The Confidant

The storm had brought down several trees in the village, including one of the old oaks that Samantha Rose particularly loved. As she surveyed the bits of broken tile and twigs that littered her garden path, she found herself thinking of the tornado in the Wizard of Oz, and how unfair it was that in the real world weather didn’t sweep people away to colourful lands and adventure. After all, she could hardly be blamed if a tornado was responsible for changing her life, could she? She had risen early, and was savouring the time to herself before she had to face another day. Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of movement from upstairs, and mechanically, she turned to put the kettle on.

+++

As usual, it was her that instigated the conversation over the breakfast table.

“I can’t remember a worse storm than that. I thought the roof was going to come off.”

As usual, his reply was non-committal.

“I didn’t hear it.”

“Im surprised you slept through it all.” She wasn’t. He had got what he wanted last night and after that, only Armageddon or his bladder would wake him.

As usual, she had lain awake into the small hours, with only his snores for company.

“I hope the girls are alright. Jane was always terrified of storms when she was little. Remember when I had to stay with her all night during that storm when we were at our old house?”

As usual, their daughters had been packed off to his mother’s in advance of date night.

“They’ll be fine.”

Sam sighed inwardly and tried a different approach to draw him into conversation.

“There’s something beautiful about storms, isn’t there? Makes you feel insignificant alongside that power and fury, like the feeling you get when you look up at night and see all the stars.”

This merely elicited a grunt.

As usual, Sam bit her tongue and busied herself clearing away the breakfast things.

+++

She was sensitive and artistic, and felt a permanent awe at the wonder that she saw in everything. She was torn between amazement and frustration that there were people who couldn’t bring themselves to marvel at the diversity apparent on this blue and green speck that itself floated in a star laden infinity, and that of all the billions of people in the world, she had married the one with the least poetry in his soul. Only last week, she had driven to work and as she parked, had been struck by the panorama she observed through her windscreen. She got out of the car and stood on the edge of the sports field that adjoined the parking lot, her breath making clouds in the cold air, transfixed. The field stretched away, a carpet of green ringed by trees and partially obscured in the distance by a blanket of mist. Beyond the trees on the far side of the field rose chalk cliffs. So many colours picked out in the early morning sun! Such ordinary, everyday beauty! She imagined herself standing on the prow of an explorer’s ship, that the field was the last part of the vast sea that separated her from a wondrous new land, full of untapped treasures and mystery. She knew she had to take the image with her, and made use of the technological miracle she carried in her handbag to take a quick photo, and preserve the scene forever. She had shown him the photo when she got home. He had said: “it looks like the football pitches next to your work.”

His influence dulled her creativity, her passion, and her mind. For too long had she lived inside herself, shutting herself away from a reality that grew less palatable by the year. She wondered how she’d ended up yoked to this man, who seemed to know her so poorly for the time they had been together. She knew, though, that she was worth more, an endless source of inspiration. To her daughters, certainly, but also, and her heart fluttered slightly at the thought of him, to a man, distant in the world but always close to her, and she knew she was his muse - he had told her so. His efforts tended towards the adolescent, as they naturally had when she first knew him, but she loved him for it. She fancied that what others saw as a lack of sophistication was simply passion that the years had failed to erode. His name was Tom, and she had, in an out of character moment some years ago, reached out to him. They had resumed an old friendship, and they provided each other with the puzzle pieces that each was missing from their lives. She had confided things to him that she had barely admitted to herself, and the mere process of putting into words the vague feelings of disquiet she had been harbouring for so long changed her. She never felt more alive than when she was speaking to him, and it became obvious to them both that this was not merely a friendship, but something more. Eventually, she had made a choice, and broken off contact, out of love for her daughters, and the overwhelming desire to do her best for them. She did not regret her choice, but she was now never without an inner voice that said things like: “I wonder what Tom is doing?”

+++

After breakfast, Sam had a shower that was made considerably quicker than she would have liked by him coming in and watching her through the frosted glass. As she scrubbed herself more vigorously than strictly necessary, she glanced at the blurred figure. Oh, Christ, what was his hand doing? Was he…? Now? As if in answer to an unasked prayer, the doorbell rang. She pretended she was unaware of his presence.

“Clive? Can you get that? I’m in the shower!” She watched from the corner of her eye as the figure of her husband noiselessly retreated from the bathroom, and as soon as the door closed, shut off the water and dried and dressed as quickly as she could. She was downstairs and ready to leave in five minutes.

“Clive? I’m going to walk into the village to get a few things. Do you want to come?”

“What?”

“Do you want to come into the village with me?”

“What for?”

“Well, we’ve just finished the milk, and we need another loaf. Besides, I want to see how bad the storm damage is.”

Clive scratched his balls through his dressing gown and yawned.

“I thought we could go back to bed?”

“Why don’t you go back to bed and…” she said, timing the slam of the front door to cover the end of her sentence.

So she went alone, down the winding lane to the main part of the village. Sadly, she surveyed the majestic old oak, lying forlornly yet regally across the village green. How many monarchs had it known? How many children had climbed it, and how many lovers embraced under it’s boughs? How much change had it seen and how many storms had it weathered? And all of it heading towards a confrontation, the final storm that had laughed at the oak’s longevity, and uprooted it as easily and gleefully as a toddler knocks down a pile of wooden blocks, proving its machismo and power even as it blew itself to nothing. Sam Rose sighed a sigh for the oak and for herself, and continued on to the village shop.

She was conscious of tarrying in the shop - Clive was due to pick the girls up from his mother’s in an hour, and if she timed it right, he’d be getting ready to go by the time she got back. She was perusing the magazines when Janet Wright came in, and with an ease that Sam envied, struck up a conversation with Christine behind the counter. They were both Villagers, and though the Roses had lived in Boxford nearly ten years, the Villagers gave off an ever so slightly disapproving air of ‘newcomers.’

“Morning Chris! Wasn’t it terrible last night?”

“Not as bad as that storm we had 15 years ago. We were without power for three days!”

Typical, thought Sam, pretending to be immersed in The Spectator, even the storms were more impressive ‘back then.’

“Bad, I grant you, but the oak on the green stood through that one.”

“Yes, isn’t that a shame. It’s like part of the village has gone.”

“I suppose they could plant another…”

“It wouldn’t be quite the same, though, would it?”

“No. A new tree, in place of something that’s always been there?”

The words hung in the air. Was that a dig? It was subtle, eminently deniable, and entirely in keeping with the sort of comments Sam heard in the shop, at the little school, in the pub. How long would it be before they accepted her? Would they ever?

“Anyway,” said Christine, “what about the owls? Would they just take to a new tree?”

“Well, yes, dear. They’re birds. I suppose one tree is as good as any other to them. Besides, I suppose they don’t have much choice. It isn’t as if they can just move into a cottage and join the PTA!” Janet laughed pleasantly.

Again, an almost certainly innocent remark, but Sam wondered if it would have been made if she hadn’t been in the shop at that moment. Deciding against joining the conversation, Sam paid for her groceries, and left the shop.

She came back out onto the green, and checked her watch - perfect timing! Clive would even now be obsessing over whether there was enough petrol in the car and whether he should fill up at the station a couple of miles outside the village or wait till town where it was tuppence a gallon cheaper or if he should go via the country road or the A-road or what time he would need to start the return journey to avoid having to drive in the dark… for someone so forthright in demanding his dues in some areas, (an involuntary shudder ran through her) he really was a rather anaemic sort of man. It was only a wonder that he hadn’t phoned while she was in the shop to ask these or any number of other trifling questions. She was still congratulating herself on the success of her evasion tactics when she repassed the fallen oak. There was something about the stillness of it that struck a chord with her, and her pace slowed. As often happened when encountering something she found beautiful or sad or wonderful, words began to form in her mind:

A hole in the ground, and in the sky,

Where once you stood,

So proud and mighty.

In chatter of a hundred years

You heard secrets meant for other ears,

Lies told and promises kept

As children played and lovers wept.

You stood for centuries, old as time,

A friend, a constant in our lives.

And as our present becomes our past

Against eternity, nothing lasts.

Was it any good? She couldn’t tell. It expressed what she felt about the fall of the oak, but it embarrassed her, too. It was as if she were trying to be a poet, rather than simply writing a poem, and so felt dishonest, pretentious. “Tom would know what to say,” said the inner voice. Tom didn’t write poetry, but had always encouraged her to express herself, and would treat any effort with respect, even if to her ear it sounded like rubbish.

“If you express what you feel, you can’t be wrong,” he told her once, “people can maybe quibble with the words you select, or the colours you choose, but the essence of what you draw, or write or paint or whatever, can’t be wrong if it’s honestly expressing something from inside. Your feelings are what they are, and no-one can say what you feel is wrong. If you say ‘it is cold,’ someone can point out the temperature, but if you say ‘I am cold,’ they should offer to get you a cardigan or something.’ He had then said something silly to make her laugh, as he often did when he felt he might have said something pompous, and she had laughed, and loved him all the more for it, even though she hadn’t thought him pompous at all.

+++

Her slow steps had taken her to her front gate almost unaware and the poem slipped from her mind like a man drowning in a calm lake. As she registered her surroundings, her eyes lighted on a barn owl, sitting on the lowest branch of the elm, some metres above the ground. She’d never seen an owl this close before, and a thrill ran through her.

“It’s ok,” she whispered, “I’m sorry about your tree. You’re welcome to live in this one, if you’d like?”

The owl regarded her evenly, it’s large eyes observing her in the same way that they seemed to observe everything in the world, patient, almost omniscient. It was easy to see why humanity had assigned the quality of wisdom to this bird that after all, only depended on its ability to swoop down on unsuspecting voles to survive. Sam kept perfectly still, unwilling to hasten the end of this moment. She felt enormously fortunate that of all the directions the owl could have flown, it had chosen this one, of all the trees it could have chosen to perch in, it had chosen hers. She gently closed the gate, and keeping her eyes on the owl, walked slowly up the path to her front door. The owl remained on the branch, alert, but happy to ignore the human below, and with a smile, Sam went inside.

“Sam?”

“Yes, it’s me. There’s an owl in our tree.”

“What? Have you seen my keys?”

“By the kettle. I said there’s an owl in our tree.”

“Oh, right. It’ll probably fly off in a minute. Do you think there’s enough petrol in the car to get into town?”

Sam sighed with annoyance and then thought that actually, she was fine with Clive not taking an interest in their visitor. Just fine with it being, in some sense, ‘her’ owl. She half listened to Clive’s leaving routine as she put the milk away, patiently waiting for him to go and peace to descend. When the front door finally closed, and the last echoes of the car had died away, she looked out of the kitchen window. The owl was still there, as she had left it. She smiled widely, and made a coffee.

Coffee made, she put on her coat and took her mug outside. For a second, her heart sank as her gaze found the space on the branch the owl had occupied, but a slight movement in the tree drew her eye towards the body of the elm. Just above where the limb joined the trunk was a hole. Sam squinted hard at the hole, and after a few seconds was rewarded with a glimpse of the owl turning around inside. She laughed delightedly, and said out loud:

“Well, if you’re going to be staying, you’ll need a name. I can’t just call you ‘owl,’ now can I? I shall call you…” she paused, but had already decided. “…Tom. I’m sorry if you’re a girl, but I haven’t the faintest idea how to check, even if you’d let me get close enough, so Tom it is.”

She took her coffee to the garden table and sat down, far enough away from the owl that she wouldn’t disturb it, but close enough that she could dimly see it in the hole in the tree. After a time, the owl emerged and spread it’s wings, but rather than fly away, refolded them and regarded Sam with it’s huge, deep eyes. She raised her mug in salutation.

“Good morning, Tom, it’s lovely to see you…”

She talked merrily for a while, revelling in the privilege that the owl had bestowed on her by choosing to lodge in her garden. The owl appeared perfectly at ease in her presence, and soon Sam found herself saying things that until that point had been internalised, thoughts that she had attempted to suppress when they appeared. Once or twice, when she heard a distant car, she paused and listened keenly until she was sure it wasn’t Clive returning, conscious of how odd it would look if she were discovered sitting in the garden talking to herself, but also because the things she were saying were secret things, her truths: how she longed to be away from Clive, her childhood, the fall of the oak, her children, the view across the sports field on that misty morning, love, death, her hopes, and of course, the man for whom she had named her companion.

+++

That evening, at dinner, she leaned forward over her plate and said conspiratorially,

“We had a visitor, today, a very special visitor.”

“Who, mum?” Alice was eight years old, and instantly enthralled. Even Jane, on the cusp of adolescence looked up from her macaroni with what passed for interest from her these days.

“Well, you know the storm brought down the old oak tree on the green? Turns out someone was living in that tree.”

“A person?”

“Moron. Obviously not a person,” said Jane

“Jane…” said Sam in a reproachful tone, “no, Alice, not a person.”

“What then?”

“There’s an owl in our tree,” interjected Clive with his mouth full, without looking up from his plate, which spared him the venomous look Sam shot him. She seethed at the way he had cut in, stealing her big reveal, undermining the specialness of it. It was nothing to him, nothing! So why not let her enjoy it, and share her enjoyment with her daughters? Fortunately, Alice was agog.

“Wow, what sort of owl?”

“Why don’t you come and see?”

A minute later, Samantha Rose led her girls quietly into the garden and pointed up to the hole in the tree.

“That’s where he lives. If you’re quiet and still, you might see him moving about.” She gazed down at her daughters and her heart swelled with pride at how intent they were on seeing the owl. She hoped it wasn’t off hunting, and just as the thought formed, the owl not only moved, but emerged slowly from the hole, walked out onto the branch, flapped its wings experimentally a couple of times and swooped down from the branch and into the twilight across the nearby fields. Sam looked at the girls. Alice’s mouth was an “o” of astonishment, and even Jane was smiling.

“It’s a barn owl!” she said “my favourite kind! He’s so beautiful! Will he stay?”

“I suppose he’ll stay as long as he can find enough food, if we don’t disturb him,” Sam replied. Alice still hadn’t said a word, possibly the longest she had remained silent since learning to talk.

“‘Liss?”

“I’m going to go and draw a picture of the owl in our tree!” said Alice, disappearing into the house.

+++

Sam realised suddenly that she had arranged to meet a friend for a drink that night at the village’s solitary pub, and hastened to get ready. Clive, of course, had forgotten, and grumbled about having to oversee the girls’ bath and bed routine. She stood in her bra and pants, choosing a dress to wear while she ran down what he would need to do in her absence.

“Alice needs her hair washed tonight, Jane’s going swimming with school tomorrow, so she needn’t, but make sure she packs shampoo with her swimming stuff. You need to do them both a packed lunch, and mark off Alice’s reader to show she’s read her book,” she said. Clive sat on the bed, watching her. She was horribly aware of his gaze, and felt self-conscious in her undress, but carried on. “And she brought home a permission slip for the museum trip which needs to be signed. Make sure you sign it and put it in her schoolbag.” She held up a dress in front of her and, regarding herself in the mirror, had just decided it was a little bit too tarty, when all of a sudden she felt a hand on her buttocks, which quickly moved down and between her legs. She whirled round. Clive’s face was a picture of shock and astonishment.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“What?”

“I’m trying to get ready!”

“The girls are watching a film, you’ve got time, I thought we could…”

“Jesus Christ, can’t you go five minutes without fucking groping me?”

Clive’s look of astonishment faded into sullenness and she knew that sooner or later, she would have to ‘make it up to him,’ unless she wanted his sulk to extend to the point where it filled the cottage like a miasma. Knowing that any discussion would have to end in (his) satisfaction before he would relent, she snatched a dress at random, put it on without a word, and resolved to postpone any such discussion as long as feasible.

He phoned her five times in the three hours she was in the pub, to the point where her friend, Laura, threatened to confiscate her phone.

“What was it this time?”

“This time? ‘What shall I put in Alice’s sandwiches?’ I told him ham and cheese, same as every school day for the last year and a half.” Sam smiled wearily. “At least it’s a better question than ‘where’s the shampoo?’ I mean, we’ve only got one cupboard in the bathroom. Sorry, Laura, you were saying…?

“I was saying,” said Laura, with heavy emphasis, “that I know what you mean about the villagers. The fact that I’ve been here seven years and you ten and yet we still refer to them as ‘the villagers’ speaks volumes. It’s like being born here gives you some special status that you can’t achieve any other way. Take them, for example.” She gestured to two couples by the bar. “The Andersons and the Westons. Lovely people, I was only at Ruth’s house last week, and having a nice little chat about her son’s first year at university and how she missed him, and when I said I felt the same when Simon went, she looked at me all funny and said, ‘well yes, but he was only here a couple of years,’ as if what was important was how long ‘home’ had been here, and now of us existed before that. And look, here comes another one.” Janet Wright had joined the knot of people at the bar. “Talking of another one,” Laura said shaking her nearly empty wine glass meaningfully, “I believe it’s your turn?”

At the bar, Sam nodded hello to the villagers. They were discussing how long the oak might remain on the green before it was cleared.

“I seem to have a new tenant because of the storm,” said Sam.

“Wouldn’t have thought you had room in that cottage,” said Toby Weston, “it seemed a bit of a squeeze when it was just old Ernie and Phylis living there.”

“No, I mean an owl from the old oak that’s taken residence in my garden.”

“Oh,” said Helen Anderson, “the poor thing! How dreadful that it lost it’s tree!”

Sam was about to agree and go back to her table when something inside her clicked, and instead she smile sweetly and said, “Well, that’s life, isn’t it? You can’t just decide ‘I’m staying in this spot forever and ever, come what may. Things change. It’s good to get a different perspective on the world. Imagine, staying your whole life in one place and never venturing out into the wider world!”

“But that owl has always lived in that oak! Been there since I was a boy!” Hugh Anderson could barely keep the exasperation out of his voice. Sam turned to him with the same sweet smile.

“But if you think about it Hugh, that can’t be true, can it? Barn Owls live for about 4 years, you see. I checked.”

“Alright, alright, an owl, not that owl, has always lived in that tree.”

“But the tree is no longer standing, so the owls can no longer live there. As I said, things change. And from my point of view, it’s so nice to have something new around the place. It gets so stale just seeing the same old things year in, year out, don’t you think?”

She rejoined Laura, who had heard the exchange at the bar, and placed the drinks on the table.

“You know, that’s not going to endear you to them,” she said motioning towards the bar. Sam looked at the clutch of villagers, grinned, and picked up her drink.

“Sod them.” Laura laughed loudly and picked up her own drink.

“I’ll drink to that!” she said.

+++

The girls were long asleep by the time Sam let herself into the cottage, but Clive wasn’t. She had known he wouldn’t be. He had obviously been determined to wait up for her so as to have the discussion that she would have postponed indefinitely if it had been her choice.

“Chicken?”

She winced inwardly at the pet name. She knew he thought it was endearing, but she had always hated it, especially since it had started being used as a prelude for intimacy. She dumped her handbag on the coffee table, and looking at her husband coldly, took off her shoes and unzipped her dress. She could try and tell him that she didn’t want him, not tonight, not any night, but wasn’t this easier? She could try and tell him that she was a woman, with hopes and dreams, thoughts and fears, sensitivity and wonder, but if he didn’t understand it by now, what was the point? And if he hadn’t worked that out for himself, what was the value in telling him? Better to get the brief unpleasantness out of the way and carry on. She slipped the dress off, threw it over her shoulder, turned and ascended the stairs.

She lay on the bed, virtually still, and let him do what made him feel like a man, but she wasn’t really there. She suspected that he wasn’t really there either, an exercise in futility, a motion that had to be gone through. She tried to block out the noises that escaped him, and the dull ache in her groin that was her body’s protest at his rhythmic intrusion, until it was finished. He rolled off her, and sleepily said “I love you, chicken,” because he knew that you had to say something like that afterwards, and for her the words rang hollow, and echoed until they were replaced by the sound of his snores, as she lay awake long into the night, again.

+++

The next morning, after Clive had gone to work and she had taken the girls to school, Sam had a few hours before she had to go to work, so she took a cup of tea into the garden and told the owl all about it. She spared no detail, only stopping when she saw the postman coming up the lane, and resuming as soon as he was out of sight.

“Oh, Tom,” she said tearily. “It isn’t supposed to be like this…I need to be loved…I need to give love…that’s ok, isn’t it? It doesn’t make me a monster, does it?” She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I wanted…I want…something, someone who makes me feel like the storm made me feel, like I felt when I saw you, like the universe is infinite and I’m a tiny part of it, but part of it, you know? To feel connected to…I don’t know, life? To lie with someone who knows who I am, and doesn’t call me fucking “chicken!” All this time, Tom had been in the tree, but now he emerged onto the branch and started preening. Sam smiled at the bird. “And I suppose I should say, just in case you haven’t met many humans, not everyone is as much of a head case as me. I bet not many people tell you all their most intimate thoughts, do they? I don’t think you mind, though, and I’d go mad without you.” She paused. “Well, madder, anyway.”

+++

The barn owl did stay, and the fridge in the cottage’s small kitchen was soon covered with drawings and paintings of Tom, all of which were highly praised by Sam, who couldn’t decide which she loved more: Alice’s urge to be creative, or the fact that her youngest daughter was as delighted by the owl’s continued presence as she herself was. And Sam took every opportunity to observe the owl, and to go and talk to it when she got the chance. On the occasions where it was not in the tree (hunting, she presumed) she was disappointed to have missed it, and looked forward to the next time she could speak to it. But there came a time when a proxy would suffice no longer, and though she continued to talk to the owl, her thoughts increasingly turned to the bird’s namesake. The inner voice, which, although she wondered if she was going crazy, she now thought of as the owl’s, had increased the frequency of its prompts and reminders. She found herself alone in the house, the girls at school, Clive at work, and picked up her phone. She dialled a number and waited, the voice quieted now, but replaced by the sound of her heart beating. The call connected, and a voice, quite different from the inner voice, but instantly recognisable to her, answered.

“Hello?”

She realised she had been holding her breath, and exhaled, then smiled.

“Hi. I was just thinking about you…”