The Birdcage

by Marcia Willett

  She stands at her bedroom window staring into soft dense cloud through which thick fingers of gold stab and probe the land below. The sea-borne mist parts for a moment to reveal a patch of sky, the colour of blue cotton, and the curve of a rainbow which trembles and flashes above Bossington Hill. On the drive, which winds up from the lane, two figures are climbing towards the house hand in hand: her father uses his walking stick to help him onwards and even Piers looks weary, not hopping and skipping as he usually does. Only Monty races ahead, fresh and excited as when they all set out, darting away from the path, dashing back, his tail wagging madly with anticipation. They pause: her father’s arm shoots out to indicate something in the furze. It might be a stone-chat or a rabbit – Marina shrugs, amused – whatever it is Piers will be full of it later, passionate about this corner of Exmoor just as her brother, Peter, was in those idyllic years before the war. How Piers loves these explorations with his grandfather: walks over the heathery slopes of Dunkery or down in Horner Wood; the sighting of a tiny dappled fawn curled in a nest of rusty bracken or a dipper bobbing on a smooth grey boulder down on Horner Water. Her father has taught him to keep a nature book and he carefully labours at making a record of the year’s passing, starting with the early snowdrops in the woods near Cutcombe and finishing with a sprig of bell-heather still blooming on Porlock Common in December.

  The figures resume their climb, looking forward no doubt to some tea, and Marina turns away from the window, picks up a cardigan and goes downstairs. It is too damp to have tea in the garth and, even though it is July, the sitting-room feels cold and chill. Marina is persuaded to have tea in the kitchen, which is always warm because of the solid-fuel range, and as she pours Piers’ milk she listens to their duet describing the walk. Monty stretches himself comfortably on his old rug beneath the window, which looks south into the garth, one eye fixed hopefully on the floor beneath Piers’ chair. Sometimes there are accidents – once, half of a scone dropped face downwards on the flags – and he holds himself ready for a quick dash.

  Presently, when Piers has asked to get down and has gone away to bring his nature book up to date – although the sea mist has prevented any unusual sightings – Marina pours more tea for her father, her face thoughtful.

  ‘I was wondering,’ she begins, ‘whether I might go to Bristol with Felix next weekend. He’s on holiday next month so it will be my only chance for a while. I feel rather restless. Do you think you could manage if I get Mrs Penn to help?’

  ‘Of course we can manage. Haven’t I been suggesting it for the last few months? I think it’s a very good idea.’

  He wonders if he sounds rather too enthusiastic and takes a sip of his tea. David Frayn is on the horns of a dilemma: he is unhappy at the idea of Felix being unfaithful to Marina yet there is an even tenor these days in their relationship – not quite contented tranquillity, nor yet detached indifference – that creates a better atmosphere than Marina’s icy silences and ill-concealed criticism countered by repressed irritation and long-suffering on Felix’s side. Part of David is unwilling to upset the status quo; part fears what might happen if Marina discovers an affair. He is convinced that, if his son-in-law is having an affair, then it is happening in Bristol and he believes that Marina’s regular presence on those monthly visits would quite naturally put an end to it. At least the idea is hers, this time; he has not persuaded her into it. Why then does he feel so full of fear?

  Felix is shocked at how much he minds losing his few precious hours at the Birdcage with Angel and the others. To his surprise Marina has never questioned his departure after tea on Sunday afternoons, never asked why he can’t leave later in the evening or even – in the summer months – very early on Monday morning. She accepts his casual murmurings of arriving in time for a chat over a drink with Tom in order to catch up with things and to discuss the partners’ meeting on the following Monday morning. Marina thinks – he allows her to think – that these chats take place at Tom and Molly’s house in Caledonia Place, not far from the offices in Portland Street, and her antennae, usually so keen, have completely let her down in this respect. The chats do take place – but are kept fairly short and are generally conducted at the end of a telephone.

  ‘The only thing is,’ he tells her, hoping that it might put her off, ‘it’s Molly’s birthday this Sunday and they’re having a cocktail party in the evening. I don’t see how we’ll be able to get out of it.’

  He’s been planning to drop in for a short while, drink Molly’s health and then quietly disappear; now he hopes that Marina will be dissuaded from her trip. She is ill at ease socially and has never been able to achieve the easy comradeship with her own sex that might have brought comfort and relief, but Molly’s natural sweetness of character and down-to-earth warmth have made her one of the few women with whom Marina has any kind of rapport.

  ‘Well, I expect we’ll manage,’ she says now, to his surprise and frustration. ‘It might be quite fun although their friends are all very Bohemian, aren’t they? They’ve always read the newest books and seen the latest films, and I always feel like a country mouse, but I suppose we needn’t stay too long.’

  ‘No,’ says Felix, swallowing down disappointment. ‘No, of course not, and we can find somewhere for dinner afterwards. I know Molly will be delighted to see you.’

  Only David, coming out of his study, sees his expression as he pauses for a moment in the hall, realizing that he won’t see Angel now until the end of September. He stands with his hands in his pockets, head lowered, biting his lip, before he crosses the hall and runs lightly up the stairs. David moves out of the shadows and stares after him, his sense of anxiety increasing.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘We won’t see him this weekend,’ says Angel, her voice tragic. ‘Marina’s coming up with him and he won’t be able to get away.’

  Pidge hides her own disappointment in the face of Angel’s and attempts to console her. ‘It’s bound to happen occasionally,’ she says. ‘And, after all, she is his wife.’

  ‘Oh, I know all that,’ Angel says miserably. ‘But a few hours a month, Pidge! That’s all we get. It’s not much to live on, is it?’

  She smooths out the letter and Pidge sees her expression change: Angel’s eyes narrow thoughtfully and she purses her lips consideringly.

  ‘He tells me that they’ll be going to the Curzons’ cocktail party tomorrow,’ she says – and smiles brightly at Pidge across the table. ‘The usual Friends of the Theatre mob, of course, and I know that quite a few of the cast are going. I’ve been invited, actually.’

  ‘But you get fed up to the back teeth with the dear old Friends,’ says Pidge lightly, her heart sinking. ‘Not your kind of thing at all.’

  ‘Oh, Molly’s OK,’ answers Angel casually. ‘She’s rather a sweetie. I might just pop along for an hour.’

  ‘Please,’ says Pidge, abandoning caution, ‘please don’t, Angel. Imagine how difficult it will be for Felix if you show up.’

  ‘Oh, I shall behave myself.’ It is clear that Angel is enchanted by her plan: her eyes sparkle at the prospect. She can feel the frisson of meeting Felix in public with such a delicious secret between them. It is irresistible. ‘Don’t fuss, Pidge. I’m not quite an idiot, you know.’

  ‘It’s not just you,’ says Pidge almost crossly. ‘Felix is our friend too; mine and Lizzie’s. He’s terribly important to Lizzie and she adores him. She’s old enough to know what she’s missing when she see her little friends with their fathers. Being a father himself, Felix understands her; he fills a huge need. You simply mustn’t risk it, Angel.’

  Angel looks sombre. ‘I simply must see him,’ she says, ‘even if we don’t speak. He won’t be coming up next month because he’s on holiday. I won’t see him until the end of September. I promise I’ll behave but I must just see him.’

  Pidge sighs heavily; she shakes her head. ‘It’s all wrong,’ she says.

  ‘Of course it’s all wrong, sweetie,’ agrees Angel, but
she smiles winningly at Pidge. ‘You and me and Mike were all wrong; Felix coming here is all wrong. But I love him. So do you. So does Lizzie. We need him.’

  ‘Then don’t risk it,’ begs Pidge. ‘From the few things that Felix has let drop we know his wife is a jealous type. Can’t you see how dangerous it is?’

  ‘Your name should have been Hen, not Pidgeon,’ grins Angel. ‘His wife won’t suspect a thing. After all, you’re forgetting that I am an actress.’

  ‘“Love and a cough cannot be hid”,’ quotes Pidge warningly.

  The moment that she sees Felix in Molly’s high-walled garden, talking to Tom, she knows that Pidge is right. She feels the hot colour wash into her cheeks, her body feels languid with longing, her eyes grow large. From the shelter of the dining-room she stares avidly at the woman at his side; taking in every detail. Her dark hair is pulled back into a French pleat, which in Angel’s view doesn’t flatter her: she is too thin, her features are too sharp. Her frock is unremarkable, the ubiquitous little black dress, and the low heels of her plain court shoes sink into Molly’s smooth turf. At regular instances she casts quick glances round at the guests, almost as if she is looking for someone; there is an intensity in that swift, searching, radar-like probe and Angel feels a spasm of terror grip her heart.

  Suddenly she realizes how very dear Felix is to the three of them, how terrible it would be to lose him, and she knows that she is in danger. Her gaze is drawn back to him, at ease and attractive in his dark suit, listening to Tom, and she acknowledges that in coming to this party she is being both selfish and foolish. The excitement of it, the danger, is no longer appealing and she doesn’t want to see his expression of shock or, even worse, disappointment. For a moment she is angry that she cannot stand at his side as Marina does: his wife, acknowledged, in her rightful place. As it is she must skulk here in the shadows and the secret is no longer exciting, it is grubby and shaming.

  ‘I can’t leave Marina,’ Felix says, as Mike has said of his wife before him. ‘I have a son, you know, and I could never abandon Piers. I have very little to offer you so, in the light of what I’ve just said, you’ll find it difficult to believe it when I say that I love you.’

  But she does believe it – and watching him now she knows she loves him too. Even as she turns back into the dining-room, so as to make her escape, a fellow actor with some friends swoop in through the opposite door and, despite her very real protests, carry her with them down the steps and into the garden. It needs all her skill to present a calm exterior, a polite, almost indifferent smile when Tom introduces her to Felix and Marina.

  ‘But haven’t you met before?’ Tom asks in his breezy, cheerful way. ‘We took you both backstage to meet Miss Blake if I remember rightly.’

  ‘Of course we did. I remember now,’ she says smoothly as she shakes Marina’s hand.

  She is aware of Felix’s brief shocked stare, almost instantly replaced by a guarded friendliness, and she turns away from them as soon as it is possible to do so naturally, taking Tom by the arm on the pretext of discussing when she should give Molly her present. She pays them no further attention, flirting instead with another of Tom’s friends, although there is an unworthy satisfaction in the prospect that Felix will see her flirting and feel as miserable as she does; a hope that is swiftly followed by a sense of shame, as if she has degraded herself in his presence.

  ‘You were right,’ she says to Pidge later, high-heeled shoes kicked off, hair dishevelled round her shoulders.

  ‘Of course I was,’ answers Pidge calmly.

  ‘But it’s not fair,’ Angel bursts out.

  ‘Who said anything about “fair”?’ asks Pidge. ‘Shut up and have a drink.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  David Frayn sees their return with relief. Nothing, it seems, has altered between them and Marina is looking forward to having Felix under her eye for most of August. David feels guilty, rather as if he has accused Felix unfairly, yet deep in his bones he continues to feel that something is wrong. As the summer progresses he notices that whatever source has been supplying Felix with the strength to cope with Marina’s whims and fancies is failing him. He becomes less able to deal with her accusations and sometimes David overhears a desperate note in his voice.

  ‘I promise you, darling, that it was nothing more than dinner-party fun. I wasn’t flirting with her. Oh, I know it might have looked like it but we were simply laughing about something – no, I’ve no idea what it was. It was completely unimportant. Please, Marina, it is not a sin for a married man to laugh with another woman . . .’

  Marina has begun to suspect that Felix is entailed with the rather disreputable wife of one of his colleagues and gradually the icy silences, the tension, reappear. As autumn draws on and half-term approaches, Piers begins to suffer from his mother’s uncertain temper.

  ‘We saw a cormorant on the beach,’ he tells her, noting the event laboriously in his nature book. He sits at his grandfather’s desk, a cushion on the chair to lift him high enough, his legs twisting together in his efforts. ‘He’d eaten so much fish he could hardly fly and we were able to get a really good look at him.’

  ‘It would be much more useful,’ answers his mother sharply, ‘if instead of wandering about watching birds all day you were practising your tables. You know how weak you are at your sums.’

  He stares at her, stricken, his happy mood shattered, his pleasure in the cormorant with his grey eye and snake-like neck completely spoiled.

  ‘I do practise them sometimes,’ he protests. ‘When I’m out with Grandfather I say them as we go along. Daddy says he was bad at sums too, when he was my age.’

  ‘Then he should encourage you to practise more,’ says Marina angrily. She resents the way Piers shows such affection to his father when he, Felix, is so indifferent to her own happiness: it is hurtful and shows insensitivity on Piers’ part. ‘The trouble is that Daddy doesn’t care. If he really cared about you he’d make you work instead of reading you silly stories. You’ll find as you grow older, Piers, that the people who are easy-going are not the ones who have your true welfare at heart.’

  She goes away, taking the Hoover and her dusters, and Piers is left sitting at the desk, his heart cold with terror. The trouble is that Daddy doesn’t care. If he really cared about you . . .

  His innocence is tarnished; his confidence shaken. Nothing will ever be quite the same again.

  After a great deal of anxious thought he decides to take his own soundings: Grandfather first. He waits until his parents have gone off to a dinner party and then climbs out of bed, pulls on his plaid dressing-gown and slips downstairs. In the hall he hesitates: here, as usual, he is aware of a presence, an invisible comfort that soothes his troubled heart. Sometimes he lies on the flagged floor, watching the light that streams through the tall, high windows, or he might climb into one of the pair of heavily carved chairs that stand against the staircases, one at each end of the hall. Occasionally he takes a toy into the hall, running a small car or a fire engine over the slates, muttering to himself, but before too long the stillness here in the heart of the house takes hold of him so that he finds that he is lying quite still, listening to the silence.

  This evening he waits only for a moment – the prospect of this first test interferes with his ability to hear that all-embracing sound of silence – and presently he crosses the hall and moves quietly down the passage towards the study. Outside the door he stops, his ear pressed against the panel. Several voices are speaking in loud, urgent tones and suddenly there is a burst of music; Grandfather is listening to the wireless. Piers recognizes that music, which sounds like a great train pulling out of the station, gathering speed, thundering rhythmically along the track with sparks flying and smoke pouring from its chimney: it’s the theme tune from the weekly serial Paul Temple.

  Piers turns the handle and goes into the warm, firelit study. Monty’s tail beats a welcome from the rug and David Frayn, seated at his desk, screws round in his chai
r to peer at the small figure standing just inside the door.

  ‘Hello there,’ he says. ‘What’s up? Where’s the fire? Had a bad dream?’

  He gets up, switching off the wireless, and Piers closes the door behind him and goes to sit on the fender beside his grandfather’s armchair.

  ‘I haven’t been to sleep yet,’ he admits. He stretches out his slippered foot so that Monty can lick his bare ankle: he finds the warm, wet caress oddly comforting. ‘I’ve been thinking, Grandfather.’ He’s thought very carefully about what he should say, basing it on what his mother has said to him, and now he tries it out. ‘If I don’t get better at my tables I might not pass my entrance exam in the spring and I’ve been wondering if I should give up the nature book, Grandfather? It takes up quite a lot of time, these days, when I could be practising my tables.’

  David Frayn looks down upon the boy’s dark head, watching him stroking Monty with the fringed edge of his dressing-gown’s corded belt. He doesn’t question the fact that the boy has to go away to preparatory school but he guesses that Marina has been putting pressure on him to work harder and he knows that his daughter, like her mother before her, always uses a hammer to crack a walnut. He feels his way towards a compromise between discipline and kindness.

  ‘I think you’ve come on very well,’ he says, so as to make an encouraging start. ‘You rattle them off like a good ‘un when we’re out on our sorties.’

  ‘It’s not just saying them that I mind,’ says Piers earnestly, turning to look up at him. ‘It’s dotting about. Like nine sixes or seven eights. I get muddled then, you see. Mummy nearly always catches me out.’

  Hunched on the fender, dressing-gown trailing over his drawn-up knees, he wears an anxious expression that makes him look almost careworn and David thinks of Piers’ uncle Peter, killed at Arnhem before he was able to have a child of his own. How often he looks back, regretting hasty words, wrong decisions: now, with Piers, he attempts to put his experience to good use.