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The Mating Call of the Racket-Tailed Drongo Mating Call: a device for attracting the female. Racket-Tailed Drongo: a devious bird – not always what it seems.
From Chapter 2: The Messenger
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I remember it – how could I not? – in every detail. I was in my office. Usual position. The Kotare had been sipped. I’d closed my eyes, contemplating through the black curtain of my lids and a mildly disconcerting cluster of white buzzing dots the five years of contentment I’d enjoyed since coming to St Magnus. Balancing alertly on that thin line which divides this waking world from the other, I reviewed the gentle friendships that had come my way, the games of golf, the... when, slipping for a moment into the world of the unconscious, an image came to me. It was of Waterman, strangled. He was on the 18th green, his limp body blocking the approach to the hole. A stymie. The situation cried out for a steep cut that would get the ball up fast and land it soft. I crawled out from under the table and practised the shot. I visualised insipid, diligent, dead Waterman and gave it plenty of right hand. As my lob wedge slid through the shag pile, I heard a hesitant knock at the door and a thin voice whispering the word Waterman. It brought me up short. One moment I’m using his dumped carcass for chipping practice, and the next it’s knocking at my door, extant. ‘Come in,’ I called, summoning the spectre. The door moved until it was ajar, or a little wider. A ginger head poked around. The head’s eyes stared at its feet – a toe had inched forward – while its mouth sought reassurance as to the acceptability of further penetration into my sanctum. It was a measly entrance even by Waterman’s standards, though, to be fair, I know how intimidating my office can be. The August and Venerable Golf Club of St Magnus. All that history. Powers of hire and fire. I walked him over to a straight-backed wooden chair and offered him a glass. He received my gesture with a hand stuck out at 90 degrees to his arm. I took this as a no. Waterman sat uncomfortably. ‘Blisters troubling you?’ I suggested, struck by sudden insight. ‘No, not at all. There is nothing wrong with my blisters, thank you.’ ‘Oh, sorry, I was muddling... anyway, look, how can I help?’ I said. ‘You know the documents we promised the museum for its exhibition?’ he asked. I didn’t of course, but I nodded encouragingly. Waterman expanded – at length, in his own roundabout way, and down every legal byway that has ever existed since the middle ages: charters, codicils, land belonging to the Church, segments parcelled together, deeds of alteration, you name it. ‘Well, you’ll never guess,’ he said finally, stopping in what might have been mid-sentence. He looked at me out of the corner of his wall-eye. I said nothing. Guessing games with Waterman are not my thing. He continued. ‘A lot of ferreting was necessary, I can tell you, but I found it.’ There was an exultant catch in his voice. ‘In one of the deeds. It says that the land on which our clubhouse and the 18th green are sited will only really belong to us this summer.’ It took me a second to register. ‘Come again,’ I said, assuming that what I’d heard, I hadn’t. ‘What do you mean exactly; the land will only belong to us this summer? We’ve owned it for centuries.’ ‘Yes, but,’ Waterman smiled ingratiatingly, ‘to be strictly accurate, held in trust is a better description,’ and it was at about this moment that I first admitted to myself that there was something about Waterman I didn’t much like. ‘In trust! For whom?’ I demanded. ‘For the Somerled family. Well, no, not for the whole family... But don’t worry, I’m almost sure it’s okay. The terms are so unlikely...’ ‘Almost sure! I think you’d better tell me what these terms are.’ My fingernails tapped restlessly on my mahogany desk. ‘Well, this year’s Open marks the 300th anniversary of the August and Venerable. I don’t need to tell you that, do I?’ Waterman tittered. ‘This means that 300 years ago the Club was founded... obviously.’ ‘Obviously.’ ‘Erm, yes, obviously. Anyway... then... before the Club... all this land was owned by an old lady, a Miss Somerled. It wasn’t good for much. Apart from rabbits. And sheep. When the A&V came along, Miss Somerled was happy to sell. But, and this is the interesting part,’ – I suddenly felt sick – ‘it turns out that Miss Somerled was one of those feminist people. One of the first, I suppose. She inserted this clause.’ He produced a dog-eared scrap from his jacket pocket. This is what Waterman read: If, 300 years after the sale of this land, there is found, in direct descent, a female Somerled under the age of 18, and if said female is still a maid, undefiled, on her 18th birthday, the land and any property thereon shall return to her to make her independent of men for as long as she so wishes. Pause... intake of breath... Waterman had his index finger in the corner of his mouth and was standing with one foot in the air behind him, like Doris Day waiting a-tremble for her first kiss. ‘And where is this deed or codicil or whatever it is now?’ Crepitation on the back of my neck as I waited for an answer. ‘Erm, well, I’ve sent it to the museum with all the rest of the stuff... as we promised.’ |