I go to the kitchen and fill a bucket. White vinegar. I don’t know where Miranda has put the sponges.
The blue hour, winter dusk.
The late light gives shape to the leaves, for a little while longer. I gaze until they fade away—their edges seem to be moving. On the windowpane, next to the frame, a drop of water makes a trail, a straight line downwards.
The Great Tits have gone to bed already. I don’t put the lights on, stay where I’m seated. My chair was reupholstered last week, I can permit myself that luxury occasionally, and there’s a blanket over it now, to keep it in good condition—I might just as well not have had it reupholstered. Someone is moving in the distance, moving the grass—a mouse, perhaps, or a hedgehog. The mice are back. I saw them yesterday.
Theo says I need an assistant, to put my notes in order and send my unpublished stories to that new journal, come on, what was its name again? I showed him my archive of stories, photos and cuttings. He was going to ask the Museum of Art and Craft if they might be interested in them. Theo fell last week, he had to go to casualty. Esther took him.
The garden is dark now—just the window frame catches the light. My face only appears when I stand close to the window and look for openings in the black sky.
I sink back into my chair, close my eyes. Tomorrow I mustn’t forget to buy some cheese. They could certainly do with some extra fat for the winter.
STAR 0
The first sun of the year falls through a chink in the curtains. January started seven days ago, and it was grey and dark until now: a new year, but you could not really see it was new. The sun brings colour with it and hope. I go to the kitchen and fill a plate with food for the bird table. The birds have been awake for hours; they rustle, flutter, chatter to each other. Timmy, the little Blackbird, is on the other side of the window, on the sill, his head cocked expectantly. He calls to me, two notes, the same two notes he uses to call his mate. I open the window and put out a piece of apple for him. Baldhead is sitting on the arm of the bench near the bird table, a new little female beside him. I put the pieces of bacon, the cheese and brown bread on the table, then return for some butter, peanuts and fruit. Baldhead comes to take a look. The female flies behind him, takes care to stay out of my way. There is a white patch on her forehead—Star. I suddenly remember that she previously nested in the nest box by the path. Her mate is not with her, perhaps he is dead. She is clearly interested in Baldhead, who neither encourages nor discourages her. Monocle was his mate last year, but I have not caught sight of her for some days now. Baldhead eats placidly, then flies to my shoulder. We both look at Star, who seems hungry and takes a little of everything. But she leaves the cheese alone. After each beakful she looks at us a moment. She is very beautiful. Her feathers gleam and the colours seem deeper than those of other birds. She looks so brightly out of her little eyes. At first she just looks at Baldhead, but then her eyes search for mine. Hallo, I say to her with my eyes. Good to see you. She holds my gaze a moment, then flies off. Baldhead follows her and there they go, higher and higher into the air, ever higher, ever swifter.
LEN HOWARD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I first came across Len Howard’s work when I was writing my dissertation for my MA in Philosophy. One of my mother’s friends—strangely enough, neither of us can exactly remember who it was; if you’re reading this: many thanks!—advised me to read Birds as Individuals; shortly afterwards I also read Living with Birds. Both books were once bestsellers, but can now only be bought second-hand. Howard’s work has largely been forgotten, which is a pity, as her research was well ahead of its time, and her books are still interesting and relevant. Very little is known about her life. In this novel I mix stories from her writings and biographical fact with fiction. Certain passages, such as the sections about Star and a number of the other stories about the birds, have their origin in Howard’s own anecdotes in Birds as Individuals and Living with Birds. The scene at the pond is based on an unpublished story I discovered in her archive in Ditchling, a pale-blue folder containing about twenty different documents and a photo of Olive. Many of the other anecdotes are based on the memories of people living in Ditchling.
I would like to thank the following people for their help while I was writing this novel. John Saunders, the present occupant of Bird Cottage, allowed me to examine Howard’s archive and scanned her unpublished stories for me. He told me that Howard left Bird Cottage to the Sussex Naturalists’ Trust, which had promised to make it into a bird sanctuary. The bird sanctuary never materialised, however. Instead the trust sold the house and land for a good price to someone who immediately felled most of the trees in the back garden (only the ancient oak tree is still standing). He also told me that Howard is buried in an unnamed grave, in the graveyard behind her house. Ralph Levy was extremely helpful and hospitable during my stay in his hut in Ditchling. Michael Alford knew Howard and used to see her walking across the fields with birds perched on her head and arms. Eline van den Ende helped me think about the violin music of the period and wrote to me about what it is like to play in an orchestra. Irwan Droog carefully read all the drafts and the final version of this story. Lucette walked into my life while the book was being written and brought light with her. Putih and Olli, as always, have helped the writing process by being with me and enabling me to learn what it is like to share one’s life with others.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eva Meijer is a Dutch author, artist, singer, songwriter and philosopher. Her non-fiction study on animal Communication, Animal Languages, is forthcoming in English in 2019. Bird Cottage is her first novel to be translated into English, has been nominated for the BNG and Libris prizes in the Netherlands and is being translated into several languages. Eva Meijer was awarded the Halewijn Prize in 2017 for all of the books she has written so far.
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Pushkin Press was founded in 1997, and publishes novels, essays, memoirs, children’s books—everything from timeless classics to the urgent and contemporary.
Our books represent exciting, high-quality writing from around the world: we publish some of the twentieth century’s most widely acclaimed, brilliant authors such as Stefan Zweig, Marcel Aymé, Teffi, Antal Szerb, Gaito Gazdanov and Yasushi Inoue, as well as compelling and award-winning contemporary writers, including Andrés Neuman, Edith Pearlman, Eka Kurniawan, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen and Chigozie Obioma.