Bird Cottage

by Eva Meijer

  The apple tree bends, cracks. I can’t see whether a branch has broken off.

  The rain forms a screen in front of the window. I could simply walk through it, into the garden, into the darkness, towards the future. To be surrounded by something greater than yourself, that is the dream of all mystics.

  In the morning I take stock of the damage. The oak to the east of the house has lost a large bough, just like the apple tree by the hedge, but otherwise only twigs have broken off. The birds are calm and quiet, but there are fewer of them than usual. I don’t know if they perhaps fled from the storm; I don’t know where they could flee. I twice put food out on the bird table, for those who are still here—they certainly need an extra source of energy. Two strangers are visiting: a Robin and a Thrush. Perhaps the wind has blown them this way. The Thrush keeps its distance, the Robin copies the other Robins and goes to the bird table. It’s often like that. Birds watch the behaviour of others of their kind to determine whether they’re safe, if they can come closer. I move my hand, the Robin makes a little sideways hop, then immediately returns. He seems to be an oldish chap. The sky is blue; the night’s oppressiveness has made way for feelings of relief. I go into the house. It’s time to knead the dough, otherwise this afternoon’s bread won’t be ready.

  STAR 10

  In October Star came and perched on the windowsill again, using the pose that showed she wanted to tap. I was talking to Garth on the telephone. “Hang on a minute.” I tapped five times, and held the receiver by the sill. She tapped five times in response. My friend was well able to hear it and reacted with enthusiasm. In the weeks that followed, Star and I continued to practise. The experiment made swift progress. Star never looked at me at all during the tapping and I am certain she reacted only to my voice; I made sure that I gave her no clues with my body.

  In November I tried to interest other Great Tits in counting. Beauty, the son of Star and Baldhead, already liked to tap the lampshades. One quiet afternoon I tapped a couple of times against the shade with a pencil. He did not understand, flew away while I was tapping, then swiftly returned to fetch his peanut when I had finished. After that I tried Monocle. She did tap, but never the exact number I requested. She would generally give four taps and then very proudly come to ask for a nut. Star and Monocle had never again quarrelled after Baldhead’s death, but Star became jealous if I was busy with another bird. Then she would sit somewhere close by and swiftly tap out the correct number.

  In Nature I read about a study on Pigeons that showed they responded to instructions from the human voice. I decided to try this with Star. “Four,” I said one morning and tapped four times. She tapped four too, and I gave her a nut. “Four,” I said again. She kept looking at me. “Four.” She hesitated, then bent forward and very swiftly tapped four times. We repeated this again later in the day: first by tapping at the same time as saying the word, and then with the word alone; she seemed to grasp the aim very well. In the weeks that followed she learned five, six, seven and eight in the same fashion. The number nine was not successful, because I could not tap it quickly enough. Time passes much more swiftly for birds than for human beings and my slow tapping probably bored Star. She always started to tap when I reached eight, so we never managed a higher number. This was our way of working that winter.

  1943

  The Canadians loom up from the mist, in the darkness of the coming winter, as if in a dream, something from former times. There are six of them, all heavily wrapped, their helmets an unnecessary ornament. The fellow in front is forcing his way through the hedge.

  “Hey, hey, wait.” I run out in my slippers. “You can’t just do that.”

  A tall man steps forward. “We’re on exercise, moving through the gardens into the town. We can’t take account of the inhabitants.”

  The Great Tits have flown out of the hedge and they perch on me.

  The man stares at me with his mouth half open, till I take a step forward. “Wow. I’ve been in England for years now, and I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve never seen any wild birds behave like this. Anywhere.”

  I tell him about the birds that live here. That I’m researching them—their language, habits and individual characteristics. That birds are more sensitive to disturbance than people and that it took years to build this trust. Trust precedes friendship, precedes every close relationship, but it grows deeper if it isn’t betrayed.

  “So this isn’t an English custom? You just decided to live with these birds?” He takes off his helmet.

  “The Great Tits decided to live in the house with me.”

  Patch flies towards me, hesitates, but then lands on my head.

  “Amazing. Never seen birds so tame before.” He leans towards me to take a better look. Patch flies away. “Listen, we’ll change our plans. A little tricky, but we’ll have to do it. Pay attention, guys.” The men listen less carefully than the Great Tits. He tells them to bypass the garden. The fellow in the hedge is still stuck there. His leader gives him a look, warning him to take care.

  As soon as the men start moving, the birds fly up, into the chestnut tree, into the hedge, across the field—to understand the world like this, from a tree, from within a hedge. I can hear the men talking a little longer, laughing, their leader explaining something to them with his deep voice.

  The next afternoon I see that the signboard at the top of the path has vanished. I thought I heard soldiers this morning—and now they have a souvenir, something tangible to back up their tall stories. Now there’s no signboard there, and perhaps that’s better. A sign attracts people’s attention, and what the birds most need is peace and quiet.

  * * *

  Black Geese form a V against the white sky. Barbed wire, light mist. I knock, nudge open the back door of the farmhouse, explain the situation, ask as politely as I can.

  The woman at the table shakes her head. “I’m sorry.” She drops a potato into the pan of water and takes another from the sack in front of her on the table.

  I thank her and leave. There’s no butter anywhere now. Not in Keymer, nor in Westmeston, and probably not in Clayton either. I’ve called at all the farmhouses, but everything has already been taken for the soldiers and quantities are checked. I would be able to manage with the set ration, but it’s not enough for the birds. They say it’s going to be a cold winter and I lost too many Tits last year already.

  I walk south along Brighton Road, to Clayton Hill. I would really like to call at one last farmhouse, but my feet are on fire. Moreover, if I walk back via Keymer, I won’t manage to get home before ten. The long, empty fields seem blue; the hedges that divide them are bare. Sheep stand with their backs towards me. They’ve forecast rain, says Theo. He has the radio on all day. Yesterday he said that he thought he should enlist, even though he’s exempt.

  A jeep approaches me from behind. I keep close to the hedge. As it passes I see there are four soldiers inside. The driver brakes and then reverses, the sound of the engine higher and louder than just now.

  When he reaches me, he leans out. I don’t stop. He drives beside me at walking pace. “Can we give you a lift?”

  “No, thanks. And besides, I wouldn’t fit.”

  The men at the back whoop. No, not men, they’re boys, spotty, pimply, barely out of school.

  “They’ll budge up for you, miss. Aw, come on. We’ll do you a fry-up, at the camp.” A wink, laughter, elbow prods.

  “Sorry, chaps.”

  The man at the wheel shrugs. “Okay. Up to you.” His voice is raw and smoky, growling above the engine.

  All four of them wave at me, children on an outing. I wave back and grin, in spite of myself. On the other side of the road I spot a large bird and hold my breath—a Goshawk.

  The path up the hill is muddy. A little stream runs down its centre, over the gravel. I choose the water rather than the clods of mud, hoping that the soles of my boots are high enough. A brown horse looks over the fence at me. I say hallo, then hear a Spotted Woo
dpecker to my left. A Robin rustles in the hawthorn. A Wagtail flies up as I walk past. The wood begins a few yards further up—I can hear an Owl—last week I saw a Barn Owl in the garden. It wasn’t a warm year, there won’t be enough mice for them.

  Dusk settles down among the trees. Blue turns to bluey-grey, ten minutes, dark bluey-grey, twenty, I walk downhill, dark grey against black. I only see my boots because they’re walking, I only walk because there is a rhythm, I follow the rhythm of my feet and move automatically.

  At the gate I look for the key to my post-box, the little flag has been raised. The keys are under my purse, at the bottom of my shopping basket. I find them by touch. The lock of the post-box is rusty. I jiggle at it; it takes a while to get it open. Two letters.

  “Gwen?”

  A tall, bearded man is standing by the oak tree. I haven’t seen him for more than twenty years, but I recognise Paul immediately.

  * * *

  I walk ahead of him, on the path up to the house. My heart is beating so loudly—if he walked closer, he’d hear it. He stays behind me, step by step. “Are you all right?”

  He clears his throat. “Yes. But it’s cold.” Foxes are yipping in the distance.

  I open the door—the key trembles in my hand—and turn on the light inside. “Sit down.” I indicate the armchair by the hearth. “I’ll make a pot of tea. And would you like something to eat?” He’s shivering. I take his coat, heavy and stiff with dirt. Once he’s sitting in the chair, covered with a blanket, I light the fire.

  He gives a faint smile and gazes at the flames. I sort out the bed in the guest room. I mustn’t forget to give him a hotwater bottle. Peetur comes to take a look and flies with me from my shoulder to the linen cupboard.

  “You must think it’s strange,” he says. I hand him a cup of tea with plenty of sugar and a slice of cake on the saucer. “Me standing at your door, without warning.” His eyes are dull.

  “I’m sorry, there’s no milk. I swop milk for butter, for the Tits and Robins and occasional Sparrow. Milk’s no good for them.”

  “I’ve walked all the way.” He dips the cake into his tea. “You’re still busy with birds, are you?” He finishes the cake in three mouthfuls.

  “You’ll have to behave yourself, you know. They’re not keen on strangers.”

  “And your violin? Come on, play something for the weary traveller.” His shoes are wet.

  “Take off your shoes. I’ll fetch some socks.” Socks, bread—and butter, but never mind—another cup of tea. His feet are all red, covered in sores and blisters, craters, hills, all red and white—a miniature landscape of war. He puts the socks on, pulls the blanket up to his armpits.

  “Goodness, Gwennie. You’re all grown up now!”

  I laugh. “You too.”

  He shuts his eyes as I tune my violin. Something light—I play Satie for him, making it sound like an evening: blue, but clear, and not too melancholic.

  Meanwhile the fog wraps itself around the house, thicker and thicker, till you can’t see beyond your own hand; the arm simply stops at the elbow and the trees recede gently, tree by tree by tree. The Great Tits have gone to their roosts already, not at all disturbed by the man in the blanket who is simply breathing now, not thinking any more, drifting in and out of sleep as I play—in, out, in, out—till the day turns to night. Till it’s completely silent outside, and the sky is dark grey and heavy.

  The next morning he’s already up when I get out of bed. I can hear footsteps move into the kitchen, hear him open the window—someone must be on the windowsill. He comes into the sitting room, starts to make the fire. I can’t have that. We’ll run out of wood soon. I stand. “Paul, I never light the fire during the day. Otherwise we won’t get through the winter.”

  “I’ll chop some wood for you.” His voice sounds deeper than before, warmer. Perhaps my memory has distorted its sound. I used to love his voice.

  He sits down in the armchair. Hop and Skip watch him from the lamp stand. “Aren’t they tame!”

  “I’ve worked at it. They know now that they have nothing to fear from me.” I tell him about my research, that I sometimes write articles on birds for two different magazines about country life: Out of Doors and Countrygoer and Countryman. I’d like to write for a proper scientific journal, but they don’t take my work seriously. “And what about you?”

  He tells me that he joined the Forces, the Air Transport Auxiliary. He’d had previous experience of flying and they needed older pilots to ferry the planes, sometimes even to the Continent. He was short of cash, had problems with his lady friend—it seemed the ideal solution. It went well at first, but was hazardous; they were under continual threat of attack from the Germans, even when flying over England. But one dark Tuesday evening he met a girl, big dark eyes, a green frock, a soft laugh. He went back to her parents’ farm with her. It was easy, like clockwork almost. The next morning he woke up in the hay barn. Alone and too late for his flight. One of his friends, Simon, knew about the girl and flew instead of him. The plane was shot down over the Channel. Paul falls silent. Hop swoops down from the lamp to the table, looking for crumbs in the thick chenille. “I couldn’t do a damned thing to stop it. When I got to base, I was immediately hauled before the CO. Someone had apparently said that I’d passed information to the Hun. I denied this at once, of course. They asked for proof. But everyone knows that innocence is hard to prove. I told them about the girl, so they questioned her, but she denied it all. Frightened of her father, I think. Or perhaps it was a trap.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “I don’t know, it just feels wrong. I’d never missed a flight before.” He taps his forefinger on the arm of the chair.

  Hop finds something in the tablecloth and flies out of the window with it.

  “Two weeks back there was a bit of a scuffle as they were exercising the prisoners, and I was able to escape. I hid in an empty cabin in the woods, and when the food ran out, I went on the tramp. I thought of your father. He was always good to me.”

  Father always saw Paul as more of a son than Kingsley or Duds.

  “Someone told me that your sister is taking care of your Mother and Dudley. They live in Budleigh Salterton, right?”

  I nod. “Newman died in 1936, of pneumonia.” It’s been a long time since I thought about my father. I pinch my thigh.

  “And your older brother?”

  “Kingsley stayed in France after the First World War. We thought he’d been lost in action, but in 1919 he wrote a letter to say that he’d met someone and that the girl already had his child.”

  “In the Forces then, like me.”

  My mother visited him in France once. She didn’t say much about it, just that he had a darling wife, and two darling children. “Darling”—a word cast over things to soften them. Hop flies in again, straight to the chenille cloth. He pecks at it as if it’s a lawn.

  “And then I heard you were living alone in Ditchling. Closer than Devon, and with the advantage that just one person would know that I’m here.”

  “So, you’re not here for me, then.” It’s a joke, not a reproach.

  “You haven’t let me finish what I was saying.” He sounds offended. “And that person would be you. I know you found me attractive, in the past—but you were still too young. I shouldn’t have had that fling with Margaret. I know it broke your heart.”

  “Don’t overrate yourself.” That day by the water—the heat, the boat, the wet chemise. “Margie has lived in France for years too, with her husband.”

  “And didn’t you ever marry?”

  I shake my head. Thomas sent me a letter last year, saying he missed me. It’s in the top drawer of my desk. Skip flies out. Hop follows him, tries to overtake him at the top window, veers sharply at the last moment so as not to fly against the pane. A few tiny feathers lie on the table. I pick them up and put them in the drawer, with the other feathers. It’s a shame to throw them away.

  “And what are your plans?”
/>
  “I’d hoped to stay here a while. To catch breath.” He looks questioningly at me. I bide my time. “And then I’ll go north. I have a friend who lives in Scotland, with his parents.”

  There is no plan. “How long is a while?”

  “A week?” He searches my face for clues. “A few days?”

  “A week is fine. I’m afraid I don’t have enough supplies for any longer.”

  He nods, barely. “I’ll sort out my own food.”

  “You’re not going to sort out anything at present. Just rest a while. But how’s Patricia?”

  “She’s divorced. Living in London and working for a small publishing firm.” He says she’s living with a woman and is much happier now. “I’ll tell her you said hallo.”

  I give a whistle as I put food on the bird table and realise that I’m doing this because the birds are avoiding me. “Sorry,” I say to Star, all bright and cheery. She then lands on my shoulder and hops down to my open hand for her peanut.

  That afternoon, after cleaning the house, I walk to the Alfords’ farm across the fields behind Bird Cottage. My boots leave prints in the wet grass, carry mud along, then drop it again a little further on. Sink, tug. The Alfords have dairy cows and if Mrs Alford isn’t there, I can perhaps buy some butter or cheese. The Great Tits follow me, flitting around my head. Little Michael is playing in the sandpit in front of the house.

  “Is your Daddy at home?”

  He nods, runs inside. The birds fly to the hedge.

  “Hullo, Gwen.” Michael senior’s face seems more furrowed than normal.

  “How are you?” I ask. In the air above the meadow Starlings are dipping and diving in formation together—opening, closing, circling.