Tell her about the bird.
What?
The wheatear. That’s a good one.
‘The bird?’ He says it out loud, too loudly, and Sarah turns to look at him. ‘Er, you know the bird there, that went by the window? The little one there, just for a moment? You were lucky. It’s called a wheatear, and there’s a story. Do you want to hear it?’
She looks away as if it doesn’t matter to her either way.
‘I’ll take that as a yes. There used to be a lot of them. Listen.’ He picks the old green book from a pile and thumbs the pages. The cracked skin on his thumb is sore. ‘Here. “In one season, shepherds on the Downs caught one thousand eight hundred and forty dozen birds. They sold them for a penny a piece.” They hide away in rabbit holes now. You were really lucky to see one.’
Please respond, he thinks. Come on, work with me.
‘Okay, so that’s the bird. The wheatear. It used to be called something else, but the Victorians didn’t like that. White arse.’
Is that a smile? Maybe a hint of one.
‘So, the story. There was a guy called Wilson, who lived in a big house out there. This was during the Civil War. A secret royalist in a landscape full of Roundheads.’ He feels his voice warming up, and takes pleasure in the physical sensation of talking like this. ‘He didn’t get out much. Gout. Leg like an elephant. All that claret, probably. So he was in bed when the soldiers came to get him. A whole platoon, a dozen maybe, I don’t know, on horseback and armed, coming to search the house. The servants saw them coming, the Wilsons were warned.’
Is he getting this right? It doesn’t really matter. There are brown marks on the edges of the page, literary liver spots. Sarah has sat down now, on the window ledge, and she’s studying the hill. ‘Mary Wilson was there when they arrived. The lady of the house. She was all smiles . . .’
Will he do the voice? No. Not today.
‘She said, “Good afternoon, gentlemen.” Something like that. She was scared. They could take him away and leave her ruined.’
He finds himself walking up and down the room, talking more easily. ‘They would have rushed upstairs, but she had a plan. Well, a pie.’
Is Sarah listening or just sitting this out?
‘She ordered the cook to bring out food and invited the lieutenant to sit down to eat something, it says in here. He was hungry. The barracks were half a day away. I don’t know if he was surprised by her hospitality, maybe it was just expected. But he sat down and out came the most enormous pie he’d ever seen in his life. The size of a wheel. The depth of a bucket. It smelt gorgeous.’ The word feels good in his mouth. ‘“What’s in it?” said the soldier. She said, “White arse.” Now he got excited. He thought she was flirting with him. They always do, don’t they?’
Do they?
Is that what he’s doing? His eyes are on the back of Sarah’s head, the tight twists of copper on her crown . . . No, keep going.
‘This was the most expensive pie he had ever seen. He wanted a taste, badly, but he also had a chance to show off to his men. No officer ever turned down one of those. So he commanded them: “Come here and feast.” They made a right old mess of the table. Flakes of pastry and smears of pie all over the place, on the floor, on their uniforms. They were loving it.’
Gabe stops, suddenly too close to Sarah. Within touching distance, looking down on her head. She still won’t turn around. He hears his own breathing and stops it, for as long as he can bear. But then he bursts, of course, and feels like a stalker. He steps back and folds himself down to sit on the floor. Closer to her level. But he doesn’t reach out, doesn’t encroach. He begins to speak again, more at ease with the telling now.
‘While they were filling their faces, Mary slipped out of the room and upstairs to her husband, who was half out of bed, trying to hear what was going on. He said nothing, but pointed to the bottom drawer of his chest. Before he could make any kind of gesture to tell her there was a secret compartment, she had released the catch and pulled it out. That shocked him. What other secrets of his did she know? She took out a leather folder, emptied it of papers and pushed them into the fire that was heating his room.’
Now Gabe glances down at the book – he wants to get the next line right. ‘Listen to this. “The flames rose once for his love for the king, once for his love of money and once for his love of another. Mary watched them burn.” Lovely stuff.’ He reaches a palm towards the wood stove warming this room, glowing orange, as if to push the papers inside. He knows she’s listening now. ‘So, that’s it. They found nothing. William got away with it because of Mary’s pie. He was made a baronet when the king returned. On his coat of arms he put a wheatear. Least he could do.’
There is silence in the room again, for a long while. Aware of his heavy breathing, Gabe gets up and moves away, puts the book down. The wind rattles a window frame.
‘What happened to her?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just a story.’
‘You must,’ says Sarah.
Oh God. Why did he start this?
Because I said so, Gabe.
He hands Sarah the book, his thumb on a paragraph. She reads out loud, which distresses him. ‘“After the death of his wife at a young age, Sir William asked a clergyman in Kent to take on the education of their six children.”’ The next sentence is underlined in pencil. ‘“It hath pleased God for my” . . . er . . . “sinnes to take from mee . . . my dear wife, one of the best of women, as being too good for me . . .”’
Oh Lord. He wants to be sick.
Sarah looks up from the page and sees his face changed. The desolation makes her go quickly back to the words, smoothing the page, running her thumb along the edge.
‘It is a good story,’ she says, wondering what else to say. Or do. She had not thought about that until now. He’s skinny but tough, there is nowhere to run. Is that the cost of staying here? The surge of panic is a surprise, a jangling new sound in the white noise of her non-emotions. She is everything and nothing now, too far gone to care. She will see out her time, see the dawn and take her steps; there is no way to stop it now, nothing can get in her way, but here is this man. In her face. So sad. So hurt. Whatever he is, whatever he wants, he is not dangerous. Time is passing. The day is coming. She has nothing to say, nothing. But perhaps words are what he wants in return for letting her stay. Hopefully they are, anyway. We’ll see. ‘I have a question, actually.’
‘Sure.’
‘Was there a bird? Outside?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘A wheatear?’
‘Ah. Maybe not,’ he says, rubbing his cheeks, feeling warmth return to them. Feeling grateful to her for the jolt, for moving him on. The room is cold now, away from the stove. ‘No, I have to confess there wasn’t.’
‘Pity. I like a pie. One other thing . . .’ Such cool, clear eyes she has.
‘Go on?’
‘What happened to her? Ree, is it?’
‘Yes, Rí. Maria.’
‘Where did she go?’