Joseph continues his questions, and brick by brick my answers build a wall around me, all neatly mortared. He has his own camera ready, and when Star lands on my shoulder, snaps a photo.
“Look, one of the Tits,” Roger cries out, waving his arm around, at which Star swiftly flies away.
“I think we’re almost done now,” I say.
Roger stands. He walks across to my bed, examines the roost boxes on the picture rail above it, takes a photo of them. My bedroom, their bedroom. I look at Joseph. He shrugs. Roger proceeds through the whole house like this. Indignation flushes through my body, like a fever.
“He’s driving them all away.”
“I’ll come alone some time. He doesn’t realise what he’s doing.” He gives me a pat on the shoulder. “Anyway, we should go now. I have two more interviews today. Roger?” He calls into the passage. “Roger?”
The passage is empty. He’s at the kitchen sink, camera at the ready like a gun. Bertie is on the curtain rod, stiff with shock.
“It’s all right, Bertie,” I say. “He’ll soon be gone.” I position myself between Roger and the bird. “He is afraid of you.” Bertie is very attached to me. He’s a timid little bird with a penetrating gaze.
“Hang on. I’ve almost got him. I just need to get a little closer.”
“No. That’s enough now.”
He steps sideways, past me, sticks his camera in the air, stumbles on a chair leg, and falls right over the chair with his clumsy body. Bertie cheeps, recoils even further, steps off the rail, startles, and gets stuck between the curtain rod and the wall.
“Are you happy now?” I ask quietly, trying not to make things worse. I push him aside and go and fetch the kitchen steps from the hall cupboard. Stay where you are, little one, otherwise you’ll break something. “Get that man out of here,” I tell Joseph.
I climb up the steps and take hold of Bertie, who fortunately does not resist. “Come on then, little chap.” His wings are folded round his body. I cup it with my left hand, while with my right I feel under the curtain rod to see where he’s caught and then I push him up. The trick is to shape your hands into a little hollow around the bird’s body, but without any force or pressure; if birds know they can’t move they give in, and if they can’t sense any force they don’t resist. Roger is taking photos. I come down from the steps and check Bertie’s feet—nothing seems to be broken—and the wings are whole too. His heart is beating very quickly and he’s making a soft little peeping noise that I’ve never heard him make before. I put him inside a box. He needs time to recover.
“Off with you,” I tell Roger. “And I want to see the photos before publication.”
“Right you are, Gwen,” Joseph says. He gives a swallow and fumbles at his jacket.
Trembling, I open the door for them. This really is the last time, the very last time, that I’ll allow strangers to visit. Theo, Mary, Garth, no one else will ever come inside again.
The telephone rings. I walk to the sitting room. There are no birds in sight.
“It’s Garth. How was it, Gwen?”
“Awful. Joseph is nice enough, but Roger—what a conceited pig.” I tell Garth about him taking Bertie’s photo and about the fall.
Garth gives a hesitant laugh. “Sorry,” he says. “I realise it’s very unpleasant for you, and particularly for the birds, but I can really picture it.” He laughs louder. “And you just shoving him aside.”
I laugh too, in spite of myself. That silly fool.
When I hang up the house is silent—too silent. I call Star, and then Baldhead, but they don’t come. It was a mistake to invite these people here. Vanity. That interest in my personal life, what use is that to the birds? I call Star again. But I do want people to learn about birds, so they can understand them better, treat them better. For years now the number of garden birds has been declining. Some species have almost vanished because people don’t lay out their gardens correctly. And the ideas people have about birds are often wrong. But perhaps I’m deceiving myself. Perhaps the birds really don’t get anything from this at all.
Rosy skies, red skies. I put a plateful of food on the bird table and go indoors to fetch a cardigan—it’s still cold in the mornings. By the time I return they’re already flying back and forth. They’re all here: Bluebeard, Monocle, Baldhead, Star, Tinky, Tipsy, the young birds, Teaser and Peetur from the last brood, and over there Monocle and Tinky’s youngsters, who have only just fledged. I drink my tea sitting on the bench. Tinky perches by me a moment, the fledglings fly right over my head and back, and then do the same again. Tinky sings a few notes to Monocle, who ignores him because she’s busy eating.
“Hullo!” The plumber, a skinny chap of around fifty, in blue overalls, has arrived early. I take him to the leaking tap in the kitchen. He is calm, doesn’t move more than is necessary; his voice is soft and even—the birds hardly seem to notice him at all.
When he comes into the sitting room for a cup of tea, the Great Tits are perched by me.
“They’re so tame! They can’t be wild birds, surely? Perhaps you’ve secretly hatched them yourself!” He lifts up his cap a moment and scratches his bald head.
“They know that there’s no need to be frightened of me.” Tipsy lands on my shoulder but flies off when the plumber moves his arm.
“This is really how it should always be.”
“But it’s a lot of work.” I point at the newspapers protecting the sofa, the curtains that the birds have pecked to shreds, the pock-marks in the piano. “I spend the whole day cleaning.”
“Perhaps they needn’t live indoors, then, but it’s wonderful to see this harmony.” He gives the table a little pat, good table, and stands up to get on with his job.
I nod. Still. It’s not only that it’s so time-consuming: it’s impossible not to get attached to individual birds and they don’t live very long, as a rule.
Through the window I can see Tinky and Monocle on the bird table together. He goes out of his way to please her, using his whole repertoire of dances, glances, gestures and song. She does pay some attention, but eventually turns away from him. When he flies into her field of vision again, she resolutely flies off in the other direction.
I take the faded red tea towel off the typewriter. Even before I manage to roll the paper into the machine, Baldhead is on the keys. Star comes and perches on my hand. “Come on now, off with you.” I gently shake my hand—I don’t want to really startle her. Star flies up, then keeps an eye on me from the table. Baldhead briefly flies up too, then lands on exactly the same spot. I click my tongue at him to drive him away before he messes the keys. He gives a little jump, lands on the table, looks at me for a moment with his head cocked, then flies out through the window. Star follows his example.
This latest article tells the story of Baldhead’s first mating, with Jane and with Grey. Jane and Grey fought for weeks over the large nest box on the apple tree in the orchard, till they eventually began to build a nest there together, for reasons that weren’t clear to me at all. I’d never seen that happen before and would never do so again. Jane’s mate had died that winter and Grey had no mate at all. Baldhead, in those days a young and powerful Great Tit, was keen to win Jane and Grey’s territory, and their nest box. He courted both ladies, and Baldhead and Jane became a pair. Jane could sing beautifully, better than many a male—people often think that only males sing well, but that’s a prejudice: females also sing, and there is an enormous variation between them. Perhaps that was why Baldhead chose Jane.
Grey didn’t forsake the territory, however, and all that summer she followed Jane through the orchard like a shadow. Jane and Baldhead didn’t at first appear to find her presence annoying. But when the first eggs were laid, Jane banished Grey from the nest box. Within a few days Grey had built her own nest, in a box not far from Jane’s, a very lovely nest woven with coloured threads from my carpets. Baldhead came to visit her in her new nest and for a while the three of them lived in harmony. Baldhead visited both nests while the females were brooding, treating them exactly alike. They used the same mannerisms to beg for food: making little cries, like nestlings, and quivering their wings.