The Birdcage

‘I’ll take him for a walk in a minute,’ said Guy, who had tripped over him twice, cursed him elaborately and was now feeling guilty. ‘I might as well do it now, before it gets too hot, and then he’ll settle down and go to sleep in the car. Do you want to come?’

Gemma shook her head. ‘I’ll finish the packing,’ she said. ‘There’s not much more to go in and I’d rather get it done. When you get back we’ll have some coffee to set us on our way.’

Guy put on his shoes and went outside. ‘OK,’ she heard him say, ‘your moment has come. No, no, not in the car, you daft animal; we’re going for a walk.’

She watched them pass the front window on their way up the hill and then began to make a thorough check of the house. Someone called Mrs Coleman would be over shortly to change the sheets and clean the cottage. Meanwhile Gemma wanted to make certain that nothing was left behind and the place was tidy and clean and in good order. Piers had refused to take any payment for their week’s holiday and the least she could do was to keep the changeover work to a minimum.

The wardrobes and chest of drawers were empty; no book had been kicked under the bed, no bathrobe left hanging behind the door. She moved from room to room, possessed with the sense of restlessness that had been with her since early morning, ready to go home: the fun was over and she felt uneasy. The brief sense of belonging was gone, their short tenancy was finished, and she felt a stranger here. She put her head round the door of the sitting-room. They’d never used this room with its open hearth and comfortable armchairs, preferring to live in the big family room across the narrow hall, but she hesitated at the door for a moment, aware of an ambience of continuity: of centuries of day-to-day living. The room, in fact the whole cottage, had an atmosphere of permanence: there was none of the impersonal uniformity of the holiday cottage about it.

Here Piers had lived, first alone and then with his family, before moving back to Michaelgarth and Gemma imagined that she was able to detect his wife’s influence at work amongst the bright, pretty hangings and loose covers.

‘Sue was brilliant,’ Tilda had told her that morning when she’d come for coffee. ‘She did everything so well. When the last tenants left, Sue persuaded Piers to let the cottage to holiday-makers. She said it would bring in more money. Piers agreed to try it but he’s happier letting it on a long-term basis to a local person, and he’s saying that at the end of this summer it will go back to being a shorthold tenancy. I think he’s been waiting to see whether I might have preferred to be here rather than at Michaelgarth.’

‘And wouldn’t you?’ Gemma had asked curiously. ‘Wouldn’t you welcome a bit more privacy?’

She’d longed to ask whether Tilda missed her freedom, longed for some fun, but something in Tilda’s clear, tranquil gaze forbade it.

‘Not really.’ Tilda had considered the question seriously.

‘Piers gives me plenty of space, you know. The two wings divide the house quite naturally, and he has his study and we’ve converted the dining-room to a comfortable place for me and Jake. I find that it’s rather nice to have someone around in the evening and we kind of comfort each other without getting too emotional, if you see what I mean. It’s Piers I feel sorry for, actually. I’m probably rotting up his private life without realizing it but he gives no sign of feeling trapped. I sometimes wonder what I’d do if he met someone else and it got serious. I doubt another woman would want me and Jake in the west wing. I expect we’d move down here then but, selfishly, I hope it doesn’t happen. I feel so much at home at Michaelgarth and I want Jake to grow up there if possible. It’s where David was happiest and I want Jake to feel part of that.’ She’d looked affectionately at the cottage as they’d sat outside its open door. ‘Of course he lived here too, when he was very small.’ She’d laughed, shaking her head. ‘I just can’t get away from him.’

Remembering, Gemma shut the sitting-room door sharply and crossed the hall. Her bag, bulging with various items she might need for the journey, sat on the breakfast bar beside the mugs put ready for coffee. She checked the fridge, taking out a bottle of water along with the last of the cheese and some grapes. There was a drop of milk for the coffee and a few other odds and ends, which she collected and dropped into the waste-bin. Taking Guy’s sweater from the back of a chair, picking up the map from the table at the window, Gemma gathered together the last things to be put into the car and made a pile of them on the bar.

She filled the kettle, switched it on and took the cheese and grapes out to the car. The small hamper was crammed between the twins’ little chairs and she leaned in, stretching across the nearest seat, so as to lift its wicker lid and put the remains of the food inside. As she closed it she was aware of something being missing; some object that was usually kept here on the back seat. Frowning in puzzlement she went back into the cottage, trying to remember what she’d forgotten. Bertie’s bed was already in the back of the estate car, along with his water bowl, and Guy had packed boots and jackets into the well behind the driver’s seat.

Gemma took another look around the room, trying to picture the usual contents of the back seat and wondering whether she was thinking of something that hadn’t been necessary for this holiday: the padded bag containing the twins’ travelling requirements, for instance, had been left at home along with the duffel bag full of soft toys with which she entertained them on long journeys. She shrugged, fishing for her mobile in her crammed bag, checking for messages. It was in the second between thinking about Simon and deciding not to risk a last call to him that she remembered the missing item: her rug. She nearly dropped the mobile, clapping a hand to her mouth in horror, visualizing their last meeting.

‘Do we really need two rugs?’ he’d asked teasingly. ‘Perhaps I should try to get hold of a feather mattress.’

‘It’s a bit late now, isn’t it?’ she’d retorted, spreading her rug across his own. ‘But perhaps you should consider it for next time.’

‘Is there going to be a next time?’ he’d asked, pulling her down beside him, and she’d shaken her head as she smiled at him. Afterwards they’d stood talking together, drinking coffee from a flask, collecting the remains of the picnic. He’d bent to pick up the rugs, bundling them together over his arm, talking about Marianne, recounting her reaction when she’d heard Gemma’s message on the answerphone. She’d perched on the edge of the passenger seat of her car as she listened to him, combing her hair and peering into the small mirror inside the glove compartment. What had happened after that?

Gemma screwed her eyes shut, desperately trying to recreate the scene. Had he put both rugs in his own vehicle? Putting her mobile on the top of her bag she ran out to the car; hastily she moved the cases that Guy had stacked earlier, lifted Bertie’s bed, peered into the wells behind the front seats. The rug was always kept folded on top of the small hamper between the twins’ chairs, ready to be wrapped round them if they were chilly or to be spread for them to crawl on during a picnic. It was nowhere to be seen. She tried to steady herself. After all, Guy would probably never notice it was missing and it could be easily replaced. There was nothing particularly special about it: it was the rug she’d taken to school to use on her bed in winter, a cheerful tartan with her nametape sewed to one edge . . . She caught her breath and her heartbeat thudded in her side: she could see that nametape very clearly: ‘G WIVENHOE’ in blue on a white background.

In a single moment she imagined Marianne putting something into the Discovery – a coat? her walking boots? – noticing the bundled rug and dragging it out to fold it properly.

‘What’s this?’ she’d ask Simon, quite natural to begin with, puzzled by the second rug rolled into their own. ‘Where did this come from?’

She’d hold it out to him, not suspecting anything until, alerted by his silence, she’d look at him properly.

Gemma swallowed in a dry throat. How would he react after that first shock? Would he bluff it out – ‘Haven’t a clue, darling. Can’t remember when we last used the rug, can you?’ – and try to hurry her into the car? Would Marianne, still puzzled, insist on examining the rug and see that wretched nametape? She glanced at her watch. It was clear that Simon hadn’t noticed it yet or he would have phoned her. There was still time to warn him. Supposing she were to text him: leave a message?

‘Best not to phone tomorrow,’ he’d said. ‘Marianne and I will almost certainly be together. We generally shop on a Saturday morning and it would be a bit chancy.’

If she sent a text, would his mobile ring and give him away? She had a sudden horrid vision of Marianne arriving at the cottage, flourishing the rug and demanding an explanation: she saw Guy returning to such a scene, surprise and distaste turning to suspicion and finally to anger. She whirled about and ran into the cottage, seized the mugs and thrust them back into the cupboard, emptied the milk into the sink and threw the carton into the waste-bin. Grabbing their belongings, she raced back outside, looking along the road, willing Guy to appear with Bertie at his heels. There was no sign of them. Back indoors, scrabbling in her bag, she found the cottage keys, which she’d been told to leave on the breakfast bar – ‘Mrs Coleman has her own set of keys,’ Tilda had said – and dropped them on the pine counter. She felt sick and frightened and, hearing Guy at last, she hurried out, trying to school her face into a smile.

He was closing the gate behind Bertie, who clearly wanted to get into the car, and looked surprised to see her coming out, hitching her bag over her shoulder. Her small, pretty features were sharpened, pinched, and he frowned a little.

‘Are you OK? I thought we were going to have some coffee?’

‘Oh, darling,’ her voice sounded uneven and she cleared her throat, ‘I had a sudden longing to get on. Do you mind? I know it sounds silly but I simply can’t wait to see the babes, can you? It’s been a lovely break but I just want to get home.’

He shrugged. ‘That’s fine with me but I need a leak before we go. You haven’t locked up, have you?’

He disappeared into the cottage whilst she opened the tailgate to let Bertie in and then went to stand by the open door of the car, biting her lips, willing Guy to hurry. Her knees shook and she looked down the road, convinced that she heard an engine. He came at last, slamming the door behind him, and climbed into the car. Waiting in anguish whilst he dug in the pocket of his jeans for his key, took a last glance over his shoulder towards the sea, she realized in those endless moments exactly what she had risked and how much she stood to lose.

Guy switched on the engine, fixed his seat belt, and at last they drove away with Gemma, chin on shoulder, watching the empty toll road reel out behind them.