“Almost missed one,” she said.
“I would have seen it on my way back.”
“Go on.”
“You're a bit of a pest, you know that?”
She couldn't tell if he was kidding around, or irritated.
“What is that, anyway?” she asked.
“Common murre. Code Four.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning only the frame is left. Not enough of the bird to know if it was oiled or not.”
“So you're investigating oil pollution?”
“I'm trying to get an idea how useful this kind of fieldwork is in predicting oil-induced mortality rates in seabirds.” He swung the bird back and forth in his hand as he spoke.
“Do you find a lot of birds with oil?”
“Depends what you call a lot.”
Of course he would say that.
“Years ago, in the fifties and sixties, vessels were pumping oil offshore so regularly you could be knee-deep in oiled birds some mornings. A whole variety of species. The old-timers can tell you about that.” He took a knife out and began shredding the tips of the murre's wings. “That would have been a lot.”
She tried to imagine it. Up to her knees in waves and greasy dying birds.
“I'm cutting off the ends of the primaries,” he went on, as though resigned to her questions. “To tag it. So I won't count this bird again the next time I'm here.”
“Makes sense.”
“One winter, seventeen thousand oiled murres washed up in Placentia Bay. Soaking wet. You wouldn't believe the weight on them when they're like that.”
“An oil spill?”
“In that case, yes.” He shrugged. “But sometimes all it takes is discharged bilge water. Routine maintenance.”
His offering this information relaxed her, and she stopped trying to keep up with him. She walked slowly, watching the terns wheeling in the sky. Every once in a while he came across a bird and she nearly caught up with him, but he seemed determined to stay ahead of her. Then, at one point, he waited and held out a baseball he'd found. He rotated it in his hand and she saw the splat of black oil it had picked up from the sea.
“Better than an oiled bird,” she suggested, but he just put it in his jacket pocket and walked on.
At the end of the beach a series of rock outcrops extended from the black peat embankment into the sea. Darren stepped up onto the lowest ledge, inspecting the top, then turned and gave her his first smile of the day. He said, “Once, in winter, I climbed up there and found myself face to face with an oiled oldsquaw. Drenched.”
“What did you do?”
“Killed it,” he said.
She was surprised. His look and tone had been almost fatherly.
Mercy killing, she decided. Well, I'm not going to ask him how.
He said, “Broke its neck.”
She watched him make a vague, almost rude gesture with his hand and wrist. It reminded her of someone yanking at a
difficult doorknob or knifing someone in the belly. She would have thought it easier to step on the bird's head and crush the tiny skull, but she didn't say so.
He was still standing on the rock ledge, facing the sea. A tuft of hair was caught between his orange cap and ear, sticking out comically. She imagined him getting oil all over his hands â or gloves â as he snapped the neck of the oldsquaw. Yet there was something admirable about his actions. Watching him, she sensed an opening, as though a window had been lifted, and she found herself looking in to see that essential part of him, something steady, good-natured, yet uncertain, that he'd been born with.
But now he was watching her too, the way he had on Cape Broyle: sideways, without moving his head. Like a man hurrying across a busy road with only his eyes turned to the traffic rushing towards him. The window had closed. He was taking the measure of her now. She glanced down and saw a rubber boot beside a comb.
“Let's head this way,” he told her, walking backwards a few steps before turning in the direction of the tern colony. His pace was slower now and she was able to keep up with him. But when they got there, there wasn't anything to see. Every tern was in flight above their heads, producing, it seemed to Heather, cries of both excitement and dread.
“Where are the eggs?” She had to raise her voice to be heard. “I wouldn't have brought you here if I thought they'd laid. Watch your step. They invest a lot of energy into those nests.”
“What nests?”
He pointed to the ground, near her feet. “They're properly referred to as scrapes,” he said, and then she saw them: slight depressions the size of saucers and defined only by a change in substrate. Some were smooth sandy patches among pebbles, others a collection of pebbles among cobbles. They were delicate and obscure. At first she had an urge to say something cynical, that an autistic child could have done a better job, but the mild regularity of these surfaces made her think of skin, of the dips
and rises of the human body, from the indentations on Benny's buttocks to the oblong cups that formed in his armpits when he lay bare chested, his arms crossed behind his head.
Darren had left her and was ahead now, nearly to the parking lot. She watched him crossing the firmer substrate there and noticed for the first time his slightly odd way of walking: a light, playful bouncing. It occurred to her he was the type of boy who would have walked on tiptoe. This was once believed to indicate something, but she couldn't remember quite what: a slow reader, above average creativity?
By the time she caught up with him, he was getting into his truck. He closed his door, then rolled down the window and asked, “Was that you got lost out on Cape Broyle Head?”
She was aware of him assessing her figure, perhaps speculating how long she had to go.
She nodded.
“They said two people. Was your husband with you?”
“I don't have a husband.”
“No? Well, you're some size, aren't you?” He was shaking his head.
She guessed she wasn't much more than a specimen to him.
He started the truck and pulled out slowly, giving her a perfunctory nod without eye contact. As she stood there, alone, it came to her out of the blue: The Bruce Effect. A crazy idea, yet she regretted not keeping her animal behaviour textbooks.
The following afternoon Heather was sitting in her doctor's office, avoiding a gruesome photograph of mouth cancer in the anti-smoking poster. It was just to the left of Dr. Redcliffe's head.
“My guess is you're perfectly fine,” Dr. Redcliffe said, stepping back until she reached the wall.
Heather sighed. “I'm not myself.”
“You're pregnant. All kinds of things are happening to your body. It affects your brain. Your moods. But we'll order some
more blood tests.” Dr. Redcliffe bent to scribble on a pad of paper balanced on a partly raised thigh. “Your blood sugar might be low.”
“It's not my blood sugar.”
The two women stared at each other briefly. They were the same age and had embarked on their careers at roughly the same time. Heather was one of Dr. Redcliffe's first patients and had witnessed her doctor's changing hairstyles, the parade of receptionists, the metamorphosis from tolerant and chatty to harried and direct.
“I've stopped gaining weight. Could I lose the baby?”
“I don't follow. The baby is healthy. The worst that can happen is a premature delivery, which, don't misread me, can be plenty serious, but you're nearly full term. So. Take it easy. Eat well and rest. Have you given any thought to names?”
“Something is wrong.”
“Heather, might I say something?” The doctor took a step towards her, giving up the support of the wall. “I think you're reading too much into your symptoms. If you still feel this way after the birth, I'd be inclined to suggest an antidepressant.”
“You're kidding.”
“Let's wait to see how you feel after the birth.”
“I'll keep it in mind.”
“Are you all right? It might be wise for you to talk to someone. It can't be easy going through this all by yourself.”
“I can talk to myself.”
Dr. Redcliffe smiled slightly. “You know that's not going to do you much good.” She retrieved Heather's file from the examination table and pressed it to her chest like a schoolgirl. “Don't leave those tests too long. We might be going on strike. The hospital will be a zoo.”
Heather waited in the room, though the door was open, inviting her to leave. She knew a throng of patients was anxious to be seen. Dr. Redcliffe was running an hour behind, which was better than usual. Heather found herself staring at the mouth cancer again but with less alarm. She was offended by
the idea of antidepressants. What would Darren Foley think of that?
A woman carrying a baby in one of those things Heather had not yet bought was led into the examining room opposite Heather's. The woman set the thing on the floor and gazed down tenderly at her baby. Heather couldn't see the baby but she heard it begin to cough. It surprised her. It didn't sound human. Weak, rasping, breathless. It sounded like a mouse coughing. Yet it went on. The mother looked worried. Finally the coughing stopped and Heather was relieved to see Dr. Redcliffe enter the examining room and close the door soundlessly, the way she always did, behind her.
But Heather's door was still open and she could easily hear her doctor's cheerful voice. “Any better?” Heather heard her ask the baby. “Oh, let's have a look at you.
You were supposed to get better. You were
. His colour is good. This bug is going around. You need to let it work its way through his system.”
The baby began coughing again. This was followed by some silence, then Dr. Redcliffe saying, “If I hadn't heard that cough . . . I want you to pop in at the hospital with him. He should have a chest X-ray for that. Hey, hey.” The doctor sounded like she was laughing. “You're not going to fall apart on me, now, are you? The X-ray is just a precaution.”
Heather placed a hand over her belly.
She checked her watch. It was not yet noon. Perhaps she'd call Darren at work. Why bother stalking him now, when a relationship, of sorts, had been established? Why not simply invite herself along, a beginning birdwatcher keen to learn more?
They were still over an hour from town when Darren pulled into an empty parking lot beside a closed kiosk. Heather, who had taken her own car, had no choice but to pull in as well; she had no idea where they were. Darren had not warned her he was going to stop, although there had been that nervous, almost
cocky manner in which he had taken charge of everything all day.
Heather got out of her car and walked over to his truck.
“Do you find many oiled seabirds here?”
He turned off his ignition. “Of course not. Come on, I want to show you something.”
“What about the loon?”
“It'll be fine.” He looked at her. “It's a bird.”
They passed a small sign announcing, “Geology Tours, Saturday, 10 am & 2 pm,” then took a path that meandered away from the parking lot and descended alongside a valley comprised of pancake rock slabs cut by small streams. As usual, Darren walked on ahead, then dropped suddenly from sight.
“Darren? Where are you?”
Here and there the streams slowed to form paper-thin pools.
The orange cap popped up. He waited as she approached. “There's a bench here. Can you make it?”
A sitting area was just off the path beside a deeper pool. She lowered herself beside him.
“Did you notice the rock formation?” he asked.
“I did.” She tried to sound interested, and he launched into an explanation, as she knew he would. She heard conglomerate, ancient beach, volcanic cobbles, sandstone matrix.
“I thought it might have been concrete,” she said, joking.
“Christ no. It's five hundred and fifty million-year-old rock.”
He grew quiet, perhaps disappointed. She grinned.
“What's funny about that?”
“Nothing.” She saw that place of uncertainty in him again. The baby kicked and she automatically put a hand over her side, returning the pressure.
“Are you cold?” Darren asked. He moved closer to her. She sensed he wanted to put an arm around her. Was that why he'd brought her here?
Now would be an excellent time to ask if he was married.
She had already dated Benny twice, though they had not yet touched, when she learned he was married â he didn't wear a ring. That would have been the moment to ask herself, Do you really think this is wise?
They were having lunch and discussing pollution â the world filling with diapers and refrigerators â when he mentioned his wife. My wife is enthusiastic about recycling.
“You're married?”
He was halfway through the seafood pasta. He had said it was not that good. He laid his fork and knife across the plate and rested both his forearms on the table, enclosing his food. His arms were darker than her own, the knuckles pink.
He looked at her and said quietly, “I wasn't sure if you knew. I didn't want to ask. I've been a bit mixed-up about that. And guilty. I knew we had to get to this point eventually.”
“You're married?”
“Heather, this isn't about sex. Did you think this was just about sex?”
“Of course not.”
“Because it's not.”
But when he leaned over to kiss her â an hour later in his car â she was relieved. It was, to some extent, about sex. He dropped her off at her office and she wandered into the dark building, dazed and happy. She had been longing to kiss him.
Two young girls lugging an assortment of handbags had emerged onto the rock bed above them.
“Are you familiar with the Bruce Effect?” she asked Darren.
She watched him look into the distance and squint as he searched his mental database. It was enjoyable to see. When he found what he was looking for, he looked puzzled. “The phenomenon whereby a pregnant female aborts her young when exposed to an unknown male?”