The Seed Collectors. Scarlett Thomas
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James sighs. ‘No, but you’ll miss something exciting.’
The kids put on their shoes and everyone walks to the bottom of the garden to admire the bird table that James has put together this afternoon, presumably between digging up beetroot and baking. Bryony doesn’t ask why he hasn’t been writing, and doesn’t say anything about the cats. She’ll have to get them bells. Then again, birds come to the garden anyway, and the cats kill them anyway, and she’s never actually bothered to get them bells before. Then there’s bird flu, although no one’s said anything about bird flu for ages. Why can’t she just like it? It does look nice where James has put it.
‘That’s lovely,’ Bryony says, kissing James again. ‘We can watch the birds from the kitchen. But you didn’t do it all today, as well as making brownies and digging up beetroot?’
‘You are so unbelievably gross,’ says Holly. ‘When will you be too old for kissing?’
‘Never,’ says Bryony. ‘We’ll still be kissing when we’re a hundred.’
‘It could be a lot worse,’ says James, raising an eyebrow at Bryony. ‘Eh, Beetle?’
‘Yuck! That’s even more gross. I know what you’re thinking, and I know what it means when you make your eyebrows do that. And when you call Mummy “Beetle”.’
The kids slink back off to the conservatory.
‘Remember the goldfinches?’ says James.
‘Oh God, yes. Of course. How could I forget something like that?’
How indeed? Although when you are working full-time and studying part-time it’s easy to forget things. But of course the goldfinches were amazing. One day last autumn – it must have been just before Halloween – ten of them turned up in the back garden. Given that there had never been any goldfinches in the garden this seemed to be something of a miracle. And they were so impressive with their bright red heads and wing flashes of pure gold, like peculiar little superheroes, all masked and caped. James declared them his favourite bird, and Holly said she thought they were too ‘bling’ but nevertheless ended up spending hours watching them through the binoculars that Uncle Charlie bought for her. The lunchtime after they arrived Bryony got chatting to the woman from Maxted’s who recommended sunflower hearts and niger seed, and a proper feeder for the niger seed, and a little hanging basket for the sunflower hearts, all of which Bryony bought. How unlike Mummy it was to come home with something that was not clothes, shoes, chocolate or wine! Anyway, these offerings also went down well with the goldfinches, and Bryony, James and the kids spent the next day trying without success to take just one good photograph, but the little buggers would not keep still, and . . .
Such strange, slow little birds, gathering their gold capes around them, pulling their red masks down over their eyes and settling down on the niger seed feeder for what seemed like hours, as if it was some kind of opium den. And the next day another ten showed up. And the same again for the next three days until there must have been fifty goldfinches regularly visiting their garden. They would all eat slowly and seriously for quite a long time, sometimes getting a bit flappy and knocking each other off the feeders but mainly just chompchomp-chomping like superhero-puppets controlled by very stoned puppeteers. Then they would all take off and fly bobbing and tweeting around the village sounding like the ribbon on an old cassette tape being rewound. This went on for about a week, and then they were gone. Bobbing and tweeting their way across the Channel to Europe in a group of over 350, according to the Sandwich Bird Observatory.
‘I want to be ready for them this year, if they come back.’
‘They were so beautiful.’
‘Like you.’ James strokes Bryony’s face. ‘It’s still light,’ he says, ‘and warmish. You could put on a cardigan and bring your wine out here. I’ll get one of the deckchairs out for you.’
James is always trying to get Bryony outside in the fresh air. Perhaps more fresh air will help her become more like ethereal, perfect Fleur, who has been known even to sleep outside when the moon is full. Although he has never said this, of course. He says Bryony is beautiful. He says Bryony is beautiful and then Bryony begins to think poisonous things like this. Anyway, James will bring one deckchair out and Bryony will sit in it alone, while James cooks dinner. That’s the offer. Is it a good offer or a bad offer? Would it be better if she decided that she wanted to come and sit outside and got the deckchair herself? Once James told her she made too much of things, adding meaning that was never there. Bryony laughed and reminded him that being an estate agent meant having to do that all the time and that she couldn’t help it if it was now in her nature to make cupboards sound like spare bedrooms. Although of course what he was objecting to was her tendency to make spare bedrooms sound like cupboards.
‘This isn’t for your column, is it?’ asks Bryony.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. Making a bird table. I mean, the goldfinches won’t come back until October or November. If they come back at all. In the meantime are you going to write about how hilarious it is when one of the cats brings in a bird? How Daddy has to deal with it because Mummy’s too grumpy, or too squeamish, or late for a viewing, or at a seminar . . .’ Or hungover, but that sort of goes without saying these days.
James’s column is on page four of the glossy magazine of the biggest selling liberal weekend newspaper. It’s called ‘Natural Dad’. On the facing page there’s a column called ‘City Mum’. The idea is that James, once a well-known nature writer but now better known for his column, writes about living in the countryside with his two down-to-earth children and his increasingly bad-tempered wife. City Mum writes about her children’s friends’ ten-grand birthday parties in Hampstead, and wonders whether to buy her offspring shoes from Clarks like her parents did, or Prada, like her richest friends do.
‘Hey, chill, Beetle. What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. Sorry, I . . .’
‘It’s not as if you have ever cleared up after the cats in your life.’
‘I do when you’re away. It’s horrible.’ She sighs. ‘Anyway, look, I don’t want to start anything. I’m sorry. I’m knackered, and upset about Oleander, and I’ve still got to do all my reading for Thursday.’ As well as being a partner in the estate agency, Bryony is doing a part-time MA in Eighteenth Century Studies. ‘I just worry that you spend too much time on that column. I want you to be able to do your serious work, that’s all.’
‘I know you do.’ James touches her arm lightly. ‘But work doesn’t always have to be serious. Come on, I’ll get you a deckchair. I’m making a Thai green chicken curry for dinner. And then of course there’s brownies. I’ll do the washing up and you can get on with your reading.’
‘Well, that’s enough of my boring life. How about you?’
Charlie frowns. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘where to start?’
Who goes on a blind date on a Sunday night? Even Soho has a kind of Sunday feeling, as if it has stayed in its pyjamas all day and just can’t be arsed with all this. Charlie looks at Nicola, sitting across from him in the too-trendy, contemporary Asian restaurant she probably booked online. The music’s too loud. She’s wearing a silky dress in a kind of wine colour that makes her look faintly leprous. She’s a mathematician