Spencer The Rover
Chapter 7
The story so far: Irene Hamilton has come to Battersea Power Station with her friend Liz who lives with a commune of avant-garde artists in the abandoned turbine hall. Liz is followed everywhere by a flock of feral parrots. She gives Irene some letters she found, from Irene’s vanished lover Campbell Spencer, and when Irene has read them she bursts into tears. Once she’s asleep one of the parrots steals her wet handkerchief. Asar Adisa thinks birds of prey are awesome but school friends take the mick, so he comes here - the power station peregrine post - as often as parents will allow to be a volunteer. He helps the Bird Trust wardens show the public the falcon and the tiercel (as they call the male) soar above this landscape of anthropic ravage and, despite the urban waste, prevail. There’s been a deal of optimism this week: the falcon’s barely left a chimney ledge save when her mate’s brought prey clutched in his feet and all the Bird Trust staff believe she is on eggs. At times, when short of public to inspire, Asar gets his thrills on the Trust’s big ‘scope which zooms you close as anyone could desire to see the yellow cere, moustache, and hood. Then hope consumes the youth that he might be the first to view the clutch of bronzes that encase the next cohort of air-speed kings to burst upon the skies and boost the prospects of their race. This evening he’s been left to hold the fort despite his youth because he’s proved so keen, and everybody trusts he will report faithfully whatever activity he’s seen. As daylight fades the ring-necked parakeets materialise and manoeuvre in a flock. This sight had once seemed weird on London streets but now they’re well established and don’t induce such shock though still there’s some who think the nation’s birds should only be the “native” ones. Asar can’t fathom their dislike: the line is blurred with natives and exotics since birds range near and far. These parrots slalom the chimneys, brush the sheer brick ramparts of the power station walls, then, as they often do, just disappear. He wonders if they roost within the turbine hall. Fifteen minutes ebb without event but in the final glimmer of the day he spots a ring-neck racing in ascent with something white and fluttery carried in a way he’s never seen a parrot carry food: clutched beneath it tightly in the claws. No time to muse upon this has accrued when Asar notes the tiercel stretching thin the laws of flight dynamics in a power stoop. He grabs binoculars to track the dive, the bullet plunge, that awe-inspiring swoop that overtops the speed of any bird alive. It rives the air apart, but at the crux of its descent - the point it hits the prey - something odd occurs: the tiercel plucks the white thing from the parrot and swiftly darts away, disappearing east along the river. Asar’s gobsmacked, befuddled by this business. These birds pass food in flight sometimes but never do it inter-species, the action he just witnessed. The log-book should be filled but who’ll believe an inexperienced schoolboy of his sort? So when the wardens come back to relieve him of his post, he says there’s nothing to report and all his life regrets this blunt reversal of the facts. The wellspring of his pain is that the nest site fails because the tiercel from that day goes AWOL, never seen again. ********************************** Photo credit to TheOtherKev on Pixabay.com Some notes on this story appear beyond the paywall for the entertainment of my paying subscribers, who can also leave comments and ask me questions. If you’re itching to join the fun, go right ahead!
