The Songbird

by Marcia Willett

  ‘I feel very privileged to be counted as a friend on such short acquaintance,’ he says rather formally.

  Kat regards him thoughtfully, wondering if he is quite as ready as she imagined for a delightful flirtation. She is used to the quick reactions of artistes, the easy relationships of the theatre, and often takes a short cut through the defence mechanisms and social niceties that are used as protection to mask the real person behind them. Some people find this invasive, threatening, others are relieved to set aside their reserve, to connect at a deeper level. Often Kat finds herself the confidante of long-buried fears, grief, remorse, even on the shortest of acquaintance.

  The coffee arrives, which gives them both a moment to regroup.

  ‘Are you settling in?’ she asks, and laughs at his expression. ‘I’m afraid I was earwigging that morning in the café. Do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all. I’ve got a very nice top-floor flat in one of the new blocks down on the river. Amazing views.’

  He lifts his cup, sips his coffee, and she can see he’s trying to decide if he might invite her to see it; whether it looks presumptuous or might give the wrong impression. Kat wonders if she were unwise to give him her professional name. Sometimes, being famous can cause an imbalance in a relationship.

  She tells him about Brockscombe, making him laugh as she describes the set-up, and sees the tell-tale signs as he relaxes: his lifted shoulders dropping, his fisted fingers loosening. Some people hate to be looked directly in the eye but Jerry meets her gaze openly, questioningly, and it is as if they are greeting each other at a very deep level of understanding.

  Kat doesn’t invite him to Brockscombe or ask about his past; she doesn’t delve or probe. She talks about a new production she’s seen at the Theatre Royal, a recent biography of a famous actor, a concert at Buckfast Abbey. Jerry talks of his own past productions with his students; his delight when one of them was given a part in a television sit-com. He mentions a film he’s hoping to see and she responds with enthusiasm, quoting some of the reviews.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he says, ‘we could go together?’

  ‘Great,’ she says. ‘I’d love it. I’ll give you my phone number.’

  She notices his breast rise with the silent sigh of relief and delight, and she smiles secretly to herself. Game on.

  After Kat has gone, Jerry continues to sit at the table thinking about the encounter. He feels exhilarated, in a kind of delightful shock, so that he doesn’t see Sandra until she is very nearly beside him. Instinctively he reaches for his rucksack, prepares to rise so as to make his escape, but her evident delight at meeting him foils his attempt.

  ‘How very nice,’ she says, and indeed genuine pleasure glows in her round, pretty face.

  ‘Hello,’ he says.

  He can’t think why he feels this way: a kind of embarrassed guilt, as if he has been caught out in some unworthy act. She is looking hopefully at the empty chair and he sees the exact moment that she notices the two empty mugs and her slight change of expression from delight to – what, exactly? Suspicion? Irritation? His natural reaction is one born out of pure good manners though he is kicking himself for giving in to it.

  ‘Have you had coffee?’ he asks her. ‘Would you like one?’

  Her face brightens at once.

  ‘I’d love one, Jeremy. And you? Look, I’ll go and get it this time. My turn. Americano, isn’t it? Aha. You see, I notice everything!’

  He can see that she’s pleased by this tiny familiarity, that she sees it as progress and, as he waits, Jerry thinks again of Kat and how their minds meshed together in an exchange of ideas, experiences, jokes, though he suspects that Kat wouldn’t remember what kind of coffee he drinks. The exhilaration possesses him yet again and he has to make a huge effort to concentrate on Sandra once she returns. He feels a tiny unworthy sense of triumph that he has withheld from her the shortening of his own name. It makes the sharing of it with Kat – with Irina Bulova – even more special. They’ve exchanged telephone numbers and he wonders who will be the first to make contact.

  ‘Don’t think I don’t understand,’ Sandra is saying, ‘that I don’t know how hard it is, managing on your own.’ She sighs sympathetically, chin drawn in, eyes registering care and understanding, and he wants to stand up and walk away from her unasked-for sympathy. ‘I always say that it doesn’t get better, you just learn how to deal with it.’

  He mutters something, and he can see that she thinks he is simply being brave, and then his phone beeps twice and he reaches into his pocket with a little shrug of apology, glad of the interruption.

  Did you really want a third cup of coffee?

  He reads the text through again and instinctively glances around, peering into the buzz of people in the market square. He wants to laugh out loud, to punch the air, but he can’t. He merely texts back one word: No!

  Trying to suppress his laughter, he settles back to talk to Sandra.

  CHAPTER TEN

  LEAVING BRISTOL AFTER her interview at the BBC in Whiteladies Road and heading for the M5 in her ancient battered VW Polo, Mattie feels happy and full of energy though she by no means imagines that the job is in the bag. She’s quite certain that loads of people better qualified than she is will have applied for this post as a researcher. As she reruns the interview in her head she thinks of all the intelligent, impressive answers she might have given: opportunities lost. She remembers one of the job description requirements: ‘Cheerfulness, emotional resilience and a sense of humour under pressure. Must be a team player.’ Mattie hopes that she’s put these qualities across but still feels that she might not have made the grade. The people were lovely, though, and it was clear that the rig was informal: most of them were in jeans.

  After the interview she asked if there was somewhere she could change out of her smart suit ready for the journey west and a sweet girl had shown her the cloakroom and chatted to her. She called the BBC ‘the Beeb’ and told Mattie that she once accompanied Sister Wendy to a shoot and how they sang hymns in the car. By the time they finished talking Mattie wanted the job more than ever.

  It’s not that she doesn’t enjoy working in London but somehow she can’t quite get the West Country out of her soul. She dreams about the beaches, the moors, the diversity of the countryside. All her busy, exhausted London friends tell her how much she’d miss the nightclubs and films, theatres and art exhibitions, though few of them ever seem to have the time to go to them. The daily commute, social media, child care take up most of their lives.

  She drives across the Suspension Bridge, glancing down into the Avon Gorge, and wonders if even Bristol is too far away from all she loves best. Her childhood, growing up with Charlotte on the western edge of the moor – her father often away at sea, their mother trying to keep their lives balanced despite his long absences – was a happy one. Yomping over the moor with the dogs, picnics on the beach, the yearly trip to the pantomime in Plymouth; it seems idyllic when she looks back. It is odd – and rather enviable – that Charlotte has recreated the wheel with Andy and baby Oliver and Wooster: history repeating itself.

  She loves Bristol, though. She was at uni here, and could probably have found a job quite easily, but it seemed necessary to have a go at London; sharing a bedsit with a friend, getting a job in a bookshop and then moving to the publishing house. It’s been fun but she can’t see where she’s going. Ambition seems to have been left out of her character – until now, perhaps. Now she wants this job at the Beeb and to be nearer to her family – and to Tim.

  She turns on to the M5, her spirits rising. She so enjoyed that last weekend with Tim, with them all at Brockscombe. His passion took her by surprise – he’s such a quiet, gentle soul – and it was such a relief to respond and allow her love for him to be an open, happy thing. So far their friendship has been such a muddle. He was involved with Rachel when they first met and then she met Josh and started going out with him – and the next thing was that Tim and Rachel had split up and he was leavin
g his job. Even now Mattie doesn’t quite know why Tim has chucked up his job and embarked on this rather odd sabbatical. He certainly wasn’t much upset when he and Rachel broke up, though he hadn’t been very well at the time. He told everyone that his grandmother had died, leaving him her house in Fulham, where she’d brought him up, and he’d sold it and was planning to take time out to re-evaluate his life.

  Mattie was slightly surprised when he reacted so positively to Brockscombe. It just seemed right when he asked her if she knew anywhere he could go but she hadn’t expected him to take her up so readily. She knew from the conversations she had with him that he had no family apart from his grandmother but he never volunteered any explanations. Perhaps her death was a kind of catalyst and there are things that he needs now to come to terms with, to understand before he can move on.

  She’s beginning to accept the fact that she really hopes that she will be included in the moving-on. It’s crazy how much she’s looking forward to seeing him again, though it was Charlotte who invited her this time.

  ‘Since you’ll only be a couple of hours away,’ she said, ‘try to get down to see us afterwards.’

  Mattie phoned Tim. ‘What about it?’ she asked almost jokily. ‘Shall I come down and see you all?’

  ‘It would be great,’ he answered, but there was an oddness in his voice. It was warm, even loving, but there wasn’t that same excitement as when he phoned her on the day of the storm, and he didn’t suggest that she should stay with him.

  She wonders if he is embarrassed by the passion he showed that weekend. Perhaps, because of her unguarded response, she played it a bit too cool afterwards. It was such an odd situation at Brockscombe, playing happy families next day after a night of such lovemaking, but in a kind of way it helped. She can go down now and stay with Charlotte and it won’t seem unusual or strange, yet she is very wound up about how Tim will be. Her instinct is to give him time; to take things gently.

  Mattie gives a little snort. It’s true that she can no longer say that she has no ambition. She wants Tim and now she wants the job, if not at the BBC then definitely back in the West Country. It’s a start.

  Tim finishes his sandwich, pushes his plate aside and glances at his watch. He feels restless, nervous at the prospect of Mattie’s arrival. Part of him longs to see her; part of him doesn’t know how to handle it. He knows that he should tell her the truth but he can’t bear to lose that happy, open friendship she offers him; can’t bear the prospect of the shock in her eyes, her sympathy and the special treatment that will follow it. Once they know the truth then nobody at Brockscombe will treat him as an equal. He still hugs to himself that joyful night of love with Mattie. Yet how can he go forward with her without deceiving her? When she phoned and asked if she should come down to Brockscombe after her interview in Bristol, his heart had leaped up with joy. ‘Yes,’ he wanted to shout. ‘Yes, please. Come and stay with me again.’

  Instead he remained cool, not questioning the arrangement that she should stay with Charlotte. How hard it had been to behave as if she were simply a good friend coming for a visit with her sister.

  He pushes back his chair with a violent thrust of frustration and misery. Grabbing his jacket from the hook by the door he lets himself out into the windy bright early May afternoon and takes the path to the woods. Yet even in his misery he pauses to listen to the birdsong; to watch squirrels racing along their twiggy pathways high in the trees; to glory in the tender pink, uncurling leaves of the copper beech. There is a magic in the woods in spring and he cannot help but respond to it.

  Today Pan is holding bluebells, their long pale stalks threaded through his small stony fingers, and he wears a garland of periwinkles. Tim stands before him. He wants to do something foolish, like pray or make a wish. Here, in this wild, magical place, he almost believes in miracles: that he might be healed; that Mattie will love him. Standing quite still, allowing his senses to be taken over by the sound of bird-music and the scents of the wet earth, Tim succumbs to the peace that presses in. Briefly his soul connects with something infinite and his heart thrills with unimaginable joy.

  At last he turns away, following the mossy overgrown path at the wood’s edge, pausing beside the wooden seat that is placed between two trees so as to take advantage of the view across the fields to the high moors. He wonders who put the seat here, who sat gazing out as he does now, sheltered by trees and shrubs. Suddenly he notices that on the broad wooden arm of the seat someone has placed a few objects to make a shape. Leaning to look closer he sees that it is a face: two pine cones for the eyes, an acorn cap for the nose, five small stones for a smiley mouth, a pine-needle switch for the hair.

  Tim sits staring at the face. He is awhirl with emotions: amusement, bafflement, even excitement. It’s so odd, as if a message has been left specially for him. But by whom? He scans the woodland, peering through the bushes behind the bench. He has this conviction that the child is there somewhere, watching him; watching his reaction to this piece of woodland art.

  ‘Come out,’ he wants to cry. ‘Come and talk to me,’ but he doesn’t dare. In this wild, strange place he is afraid of what might happen. Very gently he touches the eye-cones, slightly alters the pine-switch hair. He feels it’s absolutely essential that he responds to this message. He gets up and searches around, takes two orange berries from a nearby bush, picks up another cone with a pine needle, and goes back to the seat. Very carefully he presses the orange berries into the eye-cones to brighten them and arranges the pine-needle switch and the cone to make it look as if the face is smoking a pipe.

  Tim stares at it, pleased with the result, hoping that the wind doesn’t blow it away or that nobody else disturbs it. Another idea is beginning to form in his mind that fills him with a foolish excitement. With one last glance around he turns and walks home.

  From the window of his study Francis watches him. He sees Tim stride out into the woods. He looks tense with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his head lowered. Then he stops as if he is suddenly aware of the life all around him, looking upwards, watching the squirrels. He disappears from sight and Francis wonders which path he will take. Has he discovered Pan? The dogs’ graveyard?

  It is years now since he was able to walk so far, but in his head Francis can imagine those walks where his ancestors planted rhododendrons and azaleas, camellias and magnolia. The bluebells will be coming into flower now, and the wood anemones and the periwinkles. In spring and early summer he always preferred to walk alone in the early morning, creeping out so that the dogs didn’t hear him. Walking silently, pausing in the shadows, he’d see the rabbits playing in the field, spy a blackbird with a beakful of food, poised watchfully on a branch near its nest, observe a pheasant running with its stiff-legged gait before launching itself with a whirring of wings over the fence into the field. It was a time for reflection, for refreshment.

  He’d sit on the wooden seat that his father had so thoughtfully placed at the edge of the woods, and watch the rising sun’s rays changing the dun-coloured higher slopes of the moors to a celestial pink and gold. It was so familiar, so dear, the slow turning of the year. It held him grounded in its rhythm, teaching him that he was not in control, showing him its mysteries of life and death and resurrection.

  When Tim reappears he looks different, almost excited. He walks quickly, with a purpose, and Francis wonders what he has seen to change his earlier mood. He feels a kinship with this boy – he seems like a boy to him – who spends so much time alone; who seems overwhelmed with his discovery of the countryside.

  ‘I’ve always been a city boy,’ he said to Francis when they first met. ‘I’ve never known anywhere like this. It’s so quiet.’

  ‘And do you seek quiet?’ Francis asked him. ‘Usually it’s the last thing that young people want.’

  Tim looked at him then; a distant look as if he were thinking things through.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered at last, very seriously. ‘I think it’s exactly what I ne
ed now.’

  ‘Then be welcome at Brockscombe,’ Francis said.

  They shook hands, Francis looking down from his great height at this slight young man, and a look had passed between them: of understanding and liking. Francis held Tim’s hand briefly in his strong clasp and then let it go.

  ‘Do you like poetry?’ he asked, and Tim’s face lightened with surprise and pleasure.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he said.

  Francis smiled and made a sweep with his hand towards the bookcase.

  ‘When you’ve moved in you must come and see if I’ve anything you haven’t read. I expect you’ll find me very old-fashioned, though.’

  Tim smiled back at him. ‘I’d like that.’

  But he hadn’t come, not yet. Perhaps, thinks Francis, he needs another invitation; perhaps he is afraid of giving himself away.

  He turns away from the window, remembering that Mattie is arriving today to stay with Charlotte. He’ll wander down later and see them and hope to catch Tim for a private moment. Somehow it seems important, though he couldn’t say why. Meanwhile, he can hear Maxie calling to him, his voice echoing up the stairs, and he goes out on to the landing to welcome him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IT IS WOOSTER who is the first to greet Mattie. Stretched on the cobbles outside Charlotte’s front door, he raises his head as her car pulls into the courtyard and barks once or twice before getting to his feet and ambling to meet her. He’s very fond of Mattie, who buries her fingers in his thick golden ruff and talks lovingly to him before straightening up to wave to Charlotte, who has now appeared carrying Oliver.

  ‘How did it go?’ calls Charlotte.

  It’s odd, she thinks, watching Mattie embracing Wooster, that her very strong affection for her sister should be shot through with a seam of resentment: a kind of impatient irritation mixed with love and loyalty that she never experiences with anyone else.