Hope

 

Wednesday 16th November, 05.

 She has to be dead. She’s gone. Jayne that is. At least that’s what I called her. I never actually knew her name. She wasn’t able to tell me. I called her Jayne with a y, because she wasn’t any ordinary Jane, and she definitely was no Plain Jane. She was special and I miss her. She’s been gone now for nearly two weeks. That’s why I know she must be dead. I know this because I know she would have never left her family and her new baby. She was such a good mother. I’ve watched her over the year we have been friends and I admired most, among the many things I admired in her, the patience and love she had for her children. No task was too great. Never was she too tired. She was a diligent mother and she would never willingly have left her new baby.

 

Her partner is coping with the help of granddad. I feel so sorry for him. He seems lost somehow. They had a bond, Jayne and he. I’ve sat on my back doorstep and watched them almost every day and I’ve been aware of a connection that brings to my mind the words soul mates. He is a good father however, and he will survive the unending abundant needs of all newborns over a never-sleeping twenty-four hour day; and he will raise the baby with the help of the other males in the family. 

 

Jayne used to sit with me on my back steps. Mostly we’d just sit in companionable silence.  Sometimes I’d talk and she’d listen. Sometimes she’d tuck her right leg up under her as she sat and turn her head to the side when I spoke, and I knew that this was a signal that she was interested in what I was saying and was settling into a comfortable listening pose. I knew this, because it was the same pose she used when a song she liked came on the radio. She would move her head towards the sound from my kitchen, and she would sometimes join in with a strong vibrant harmony that defies any description. Beautiful is an insipid appellation for the voice of an angel. Not only was her singing more than beautiful, so was she. Jet black, wearing white trimmings, she shone with a lustre that is again almost inexpressible. But her inner grace overshadowed even her outer radiance. She was poised and placid and her aura exuded an ineffable quality of gentleness.

 

I remember when we first met. Having only recently moved into the house and what with packing, unpacking, organising and still working my day job, I’d had no time to introduce myself to the neighbours, or even my garden, for the first couple of weeks. The day we met I’d finally managed to step out to eat an early lunch in the mellow spring mid-morning. I was sitting enjoying the new sun on my face and the different hues of the colours around me, when I noticed her at the back fence. She looked at me from one side then turned her head and looked at me from the other. Then, excitedly she jumped off the bricks and came running over to meet me. After a couple of pleasantries were passed, neither of us really understanding fully what the other was saying because we spoke different languages, I offered her some share in my chicken dinner. She accepted graciously, taking it from my hand, and ate with me, displaying the most genteel of manners. We sat together without further comment and listened for a while to the ballads emitting gently from the top of my kitchen fridge, until I had to rouse myself and get on with the more-important-for-existing part of living. I left her there and went back inside to more unpacking and organising, feeling that a strong bond of friendship had already formed.

 

That evening both Jayne and her partner were standing at my back door. They looked pleadingly at me, so I retrieved the chicken from the leftovers dish and gave some to each. He gently picked at his there on my step, but Jayne immediately flew to the huge gum in my back yard and as she reached it I heard the hungry cry of a baby magpie.

 

So began my friendship with the magpie family. Throughout the following spring and summer I was privileged to witness the workings of another existence; to observe a world that abided alongside my own; to be educated into a world mostly ignored. I observed and was taught. From my back veranda I watched and learned from Jayne and her family.

 

I marvelled at their patience as they tempted the little one from the nest by starving it out. I empathised as I saw Jayne sneak food to her when the plaintive cries became too much for her to bear. I smiled when I saw Jayne’s partner surreptitiously fly to the gum with a morsel in his beak. It took the tyke five days to finally fly. I watched as the other birds constantly lined up on the branch with her. As if on a count they would soar off together into the blue – leaving the squawking, wing-flapping, still scared little one gripping tightly to the limb. Then they’d all sit on the roof of the neighbour’s house looking back at the gum tree. Sometimes I sensed desperation from them, but I think perhaps it was my own. Was this little thing ever going to get out of that tree? Sometimes, after many failed attempts to get her to follow them, they would come down to the table on my veranda and perch on the back of the chairs, for all the world looking as if they were having a round table conference. 

 

I missed the first flight. I walked out one morning to find her noisily seeking attention at the back door with both parents in tow. A much thinner version of Jayne, with wings spread for balance, she staggered on legs so skinny I wondered that they didn’t snap in two. In the days and weeks that followed, I watched from that door as they taught her to find food, to drink and to practice flying. Poor bugs! I watched Jayne teach Miss junior to catch them. She would find one and take it over to the baby and drop it in front of her. Junior would, with wings flapping madly, squeal, squawk, lunge and miss. Jayne would retrieve the hapless insect and allow her to try again. Often this went on for half a dozen times or more before the bug’s final extinction down junior’s throat. Sometimes the bugs got away, but not usually. 

 

One day Jayne was feeding her my usual offerings when dad arrived at the corner of the house with a wriggling delicacy in his beak. Junior set the baby magpie record for the sprint across my back lawn, wings spread, squealing with absolute delight in what she was about to receive. I watched as Jayne taught her to drink. Patiently she would scoop the water with her beak and pour it into the baby’s – often having to reach upwards as junior very soon had grown almost as big as she.

 

She played amongst the bushes in my garden, chasing anything that moved, as the older birds took turns in watching her. It was a summer of seeing real patience, tolerance, mateship, love and devotion; it was a summer of watching true innocence.

 

Then I watched them make her leave. They turned on her when she came to eat my scraps. They pecked at her if she stayed too close to them. I was saddened by the necessary cruelty of nature. I understood she had to leave home, but they seemed to be especially callous whilst pushing her out. My heart almost broke for her.

 

Oh they can be brutal. There is a war going on even now between these lovely birds in my backyard and those who live in the park across the road at the front of the house. There are no holds barred if a park denizen crosses the backyard dwellers’ boarders. I felt that I shouldn’t take sides; after all I live at the edge of both territories, which could be seen as a dangerous region considering how magpies are renowned for trying to give one a lobotomy if they take a dislike to where one is. So I began to feed those living in the park. From my front door steps of course, in order that the backyard family wouldn’t get wind of it. The park birds also had babes and they too trusted me and took food from my hand. There are even a couple who sit by me for a time, but they never seemed as interested in my conversations as was Jayne.  I’d soon find myself wandering out the back to see if she was there. I do so miss her. I’m sure she’s dead.

 

One day Jayne picked a small flower with her beak as she was crossing the lawn to the back steps where I was sitting waiting for her. She dropped it at my feet. I was astonished. It appeared to be a purposeful act.

 

I think I was the first to know that she was going to lay another egg. She seemed to glow even more if that was possible. I knew for sure when I saw her at the edge of the garden with a long piece of straw in her beak. Her partner saw her at the same time and raced across to her, moving up close as if questioning. I felt a wave of wonder wash over me. I believed I had witnessed a special moment between these two. Then, before I knew it, this year’s offspring was squawking hungrily in the tree above my garage. That’s why I know Jayne must be dead.  She was just too much his mate and too good a mother. She was really not anything else. She would never have deserted them. I think that this new baby will need a name. One needs a name if the universe is going to take note of you. I think I’ll call her Hope.

 

Saturday 19th November, ’05.

The boys are doing a great job of guarding and feeding our Hope. I’m proud of them. We’ll miss Jayne’s maternal touch but the boys are patient and I’m looking forward to watching them teach our new little one to fly, hunt and drink.

 

Friday 25th November, ‘05

It was a terrible storm. I am a very heavy sleeper, but the thunder and lightning woke me. I looked out the window to see the trees in the park bent almost double, branches and leaves flaying about in an attitude of terror. Then rain, heralded by the thunder that had woken me, gushed in. It was as if a cloud had torn open so heavy was the downpour. I thought of the new baby and prayed, in vain as it turned out, that the nest was strong and well protected. I ran out at first light, gave the boys some food and watched as they flew to the tree. So far so good I thought happily. However, as they reached the nest I knew something was wrong. There were no excited cries coming from Hope. The boys sat at the nest and, to my mind, seemed confused. Then they ate the food themselves. I hurried to the fence that divides my yard into two, and there she was on the ground. 

 

I was horrified. She was still alive, bedraggled and just lying there quietly. With her shoulders bare of feathers it was obvious she was no-where near ready to leave the nest or fly. Her leg was dislocated or broken I know not which. She objected loudly when I picked her up and I was relieved to find she still had enough strength to try to fight me. I put her in a box and placed her on the back veranda table but the boys, although they took food to her, didn’t put it in her mouth. They could see there was a problem.

 

Saturday 26th November, ‘05

I took Hope to the wildlife clinic. They said she would be OK. They wrote down my address, explaining how they attempted to release the birds back into the area they originally came from. I felt bad leaving her there, and I felt bad that I couldn’t explain to the boys she was going to be alright, but I felt that from somewhere Jayne was watching me and was grateful.

Sunday 27th November, ‘05Too sad. The boys are sad. I’m sad. I should at this moment be watching the boys raise Jayne’s Hope. I should be looking forward to watching her learn to fly, find food, drink and play. We all miss Jayne and Hope. I don’t think I’ll write anymore about this subject.

 

Wednesday 25th January, ‘06

I was feeding the park birds today. There they were, as usual, all in front on the lawn, most taking from my hand but others hanging back, still nervous and waiting for me to throw them their share. I thought I had given to all, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a female standing to my side on the veranda behind me. I turned apologetically for not having noticed her, when my heart skipped. It was her, I know. She has the same shiny ebony breast as her mother; the same gentle approach. There was a look resembling curiosity in her eye, her head cocked to one side as she studied me, signalling a kind of remembrance. Totally disregarding the food I was holding out for her, she looked at me in half puzzlement, half recognition. It was her. It was Hope, I know.