The Songbird

by Marcia Willett

  ‘It was on the spur of the moment,’ Mattie said quickly, seeing her expression. ‘I sent him a text and he just happened to be up on the moor walking Wooster.’

  And, after all, thinks Charlotte, they’re perfectly entitled to want some time together: she wouldn’t want to play gooseberry. Even so, Mattie is still evasive about the relationship and it’s difficult to find out just how serious it is.

  Charlotte is pretty certain, though, that Mattie planned to see Tim on her way back. On Sunday evening Dad said, ‘Oh, by the way, Mattie, is it OK if I hitch a lift with you to London tomorrow? I’m going up for a reunion thrash. I can get the train back but it would be nice to have some company on the way.’

  Just for a second Charlotte saw a flash of chagrin on Mattie’s face before she said, ‘Yes, of course. Lovely. I shall want to get away after breakfast to try to beat the traffic, if that’s OK.’ And then a bit later she noticed her sister texting. It might have been a coincidence but some sixth sense told Charlotte that’s how it was: she’d arranged to meet Tim and was having to cancel. Though why she felt she had to is a bit of a mystery. It’s not as if he hasn’t met the parents. He was introduced when they came over to Brockscombe and he’s seen them a few times now when they’ve visited. The three of them could have had coffee somewhere.

  Anyway, it’s none of her business. Charlotte begins to unload Oliver from the car and glances around to see if Wooster is about. She wonders if he’s missed them.

  ‘You wouldn’t want to take Wooster to Washington,’ Dad said. ‘Crazy idea. We’ll have him here until you get back,’ and then Mattie said, ‘If I get the Exeter job, I’ll have him,’ which was almost as crazy as taking him to Washington.

  Everyone was very excited about Andy’s posting, assuring her how great it would be. It’s odd that they never seem to notice that the more they tell her how much she’ll enjoy something, the more she digs her heels in and feels stubborn about it. After all, how do they know what she feels or how it will be for her? It irritates her, people assuming they can influence her by sheer willpower. It’s the same way they still call Oliver ‘Ollie’ or ‘Ol’. They know she doesn’t really like it but they still do it as if by continual usage they’ll change her mind.

  Charlotte dumps her case by the car and carries Oliver indoors. It’s good to be home.

  Tim hears the car, goes to the window, and Wooster gets up, tail wagging expectantly. Tim hesitates. He wonders exactly what Mattie has said about their meeting and he feels just the least bit equivocal about seeing Charlotte.

  ‘We’ll tell her,’ Mattie said in the car park at the Two Bridges Hotel. ‘Of course we must. We’ll tell her about having lunch here but I’d rather like to keep the rest to ourselves. Do you mind?’ She looked at him anxiously. ‘Only because . . . well, it’s kind of private, isn’t it? Special.’

  He nodded and put his arms round her and held her closely. ‘Very special,’ he said.

  ‘What about meeting up on my way back on Monday?’ she asked hopefully.

  He nodded. ‘But not there,’ he said. He spoke without thinking and saw a shadow cross her face. ‘Not because it wasn’t special,’ he said quickly. ‘But simply because it was. Next time it might be raining or there might be someone walking or anything . . .’

  He didn’t know quite how to explain what he meant: that something spontaneous, an unplanned meeting, is so much more likely to have that particular kind of magic than an organized event that has expectation automatically built in to it. But she nodded, understanding at once.

  ‘What about here?’ she asked. ‘Or do you feel the same way?’

  He smiled at her. ‘Not quite. The fires will probably still be lit on Monday and there will probably be a sofa free. It’s not quite the same as your cave.’

  ‘We could meet here,’ she said, ‘and then drive on a bit if the weather’s fine. I know a nice little beach down by the river. I’ll have the hamper primed.’

  He laughed. ‘You do that. Let’s throw it in the lap of the gods.’

  She stretched up and kissed him. ‘Let’s do that then. I’ll text when I leave. I’ll tell Charlotte we had lunch here, and the parents if they ask. I’d better go.’

  He and Wooster watched her drive away, hand waving from the window. It hurt him to think that she might be wondering why he wouldn’t tell her the obstacle to their love: she must realize that he wasn’t involved with anybody else. Perhaps on Monday . . . But then he had her text saying that her father was cadging a lift to London. He wondered if he should suggest they all meet but he lost his nerve.

  Now, he goes out to see Charlotte, Wooster running eagerly ahead.

  ‘Hi,’ he calls through her open door. ‘Welcome home.’

  Wooster barges in and Charlotte comes to meet him. She looks happy, glad to be back, and he smiles at her and waves to Oliver, who is sitting in his chair at the table.

  ‘Did you miss us?’ she asks.

  ‘We certainly did. We had lots of walks and we met up with Mattie at the Two Bridges Hotel. It was really lucky. She texted to say that she was making good time and just driving up on to the moor and Wooster and I weren’t that far away. I’ve never been there before. It’s really good.’

  He listens to himself lying with such ease and feels a bit guilty but Charlotte has obviously heard it from Mattie anyway so she doesn’t look suspicious.

  ‘It’s a pity she couldn’t come in to see you on her way home,’ she says. ‘Only Dad’s going with her and he’ll want to get on.’

  He nearly says, ‘I know,’ and realizes how easy it is to get trapped. Instead he says: ‘Did Ollie enjoy himself?’

  ‘Mum always spoils him,’ she says, ‘but that’s what grannies do, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mine did,’ he says lightly. ‘But I don’t think it did any lasting damage. Well, I suppose you’ll be wanting Wooster back. I can keep borrowing him, though, I hope?’

  She immediately assumes the expression that Mattie calls ‘Charlotte’s organizing face’: a little frown and a pursing of the lips.

  ‘I still think you should have a dog of your own, Tim,’ she says. ‘I mean, why not? You’re so good with Wooster and it would be great company for you. Of course you can borrow him but why not have one of your own? Or is it because you don’t know what you might want to do next? You’re not thinking of leaving just yet, I hope?’

  All the alarm bells are ringing now and he feels trapped. Usually everyone goes along with the sabbatical idea, his having the inheritance, which means he can take time out, and he’s relaxed into a sense of safety.

  ‘I’ve got no plans to leave for a while yet,’ he says, smiling at her, ‘but a dog’s quite a responsibility, isn’t it? Well, look how you’re worrying about taking Wooster to Washington.’

  It’s rather neat, he thinks, to turn it back on her and distract her from his own problems. She gives a little snort.

  ‘Mum and Dad have offered to have him,’ she says. ‘They think it would be madness to take him to Washington. Even Mattie offered, which is utter lunacy.’

  ‘Did she?’ he asks, surprised. ‘How would she manage him in London?’

  ‘There’s this job at Exeter University. Did she tell you? If she gets that then she thinks she could cope with him somehow.’

  ‘Oh, yes. She did mention it.’

  Charlotte shakes her head. ‘How would he be when she’s at work? The trouble with Mattie is that she doesn’t think things through. Just wanting to do something is enough and all the problems will instantly dissolve. It’s what Dad calls her “can do” approach to life.’

  Tim laughs. ‘Well, I suppose it’s good to be positive.’

  Charlotte looks bleak. ‘It’s OK for her. Even when things go wrong she always has people flocking to help her out.’

  He watches her, suddenly feeling sorry for her. It can’t be easy, with Andy away, to carry on her life; waiting, wishing she could share things with him, taking all the responsibility for Oliver. Tim
doesn’t know how to offer comfort and even whether she wants it. Knowing Charlotte, he suspects she might see it as a weakness.

  ‘I was just thinking about doing a sandwich for lunch,’ he says. ‘Come and join me.’

  She hesitates, frowning, as if tempted, and then shakes her head. ‘I ought to get on and I’ve got to sort something out for Oliver.’

  He waits, sad that she can never quite let go, but wondering if she’s afraid to relinquish her hold just in case she might be swept away, out of control. Perhaps her rigid discipline is the only way she can cope with this odd life of hers.

  ‘OK,’ he says gently. ‘Good to have you back. I’ll get Wooster’s things, shall I?’

  ‘Yes, he’ll need his basket.’ She pauses as though she’s still having a little struggle with herself. ‘Look, why not bring your sandwich round and have it with us? I haven’t got much in, I’m afraid. I’ve got to do a supermarket run later. But it would be good to have some company.’

  ‘Great,’ he says. ‘Sure you don’t want to share my sandwich? There’s plenty.’

  She laughs and suddenly she looks younger, happy again. ‘Go on then,’ she says. ‘Why not? Thanks, Tim.’

  He hurries back to his own cottage to assemble a little picnic lunch and suddenly he thinks of Mattie with her hamper, the rug spread on the moorland turf, her ‘cave’ of granite and gorse. He remembers her saying, ‘Can you hear the lark?’ and how hot the sun was. At those moments it’s almost as if he can control this wretched disease and will it away: defeat it. How odd that, out of the blue that morning in London nearly six months ago, he should have casually asked Mattie the question: where should he go? He’d put his life in the hands of the gods and they brought him to Brockscombe.

  Tim packs the picnic into a plastic box, balances it in Wooster’s basket with the remains of his food and goes to find Charlotte.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  MATTIE IS RATHER late getting away – her father has a telephone call that has to be dealt with – and she feels regret as they cross the moor that her plan to meet Tim has been ruined. The weather is hot and sunny – unusually for the late May Bank Holiday – and she would have liked to show him her little shingly beach by the moorland stream, all hung about with alder and willow. They would have sat on the rug on the short, sheep-cropped turf, looking for a dipper, whilst Wooster enjoyed a paddle.

  This time she drives out of Tavistock on the Lydford road, the quickest route to the M5, but she wishes she was heading for Princetown and the Two Bridges Hotel, pulling in off the road over the little bridge, and seeing Tim waiting for her at one of the tables in the sunshine. It’s such a missed opportunity that she feels quite resentful towards her father, who sits beside her, unaware of her emotions, and droning on about which of his oppos are coming to the reunion.

  She thinks about Tim saying, ‘I do love you. I do but it’s just . . . it’s not that simple,’ and she wonders why it’s not simple. What is holding him back? Perhaps it’s because he hasn’t got a job – but he had one and gave it up. She’s certain that there’s nobody else. She knows that Charlotte would tell her if he had visitors or was away at nights or at the weekends. So what can it be? Of course, he might simply be one of those guys who find it impossible to commit, and yet he couldn’t hide his delight at the prospect of her moving to Exeter.

  It’s odd to be in love like this, with someone she rarely sees and who remains so elusive, though, of course, she’s known Tim for more than a year. She was grateful that Charlotte was tactful and made no remarks about him in front of Mum and Dad when she told them they’d had lunch together. Mum raised her eyebrow and said, ‘Oh, that was nice, darling,’ with a tiny question mark on the end of it as if she’d like to know more; Dad had just given her a little wink. Neither she nor Charlotte had ever told them much about Tim apart from the fact that he’d had an inheritance from his grandmother and was taking a career break to decide what he really wanted to do. They’d all got on quite well, Charlotte told her, when the parents visited Brockscombe. They knew Mattie had worked with him, of course, and so they probably assumed that if there had been any kind of relationship between them it would have shown by now.

  Perhaps, she thinks, it will be easier if I get the job in Exeter. He’ll be able to come and see me and we won’t be quite so much under everyone’s eye. I’m glad he’s at Brockscombe, though.

  It’s odd that she isn’t able to tell even her closest friends about her feelings for Tim. They know he’s gone to Brockscombe, and that she sees him from time to time, but that’s all. She plays down the mystery of his sudden departure and now they hardly think of him. It’s because instinctively she knows there’s something he’s not ready to tell her yet that she keeps their love a secret. After all, it would have been easy enough to tell Mum and Dad that she’d made a date to have coffee with Tim on the way back, but something prevented her. He made no suggestion that the three of them could have coffee together, and she would have been uncomfortable if he had, even though she doesn’t know quite why. Whatever it is that is preventing him from allowing their love to be a simple open thing keeps her silent too.

  Yet he seems such a genuine man – kind, friendly, funny – and a generous, passionate lover. She is so much in tune with him and she longs to be with him now in her little secret cave; the rug spread out, the hamper open, his arms round her as they listen to the lark.

  ‘It’s such a glorious day,’ her father says, ‘that we really ought to be up on the moor having a picnic rather than rushing back to London.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, rather bitterly, ‘we should, shouldn’t we?’

  ‘Still, we’d better crack on,’ he says cheerfully, unaware of her irritation. ‘We’re already running a bit late. Put your foot down, darling. We’ll have a bite of lunch at Sedgemoor.’

  Jerry drives slowly through narrow lanes, where shiny yellow buttercups and bright pink campion fill the ditches with vivid colour, and powdery heads of tall creamy cow parsley brush at his open window. As he idles along he hears the evocative call of the cuckoo in the valley and he stops to listen to those two magical notes, feeling the sun on his face and his arm, unwilling to drive on. He knows why he is so reluctant, why he is driving so slowly: it is because this meeting with his family is going to be a difficult one. His daughters and their husbands, with their assorted children, have clubbed together to take a holiday cottage for half-term week. It’s at Thurlestone, practically on the beach, which is not far for him to drive and it will be great to see them all again, yet he feels nervous. It is the first time ever that he has met with his family when he has something to hide.

  He knows, he just knows, he will not be able to talk about Kat. Mentally, every possible conversational opening regarding their relationship defeats him. He can imagine his daughters raising their eyebrows, their wary expressions, their almost tangible loyalty to Vee, as he begins to try to discuss Kat with them.

  It would be much easier to talk about Sandra, whom he has met in a conventional way – not in a casual pick-up in a café – through a local history club. She has introduced him to her friends and now there is a gentle flow of meetings, concerts, clubs that his children would find perfectly acceptable. The domestic, maternal Sandra is not such a threat to their mother’s memory as is the life force that is Kat.

  Indeed, Sandra has even offered to give the whole family lunch.

  ‘How wonderful for you to see them all,’ she said, her round pretty face beaming at the prospect of this pleasure in store for him. ‘Such a shame that it’ll be such a squash in your little flat. Listen. Why don’t I do a lunch? I’ve got plenty of room, a big garden, and lots of toys and books that my grandchildren love. You can host it and pay for it but just use my place to entertain them. Much nicer than an hotel.’

  It’s such a kind offer that he is deeply touched and agrees to think about it. It was certainly different from Kat’s reaction.

  ‘Good grief, darling,’ she said, looking h
orrified. ‘All nine of them at once? But, of course, you’re used to it, aren’t you? Well, let me know when the coast’s clear.’

  Remembering, Jerry laughs; he can’t help it. Slowly, though, the smile fades and he wonders how the future will embrace them all. The sensible thing is, he tells himself, to introduce the idea of Kat slowly so that they hear about her obliquely, as it were, until they get used to her name being mentioned.

  He tries to imagine them all together, Kat playing with the grandchildren, and fails utterly. In a different situation he’s quite sure they would be delighted to meet her, be impressed with her work and her international reputation, but as their father’s lover – not a chance. He remembers Kat and Fiona laughing in the pub, routing Sandra and enjoying every minute of it. His daughters would be slightly shocked, even disapproving. One works in IT and the other is a teacher, and neither of them has the wacky, bohemian outlook on life that Kat – or even Fiona – has.

  Yet the very fact of not mentioning her almost feels as though he is lying to them, or deceiving them in some way. He feels a little chill of fear that Sandra might drop him in it by mentioning the trip to Bristol. Although she was perfectly polite about it – ‘Oh, is that who she is? I think I might have heard of her but the ballet isn’t exactly my forte’ – it was clear that she was irritated by this jaunt. Going more or less straight on to her supper party last evening – which he hadn’t liked to refuse after the business at the Cott – he found it impossible to lie about the weekend, where he’d been and so on. If she has a fault, he thinks, Sandra does rather go for the third degree in questioning to satisfy her curiosity.

  Of course, he made it sound a much more casual affair, majoring on Kat’s friends in the company, almost implying that she was staying with them, but he’s beginning to find living a double life rather tricky. Yet it’s so life-enhancing, being with Kat: she makes him feel twice as alive. He can’t give her up.