Birdcage

by Victor Canning

  Farley stood at the door and watched him to his car. The headlights came up and bleached the olive trees and the oleanders with a false frost. He stood there for some time after the car had driven off.

  When he went up to bed he looked into her room. Herman had left the door open and a shaded lamp switched on. She was lying in bed with her face to the wall, the covers pulled high over her neck and she was breathing heavily. Marsox’s big launch rug in which they had wrapped and carried her lay on the floor by the shuttered window. He went in, picked it up and folded it, feeling its dampness. Over a clothes horse hung the coarse white shift, palely stained with washed-out blood. His blood. When he had got to her she had clamped herself around him like a wild animal, tearing and gripping him and they had gone down together . . .

  He went out, taking the rug and the shift with him. He left the lamp on and the door open. In the bathroom he switched on the electric towel rail and hung rug and shift over it. In his own room he left the door open so that he could hear her if she moved about or called in the night, though he doubted she would. Herman would have sedated her heavily. He stripped, put his pyjamas on and said his prayers. He was asleep within ten minutes.

  He was up early the next morning. The woman was still sleeping, her position unchanged. While he was having his coffee and toast Maria, the Holderns’ old caretaker and house servant, arrived. He told her that there was a guest in the spare room who did not want to be disturbed. When he told her that it was a young woman she showed no surprise. He had often taken over the Holdern villa while they were away on their annual trip to England and she knew that there was nothing like that where he was concerned. Just before Maria left at noon he heard Marsox’s motor cycle come into the villa courtyard and the sound of his voice booming in talk with Maria, who was a little deaf. Marsox ran a small fish restaurant with his old mother and also did holiday fishing trips with his launch in the season.

  When he came in he gave him a glass of wine. Marsox, who was sixty-odd, scrawny and as hard as a cork oak, had the gentlest of manners, a fine singing voice and had never married because he preferred a running freedom of choice—much to his mother’s chagrin because she longed for grandchildren.

  Farley said, “She’s sleeping still. Herman came and gave her an injection. We’ve caught some queer fish—but never one like this.”

  Marsox grinned. “Beautiful fish. I’m going to Faro. You want anything there?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You don’t do anything about her yet? Tell the police, or something?”

  “No.”

  “That’s right. It’s better to wait to see what she says. If you do something for a woman without asking—then it’s always the wrong thing.”

  After Marsox and then Maria had left—she only worked in the mornings while the Holderns were away—he went upstairs. She was still sleeping, though she had changed her position so that her head was turned to the window and one arm and her shoulder and part of her breast were showing. There was a bruise on the left side of her chin where he had struck her hard to quieten her struggles. As he pulled the bed cover across her nakedness he told himself that he should have looked out one of Helen Holdem’s nightdresses for her. When she recovered he would have to tell her to take some of Helen’s things; they were much the same size and build and Helen would not mind. As it was he went through to the Holderns’ bedroom and found a dressing gown and a pair of slippers which he left in her room by the side of-the bed. If she came to while he was working at least she would have some cover if she wanted to move around. He had a cold tunny-fish cutlet and a glass of vinho for lunch and then went out to the swimming pool. Part of his arrangement with the Holderns for his accommodation was that he should repaint the swimming pool and the villa’s shutters. That was how he liked things. It was good to do something with one’s hands, good to stand back and admire the fresh paint or plaster or masonry work. He was working and whistling when Herman’s car came through the open wrought-iron gates and up the drive.

  Herman sat on the swimming pool wall and said, “You should take it up professionally. How is she?”

  “Sleeping her head off at lunchtime.”

  “I’ll go and have a look at her. Came over now because I’ve had a call for a rehearsal at the Palomares this evening. They reopen next week.”

  He went into the house, but was there only a very short while. He came back and said, “She’s still sleeping, but normally. Her pulse is all right. She’ll be shouting for food and attention soon. I’ll look around tomorrow to get the news.”

  “What news?”

  “Well, what it’s all about. Who she is and so on and why she was out there. Don’t you want to know?”

  “Not really. It can’t be a rollicking happy tale, can it? I like jolly stories.”

  Herman shook his head, laughing, and threw a pine cone at him and went.

  Farley worked on, whistling gently to himself. A lizard, beady-eyed and beautifully bronzed, came out of a wall crack on the pool surround and watched him. The swallows flew low over his head. Two hoopoes called to one another and the first bee-eater he had seen that year came and perched on the pole which carried the telephone line to the villa. Butterflies rested on the bougainvillaea and sunned their wings. God was in His heaven, he thought, but he did not know about the rest.

  * * * *

  When Sarah Branton woke the late afternoon sunlight was flooding through the balcony window. From somewhere outside she could hear someone whistling ‘Greensleeves’. It had been many years since she had heard the song and she lay relishing the sound which was welcoming her back to life. Her memory was perfectly clear and void of any distress. She had wanted to drown herself and her body had betrayed her . . . Sister Luiza was dead, Sarah Branton lived. But the Sarah Branton who lived now was far removed from the Sarah Branton of the convent school, the noviciate years and the final vows. Whatever or whoever she was now time would discover. For the present she was in no hurry to come to any discoveries about herself. A man had come into the sea and fought her panic and rescued her. She was reborn and there slowly began to build in her a warm stir of happiness and gratitude untroubled by any questioning of its source. She was alive and glad to be alive. And this time she could choose her own way of living . . . not let herself be manipulated and directed by others . . . a puppet with no will of her own, no life until others moved or jerked the strings which gave her the semblance of living.

  She got out of bed and in the long bedroom mirror she saw the slim white nakedness of her body for the first time in years. Without any shame or sense of breaking any rules now she eyed herself, remembering the time when her body had been tanned from sunbathing. Briefly she ran a hand over her abdomen which showed no sign of growing fullness yet, touching herself without shame, knowing the beginning of the first of many freedoms to which she had been reborn.

  She slipped on the dressing gown, swayed with a moment’s passing giddiness and had to sit on the edge of the bed to recover. Then she put on the bedroom slippers and went out on to the small balcony. The full warmth of the sun greeted her as she stood breathing in the resin-scented air. A few sparrows quarrelled and foraged around a handful of bread crusts someone had thrown on to a small strip of lawn which was bordered by lemon trees, the fruit hanging in shining, sunbathed colour against the dark green leaves. Away to the right was a small orchard of almonds, the blossom long gone and beyond them, through a break in a clump of tall pines, she caught a glimpse of the sea. For a moment or two her body trembled with its own memory of the dark moments of terror which had seized her. She looked away from it to her right and, as though to greet her, was met with the sound of fresh whistling and saw a man standing in a swimming pool painting one of the side walls.

  She made a move to turn back to the bedroom, but was halted when the man looked up and saw her. He raised a hand in greeting and then climbed out of the pool and walked towards her. He stood below her and said in Portuguese, “Are you all
right?”

  Just as other people knew with her she sensed that it was not his native tongue, but she answered him in the same tongue, “Yes, thank you.” Then, because she knew him from the tangled panic moments of her rescue, and was momentarily betrayed and filled with a sharp coiling of emotion and confusion, she laughed and said, “You’ve got blue paint on your face.”

  He touched both his cheeks with his finger tips, examined them and said, “So I have.” This time he spoke in English and his brown ugly face was gullied with a broad grin.

  She said in English, “You were the one, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m Richard Farley. Are you hungry?”

  “Well . . . yes. I think I am. But, I don’t really know about anything at the moment.”

  “No need to rush things. Would you like something up there or come down?”

  “I’d like to come down but I’ve no clothes.”

  “No problem. Second door on the right down the corridor. There’s a big wardrobe in there full of stuff. Take what you want. You’re about the same build as Helen.”

  “Helen?”

  “Helen Holdern. She and her husband Jim have gone off to England. I just caretake. Helen won’t mind. I’ll go and knock something up for you.” He paused for a moment or two, then smiled at her and said hesitantly, offering comfort, “It’s all a bit of a rum do. But don’t worry. No need to rush things. We’ll get it all sorted out. No matter what it is, you’re safe here.” He turned and walked away around the house. She stood there, trembling from the warmth of his kindness, breathing deep the warm, flower-scented air, and momentarily closed her eyes against the soft press of slow rising tears.

  The master bedroom was lofty and elegant with its own bathroom. The floor was covered with pale pink tiles and blue rugs, both colours repeated in the coverings of the twin beds and the long curtains at the windows. It was a feminine room, the still air faintly touched with the fragrance of scent, the dressing table holding a silver-mounted toilet set and cut-glass containers and jars all set out neatly and sparkling in the light from the window. She had a distant memory of her mother’s untidy dressing table and with it a much closer remembrance of her own little bedroom cell at the convent, bleak and barely furnished. She picked up a silver-backed hairbrush and ran it over her own short hair and her mouth twisted wryly at its intransigence. Well, time would alter that and there was all of time before her and no hurry to decide how she would use it. For the moment she was free from any claims or routines being put on her. With a calmness which surprised her she went about selecting clothes to wear. After eight years of the same habit her freedom of choice was too fresh an acquisition to stir her. She opened the wardrobe and picked out a plain blue heavy cotton dress with a high collar and a skirt which came well down over her knees. In a dressing-table drawer she found a brassiere which by lengthening its strap was a comfortable fit for her full breasts; breasts—the memory swam back, making her half smile now—which had embarrassed her by their early fullness when she was a schoolgirl. In the same drawer she found brown tights, a small .pair of white panties and a short silk underslip. In the bottom of the wardrobe was a row of shoes but as they were all too small for her she settled for a pair of loose alpargatas.

  She dressed slowly, more and more aware as time and the actions of this new, unexpected life flowed by and possessed her that she was a stranger to any Sarah Branton or Sister Luiza she had ever known, that in her power lay the gift of creating a new personality. The richness of that miracle was too immediate, too heady for her to think about rationally. For the time being she could only stay poised on the crest of present movement and the forced decisions of each passing minute. Hanging partly over the dressing-table mirror was a large white silk square decorated with wavy blue lines. She folded it and wrapped it around her head in a bandeau to mask most of the starkness of her short hair. Then, as she looked at herself in the long wardrobe mirror, looked into the eyes of a stranger, saw the discoloration of the bruise on her chin where she had been struck in her panic and remembered the black horror of the night, she felt the strength go from her body and her head began to swim. She sat down on the dressing-table stool, held her head in her hands and could find no will in her to control the violent trembling which possessed her body, could do nothing but sit and let the cold passion in her body exhaust itself.

  She had no idea how long she sat there before her body began to quieten as the storm passed. All she knew was that, with a swift lift of relief, she felt a hand touch her shoulder gently and his voice said comfortingly, “Don’t worry about it. . . It’s sort of delayed shock. Just when you think it’s all right, you suddenly remember. I’ve had it. Smack between the eyes just when you least expect it. Just hang on there for a minute.”

  Through the dying turmoil of her mind and body she heard him clatter down the stairs. When he came back he put his hand under her chin and lifted her head. Through the mist of tears in her eyes she saw that his face was still paint-marked; an ugly, brown, comforting face, full of warmth and concern. In that moment she knew the fullness of her debt to him and knew that it must be repaid, had to be repaid, no matter the price asked or secretly assessed by herself.

  He put a glass in her hands and said, “Here, drink this.” Holding the glass, looking up at him, not wanting to lose the comfort of his face, she shook her head and said, “It’s brandy. I can’t.”

  With a sudden roughness, he shook her shoulder and said, “You drink it—or I’ll make you. Go on!”

  It was then that she gave him a small smile, blinking at him through her tear-confused eyes, knowing that this was the first time that this man, to whom she owed her life, had asked her to do something for him and there was no refusing him, not in this or in anything else he might ask of her. She raised the glass and drank, drank fully, hating the raw touch of the spirit in her mouth and throat, but drinking gladly and silently pledging herself to him, to serve him and to ask nothing from him except the charity of giving her some way of repaying the debt she owed him for her own salvation—no matter whether he had been sent from God or the Devil.

  With a sudden chuckle, he said, “That’s it. Down the hatch. And then we’ll get some food inside you, and you can tell me the whole sad story.” He eased her to her feet, stood back a little from her and then, giving his sudden puckish grin, said, “And I’ll tell you something—you look a damn sight better in that dress than Helen Holdem ever did.”

  * * * *

  There was a small vine-and-rose-covered patio on the far side of the house from the swimming pool. She sat at a glass-topped table and he fussed over her and chatted away easily, leaving no long silences to embarrass her and avoiding any questions about herself. They would come and she would answer them, but he spread an atmosphere of protecting warmth and care about her, a slow caressing and gentling to smooth all emotional disturbance from her.

  He was a good cook and there was a neatness and easy deftness in his manner and moves which surprised her from his stocky, craggily built body. His hands were big and short fingered, but they moved without clumsiness or hesitation. Now and again, as he served her and she ate, his dark green-flecked brown eyes would hold hers and his big mouth would stir with the edge of a reassuring smile. He brought her a salad of young lettuce hearts and green peppers and a cheese omelette which she found herself eating with relish. It was with some first small surprise that she found herself reaching without any reservations lingering from the past for the glass of dry white wine which he poured for her.

  She said, “You’re a very good cook, and also very kind.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, pleased with the compliment and said, “Well, the first is a sort of professional thing. I used to run a ristorante on the coast down here. Went bust though—good cooking isn’t all. You’ve got to have good management with it, and I’m a lousy manager. As for the kindness . . . well. . . I’ve been in bad trouble too at times and know the value of a helping hand, a friendly word. Now you t
ake your time and eat and drink. I’m just going to clear up my stuff from the pool.” He nodded to a brass bell on the table. “Ring that if you want me. Also . . .” he hesitated and scrubbed at his chin with a hard, brown hand. “Well, it occurred to me that there might be someone . . . you know, someone who ought to know right away that you’re alive and well, and not to worry about you.”

  She dropped her eyes from him momentarily, touched the side of the cool wine glass with one finger, not wanting to reveal her sudden emotional stir at his concern. Keeping her eyes from him, she said, “No. Not for the time being anyway, thank you.”

  “Fair enough. Well, don’t let the omelette get cold.”

  She looked up then, gave him the shadow of a smile but could find no words for him and knew as he gave her a gentle wink before turning away that he was matching her feelings with an instinctive sympathy and understanding.

  She heard him whistling as he collected his gear from the swimming pool. She ate and drank, surprised now by the contentment building in her. In the convent you were one among many, all love and emotion directed to the Blessed Saviour, making of each Sister an isolated world. To have this man wink at her with warm compassion, though he knew nothing about her, was like the sudden burst of bird song in winter; a warm, ugly, solid man, bringing back to her all the beauty of the world, rousing in her for the first time in many, many years a sense of her own personality, marking for her with his manner the fact that she was a woman hungry now to dedicate herself to a new devotion. . . to the richness of a world which she had once thought was gone from her forever.

  He was a long time away from her. When he came back he had changed into a light blue denim jacket and trousers and a white cashmere turtle-necked jersey. The paint was gone from his cheek and his dark hair was damp and glossy from the shower he had taken. She had heard him singing under it while she had sat and watched the sun drop towards a range of low hills to the west. He cleared the stuff away from the table into the kitchen and coming back said, “The sun’s going. We’d better go inside. I’ve lit the fire.” He pulled the chair back from her as she rose and then lightly took her arm and escorted her into the house, where he settled her into a chair by the fire. Sitting across the fireplace from her he was silent for a while, watching her while he fiddled with the lighting of a pipe. When the tobacco was drawing, he said nothing for a long time, just sat and looked at her with the flames of the fire burnishing one side of his face. Then with a sudden grunt and jerk of his shoulders he sat forward and said, “It’s only just occurred to me that, of course, it’s all your business and you may not want to go into it. If so, that’s O.K. You don’t have to say anything. You can borrow some clothes—and money too, if you want— and I’ll telephone for a car for you. What I mean is that you don’t owe me anything more than, well——” he grinned suddenly, “——than a polite thank you for being in the right place at the right moment and pulling you out of the drink. So just say.”