The Songbird

by Marcia Willett

  And ever winging up and up,

  Our valley is his golden cup.

  And he the wine which overflows

  To lift us with him as he goes . . .

  ‘That’s nice,’ she said, leaning against him. ‘Who did you say it was?’

  ‘George Meredith.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I like the name George. We’ll call the baby George. Georgina if it’s a girl. Then we’ll always remember this moment.’

  She knew that Tim was feeling very emotional and she also knew that she must keep him steady. She would deal with her own fears later.

  ‘So how’s it going with Charlotte and Andy?’ she asked. ‘Second honeymoon stuff, is it? I can’t wait to see them at the weekend.’

  ‘I like him,’ Tim said. ‘He’s a really nice guy.’

  The conversation gradually became more general and a little later they were able to make a few plans, as if they were just an ordinary couple planning an ordinary future.

  Now, Mattie allows her own anxieties to creep to the forefront of her mind. How will they manage? How long will Tim be strong, viable? What will her parents say when she tells them? And Charlotte? Her heart quails rather at the prospect but she grips the wheel, lifts her chin, and takes a very deep breath. Odd though it might be, it is her father she will talk to first when the time comes to explain about the baby, how that unexpected lovemaking in the cave took her by surprise and unprepared. She’ll explain Tim’s anxiety, his fears, and that, despite everything, she wants to have his child, to be with him. If she can get her father on side then somehow everything will be managed. But first: their engagement. She knows that her parents like Tim, and the fact that he can afford to buy a little house and keep something put by for the baby’s future will be a good mark in his favour. Second: the baby. For the moment, she and Tim have agreed that this remains a secret between them for a few more weeks and she prays that she has the courage when the time comes to deal with the disclosure.

  Mattie shivers with a thrill of joy: her baby. Hers and Tim’s. She’ll go with him to the hospital to talk about this new drug trialling; they’ll find out everything there is to know. They’ll do it together and – who knows – maybe a miracle will happen.

  The sunlit, undulating moor flows away from her. Its impression of the infinite, its sheer size, puts these problems into perspective and brings tranquillity, and she drives on, comforted.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THIS MORNING, ALL the tables outside Seeds 2 are full. Kat wanders inside, orders coffee and sits at a corner table. She hadn’t meant to come into the town today. She had a date with a friend for lunch but the friend called it off, she isn’t well, and Kat is at a loose end. Brockscombe feels unnaturally quiet with Andy and Charlotte and Ollie spending the day with her parents, Tim driving off, probably to see Mattie, and William at the office. So here she is, wondering whether to text Jerry, to tell him her date’s cancelled and suggest he comes to join her. Perhaps they will discuss the future in more detail.

  ‘Well, what are your plans?’ Fiona asked her. ‘Will you go to London?’

  Kat wasn’t terribly surprised that Fiona had taken a chance and come down midweek to see Andy and the family. She arrived in the early evening and invited William for a drink and, when she phoned the next morning, Kat was unable to resist her plea.

  ‘I’m in the doghouse, Kat,’ Fiona said. ‘Wills is cross with me. How about lunch? Any chance?’

  Kat knew all about it. William had come home from the pub in a strop, furious with Fiona for arriving unannounced and for assuming that everyone was as delighted as she was about the sale of Brockscombe.

  ‘It’s none of her business,’ he fumed. ‘And she has no right to butt in on Andy’s leave. We’d made the arrangements and it was all planned.’

  Kat watched him, wondering what was at the root of his anger.

  ‘I expect she’s been feeling like one of the family again,’ she ventured. ‘After all, there’s been a bit of a change this summer, wouldn’t you say?’

  William stood at the open door staring out, his hands in his pockets jingling his loose change.

  ‘I was a fool,’ he admitted at last. ‘I suppose I did, just for a while there, begin to think we might try again. It was crazy, of course.’

  ‘But when did you realize that?’

  ‘When she came down unexpectedly before, and invited me for supper at the pub and told me about the offer on Brockscombe. I began to see that it’s just the same old, same old. She’d want everything on her terms and I’d always be watching and waiting and wondering. She doesn’t really give a damn about Francis or Tim. She just wants me there, available, and meanwhile she’s got a very nice project redesigning Brockscombe, thank you very much.’

  ‘But you could say,’ Kat said cautiously, ‘that it might be exactly the right thing all round.’

  William snorted. ‘You think that makes me feel any better?’

  When Fiona phoned the next morning, Kat agreed to meet her for lunch. She picked her up and drove her to Turtley Corn Mill, where they sat in the sun, watching the antics of the peahens and the pretty chickens.

  ‘I cocked up,’ Fiona said gloomily. ‘I was so sure it was going well between me and Wills. What went wrong?’

  ‘I think he felt that you were out of order, arranging to sell Brockscombe without asking first,’ answered Kat wryly.

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Fiona said crossly. ‘It just happened that this guy is looking for a place . . . Well, he clearly told you all about it?’

  Kat nodded. ‘He did.’

  Fiona turned her glass of wine round and round, staring down at it. ‘I thought it would be right for everyone. Andy and Charlotte will be going to Washington, anyway, and William could buy a nice little house in Ashburton. He should never have left Ashburton. I could come down and stay with him . . .’

  ‘And Tim?’

  ‘Oh, well, Tim.’ Fiona shrugged. ‘Tim will be off whenever it suits him, you just wait and see.’

  ‘And Francis?’

  Fiona was silent for a moment, then she made a face. ‘Well, I doubt he’ll be around much longer, and I thought it would probably be better if he were in some kind of home with proper care than stuck in that old house with a couple of old women looking after him.’ She shook her head, baffled. ‘And then Wills tells me that he’s going to take him to Ashburton with him along with that weird half-brother of his. I mean, why would he do that? I tell you, Kat, my plan for our future didn’t include an old cripple and a halfwit.’

  ‘Honestly, Fiona . . .’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But for God’s sake, Kat . . .’

  ‘And what about me?’ asked Kat idly.

  And that’s when Fiona said: ‘Well, what are your plans? Will you be going back to London?’

  Now, Kat sits watching the morning shoppers, people drinking coffee, knowing that she must make her decision. It’s not much of a decision after all: she knows in her heart that she will go to London. The question is how it is to be organized; whether she will accept Miche’s offer of a room in his house or get her own place where she can have Jerry to stay.

  Even as she thinks about him she spots him through the plate-glass window. She feels the usual gut-twisting lurch of pleasure at seeing him and is making to rise, to wave to him, when she sees that he is not alone.

  Sandra precedes him into the café. She looks happy, confident, glancing around and then greeting some friends at another table, who move bags and belongings so that she and Jerry can sit down. Kat watches them with a growing disbelief. Jerry has abandoned his jeans and his old cotton shirt and his rucksack. He wears smartly ironed chinos, with a short-sleeved polo shirt, and he is carrying bags of shopping. Sandra directs where they should be put and he obeys her with an anxiously smiling, almost uxorious, air. He looks domestic, even very slightly henpecked. They sit together in their foursome, one of them is showing a travel catalogue and, just for a m
oment, Kat remembers how it was at the Cott and she wishes that Fiona would come stalking in.

  ‘Cruises and Saga holidays?’ she’d probably cry. ‘Good grief, darling, whatever next?’

  ‘We’ll get together, won’t we?’ she said to Kat. ‘When you’re back in London? We’ll do some shows and have some fun. Promise?’

  Kat finishes her coffee and stands up. The movement catches Jerry’s eye and he stares at her almost in horror. Sandra is too busy with the catalogue to notice Jerry’s distraction and Kat smiles at him. He gives her such an anguished look that Kat feels a flash of pity for him: he is afraid. This knowledge swamps her with jealousy, disappointment and even contempt, so that she has no desire to pause beside the table to make some clever quip.

  She nods to him as if to say she understands, raises her hand in a kind of valediction, and slips away unnoticed by the others. Outside she stands for a moment, wondering where to go and what to do. Then she takes out her mobile phone and sends a text to Miche: quite a short text but he will understand it. Just two words: Coming home.

  Jerry twists round to watch her go; that casually elegant walk in her old jeans and a loose white cotton shirt. His first reaction is huge relief that she hasn’t stopped to make a wisecrack; his second is a piercing sense of loss, as if he has rejected something very precious that he will always regret.

  It was such a shock to see her, he’d been unable to disguise his horror. She told him she was out with a friend for lunch so when Sandra asked if he would help her with the supermarket run he’d been happy enough to agree. Kat would never have asked him such a favour. A weekly shop was beyond her comprehension.

  ‘But why would you do that?’ she might ask. ‘I never know what I might want to eat for supper tonight, let alone in six days’ time.’

  It would be a typical Kat remark: intended to make him laugh but with a big grain of truth in it. He’ll miss that laughter. It’s no good kidding himself: he saw her look at him with a kind of terrible pity and he recognized that farewell wave. There was a finality in it. The very fact that she hasn’t stopped to make some comment to irritate Sandra shows that she’s ceded the battle. The war is over.

  He turns back to look at the catalogue, which is all about cruises in the Norwegian fjords, and tries to show an interest. Sandra smiles at him proprietorially; they are an item. He looks at her pretty, round, ordinary face and his heart twists with pain, but he smiles just the same.

  He glances round again, hoping to glimpse Kat one more time, but she has gone.

  All through the evening of Andy’s party in the courtyard Tim is aware that something is missing. This has always been the plan – that they would gather for one of William’s barbecues on the last Saturday of Andy’s leave – and this time everyone is here. Yet as he moves about amongst them, Tim feels a slightly different atmosphere from at those other gatherings. It’s not just the knowledge that Andy will be leaving tomorrow – there’s more to it than that: there are undercurrents of emotion, tensions beneath the surface gaiety.

  Tim wonders how they would all react if he were to suddenly announce his and Mattie’s engagement.

  ‘I wish we could,’ she said when she arrived earlier, Charlotte having agreed that it would be better if Mattie could stay with Tim on this occasion. ‘But I think we should tell Mum and Dad first, don’t you?’

  He agreed with her but it would have been good to do it, with all these people he loves best gathered together. Now that the decision has been taken he wants everyone to know. Mattie and the baby have focused his thoughts away from himself and he feels as if he is free from a terrible weight that has shackled his mind to a treadmill of despair. At least, though, Mattie is making no attempt to hide the fact that she and Tim are in love. Her gestures, her glances, her outward shows of affection, all proclaim it and he allows himself to respond. Nobody comments but he can see by Charlotte’s quizzically lifted brows she is aware of it. William seems rather too preoccupied with his cooking to take much notice. Aunt Kat just smiles at them both with approval – though she appears to be distracted, even sad – whilst deep in conversation with Fiona, who is being rather brittle and drinking quite a lot. Francis and Andy, sitting together talking quietly, seem to take it for granted and at one point, when Francis smilingly lifts his glass, Tim can’t help beaming back at him.

  Yet he is still conscious of something missing; something that has been present through this spring and early summer. Soon, he thinks, everything will change. Charlotte and Ollie will be off to Washington with Andy, and Wooster will go to Tavistock. Aunt Kat will go back to London. He and Mattie have decided to look for a small house or cottage on the edge of Exeter near the university. This leaves just William and Francis.

  Watching William busy with the sausages and steaks, chatting to Mattie, Tim feels a sense of disloyalty, as if he is abandoning the people who have been so good to him.

  ‘It was always on the cards,’ Mattie said consolingly, when he said this to her earlier. ‘We all knew Andy has been given a foreign posting, and it was only a matter of time before Aunt Kat went back to London.’

  ‘What will happen?’ he asked. ‘Will they just get new tenants?’

  ‘Probably.’ She smiled at him. ‘We could always stay here if it really worries you. It’s only an hour’s drive from Exeter.’

  But he shook his head. ‘You need to be close to the university. I’d hate to think of you driving up and down each day. No, I was just wondering what would happen here with everyone gone. We’ll come and visit them. And William can bring Francis to see us. Anyway, it won’t be quite yet. We’ve got to find somewhere to live first.’

  Although he feels excited at the prospect of this future that has suddenly expanded before him, Tim feels sad, too. He’ll miss this small extended family, the walks to see Pan and Brack, the midweek Mass with Francis at Buckfast. And as he thinks of these last months here at Brockscombe, the cold, sweet spring and the warm summer days, he suddenly realizes what is missing. He can no longer hear the thrush singing in the ash tree. Tim experiences an odd and unexpectedly poignant sense of loss. The thrush has claimed his territory, attracted a mate, and now his fledglings have flown the nest and he, too, has gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  FRANCIS STANDS AT his window. It is high summer and in the newly harvested fields the gulls look as if they are floating on a pale golden sea. Nearer at hand, the mower stands idle on the lawn where Rob has abandoned it. Two canvas garden chairs have been put on to the gravel carriage drive, where they have fallen forward on their knees as if they are praying.

  Soon, Brockscombe will be empty. Contracts have been exchanged and completion will take place within a few weeks, though there is no pressure being exerted. Francis feels quite calm: he is certain now that all will be well. His sons will be able to have the money for their retirement investment and his little family is preparing to move on. Charlotte and Oliver, with Wooster, are going to her parents in Tavistock until Andy arrives home from sea. Charlotte has lost her fear of going to Washington; Andy has restored her confidence and their love is renewed and confirmed. Kat will soon be leaving for London, excited by the prospect of the work that lies ahead. William has made an offer on a town house in Ashburton that looks over the green and has a little courtyard garden. The ground floor, which used to be a shop, is to be Francis’ new quarters.

  ‘You’ll be able to see people coming and going,’ William says, anxiously, knowing that nothing will make up for what Francis is leaving behind him. ‘And you’ll have direct access out into the courtyard. I’ve got great plans for the courtyard, I can tell you.’

  Francis smiles at him and agrees that he’ll enjoy the change of scene and trips to the pub with William. Neither of them is fooled but it’s a very fair compromise. There’s a big spare bedroom for guests and a smaller one for Maxie with room for the toys and books to be stored. It’s a pretty, elegant house and Francis is grateful. He’s offered to contribute towards its co
st but William won’t hear of it. He’s made some good investments with the money from his former house, he says, and Francis respects this. He insists on paying for the necessary conversion of the ground floor, however, and William has given in over this one.

  There seems to be no mention of Fiona having any part to play in the purchase of the new property. Since Andy’s leave she hasn’t been down, and Francis suspects that the brief flowering of the old affection between her and William, back in the early summer, has died a natural death. Francis is glad of it. He can’t believe that Fiona would ever settle happily again in Ashburton and he thinks that it’s better for William to pursue his own friends and occupations without tensions and regrets.

  As for Tim . . . Francis smiles when he thinks of Tim and Mattie, house-hunting in Exeter.

  ‘We’re having a baby,’ Tim said to him, ‘but it’s a secret just for the moment. We’re going to get engaged, find a little house – thank God I’ve got Gran’s money – and then take it from there. I feel that I should tell Mattie’s parents the truth but she wants me to wait and I shall trust her to know when the time is right. I wanted you to know, though, that in the end I decided that I can choose. And I’ve chosen life.’

  ‘A baby,’ Francis said. ‘How wonderful.’

  ‘Yes.’ Tim looked dazed, awed. ‘So I shall be a father. It’s odd, isn’t it, when only days ago I believed I had no future?’

  Francis could see that he was full of joy and fear; of pride and doubts.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Francis said. ‘Let me know when it’s appropriate to celebrate more publicly,’ and Tim beamed at him, happy suddenly, optimistic, and said, ‘You’ll be the first to know.’

  Francis longs for his happiness; for the wellbeing of Mattie and the child. He is overcome with emotion for this boy whom he looks upon as his son, along with William and Maxie, as well as his own boys: all his sons. How dear and precious they are to him.