The Birdcage

The telephone bell disturbed Piers, bringing him back into the present. The garth was in semi-darkness now; an oblong of light from the kitchen window slanted across the cobbles and here, within the sun-warmed walls, the air was laden with the scent of roses. He stirred, straightening his back, but remained where he was, sitting on the bench under the covered way which, supported by stone pillars, stretched, cloister-like, across the back of the hall. The swallows were settled for the night, roosting in the barn, but bats swooped and dived silently in the dusk and he could hear the screech of an owl down in Tivington woods.

‘I was telling Tilda what an old fool I am.’ Felix’s voice sounded rueful. ‘I’d been dozing in my chair and when I woke up it was quite dark. I sat up to switch on the lamp and my spectacles fell on the floor. The shank has fallen off and I seem to have lost the little screw that holds it in place. D’you know what I mean? I’ve been crawling all over the floor but I’m damned if I can find it. I wouldn’t bother you but, just at the moment, I do rely rather heavily on them for so many things.’ His voice faded a little as if he were turned away from the mouthpiece, concentrating on something else. ‘The shank looks a bit bent. I think my book fell on top of it.’

‘Do you think you could manage without them this evening?’ Piers tried not to sound too unwilling to drive into Dunster to search for the little screw but his heart sank at the prospect. ‘I can pick them up in the morning on my way to the office and drop them into the optician. I could have them back to you by the afternoon.’

Sensitive to his abstracted mood, wanting to help, Tilda said, ‘I would have been quite happy to do it. I’m meeting Gemma somewhere for coffee or going to the cottage, anyway, so it wouldn’t be a problem to go into Dunster.’

‘Well at least the boot’s on the other foot for a change.’ He spoke without thinking and then saw Tilda’s face, her surprise at the bitterness in his voice. ‘Sorry. Take no notice . . . Goodness, sitting out there in the garth I hadn’t realized it was this late.’

She disappeared and, with a bitten-off curse, he sat down at the table, resting his head in his hands. Her remark had been badly timed, coming so quickly after his period of reflection in the garth, touching a raw nerve. The memory had surfaced unexpectedly, prompted by an earlier remark made by Tilda.

‘Young widows are rather bad news, aren’t they?’ she’d observed. ‘Nobody wants to be reminded of their mortality. After all, if David had been killed out in Bos., driving his Land Rover to and fro on that logging trail between Travnik and GV, it might have made a bit more sense. Crashing his car after a mess dinner half a mile from home doesn’t have the same ring about it, does it? Nobody really wants me going back for Families Day – and I can see why. But what about Jake? The army was David’s life and part of me thinks that Jake is entitled to a bit of that, but I can’t quite see how it can be achieved. I can’t live on the edge of it, taking him to school and parties and that stuff, and having to say the same thing over and over, explaining about David . . .’

Perhaps it was the usual frustration of being unable to ease her grief that had triggered off the memory. How often he’d felt that same inability to help his mother out of her bitter silences, his sense of failure shadowing his small world and dulling his natural abilities. It was ironic that it was precisely her own character that inhibited him in his attempts to fulfil her expectations of him: her demands and hopes – and clearly shown disappointment if he was not first, top, best – began to paralyse him. Fearful of her displeasure, aware that he was failing her, he grew cautious, learning not to expose himself to the possibility of ridicule and shame.

‘Well done, Piers,’ someone’s mother says. She smiles at Marina. ‘You must be very proud of him. Isn’t Felix here to see it? What a shame. Oh, yes, of course, I’ve just remembered, he goes up to Bristol regularly, doesn’t he? Susan Banks said she saw him at the cinema with a rather pretty girl. A friend of yours, I expect? Do give him my love. You must come over . . .’

Looking between the two of them, his cheerful grin fades, his sense of triumph is corroded by anxiety. His mother’s lifted chin, her bright, hard smile do not disguise the sudden wash of colour in her cheeks nor the way her lips tighten with mortification. At eleven he is already beginning to understand certain aspects of his parents’ relationship and his mother is becoming less discreet; letting slip little hints about his father’s behaviour. Piers is furious with him for exposing her to such remarks, for spoiling a rare and happy moment. And underneath, lurking, ready to pounce, that other memory: his mother speaking in a contemptuous, disgusted voice which continues to have the power to make him feel sick and frightened.

It would have been so much easier if only he could have ceased to love his father but there is something about Felix – he cannot define it – an unusual combination of generosity of spirit, humility, compassion, that draws Piers and demands some kind of instinctive reaction that looks beyond weakness and human failing.

Piers stood up, went to the dresser and poured himself a night-cap: a small slug of brandy and a squirt of soda. He began to prepare for bed, thinking ahead: he must set his alarm a little earlier than usual, so as to be in Dunster in time to have some coffee, otherwise he would be late at the office . . . And he’d promised to have lunch with Alison. As he crossed the hall, he hesitated for a few seconds, thinking of his grandfather, and then went to sit on the old carved chair set against the wall. This part of the house – the old priory chapel – seemed to resist any kind of domestication. Attempts by preceding generations to use it as a sitting-room or study or playroom had been thwarted by its atmosphere. There was a deep-down peace, a sense of astringent single-mindedness, that defied the day-to-day hurly-burly. Only on very formal occasions was the front door used, and the hall was simply a passage between the two wings. The simplicity of the stone walls and its lofty height was emphasized by the long oak table, placed centrally on a faded but still beautiful silky Persian rug, and the two heavily scrolled chairs placed at either end.

Piers sat in silence, allowing the peace to enfold him; remembering how, as a small child, running a toy car over the flagstones or bouncing a ball, he’d pause to look up, way up, to the soaring rafters high above his head, or he’d lie quite still, listening to the silence. Even when he’d tried to pray, voicing his childish fears and hopes in cautious whispers, his prayers had been lifted from his heart almost as he’d begun to utter them and he’d been rapt in an intense wordless joy. Later, he’d lost the knack of it but sometimes, even now, he was touched by that same piercing sweetness. He’d read somewhere that intercession meant simply standing in the presence of God on behalf of another: not talking, not asking, just being. Piers closed his eyes, allowing his awareness to centre on Tilda and her child, so that His love might flow between them all.

For a greater part of the night Lizzie sat at the window in one of the armchairs, staring out into the warm darkness. Seeing the birdcage had shocked her even more than finding the card from Angel in Pidge’s book. Although she’d come to Dunster with some wild hope of finding Felix, it hadn’t occurred to her that he might have the birdcage. Had Angel given it to him? Or Pidge, after Angel had died? Puzzled, Lizzie shook her head. She’d been with Sam by then, of course; busy with her own career, preoccupied with her own problems. How easy it was to be so self-absorbed that, by the time you realized that there were questions to ask, it was too late; there was no-one left to answer them. Grief and loss had been the catalysts that set her off on this trail that led here, to Dunster, and – unexpectedly – to the birdcage. She was certain, now, that she had found Felix.

She’d spent the latter half of the long night watches planning how she might approach him. There were several courses of action open to her: she could look him up in the local directory and, should his name be listed, try a cautious telephone call; or she might ask around to see if anyone knew him and so discover whether he lived alone; or she might hover about, hoping to see him emerge. However, by the time the short June night was beginning to warm into daylight, with the silvery monochrome shapes in the garden gently greening into flowery bushes and the eastern sky glowing into a pale radiance, Lizzie was battling with a simple longing to cross the street and ring the doorbell.

Rising from the chair, stiff with fatigue, she set the kettle to boil and went to have a shower. She stood for some minutes at the bathroom window, staring out over the picturesque huddle of roof-lines and chimneys to the castle, insubstantial and unearthly in this early, luminous wash of light. Trembling a little – ‘Exhaustion,’ she told herself firmly, ‘you’re too old to stay awake half the night!’ – she showered, wrapped herself in the thick bath-robe, and padded back into the bedroom.

The hot, strong coffee was wonderfully reviving. Carrying it over to the bed, she propped herself about with pillows and sipped luxuriously, thinking of Angel. At what stage had the pre-theatre mug of black coffee been replaced by a shot of whisky – ‘Just a tiny one, sweetie!’ – which she referred to as her Dutch courage? How old was she when she became unreliable? Life with Angel had been charted by her roles: ‘Wasn’t that the year we did the Northern tour? Sheridan, wasn’t it? I was playing Lydia Languish and Maria alternate weeks . . .’ or ‘No, I remember that autumn quite clearly, we were rehearsing Private Lives in some God-awful church hall in Manchester.’ Then there were the Old Vic years at the Theatre Royal in Bristol: the long, settled time at the Birdcage.

By the time the cup was empty, Lizzie felt calmer – and braver. She settled herself – just five minutes with her eyes closed – and woke to find the sun well up and the birds shouting cheerfully outside the window. It was ten past eight. As she brushed her hair, twisting it into a loose knot and plunging in the pins, she decided that she’d just have one quick look at the birdcage before breakfast. She was beginning to wonder whether she’d imagined it; perhaps her pottiness was beginning to take the form of hallucinations. Joking herself along, swallowing down her nerves, she went down the two flights of stairs, hesitated by the restaurant door and then passed by into the porch.

The man was just coming out of the door directly beneath the window where the birdcage hung: he was frowning a little, feeling for his car-keys in the pocket of his trousers. The set of his head, that quick glance, was so suddenly familiar to her that she nearly cried his name. Sanity drove her back into the shelter of the porch as he got into his car, reversed out of the space and drove quickly away. Lizzie watched him go, fingers pressed against her lips, trying to control her confused emotions: the rush of joy quickly giving way to crushing disappointment. Not Felix, of course: this must be his son – that boy with the strange name – who lived in the flat.

Lizzie stared up at the birdcage, glinting brightly, clearly visible in the sunshine. How could she possibly present herself now? ‘Hello, I’m Lizzie Blake. You don’t know me, of course, but my mother was your father’s mistress.’

Felix had probably been dead for years, along with Angel and Pidge. And now Sam was gone too, and she was alone. A tremendous sense of loss possessed her, paralysing her ability to plot or plan, and, presently, she went back inside to have her breakfast.