I wake to the clamour of the landline announcing a telephone call. I really did drink too much on the plane last night. How the hell did I drive home in that condition through the thunderous gale?
The ignored caller rang off without leaving a message, but now I am almost fully awake. I know where I am, in my loft room, my study, my sanctuary, until... No, once it was supposed to be my haven, back in the time when Jane was still with me, was still my wife. Now this room is a mausoleum for my broken soul, though I cannot will my mind to rest in peace. Even here, home on the rocky Jurassic coast of Wessex, my head is full of the images of Central Africa, the wanton poaching, the gun-toting safaris, all a mockery to the future protection of wildlife, balanced against the immediate desire for dollars, be it via Western hunter or Far Eastern hypochondriac.
I am naked under a duvet on the sofa, my lightweight tropical suit crumpled on the floor. It is bitingly cold and I hear driven rain hammering on the four roof lights, three small at the back and a larger one at the front. I really wanted dormer windows, so I could both enjoy the sea views or look down on the town below the cliffs from my writing desk, but that damn loft conversion guy, Wayne, said I'd never get the planning permission. Jane believed him, hung on his every word, well, she would wouldn't she?
The phone rings again. I am never going to sleep any more today, am I? Besides, I remember that I have to pick up all the pets, our pets, my faithful dog Rover and her bloody cat and her damned parrot, from the local vet's animal hotel this morning, my first day back from safari. I pad across the loft to the desk, pick up the phone, idly noticing that the red-lettered answerphone display reads "FULL", which explains why the caller never left a message. Well, the house has been empty for a month. No Jane, my ex-wife, and no housekeeper either, can't afford one with only one income.
"Hello?"
"Oh, thank God!" crackles the young-sounding female voice at the other end, "Is that Mr Andrew Dolton?"
"Yeah, that's me, at least, it was the last time I looked."
It really is too early in my day for weak humour, the clock on the phone reads 06:44. When did I get in last night, tired and half drunk, to a damp, lonely house? Two-ish, I think. I had happily dozed in the plane, a private jet sent by my grateful publisher, until the bird strike knocked out one of the two engines and we limped in to my local airfield late; I didn't sleep at all after that.
"Excellent!" The fuzzy distorted voice crackled through the white noise hiss on the line, "Look Mr Dolton, this is Annabel, researcher from the BBC News channel. We'd like to interview you, live over your Skype connection, on the 7 o'clock news, regarding the animal crisis-?"
"News? Animal crisis? What crisis? Why?"
"Well, since your radio broadcast about Nature going into a hard reset went viral on YouTube, and with your bestseller on the same subject leaping off the shelves, you've become the world expert on th-"
"Now hold on, that radio broadcast was a mistake, I was drun- er, distraught an' distressed over my recent divorce and it was just supposed to be on our local radio station with only a couple o' thous-"
"But the cameras-"
"Yeah, I knew the cameras were on for their simultaneous video blog on the web; I think a dozen lonely people watch it late at night, when every sane person's asleep. They have since pointed out that I did sign a paper giving the station perm-"
"But your prediction about Nature's reset-"
She (Annabel from the Beeb, was it?), never finishes her sentence, the crackly line abruptly disconnects, letting me off the hook. I consider leaving the phone off the hook, but hang it up anyway.
Damn that local radio station and my dumb drink-induced broadcast! When was it now? Maybe four, five months ago? When my agent sent me an embarrassing snippet of it, I was on location in Africa. Although I was pretty damned drunk at the recording, I do recall part of what I said at the time. I had only just got back from three weeks in Indo-China, shooting the digital equivalent of a thousand rolls of wildlife film, the first time in ten years I had gone on a shoot for a book without my wife, Jane, assisting me. She stayed behind, "for necessary nesting" she said, whatever that was supposed to mean.
On my return I had found the divorce papers on my desk, citing "unreasonable behaviour and irretrievable breakdown in the relationship". The pencilled post-it note explained that she'd left me for Wayne, the builder, that she was expecting his baby, and didn't want me to fight her over the divorce as it would only cost me more without affecting the outcome.
At the time I had just stood there in my loft study, stunned, her yellow post-it note in my hand when I had that epiphany. It was like I was a computer that had crashed, every file in my life gone down the Swannee, because I was actually the one who had invited Wayne into our lives like a relationship-wrecking virus and, while I had concentrated working on my latest book, he corrupted his latest conquest Jane, leaving me with nothing but life resembling a frozen screen.
It was a single fat flying insect that had splattered itself dramatically just then, all across one of my newly-installed skylights in my third storey loft, that first planted in my head the seed of impending doom. I knew my only cure was a hard reset, a clean break, reformat the hard drive of my life to exclude Jane, obliterating every lingering memory, every nestling cookie, and restart with a clean drive and updated operating system.
Then I extended that reset thought, maybe Mother Nature does the same thing from time to time when a relationship with a domineering species turns sour and comes to an end.
Of course I dismissed the thought immediately, it being far too ridiculous to consider seriously. But, fuelled by my anger at my wife and life, I filled my daily "Wildlife in Focus" blog with the idea that Mother Nature had destroyed the excesses of all previous dominant species of the world, notably the dinosaurs. It followed, that it was inevitable, once we got out of hand, at the point of causing real harm to the planet, that the same would happen to us in our turn.
Now, this morning, holding the phone in my hand, listening to the droning dialling tone, another fat insect has prophetically killed itself on my window, next to the baked on remnants of its several months' old twin. It's impossible to find a window cleaner with a long-enough ladder to reach my erie atop the cliffs.
It's this room that I once wanted so much, that really bugs me now, but using the pair of empty bedrooms on the floor below are out of the question. Jane took the contents of both, plus all the lounge furniture and kitchen equipment with her. So I stumbled up here between 2 and 3 in the morning, even though it's a constant source of pain every time I cross this threshold. But, like a medieval monk, my sanctuary is my cell, a constant knotted handkerchief corner memory of my broken heart. If only I had the emotional courage to reset my life and start over afresh.
The phone rings again, even as I stare at the insect's innards stream down the window, helped by the driving rain. I have not seen such rain since Indo-China; Africa was dry as dust, too dry even for my tears.
"Hello?" I ask, my mind still half a world away, back on the Dark Continent.
"Andy, it's Marjorie. When d'you get back?" The call is clear but sounds echoed, like she's in her car.
Marjorie is my literary agent and editor, who had pestered me for weeks about putting out what she wanted to call "Nature Bites Back". In a weak moment I allowed her to transcribe that rambling radio interview, merge it with any relevant entries in my blog and put out a soft-back book on my Nature Hard Reset for once, instead of my usual large glossy coffee table photographic books, which barely brings in a living for a lonely man on a single income.
"Last night, late, Marj," I reply. She hates being called Marj, and I know I am being unnecessarily irascible. I try to deflect my ill-considered ire, "Thanks for arranging the chartered flight, Marjorie, I do appreciate being dropped off at my local airfield."
"It's fine, we can afford it now, wait'll you see the sales figures! Look, Andy, the BBC rang me last night, wanting an interview with you for this morning's News Channel. I gave them your number. I want you to put on your public face and do the piece; it will sell a lot more more books and you know I'm still pressing for that new documentary series for you to present."
I'm a wildlife photographer and that's what I love to do. I have written dozens of books about Nature in all her beautiful and sometimes terrible guises. They are expensive large-format hardbacks, full of facts and photos, but none have sold anywhere near as many as "Nature Bites Back" has in the past couple of months, apparently.
"Bites", as I refer to it, was a slim volume which paints a gloomy picture of Nature challenging any dominant species which overreaches itself and spoils the environment. It was written at a time while I was deeply depressed and bitter over my failed marriage. I guess I still haven't come to terms with that yet, not quite ready to draw a line under it and start again.
