They will be fine. Sit and talk to me a while. I don’t get many visitors, apart from the rather creepy, yet attractive, gentleman who looks through the windows, and the grocery delivery.
‘Ross? Is he creepy? He does own the house, after all.’
Isobel didn’t reply to that, but one eyebrow arched.
‘And you have your groceries delivered?’ I must have sounded surprised because Isobel smiled and scribbled on her pad.
I’m a hermit, not a Luddite. Now, why does the young man want me out of here so urgently?
I found myself telling Isobel aboutThe Great British Build, Ross hiring me to make sure the house was empty, his not being able to approach her directly and his general air of nervous terror. ‘So I don’t think he’s being a peeping Tom, he’s just trying to ascertain whether the house is occupied or not,’ I finished, uncertain as to why I was trying to defend Ross. ‘After all, there’s no electricity,’ I pointed out, watching her light a small camping stove, dip a pan into the bucket of water and hunt out two teabags from a small metal box on the floor.
I’ve lived here for five years.
Isobel wrote, in between tea-making activities.
And I hope you don’t take milk, because it went off yesterday.
‘No, I don’t,’ I lied with aplomb. ‘Five years? How did you come to be here? Was it your family home?’
She ignored that question. It was, I thought, quite easy for her to ignore things when she had to write down her replies. She could occupy her hands with other things until it was too late for her to be expected to answer any questions – a very efficient way of avoiding awkwardness.
‘How on earth do you manage?’
This got a reply.
I buy my groceries online; a nice lady at the village hall lets me use her computer. And I have my pets.
‘The birds?’ My throat had gone sandpaper-dry and I took the proffered cup of tea, in its cracked mug, gratefully.
I rescue injured corvids. Rooks, crows, magpies, any that come to me. They are very intelligent creatures you know, Libby.
Isobel gave me a look that managed to imply that I wasnotan intelligent creature.
‘I have a bird phobia.’ The words came out in a rush. ‘It’s nothing personal, I just can’t bear to be around them.’
I got another long, slow look, then a curt nod as though she had satisfied herself that it was believable that I might not like birds. Then we sat and drank our tea in a weird kind of silence that I was desperate to fill with words but couldn’t because I had to drink fast to get out of there.
When I was about three quarters of the way down my cup, there was a commotion at the window and I looked up to see that giant black bird there again, perched on the cross bar of the frame, peering in at us in its one-eyed way. I shivered and stood up.
That’s Rook.
He’s a crow. It’s a sort of joke, you see. But he knows his name and he comes when I call. They all do.
Those last three words thundered into my consciousness with the spin of threat on them. Had she called the bird, somehow, to disconcert me? The phrase ‘a murder of crows’ fluttered around my memory. Why on earth couldn’t a collection of crows have been called ‘a fluffy bunny of crows’?Whydid murder have to come into it? It didnotimprove the situation. ‘I’m sorry, Isobel, I have to go now.’
Rook tipped his head so his other eye could have a go at staring at me and those horrible geriatric hooked feet trod up and down as he balanced.
He won’t attack you.
‘I know,’ I said, despite knowing nothing of the sort. ‘But phobias don’t work on how dangerous the thing might be, they’re irrational. I’m sorry.’ I put my cup down and began backing towards the door, keeping my attention very firmly on the squat black shape hunched on the window.
Come and see me again. Bring the child. She might be more sensible in the matter of birds than her mother.
Isobel brandished her note and then gave me a somewhat mischievous smile, which smoothed some of the wrinkles that made her face look so ‘wicked witch in search of an oven’. She looked younger when she smiled and I wondered how old she really was.
‘All right.’ I would have promised to saw off my own leg to get out of there.
Isobel bent and scribbled:
