Bird Cottage

by Eva Meijer

“Len, don’t wash up,” Thea calls from the sitting room. I pretend not to hear.

  When I go back to the room, everything is peaceful. Joey is playing in a corner with the train. Dodie is dressing a doll. Thea puts Lila into her cradle. I give her a cup of tea, lukewarm, milky and sugary, just as she likes it.

  “You didn’t wash up, did you, Len?”

  “Is this how you thought it would be?” I tilt my head to catch her eye.

  She laughs. “No. And it’s not what I wanted either. But it’s fine. When Don’s home again, I’ll have some breathing space.”

  “Don’t you miss performing?”

  She shakes her head. “No time for that.” Lila starts to cry. “Would you like to hold her a while?” Thea rocks her back and forth, till she has calmed down, and then puts her in my arms. “That suits you. But listen, I’ve got something to tell you. We’re probably going to emigrate, to Canada. Don wants to go back. He can get a position there too.”

  “Really? And you think it would work out?”

  “It’s so beautiful there.” She has a dreamy look. “Wilderness. Untouched forests, wild creatures. And it always snows in the winter.”

  I don’t tell her she could go to Scotland for that. Lila gazes at me and I sing softly to her, about a fat little mouse that has left its nest for the very first time, until she falls asleep, and wakes up again two seconds later and starts crying.

  * * *

  “Billie!” Stockdale silences the orchestra with a swift movement of the hand. The premiere is tomorrow and he’s not at all happy.

  “Come on,” I say. “Just let us play right through, for once. You yourself don’t know exactly what you want. One moment it’s Joan’s fault, then Billie’s, and then someone else’s, but you’re not setting the right tempo.”

  Everyone looks at me in amazement. It’s an unwritten rule that we simply accept Stockdale’s fits of temper. He’s the boss. There’s a story about a clarinettist, Sasha, who answered him back once. She was never hired anywhere again. It was before my time and the story has, of course, been embroidered.

  The silence grows deeper, until someone finally coughs—Priscilla, or one of the other cellists.

  “So. And you know better, do you? Perhaps you’d like to stand here then. Put your violin down.”

  “I don’t know better. It’s just that it’s always the same.” I speak loudly and clearly. “You start a little too slow, for the upbeat and the first few bars, and then you begin to speed up and that’s the point where it all goes wrong. So, either you should start at a swifter tempo, or you should stick with us after the first bar.”

  “Come on then.” He is slowly turning red. His fingers are white around his baton.

  “I don’t want to quarrel with you. But I’m not the only one who thinks this.”

  “Oh, is that right? Not the only one.” He taps his baton on the palm of his other hand, controlled, deliberate and in the correct time.

  I glance behind me—no one is backing me up, no one makes eye contact, everyone is waiting till this is over. Fine. Let them sort it out themselves. “Well then. Are we going to continue?”

  Stockdale gives the upbeat, quicker than before. We play the whole piece just a little too swiftly, but all the way through to the end, and a little too loudly; the nerves need to be expressed, apparently.

  “Gwen,” Stockdale says as I’m putting my violin in its case. “Do you have a moment?”

  Joan walks past, her face averted. So, no support from her either.

  “I’m sorry I said it in front of the others.” I look directly at him. The colour of his face has returned to normal.

  “So they talk about it, do they?”

  “Everyone talks about everything and sometimes about you.”

  He briefly clenches his fists. “The gossip here is unhealthy!”

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  “Come on, Gwen. Seen like that, it’s all a case of much ado about nothing. We’re off to the bar. And practise with that baton a little, since you’re such an expert.”

  * * *

  On Sunday I walk back by the same route, along the Thames, which lays its waves over noise, absorbing sounds, returning them, not as echoes but as wind. I was walking swiftly when I set off, but at the station I’m passed by city gents, at the water by day trippers, where the path narrows by children with buckets and spades on their way to the riverbank, and where the ash trees start I can’t go on. I sit down on a tree stump. Three steps further and I would be able to see the boat.

  A Magpie lands in front of me, snatches something from the ground, and flies up. A few weeks ago I wrote a response to a study on the language of Magpies—they’d been totally isolated from their kind and treated like machines, and that was the inevitable result of the experiment too; and yet Magpies are really sociable birds, who can be taught anything. My letter was published. The editor wrote back to me and asked if I also did scientific research.

  An older man, with a walking stick, tips his hat to me in greeting. I’ve seen him here before—he lives somewhere in the area. I wave back.

  Two Crows land not far from my feet. They have something to discuss. They don’t hold it back.

  I stand up, pat the dirt off my skirt, breathe in. A woman’s voice is calling something, laughing. She is blonde, young, taller than me and slender. Thomas is holding her arm, and he’s laughing too, his face alight. He only sees me when I’m really close.

  “Len. I thought…” He shakes his head. “I thought that you, that we…”

  The young woman looks at him. “Is there a problem? Should I leave?”

  He looks at me.

  “No,” I say. “It’s nothing.”

  He stays silent as I walk away, and is still silent when I reach the end of the sandy path and turn around to look at him—she’s talking, she raises her hand. The distance. I nod, to myself or to the people walking towards me, and follow the path up the bank.

  At home I pick up my violin in the hope that playing it will make me feel better. I tune it, play a couple of scales. But I remain a woman in a room with a piece of wood in her hands. This has happened before and the only thing to do is to keep on playing, so that’s what I do. But the aversion stays, growing out in different directions, like a tree, twigs protruding from my ears and mouth.

  I walk to my desk and pick up my notes. The Great Tits have various alarm calls, and I have now identified three—one for people, one for large birds in the sky, and one for creatures down below. There will certainly be more, but the problem is that there is an enormous individual variation in their calls. Moreover, the notes follow each other so swiftly that I always have the feeling that I, with my human ears, have missed something. I should try to become more proficient at this, but I don’t know how I could combine that with playing the violin.

  Jenny rings the bell from the bottom of the stairs. It’s time for tea again. I close my notebook. If I don’t leave, then this is all I can expect.

  * * *

  Thea’s uncle owns a holiday cabin near Brighton, where I can stay for a few weeks at very little cost. I can work on my article in peace there. Stockdale thought it was a good idea, and I no longer have any worries about money. Mr Williams said it was real countryside there. The hut is located by a heath, near the Downs and close to the sea. The nearest railway station is half an hour’s walk away.

  I’ve seen nothing of Thomas since that encounter by the Thames. But there have been other times in the past when we haven’t been in touch. And now, after all, I do want to let him know where I’m going, before I leave. And I want to know how things stand.

  The fog makes me unsure of the route. It’s the third day now that it has shrouded the city, and although things haven’t vanished they’re mostly invisible. I turn left too soon, retrace my steps. It’s the next street, and I don’t understand how I could have gone wrong. The Thames doesn’t think, it just keeps on flowing—I can only see the water’s edge, grey and still, bu
t soft white below, a cloud bed.

  The gravel on the path is damp, slippery; I take care on the gangplank. I knock twice.

  “Len. Good to see you.” Thomas’s voice is still sleepy. “Like some coffee?”

  “Yes please. I won’t stay long.”

  There’s a pile of dirty plates in the kitchen. I sit down at the low wooden table. “I’m going away for a while.”

  “Marvellous. Where are you off to?”

  I feel it, when he looks at me. I swallow. “Nowhere special, just away.”

  “Yes, you deserve that occasionally. You always work so hard. Do you know when you’ll be back?” He puts the coffee in front of me.

  I shake my head.

  “Shall I show you my new series?”

  I follow him to the front of the boat. In the first painting two Crows are flying above the houses of London. “They’re dancing,” I say. Every colour can be seen in the black of their feathers.

  He gives an enthusiastic nod. “And this one.” A young Crow is sitting on the lowest branch of an elm tree, watching the ground intently, ready to hunt. His concentration is tangible. And there are more: an old Crow with her eyes tightly shut in the rain; a flock of Crows mobbing an intruder.

  “They’re wonderful.” Two Crows on a nest, both of them looking at something in the distance.

  “Stay.”

  I turn towards him. “I don’t want it any more. It’s so loud here, so filthy. Mrs Willows from across the road died last week, of pneumonia. And the orchestra stifles me—always the same old gossip, who’s having an affair with whom, all that hullabaloo with Stockdale.”

  “Len, you must play. Find a new orchestra.”

  “I want to study birds. Seriously, I mean.”

  “I don’t think there’s any call for that kind of thing. Not that I don’t find it interesting. I just mean, the times aren’t ripe for it yet. And you haven’t any education in that field.” He falls silent when he sees the look I give him, and takes my arm. I don’t yield. He moves towards me. I move back.

  “Sorry, I don’t want coffee after all. I just wanted to say hallo.”

  He looks at me, keeps looking while I put on my coat, open the door, vanish into the grey.

  STAR 8

  At the end of February it became clear that Baldhead was far too weak to raise a new brood. He would come to me for nuts, then close his eyes and nestle on my lap until I stood up again. For days Star tried to encourage Baldhead to help her build a nest, swooping down in exactly the same way that she had seen him doing the previous year—Great Tits often imitate the behaviour of others to encourage them to do something. It was no use, and Star transferred her attentions to Peetur. For a few days she flew back and forth between Baldhead and Peetur, until one day Baldhead made a little rush at her. Then Star decided to choose Peetur instead and Baldhead found a new roosting place, in a nest box on the other side of the garden.

  Just as Baldhead had done, Peetur also wanted to sleep in the nest box with Star. Once again Star opposed this. However, Peetur was a more creative singer than Baldhead, and each time he used diff erent notes to express his displeasure. On the first night he was driven away for hours before Star finally let him in; his vocabulary was certainly more extensive at the end of that day! It seemed that Star enjoyed listening to his newly discovered language; when he sang she would often pop her head out to look at him. Peetur also seemed to derive much pleasure from singing: after that first evening he knew that she would eventually give in.

  Baldhead stayed in the house a great deal. In March he still had a good appetite, and Monocle enticed him into making a nest with her. He did make a half-hearted attempt to furnish the nest, but he no longer had the strength to defend it and to bring up the nestlings. So Monocle had to care for her brood alone, although now and again he would take a look at them. The swelling above his bill, which he had suffered from years before, had now returned, and he often had a listless look in his eyes. I knew he would not live long now.

  As always, Star took great pains in building her nest. She had discovered that the threads from the Persian rug in the sitting room were perfect for this, and she flew back and forth with beakfuls. I rolled up the rug and put it in the passage, but she swiftly realised what I had done, so I put the rug back; it was better for her to pluck from the whole carpet than to make bald patches at its edges.

  At the beginning of April Star tried to chase another pair of Great Tits, Dusty and Cross, away from her part of the garden. Dusty and Cross were an older pair; they had built a nest near the path the previous year, but that had now been taken by others. There was enough room in the garden and I did not understand why Star wanted to expel them. She was extremely determined, but so was Dusty, and when she drove Dusty off even after she had laid her eggs, I decided to intervene—Dusty had as much right to the garden as Star. I kept chasing Star away if she came anywhere near Dusty’s nest. Star could not be stopped; she avoided me but was twice as fierce with Dusty when I was not around. She succeeded so well in making Dusty lose heart that she deserted her nest and found a new place in the neighbouring garden. It was really strange to see Star act so obsessively; in the past she was well able to share space with others.

  At the end of May her eggs hatched and then I understood why she had driven Dusty off: it had been a long, wet winter and there was insufficient food for two nests. I felt ashamed, and finally realised that Great Tits have a better understanding of what is good for them than I do.

  1937

  I brush the dust off the table and unpack my suitcase. What would Billie and Joan and Thea think if they could see me now, in this wooden hut with only a bed, a camp stove and a cupboard for my towels and clothing? And then I take off my suit, put my bathing costume on, dark blue to light blue, and walk down the narrow path through the back garden to the river. Poppies, cornflowers, buttercups. The water is clear and cool. I walk straight into the middle of the river, then sink into the water. For a moment I gasp for breath, and then swim, my hair waterweed, my hands water brown. I duck down and touch the bottom; the soft sand makes opaque smudges in the water. I rise to the surface, float on my back. The sun draws patterns on my eyelids, honeycomb cells. I shut them tight—the shapes shrink and grow, change to little circles and specks that swim away. A noise makes me jump. I open my eyes, twist my body round: a Duck. She accepts my presence as completely natural, although people seldom come here. Perhaps that’s exactly why. I cough and it startles her. “Sorry!”

  By a willow tree I turn back. I swim homewards, with slow strokes. Time here is hardly more than a change of the light.

  I lay two towels on the bed and lie down on my back. The rhythm of the train is still in my body; my mind is full of voices, the people in the London station, in the packed train carriage—human beings are hardly aware of how much they talk, how loud they are. Only yesterday evening I gave a performance for the mayor; this morning I said farewell to the children. Dear God! Poor little Bertie, with his dandruff and filthy face. Eleven years old, and his life is already mapped out: factory, wife, children—eight, nine, ten of them. Leah, Janet, Josie, working in the laundry already, a couple of days a week. These children won’t have anyone to teach them music now. Billie is supposed to be taking over, but she won’t have time till September. I cough again. Perhaps I’m getting a cold—but it’s hot, about eighty-six degrees, and the water evaporating from my body cools me down. I mustn’t imagine that I’m so important to them. I can only give them music, one short hour each week.

  I sit up. There’s a huge spider’s web behind the bed. The summer has just started and there are so many spiders already. I have no idea what this indicates. That cough again. I should take a drink of water. I wade through the heat to the little kitchen. A plate. No glass. I drink from the tap.

  I open my violin case, and tune up on the bed. My playing disturbs the silence, makes me too large, too present, too melancholic. I put the violin back. Another time, perhaps.

&nbs
p; The late light that seems so much clearer here, because we’re close to the sea, slowly lets itself be driven away. When darkness finally falls, the Blackbirds are still singing. My neighbours. Too tired for sleep, I stay on the veranda. The willows are absorbed into the darkness, and then come back, one by one. Sentinels.

  * * *

  “Billie!”

  “Gwen!” She takes hold of me and kisses my cheek. “But what’s this? You did write in your letter that it was a real hut, but not that it was so primitive! How can you bear it?”

  “I can practise here, and swim, and the air’s clean.” The heat has lodged in my body, made me slow, languid and passive.

  “But it’s the back of beyond here. I had to walk for half an hour and I only met a few cows on the way. Is it such a trek when you go shopping too?” She gives an exaggerated sigh, mops her forehead, wipes her hand on her culottes.

  “Mr Williams has lent me his pushbike.”

  She shakes her head. “Well, it certainly suits you, this seclusion.”

  “Shall we go for a swim? You brought your bathing costume, did you? Or we could go for a walk, perhaps. Just a little distance, and then you’re on the Downs. I saw Chiffchaffs up there yesterday, Blackcaps, Redstarts, Goldfinches.”

  She sits down and pulls off her shoes. “I’ve walked quite enough already, thanks. But what about a little drink?” She kneads her hair with her hands.

  “It’s one o’clock!”

  “I’m on holiday!” She stretches her legs out towards the door.

  “I’ll make a cup of tea first.”

  From the kitchen I ask her how things are with the orchestra, with her fiancé. I look out of the window at the garden, at the rolling landscape beyond.

  The Blackbird, whom I’ve called Ollie because he reminds me of my sister, is perched on the windowsill. I set a raisin down for him. Billie comes and stands in the doorway and grimaces. “Ugh, what are you doing?”