloud: the murmuration. Could there be a more appropriate noun? What better word is there to describe the sound of an audience as the curtain rises on a much-anticipated performance? Whoever coined it had a poet’s touch. Up, down, back and forth, changes of direction and rhythm as perfectly orchestrated and paced as the finest symphony. Yet the display’s most astonishing fact is that it weaves this magic from nothing more than thousands of birds flying wingtip to wingtip. Are there leaders amongst the flock, dictating its course? Maybe the movements are externally driven, either by subtle atmospheric changes or magnetic fields. And whatever their motivation, how do the birds on each manoeuvre’s outer edge know that they must fly slightly faster than those in its centre? Because there is never a collision, or a moment’s hesitation; the starlings dance, impeccably, for perhaps half an hour, before scattering to their roosts across the resort, returned to the individual scraps of black which no one deems worthy of a second glance. It is like the dismantling of some kinetic sculpture by its dissatisfied artist, who flings the fragments to their studio’s furthest corners, where they will lie until tomorrow’s twilight brings them together once again. No one will squabble with the ringmaster now, demanding their money back. They have seen the greatest show in town, that much is certain. In fact they are slightly embarrassed by their former cynicism. Yes, they heeded his call, because humankind has a fondness for showmen which does not 12
necessitate a belief in their claims, but, in all honesty, they were not expecting much. What can a few birds achieve, after all? And then, as the starlings began to shapeshift above them, a silence settled on the crowd which reflected a different form of disbelief, one born out of enchantment. There is little room for magic in this tumultuous modern world — it requires quiessence and humility — so when it does manifest itself the contemporary mind tends to over-analyse the spell being cast. You can see the questions in their upturned faces: how can so many thousands of individuals act in such concord, with such beauty? What allows them to subsume their own needs and desires for the sake of this hypnotic display? And to what purpose? A small, dark-haired boy watches the birds and tries to visualise what they are seeing. He imagines it must be similar to the thrilling disorientation of a rollercoaster, all tilting horizons and surging undulations, but a child’s imagination, for all its strengths, tends to the anthropomorphic. The starlings are born to fly, so their eyes are perfectly attuned to spatial freedom. If only the boy could glimpse, even for a moment, what the birds see. Because the murmuration is a collective not only in flight, but also in vision. As individuals, starlings have good eyesight, but in their thousands they are able to see through the world’s disguises and discern the beauty or horror that lies beneath. Mother Nature has need of a monitoring system with which to oversee the behaviour and wellbeing of the creatures living within her borders; what could be better to act as agent than the ubiquitous starling, the dowdy starling, the unremarkable starling? Their ancient eyes, calibrated to detect the smallest of details, when multiplied a thousand-fold become a truly awesome sense. Listen to them chatter as they fly! This is their ongoing visual narrative, a stream of information regarding the small field of view available to each one of them as it tilts and scrolls beneath their wings, passed on to every other starling in the flock. Each of these fractions, processed within the murmuration and 13
converted into an astonishingly detailed picture, offers a true window on the world for an otherwise blind Gaia. And, as the birds have danced above the pier for one hundred and fifty years, how many lives have passed beneath them, how many stories? Men and women, their children, their children’s children; lives so brief and fragile when compared to the enduring strength of the pier, but possessing a depth of feeling that iron and timber would exchange their immutability for in an instant. Only the ephemeral can truly appreciate the infinite. Who, then? In 1880 the starlings see Georgie Parr, music hall comic, emerge from beneath the pier, walk for some distance across the sloping shingle and then sink slowly to his knees, fall forward onto his hands and vomit. In 1941 the starlings see Mickey Braithwaite, proud member of the Observer Corps, sitting on the edge of his sandbagged look-out post as he watches their movements above him with sweet and imperfect eyes, imprinting on his mind a message which would turn him into a hero. In 1965 the starlings see fortune-teller Bella Kaminska hurrying to close her booth. In her haste she drops her key — there, there it goes, falling through a gap between the decking’s planks, caught like a dying ember in the last shard of sunset — and leaves the shutter unlocked, such is her need to be free of the pier. In 1989 the starlings see Colin Draper, pier archivist and local historian, slumped in a deckchair where he has been all day, his soft, flabby body wrapped in a grey raincoat. He appears utterly amorphous, more discarded sack than man. Today the starlings see comedian Sammy Samuels through the window of his dressing room above the pier theatre. He lights another cigarette with the glowing tip of his current one, grinds out the stub and picks up a copy of the local paper. But is this the extent of their vision? Of course not. 14
As Georgie Parr steps out of the dark green shadows beneath the pier the starlings notice two small scratches on his jaw. His hair is dishevelled, and one sleeve of his coat has been ripped at the seam. There is a staccato quality to the way Georgie’s limbs move, as though he keeps forgetting how to walk, and the starlings can tell that the tears running down his face are for others long dead. They watch Mickey squint upwards. The birds know how much he is enjoying their display by the wonder in his tenaciously blue eyes; they also know that the extraordinary events of that night’s blackout will fundamentally change him and leave this most guileless of men with an enduring appreciation of life’s secret lyricism. The starlings note a creamy wink from Bella’s moonstone ring as her trembling hands attempt to guide the padlock through the shutter’s hasp. The key falls and vanishes, to await its discovery in the twenty-first century by a metal detector enthusiast, who is disappointed by his corroded find and tosses it aside. Bella gestures her abandonment of the booth and hurries away, leaving the shutter to inch upwards, revealing some of the faded photographs depicting her more well-known clients. One has fallen from its original position and now lies on the windowsill, the bleached image of a popular singer standing next to Bella, his features reduced to a pale rictus. The fortune-teller heads towards the resort without a backward glance, so she never sees a starling flutter down from the onion-shaped dome of the booth to stand on the pier and watch her go. It fluffs the feathers on its back, a gesture that looks remarkably like a shrug. With Colin the birds are quite able to discern the two sorrows that struggle for supremacy within his innocuous frame, and which have pinned him to the pier for hour after hour as he tries to reconcile them both. They also note the dandruff sprinkled on the upturned collar of his coat, the scuffed toes of his shoes, and an affinity for the pier so deeply felt that he is almost as much a part of its structure as the girders and planks. 15
The dressing room window affords a glimpse of Sammy Samuels’ isolation, a detachment assiduously worked towards over his many years in showbusiness and which he now maintains with a seething, relentless dedication. They see a felt-tip circle round one of the ‘escort’ advertisements in the local newspaper. More than anything, though, the starlings recognise a coldness in the comedian’s eye which shakes them to their core. Each generation of birds can also sense a connection between all five people, like a slender and yet vital thread, though this conjugation of fates is at the very limit of even the starlings’ vision. They see it, but not its details, nor the extraordinary parallels that reverberate backwards and forwards along the thread, giving it its strength as well as its calamitous ending. The starlings are content within their limitations, however; they defer to a superior vision, which observes Georgie, Mickey, Bella, Colin and Sammy in their naked whole, mindful that an untimely death will shiver along the thread from one to the next until it finds reconciliation. The starlings, knowing what they can see in these briefest of moments, are terrified by the concept of how much detail there is to be observed across a century and more. They know it would send their tiny bodies spiralling upwards into the darkest blue, until their beaks gaped in the vacuum of space and the swirling planet below was reflected in the smaller universe of their eyes. Moments. That’s all we can cope with. Fleeting moments, and yet they can be filled with the kind of detail and mystery that characterise so much of the pier’s history. And if one second, seen through the right eyes, can hold within it the lives of five people, what else is a description of an hour, or a week, or a year, than an exercise in omission? Is this how the birds dance around what would otherwise be an overwhelming narrative? If only we could ask the starlings. If only. 16
1865
The New Frontier The air vibrated with incessant hammering as labourers riveted together another section of the pier. Pairs of them were positioned along the wooden scaffolding, timing their blows in perfect synchronisation to drive home and spread the red-hot rivet, whilst a third wielding a large pair of tongs prepared to pluck the next from a brazier of coals. Further out, towards the low tide mark, a team of men laboured at a capstan, which was gradually screwing a pile deep into the sand. A sheen of sweat sparkled on their bare backs, and snatches of what sounded like a rhythmic sea shanty carried on the breeze to the resort’s early visitors, who were taking the air on its new promenade. George Parr guided his wife Katherine to the railing so that they could watch the work more closely. Their train had arrived the day before, carrying them to the coast on gleaming new railway lines and depositing them in a town where construction work seemed to be taking place on every street corner. Long terraces of bay-windowed homes, the ornate facades of impressive stucco or red-brick hotels, foundations covering an acre of ground where a winter gardens and theatre were to stand. The resort, blossoming at remarkable speed from its origins as a coastal farmstead and cocklers’ cottages, was an incredibly dynamic and exciting place to be, particularly as George was attempting to build his reputation as a music hall entertainer. Here, he felt, was where his future lay; the resort possessed an almost tangible air of confidence, of unlimited potential. His career was choking on the squalid 19
vapours of England’s city theatres, but here was space, and light, and clarity. These were surely the perfect conditions in which to perform. “They say it’s to be longer than the pier in Margate, by all accounts,” George informed his wife. Katherine, whose hand was resting in the crook of her husband’s arm, gave him a playful squeeze. “Why do men love iron and steam and noise so?” “Do we?” “Oh, yes. The only things that can bring a tear to a man’s eye are engines or bridges or ships. I think you would all love to be engineers, hammering and banging away.” George grasped the wrought-iron railing in front of him, as though there were some answer to be found within the metal. “I suppose they are all attempts to impose our will on nature,” he replied. George surprised himself at the rapidity and intuitiveness of his response, which he felt sure was down to his wife’s bright and enquiring mind. Katherine loved to analyse and discuss any number of subjects, and even though it was not considered seemly for her to voice her opinion too rigorously across the dining table or in public, she often took the opportunity when they were alone to engage her husband in debate. He loved her all the more for her wit and reasoning, which he knew had sharpened his own mind in necessary response, but George Parr was still Victorian enough to occasionally feel uncomfortable with the suspicion that Katherine was his intellectual superior. “Ah,” she exclaimed, “so really these vessels and structures are for their creator’s gratification and honour. Why else attach a maker’s mark to them?” “But,” George countered, “doesn’t any creator deserve recognition? Writers have their name on the front of their books… artists sign their paintings… is a bridge any less of an achievement?” “Certainly not. It will probably endure for far longer than most books, and be of more use.” 20
George turned to look at his wife. With the sun directly behind her parasol her profile was reduced to little more than sharp-edged shadow, giving a close approximation to the black paper silhouette that they had both posed for whilst at a fairground soon after their wedding. When the silhouette artist first showed Katherine her image she had argued that it was more caricature than portrait — ‘You’ve made me look like Mr Punch’ she had grumbled — but George could see how the set of her jaw grew bolder when she became absorbed in a discussion. “I find it hard to determine on which side of the argument you stand,” he complained. “Are you saying you agree with me, Kate?” She smiled slightly. “A prudent wife will always agree with her husband, my darling.” “Is that so?” “Indeed it is. However, you are a man, George Parr, and will always look at the world through a man’s eyes. Certainly I would not want you to look at me through any other.” George was shocked. “Katherine!” “But,” she continued calmly, “you will necessarily observe things differently, and that is only right and proper. Take the pier, for example.” “The pier?” “I think it illustrates my point perfectly. You, my darling, doubtless regard the pier as another example of our society’s wonderful engineering skills. Its iron and wood have been tamed and turned into something useful. The sea and the beach have been conquered, the engineer’s legacy assured. I, on the other hand, look at the pier as it emerges and wonder about all the hundreds of people who will one day walk along it, who will laugh, and cry, and do all the other things that make us unique. What will it see, George? What will the pier see?” “I think you do men a disservice, Kate. We are not completely insensible to the…” he delved for the correct 21
word, “soul of a structure, and what it might mean to the people who use it.” Katherine looked up at her husband and noticed for the first time that his dark sideburns now contained one or two flecks of grey in front of his ears. These minuscule signs of time’s passage made her feel, for one horrible moment, immensely sad; was George Parr destined for disappointment in life? To be denied fulfillment in his greatest ambition? “Do you see it?” She asked, pointing out to where the furthest pile was being driven. “See what?” “The pavilion! Our engineers love to finish their piers with a splendid pavilion, all domes and turrets like an Indian palace. And whose name is posted there, top of the bill? Why, Georgie Parr of course! The pier has made you famous, my love.” George strived to extrapolate the struts and latticework and beams already assembled and imagine the rest of the structure reaching out, forever to impose its form on the horizon’s as yet unbroken parallels, but the resulting mirage, a translucent and flimsy construct that danced before his eyes like a trick of the light, could never have borne the weight of a pavilion or theatre. It lingered for a moment, little more than a spider’s web, until a gull’s harsh scream overhead broke the spell, and there was only sea, and sky. “You can see further than me, Kate,” he said, unable to disguise the self-reproach in his voice. “Finding a space in the halls for the following week taxes my mind to its limit.” “Then you must hire an agent,” Katherine determined, “so that all your efforts are brought to bear on your act.” He laughed and shook his head. “If there is an agent to be had who does not require payment then I shall take him on immediately.” Katherine swivelled the parasol so that half of it was behind her husband’s head and half hers, effectively shielding them from anyone on the promenade. They were enclosed in a diffusely lit microcosm, its only window facing out to 22
the expectant sea. “George Parr,” she began, all playfulness gone from her voice, “the man I married was determined and ambitious, a fighter to the last. If he has departed then I see no reason why I should remain either.” George was stunned. The railing beneath his hand felt suddenly red-hot, forcing him to relinquish his grip. “Are you saying—” “George, look at me.” He focused on her eyes, and saw in them such love and belief that he came close to tears. “We have no money,” she stated, “and that is perfectly fine. Our home is a succession of small rented houses with peeling wallpaper and blocked chimneys, and that also is perfectly fine. My father has not spoken to me properly since I went against his express wishes and married what he described to me as a ‘music hall clown’, and that, too, is perfectly fine. What I cannot countenance is your surrender, my darling George. To abandon your dreams now, when I know they are within your reach, would be not only a huge loss to the theatre, but also a betrayal of my faith in you. You are funny, Georgie Parr. Do you not hear the laughter? Are you struck deaf on stage?” He took a breath. There was a sharp edge to the air, the iodine clarity of seaweed, that caught in his throat, and in that moment George understood that his destiny lay here, in the resort, performing on the pier above the waves. “Do you know, I distinctly recall an encore at Clerkenwell last month, and I am almost sure it was for me!” Katherine giggled. “Of course it was for you! I remember when you came home, you were so excited you couldn’t sleep.” “Ah, a most unfortunate bout of dyspepsia, as I recall.” “That’s better!” “I think this sea air agrees with me,” George said, taking another deep breath. “It has the same effect as a good wine.” A rhythmic squeak was approaching from their left. George and Katherine turned to see an old man being pushed 23
along the promenade in a wicker bath chair. A thick rug of dark blue wool almost totally enveloped what was clearly a desperately thin body, but his hands, which were draped limply on the chair’s tiller like two white gloves, seemingly retained strength enough to steer while his nurse pushed from behind. A tweed deerstalker hat, ear-flaps down, sat loosely on his head, which was as pale and mottled as his hands. As the chair drew level with them George touched the brim of his bowler hat and Katherine smiled sweetly. The old man lifted the index finger of his right hand, indicating to the nurse that he wished to stop, a request she complied with immediately. “A beautiful day, sir,” George noted. The old man’s eyes moved slowly in their sockets, a cautious investigation of some visionary quadrant bounded by illness or weariness, as though to assess for himself the accuracy of George’s observation. “A beautiful day,” he confirmed, in a voice as thin and translucent as tissue paper. “George Parr, sir, and this is my wife Katherine.” “Francis Delahay,” the old man replied. “We were just remarking on the quality of the air,” Katherine said. “Are you visiting the resort as part of your recuperation, Mr Delahay?” The old man’s breathing, rapid and so shallow that it hardly moved the blanket on his chest, quickened slightly. “I fear… matters are somewhat… advanced… for even the… sweetest of air to… ” The natural rhythm of pauses between breaths lengthened as he searched his mind for the right word. “… effect any… lasting… recuperation.” “Our apologies, sir,” George said, embarrassed by Katherine’s unwitting faux pas. “My wife did not intend any discourtesy.” Francis Delahay raised one hand slightly to dismiss the apology. “I have… been given… quite some time… to become accustomed… to my illness. It is as… familiar and aggravating as… a family member.” 24
Katherine knelt down beside the bath chair and laid her hand lightly on top of the old man’s bloodless appendages. The nurse was so astonished by this gesture of intimacy from a total stranger that she let out an audible gasp, but Francis himself seemed unperturbed. Indeed, the ghost of a smile flickered across his face. “Your hand… is warm,” he noted. “And you, Mr Delahay, are a brave and kind man.” The nurse, somewhat mollified by her charge’s reaction, made a show of arranging his blanket. “Mr Delahay was an officer under Lord Nelson,” she informed them proudly in a broad West Country burr. “Fought at Trafalgar, he did.” “Trafalgar! Then you are indeed brave.” Again the dismissive lift of the hand. “I was… a terrified… midshipman… on the Tonnant.” Francis’ pale blue eyes, so absent they seemed to look out from another age, drew to some semblance of focus at his accurate French pronunciation of the ship’s name. “The gunners… knew what to do…Captain Tyler… had drilled us… mercilessly. They had little need… of me.” Katherine looked up and addressed the nurse. “Have you looked after Mr. Delahay for long?” “Nearly two months,” the woman stated proudly. “Mr Delahay’s family took me on as sick nurse from the Westminster Training School, and I’ll be with him to the end, whenever the Good Lord deems it fit.” “In that case… ” her patient remarked, “my dearest Miss… Winterbottom… pray do not… unpack… your summer clothes.” George, Katherine and the nurse exchanged the briefest of glances, which nonetheless communicated, in the fullest terms possible, their admiration for and sympathy with this man, still capable of self-deprecating humour even when fully aware of his impending fate. Perhaps it was simply a defence mechanism, a show of bravado in the face of death, but Francis Delahay’s spirit shone from within the failing 25
husk of his body and rendered every detail of the resort sharper and more precious. The sun glittering on a ruffled sea; the scarlet diamond of a child’s kite weaving a pattern of delight on the blue sky; the salty tang carried on the wind from a whelk-seller’s cart, all made beautiful by one man’s valedictory excursion. Even the growing limb of the pier, which Francis Delahay would never see completed, appeared more solid, as though by acknowledging his own destruction the old sailor had granted the accretion of wood and metal a blessing. ‘I take my leave,’ he was, in effect, saying, ‘but you must stay, and give many more people an afternoon like this.’ Katherine gave his hands the lightest of squeezes, imperceptible to anyone but its recipient, and stood up. “Enjoy the rest of your promenade,” she said. “Godspeed, sir,” George added. Mr Delahay closed his eyes and nodded, seemingly exhausted by their brief conversation. “He tires so easily,” Miss Winterbottom explained, tucking in the blanket so tightly it seemed as much restraint as comfort, “but thank you for your kind words.” She glanced up at them. “Do you live here?” George looked at his wife, who raised her eyebrows in an exaggerated expression of amusement. “We hope to,” was his cautious reply. “It is a lovely place,” the nurse said, returning to her position behind the bath chair. “There’s something about the seaside, isn’t there?” “Indeed there is,” George concurred. But what? What was it behind the nurse’s vague perception that created the resort’s magic? Could it be bound up in the geography, the dynamism and uncertainty of the frontier? Did having your feet planted securely on good Victorian engineering allow one to better contemplate the stark mirror of an ungovernable ocean? Miss Winterbottom set off with little more effort than that which would have been required had the bath chair been empty, and yet, despite the flimsy nature of its contents, the 26
chair carried with it the ballast of a good life, a life played out as much on the sea as on land. Perhaps this was why former Midshipman Delahay could regard his imminent annihilation with such equanimity; a lifetime’s intimacy with the sea, its benediction of safe passage over so many years, had given him a sense of perspective barely glimpsed by those who contemplated the waves from the promenade. Maybe the pier, which in many ways was a vessel of sorts, would offer those who stepped aboard some fraction of his insight. George watched the bath chair and its attendant squeak grow smaller, quieter, until it was obscured entirely by a horse-drawn bathing carriage being guided towards the beach. “Trafalgar!” He exclaimed. “Imagine being able to say that you fought at the Battle of Trafalgar!” Katherine returned her hand to the crook of her husband’s arm. She was sure Francis Delahay thought of the battle in far less romantic terms than did George, but she realised that to point this out could easily jeopardise all her efforts to instill in him a more optimistic outlook. She decided instead to impart a piece of information that, for the past month, she had kept secret for fear of any celebrations proving premature. Now, however, Katherine was sure of both her condition and its relative stability. The flutterings of a waning life that she had felt through the veteran sailor’s skin had somehow resonated with the stirrings of the new one within her, as though Francis had urged her to take George into her confidence. “I’m pregnant, George,” she said. “Shall we walk a little further?”
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