Good Morning, Midnight

2

Hat Bowler had woken up later and feeling better than he had for many weeks. And his dream memory hadn’t been of dark forests but of budding fruit trees enchanted with nesting birds. He’d also been very hungry, and when an examination of his fridge had revealed nothing to tempt a starving hyena, it had seemed not so much reasonable as inevitable that ten minutes later he should find himself in his car, driving towards Blacklow Cottage.

It was only as he got within a couple of miles of his destination that he took that further step towards normality which involves acknowledgment of the feelings, needs and rights of other people.

What the hell did he think he was doing?

OK, the Crunch Witch had invited him to drop by any time. But she wasn’t the Crunch Witch, she was Miss Lavinia Maciver, a slightly eccentric lady of a certain age and a certain class, probably conditioned in infancy to atone for the relief at seeing the back of an unwelcome visitor by pronouncing some token platitude about hoping they’d return soon. Even in her worst-case scenario, she could hardly have envisaged that her invitation would be taken up the following day!

Plus there was the fact that she was in the midst of a family tragedy. What was it that guy Waverley had said? He tried to separate the words from the powerful memory of marmalade. Something about some relative topping himself?

No way could he just turn up on the doorstep again today.

Yet the MG was whipping along the narrow country roads at undiminished speed, and instead of looking for somewhere to stop and turn, his mind was busy devising a succession of reasons for his visit, each less plausible than the last.

That small advance party of his personality which had its beachhead on the shores of normalcy was able to observe wryly that the main body still had a long way to travel, further proven by the fact that he didn’t just keep on driving when he saw that the spot by the roadside where Mr Waverley had left his car the previous morning was already occupied.

And not by Mr Waverley either (with whom he could at least claim a brief acquaintance), not unless he owned an Alfa Spider as well as a Jag. This didn’t seem likely, but then the S-type had come as a surprise, so why not?

He parked the MG behind it, got out and touched the Spider’s bonnet. Still hot, so not long arrived. Nice to find himself acting like a detective again. Time perhaps to act like a social being and not inflict his personal troubles on a near stranger and her newly arrived friend.

He heard voices from the house, one raised and shrill, the other just a murmur. Then two figures emerged from the door.

One was Miss Maciver, the other presumably her guest.

She was a woman in her mid-twenties, good-looking in a glossy magazine kind of way, blonde hair carefully natural, face as perfectly painted as a Victorian portrait, olive silk blouse over firm free-standing breasts and matching jeans hugging slim hips and long legs.

She was the one doing the shrill shouting.

“I don’t believe you. You’re all the same, you Macivers. Twistier than a hangman’s rope!”

She tottered towards the car, her high narrow heels completely unsuited to the rutted track. As she got nearer, Hat could see that beneath the cosmetic mask her face looked wrecked.

Miss Mac followed her, leaning rather more heavily on her stick than she had done the previous day and saying, “Do come back inside, my dear. Honestly, I know nothing about it. I’m sure if we talk quietly…”

“Talk? I’ll be letting my solicitor do the talking, soon as I find one to replace that cheating bastard Pal hired. Takes a one to hire a one, doesn’t it?”

“Please, dear, don’t talk like that. I’m sure there’s been some misunderstanding. Pal had his faults, I know, but basically he was a good man…”

“Good man! Jesus! Good for you, maybe. Don’t play the innocent with me, Vinnie. He came out to see you last week for the first time in God knows how many years and you’re trying to tell me it wasn’t to talk about the will? I’ll get it overthrown on mental incompetence. I’ve got someone working on it. And if the powers that be want more evidence than father and son topping themselves in exactly the same way, I’ll send them out here to take a look at you and all those fucking birds!”

She reached the Spider, dragged open the door and slid inside. She didn’t even look at Hat, but the Crunch Witch did, giving him a welcoming smile as if she’d been expecting him, and murmuring, “There you are, Mr Hat. Go through into the kitchen. Make yourself at home.”

Then she stooped to the window of the Spider, which the other woman seemed to be having difficulty starting, and said, “Believe me, my dear, I have no interest in depriving you of what is yours. As for Pal’s visit here, I assure you money wasn’t mentioned. All I can say is I detected something peculiarly valedictory about it. He was never a great one for wildlife, you’ll know that, but this time he seemed to take a real pleasure in watching the birds and I recall he said to me, ‘Maybe you got it right after all, Vinnie, opting for the birds.’ And the birds too, they seemed to feel something. They usually don’t much care for people who don’t much care for them. Like yourself. But they fluttered around him almost as if they sensed something…”

Hat, obediently heading down the track to the cottage, heard the woman in the car screech with laughter that had little amusement in it.

“You talk like that in court, Vinnie, and I can’t see me having any bother proving you’ve all got a screw loose!”

Miss Mac started saying something else but Hat was now entering the cottage and as he passed down the corridor he was out of earshot of both women.

Through the open kitchen door he could see on the table the teapot, the butter dish, the marmalade jar and half a loaf of bread covered with a tea towel that a pair of ingenious bullfinches were trying to drag off under the expectant gaze of perhaps another half-dozen birds. As he entered, a fugue of warning notes and flutter of wings signalled possible danger, but he was flattered to see that only a couple fled outside, the others merely retreating to perches on the ceiling beam or the curtain rail.

He poured himself a mug of tea, removed the tea towel and sawed himself a thick slice of bread. Miss Mac had said make yourself at home. He replaced the towel but left the crumbs of his sawing scattered on the table surface and even before he’d finished adding layers of butter and marmalade to his slice, two or three tits were competing for this largesse.

He was on his last slice (last because there was no more) when he heard the Spider’s unmistakable roar as it took off at speed which merged with the sound of another engine coming near at a more sedate pace. A Jag, his well-tuned ear judged, and a few moments later he was able to compliment himself on his audile acuity when Miss Mac came into the kitchen followed by Mr Waverley.

Hat nodded, unable to speak through his full mouth and Mr Waverley smiled as he took in the scene-the empty breadboard, the scavenging tits, Scuttle sitting on Hat’s shoulder investigating his hair.

“I have this sense of deja vu,” he said. “But I’m glad to see it’s not all gloom and doom, despite the sad circumstances.”

Hat, feeling this as reproach, swallowed hard and said, “Miss Mac, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have stopped when I saw you had a visitor…”

“Oh yes, Sue-Lynn, my poor nephew’s wife. She seems to think I’m part of some plot to deprive her of her inheritance.”

Oh God. Ignoring the fact that she was in the middle of some family bereavement was bad enough. Interrupting a meeting with the widow-no wonder she looked wrecked-was even worse.

“But I presume that at least she has her facts right as regards the will,” said Waverley.

“She said she’d spoken to their solicitor, who confirmed there had been changes, and not to her benefit.”

“Now why would your nephew have done that, do you think?”

“I don’t know. Sue-Lynn did go on rather wildly about Pal having set some private detective to following her, so perhaps she was involved in some naughtiness,” said Miss Mac with slight distaste.

If they wanted to discuss intimate family matters, it was certainly time to go, thought Hat.

He began to rise, saying, “This is really rude of me, turning up when you’ve got family troubles…”

“And you don’t think that rushing off now you’ve scoffed all the loaf will be even ruder? Tut tut, where were you brought up? Mr W, please join us.”

Before he could answer, a mobile phone shrilled in the inside pocket of his overcoat causing alarm in the birds and a moue of disapproval from Miss Maciver. Or maybe it was a wince of pain. She seemed to have aged several years since yesterday.

“Forgive me,” murmured Waverley, heading through the kitchen door into the garden as he pulled out his phone.

Hat said, “Miss Mac, are you OK?”

She said, “I’ve been better. That’s how it is with MS, good days, bad days.”

She saw his blank expression and glossed, “Multiple sclerosis. You didn’t know? Why should you? Don’t look so shocked. It’s not going to kill me. Not for a long while yet. Excuse me a moment.”

She went back up the corridor, turning into one of the front rooms. A moment later he heard the strike of a match. Perhaps she was lighting a fire against the chill morning air. It was warm enough here in the kitchen but perhaps if you had MS you felt the cold. He knew very little about the illness. Except that there was no cure.

Unable to rest in his chair he stood up and looked out of the window. Waverley was standing in the middle of the garden, taking his call. With his smart town clothes, he should have cut a slightly ludicrous figure but he didn’t. Snatches of his conversation drifted through the open window. Good day… yes, yes, I see… yes, that I can do immediately… no problem, if it comes to it, which I hope it won’t

… yes, as for the other, a little assistance would be helpful there just for the heavy work… I’ll wait till I hear from you… oh and there’s one more thing… At this point he glanced round, caught Hat’s eye, smiled, and moved further away out of earshot.

Hat sat down again and a couple of minutes later Waverley re-entered the kitchen, followed shortly by Miss Mac. To Hat’s relief and pleasure she looked a lot better and said, “That tea must be cold and stewed by now, let’s get some more on the go, shall we?” and set about refilling the kettle.

Waverley said, “Sorry, Miss Mac, but I won’t be able to accept your kind invitation. In any case I only called to confirm that you were well, which I see you are, and in good hands too. So I shall say good morning. Nice to meet you again, Mr Bowler.”

He turned and moved away swiftly, his slight limp masked almost completely by the use of his hawk-headed stick.

Miss Mac didn’t see him out but sat herself down at the table and said, “Now, Mr Hat, it’s only thee and me, as they say in these parts.”

“Yes. I’m sorry to… look, I really only drove out here because…”

She smiled encouragingly at him and said, “Because…?”

He reached for a reason, found one.

“Because I noticed your kitchen garden needed a bit of digging over to get it ready for planting and I wondered if you might need a hand… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean because you can’t do it yourself… I mean, I didn’t know about… and maybe you can…”

She laughed out loud at the tangle he was getting into and said, “If we’re to be friends, you’ll have to stop being embarrassed by my state of health. Yes, you’re quite right, my MS does make it much harder for me to look after my patch of garden. On the other hand, I’m rather particular who I let loose in it. I’ve got friends living out there, you see. So before I give you a spade, and while we’re waiting for the kettle to boil, why don’t you tell me something about yourself?”

“I don’t know… what is it you’d like to know?”

“Anything you’d care to tell.”

He inhaled a deep breath, not sure what words it was going to carry when it came out.

“First off,” he said, “my name’s not actually Mr Hat-Hat’s just something friends call me, because of my surname, which is Bowler…”

He paused, recollecting that Waverley had just used his name in farewell, and trying to remember when he’d mentioned it to him. Miss Mac didn’t seem to notice the pause but came in, smiling, with, “Hat Bowler! How very droll. But Miss Mac is equally droll in its own way, and I am content to remain Miss Mac so I hope you’ll be happy to remain Mr Hat. Names make things real, which is why it’s best only to name the things you love or at least like. I know Scuttle is Scuttle. I am completely unable to name my Member of Parliament.”

They shared a smile, then Hat recommenced, still with some uncertainty.

“OK. I’m Mr Hat and if I seem to have been behaving a bit odd both times we met, it’s because…”

He paused again, uncertain how detailed an explanation he was expected, or wanted, to give, and again she came in.

“Because you have been very unhappy, doubtless through some deep personal loss which you will never forget but are beginning to get over. I haven’t learnt a lot about human beings during my life, Mr Hat, or not a lot that I care to remember, but what I do know is that where the appetite is healthy, the hurt body or mind is healing. I am not so impertinent to be curious about the details of your loss, but I am delighted to note how much bread you have put away. Talking of which…”

She stooped to the oven, pulled open the door and, using a tea towel to protect her hands, took out a huge cob, brown as a chestnut. As she set it on the table she said, “While this cools, what I’d really like to hear about yourself is how you came to get interested in birds.”

Hat smiled.

“The important stuff, you mean.”

“That’s it, Mr Hat,” she said gravely. “The important stuff.”

She sat down opposite him once more. The two blue tits, Impy and Lopside, fluttered down to sit one on each shoulder, and looked at him expectantly. He knew it was food they were hoping for, but they felt like an audience.

He said, “I think it really began when I was six and we were on holiday on the Pembrokeshire coast and one day I was sitting on the beach and the sea was quite rough and I saw this pair of cormorants hurtle along, only a foot or so above the waves. I remember trying to be them, trying to feel in my imagination what it must be like, moving through the air at that speed and every time you look down, seeing that wild ocean surging and frothing and foaming beneath you, so close that whenever a wave breaks, it must seem like it’s reaching up to pull you under and you can feel the spray spattering cold against your belly…”

“And did you succeed in finding out what it must feel like, doing that?”

“I think I just about imagined it physically,” he said slowly. “But since I grew up, I’ve come to know exactly what it’s like. It’s like living. That’s what it’s like.”

Like living.

She looked at him compassionately for a moment then said, “And then, Mr Hat? Back in Pembrokeshire. What happened next?”

“I suppose I went paddling with my brothers, or we went to buy an ice-cream. But I never forgot. And after that whenever I saw a bird, any kind of bird, I tried to see things as it saw them, and after a while I got interested in what they were really doing rather than just what I liked to pretend they were doing. And that was great too, learning all that stuff. But I’ve never forgotten the cormorants, never forgotten that when I was six I flew with them for a little while. Does that make sense, Miss Mac?”

On the hob the kettle began to sing and the tits, as if recognizing this was a signal for renewed feasting, joined in.

“Oh yes, Mr Hat,” said Miss Mac, standing up to make the tea. “It makes more sense than almost anything else I’ve heard in the last few days. Much more sense.”