Schrodinger's Cottage

by David Luddington

  “Don't want to pay too much mind to George,” Arthur said. I realised I was standing at the bar and I had no recollection as to how I'd got there.

  “What?” I said.

  “George, he's lived here all his life and generally won't even talk to somebody who hasn't buried at least two grandparents in the graveyard.”

  “I feel honoured indeed.” I finished my beer, waved Arthur goodbye and set off to buy some essentials.

  Chapter Two

  I struggled to manoeuvre the shopping past my car which remained trapped in the drive. Eventually I piled everything on the roof and slid the bags forwards towards the bonnet then retrieved them from the front. I would need a better system. On second thoughts, what I really needed was a chainsaw.

  Anticat weaved through my legs as I struggled up the overgrown path leading to the front door. I slipped the lock and pushed my way past the cat to dump everything on the kitchen table. 'Everything' consisted of some milk, coffee, bread, frozen pizza, a case of Budweiser and more 'Happy Cat''. I had no idea how much cats ate.

  I gazed through the window as I put the kettle on. The early afternoon sunlight brought out the colours in the jungle. The bright orangy coloured flowers on the big bushy thing contrasted beautifully with the pale blue that seemed to cover the prickly one. I couldn't see the end of the garden from here. I'd been told it was over an acre. I hadn't the faintest idea what an acre was and when I'd asked Google I'd been helpfully informed it was the amount of land an ox could plough in a day. I'll have to explore.

  Anticat gave one of her short squeaky meows which I'd come to understand as meaning 'More Happy Cat please'. I emptied the last of the original packet into her bowl. She sat and looked at the bowl for a moment then crunched furiously at the little nuggets like she hadn't eaten for a month. I finished making my coffee and made my way through to the small dining room that linked the kitchen and the lounge. My laptop lay on the centre of the pine table. I switched it on and plugged in the internet dongle. I couldn't get a signal so I carried the laptop around the house until it picked up one bar on the small landing at the top of the stairs. As long as I held the laptop at a thirty-degree angle up against the little window.

  I downloaded my emails and returned to the dining room table to deal with the flurry of electronic correspondence that suddenly overwhelmed my inbox. By the time I'd deleted all the offers of improving my manhood or rescuing a Nigerian King's money from the nasty bank, the 'flurry' had turned into five emails, all from Tania demanding to know why I'd 'Gone Off Radar' and when could she expect the final copy for issue 172 of 'The Falconer'. I shut the lid of the laptop and stared out of the window. I'd been stalling on the latest story and Tania knew it. I'd been writing the adventures of The Falconer now for twenty-one years. 171 issues of superhero derring-do. And I'd had enough. There's only so much you can do with a Super Hero with extendable talons and the ability to command birds of prey. But the fans never cared. They just demanded more and I churned out copy after copy. Essentially the same half dozen stories reworked issue after issue. I'd grown tired of him and I wanted to try something different. So issue 172 was where I planned to kill him off. If I could bring myself to write the words.

  Anticat walked across the laptop several times before climbing on the window ledge and pawing at the glass. I pushed the window open for her and she slid through like a shadow disappearing under a bright light. I watched as she reappeared briefly from some yellow flowery stuff then slid out of view completely.

  I pulled open the laptop and started typing an email. 'Dear Tania, I have decided that the time has come to kill off...' Delete. 'Dear Tania, after much thought about the journey I have been on all these years with The Falconer, I have decided it is time to move on and...' Delete. Anticat tried to help by walking across the keyboard typing random letters for me. I pushed her off several times then looked at her offering. Although her version of my email seemed to make more sense than mine, I still deleted it and closed the laptop. I'll do that tomorrow, I'm not in the mood today.

  Anticat used my lap as a springboard then sat expectantly by her empty bowl. I suddenly realised I hadn't seen her come back in. No wonder these things are such good hunters. One just can't see the buggers coming. I emptied more nuggets from the new packet of Happy Cat into her bowl and she ate happily. I wonder if cats are like goldfish. Will they just keep eating everything you give them until one day you find them bloated on the surface of the fish tank?

  This time she left half the food and headed off through the lounge. Presumably to do more cat stuff out the front door this time.

  I watched through the window as a large magpie swooped into the garden and settled onto a small wooden platform that hung from a rather sparse looking tree. He looked all around before flying off again. I realised the wooden platform was supposed to be a bird table of sorts and no doubt the magpie had come for lunch. I'd heard that magpies are spooky birds and it's probably best not to upset them. There's a rhyme somewhere in the dark corners of my childhood memories that warns of the dangers of not treating them with due respect. Having no idea what magpies eat I decided to try him on a little Happy Cat. Although apart from a frozen pizza or a can of Budweiser, it was about all I had.

  I still hadn't found the key to the back door yet so I went out the front door and round to the rear garden. I sprinkled a handful of Happy Cat on the little hanging platform and returned to the kitchen. I watched for a while then the magpie returned to settle on the table. I waited to see if my sacrifice of Happy Cat would suffice. Evidently it wouldn't. The magpie skittered around the little table for a moment before taking off once more. Okay, so Happy Cat is not the preferred menu item for magpies. A little brown bird fluttered onto the platform. I peered through the window trying to see if it would take the food. The table appeared to be bare. How odd. The little bird padded about for a moment before hurtling off into the undergrowth like a stone from a catapult. I looked again at the table to see if I could see the food. It was definitely empty. I guessed the magpie must have eaten it all in the time it took me to walk back round through the front. Perhaps I hadn't upset the magpie clan after all. That's a relief. But I had disappointed the little brown one though. I took a small handful of Happy Cat and headed back to the rear garden.

  The platform already had the original nuggets on it. Neither of the birds had taken it, I had obviously just not been able to see it clearly from the kitchen window. I returned to the kitchen and dropped the nuggets into Anticat's bowl.

  I thought I probably ought to eat something so I pulled a frozen pizza from its box and set about trying to understand how the oven worked. After close investigation I deduced that in order to make the oven work I first needed to cut down several trees and fill up one side of this beast with logs, set them on fire and wait several hours for it to heat up to a temperature where it could cope with pizza. I returned the pizza to the freezer. I could see 'Instant Food' might have its difficulties in Tinker's Cottage.

  A noisy chattering drew my attention from the garden. The magpie danced around the little wooden platform. I squinted my eyes and peered at the table. It was empty. Of that there was no doubt. One empty bird table and one very irate magpie. Another handful of cat nuggets and I once more circumnavigated the cottage to the rear garden. The bird table already had cat nuggets on it, just as it had last time I'd come round. So why could I not see them from the window? I didn't think my eyes were that bad. After all, I was The Falconer with fifty-mile vision and talons of steel. I should be able to see a bird table not five metres from my window!

  I returned to the kitchen and looked out through the window. The bird table was empty, apart from unhappy magpie in full telling-off mode. I gave up and threw the handful of Happy Cat through the window to land just underneath the platform. The magpie flew off at this obvious attempt to kill it by throwing cat nuggets in its direction. A few minutes later several of the little brown ones gathered underneath the platform to investigate the o
ffering.

  I opened up the laptop and penned a bland email to Tania explaining I was just putting the finishing touches to the artwork for issue 172 and clicked send. It didn't send of course. I took the laptop to the sweet spot at the top of the stairs and aligned it to the perfect angle required and eventually my email slid off into the ether. From this upstairs window I had a better view of the area. Tinker's Cottage was indeed isolated. Nothing but trees and fields, apart from the small lane to the east. The fields rolled upwards to some woods at the top. Halfway between the end of my garden and the woods, a huge oak tree stood proud and alone. I know it's an oak as I used to play in one just like it when I was a small boy. Mine was hollow and held the secrets of the elves and goblins.

  I returned to the kitchen to find Anticat sat by her bowl. “You can't be hungry again!” I looked down at the bowl. It was still half full of cat nuggets. By the side of the bowl lay the fresh corpse of one of the little brown birds. Ah, now I see why the platform is raised.

  “And just what am I supposed to do with that?” I asked the cat shaped hole in space. “Do you want me to lightly sauté it in a little olive oil and garlic for you?”

  The cat's eyes blinked in and out of existence several times. I picked up the little bird by its tail and took it out to the dustbin. I felt sorry for the little mite. I'd led it to its demise with the temptations of Happy Cat and now it was going to an unceremonious internment in a black wheelie bin. I shut the bin lid and headed back to the kitchen to discuss with Anticat the rules of the house. Anticat was nowhere to be seen.

  *****

  The village of Trembly consists of one small general store that seems to be a conversion of somebody's front room, The Camelot Pub, and a church the size of Westminster Abbey. Also on a Wednesday morning Badger's Farm opens its Farm Shop and this being Wednesday morning I decided to explore.

  “Good morning, Mister Faulkener,” I was greeted by a tall woman who was busy organising onions in a display box. “How are you settling in?”

  “Err, fine.” Clearly, I was the news topic of the week.

  “What can I do for you?” She straightened up and dusted her hands on her blue striped apron.

  I panicked. “Cheese,” I announced randomly. “I was looking for some cheese.”

  “We've got a lovely Somerset Tangy.” She held up a packet of Somerset Tangy to prove her point.

  “Okay, I'll have one of those and...” My eyes drifted around the shop looking for food I didn't need to cook. “And a Cornish pasty and I'll have one of these.” I picked up a packet of bird food that had a picture of little brown birds on it so I assumed it was alright for the ones in my garden. Maybe the reason Anticat had killed the bird was because they were eating her food. My eyes lighted on a net bag of split logs and thoughts of pizza returned. “And I think I need some of these for my cooker,” I said hefting the bag onto the counter.

  I returned to Tinker's Cottage and struggled once more past the jammed car. I was really going to have to do something about that. I dropped the food and logs by the front door then went straight round the back in order to leave a little of the bird food out whilst I had it in my hands. I felt a need to appease the birds for the senseless slaughter of their brother I appeared to have caused. I opened the packet and sprinkled some of the seeds on the hanging platform and turned towards the cottage. The back door was open.

  My first thought of course was of giant goblins with pitchforks. I pushed that to one side and the slightly more rational fear of axe wielding drug crazed hoodies came to mind. I pressed myself against the wall and sidled towards the open door the way I'd seen it done on CSI. Except of course they had guns and I had a packet of bird seed. On the bright side though, at least whoever the intruder was had managed to open the bloody door for me. I peered around the edge of the door. The intruder, clearly female had her back to the door. She wore blue jeans and a tight white T shirt contrasted the jet black hair that tumbled down her back. I was about to burst in and threaten her with the bird seed when I realised she was doing a strange silent dance. My fears which had briefly subsided in the absence of masked maniacs once more rose. I'd seen The Wicker Man. I understood young women performing strange dancing type rituals in isolated villages.

  I moved closer to the door and just at that moment she turned to face me. She screamed and I think I might have screamed too but I wasn't sure. I raised the packet of birdseed over my head. She threw her hands across her face and dropped to the floor in a crouch. I waited to see if she was going to metamorphosise into some hideous creature. She didn't. She pulled a set of earphones from her ears and threw them to the floor, sobbing and jabbering in some strange language. Next to her lay a discarded can of spray polish and a duster. Okay, I suppose I just might have got hold of the wrong end of the stick here.

  The strange jabbering language reminded me of Spanish. Very much of Spanish come to think of it. She stared up at me, eyes wide in terror. I realised I still held the birdseed over my head. I put it down and crouched in front of her, holding my hands out in a friendly gesture. She pushed herself back towards the cupboard she had been polishing when I'd arrived.

  “What you want?” she asked with a touch of defiance in her voice.

  “My cottage,” I said, waving my arms around the room. “Mine.”

  “No,” she said. “Senora Flora. This is her house.”

  “Aunt Flora? Senora Flora is... She died ten years ago. I'm Ian, her nephew. Well, sort of nephew.”

  She pulled herself to her feet but still kept her distance. “Why you say this?” She tugged a mobile phone free of her hip pocket. “I clean house for Senora Flora every week.” She waved the phone at me. “You go now or I telephone the Police.”

  “Ah, you work for Hunter and Parks? The estate agents?” Maybe they hadn't told her Aunt Flora had died. After all, why should they?

  “No! No estate agents!” She was getting more confident as I grew more confused. “Senora Flora lives here. Not you... not estate agents. Senora Flora.”

  “But I've just moved in. Didn't they tell you? Didn't you see my car in the drive?” It should have been difficult to miss, I thought.

  “What car? No car in drive!” She started jabbering in Spanish again. I presumed it was a string of insults directed at my sanity. A subject about which I was beginning to have increasing doubts.

  “Come, I'll show you my car.” I started towards the door. At least I could prove that I'd been here before she'd arrived. Although how she'd managed to not notice I couldn't imagine.

  She started walking behind me and just as I got to the door she gave me a shove in the small of my back and I stumbled into the garden. The door slammed shut behind me. I turned back towards the door to see her turning the key in the lock.

  “Idiot!” I cursed and pushed at the door. It didn't shift. Damnit. She continued jabbering from the other side although I could no longer hear what she was saying. She waved the phone towards then pulled the curtains closed.

  I stood outside for a moment replaying all that had happened. It still didn't make sense. My car? It must still be there. I'd had to squeeze past again on the way back. Hadn't I? Of course I had. She must be wrong. I couldn't miss a car. What if the car had really gone but my imagination had somehow retained it in my conscious? Knowing it was ridiculous, knowing I was going to find the car just where I'd left it, I had to check anyway.

  It was there of course. Just where I'd abandoned it yesterday. That meant I had a crazy woman loose in my cottage. A crazy woman who thought Aunt Flora was still alive and who could walk through cars. With a sense of righteous indignation, I set off back up through the front garden and in through the front door. My righteous indignation weakened into timid trepidation as I approached the lounge. All was silent. I pushed the door open and looked around the empty room.

  Oh hell! She must be hiding somewhere. I moved cautiously from room to room. I felt a bit like Clouseau waiting for Kato to jump out of a wardrobe at him. The tw
o upstairs bedrooms were completely devoid of mad Spanish women. In the main bedroom, my overnight bag still sat on the floor where I’d left it and my clothes spread haphazardly on the double bed. The second bedroom consisted of two single beds and a simple dresser. The pine wardrobe was empty.

  Downstairs I checked the lounge again it was still empty. I pushed at the back door, it was locked. A quick search for the key failed so I assumed she had her own keys. Although of course that didn't make any sense at all. I could almost understand a crazed woman with a desperate need to break into people's houses and give them a spring clean, but one with her own keys?

  Satisfied that the house was empty, she must have slipped out the back, I headed for the kitchen to make a nice sane pot of tea. That's one thing I did learn from Aunt Flora, when the world is going mad, a nice cup of tea puts it all back into focus again.

  Anticat greeted me with one of her single, sharp meows. She was sat by her empty bowl. I glanced down. Next to the bowl were the neatly arranged head, body and entrails of a small rodent. All beautifully removed and separated. A top surgeon couldn't have done a better job.

  “Now what?” I asked. Anticat pushed in and out of my legs then returned to her bowl. “Is that for me?”

  Perhaps this was in exchange for the Happy Cat I'd been providing. Although had I ever had a desire for filleted rodent I would have asked the butchery counter of Waitrose to prepare it for me. And how can this one cat eat so much?

  I gathered the remains of her gift up in some kitchen roll and deposited it in the dustbin, which at this rate was soon going to be full of what used to be the wildlife of Trembly. I picked up the packet of Happy Cat. I noticed it was beef and tuna flavour. As I poured it into her bowl, I wondered why they don't make bird flavoured cat food. Or rodent cat nuggets. Beef or tuna were hardly natural prey for a household moggy. I had this mental image of Anticat trying to bring down a calf.