“And we have to start work straight away.”
* * *
The afternoon was spentat a small sanctuary twenty minutes south of where we were staying. We had equipment – all basics – to take with us and donate, and then our time to do whatever we could. There were things to be done, although the conditions were improvised at best. An injured fish eagle needed its wing splinting but would more than likely make a full recovery and be released back into the wild and a crocodile that had been rescued after someone noticed a tumour growing near its eye. We were asked to remove the tumour, the vet who supported the place not confident to do it on his own, and he’d been holding off until we got there. It was the first real piece of footage the camera crew got and the first time in more than a decade that Wren and I operated together.
On placement, we’d worked well together, neither of us having an ego that meant we needed to take the lead. There were some things that she was better at than me and vice versa, and we slipped back into those roles, instinctively knowing when to pass an instrument, where to move, how close we needed to be.
The croc would more than likely be okay. I wasn’t sure if I would be.
* * *
That night,we sat around a fire pit - crew, Jaime, producers, Mars. I heard the sounds of animals nearby, the call of an owl, pounding of paws in the distance, the screech of something not human.
When I’d been here before, I’d been with fewer people, sometimes there had just been myself and one or two other animal people. Tonight was different, less familiar, less real in some ways and I missed my Africa.
I stood up to slip away, needing time to recalibrate, see the stars, the glint of the lake in the moonlight. Where we were was safe enough to walk about; it was lit and there were enough people around to deter any local wildlife from getting too close.
There was a place a hundred metres or so away from the lodges, far enough away that noise from Jaime and the rest was muted. I sat down on a bench, thankful that I was one of those people that mosquitoes didn’t like the taste of, and emptied my head of the last few days.
“I thought you’d gotten yourself lost.” Wren’s voice was low, pulling me back to reality.
“You can’t get lost if that’s always been your state.”
She smiled, the moonlight catching her features, and sat down next to me. “We wondered where you’d gone. Jaime had disappeared too.”
“Oh.” I sighed. “I wasn’t with her.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t think you were. We worked well together today.”
“We did. We always did. How come you came out here.” She wouldn’t have been able to see me – there wasn’t enough light.
“I wanted to see the stars.”
“There’s enough of them.”
It was incredible. The light pollution was minimal and the sky was clear, making the black seem like it was coated with the glitter of stars.
“I haven’t seen anything like it. Have you?”
“Not like this. This is special. That’s Lyra just above us.” I pointed out the constellation.
“How did you learn that? Did you take astronomy at your posh private school? I knew she was smiling by the sound of her words. She’d often teased me about my background, the privileges I’d had.
“When I was here after we graduated, one of the guides taught me. I spent about six nights staring up at the sky, listening to him tell me stories about the constellations. On the last night, when we sat up, there was a lion about twenty feet away, looking like he was listening too.”
“Shit.” She laughed and looked around us. No lion.
“It makes you feel small, doesn’t it?”
“And slightly vulnerable.” She didn’t try to move. “Seriously, I don’t think I’ve seen anything better than this.”
“Not even in Russia?”
“No.”
I felt her hand slip into mine.
We sat there for what felt like hours, watching the sky, listening to the world around us, one that seemed free of people except ourselves. In the entirety of my life, I don’t think I’d ever spent so much time with one person without having to speak.
