At the end of May her eggs hatched and then I understood why she had driven Dusty off: it had been a long, wet winter and there was insufficient food for two nests. I felt ashamed, and finally realised that Great Tits have a better understanding of what is good for them than I do.
1937
I brush the dust off the table and unpack my suitcase. What would Billie and Joan and Thea think if they could see me now, in this wooden hut with only a bed, a camp stove and a cupboard for my towels and clothing? And then I take off my suit, put my bathing costume on, dark blue to light blue, and walk down the narrow path through the back garden to the river. Poppies, cornflowers, buttercups. The water is clear and cool. I walk straight into the middle of the river, then sink into the water. For a moment I gasp for breath, and then swim, my hair waterweed, my hands water brown. I duck down and touch the bottom; the soft sand makes opaque smudges in the water. I rise to the surface, float on my back. The sun draws patterns on my eyelids, honeycomb cells. I shut them tight—the shapes shrink and grow, change to little circles and specks that swim away. A noise makes me jump. I open my eyes, twist my body round: a Duck. She accepts my presence as completely natural, although people seldom come here. Perhaps that’s exactly why. I cough and it startles her. “Sorry!”
By a willow tree I turn back. I swim homewards, with slow strokes. Time here is hardly more than a change of the light.
I lay two towels on the bed and lie down on my back. The rhythm of the train is still in my body; my mind is full of voices, the people in the London station, in the packed train carriage—human beings are hardly aware of how much they talk, how loud they are. Only yesterday evening I gave a performance for the mayor; this morning I said farewell to the children. Dear God! Poor little Bertie, with his dandruff and filthy face. Eleven years old, and his life is already mapped out: factory, wife, children—eight, nine, ten of them. Leah, Janet, Josie, working in the laundry already, a couple of days a week. These children won’t have anyone to teach them music now. Billie is supposed to be taking over, but she won’t have time till September. I cough again. Perhaps I’m getting a cold—but it’s hot, about eighty-six degrees, and the water evaporating from my body cools me down. I mustn’t imagine that I’m so important to them. I can only give them music, one short hour each week.
I sit up. There’s a huge spider’s web behind the bed. The summer has just started and there are so many spiders already. I have no idea what this indicates. That cough again. I should take a drink of water. I wade through the heat to the little kitchen. A plate. No glass. I drink from the tap.
I open my violin case, and tune up on the bed. My playing disturbs the silence, makes me too large, too present, too melancholic. I put the violin back. Another time, perhaps.
The late light that seems so much clearer here, because we’re close to the sea, slowly lets itself be driven away. When darkness finally falls, the Blackbirds are still singing. My neighbours. Too tired for sleep, I stay on the veranda. The willows are absorbed into the darkness, and then come back, one by one. Sentinels.
“Billie!”
“Gwen!” She takes hold of me and kisses my cheek. “But what’s this? You did write in your letter that it was a real hut, but not that it was so primitive! How can you bear it?”
“I can practise here, and swim, and the air’s clean.” The heat has lodged in my body, made me slow, languid and passive.
“But it’s the back of beyond here. I had to walk for half an hour and I only met a few cows on the way. Is it such a trek when you go shopping too?” She gives an exaggerated sigh, mops her forehead, wipes her hand on her culottes.
“Mr Williams has lent me his pushbike.”
She shakes her head. “Well, it certainly suits you, this seclusion.”
“Shall we go for a swim? You brought your bathing costume, did you? Or we could go for a walk, perhaps. Just a little distance, and then you’re on the Downs. I saw Chiffchaffs up there yesterday, Blackcaps, Redstarts, Goldfinches.”
She sits down and pulls off her shoes. “I’ve walked quite enough already, thanks. But what about a little drink?” She kneads her hair with her hands.
“It’s one o’clock!”
“I’m on holiday!” She stretches her legs out towards the door.
“I’ll make a cup of tea first.”
From the kitchen I ask her how things are with the orchestra, with her fiancé. I look out of the window at the garden, at the rolling landscape beyond.
The Blackbird, whom I’ve called Ollie because he reminds me of my sister, is perched on the windowsill. I set a raisin down for him. Billie comes and stands in the doorway and grimaces. “Ugh, what are you doing?”
“They’re really tame round here. And we always had birds in and around our house, in the past.” Ollie takes the raisin and swoops off with it to the willow, flying swiftly through the drooping branches.
“But don’t they cause diseases? All those bacteria. And lice. I read recently that all birds have lice. And mites too. Disgusting. Oh, hang on, I’ve got something for you.”
She takes a package out of her bag; it contains a women’s magazine, a bar of chocolate, a bottle of Madeira and a pair of stockings. “From Joan and me.”
I thank her, then leaf through the magazine.
“Oh, cripes!” She stands up, takes a step back, rigid, her body bent slightly backwards, the corners of her mouth turned down.
A spider is sauntering across the edge of the table. I let him walk onto my hand, then from my hand onto the grass outside.
Billie sits down again, more straight-backed than necessary.
“Do you think things are improving? Do you feel less stifled now? Does the fresh air help?”
“A bit.” It’s not the air, but the space; not the space, but time; not time, but the light.
Billie tells me that Stockdale now goes everywhere with Deborah, the new violin player.
“Typical! Shall we go for a swim soon?”
“And I think Joan has got something going on with Barry.”
“Who’s Barry?”
“Barry Heaton. You know. The trumpet player.”
I do vaguely remember him, the timbre of his voice, not his face; he played in the orchestra a while, when I was new there. A good player, someone you don’t really notice because he does exactly what he should.
“Do you hear that?” I point outside.
She shakes her head.
“That Great Tit. He comes here a lot. I recognise him by that little motif.” I imitate it. “It’s more complex than it seems, with all those semitones and then the trill at the end.”
She frowns, nods.
“Their song is different here. Not like it is in London.” I get hold of my notebook, let her see the fragments of birdsong I’ve notated.
“So?”
“No one knows exactly what they’re saying. There’ve been a lot of studies of birdsong, but mainly on its structure, not its meaning.”
“I always assumed they sang to win a female and protect their territory. Like most men.” She laughs.
“I think they’re saying much more than that.”
Billie picks up the bottle of Madeira. “Holidays!”
I bring the table outside and while she tells me about her fiancé, I watch the flowers gently swaying. The space between us doubles and doubles, until Billie is miles away. A Goose honks in the distance.
In the morning I follow the course of the little brook that flows southwards, past the hut. It leads to a pond, cut off from the sea by a dyke studded with seashells. Its water takes on the colour of the sky, mirrors the day. Last week there were farm horses here, thick tufts of hair on their fetlocks. Freed from their harness, they raced around and rolled onto their backs, until the first horse trotted into the pond. The second horse watched him, then also trotted in. The rest followed, like foals. When I see them now, pulling the plough, so quietly and strongly, I think about their secret life, the joy behind their serious bearing.