The Birdcage

by Marcia Willett

  ‘Right number, wrong door,’ she says kindly when she feels that he’s suffered enough. ‘I expect it’s Angel you’re looking for.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ he agrees gratefully. ‘I thought . . . she said that . . .’

  At this point the door at the top of the stairs opens and Angel stares down at them.

  ‘Darling,’ she cries warmly, addressing both of them. ‘Whatever are you doing down there? I hope you’re not giving Pidge my flowers, Felix.’

  ‘No, no,’ he says hastily and, instantly embarrassed at this ungallant denial, adds, ‘not that I wouldn’t have bought some more if I’d realized . . .’

  ‘So I should hope,’ says Pidge indignantly. ‘I’m not some old concierge, you know, sitting about here waiting for the doorbell to ring.’

  He begins to laugh and Pidge sees exactly why Angel has been behaving like a woman who is head over heels in love. ‘I give in,’ he said. ‘Would half each settle the point?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ cries Angel. ‘They’re all for me. Come on up and we’ll have a drink. And you, Pidge! Don’t go all tactful on me. I want you to meet this man properly. He’s coming down to the theatre with me later.’

  They climb the stairs and, once inside the big first-floor room, Felix and Pidge shake hands solemnly.

  Pidge’s level brown-eyed gaze continues to unnerve him a little. ‘And will this be the first time that you’ve seen the play?’ she asks.

  He reddens slightly, suspecting that she already knows the answer, guessing that he is being teased, and Angel, pouring drinks, chuckles triumphantly.

  ‘This’ll be the third time, sweetie. How’s that for devotion?’

  ‘Very commendable.’ Pidge continues to watch him, assessing him, and Felix has the uncomfortable suspicion that these two women have no secrets from each other.

  ‘It’s a good play,’ he answers lightly.

  When Lizzie comes downstairs from her high attic room he shakes hands with her just as if she is grown up.

  ‘Did you bring me a present too?’ she asks when she is shown the roses and Pidge chuckles at the expression on Felix’s face.

  ‘He forgot me too,’ she says to Lizzie. ‘Shocking, isn’t it?’

  ‘I had no idea,’ he pleads, addressing Lizzie, ‘that there were three ladies living here. May I come again and make up for it?’

  ‘I like chocolate,’ says Lizzie warningly, lest he should bring the wrong kind of presents. She likes flowers too, but chocolate is best. ‘And Pidge says diamonds are a girl’s best friend.’

  ‘Does she indeed?’ Felix laughs as Pidge covers her face with her hands and shakes her head in despair. ‘Well, the truth will out. I’ll have to see what I can do.’

  ‘I like him,’ says Pidge much later to Angel. ‘I like him a lot. So does Lizzie. I’m just warning you that you’ve got competition.’

  ‘Oh, Pidge,’ Angel’s eyes are huge with joy and love, ‘he is rather nice, isn’t he?’

  ‘Mind you,’ Pidge tells her, touched by the evidence of Angel’s feelings, ‘I’m not committing myself just yet. It’s all hanging on those diamonds.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Have you thought of going to Bristol with Felix next weekend?’ asks David Frayn. ‘It’s about time you had another break.’

  He stands at the drawing-room window looking out into the dusk. Earlier a blizzard has swept in over the Channel and the branches of the fir trees are weighed down with smooth, rounded snowy domes, which fall from time to time in soft powdery explosions. Below, on the rocky, ice-glazed slopes of the hill, a fox moves cautiously in the shelter of the furze, a note of warm russet in the freezing landscape, whilst the silver disc of a moon, thin and insubstantial, is already setting behind Dunkery.

  Piers, cross-legged on the hearth rug, is collecting up his toy soldiers and putting them away in the big wooden box. Grandfather has been advising him – ‘Now, you put your artillery here, d’you see? And the infantry here’ – and they’ve had a very good game, but he senses a tension in the old man as he stands at the window; there is a note in his voice that Piers can’t quite place. Although he doesn’t know why, he feels anxious. He leans back against Monty, who stirs in his sleep, whining a little, his paws twitching as if he were running. Piers leans over him tenderly, smoothing the soft coat, murmuring reassurances.

  David Frayn turns away from the window and Marina glances up from her book.

  ‘To be honest with you, it doesn’t really appeal in weather like this,’ she answers. ‘It was quite fun, last autumn, but the days are rather long all alone in a poky flat and you can’t spend all day walking about. I don’t see much of Felix, you know, Father. He has to fit quite a lot in during those two days each month. Perhaps in the spring I’ll go.’

  ‘Is it snowing again?’ asks Piers eagerly. The village school has closed early because of the weather and he has built a splendid snowman in the garth: his grandfather has lent a shabby old felt hat and a long woollen scarf, and Piers can hardly wait to show his father.

  ‘I hope not,’ answers Marina. She glances at her watch. ‘I hoped Felix would be home early, before it begins to freeze again.’

  Even as she speaks they hear a door slam and suddenly here is Felix, ruddy-cheeked, rubbing his hands together, smiling at his family all happily together in this warm, comfortable room.

  ‘There’s a strange person in the garth,’ he says solemnly. ‘A very cold person. I introduced myself and tried to shake hands with him but he refused.’

  Piers flings himself at his father’s legs, roaring with laughter. ‘That’s my snowman,’ he cries, his face bunched up with mirth. ‘He hasn’t got any hands.’

  Felix bends to touch his lips to Marina’s brow, smiles at his father-in-law and sits down by the fire with Piers in his lap.

  ‘He has a very smart hat,’ he says to Piers. ‘What’s his name?’

  Marina watches them with her familiar half-frowning, half-smiling expression, as if she cannot understand how Felix can be so undignified, so natural with the child. He lies back in the chair with Piers kneeling astride him, almost shouting into his face with excitement, as relaxed and interested as if he too were six years old. What can it matter whether a snowman has a name? She gives a little disdainful shake of the head and, out of the corner of her eye, catches her father’s look. He watches Felix almost narrowly, as if trying to detect something, and she feels an odd pang of fear.

  ‘I was just saying to Marina,’ he says to Felix, ‘that she should have another trip to Bristol with you when you go on Sunday.’

  Accidentally, or otherwise, Piers moves suddenly, so it is impossible to see Felix’s expression and when he speaks his voice is muffled by the child’s embracing arms.

  ‘Why not?’ he says, emerging from the tussle. ‘Good idea.’ He looks at Marina questioningly. ‘Would you like to?’

  David Frayn notices that he makes no attempt to discourage her – he even sounds quite keen – and wonders if he is misjudging Felix. Lately his son-in-law seems calmer, more able to deal with the silences, the unspoken criticism, those accusations that occasionally he cannot help but overhear. There is something detached about Felix, some external power is giving him the ability to be patient, cheerful: more, there is an ill-concealed happiness, a smile that lingers on his lips when he is caught unawares. If he were asked to define it he’d say that here is a man who’s fallen wildly in love with someone who loves him just as much in return. Unfortunately there is no such change in Marina – which is why he feels anxious.

  ‘I was explaining that I find it rather bleak,’ Marina is saying. ‘The flat has that unused feel, doesn’t it? It’s not so bad in the summer when you can be outside for most of the time but it’s not much fun in this kind of weather.’

  David watches Felix thoughtfully. He makes the facial shrug that Piers sometimes copies: the mouth turns downward at the corners whilst the eyebrows lift and the eyes roll a little. It’s not a dismissive expression but
more one of consideration.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he says, after a moment. ‘It’s not a bad place. Of course, you can’t have an open fire, and it’s not what you might call cosy, but it’s quite a nice little flat. And it must be rather a pleasant change to see some decent shops. We could go to the cinema . . .’

  ‘It’s all right for you,’ says Marina rather defensively, feeling that both men are now ganging up on her. ‘You’re working most of the time. I can’t spend all day shopping.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ agrees Felix at once. ‘I see that. Perhaps when it’s warmer . . . ?’

  David cannot decide whether Felix is being very clever or if his fears are simply unfounded; and, after all, if Felix is able to manage his marriage more happily, does it matter why? He has no right to interfere, he tells himself, but still he watches him; seeing that fleeting smile, the far-away look in his eyes, as if his son-in-law is hearing other voices and looking upon other scenes. Surely the ever-vigilant Marina would have guessed if there were something? David Frayn shivers involuntarily and moves back into the room, nearer to the fire.

  It is extraordinary, Felix is thinking, how quickly he has become a part of the little family in the narrow house near the university. His monthly visits are settling into a natural routine and he is welcomed as readily by Pidge and Lizzie as he is by Angel. They are a tight-knit little group; the bond between Pidge and Angel is strong and he is confirmed in his belief that they have no secrets from each other.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ Angel agrees when he suggests this to her, ‘we don’t. We’ve shared a lover, you see, and as soon as we discovered that, well, it changed everything for us. It broke down any barriers and brought us very close.’

  ‘I can believe that,’ he says sincerely; by this time he’s been often enough to the Birdcage to realize that there is nothing ordinary about either Pidge or Angel. There is an atmosphere of warmth and ease that has a healing quality; he is able to laugh and tease the two women without the fear of those misunderstandings which, with Marina, result in long, arctic silences.

  ‘We were both mad about him,’ Angel tells him. She is curled on the sofa, curtains drawn against a cold, wet Sunday evening in March; Pidge has disappeared downstairs and Lizzie is tucked up in bed. Angel wears one of her favourite long wrappers, belted tightly, bare legs tucked beneath her, a cigarette in her fingers. She looks unusually serious, the lighted lamp lending a glowing lustre to her pale hair and skin as she reflects upon the past, and Felix feels a sudden, piercing sense of exclusion.

  ‘He must have been pretty special,’ he says lightly.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She glances at him, tapping the cigarette ash into a small enamelled bowl. ‘He was. His wife had had a riding accident not long after they married and was not only crippled but suffered some kind of brain damage. It was terrible. Mike loved her so much and there was absolutely nothing he could do but keep her comfortable and well cared for. Pidge met him towards the end of the war – she was his driver – and then someone found out about them and Pidge was transferred. He owns quite a bit of property and when the war was over he got in touch with her to say that the flat downstairs had been vacated and she could have it for a very reasonable rent. Pidge got a job at the library and moved in. No,’ she shakes her head at his expression, ‘there was no ulterior motive. He just wanted to help her.’

  ‘And where did you come in?’

  ‘I met him at a party. He’s quite a bit older than I am and I was rather bowled over by his sophistication, to tell you the truth. He never pretended that there could be a future but, like Pidge, I didn’t much care. He’s that sort of man.’ She glances at him, drawing on her cigarette. ‘Are you sure you want to know all this?’

  ‘Quite sure.’ His sense of isolation has vanished and he is curiously bound up in this little history, feeling a sympathy for the man who has lost so much but accepts love when it is offered.

  ‘Well, unlike Pidge, I was the foolish virgin who got caught out. Lizzie is his child.’

  ‘Poor Angel.’ He gets up and goes to sit beside her, and she moves so as to make room for him. ‘How did you manage with a child and your career?’

  ‘Rather badly to begin with.’ She chuckles, leaning against him. ‘My mother, after the initial shock, was surprisingly good. I had to tell her who the baby’s father was and that helped. Mike’s a war hero and he’s a very popular public figure. My mother instantly decided that it wasn’t really his fault and, since he was ready to help to support Lizzie financially, she was actually a tremendous comfort. We agreed that Lizzie shouldn’t know the truth – he has a son of his own, you see – and afterwards he simply continued to contact us through his lawyers.’

  ‘So how did you end up here with Pidge?’

  ‘Oh, that was just so typical of him.’ Angel stubs out her cigarette and settles comfortably in his arms. ‘When he found out that I was coming to Bristol he sent a little note to Pidge suggesting that she should come to see me at the theatre. On the opening night he sent flowers, something he never did, saying that he hoped I’d found comfortable digs. It was just so odd. And then darling Pidge was shown into the dressing-room, looking all nervous and twitchy and saying that she’d heard I was looking for somewhere to live which could take a small child. I smelled a rat at once.’

  ‘But you weren’t upset that he brought you both together?’

  Angel frowns. ‘Pidge asked that. She was so anxious about it, she felt so guilty. But after all, she’d had him first, and, let’s face it, he didn’t belong to me.’ She makes a little face. ‘Actually, I thought it was rather fun. It connected us together, made a little family of us, and he’s been so good to both of us in an odd kind of way. That’s what’s so special about him, I suppose. We’ve never felt resentful or hard done by. Perhaps it’s because he’s so much older?’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, that’s how it happened.’

  ‘And Lizzie?’

  ‘Oh, Lizzie’s happy here. We’ve stuck as close to the truth as we can and told her that her father was a soldier who was killed in the Korean war, which, let’s face it, is hardly an unusual situation these days. Of course, it’s wonderful having Pidge around. She looks after Lizzie when I go down to the theatre and takes her to school on the way to the library each morning. Between us we manage to look after her very well. Yes, Lizzie’s fine.’

  ‘She wasn’t too impressed with Pidge’s diamonds,’ he says ruefully.

  Angel chuckles. ‘It was very clever of you, sweetie,’ she says, ‘but poor Lizzie couldn’t grasp it all.’

  Discovering that Pidge has a passion for playing patience he bought a charming double pack of tiny cards for her.

  ‘Twenty-six diamonds,’ he said, holding out the little box, grinning at her expression. ‘Unfortunately there’re also twenty-six clubs, twenty-six hearts and twenty-six spades.’

  ‘It’s a joke,’ Pidge had to explain to the disappointed Lizzie who was, nevertheless, very pleased with her own present: one Punch bar, one Five Boys and a Fry’s sandwich bar with plain and milk chocolate. ‘Rather a good joke, actually.’

  ‘Lizzie’s not impressed,’ said Felix, ‘and I don’t blame her’ – but she smiled at him and said, ‘Thank you for my chocolate,’ and carried it away, stumping up the steep narrow staircase to her attic room.

  ‘I think,’ said Pidge, suddenly overcome with a fit of tactfulness, ‘I’ll go and have my bath and then we’ll cook supper.’

  Now, together on the sofa, aware of Lizzie in her little attic room, Felix slips an arm about Angel and she holds him tightly.

  ‘Oh, Felix,’ she says, ‘I’ve missed you. I’m terribly in need of some soothing.’

  ‘When you say “soothing”,’ he murmurs cautiously, ‘is this an occupation which might frighten Lizzie if she came upon it suddenly or am I letting my imagination run away with me?’

  She begins to laugh, still holding him. ‘The answers to those questions are “Yes” and “No”, in that order, swee
tie,’ she says. ‘I suppose you couldn’t possibly slip away tomorrow afternoon just after lunch, could you? Lizzie is home from school by half-past three.’

  ‘Oh, I think I could,’ he says, his lips against her throat.

  So it begins.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  All through that summer Marina too is aware of a change in Felix. Her naturally suspicious temperament suggests the obvious reason for it but she is unable to find any proof. He is rarely late home, he makes no excuses so as to stay away, there is no evidence that she can find – and she looks, hating herself but unable to resist; searching in his pockets, smelling his clothes and examining them for traces of lipstick – and even when they go out together she cannot really fault his behaviour except in the usual way: that he is too friendly with other women. It is as if he has, in some indefinable way, moved beyond her reach and yet he still makes every effort to show that he cares for her. He is not indifferent to her moods but now it’s as if he feels compassion for her, as if – she flinches away from the idea – as if he pities her.

  It is no longer in her power to flick him on the raw with stinging comments regarding his flirtatious friendliness; he no longer jumps to defend himself or turns angrily away. It is impossible to wound or shame him into acts of penitence; he seems unmoved by the icy silences. Once he would have cajoled her back to warmth with little offerings: a cup of tea, the removal of Piers so as to give her some peace, a little posy of flowers beside her plate. She’s never considered the ready hugs or kisses to be a sign of love: these are merely evidence of his weak, licentious nature. Yet, because he no longer reacts to her jealousy, she is no longer able to reach those heights of remorse that once drove her into his arms in acts of almost violent reparation. Now, love-making must either be the result of those very hugs and kisses that she despises as weakness – or she must initiate the act herself without the necessary overture of guilt that has hitherto smothered the embarrassment and humiliation of showing that she wants him.