Bird Cottage

by Eva Meijer

  Priscilla is in a rush, is suddenly there in front of me when I stand. She stumbles. “Oh God, sorry,” she says to her cello.

  Joan walks outside with me. “It’s always like this,” she says. “I clam up if someone treats me that way. Even now. Even though I’ve known Stockdale so long, know exactly what he’s like.”

  “I understand.” Stockdale blew his top last week and sacked yet another clarinettist.

  It’s October. Leaves are blowing against the window. A young, red-haired chap stands in front of the Art School, smoking. I walk past him with Joan. He says hallo. I say hallo back to him.

  “Hang on a mo.” He stubs out his cigarette. “Can I ask you something, or are you in a hurry?” I stand still, my head cocked, like a Blackbird’s. Joan says she has to go and she’ll see me tomorrow.

  The young man is often here and we’ve been greeting each other for several weeks now. He looks at me, but says nothing. “I can’t wait all day, you know,” I say, taking a step towards the spindly birch trees further along.

  He shakes his head. “Shall we go for a walk then?” A yellow leaf blows against him. “Or a coffee?” He takes the leaf from his forehead and carefully examines it for a moment. The clouds above us mirror the whole world, each and every thing.

  In a café by the Thames he shows me his drawings. Birds, horses, dogs, fabulous creatures, lines that flow into their surroundings, that not only make me see him differently when I look up again, but everything else too.

  “They’re just sketches,” he says.

  I pick out the Jackdaw he showed me, and tell him about Nora, the Jackdaw I reared, who stayed with me for three whole years. “After the first year she’d sometimes go exploring, but she always stayed in the neighbourhood. Last year, in the spring, she suddenly vanished. I think she must have met someone, or else she found a good place to nest. Jackdaws have minds of their own, you know.” I take a sip of coffee. “I found her near Hyde Park when she was just a few weeks old. The parents were nowhere to be seen. Baby Jackdaws learn to fly from the ground, you see, so you mustn’t simply take them away if you find one.” Some people have never held a bird—those soft feathers, that vulnerability, so much life in something so small.

  Outside the gale is increasing. Long grey lines move across the water, all equally grey; drops become larger drops become a river; what the wind blows upwards changes back into rain.

  “I thought I’d be happy here, that it would just happen. Away from my parents, away from what was expected, alone with my violin.”

  “So you aren’t happy, then?”

  “When I play, I’m happy.” The orchestra stifles me sometimes. Joan and Billie keep asking if I’ll go dancing with them, when I’d rather be out of doors in my free time. I have another pile of notebooks now, filled with bird stories.

  “Come on then, let’s go. The wind is wonderful outside.”

  He pushes the door open, into the wind, gives me his arm. I close my eyes and smell the river, autumn, the future. He holds his sketches under his coat to protect them from the rain. And we walk like this to Vauxhall, into the approaching evening, as the lamps are lit inside the houses, as a Robin hides himself within the greenness that will be here a little longer still.

  * * *

  His face is with me the whole weekend, and the lilt of his voice—I can’t hear its precise tone any more; I only know how he spoke the words, drawing them out just a bit. When I’m bringing a stack of bird books back to the library, I twice think I see him. My surroundings turn into a screen onto which he’s projected. Thomas. Thea whistled when I told her about him. She said it was high time I lost control of myself a little.

  On Monday, when the rehearsal is over, I’m the first to pack my violin, the first at the door. He isn’t there. I wait. Pigeons are keeping an eye on the street from the roof across the road. When the last of the wind section comes out, I pretend I’ve forgotten something. I walk back through the stream of chitchat. There are still people in the room. I go to the lavatory, lock the door, wait, then slowly walk outside again, stopping to chat with Stockdale at the front door. He was satisfied today and thinks that the premiere on Friday will go splendidly. Thomas isn’t there, I can’t go inside again, so I walk home and try to remember if he was ever there before on a Monday.

  On Tuesday we rehearse later. I look out for him before going in, and again during the break, then take my time packing up. I talk to Billie, help Stockdale think about a change of tempo, listen to the new cellist who is explaining something to Joan about vibrato—he’s all aglow, this skinny, lopsided man who suddenly has two women hanging on his words. I can still see Thomas’s face before me, wish for him to be waiting outside; he knows when I’ll finish. “Ladies, gentleman, this is all very interesting about the cello, but now we must stop.” Stockdale raises his hands to thrust us out of the room. “Off you go.” I daren’t look, keep my eyes fixed on the door, can’t spot anyone in front of the building. I linger near the doorway.

  Behind us two Sparrows fly into a hedge. Their wings are so swift that I can’t see them move. “Look,” I say, pointing at the hedge.

  Billie gives me a questioning look. “Coming for a drink?”

  “Sorry. Prior engagement.”

  They vanish into the street, their voices dying away, drowned out by horses, wheels, wagons, other people. So many others.

  I wait till the clock strikes five, hopeful as a puppy dog, and then walk home. All the time I’m walking, I expect him to come up behind me. I listen for him without glancing back. I’d hear his voice above the wind, the wind would help me.

  Wednesday, Thursday. My body has never felt so untouched before.

  On Friday we have the final rehearsal. The sky is clear, the sun makes the leaves on the ground look an even deeper yellow. Ochre. I feel calmer, no longer so full of him. The rehearsal goes well. We have to be at the concert hall by seven o’clock; Stockdale suggests we should go out together for a bite to eat. I leave the building with Priscilla, and then, after all, there he is. “Hang on.”

  I run to the other side of the street.

  “Hallo, Gwen. I’ve got something for you. And it’s nice walking weather. Shall we go to the park?”

  I gesture towards the other members of the orchestra. “We’re off to eat somewhere. It’s the premiere tonight.”

  He takes a small packet from his satchel, presses it into my hands. “Where will the performance be?”

  I tell him the address. “And now I really have to go. What’s in it?”

  “A surprise.” He touches my shoulder, turns round and walks away.

  “He’ll come to the performance tonight,” I announce to Joan, because I have to tell someone.

  “Wonderful,” she says. “Let’s hope it all goes well.” Joan often throws up before a performance—her passion for the violin barely outweighs her fear.

  I can’t spot him in the auditorium, but I play as if he’s there. The piece we’re performing is like a landscape: at first there’s grass (and each blade of grass is alive), then water—a river that turns brackish and then joins the sea; there is water all the time, in fact, sometimes calm, sometimes swirling—then a line, a horizon or a coast, a still frame around all the movement, a fence in front of a transition that is both unexpected and expected; the landscape changes, becomes hilly, steep cliffs, rocks, depths, firm ground in the distance, mountains in the distance, and from the mountains you can see everything, or nearly everything, and you think you can see everything that exists, the whole world, and when you come down again it’s clear that it’s all endlessly intricate and detailed and complex, far more than you thought, and that what is in the smallest things is also in the largest: you’re here now, you’ve been everywhere and you’ve never left your spot.

  Playing is like flying: the altitude, speed, lightness, the confidence that the magic will endure, that the magic can be trusted, for as long as it lasts. Playing, the word says it all. We play. And through our playing we
enable those on the ground to see something, those gazing awestruck through their telescopes, those who can never view the world from above, except on the rare occasions they’re carried by someone else.

  At the end of the performance Stockdale thanks me, his face warm, the muscles relaxed—he’s handsome when he’s like that, and I can see why they all fall for him. “Finally, it went as it should. I was afraid we were going to founder.” His shirt is damp beneath his evening suit. It sticks to his skin.

  “You shouldn’t be so nervy.” I put my violin in its case.

  He shakes his head. “If nothing is at stake, then nothing happens. I have to make you feel what it’s all about.”

  “If you tighten a string too much, it will snap.”

  “But strings can take a lot of tightening. Are you coming with us?” His breath is warm against my cheek.

  I say no, thanks. I long for a place with no voices.

  The moon is full, the second time this month, so it’s a blue moon. I tuck the violin case firmly under my arm and walk through streets that seem emptier than usual, walking slowly because I feel at home within this walking, within what passes by.

  I find the little packet again only the next morning. It’s a drawing, on brown paper, of a Great Tit. The little creature is looking at me just as Thomas does. I hang it above my music stand, next to the window.

  * * *

  “This is my home.” Thomas swings open the red door of the houseboat, bends down and enters ahead of me. “Like a cup of tea?”

  At the front of the cabin there is a small kitchen. There’s a large painting on the worktop—red sun, water, reflections, colours. “How lovely!”

  “Oh, that. It isn’t finished yet. The colours are fine but the composition’s awful.” He searches in the little cupboards, then turns around, as if he has suddenly thought of something, and takes my hand. The boat is lifted up by a wave. “I’m so pleased you’re here.”

  In the weeks that follow I get to know the river through the movements of the boat. I become familiar with the Swans who live a little further on with their four large children and who regularly glide past the round porthole above the bed, the bed below the waterline. I become familiar with the light that makes the water glitter and with the mist that makes the waves fade into the distance. The water that makes the sheets damp in the morning, makes the wooden planks warp. And I become acquainted with the Great Tits who nest on the ledge above the door, with the soft sloshing of the water, signals from a muted world.

  I bring my violin with me and play for him; when we’re in bed together I read him my bird notes. There are tall trees on the quayside, with shrubs between, and if I wake up early in the morning I often go and sit on deck to listen and look. It’s not as loud here as in the city. I can hear myself think.

  Thomas touches me, again and again, and when I walk through the city, when I play the violin, when I talk to others, it happens afresh, my body suddenly remembers things that make me redden. The body has its own memory, its own ideas about what is important.

  “My compliments,” Stockdale says after the first concert when Thomas is in the audience. “You’re really hitting the nail on the head now.”

  Thomas is waiting for me at the door. He’s smoking a cigarette, looking towards the end of the street, tapping the fingers of his empty hand against his trousers. I stay watching him like that a moment, then open the door. He laughs, drops his cigarette, takes my face in his hands. “Beautiful,” he says and suddenly I doubt that he means it, that he actually means everything that’s happened, that I mean it too. I thank him and see myself standing there, not young any more, and certainly not promising, and only when he kisses me is this feeling broken, and I see him again.

  * * *

  In November Olive comes to London. She’s staying with me. Mrs Sewell has made up the guest room for her. I see her standing in the crowds in Waterloo Station, looking nervously from left to right, like a Crested Grebe. “Olive!” I raise my hand; she searches, spots me. “Over here.” She smells just the same as when I last saw her. I take her suitcase from her. “It’s a fifteen-minute walk. Are you tired? Do you want to take the bus?”

  “I’m happy to walk. I’ve been sitting for the whole journey.” She gives my face a sidelong glance. “You look marvellous, Gwen. Are things going well for you?”

  I feel caught out, mutter that everything’s all right.

  She doesn’t notice, or doesn’t let me see she’s noticed. I tell her about the city, the streets, the houses, the busyness, the orchestra and the new pieces we’re playing. She is smaller than I remember, more fragile, and her voice seems softer. “How are Papa and Mama?”

  “Not too bad. Papa has finally finished his collection about the war. And he’s back to his usual self, meddling in everything. Mama is just the same as ever.” She looks sidelong at me. “It upsets her that you hardly ever write.”

  “But she’s always reproaching me.”

  “You shouldn’t have left home then.”

  I shake my head. The irritation I haven’t felt for years is suddenly back again, in full force. I take a deep breath. After all, it’s not Olive’s fault.

  “What about you?”

  She shrugs her shoulders, looks away.

  “Olive. Are you in love?”

  “Perhaps.” We cross the road. She tags behind, as if I’m the leader.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Timothy.” She takes a deep breath. “He’s fifty. And he’s married.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame.”

  “His wife is ill. Mental problems. She’s in a special ward at the hospital. I met him there, when I went with Dud for his physical therapy.”

  “Does he love you too?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Gwen. I shouldn’t have said anything.” That evening she comes to the premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth. When the concert is over we go to the hotel bar with the others.

  “It’s so good to see you here at last.” Stockdale is standing too close to Olive, who sidesteps away from him till she’s standing by the wall. “Both the Howard sisters. Together again, finally.” He gives her hand another kiss. “How are your parents?”

  “Very well. Father has just finished his new collection.”

  “It will be worth the wait.” He drains his whisky in a single draught. “I’ve rarely read such an original poet. He has not achieved the fame he deserves, but posterity will judge differently.”

  Olive is drinking sherry, greedily, like my mother. Someone taps my shoulder.

  “Len.” A kiss.

  “Thomas. This is my sister, Olive.” His hand is on my arm.

  “Pleased to meet you.” He kisses her hand. “This is Stella.”

  A blonde girl in a black velvet dress, no older than twenty, steps out from behind him. Her eyes are lined with kohl. She laughs like an actress.

  “And who is Stella?” I ask.

  “We’ve just met each other.” He laughs apologetically. “She’s studying at the Art School, too. Sculpture.”

  I search his face for an explanation, and, when I can’t find one, for a reason.

  “Anyone for another drink?” He laughs a little, cheerful, frank, nothing the matter at all.

  As he’s standing at the bar, Olive leans towards me. “Is that him?” she whispers.

  I nod.

  “Who’s the girl?”

  “No idea.” A girl, one of the many girls whose existence I knew of, or suspected, and suspecting is different to seeing.

  Olive scowls. I pick up my glass from the table and take a large gulp. The champagne tastes sour, although no one else has said anything, so perhaps it’s something to do with me.

  Stockdale holds out his hand and Olive steps onto the dance floor. She moves her body just a little too fast. Stockdale lags a fraction behind, tries to shift her into the right rhythm. They make a jerky couple.

  Olive is in high spirits on the way home, and more open than usual. She links arms wit
h me. “Sore feet. Pretty shoes, but no good for walking.” She’s wearing my new high heels—I can’t play if my feet aren’t flat on the ground. “That chap, Thomas. Awfully good-looking. Are you in love with him?”

  “Yes.” It’s too dark to see her face; the moonlight falls over her ear. She doesn’t probe further. “It’s different here,” I say. We’re walking along the Thames, we’ll turn left before we reach his boat. “Thea, the cellist, you know, has already had five boyfriends. Only Priscilla is married. But even she had an affair with a trumpet player, before I joined the orchestra.” But Patricia is married. Perhaps she’s had children by now.

  “But is it him who doesn’t want to marry, or you?”

  “Neither of us wants it, I suppose.” We look carefully before we cross the road, even though it’s night now, and there’s no traffic. Like children, cautious in a city so much bigger than they are, that doesn’t care about them at all.

  “Anyway, congratulations.” She laughs. “He’s much handsomer than Paul, remember?”

  I don’t tell her she’s drunk, and join in her laughter a little. The pavement is uneven and I keep a tight hold on her, otherwise she’ll fall, with those heels on. Olive tells me about Timothy, that his wife will perhaps die soon, that it would be awful, of course, and yet she still hopes it will happen—her voice is as comforting as the sound of the sea. I try to follow what she’s saying, but my thoughts keep prowling in the region between what actually is and what might happen.

  * * *

  “So what exactly is going on with you and that girl?”

  “You’re not jealous, hey? I thought we’d agreed we wouldn’t be jealous?” He puts his rinsed brushes back in the jar, with a little more force than necessary.

  “I’m only asking.” Letting someone in means letting something go, means letting yourself go. It doesn’t mean clinging, or hoping. To desire someone always means you have to let them go, because there’s always a space that doesn’t belong to you, a space inside the other person, where you can’t be. It also means being able to lose someone and accepting that, because something exists that’s more important than anything else. According to him, at least.