Flamingo Boy. Michael Morpurgo

pas, Renzo?”

      But this Lorenzo was not listening. He was still occupied totally with examining me, bending over me, his eyes peering deep into mine. I never saw eyes kinder nor more intense than his. He seemed to be seeking out my soul. It was troubling to me at first – no one had ever looked at me like this before. I was unsettled also by the hugeness of his presence so close to me, but there was an overwhelming sense of tenderness about him that banished all fear. He was no threat to me, but he was strange. He seemed like a middle-aged man, but had the open face of a boy.

      Kezia set the tray down on the table beside me. The soup smelled wonderful, and there was bread and cheese beside it.

      “Eat, Vincent, eat,” she told me. “Mangez.”

      “Mangez mangez,” Lorenzo echoed, and lifted his arms slowly, making great wings of them, and then he was honking just like a flamingo.

      “This he always does when he is happy,” Kezia said, smiling. I noticed her earrings then, like golden crescent moons they were, shining in the light of the fire. “Sometimes I think he is half Lorenzo, half flamingo,” she went on. “He can walk like them too, talk like them. You will see.”

      “Flam flam!” Lorenzo was saying, clapping his hands excitedly. “Flam flam!” And then suddenly he was waving at me, saying goodbye. He turned away, opened the front door and left.

      “Before he goes to bed, he has to see his beloved flamingos,” Kezia went on, “the ones he has rescued, mostly young ones, chicks, fledglings. He looks after them in his shed, feeds them. There are other animals in there too. It is like a hospital. He likes to spend a little time there in the evenings with them, to say goodnight. Now, you must eat your soup, Vincent, before it gets cold.”

      She sat down again in her chair, watching me and smiling approvingly when she saw how much I was enjoying the soup. It was warming me from the roots of my hair down to my toes.

      “You will stay with us until you are strong, Vincent,” she said. “Lorenzo and me, we shall look after you, make you better. To him, you are like one of his lost fledgling flamingos, and to me you are a welcome guest. We shall not put you in his hospital shed, I promise you. He keeps it as clean as he can, but the creatures he looks after in there, they do smell, and you would not like it. You shall stay here in the house, by the fire. Between Lorenzo and me, we shall make you well again, you will see.”

      She smiled at me. “Vincent. It is a good name,” she went on. “Français aussi, vous savez. It is a French name also.”

      “Where am I?” I asked her, looking about me.

      “On a farm,” she told me. “On a farm far out in the marshes, in the middle of nowhere, you could say, a few kilometres down the road, along the canal from a little town called Aigues-Mortes. Do you know this place? Have you been there?”

      I shook my head. I was still bewildered, my head full of so many questions. “How come you speak English so well?” I asked her.

      “Ah ça, c’est une histoire. That is a story, Vincent, a long story, one that I might tell you when I know you better. First, we have to make you well again. You must have lots of sleep, and peace and quiet. You will stay here with us for a few days and rest.” She reached out and felt my forehead again. “You have a fever still. We shall have you better again, but it will take time. You cannot hurry a fever. No more questions. Sleep well. Dormez bien.”

      

       CHAPTER 5

       A Complete Flamingo

      I don’t think I had ever been properly ill before this in all my life. I had had a day or two off school with coughs and colds, but mostly with invented illnesses to avoid some lesson or test I didn’t want to have to face. This was different. This was the real thing. My head ached, my legs ached, every part of me ached. I seemed one moment to be shivering uncontrollably with cold, and the next I was pouring with sweat – often both together. Night and day, I hovered on the cusp of sleep. In and out of my dreams, the wind seemed always to be blowing, whistling down the chimney, rattling the windows and shaking the shutters. And whenever I woke it always took some time for me to remember where I was now, what had happened, how I had got here. I still had little idea where I was.

      But each day, whenever I woke, the faces I saw around me were becoming more familiar, more reassuring. One of them, either Kezia or Lorenzo, was always nearby, somewhere in the room, keeping an eye on me, waiting for me to wake. And, more often than not, Ami would be lying there by the fire, or would be sitting right by me, eyeing me through his fur. Kezia might be sitting in her chair opposite, mending clothes or writing in her notebook. When Lorenzo was there, he would be close to me, his hand resting often on my hair, his eyes closed. Sometimes I would wake up and find him blowing gently on my forehead, humming softly to me. When he noticed I was awake, or saw my eyes open, he would at once spring to his feet, clapping his hands with delight, calling to Kezia to come. Often, all three were there, waiting for me to wake, and I could feel them willing me well again.

      All around me, on the walls, there were photographs. From where I lay, I thought I could recognise Kezia and Lorenzo in some of them, as children. There were other people in the photographs I did not know, other family, I supposed. But many of the photographs were of animals: herds of black bulls and white horses, some sheep too. Most though were of flamingos, large and small, and these were all in colour: flamingos flying across the sky in great flocks, or landing on the water, or standing alone and majestic in the marshes, or sitting on nests, or feeding in the shallows. I longed to be able to get up and look more closely. But I was still too weak to do it on my own. Even going to the toilet, I still needed one of them to steady me, to help me walk across the room.

      But I could already feel myself getting better. I did not shiver any more, nor break into cold sweats. I slept less and my energy was beginning to return. I was feeling stronger with every day that passed. I wanted to test my legs, my balance, get myself moving. I was beginning to wander about the room, peer out of the windows, look at the photographs close up, all the while trying to make more sense of my surroundings. The room where I had been lying night and day on my couch was cavernous, with a high, heavily beamed ceiling. It was living room, kitchen, eating room all in one, and sparsely furnished – just my couch, a few chairs, a small table, a blanket for Ami by the fire. Everything was huddled close around the open fireplace, which was the glowing, crackling heart of the room.

      There was a small kitchen in one corner, where Kezia was often busy over the stove, or the sink, and beyond the kitchen was the door to the bathroom, the only other room I’d been into. A staircase in the darkest corner of the room led upstairs to where Kezia and Lorenzo went each night, leaving Ami and me to the flickering warmth of the fire. There was no electricity in the house, so far as I could see. The house smelled of oil lamps and burning wood, and of whatever Kezia happened to be cooking on the stove. She made the best soups I had ever tasted, mostly vegetable soups, with potatoes or rice, and there was always bread, crusty, chewy, not at all like the bread at home. I loved it.

      Outside, the wind often raged and roared about the house, and, when it did, it was continuous, unrelenting, for a week or more sometimes, and with such ferocity that the house shook. So loud was this wind, this mistral, as Kezia called it, that it was difficult to think straight at all, and sometimes impossible to hear what Kezia was saying in her still, small voice. Lorenzo I could hear better, despite the mistral, because he would often repeat the same word louder and louder for me. But understanding him was difficult. If ever I looked perplexed – and I was often perplexed – he would act out what he meant, which I could see he loved to do. But, even then, much of what he was trying to tell me was beyond my comprehension.

      “Flam