High Island Blues Read Online Free Page A

been asked to put up a team. I’ll be around for volunteers later in the week.’
    He sensed that the passengers’ interest was wandering. They were tired and they wanted to see birds, not talk about them. He sat down. The group dozed.
    The couple who had accosted Rob in the hotel the night before waved at him shyly to catch his attention. He walked up the swaying bus to sit beside them. After a night’s sleep they were apologetic and wanted to chat. They needed to be reassured that he bore no hard feelings for the outburst of the night before. Their name was May. Russell had worked for the South West Electricity Board since he had left school and he had taken early retirement with quite a decent redundancy pay-out soon after the company was privatized.
    ‘We couldn’t have afforded it otherwise,’ he said. ‘Not a trip like this.’
    He seemed dazed by his own good fortune. He’d watched all the slide shows of other chaps’ travels. Never thought he’d actually see those American warblers for himself.
    Connie had been a cook in a small private school. She retired with Russell so they could spend more time together. ‘The boys bought me ever such a nice bunch of flowers when I left,’ she said. ‘But there was nothing from the school. Not even a thank you.’
    This was what it was like at the beginning of a trip. Everyone wanted to tell Rob something about themselves. Each traveller wanted to be special, not just another anonymous tourist. Usually these confidences irritated him – he was paid to show them birds not listen to their life stories – but today he was feeling mellow, even sentimental. He asked the Mays if they had children. That was where these conversations usually led. To proud descriptions of offspring, their work and qualifications, to photographs of adored grandchildren. But Russell and Connie only looked at each other and he sensed a tragedy, a terrible gap in their lives. No, they said. No children.
    ‘We’ve got friends in Houston,’ Russell said as if that were some compensation. ‘Old neighbours who moved out to work with British Gas. We thought we might hire a car, spend some time with them. Connie would like that. It would kill two birds with one stone you might say. A few ticks for me and some gossip for Con. That would be all right, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t put you out?’
    ‘Of course not.’ Rob was expansive. ‘It’s very relaxed where we’re staying. Just treat it like home.’
    But he imagined that they lived in a tidy semi and thought that Oaklands wouldn’t be much like home.
    The bus drove east down the I10 past the urban sprawl which had developed along the freeway: motels, second-hand car lots decked out with shimmering bunting, huge concrete churches with extravagant names. They had no sense of any country beyond until they crossed the San Jacinto River and looked out at the forest of oil refineries towards the coast. Then there was the Trinity River and views of open countryside: the wide expanses of water of Galveston Bay, rice fields and cattle, and in the distance a water tower, shining like an alien space craft. Ahead of them, along the flat, straight road, they could see almost into Louisiana and watched the huge, chrome-plated trucks appear out of the heat haze.
    They turned off the 110 before Winnie so that they could drive past the National Wildlife Refuge at Anahuac. There marsh and swamp stretched to a horizon which was as straight and even as if it was the sea. They got out briefly to see herons, stilts and wading birds. Some would have liked to stay longer but Rob herded them back onto the bus. Mary Ann would be waiting for them. She would be expecting them for lunch. He would have liked to stay too – he loved the sense of space and the rich smell of the swamp – but he knew better than to take liberties with Mary Ann.
    At the I24 they turned south towards the coast. Two turkey vultures soared above the road. Russell May took out his check-list