Eva Meijer
BIRD COTTAGE
PROLOGUE
1965
Jacob flies swiftly into the house, calls to me, and then immediately flies out again. He rarely makes a fuss about things, and never flies very far from the nest once his babies have hatched. He usually visits the bird table a few times in the morning, and then stays close to the wooden nesting box on the birch tree. He is a placid bird, large for a Great Tit, and a good father.
I follow him out of doors and hear the machine even before I’ve left the garden. I run clumsily on clogs that almost slip off my feet. No. This can’t be happening. Not that hedge. Not in the springtime. But a stocky man is trimming the hedge with one of those electric hedge-cutter things. He can’t hear me through the racket. I squeeze between the hedge and the machine. The noise drowns out everything, crashing in waves over me, boring through my body.
It gives him a shock to see me there, suddenly in front of him. He switches the thing off and removes his ear-protectors. “What’s up, missus?”
“You mustn’t trim this hedge. It’s full of nests. Most of the eggs have already hatched.” My voice is shriller than usual. It feels as if someone is strangling me.
“You’ll have to speak to the Council about it.” He turns the machine on again.
No. Twigs jab at my back. I move to the left when he moves, and then to the right.
“Get out of my way, please.”
“If you want to trim this hedge, you’ll have to get rid of me first.”
He sighs. “I’ll start work on the other side, then.” He holds the contraption at the ready, more as a shield than a weapon.
But that’s where the Thrushes are, with their brown-speckled breasts. I shake my head. “No. You really mustn’t.”
“Look, missus, I’m just doing my job.”
“What is your boss’s phone number?”
He gives me a name and the County Council number. I keep an eye on him until he has left the lane. He’s probably off to another hedge now.
Cheeping and chirping everywhere. The parent birds are nowhere to be seen, but the babies make their presence known. The parents will return and with any luck they won’t have had too great a shock. I hurry to the house, sweat running down my back. I don’t even pause to take off my cardigan.
“May I speak to Mr Everitt, please? It’s urgent.”
While I’m waiting for him, Terra comes and perches beside me. She can always tell when something is wrong. Birds are much more sensitive than we are. I’m still panting a little.
“Mr Everitt, I appreciate your coming to the telephone. Len Howard speaking, from Ditchling. This morning I discovered, to my great horror, that one of your workmen was trimming the hedges. It’s the nesting season! I’m making a study of these birds. My research will be ruined.”
Mr Everitt says I have to send in a written request to have the hedge-cutting postponed so that the Council can decide on the matter. He can’t make that decision himself. I thank him very much and ask for a guarantee that there’ll be no further hedge-trimming till then.
“I’ll try my best,” he says. “They do usually listen to me.” He coughs, like a smoker.
I know the Great Tits would immediately warn me if they came back to trim the hedges, but for the rest of the day I feel very agitated. Sometimes the wind sounds like hedge-trimming; sometimes I’m tricked by a car in the distance. Jacob also remains restless. And that’s not like him at all. He’s old enough—at least six—to know better.
I start writing my letter. They must listen to me.
Early the next morning I make a trip into the village. It is the first really warm day of the year. The air seems to press me down, deeper into the road. My body is too heavy really, always getting heavier. In the past it used to take me ten minutes to walk there, but now the journey takes almost twenty. I rap on the grocer’s window. It isn’t nine o’clock yet. “Theo?” I knock again and spot his tousled white head of hair moving behind the counter. He stands up and raises his hand. In greeting? Or as a signal for me to wait a while?
Rummaging noises, the sound of metal on metal.
“Gwendolen! What brings you here so early?” Sleep still lingers in his face, tracing lines as fine as spider silk.
I tell him that the Council is planning to have the hedge trimmed and show him my letter. “Will you sign it too?”
He puts on his spectacles, carefully reads what I’ve written, then searches in three different drawers for a pen. “Esther was serving in the shop yesterday. Everything’s in a muddle. A moment ago I couldn’t find the key to the front door.”
“How is Esther?”
“She’s saving up for a scooter. Her parents aren’t at all keen, but all the lasses have one.” He looks at me over the top of his spectacles and gives a brief shrug.
“Is she sixteen already? Goodness!” I still have the image of her as a little girl, his daughter’s first daughter. A precocious child, with eyes that seemed like openings to another world. Her eyes are still like that, heavily accentuated with kohl.
“Not yet. Next month. Why don’t you leave the letter here, Gwen? Then I can ask all my customers to sign it.”
“Good idea.” We agree that I’ll return for it later in the day. I thank him, pick up my shopping basket, and begin my usual rounds. The baker gives me one of yesterday’s loaves. The butcher has saved some offcuts of bacon. The greengrocer presents me with a bag of old apples. I had thought of going to Brighton today, to the tree nursery, but I decided against it. It’s far too hot to tackle those steep streets. On the way home Jacob comes to say hallo, and I catch sight of the pair of Robins who nested in my garden last year. Perhaps they’re nesting in my neighbour’s garden this year, which would not be very clever. Her cat is a terrible bird-hunter, the worst I know, even worse than the little black cat she had before. Moreover, this cat is very curious and peeks in all the nest boxes, which means that every cat in the neighbourhood knows where they are. I’ve told my neighbour three times now that she is responsible for all the consequent tragedies.
The Great Tits are sunning themselves in the front garden, their wings outspread. Jacob and Monocle II are sitting next to each other, very fraternally, as if they don’t usually spend the whole day quarrelling. It’s the heat that has made them so placid. Terra is on the path. She has positioned herself exactly where I always walk. Jacob’s oldest son is perched on a low, broad branch. He is a little slower than the others—too much feeding at my bird table! Inside, I flop down onto the spindle-backed chair. I’ll have to make the whole journey again soon. Cutie lands on my hair, then immediately flies up, and here comes Buffer. It’s a game the baby birds discover anew, every year. They fly from the cupboard to my head, from my head to the table, from the table to the cupboard, three rapid rounds, then wing their way out of the window, so swift and full of now, only now.
At the top of the path Jacob comes to warn me. Even before hearing the noises, I know they’re at it again. Since I received the letter from the Council—apologies, absolutely impossible, merely private concerns, important planning considerations—and sent them my objections, I have barely been away from here for almost a fortnight. Yesterday I received a message that the mayor is considering my objections after all, so I thought the danger was over. I walk as swiftly as I can, lame as an old horse. There are three of them this time. Jacob is flying madly back and forth, and so are all the other Great Tits, and the Robins, and the pair of Sparrows.
“There are nests in that hedge,” I cry out, my heart thudding in my throat. But it’s already happened, only the Blackbirds left, perhaps they’ve fledged already, but the baby Robins were still too little.