The Dawn Chorus

‘It’s a shame she and Al never had children, someone to inherit it or live in it, even if Penelope couldn’t bear to.’ Rosa sipped her wine.

‘All these romantic notions are very well and good,’ Gavin said, ‘but can you imagine Penelope with kids? Poor fucking kids!’

‘Gavin!’ Abby squealed. ‘You can’t say that. She might have been a wonderful mother; we don’t know her well enough to pass judgement.’

‘She could do with a little bit more humanity,’ Rosa said quietly.

‘How do you know about Peacock Cottage anyway?’ Abby asked. She wanted to have faith in Penelope. Nobody who cared about wildlife as much as she did, who had – along with her late husband – put all her money into turning her private estate into a nature reserve, could be heartless. But the news about Peacock Cottage was safer ground. No longer would little Red Riding Hood’s gran live there, but someone real. It was good gossip.

‘I overheard Penelope on the phone,’ Rosa said. ‘I was in the storeroom getting some more coaster sets out, and the office door blew open a bit. She was talking to some guy called Leo. Said something about them being able to move in whenever they liked, the sooner the better, and that it was a “quiet little cottage that was hardly ever disturbed”. Guys,’ Rosa added, ‘I heard Penelope laughing.’

There was a moment of stunned silence.

‘Laughing?’ Stephan said the word as if it were a foreign language.

‘Christ,’ Gavin shook his head. ‘Are you sure it was Penelope?’

‘Yup,’ Rosa said. ‘She said something like “He’ll be perfect, Leo. We can see if there’s hope left for either of us.” Maybe she thinks the rent money will go some way to restoring reserve fortunes?’

‘She’s not telling the truth about Peacock Cottage, though,’ Marek said. ‘It may look quiet, nestled there in the trees, but visitors go past it all the time. If Penelope’s using that as a selling point, it’s false advertising.’

‘And it’s right on the road to the car park,’ Abby added. ‘With cars slowing to go over the speed humps. You didn’t find out who was moving in, though? Or when?’

‘Nope,’ Rosa said. ‘We’ll have to wait and see, I guess.’

Gavin grunted. ‘I expect Octavia knows, has their shoe size, their health history and the exact minute they’re going to pitch up here. She’s probably already picked out a selection of library books for them based on their reading preferences. Bloody woman.’

There was genuine, hearty laughter round the table, Gavin’s scathing tone being mostly false.

Octavia, Abby’s next-door neighbour, kept gossip circulating like blood through Meadowgreen’s veins. She had a handle on everything that was happening in the village and, to a certain extent, on the reserve, but her heart was in the right place. The community library would have disappeared a long time ago had it not been for her selfless commitment.

‘You’re probably right,’ Rosa said. ‘I’m almost tempted to go and ask her.’

‘Imagine if she’s unwittingly rented it to one of the Wild Wonders crew members?’ Marek’s eyes widened.

‘Or Flick Hunter herself,’ Stephan added.

‘No way,’ Gavin said, breaking off to down his pint in three long gulps. ‘No fucking way would it be that fucking interesting. Come on, guys, this is Meadowsweet we’re talking about here. England’s most sedate fucking visitor attraction. If a squirrel farts it’s the highlight of the day.’

Abby laughed at Gavin’s crudeness. He, as much as anyone, was dedicated to his job and looking after the wildlife on the reserve, even though he sometimes did a good impression of not caring.

She felt a slight change in atmosphere round the table. Things were already so precarious with the confirmation of the Wild Wonders team turning up at Reston Marsh, and a new tenant in Peacock Cottage shouldn’t be a massive deal, but she was sure everyone else was having the same thoughts she was.

Any relative or friend of Penelope’s would stay with her on the Harrier estate – she had enough room in her house there – so it seemed unlikely that was the answer. Had she brought someone in to try and rescue the reserve, a professional project manager because none of them were up to the task? Or could it be someone who was interested in buying the Meadowsweet estate, Swallowtail House and the reserve included, and wanted to spend some time there first, getting the lie of the land? Penelope wasn’t the type to rent her property out to a complete stranger; she was far too private a person for that, unless the financial situation had become so desperate she had no choice.

That last option would, surely, be the worst of them all, and would suggest they were in even more trouble than Abby had first thought.

Chapter Three (#u21946814-456a-5b7c-9648-713195636a8b)

The Dawn Chorus is when birds start singing very early in the morning, as the sun rises. It’s most notable in the spring and summer – because that’s when birds are most active – and can start as early as four o’clock, which is pretty annoying when you’ve had a late night, but helpful if you’ve forgotten to set the alarm on your phone.

— Note from Abby’s notebook.

For the next week, the gossip in the pub was at the back of Abby’s mind, hovering like some forgotten item that she meant to add to her shopping list. It would occasionally burst to the surface, sending a twinge of apprehension through her, though she had nothing to be concerned about except the imagined upsetting of the equilibrium of her life at the reserve. Wild Wonders and an increased workload she could cope with – in a way it was better that they knew about it now, the certainty much easier to deal with than worried speculation. And she enjoyed throwing herself into her job, poring over the short evaluation questionnaires she had drawn up for the school visits, reading the comments, bristling slightly when they said ‘dull,’ or ‘boring,’ or ‘who cares about blackbirds anyway?’ and looking for those that would help her to improve the activities and information she was trying to inspire the children with.

One of the comments stood out: ‘Instead of a fake treasure hunt with wood creatures, why can’t we look for real birds and animals?’ It was a good point, Abby conceded, and enough adults took their spotter books around with them, ticking off godwits, teals and chiffchaffs when they came across them. There was no reason school visits couldn’t include an element of this – she’d only held back because she didn’t want to create disappointment when a whole class failed to find anything she’d listed. If she kept it simple, included a few plants and trees they would be guaranteed to come across as well as the more common birds, then it could be a success.

She was leaning forward on the reception desk, adding to the written plan Penelope had requested while there was a lull in new customers, when Gavin walked out of the office, his hands in his pockets, Penelope following.

‘Thanks for that Penelope,’ he said. ‘I’ll get on it tomorrow, once I’ve finished at the heron hide.’ He winked at Rosa and Abby, then turned to face the older woman. ‘By the way, is it right that someone’s moving into Peacock Cottage? Only I wondered if you wanted me to do any work on the back garden, clear the bindweed?’

Abby gasped and started coughing. Rosa stopped reorganizing the pens on the counter, and Gavin waited for an answer to the prying that, Abby had to admit, was quite well disguised as an offer of help.

Penelope, her claret silk shirt done up to the neck, seemed unmoved, her face impassive. Abby wondered what was happening behind it, whether she was trying to work out who had spilled the beans.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ she said. ‘The garden has been dealt with. Thank you for the offer.’ She walked back into her office and closed the door.

Gavin let out a low whistle. ‘Bloody hell, she’s good. Neither confirm nor deny. Do you think she was a spy in the war?’

‘She’s sixty-seven this week,’ Rosa said, ‘not a hundred and seven. And she was never going to indulge us, was she? However good your attempt to break through.’

Gavin rested his elbows on the desk. ‘Do you think she’s like the Snow Queen? She used to be all soft inside but something’s frozen her solid? Surely it’s not natural to be that icy about everything?’

‘Oh no,’ Rosa said with false sympathy. ‘Did she give you a hard time?’

‘She didn’t actually. She wanted to know how I was getting on with the reed beds around the heron hide. I told her and she nodded, which is as close to a compliment as I’ve ever had, and it gave me the confidence to ask about Peacock Cottage. Thought she was going to answer me properly for a second.’

‘If someone is moving in we’ll know about it soon enough,’ Abby said. ‘We all go past there every day.’

‘Yeah, but when it comes to Meadowsweet, gossip’s the main currency. What’s the good in knowing after the fact? We need to have the info now, then we’ll hold all the power.’

‘Anyone would think the ranger job isn’t stimulating enough for you,’ Rosa said, grinning. ‘I promise the moment I find out anything else, you’ll be the first to know.’

‘Scout’s honour?’ Gavin asked.

‘Brownie promise,’ Rosa confirmed.

As Gavin sauntered back outside, his workmen’s gloves sticking out of the waistband of his waterproof trousers, Rosa gave Abby a wicked smile. ‘I do have news, actually,’ she said, glancing at the closed office door before slipping out from behind the shop counter and joining Abby. ‘When I was driving in this morning, the postman put something through the letterbox of Peacock Cottage, which means that whoever is coming has already told people or had their post redirected.’

‘It’s happening soon, then.’ Abby chewed her bottom lip.

She wondered how she’d feel if she was the object of so much interest simply because she’d moved house, then remembered that when she’d moved into Warbler Cottages, Octavia had been on her doorstep within half an hour of the removal van driving away with a bottle of wine and homemade lasagne, and realized it was simply natural curiosity. Still, the position of the cottage, Penelope’s ownership of it and the fact that it had remained unlived in for so long, not to mention the rumours around Wild Wonders being somehow connected to the new arrival, did make it a bit out of the ordinary. Or maybe Gavin was right, that so little generally happened in the quiet Suffolk village that any news was important currency. She hoped whoever it was didn’t mind a bit of attention.