When they stroll past the sycamore, the rooks that have silently nested all afternoon now stir from within the recesses of the branches, and the tree comes alive with their calls. Their cawing begins in single cries as if they speak to one another with urgent messages. They grow noisier, and as the party passes close by, the rookery screeches in a wild chorus accented by a high-pitched falsetto call. A swift flourish of flapping wings sounds like thunder when they take to the sky. All lift their heads as a sheet of black rises above them. Exclamations percolate through the Gardens when the parliament of rooks wing in unison towards the river, cutting through the haze with its dipping flight. The black-robed men of law congregate on the grounds to stare in amazement as their avian mirror images move skyward. Visitors to the Temple Gardens point upwards, bumping into each other as they follow the frenetic wingbeats of the colony.
Averil holds on to her hat, for what reason she does not know, perhaps in fear of a rook swooping down on her head. William and Sterling look quizzically at each other, their jaws dropping until their mouths gape.
‘What about that then, Sterling? There is no known record of this rookery behaving in this fashion!’ William whispers.
‘“No, none at all.’ Sterling quotes: ‘“They do not desert their nests in this way unless …”’ He falters and looks at his brother alarmed.
‘“Unless the abandonment is a prelude to battering one of their own to death, or …”’ William pauses. ‘“They are known to depart en masse preceding a human death.”’
‘Come now, girls. Quickly, please.’ Averil orders.
‘Mammy, I cannot see. Please go slower.’ Verity pleads.
Truth be known, Averil is completely perplexed that the day progresses and still, this blasted strange haze burdens them.
‘I cannot see either, Mammy. It will be worse for Verity.’ Constance says.
George Fitzgerald looks out over the Thames to another distraction – hundreds of lanterns and torches light the Thames. There is a ripple of confusion flowing through the gathering crowd at Temple stairs. Men shout at the watermen to stop for them, only to be met with foul and loudmouthed banter in return.
Hopeful passengers crowd the steps in a tangle, volleying insults at each other, while confused passengers alight from the boats trying to press pass the growing numbers who wish to embark. Order has been lost to the June darkness. Feet fight for limited space on the seven or eight stairs that lead down to the river and it is difficult to determine how many steps already lie beneath the rising tide.
Perhaps it is the heat, or they are nest drifting; whatever the reason, the wasps are in some strange flight behaviour and their nuisance contributes another edge to the growing danger. Hands that clasped other hands now release to swat the pests. Among these irritable and frightened people, Verity feels a panic so great that it threatens to clench her lungs and never let go. She has lost her mother’s hand and cannot find it again. She fails to think that she could simply remove her spectacles to see more clearly, but instead blindly reaches for her mother’s hand, her arm, anything. Constance is near but cannot reach her mother or sister. Finally, with her arm stretched out across a barrister’s chest, Constance holds fast to Verity’s shoulder. The sisters work their way over to their mother whose hat they can just make out at the edge of the stairs.
Averil recognizes the tops of her daughters’ heads inching towards her. ‘Be careful, girls!’ she calls out to them. ‘Stay together!’
A wasp flies across Averil’s face, then two, and now a swarm of wasps circle her head. She swats at them. Averil feels her foot on the edge of the step and in trying to find a secure place she loses her balance. Bile rises up to her throat – the taste of fear shoots through her watering glands. She pivots and falls backwards into the water, arms outstretched, her eyes bulging with terror. Her hat flies off before her frame hits the indecently black Thames. Hairpins shoot out from her head like thin spears. Hanks of hair unravel. Faecal matter hits her face.
‘Mammy! Mammy!’ Constance’s young arms reach out, her fingers splayed. ‘Here, Mammy, here!’
Averil’s view of her daughter’s desperate flailing arms, aching to pull her out, fades as she chokes. Sharp pains pierce her lungs. Her limbs are so quickly paralyzed by the shock of the cold water that she cannot sustain herself. Her exquisite red, silk dress swells up like a flame in the cruel water that robs her of her dignity, her modesty.
The sisters watch helplessly as their mother’s body sinks into the hungry river. Averil spins in a treacherous journey beneath the surface of the water. Sucked down by dangerous currents and hidden tides, Constance and Verity gasp at how quickly their mother has gone under. The river grants them one gift – when she sinks deeper, the girls cannot see the sharp-boned carcasses that shred their mother’s skin, or her distorted limbs slapped by splintered planks of a mangled sloop.
There is no further attempt to rescue her, no one willing to jump into the awful water. Offering an oar is a blind, thankless effort. There is a shortage on bravery. Though it might have been any one of them, the river has left its dark, blood-red stain upon Averil Lawless.
The girls are bonded to the river stairs like statues. Dangerously close to the edge, they stare down, unbelieving, into their mother’s destiny. Then a flicker of a movement when Verity’s fingers stretch to meet Constance’s hand.
They cannot find their voices. Someone is speaking to them, muffled sounds erupt from
