Bird Inside

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘Adrian wants you, Sally. That Greek chap’s just arrived. They’re waiting in the library.’

  Jane made a move to follow, was stopped by Christopher. ‘Could I have a word, Rose?’ He leant against the window, took a quick swill of his drink. ‘Look, Adrian’s just suggested offering you a job.’

  ‘A job? But I’m not trained. I mean, I did a week’s computer course, but it was absolutely basic, and my typing’s the two-finger stuff.’

  ‘Not that sort of job, just cleaning and what-have-you. A skivvy, you might call it. I told him absolutely no.’

  She stared at him, affronted. How dare he make decisions for her? A cleaning job would suit her fine – well, tide her over anyway, till she had decided on her life’s work. Skivvy was a loaded word, suggested exploitation, whereas everyone she’d met so far had been extremely kind and friendly, hadn’t put her down. It could be quite exciting – to work in an old manor house, with a chapel and a library, a brand-new leisure-centre.

  ‘He was only offering out of pity. He asked me who you were, so I told him very briefly that you’d lost your house and parents. Adrian’s a softie. He just can’t help himself. He’d offer Jack the Ripper a full share in the profits, if he suspected he was down on his luck.’

  ‘So I’m on a par with Jack the Ripper, am I?’ She stalked out of the chapel, voice indistinct with fury, stampeded down the passage. Christopher caught up with her, grabbed her by the wrist.

  ‘Of course I didn’t mean that. Can’t you take a joke? I merely felt a charring job would be demeaning for you, wrong.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about me.’ She shook his hand off, pulled away.

  ‘I know you’re intelligent and spirited, and have views on lots of things – unusual views, which prove you’ve got a brain. Why waste your life and talents scrubbing floors?’

  She stopped, confused, still wary. Did he really care what happened to her, truly think her talented? ‘But it could be quite a help. I mean, I need a job, and …’

  ‘Not this job you don’t.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Look, Adrian’s going to speak to you about it. I’d rather you said no. Okay?’

  She didn’t answer. He was like her bossy father, giving orders with no reasons. No wonder Sally had thought she was his daughter – granddaughter, more likely. Now she was close up to him, she could see the sapless texture of his skin, an old man’s skin, an old man’s heavy-handedness. The bit about her talents was simply empty flattery. The truth was more unpleasant. He didn’t want her hanging round, was bored with her already, a lame duck and a loser, who might irritate his client, prove herself a pest.

  ‘Anyway, I really ought to leave now. We’ll just say goodbye to Adrian, then I’ll drop you back at your place, and, if you like, we’ll discuss jobs on the way. I’ve got a few ideas.’

  She stumped on down the passage. She could imagine his ideas – ideas like her father’s: university, followed by a safe prestigious job, or maybe something phoney like Advertising, or designing cans of beans, which could be trumped up as ‘artistic’, but was really meaningless and shallow.

  Adrian wasn’t in his office. They found him by the swimming pool, showing round a swarthy man in an oyster-coloured suit, whose three-dimensional eyebrows jutted like twin thickets above his dank-pool eyes. Jane glanced at him perfunctorily, dazed by her surroundings, which claimed her full attention – her first sight of the leisure-centre, which had only been a word as yet. She hadn’t realised how large it was, how elegant, exotic. The pool wasn’t just boringly rectangular, like a municipal swimming bath, but shaped more like a natural lake, with tree-sized plants jungling all around it; more plants in the octagonal conservatory which opened out one end, and was bright with pinks and purples – begonias, hibiscus, and some fantastic flowers with violet-coloured trumpets. All the walls were glass, so that the trees and garden outside seemed part of the interior, and were reflected several times – in the dazzling rippled surface of the water, in the gleaming floor and translucent mirror tiles. Everything was shimmering in the eager morning sun, which was like some special light-effect laid on by the architects, to deepen all the colours, provide tiger-stripes of shadow. The stretch of dappled lawn outside led the eye horizonwards, then cajoled it back inside again as grass drowned in turquoise water.

  Jane moved towards the real lawn, from its reflection in the pool. Christopher had rushed to join the glaziers, who were up the other end, the younger one balanced on a ladder, calling down measurements to the stout chap at the bottom, who was scribbling on a pad. She felt too shy to follow, couldn’t speak their language, nor anybody’s here. She could see two gardeners sweeping leaves outside, a third carting off a fallen limb from a majestic spreading cedar. Apart from that one victim, there seemed very little damage from the storm. Was that what they were celebrating – or was champagne just Adrian’s substitute for morning tea or coffee when the electricity was off? He was uncorking a new bottle, offering it to his guest, who had now sauntered down to speak to Christopher.

  Once he’d filled both glasses, Adrian excused himself, loped between the tubs of plants to join her. His face was small and sallow beneath the dark-rimmed glasses, the eyes themselves a faded gentle blue. ‘Christopher told you about the job, did he? How d’you feel about it?’

  ‘I … I’m still not sure what sort of job it is.’

  ‘Oh, a bit of everything – cleaning, running errands, helping Sally, maybe, when she’s up to her eyes; even giving me a hand. We’d call you our Girl Friday.’

  His smile was very genuine. She saw it light his eyes first, before it reached his mouth. She liked this man instinctively, his soft unruffled voice, the floppy sandy hair, which her mother would deplore as too long and unhygienic. She also liked the term Girl Friday, which suggested adventure and excitement. Man Friday had been saved from cannibals, helped Crusoe fight cruelty and evil. And today was even Friday, which seemed significant.

  ‘We’d need to talk money first, of course. The old girl who cleans at present is on a pretty basic rate, but you’d be doing more than her, so we could bump that up a bit. Poor soul, she’s getting gaga, which is really why I need you. I did advertise last week, in fact, but the only takers so far have been an Irish alcoholic and an ex-mental patient Jesus-freak who told me I was saved. It’s difficult to get good help round here, when there are so many jobs in Brighton and we’re off the beaten track.’

  Jane chewed her thumb, considering. It sounded plausible enough. Was he really just a softie, doing her a favour, or could she turn the tables and prove a help to him? She’d noticed dust on all the furniture, a vase of dying freesias, several gold-framed paintings stacked against the wall, as if no one had found time to put them up. She could take a pride in making this house beautiful, could transform that splendid chapel – wax the floor, load the place with flowers. Why should Christopher restrict her, interfere at all? It was Adrian’s decision, Adrian’s home and job. She could just as well have answered his advertisement, come here independently without a chaperone.

  ‘I know charring sounds a drag, Rose, but we can probably find you plenty else to do, and we’re a really friendly bunch here, almost like a family. I try to keep things quite informal and …’

  ‘It’s not a drag – far from it. I’d really like the job.’ Nice to join a family, replace her own lost home, even acquire some elder siblings. That man in the red braces – she had liked the look of him – a tall man with a face like Keats; a face she’d often studied in her Complete Collected Works, with its dramatic dark-lit portrait at the front. ‘It’s just that …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ She might even get a place to live – not a grand room in the house, of course – that would be presumptuous, but she had noticed several outbuildings: stables, sheds and lean-tos; surely somewhere she could camp. ‘Look, if I did say yes, could I start immediately – say Monday?’

  ‘No problem. This morning, if you lik
e. In fact, if you really want to get stuck in straight away, you could start by clearing up these empty glasses and watering the plants.’ Adrian had taken off his spectacles and was polishing them abstractedly on a crumpled off-white handkerchief. His eyes looked weak without them, blinking in the light, like prisoners who’d been let out of their cells. ‘And no questions asked if you want to finish up the bubbly.’ He grinned, pushed back his limp fair hair, which was now falling in his eyes. She returned his smile, which seemed to make them two conspirators.

  She knew she could get on with him, that he wouldn’t nag or hassle, or be on her back continually. Yet …

  ‘Well, what d’you say?’

  She paused a second, glanced up at the artist, who was standing on his own now, fumbling for a cigarette, half of him in shadow, half stippled by the sun. His scarf had fallen to the floor and was lying like a limp discarded chrysalis. His face looked grey and tired, no longer the smiling vibrant mask he had assumed since ten o’clock, but a naked face, shocking in its sadness. She looked away immediately, feeling almost guilty, as if she had burst into a private room, stumbled on some secret she had no right to know or guess. She could see his scarlet birds again – tortured birds, flying into void, some with empty eye-sockets, others tragically distorted like avian thalidomides.

  ‘Well?’ repeated Adrian, the first note of irritation jarring his soft voice.

  She tried to drive the birds away, could feel their scarlet plumage scalding in her cheeks. ‘I … I’m afraid I can’t. Not now.’

  ‘Well, Monday then. Can you make it nine o’ clock?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Christopher broke into a run, streaked across the shingle, right down to the sea’s edge, sidestepping and dodging as the breakers rolled towards him, foamed around his ankles. Jane panted to keep up with him, surprised at his agility, the speed with which he moved, as if he’d once been a champion sprinter and was still in daily training. The sea looked weary in comparison; had spent its force last night and was now torpidly recovering. Those leaden waves had reached forty feet and higher, if the reports could be believed. They had been listening to the radio as they’d driven back from Adrian’s; taken a detour to the beach to check the latest bulletins: ‘The Grand Hotel in Seathorpe collapsing like a pack of cards; a twenty-storey block of luxury modern flats twisted like a corkscrew.’ This lonely stretch of promenade was more or less deserted – no grand hotels or flats at all, no gang of council workers sent out to clear the shambles, no stray dog or beachcomber. Even the usual raucous sea-birds seemed to have completely disappeared, as if the storm had sucked them up, hoovered the whole sky, left no trace of their corpses. Other corpses had been hurled across the shingle, relics of dismembered boats; one whole but dented craft all but buried in the stones. All along the promenade, benches had been overturned, or blown away like driftwood. ‘BEACH HUTS FOR HIRE’, a notice said, but no one could hire these. The once neat and whitewashed row had collapsed into a waste of flattened boards; personal possessions glinting from the wreckage: a plump steel kettle, a plastic picnic set, a child’s toy pick-up truck.

  ‘This storm came out of nowhere,’ the reporter had announced. She had tried to block her ears. It was too much like her life – a shock and devastation springing out of nowhere at a jolly birthday party, no hint of it before, no warning, preparation. She stopped a moment, shivering, gazed eastwards down the coast to where she guessed her own beach was, just two miles away. Her house had probably fallen like those huts. She would have to go and check, kept putting off the moment, relieved to follow Christopher when he’d suggested reconnoitring, so long as the havoc they were viewing was not on her own doorstep. She was lagging far behind now, feet aching from the drag and shift of stones, while the artist seemed to leap them, zigzagging and circling, as if he’d been fitted with a powerful private motor.

  ‘Wait!’ she called, but her words were blown away. The wind was pestering still – flapping at her coat, tangling her long hair – irritable and restless, rather than savage like last night. She crossed a bare patch on the beach, where the wind had hurled the shingle right up on the promenade. They had seen it earlier – piled-up drifts of pebbles, huddled close together, as if each small stone had fled to seek asylum with its brothers against the anger of a wild rampaging father.

  ‘Can we go back?’ she shouted, suddenly jumping up on a ledge of rock, and forcing her tired voice to outsmart the wind, outboom the rhythmic threshing of the waves.

  The artist heard her this time, waved a jaunty hand, started plunging back towards her, throwing up the shingle like a high-stepping spirited horse. His mood had changed completely. She had first noticed in the car, when he’d been humming some triumphal tune against the background of disasters on the news. She presumed he must be drunk. Just as they were leaving, that foreign man had asked to have a word with him, and they’d sat closeted together in Adrian’s private office, probably knocking back champagne.

  ‘You seem pretty high.’

  ‘I am.’ He grinned. ‘I’ve got a new commission – well, maybe – cross your fingers. Of course, there’s always many a slip, etcetera, especially on big jobs. In fact, I wasn’t going to tell you, or say a word to anyone till it’s absolutely certain. I suppose I’m superstitious that way. But I’ve got a sort of hunch that this one’s going to happen.’ He stooped to pick up a shell, inspected it a moment before skimming it away. ‘You know that dapper Greek chap I was talking to at Adrian’s – well, he’s putting up the cash for a huge new Civic Centre, bang in the middle of Manchester. Stanton Martin’s the architect. He’s a one-off, Rose, a visionary. I never thought I’d get the chance to work with him, especially on a scheme like this. The plans are almost finalised, and they include a whole vast wall of coloured glass – eight hundred square feet of it. Apparently Adrian told his Greek friend that I was just the man to do it, so Dimitri went to see my work – flogged all over London looking at my stuff, even drove to Swansea, to see my …’

  She was amazed that a new commission could so utterly transform him, change his voice and disposition, even alter his physique. There was colour in his cheeks now, his eyes looked bluer, brighter; his whole body more elastic. He was even speaking differently – faster, more staccato, with many of his sentences left hanging or in embryo, while he spawned a brood of new ones. She couldn’t always follow him, and the people he was mentioning meant absolutely nothing to her. Even the architect, whom he was still praising to the skies and had called a household name, could have been a brain surgeon, or an astrophysicist, for all she’d ever heard of him. She felt depressed by her own ignorance, ashamed of her resentment. Okay for him to gloat. He was famous, in demand, had work for several years ahead. She hadn’t even a charring job, or, come to that, a bed.

  ‘He said he’ll arrange for me to visit Stanton’s office, to discuss details with the great man himself. He knows my work already, and apparently Dimitri put my name forward at least a month ago, though quite unknown to me. Trust Adrian to be so bloody secretive.’

  She forced excitement in her voice as she offered congratulations, though feared it lacked conviction. She had always found it difficult to try to mesh with someone whose mood was totally different from her own; was scared of sounding phoney, or letting her dejection tarnish their high spirits. It had happened with her friend at school – curvaceous Helen Turner, engaged at seventeen, besottedly in love, while her own experience of love was gleaned mainly from the Oxford Anthology of Romantic Poetry and Prose.

  They were now drawing near to the outskirts of the town, walking high up on the promenade rather than floundering in the stones. The artist paused for breath, touched her shoulder lightly. ‘Tired?’ he asked. ‘You’re flagging.’

  ‘No’, she lied. ‘I’m fine.’ At least he seemed concerned, had slowed his pace to suit her, even found some chocolate, which he insisted on her eating, without claiming his half-share. She sucked a fragment off her tooth, glanced up
at a notice posted on the promenade: ‘In case of distress at sea, dial 999 and ask for coastguard’. The phone was just behind them, vandalised, hacked out of its socket, the receiver dangling helplessly. No coastguard, no connections.

  ‘What does Adrian do?’ she asked. Her thoughts kept turning to him, not to Dimitri or his architect. It must be nearly lunch-time. Was he in his chapel, praying – maybe even praying for her? She doubted anyone had prayed for her in her eighteen years of life. She’d never had godparents, never been baptised.

  ‘He’s in futures.’

  She wondered what they were, rather liked the sound of them. She was looking for a future, now her past had proved a fraud.

  ‘You know, betting on currencies and commodities – all that sort of thing.’

  She didn’t know, decided not to ask. She must already seem so ignorant – all these worlds she’d never heard of, skills she’d never have.

  They trudged on past the Continental Night Club, which had long ago closed down; Henri’s Ice Cream Parlour, boarded up for winter; the derelict crazy-golf course, glistening in the sun. She felt angry with that sun, the callous way it shone on grief and carnage, like someone laughing at a funeral, or dressing up in party clothes. The sky was postcard blue, as if feigning innocence, denying any knowledge of last night’s horror-scenes. ‘It’s cold,’ she said, turning up her collar.

  ‘I’m boiling. Here, have my gloves. They’ll help.’

  She stopped to put them on. The fingers were too long, the fronts clammy from his hands, a moist and private warmth she felt she shouldn’t share. He used the pause to light a cigarette, back turned to the wind, both hands cupped round his lighter, as if he were whispering some secret to it. They stood a moment side by side – two cars run out of fuel – he drained by his excitement, she exhausted from the walk. He suddenly leaned forward, removed a burr clinging to her coat. She shrank back instantly. The gesture seemed intrusive – too intimate, possessive.