The bird beats itself against the window, again and again with terrible force. Something has frightened it. Maria does not know what it is, or what she has done. She thinks that the source of terror is outside the house. She understands this and feels helpless, unable to reassure the bird. Now it flies up to the rafters and dashes itself there, falling stunned to the ground. Maria moves to pick it up, but it opens a bleary eye, shakes itself, hops up on one foot, and takes off again, its beak extended in a silent shriek.
There is a ledge between the end of the rafter and the top of the wall. The sparrow takes refuge here, and sits with its wings half extended, quivering all over. He holds his leg in such a way that Maria wonders if it is damaged.
‘You’ll do yourself a mischief, little bird,’ she whispers. ‘It’s no good going on like this, there’s no way you’ll escape. We have to work at it together. Why don’t you just sit quietly there while I find you a seed or two, something to keep your strength up.’
The bird sits still on its perch, utters a cheep. She thinks she is getting through to it.
‘I’m a witch, you know, witches don’t hurt wild creatures, they’re wild creatures themselves, yes that’s what we are. Don’t you know that, little bird? Eh? There, there, you’re settling. There, you’re not so frightened. I’ll just sit here quietly and see what you do, wild one. No, I know you’re not ready to come down yet, I won’t move, you’re safe here.’
For a moment she thinks she can walk over to the bird and kneel beside it, before she remembers that she is on the floor and he is in the ceiling. This is an old dream, where she walks around the room at the level of the mantelpiece, or higher. Many times when half awake she has believed that she is walking across the world, above rooftops, her feet slicing cleanly along, the air holding her up. In dreams like this it has always taken her a long time to wake up.
Maria woke to hear her mother’s voice behind the door, as she had each morning since her incarceration. She had almost lost count of the days. It was a splendid year; the sun shone continuously and corn and tomatoes were ripening faster than they could be gathered. The people shook their heads and spoke of an Indian summer, and how it looked like there would be no winter at all, the rate they were going.
From her room, Maria watched the blue sky through the bars that Hector McIssac had placed over her window.
She did not scan the ground below, as those beyond the room might have expected, waiting for her lover to appear. She supposed, now, that she would never know what had become of him. This mattered to her, because he was someone who had been prepared to take risks for her. Too late she had realised that she didn’t care.
In the end it was she who had taken the greater risk. Though they had turned over his hut, they would not touch him. Now he was gone and she did not expect to see him again. What mattered was the passage of this month. Then, maybe, she would be allowed to live her life unhindered again. And sooner or later she would go away, however painful and difficult that might prove.
Her term in the room must almost be over. She had counted four Sundays, days when a door banged, a carriage called, and the house had gone quiet as her mother went to church. Even now, she would keep up appearances. She could see Annie walking up the aisle with her head held high beside her brother and his wife, taking her seat in the usual pew, following the prayers for the faithful, and walking out again with a ‘good morning’ here and there.
In that way, Maria guessed, she would leave a path which her daughter might follow after a suitable time had passed.
And now the fourth Monday morning. She had woken earlier than usual, for lately she had had great trouble waking up. At first she thought her mother was speaking to her, but Annie was talking to someone downstairs. A man’s voice, just after dawn. Maria listened. It was Hector. Now his voice grew indistinct. She was not certain whether he was still in the house or had gone outside.
‘Maria,’ called Annie.
An exchange took place between them each morning; Annie would pass food to her and in exchange Maria had passed out the chamber pot. She had considered the idea of escape, but by now she knew that Hector or one of the boys lurked nearby for most of the time. It was between her and her mother, she had concluded, and nothing was to be gained, no dignity or power for her cause, from ill-considered breakouts. She would see it through, pursuing her own plan. As the days passed she stitched her clothes and put her wardrobe in order. When the time came to leave, she would be prepared. At least this was what she told herself, although some days she was so sleepy that she would nod off over her needlework.
Although she had been expecting a change in her routine, now that it had come she was unprepared for it. Something more than she had expected was afoot.
‘What is it, mother?’
The door swung open and Annie stood there, dressed in the black mourning clothes she had worn when Isabella died. She made no effort to stop Maria walking past her.
‘So where is my bodyguard, my precious uncle? Aren’t you afraid I’ll escape?’
‘I wish you would. I wish I had never set eyes on you.’ Her mother’s voice sounded like mud sliding along a riverbank, full of disaster.
‘Mother, when will this ever end?’ asked Maria. ‘What’s happened is over. I’ve sat here, and sewed, and made no complaint to you. I’ve accepted your will. What is it now?’
‘A month. A whole month you’ve sat in there. Yes.’
‘It was a month you suggested. I can’t stay in there forever. Can I?’
‘Come out here to the kitchen, I have something to say to you. Your uncle is waiting.’
‘Can I not speak to my own mother without that man listening to us? Mother, this is crazy.’
Yet she followed her. She saw the room as it always was, except that this morning there was no fire burning and it was cold. An unusual and early frost lay outside on the grass. Through the window she could see again the garden she and Annie had planted. She felt as if she had crossed from one world into another, rather than from one room into the next.
Her uncle stood by the window, looking out with his hands folded over each other behind his back. He did not turn when she entered the room.
‘Good morning, uncle,’ she said although she would have preferred not to speak to him.
‘A month, Maria,’ said Annie again, in the same dead heavy voice.
‘I do not understand this at all. What are you trying to say to me?’ Maria searched first her mother’s putty-coloured face, and next her uncle’s unrelenting back.
I did not know when I sent you there …’ Annie faltered. ‘It did not occur to me at first. A thought so dreadful that even as the weeks passed it seemed impossible … Do you know what that month means, Maria?’
‘A week, a month, it could be a year, mother. Time’s lost its meaning. Perhaps you’ve destroyed time.’
‘There was no bleeding in that room, Maria.’
Silence then, and the unlikely frost outside. Her bare feet, cold on the floor.
‘Did you hear what I said? No blood.’
‘I heard.’
‘No bleeding at all.’
‘Would you have me cut my veins then?’ whispered Maria. ‘I’ve felt like it.’
She was playing for time, avoiding the moment when she would have to tell herself that it was true, that some half-known secret about the life of women would become hers.
‘You are with child, Maria McClure,’ said Black Hector, from where he stood at the window.
Their faces, both of them, then the whole procession swimming before her, of people who lived good lives and did not toy with fortune, with straight mouths and eyes like the frost. Outside.