The Birdcage

He stirred as if waking from a dream, stretching his legs and his shoulders, and finally got to his feet with an effort. Yet his memories accompanied him into the kitchen so that, as he spooned coffee into the mug and waited for the kettle to boil, his thoughts ran on, unreeling steadily from scene to scene. He carried his coffee back to his seat beside the window, sipping slowly, holding the card again and rereading the message; remembering his meeting with Angel at the Birdcage.

‘Why?’ he asks, holding her by the shoulders, giving her a little shake. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that it might ruin everything?’

She abandons her instinctive approach – the penitent but mischievous look that has got her out of so many scrapes – and stares up at him.

‘I just needed to do something,’ she says soberly. ‘When you wrote saying that you couldn’t come I simply had this feeling that it was over anyway.’

‘Of course not,’ she answers impatiently. ‘Would I have come down to Dunster if I’d changed? It’s simply that time is running out, Felix. My contract here is finished although I hope to come back for another season in a year or so. I suppose I thought it might force us into some kind of action.’

‘It certainly did that,’ he says drily. ‘Marina has given me an ultimatum. No, Angel,’ he shakes his head at her hopeful expression, ‘I can’t leave Piers. That’s the ultimatum. You or Piers. He’s only a year older than Lizzie, and Marina knows very well that once our relationship comes out in the open I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting custody. They might not even let me see him. I simply can’t risk it, Angel.’

‘But what shall we do?’ It’s as if, even now, she hasn’t really thought it through or envisaged the destruction her action has brought about. ‘We can’t not see each other, sweetie.’

‘But I shall get home,’ she says quickly. ‘Lizzie is staying here with Pidge and I shall get back as often as I can.’ She watches him, suddenly afraid. ‘You’ll still come to see them, won’t you? You can’t abandon Lizzie, Felix. She needs you.’

‘But not about Lizzie or Pidge. She wouldn’t have thought about them, would she? Or did you tell her about the way we are?’

‘So you could come to see them on Sunday evenings just as you always have,’ she pleads. ‘I shan’t be here so what difference does it make? Please, Felix. It means so much to Lizzie. And to Pidge. You belong to all of us, not just me.’

It is clear that she is beginning to understand the extent of the damage and her distress is so genuine that Felix holds out his arms to her.

‘Oh God,’ she mutters, holding him tightly, ‘I think we both need some soothing, sweetie,’ and even at this moment, with the months ahead without her stretching empty and bleak, he can’t help but smile. He promises that he will continue to visit Lizzie and Pidge at the Birdcage and deep down, though unacknowledged, is the hope that sometimes Angel will be there too, for holidays, between contracts: he knows, guiltily, that it is not quite over.

Now, finishing his coffee, glancing out of his window across to the Luttrell Arms, Felix suddenly remembered his errand. He looked at his watch, wondering how long he had been daydreaming, imagining Piers waiting impatiently for his telephone call, and got up quickly. He threaded the postcard between the bars of the birdcage, so that he could glance at it from time to time, feeling that it belonged there, and picked up his stick. Feeling unsteady, rather dizzy, he went downstairs carefully, let himself out into the sunshine and crossed the street.

The receptionist was friendly and prepared to be helpful but explained that the hotel’s policy forbade any such information being given. It wasn’t until he was unlocking his door again that Felix was seized by the obvious solution to the problem: the answer that had been under his nose since he’d arrived home earlier that morning but he’d been too caught up with the past to see it.

As he closed the door behind him the telephone began to ring and he hurried up the stairs, trying to ignore the aching, which was beginning to numb his left leg, making him awkward and slow. At the top of the stairs he was obliged to pause, breathing heavily, his leg almost useless now, and he just managed to grasp the receiver, knocking it from its rest, before he collapsed face downwards on the carpet.

‘It’s Father,’ he said, his face drawn and frowning with concern. ‘I telephoned him just now but although the receiver was lifted there was a crash, as if he’d knocked something over or fallen, and then nothing. I’m going straight into Dunster.’

She paused, listening, wondering if Jake had been disturbed and whether she should go back to her ironing, which she did in the nursery, or check that Lion was still safe inside the playpen. There was no sound from the nursery so she went downstairs, checking her mobile for messages for the third time since Saul had left Michaelgarth. Earlier she’d imagined she’d heard an engine and, convinced that he’d returned, had hurried out into the garth to meet him. She’d been surprised by the depth of her disappointment, conscious of Piers’ raised eyebrows when she came back looking irritable and rather foolish.

‘Thought I heard a car,’ she muttered – and Piers, who had remained diplomatically silent on the subject of Saul’s sudden departure, had given that facial shrug she knew so well.

Now, as she watched Lion playing with Joker’s ball in the safety of the playpen, she tried to analyse her sense of loss. Of course, she told herself, she’d known Saul for years: he’d been around, part of her army life, like one of the family, and she’d come to rely on him heavily since David’s death . . .

With a little shock she realized that she was now much more concerned with Saul’s leaving than she was with David’s dalliance with Gemma. Standing in the sunshine, gazing down at Lion, it was difficult to re-create that feeling of betrayal, of something being ruined, in the face of this more recent loss. The past, at this moment, had moved to some distant point, no longer of immediate concern and therefore less painful. Putting things right with Saul had become much more important.

She wondered now how she’d been able to tell him to go: why his living presence had seemed of no importance in the light of this new evidence of David’s behaviour. When she’d said that Marianne had spoiled her life she’d meant it – it had seemed, at that moment, as if remembering David would never be the same again – but Saul’s unexpected reaction had jolted it into proportion. What he’d said had been reasonable enough and, although she still felt a sick misery at the thought of David with Gemma, the knowledge of it refused to be invested with quite the same sense of drama she’d experienced earlier.

She could imagine David’s retort: ‘Past history, love. Done and dusted. Don’t lose your sense of proportion, life’s too short.’

‘I think he’s had a stroke,’ he said rapidly. ‘He’s breathing but unconscious and there’s a nasty gash on his head where he caught it on the corner of the chair when he went down. The ambulance is on its way. Look, I’ll phone you from the hospital.’

Tilda put her mobile back into her pocket, thinking about Felix, feeling frightened for him and suddenly lonely: if only she hadn’t reacted so dramatically earlier Saul would still be with her now. Supposing Felix were to die . . . ? She lifted the puppy from the playpen, holding him against her cheek whilst he licked her face enthusiastically, taking comfort from his warm, wriggling body and trying not to think of the fragility of human life. Supposing Saul were to have an accident on his way back . . . ? She forced back her fears, feeling confused and miserable, taking refuge in immediate action.