The Songbird Read online

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  It was Mattie who sent him to Brockscombe Farm. Mattie, with her honey-brown eyes and dark, curling hair. She had looked at him thoughtfully, as if she could guess his secret. Suddenly he longed to tell her the whole truth but she asked no questions.

  When Mattie invites her old friend Tim to stay in one of her family cottages on the edge of Dartmoor, she senses there is something he is not telling her.

  But as he gets to know the rest of the warm jumble of family who live by the moor, Tim discovers that everyone there has their own secrets. There is Kat, a retired ballet dancer who longs for the stage again; Charlotte, a young navy wife struggling to bring up her son while her husband is at sea; William, who guards a dark past he cannot share with the others; and Mattie, who has loved Tim in silence for years.

  As Tim begins to open up, Mattie falls deeper in love. And as summer warms the wild Dartmoor landscape, new beginnings take root . . . But can fresh hopes bloom where old secrets are buried?

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part Two

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  About the Author

  Also by Marcia Willett

  Copyright

  THE SONGBIRD

  MARCIA WILLETT

  To Canon Michael and Jane Lewis

  And to Roddy

  This longing to show, to share,

  Which runs full tilt into absence

  from Sands of the Well

  Denise Levertov

  My thanks to Dr Tony Born and the District Nursing Team at South Brent Health Centre, and to the Crisis Team at St Luke’s Hospice, Plymouth.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  ALL THROUGH THE spring, early and late, the thrush sings in the ash tree below the cottage. It’s the first thing he hears, when he comes carefully down the narrow precipitous staircase to make coffee, and the last thing, as he leans from the small window into the quiet luminous evening, unable to abandon the unearthly magic and get into bed.

  There are no leaves yet on the trees. They hold up bare, misshapen arms and bony, twiggy fingers against a pale, translucent sky; yet he can never see the thrush hidden within these interlaced, fantastical patterns. He stands watching, seeing how the gardens tip down to the two fields – sown with barley, edged with thorn and ash – and across those fields to the lane beyond, which curls and climbs up to the old farmhouse.

  Tim’s is the last in the terrace of cottages, converted from stables to provide accommodation for Victorian servants; modernized again more recently. The old stable-yard, flanked by two open-fronted barns where cars are parked, is separated from the courtyard behind the main house by a five-bar gate.

  It is many years since Brockscombe was a working farmhouse. Bought by a naval captain with his prize money from the Napoleonic wars, it has grown into a graceful family home, with white stucco and long sash windows, standing end-on to the lane and surrounded by fields sold long since to neighbouring farms.

  Sometimes, when he’s walking in the grounds, Tim thinks he sees ghostly figures waving at the upstairs windows – and his heart jumps with terror. But surely the ghosts are simply reflections: of racing clouds and the branches of the trees tossing in the wind? And why should he be afraid of ghosts? Is it because he fears he might soon be of their number: lost and alone, untethered from this friendly, familiar world?

  It was Mattie who sent him to Brockscombe Farm. Pretty Mattie, with her honey-brown eyes and dark, curling hair.

  ‘I’m leaving next month,’ he told her as they made tea in the small kitchen of the London publishing house where they worked, she as a publicist, he in the marketing department. ‘Taking a six-month sabbatical then moving on. I need somewhere to chill for a while. A cottage in the country but not too remote. Got any ideas?’

  She looked at him thoughtfully, as if she could guess his secret. Suddenly he longed to tell her the whole truth but she asked no questions.

  ‘You must go to Brockscombe,’ she said. ‘To Cousin Francis, William and Aunt Kat and Charlotte. It’s perfect there for a sabbatical. Just west of Exeter.’

  He laughed. The set-up sounded so odd. ‘What’s Brockscombe? Who are they, Cousin Francis, William and Aunt Kat and Charlotte?’

  She laughed too. ‘Brockscombe is a beautiful old Georgian farmhouse owned by Francis Courtney. He’s in his eighties and he lives there on his own. He was an MP and now he’s writing his memoirs. I’m not exactly sure how he’s related to William and Aunt Kat but they are cousins and they share one of the cottages in the grounds. Charlotte is my big sister. She’s married to William’s son, Andy. He’s in the navy, first lieutenant on a frigate based in Plymouth. Charlotte wasn’t very impressed with the naval quarters on offer so they moved into the cottage next door to William and Aunt Kat last autumn just before she had baby Oliver, which is really good because Andy’s ship will be at sea for the next few months so she’s got lots of support. Kat’s Andy’s cousin, too, of course, but he always calls her Aunt Kat and now we all do. It’s all a bit off the wall but great fun. You’d like them.’

  ‘It certainly sounds . . . unusual.’

  ‘There’s another cottage,’ she said. ‘It was empty last time I was there. You’d be private. Up to a point.’ She looked at him again, intently, consideringly. ‘They won’t be tiresome and nosy,’ she assured him. ‘Well, not much, anyway.’

  They laughed again; it was so good for him to laugh, to ease the fear.

  ‘I’d like to meet them,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I can arrange that. Would you rather go alone or shall we go down together and I’ll introduce you?’

  Once again fear chilled him, disabling him. ‘I think that might be good. To go together. If you’re sure?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure,’ she said casually. ‘It’s time I went down to Devon to see everyone. Let’s make a plan to drive down, if you’re happy to risk my old car.’

  Cousin Francis, William, Charlotte and Aunt Kat: Mattie briefed him on the drive from London. So vivid were her word pictures that Tim was able to visualize them clearly as the M4 reeled away behind them. William, separated from his wife, Fiona, is in his middle fifties, an accountant: short, cheerful, with a tonsure of curly pepper-and-salt hair and bright blue eyes. Aunt Kat, in her early sixties, a former international ballet dancer and choreographer: tall, graceful, unconventional. Charlotte, just turned thirty-two, a web designer; energetic and capable, and determined to be the perfect mother to her baby, five-month-old Oliver,
as well as looking after her and Andy’s golden retriever, Wooster. Cousin Francis, thin, angular, tough, emerging from his lair from time to time to sit in the sunshine and have a chat. As she recalled past meetings, told anecdotes, described their idiosyncrasies, Mattie brought them so clearly to life for Tim that, when he finally met them, it was as if they were already old friends.

  How easy she made it, how simple. Driving him down, booking him into a local pub as if she knew that he’d need his own space; introducing him to William and Charlotte and Aunt Kat, who welcomed him warmly and naturally. He was taken to meet Cousin Francis, a tall, frail but indomitable old man with a penetrating gaze, who agreed that Tim could take the cottage on a six-month shorthold tenancy. So it was arranged.

  ‘Stay in touch, Tim,’ Mattie said on his last day at the publishing house. It was almost a question. ‘Charlotte will tell me how you are, of course, but it would be nice to know if it’s really working for you.’

  ‘Of course I will,’ he answered. ‘I’ll email.’

  Email was OK: he could manage that without committing himself too far.

  Six weeks later he is here at Brockscombe: he loves the tranquillity, the extraordinary beauty of the old house, the stable-yard and the surrounding countryside. It is as if, at last, he has come home. He smiles wryly at the thought: rather late in the day.

  ‘But better late than never,’ he says to himself.

  He’s talked to himself quite a lot in the recent weeks, ever since that diagnosis of the very early stages of a rare degenerative disease; trying to stave off negative thoughts, anxiety, loneliness.

  Now he has a plan. He has supplied himself with Ordnance Survey maps and he has begun to explore this wonderful county in which he so fortuitously finds himself. Sometimes his journeys take him across the moors, sometimes to the sea. Often he gets lost in the deep, secret lanes, but now he rises each morning with a sense of purpose, with a plan, to distract him from his fear. And now, for the first time in his life, he seems to have the family he’s always longed for – thirty-two years too late.

  Charlotte flips open her iPhone and reads Mattie’s email:

  ‘How are you all? Lovely pics of Ollie. He’s gorgeous. Just showed them to everyone. Proud auntie. Don’t forget to be nice to Tim. Everyone here sends love to him.’

  Charlotte experiences a tiny spasm of irritation. She doesn’t need to be told to be nice – to Tim or to anybody else – and especially not by her little sister. Anyway, she’s glad Tim’s around. It’s fun to have someone of her own age to talk to sometimes, and he’s very amusing, though quiet and thoughtful, too.

  ‘I don’t know quite what’s gone wrong for Tim,’ Mattie told her, ‘except that his relationship with his girlfriend broke up rather suddenly. He says he needs a new direction but he wants time to think about it.’

  Charlotte checks on Oliver, fast asleep in his cot, shuts the door quietly and goes downstairs, twining up her long fair hair into its comb: an hour if she’s lucky. She could do some more work on the website she’s designing for a local hotel or she could catch up with the ironing. There’s quite a pile but that’s partly her own fault for volunteering to do William’s for him this week.

  ‘You are such a star,’ Aunt Kat said, admiringly. ‘As if you haven’t got enough to do with darling Ollie and Wooster.’

  But the thing is that she likes to be busy. It’s better to wake up to a day full of different activities than to be gazing into emptiness. She said as much to Aunt Kat, who answered that some people were perfectly happy simply gazing. Charlotte occasionally wonders what Aunt Kat does when she drives off in her little car, dashing here and there, but she doesn’t ask. And Ollie adores Aunt Kat. Despite her lack of domesticity – ‘Simply not a nurturer, darling,’ – she is great with the baby.

  Charlotte opens the front door and wanders out into the courtyard with Wooster at her heels. Last autumn she and Andy painted the old wooden tubs they found in the stables and planted them up with bulbs: snowdrops, daffodils, crocuses and tulips. Now, in the late March sunshine, the daffodils make puddles of golden light all amongst the flagstones and purple crocus glow against the surrounding grey stone walls. The big open-fronted barn to the north of the yard is empty except for her own little car, and a line of washing hangs in the sunshine in the south-facing barn where logs are stored.

  Wooster wanders round the courtyard, lifts his leg half-heartedly against the gatepost, whilst Charlotte perches on a wooden bench and glances between the high stone walls, across the five-bar gate, to the big house: no noise, no movement.

  ‘It seems rather a pity to think of your cousin Francis in there all on his own and you out here,’ she said to William some months back. ‘All that space going to waste. You and Aunt Kat would be company for him.’

  She likes Francis, who often sits in the courtyard and chats to her, and who seems to understand the loneliness and responsibilities that go with being a naval wife.

  William looked faintly uncomfortable – but she notices that he tends to edge away from discussions about Cousin Francis – muttered something about the old fellow being perfectly happy with his little team popping in to minister to his needs: Moira, the retired district nurse who checks him out each morning and evening, and drives him to any appointments; Stella, who cycles up from the little hamlet to clean and cook, and her husband, Rob, who keeps the grounds under control.

  Even so, Charlotte feels there is a distinct lack of organization. The two cottages she and Tim now rent were empty for months after the elderly occupants, who also once worked for Cousin Francis, went to live with their younger families. If William and Aunt Kat moved into the house and the cottages were marketed properly there would be a good income to be had, and by the look of the house it could do with a facelift. Yet William and Kat seem content to let things ride. They live peacefully together, rather like an old married couple, though there is nothing old or married about Aunt Kat, or Irina Bulova as she is known professionally.

  ‘She danced all over the world in all the leading roles,’ Andy told Charlotte. ‘And then she turned to choreography. She had a Polish lover who was a composer. He composed music specially for her – a kind of jazz ballet – and her work became iconic. He moved to New York and she went with him. He died very suddenly, very tragically, about two or three years ago and that’s when she came home. She came here to recover. Dad adores her. We all do.’

  And here she is, driving into the courtyard in her tiny car, waving to Charlotte, parking in the barn. The driver’s door opens and a long elegant leg shoots out.

  Every movement Kat makes is graceful, thinks Charlotte enviously. How does she manage it?

  Tall, slender, her storm-cloud hair knotted casually, Aunt Kat emerges into the sunshine, her thin face alight with a wide smile.

  ‘Time out?’ she asks. ‘Having a breather?’

  She bends to murmur words of love and appreciation to Wooster, whose tail thumps gently as he accepts her compliments with regal tolerance.

  ‘I ought to be doing some work,’ admits Charlotte, ‘but I couldn’t quite bring myself to go back inside.’

  ‘Of course you couldn’t.’ Aunt Kat sits beside her, raising her face to the warm March sunshine, closing her eyes. ‘Days like these are gifts from the gods. You should always seize them with gratitude.’

  ‘Have you been shopping?’ asks Charlotte idly.

  Foolish question: Aunt Kat never seems to do the ordinary, humdrum kind of shopping. One never sees her with carrier bags bursting with the rather dull necessities of life. A bunch of flowers, yes; a delightfully unusual toy for Oliver; a pretty piece of china. ‘Found it in the market, darling. Couldn’t resist.’

  It is William who buys the bread, cheese, eggs, milk; plans the menus.

  ‘He is a gastronomic retard,’ Aunt Kat says cheerfully. ‘Can’t bear the least hint of anything spicy so it’s best to let him do the cooking. Good prep school food.’

  Charlotte glances sideways
at Aunt Kat’s lean body, long legs, and wonders if she eats anything at all.

  ‘I went to see someone who wants me to do a talk,’ Aunt Kat is answering, eyes still shut, her hand stroking Wooster’s ears. ‘At a ballet studio in Newton Abbot. Sweet of them to ask me.’

  ‘You’re still famous,’ smiles Charlotte.

  Aunt Kat opens her eyes and beams at her. ‘For all the wrong reasons. All those lovers, dashing off to New York with Gyorgy, my choreography. I was always just a bit avant-garde. It wouldn’t be remarkable now, of course.’

  ‘You’ll always be remarkable,’ says Charlotte, still smiling. ‘You can’t help yourself. It’s a gift.’

  ‘Darling,’ says Aunt Kat, clearly moved by this tribute, ‘that’s very sweet of you. I tell you what. I shall go inside and make us some coffee and bring it out and we’ll drink it in the sunshine.’

  ‘Oh, yes, please,’ says Charlotte gratefully. William might choose the food but it is Aunt Kat who buys the coffee and it is seriously good. ‘I’d love that.’

  She, in turn, closes her eyes and relaxes. It is blissful to sit here with Wooster in the sun, in the rural silence, and anticipate Aunt Kat’s coffee. The website can wait.

  Kat makes coffee, whizzing the beans, setting out two pretty mugs and some milk for Charlotte. She chooses some biscuits and arranges them in a little dish. It’s good for Charlotte to have a moment in the sunshine without the demands of Oliver or work. Kat smiles as she waits for the coffee machine. She likes to be Aunt Kat to Charlotte and Andy and Mattie – and Ollie as he gets older. This is her family. She’s feeling stronger, happy, in love with life again, though she’s beginning to miss her theatre friends, the world of dance. Just now, though, it’s good to have Andy and Charlotte and the baby around – and now Tim. She loves to be with young people. It was right to come here, to William, to Brockscombe, after Gyorgy died. She couldn’t bear the old haunts, the well-meaning sympathy of old friends. She needed change and peace in order to regroup: to mourn. It was wonderful to be with William again, after all these years, to be able to support him after the break-up with Fiona and the death of his mother. His father, Kat’s uncle, died some years ago and her own father – a Polish fighter pilot – died whilst she was still a child. As children, she and William spent the summer holidays together and the bond between them is a strong one.