The Fetch. Finuala Dowling

eat toast dripping with egg. The child developed a sympathetic drool of saliva. He seemed to be waiting to see whether William’s egg was good, not poisonous. Satisfied, he then pincered a rubbery morsel of egg white between his fingers. Not liking the sensation, he tried to throw it away. The egg white, with a dab of yolk attached, flew off his finger, only to land in his hair. Oro scratched his head, leaving behind another piece of egg white on the helix of his ear, in the place where a clerk might rest a pencil. At last, he laid hold of a toast soldier and mashed it into the egg. The toast crumpled and then broke off inside the yolk. Oro squashed it further down with his finger. He wanted to wipe his fingers down his front, but missed his chest and got his neck instead. Then he indicated that he would prefer some of William’s neatly dipped toast. They swapped. Oro received a neat toast finger tipped with a perfect coating of egg yolk, and William used a spoon to extricate the pulpy remains of the toast finger from what had been Oro’s egg.

      “How old is he?” he asked.

      Dolly left her post at the doorway and came inside to answer the question. “Orrie?” She seemed to need to think about her child’s age. “He’s just turned two. I suppose you’re wondering who his father is. Let’s just say that Orrie’s my little lovechild.”

      William had a rational person’s dislike of sentiment, so he did not pursue this line of questioning. “How long are you planning on staying in Slangkop?” he asked instead.

      “Don’t worry, we won’t be much trouble to you. I’m used to living on the smell of an oil rag and, as for Orrie, well, you can see that he’s just like you.”

      She looked at the two of them for a moment and then added: “I thought I might drive to Fish Hoek tonight. There’s someone there who is willing to lend me some money. Maybe you could help me unhitch the caravan. Orrie can help, can’t you Orrie? I’ll just get your trainers so that your feet don’t get dirty.”

      William felt relieved. Dolly seemed to be taking charge of her own destiny. Perhaps he would be able to keep his gold coins after all.

      He released Oro from his improvised high chair and fetched his miner’s light. They went outside. William chocked the van’s tyres, checked its handbrake, unclipped the safety wire and unplugged the electrics.

      Oro bent his knees slightly, his hands resting on his thighs in a manly way as he watched William. When the jockey wheel was in place, William let Oro think that he was helping to tighten it.

      The car was now released of its burden, and, as if in sympathy, Dolly’s mood lightened too. The patchwork bag slung over her shoulder, she seemed almost to skip to the car door. “I won’t be long, darling,” she said, kissing Oro’s forehead.

      “You don’t think you should take the kid with you?” asked William.

      “Oh no, he needs to find his land legs. We’ve spent too many days on the road. Here, darling, wrap Mommy’s shawl around you.” She removed her tasselled hip wrap and draped it around Oro. “I’ll be back soon, munchkin. Love you.”

      William picked up the dismayed boy, and they stood watching the tail-lights of Dolly’s car disappear. To distract Oro, William pointed out the Southern Cross in the sky above. Then he took him inside and made him another bottle. The boy was subdued, except when William tried to remove his trainers so that he could sleep more comfortably. William gave up and simply covered him with a blanket, shoes and all.

      Afraid to do anything that would cause further excitement or distress, William sat quietly beside Oro on the bed. The child’s eyes started to flicker and droop as he sucked on the bottle. At last it dropped from his lips with a plopping noise. The boy slept.

      William went to his workbench and picked up the stem of his father’s old bendable bedside light. He had been thinking of putting together a flexible webcam using the salvaged tube, but after all the day’s shenanigans he felt too tired to work. He checked his e-mails instead. There was one from a client with a crazy idea for setting up webcams on Gough Island. How the hell did he propose William should get there? By rowing boat? The client suggested they start with a trial run on one of the Saldanha islands. William remembered Marion Island. He’d done a stint there in his student days. How tame the albatrosses were. You could stroke their massive wings. It was one of the few things that had ever brought him to tears – the trusting innocence of those island creatures.

      There was another mail from his wealthy birding enthusiast: did William think it might be possible to erect a camera on a pole above a fish eagle nest he knew about on a farm near Gourits in time for the breeding season? Once, an idea like this would have kept him awake for hours. How to set up the camera so that no one knew it was there; how to do it without disturbing the birds. Solar-powered, of course. Depending on the distance from the farmhouse, it might require satellite. But tonight William felt as broken down as the webcam on his workbench. How many people had he spoken to today? Each one of them had carried away one of his working parts. Only rest could reassemble him. He returned to the bedroom, lay down next to the boy and closed his eyes.