I wondered why he stood there, just calling, why he didn’t simply step out to where he could see us. Instead he withdrew, and as he did so she sprang back into life, releasing my arm with a little shake, stepping into the sitting room with the phone in her hand.
‘I think you should talk to the servants,’ she said. ‘Someone’s been out here, using the phone, look.’
I saw her put her free arm round his waist as she spoke. I saw the relief on his face, as he took the phone out of her hand and put it back on the end table, then clasped both of her hands and drew her near. She kept her face guarded, her eyes down. I slipped in behind her, half hoping he’d see me, but he wasn’t paying attention to anything but her.
PART TWO
WREN
Troglodytes troglodytes, family ‘Troglodytidae’
I woke uneasily, gradually becoming aware of various things. That my alarm was going off and had been going off for some time. That my groping arm, reaching out for it in order to switch it off, was not finding it, because it wasn’t there, because I wasn’t in my bed, I was lying, still clothed, on the sofa under a blanket. That I no longer had an alarm clock anyway, and that the one that I had had, Gareth’s one, the one that he had taken away with him when he moved in with Essex Girl, was the kind that turned on the radio, rather than making the sort of steady mechanical noise that I was hearing now. That besides, if I did still own an alarm clock, I would not have set it for six-thirty because I no longer had to go to work. Because I no longer had a job.
By this time I was fully awake, sitting up on the sofa in the sitting room half angled in a blanket but still hearing the steady alarm-clock noise which was coming from outside the window, from somewhere in the front garden. I stumbled over to have a look, pulling aside the old tablecloth that was doing duty for a set of curtains. Our front garden had very little in it: a square of paving and the bin, and one small tree, just coming into leaf. Among the tree’s branches was a tiny wren, and that was the source of all the noise. Its feathers were fluffed out to their full extent but even so it was still barely larger than a ping-pong ball, and almost as round. Its call was directed at a magpie perching in another branch, head cocked, watching the display with apparent interest. Clearly somewhere the wren had a nest, and the magpie was intent on raiding it. The wren was facing it down armed only with its call, steady and loud, drawing unwelcome attention to the magpie. The magpie itself remained mostly silent apart from an occasional soft rattling chirr as it shifted position on the branch.
It was a standoff. The stakes for the wren were high: its whole family. And the stakes for the magpie were low. Even a whole wren family – eggs or hatched chicks – could not make much more than a mouthful for the bird. But it wasn’t investing much in the prospective meal. All it had to do was wait, wait for the wren to be exhausted, to need to feed. The wren continued to pump out sound far out of proportion to its size. The magpie continued to wait. But even as I watched, the wren’s calls were beginning to lose their mechanical regularity, beginning to falter, the volume tailing off. The magpie shifted a little closer and the wren checked itself after a second and started again with a clockwork ferocity.
I wondered what was keeping the bird there calling. Its chicks, if they’d even hatched by now, would be naked and blind and helpless, mere begging beaks to the parents that fed them. If the magpie did hold out and raided the nest it was early enough in the season that the brood could be replaced. The parents wouldn’t mourn. A sensible strategy would be to cut its losses, move on. Yet still the wren called and called, its whole body quivering with the effort.
I don’t know how long I stood there watching. A sweep of cloud shifted to let the sun through, lighting up the magpie, illuminating the brilliance of its feathers, iridescent with blue and green. Nothing else changed. But the wren ran out of defiance. The alarm-clock calls stopped. The wren flicked its wings and was gone. The magpie moved forward, gaining with one buoyant hop the spot the wren had just vacated. This time patience had won the battle.
I turned away, unwilling to witness what happened next, and wandered back to the sofa. I thought about going back to sleep but it was too late. I was awake now, the sun was up and the sofa looked uninviting, crumpled and frowsy. Outside I heard the harsh calls of the magpie, and an answering call from another. My mother used to greet magpies whenever she saw them. I used to think it was just part of her madness till I heard Jenny do it too, under her breath, when she was out walking.
‘Oh, you have to do it to turn away the bad luck,’ Jenny said, blushing, when I asked her. ‘Didn’t you know? Pure superstition of course. Absolute nonsense. Don’t know why I do it.’ But she still did, I noticed, surreptitiously, when she thought I wasn’t looking.
‘Perhaps that’s what I’m doing wrong,’ I said, but the sound of my voice out loud just startled me. ‘That way madness lies,’ I added, trying to make a joke of it, but the jokes were worse and I tried turning on the television instead. The witless morning chatter drove me out of the room, but at least it gave some life to the house. Without it, it felt as though the magpies and I were the last living creatures left in the world.
I had to look at my watch to see what day it was. Thursday. A week ago – it felt like an age – my life had been almost normal, built around work like everyone else’s. Now I was cast adrift from all that. I had to think back to see how it had happened, piecing together the events of the days since I had confronted David, and he had disappeared.
Saturday hadn’t been too bad. I think that was the first night I’d spent on the sofa. The bedroom had started to seem too full, somehow, haunted by ghosts. And the spare room had the dead lump of the computer, its silence still too loud for comfort. The sofa was a blank, innocent of memories, bought from the previous owners of the house and seeming to sit in the room as neutrally as the carpet. I could sleep there, more or less, and that was all I needed. I’d got up and showered and dressed as normal, packed up scope, binoculars, map and notebook and set off. It was only when I got in the car and sat at the wheel and thought about it that I realized what I was doing. I wasn’t looking for birds, not today. I was looking for David. I needed to have things out with him, properly, get him to leave me alone. Only then could I start to get my life back together, decide what I was going to do.
I started at the garden centre, remembering his Saturday job there. Spring had wrought a transformation and it was packed, crowds wandering through the shrubs displayed outside and packing into the cafe. It was a more complex place than I had first realized, actually several different shops: the main garden centre, a place selling water features and aquaria, a pet shop with rabbits and guinea pigs, a big play area. David was nowhere to be found though – the staff all too harried by customers to help me, shaking their heads blankly when I asked. Finally, one of the girls behind the till paused for a second between customers and said vaguely, ‘Didn’t there used to be a David that worked in accounts?’
‘That was Michael,’ the other girl interjected, leaning over. ‘There was a David worked in pets, but that was ages ago.’ Her customer shifted impatiently, eager to be getting on with her day.
‘Last year?’ the first girl asked.
‘Nah, before then. Short fat guy?’ she asked turning to me.
‘No, I’m looking for someone tall, dark hair, blue eyes.’
‘Left you, love, has he?’ A manager had appeared, alerted by the pause in the sound of tills ringing up sales. The girls hurriedly went back to their work, losing what little interest they had had in the matter.
‘Do you have his home address?’
‘Sorry, love, personnel records are confidential. If you’re lonely, though, I’ll break a rule and give you my own phone number.’
I didn’t dignify him with an answer but left him standing there rubbing his hands and leering while the two girls smirked. Doing the round of places I’d seen him at before, birdwatching sites, didn’t help either. I got caught up repeatedly in Saturday
traffic, making slow progress, arriving each time to find no sign: no brown car, no bright jacket, no irritating grin. Around me people were walking dogs, riding bikes, strolling, enjoying the day. I saw Will from a distance and ducked into a hide to avoid him, not wanting to get into a conversation just yet about what had happened to the website. By dusk I was fretful and exhausted, unwilling to give up the pursuit, unable to think of any better way to find him. I ended up back in the kitchen, wondering what I had in the house to eat, watching the birds take a last evening meal from the feeders.
Sunday was no better. Jenny and Alan’s car was in the car park at Burnham Beeches and I saw it too late to avoid them. They waved at me from the queue at the tea stall, Jenny hurrying over to greet me.
‘Hey, haven’t seen you in ages,’ Jenny said, seeming oblivious to the fact that the last time I saw her I had walked out of her house without a word of farewell. ‘We’ve been chasing all morning after some wretched merlin that Alan claims he saw, and I’m absolutely famished.’
She was vague about David, didn’t seem to recall who I was talking about. Alan denied all knowledge of him.
‘Thought you weren’t interested, anyway,’ she said, not really paying attention, trying to persuade her youngest to take more than a bite of his sandwich.
‘I’m not, but I need to get hold of him.’
And what did you do to Tom? He’s been moping around like a wet blanket. If blankets mope.’
I shook away the thought of Tom moping. Jenny exaggerated these things, said the first words that came into her head. And besides, I had other things to worry about now. I couldn’t let myself be distracted by the thought of Tom. I extracted a promise that they’d text me if they saw him.
‘I’ll ring him into Birdline,’ Alan joked. ‘Tom or this David bloke. Adult male, breeding plumage . . .’
‘Very funny.’
The smell of the food had left me feeling hungry but unsettled. I couldn’t stomach a bacon sandwich, the memories it would trigger. Letting myself back into the empty spaces of the house felt like a defeat. The fridge now smelled of something badly off, and contained nothing but rolls of expired film, milk and half a wilting lettuce. The answering machine light flashed. Warily I played the call, expecting silence, or more complaints about the website. Instead it was Gareth. From the moment I heard his slight throat-clearing cough I knew it was him. I stood transfixed by hope, hope against hope, hope immediately dashed by his words.
‘. . . just to remind you we need to come to some agreement about selling the house, you can contact us through our lawyers on . . .’
I wiped it off before he’d even finished what he had to say, shaken by the power of the emotion he’d triggered, the sound of his dry recital of facts too unbearable to listen to. Giving up on the hunt for David, I spent the afternoon watching the birds on the feeders, thronging my garden. Some of them would need refilling soon, I noticed. Something else to do. Supper that night was the last of the spaghetti sprinkled with ready-grated Parmesan, dry as dust, that I’d found in a corner of the cupboard. The thought of work loomed over the evening. I fell asleep where I sat with the television still on and woke when the channel switched over to rolling 24-hour news. Distant, repeated disasters saw me through until the morning.
On Monday, I’d meant to go to work as usual. My daily routine – tea, toast, shower, work clothes, car – propelled me as far as the staff car park. It was a drizzly grey morning and my wipers still thumped and squeaked across the windscreen as I sat in the car and tried to summon the energy to go in. I’d have some fence mending to do with Janet and although I hadn’t been able to check my work email since I’d wiped my computer, I was pretty certain I’d have a summons from Don to explain properly my disappearance on Friday. And Wednesday, come to that. And the massive backlog of work that had been building up these past few weeks. Around me people were hurrying from their cars to the buildings, heads down, hunched against the rain, looking miserable. Staff mostly – it was too early for the students. I looked around at the wasteland of concrete buildings. Somewhere on the campus I was sure David would be lurking, seeking new avenues to spy on me, thwarted but not defeated. The minute I turned on my work computer I would be vulnerable, open to attack. I closed my eyes, prolonging the moment of security, warm within my car. The engine was still ticking over, almost imperceptible, drowned out by the patter of the rain on the roof. I didn’t want to move.
‘Manda!’ Don’s voice snapped me awake. His face loomed through the side window, looking oddly distorted through the glass.
‘Amanda? Are you OK?’ A woman I didn’t know was mouthing at me through the passenger side window. I pressed the button to let the window down on my side to talk to Don, and felt the blast of cold damp air as some of the rain blew in. I ignored the woman on the other side, hoping she’d go away, but she was persistent, going for the handle of the door, almost quick enough to get to it before I hit the central locking.
‘Come on, Manda, we need to talk. Preferably in my office.’
‘Here’s fine.’ Don had a webcam in his office, one of his little experiments that he’d set up a couple of years ago and promptly forgotten about. I found its winking red eye unnerving at the best of times. This wasn’t the best of times.
‘Can we get in the car, Amanda?’ said the woman, her air of sweet reason rather diminished by the need to shout above the noise of the wipers and the rain. A bit more private, maybe?’
I considered this one. She had a point there, I had to concede. ‘OK. Don in the front though. You can get in the back.’ The locks snapped at my command and she clambered in awkwardly, tipping the passenger seat forward. Then Don folded himself into the front, sliding the seat back as though to make himself comfortable for a long drive.
‘Well, this is cosy, Amanda.’ The woman poked her head through the seats and smiled brightly. I deduced HR. I raised my eyebrows at Don.
‘Two days unauthorized absence due to illness isn’t exactly a disciplinary matter, Don.’
‘Do you think we can turn the wipers off, Amanda?’ She kept dropping my name – long since not my name – into her sentences, as though she was showing off the fact that she had memorized it.
‘I need to be able to see out,’ I said. I was still hoping to catch sight of David. Three warm bodies in the car had begun to fog up the windows and I switched on the fan to keep them clear. HR woman and Don exchanged glances. Don raised his voice a little over the new noise.
‘Manda, as well you know, this is not about discipline. You’re not in any trouble. I just brought Judy here along to give us some advice. On
‘I’m the staff welfare officer, Amanda,’ Judy said brightly.
‘I’m Manda,’ I said. She smiled and stuck out her hand, reaching round awkwardly over the head rest. I ignored it. ‘Not A-manda.’
Don gave her a look that I hoped meant leave the talking to him. Don I was prepared to listen to, not some blow-in from Personnel. We went back a long way, Don and I. We had built up a lot of the current IT infrastructure from scratch. It was only as the needs of the university got bigger, as we’d taken on more people and more projects, that he’d retreated to his big office and his budgets and left the work we’d used to do together behind. I’d stayed on doing what I did best, uninterested in advancement. He had always been an inveterate fiddler, a poker-about, even now opening the glove compartment and rooting around. He pulled out my spare binoculars, wound down the window, peered through them.
‘Pretty nice, these,’ he said, scanning the car park. ‘Sharp. Lovely and clear. Still watching the old birds, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Deleted that whole website, though, didn’t you? On Friday.’
I shrugged. ‘Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?’
‘One minute there, the next minute gone. Boom. I had some distressed birdwatcher ring my office, this morning.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ Don had never really gone
in for fatherly concern as a boss. It took me a while to recognize than that was what he was trying to project now. ‘It took you a long time to build up that site, didn’t it?’
‘I never did it on work time.’
‘Manda, that’s not my point.’
I refrained from asking him what his point was. In the confines of the back seat Judy was shifting impatiently, flicking awkwardly through a file. ‘You have an excellent attendance record, Manda,’ she said, and beamed, like a child delighted at getting my name right. ‘Not a single day sick until this last week.’
‘Do I get a prize?’
‘It means you get some slack cut, Manda. It means we go the extra mile.’ Her smile had teeth in it, and so did her voice. ‘We think you need help.’
It was Don’s turn to shift impatiently now. ‘Manda, I know you’ve had a tough time since – er, since Gareth left. And up until a few weeks ago, you seemed to be coping. But sometimes there can be a delayed effect
‘You may not have realized how hard you have taken it, Manda
‘. . . not concentrating at work, long hours, lack of sleep
‘. . . classic signs of depression . . .’
‘. . . the rest of the team are carrying you, to some extent
‘. . . and with your family history
‘Who told you that?’ I turned sharply to look at Judy, whose hand had flown up in front of her mouth. I glared back at him. ‘Don?’
‘It came up,’ he said, and had the grace to look away, embarrassed.
‘It came up,’ I repeated, feeling the knife twist of betrayal.
I had told him about my mother’s death in confidence, a late-night conversation we’d had, years back, when it was just the two of us working alone in the server room. I had found I could tell him what I couldn’t tell Gareth, letting off the pressure of unspoken words, trusting to his ultimate indifference. The early hours are a weak time, a time of confessions made not so much to your companion as to the murmur of the machines around you. We had been fixing something – I forget what. Something that had taken the whole evening and into the night. It was almost dawn before we finished and as we sat and waited for a few minutes more to make sure everything, was still working, he had asked me casually about my family, and I had told him, letting the words drop one by one into the humming quiet. I talked to the cursor, to the blank eye of the monitor, and Don had said nothing, even when I had finished. He had never mentioned it again. And when I finally turned to see his face the look he gave me then was that same mixture of sadness and pity with which he was looking at me now.
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