Poppy wakes me by pulling a hair out of my head. I shake her off, then swing my legs out of the bed. There is more light than there has been these past few days; the rain has moved on. The sun shines behind wispy grey clouds. It’s almost December. Perhaps there is no friend in Scotland. I put food on the table for the birds, smell winter in the morning air. They’re all here: Hop, Skip, Dodie, the other Great Tits, the Blackbirds.
Paul is wearing the clothes I’ve washed for him. “Can I hang on to this pair of socks?”
“Of course. Take another pair too. And will you write, when you get there?”
He smiles and avoids my gaze. “I will.” Words don’t mind what they’re used for.
Hop lands on the kitchen cupboard, takes a quick look, and then flies off. Dodie replaces him. She makes eye contact with me, then looks at Paul, and flies away. “They’re not used to it,” I say.
Paul turns his head. “Who?”
“The birds. They’re not used to other people.”
“They sing beautifully.”
“Some are more gifted than others. Peetur invents his own songs, often entirely new ones, though his favourite call is ‘Pee-tur. Pee-tur.’ Patch only sings the simplest phrases.”
He makes breakfast. We eat together in silence. The soft bread sticks to the roof of my mouth—the roof, the canopy. I tell him to eat an extra slice of bread, force him to do so by buttering it for him. It would be a shame to waste it now. The Great Tits fly back and forth; they’re always restless when winter is on the way. They only settle down when it’s really cold. Before that they’re busy with their preparations, storing food for the winter.
I slice bread for him, put some apples on the table, and a piece of cheese. He silently packs his knapsack. He could stay; we could stay together.
His back in front of the window, a silhouette against the light.
I give him the food, tell him at which farm he can get milk and hand him my coupons.
“I haven’t chopped wood for you yet.”
“I’ll do that myself.” My voice is light. Light as deal wood, suitable for making a light table.
I embrace him, not too long, then open the door. As he walks down the pathway, the sun breaks through. The wind is blowing from the south. I can smell the sea.
He turns one more time and waves. I call his name, tell him to wait, his face lights up, I run towards him, stop a moment when I reach him, gently touch his arm, his cheek, then snuggle into his arms, into his kiss, ask him to stay. Here. He walks back to the house with me. I kiss him again as we’re walking and it’s not quite right yet, but it will be fine—
No. He turns one more time and waves. I raise my hand, turn round and go into the cottage, to the kitchen, where I put the kettle on and have to wipe the tears from my eyes to see the mug I want to get from the cupboard. Patch flies into the cupboard. I don’t laugh, but drive him out with my hand, not hard, but it gives him a shock. “Sorry,” I say. “Sorry, little one.”
STAR 11
When spring came, Star again built a nest with Peetur. But when the nestlings were three weeks old fate struck: Peetur disappeared. I never saw him again. I think the neighbour’s ginger cat must have caught him: it would lurk in the lavender bush near the nest, hungrily eyeing the little ones. After that Star took care of her brood alone and did so marvellously.
After Peetur vanished, a stranger came into Star’s territory. She already had her work cut out with finding food for her young, and his presence made her nervous. I helped her as much as I could but I could not keep watch for her all the time. The stranger drove all the other male Great Tits from the garden and then tried to court Star. He would perch outside her nest box, always singing the same three notes. Star pretended not to notice him. He tried all kinds of tricks to attract her attention, even mimicking her call note, a distinctive double-noted call, with the consequence that she never used that call again. The most annoying thing was that he ate so much food, most of the insects and seeds that the garden provided. I made sure she had extra provisions and every time she came to me I gave her a peanut, but Star preferred to give natural food to her young.
On 30th May the first four fledglings flew the nest; the next day the other three followed. But these were really too young to fly and remained in the grass under the old oak. Star fiercely defended them: there was a Sparrow she wanted to drive off, and she struck so much fear into him that he flew off in utter panic. Serve him right! Those wretched Sparrows think they rule the roost. The smallest fledglings did not survive, however, and two days after their death Star took the remaining youngsters to the garden on the other side of the lane, where there was sufficient cover, out of the range of the Stranger Great Tit, in whom she was clearly not interested at all. She did continue to return to me for food, however.
That spring our bond grew closer and she became very fond of me, perhaps because she had lost her mate. Baldhead had died the previous year, and now Monocle was the only one of the old guard remaining, and Star had never been very friendly with her. The moulting season started in July. Star still did not roost inside the house, but often sought my company during the day. In mid-August she began to behave a little strangely: she would ruffle up her feathers, as if she wanted to drive me off. Because we had never started our counting earlier than September, I did not realise that this had something to do with our experiment, until one morning she clearly adopted the posture that she always employed to tell me that she wanted to tap. I tapped twice on the wood, and, lo and behold, she immediately tapped back, very excited, because I had finally grasped what she meant.
1944
“Gwennie!” My sister is standing on the platform, waving as if she’s about to drown.
“How good to see you.” I give her a hug. The skin of her face is as baggy as an old lady’s and she has a different smell. Her blonde hair is almost white. “Aren’t you well?”
She frowns. “Why do you ask?” Her fingers close around my wrist.
“You’re so thin.”
“There’s a war on, Gwen. Lucky for you that there’s still food where you live.”
“We’ll soon be home.” It’s a good half-hour walk from Hassocks Station.
The sky is ash grey, the world is so vast. There’s a thin layer of ice on the path beside the railway line. The grass crunches beneath our feet. The sole of Olive’s left shoe is loose. “Would you like to wear my shoes?”
“No.” Her voice is faint; she’s out of breath, though we’re not walking all that fast. “Nice, these hills here.”
“If we have the time, we could go for a walk, to Ditchling Beacon”—the old lookout post—I’m not sure she’ll manage it.
She links her arm in mine and tells me that Dudley caught pneumonia when it was so rainy last autumn. And Mother doesn’t know where she is sometimes and who Olive is. “She doesn’t drink any more, though. That’s one good thing about the war. There still was more than enough gin in the first year, but thrift was never her strongest point. She’s been in a rotten mood for three years now.”
I laugh. “And what about you? How did things turn out with Timothy?”
“After we left Wales, we wrote to each other for a while. But in 1940 he moved to Manchester with his wife. That’s where she’s from, and her parents had wanted her there for a long time already. We haven’t been in touch since.” Her eyes are clouded, misted glass.
“Do you miss him?” A Blackbird flies from the hazel tree, a stranger.