Part 15 (1/2)

”What?”

He took her hand and they stood up. He began to walk toward the aviary, tugging her along behind him.

”Are you sure your brother meant it?” Now she was the one whining.

Meredith had never seen anything killed except in the movies, and she had little desire to now. Why was he making her come with him? If only she could get away and run back to the cottage and find her earplugs and sateen sleeping mask... She tried to wrench her hand free but his grip only tightened around her wrist. He had put on his falconer's gauntlet, which made his grip inescapable.

He opened the door of the pen and stepped inside. When he raised his arm, the owl swooped to meet him, eyes glittering like topaz in the dark.

”Well now, Waverly.”

Barnaby laid the gun down on the floor of the pen and, grasping the leather leash attached to a bracelet on the bird's ankle, wrapped it around his arm twice. Then he stepped out of the pen. The owl was so large that while he was perched on Barnaby's arm his head stood higher than Meredith's.

”You take him,” he said.

”I'm not taking him.”

Barnaby s.h.i.+fted the owl over to his left arm, pulled off his glove and gauntlet with his teeth and handed it to Meredith. She took the glove and slipped it over her cardigan sleeve. Barnaby instructed her to whistle, and she did, the only way she knew how: feebly, through the tiny gap between her front teeth. The sound, though thin, seemed enough for Waverly, who with a great flapping leap transferred himself from Barnaby's arm to Meredith's and immediately began picking through her cardigan pockets for dead mice. Holding the bird, heavy on her arm and yet somehow floating in air at the same time, was like lifting a person under water.

”Now what?”

”This way.”

Barnaby wrapped the leash around her bird arm, then took her free hand and led her away from the aviary. They stopped in the middle of the yard. From inside the house Portia gave a warning bark. Barnaby held the oil lamp above his head and stepped back. The lamp was swinging back and forth, and when the light fell on his face she saw his eyes were blazing. He made a call-a strange throaty hoot. Waverly took off, shaking himself free of the gauntlet and causing Meredith to stumble backward. The bird was swallowed by darkness.

”Aren't you going to call him back?”

”No,” said Barnaby.

For the next quarter-hour Meredith and Barnaby set about freeing the birds. Some, like the peregrines, needed little more than an open door, while others, like the vultures, had to be coaxed out of captivity. Meredith did not ask about their chances of survival, or if they would come back. She didn't want to hear the answer, and she was sure Barnaby didn't want to talk about it.

When they were finished, they both returned to the stump and sat down. Meredith looked at Barnaby and noticed he had a small blob of s.h.i.+t-coated owl down stuck to his left cheek. She licked her thumb and wiped it off.

As soon as she touched him, Barnaby began to kiss her. She was excited, but not by the kissing so much as by the way he took her in his arms. Gathering me up, she thought.

He made a sound of surprise.

”Are you okay?” she asked.

”Oh, yes, fine. It's just that you are so amazing.”

Meredith climbed on his lap and they fooled around some more. Meredith, as always, simply wanted the making-out part to go on and on.

But Barnaby was already looking around for another place. The lights had gone back on in Pear Cottage, which meant that Mish had returned.

”Come along,” Barnaby said, taking Meredith by the arm. He led her back toward the aviary and, to her surprise, into the one pen that had been empty from the start: Harriet's. He set the oil lamp on the floor and the s.p.a.ce-you could not call it a room-became apparent in streaks of light. In the middle of the pen was a piece of wood erected as a perch, and at the top Meredith noticed a smallish feathered body slung over one of the upper branches. Harriet. Meredith looked at Barnaby, attempting to conceal her horrified cringe with an expression of curiosity.

”Is that...?”

”It was her favourite perch...” his voice trailed off.

And then, before she could make a comforting noise, he gathered her up again and they resumed kissing. After a while he eased her down on the hay bale in the corner. When she winced, he told her not to worry, that he had just cleaned the pen that morning. She didn't believe him.

She reclined and pretended to be Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night. If s.e.x outdoors was romantic, why not s.e.x in a birdcage?

Barnaby coughed. He seemed to be having a problem with her stockings, so she helped him along and while she did, he unb.u.t.toned his pants.

And then, out of nowhere, Meredith was struck. This isn't right. It was the only thing she knew.

”Barnaby, wait. There's something I've been meaning to tell you.”

He had taken off his gla.s.ses and his eyes looked small and vulnerable.

”Really?” He retrieved his gla.s.ses from his jacket pocket and slipped them back on.

”The thing is, I like you very much-I don't want you to think it's anything to do with that because it isn't. But at the same time, I feel I should tell you that I have another, you might say parallel, agenda.”

Barnaby blinked. A sacrificial goat encountering an altar.

”Go on.”

”The thing is, I'm thirty-five.”

”Are you really?”

”Yes.”

”Goodness. I thought you were a good deal younger. More like twenty-eight or twenty-nine. Not that it matters in the least.”

”Thanks,” she said. ”Anyway, my age in and of itself is not the point. The point is that I'm at a stage in my life where I want to have a child.”

”Oh, me too,” he said, beginning to smile. ”I adore children.”

”No. I mean now. Or as soon as possible, at any rate. And-” She paused.

”And?”

”And, in addition to other things in my life, I'm searching for the right father.”

Barnaby rocked back on the hay bale beside her. He touched his chin and looked up, then touched his chin again.

”But we've not even had one night together-and what we've had has been rather tumultuous at that,” he started, his brain apparently steaming with the effort of cutting through the grog. ”Don't you think-I mean, don't you honestly think that even a discussion of marriage is a bit premature?”

”I wasn't discussing marriage.”