Bird Cottage Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Prologue · 1965

  Star 1

  1900

  Star 2

  1911

  Star 3

  1911

  Star 4

  1914

  Star 5

  1918

  Star 6

  1921

  Star 7

  1937

  Star 8

  1937

  Star 9

  1938

  Star 10

  1943

  Star 11

  1944

  Star 12

  1949

  Star 13

  1952

  Star 14

  1960

  Star 15

  1973

  Star 0

  Acknowledgements

  About the Publisher

  Copyright

  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.

  A carrot-headed young fellow, with collar-length hair and a round, freckled face, takes off his ear-protectors. “’Scuse me?”

  “You’ve killed all the baby birds.” I spurt the words out, spraying spittle with them.

  He looks at the hedge, eyes squeezed tight against the sun, holds his breath a moment, hesitates. “Sorry.”

  “See what you’ve done now.” Jacob is crying out and complaining. The Sparrows are cheeping, calling to the other Sparrows. The Blackbirds are making a terrible crying sound that I’ve never heard from them before.

  The young fellow gazes at the Thrushes and the Robins and the Titmice flying back and forth over the hedge, to the field and back again, over the heads of his co-workers, towards me. A cloud passes over his blue eyes. He stops the other two men and points at the Sparrows just across from him. They fall silent and I can hear the birds cry out even louder. They’re calling and calling, exactly as they do when Magpies attack their nests, but this time they don’t stop.

  I stay where I am until the men are out of sight. All the birds have deserted the hedge. Only Jacob remains. I call him, offer a peanut. He doesn’t come.

  I walk along the hedge looking for nests, to see if there are any babies left behind. I can’t see anyone any more, just little feathers caught among the cut leaves and twigs. At the corner I find a little one that has fallen from its nest. It’s a Sparrow, newly fledged. I carefully lift up the little brown body, already knowing that things aren’t right. The creature trembles and then goes totally still, stiller than any stillness that holds life. With my other hand I make a little hollow in the earth beneath the hedge, lay him gently down, then cover him up.

  The silence wraps itself round me, accompanies me home, where the Great Tits are flying around more nervously than normal. I put food on the bird table for them, earlier than I usually do. Perhaps this will distract them—peanuts, bread, some pieces of pear, but nothing fatty because it’s the nesting season.

  This late springtime green is still overwhelming, still so brilliant—a luxuriant abundance. I sit down on one of the old garden chairs by the front of the house. My hip seems to want to work itself free from my body. This damned old body.

  Terra lands on my shoulder. Her tiny claws prick into the fabric of my blouse. She is so dependent on me, even though she never sleeps indoors. She made her nest in the tall apple tree, thank goodness, not in the hedge. The hedge-cutting didn’t make much of an impression on her—she has enough experience to know that it’s not worth getting too excited. She taps her beak against my shoulder, very lightly, as if she’s trying to remind me of something.

  STAR 1

  Behaviourism, the theory that dominates all contemporary research into animal behaviour, assumes that scientifically valid data can only be obtained in situations free from extraneous stimuli, in which reactions can be measured in reproducible experiments. The animal mind, which includes the human mind, is viewed as being a kind of black box into which we have no access. From this standpoint, the description of natural behaviour adds little to scientific knowledge since such behaviour cannot objectively be measured. Darwin’s work on animal intelligence, for example, is regarded as unscientific because it is primarily based on anecdotal evidence. Behaviourism, however, does not properly take account of the fact that many animals behave differently in captivity than when they are free. Most birds are timid by nature, actually often afraid of human beings, and when they are kept in laboratories their behaviour and the research results are bound to be affected. Furthermore, any empirical research based on the notion that the thoughts and feelings of animals are unknowable can only produce results that support this picture. If you perceive someone as a machine, then your research questions will reflect that, and will determine the space in which the object of your enquiry can respond. Note well, I have deliberately used the word “object” here. The so-called objective method of studying animals is, therefore, just as coloured by assumptions as any other.

  It is now well over ten years since I moved to the little house in Sussex that I would later call Bird Cottage. It is situated on the edge of a small wood and is close to an area of great natural beauty where countless birds and other creatures live: Wood Pigeons and Cuckoos, Foxes and Badgers, Field Mice and Moles, Buzzards and Tawny Owls, Chiffchaffs and Pochards. In the trees and bushes surrounding the house there are also a great number of small birds, such as Blackbirds, Great Tits, Robins and Sparrows. Soon after moving in I set up a bird table on the terrace in front of the cottage, and at seven o’clock each morning and at five in the afternoon I would put out all kinds of titbits for them. I also placed a bird bath there and hung up a few nest boxes: on the house itself, the old oak and the apple tree. It did not take long for the first inquisitive Titmice to come and investigate. The Sparrows immediately chased them off. They will take over any territory if they have the chance. But the Sparrows were more afraid of me than the Tits were, and because I spent a great deal of time observing the birds from the garden bench, all of them had the opportunity to eat the food on the table, and all could inspect the changes that were happening in the house.

  I came to live here in February 1938. Most of the birds were already busy looking for places to build their nests and, in some cases, for a suitable mate. They were more interested in each other than in me. In March, however, that began to change. One of the Great Tits, Billy, an older male with a proud bearing and a loud voice, was cheekier than the rest. He was the first to fly each morning to the bird table and every afternoon he would visit the bird bath for an elaborate wash. One warm day in April he flew through the open window and into the house. He fluttered around the sitting room and then rushed swiftly out of the window again. The next day he came once more. One of the ways that Great Tits learn is by watching each other closely, and before very long Billy’s partner, Greenie, came inside with him too. I called her Greenie because of the green sheen on her feathers. From then on I always left the top light of the window open so they could fly in and out as they pleased. This was the start of a very special way of living that has continued to this very day, and has taught me a great deal.

  1900

  “Look, Lennie.” Papa is holding something in his hands. I run towards him.

  “Is it a Titmouse, Papa?”

  “It’s a Blue Tit. He’s fallen from his nest. I found him under one of the beech trees, by the girls’ school. Or rather, Peter found him.” Peter wags his tail at the sound of his name. “Now, you keep hold of him for a moment, and I’ll find a box to put him in.”

  Its little feathers! I’ve never felt anything so soft in all my life. I shape my hands into a little bowl, a small nest, and lift them to my mouth. I give the birdie a light kiss. So soft! So blue, that tiny head! The creature stirs, shivers a little. It startles me, but I hold my hands firmly together.

  “Put him in here. Very carefully.” Papa has brought a cardboard box from his study, with an old scarf lining the bottom.

  I gently lower my cupped hands till they touch the bottom of the box, then slowly pull them apart.

  “Well done. And now we’ll go and buy him some food.” He takes me by the hand. Olive and Kings and Duddie all go to schoo
l and Mama won’t let me go there yet, but now I’m in luck. At last, I’m the lucky one!

  “Flossie?” Papa pops his head round the door into my mother’s bedroom. “I’m just taking Lennie into town to buy some mince for the Blue Tit.”

  “Please call her Gwendolen, her proper name. And shouldn’t you be working?” My mother’s voice sounds lighter than it has done these past few days. Perhaps she doesn’t have a headache any more.

  Papa turns a deaf ear to her objections.

  “Come here, Gwendolen.” Reluctantly, I enter the dark room. It smells of sleep and of something else too. Something old. My mother adjusts my dress and presses me against her. She is the source of the smell. When she releases me, I quickly run back to my father, who is waiting outside.

  I skip along the broad pavement, in exact time with Papa’s footsteps. “Where are we going?”

  “First to the butcher’s, and then to Mr Volt’s.”

  I prance along, raising my legs higher and higher. I’m very good at it. My feet touch the ground at precisely the same point as Papa’s. Pa-dum, pa-dum. The hooves of a half-horse.

  When we reach the butcher’s, Peter has to wait outside. He sits down immediately. He knows what he has to do. I stroke his white bib a moment, then quickly follow Papa into the shop.

  “Some finely minced beef, please. It’s for a Blue Tit, so don’t give me too much.” Fat Jimmy doesn’t always serve in the shop, only if Mr Johnson, the butcher, isn’t there. He’s very slow and he doesn’t give me a slice of ham.

  “Thank you. And may I also have a slice of ham, please?”

  Fat Jimmy shrugs his shoulders and turns to slice the ham. My father gives me a wink. When we’re outside again, he tears the slice of ham in two. One half for Peter and one for me.

  Mr Volt sells everything. One of his eyes droops a little lower than the other, and it bulges too. Duddie says someone once gave him a great thump and his eye flew out of his head and then it didn’t want to go back in again, and Olive says he can’t see out of it any more, but he always looks at me with it, as if he really can see me like that, as if he actually can see more with that eye than other people, things they can’t see.