Inertia
Stephen Bacon
Sometimes in the late summer the cottage would feel almost besieged by the wildlife that gathered around its walls and crept between the cracks of the building’s frame. Insects bumped against the glass, getting caught in the net curtains or just appearing as lifeless husks on the window ledge. Even the wind conspired to reclaim the cottage, gusting around the eaves and rattling the wind-chime that hung suspended from the living room ceiling.
Maureen would clutch a fleece blanket and huddle against the wall of the window-seat, looking out across the relentless fields to where the hills broke into the skyline, gazing in wonder at the myriad of colours that were woven into the landscape. There was not a single trace of humanity as far as she could see
In the spring and summer the cottage was rustic and languid. Autumn and winter, however, rendered her home sinister and unwelcoming, and she dreaded the shadows that arrived, and the condensation that transformed the windows opaque and claustrophobic. She found herself looking forward to Mr Winchcomb’s weekly visit; the six days arranged around his Wednesday arrival blurred into one continuous existence.
Sometimes she thought her old life back in the city, feeling almost like it had happened to a different person. Occasionally she would wake at night and feel wrapped in the swathes of her flashback, experiencing the petrifying sensation of seeing a figure emerge from the shadows in the underpass. Heart hammering, it always took a few seconds for her to realise that she was safe here at the cottage, away from the crime and the depravity and the dark figures that took what they wanted from you.
The solitude that she’d endured for the past four years had done little to separate her from the ordeal itself. She could still recall the coppery tang in her nose and mouth, could remember the smell of her assailant’s cologne. When she undressed each night she thought of how the blade felt against her throat.
Now autumn was here. Things were dying. Life was curling and shrivelling and diminishing. Sometimes on a clear day she could look out of her bedroom window and see the windfarm turbines on the peak of the hill many miles away, a reminder of what society endlessly craved. But in the autumn and winter the only evidence of their presence was a throbbing, rotating pulse that carried across the mist-shrouded distance separating them. Mr Winchcomb once asked her if the noise troubled her at night. She told him no, that it was a constant reminder that she’d managed to escape the city.
Mr Winchcomb had been gone several hours. The box of groceries was still on the kitchen worktop. She was frustrated with herself; he’d tried to coax her outside again, this time to see how afternoon dew had attached to a spider’s web at the bottom of the garden, rendering the fragile structure intricately beguiling, almost ornamental. But she’d declined his invitation, feeling the panic that was building at the very thought of crossing the threshold and leaving the cottage; something she hadn’t once done since her self-imposed exile had brought her here all those years ago. She had to content herself with simply imagining the web’s beauty.
Out here on the moors, eight miles from the closest house, twilight arrives like the wings of night - sudden and unforgiving. Maureen was listening to a play on Radio 4 – her only concession to modernity – when she first heard the bird.
She had already closed the curtains in preparation for the darkness that was soon to envelope the cottage. It was growing chilly in the room and she was considering lighting the fire. And then all at once a fluttering within the chimney-breast, and the sounds of debris – probably sooty dust - cascading onto the metal plate attached to the back of the gas-fire.
She felt startled. She sat up. The fluttering grew more frantic, as if the poor creature was terrified. Maureen knelt close to the unlit fire and listened as it scrabbled around in the chimney. Most possibly a bird had flown onto the slates to roost, and had fallen into the chimney. She clutched her chest.
For a long time there was no sound, just the low murmur of the radio in the room. Then she heard the shrill cry of the bird. There was a brittle intensity to the tone that suggested it was an invocation, a plea for help. Surely the bird wasn’t a fledgling? It was autumn - didn’t they normal fledge in the early summer? Yet the chirps sounded like it was a call to its parents.
Maureen tried to concentrate on the radio. She felt sure the bird would gather its strength in a short while and escape the confines of the chimney. The play on the radio ended thirty minutes later and she realised she had not heard a single word; she’d been preoccupied with listening out for the bird.
By now the room was distinctly chilly. She peered through the curtains but could see nothing but darkness pressing against the windows. She thought about lighting the fire and decided against it; perhaps the heat would harm the bird? She ascended the narrow stairs to her bedroom, wrapping herself in the covers and pretending to read a novel. Occasional chirps broke the silence. There was no escape. The chimney extended the whole height of the building, its breast passing through both her bedroom and the sitting room. The cottage had once boasted an open fire before the installation of the gas supply many years before. She lay down and pressed the pillow against her ears. Eventually the irregular cries of the bird fell silent. Sleep finally crept over her.
She’d almost forgotten the next morning. Only the unsettled nature of her rest betrayed a sense that something untoward had happened. She was buttering her toast when the chirping sounded again.
She closed her eyes and switched on the radio. Sunlight was bathing the kitchen in a muted, yellow wash. It did nothing to lighten her mood.
The morning progressed with torturous deliberation. At one point she even considered taking a screwdriver to the gas fire but the lack of appropriate tools foiled her. She busied herself with packing away the provisions that Mr Winchcomb had brought, wincing at every sporadic outburst from the chimney. Occasionally the sounds would be accompanied by a desperate fluttering of wings. Maureen closed her eyes and tried not to think about the poor creature’s distressed scrabbling.
When she’d decided to flee the city in the aftermath of her attack, she’d envisioned an idyllic life spent at one with nature. The brutality of that night had broken far more than her marriage. Looking back, she realised it wasn’t just the potential for violence that had alienated her from the rest of society. She remembered with cold clarity the feel of the knife against her ribs as her assailant forced her onto her back in the damp underpass. And minutes later the faces of the woman and child, frozen at the bottom of the steps some thirty feet away; the way she turned and ushered him back up, the noise of their departure concealed by the grunts and thrusting of her attacker. She could not forget the bloated image of the woman’s face; definitely not indifference – not by any stretch of the imagination – but an overriding refusal to get involved.
It wasn’t the brutal violation that had damaged Maureen and sent her running to the country; it was the reaction of the woman observer.
In the afternoon the bird fell silent. She paced the room and tried to estimate how many steps it would take her to exit the front door and walk round to the side of the cottage where the chimney was. She could try to remove some of the bricks from the external wall in an effort to free the bird. She convinced herself that she was too weak, that the action was too dangerous, that the noise of the disturbance would be enough to give the poor creature a heart attack.
Maureen knew that birds possessed such metabolisms that they needed to feed frequently. Mr Winchcomb’s next visit was a long time away.
The cries seemed to be diminishing. Over the course of the next few days she prowled the house, tensing at every tweet that broke the ever-widening gaps of silence, until eventually the sanctuary of her cottage was reclaimed by the silence. Her belongings seemed familiar once more. Relief left her giddy. Her mind tried to abandon the bird in the same way her body had abandoned the city. Twilight returned to the valley. It felt like a metaphor for humanity.
Maureen looked out of the window. She watched a dandelion seed as it was carried on the breeze, drifting aimlessly in the flow of air that blew indiscriminately across the moorland. Oh, how she envied it.
Sometimes in the late summer the cottage would feel almost besieged by the wildlife that gathered around its walls and crept between the cracks of the building’s frame. Insects bumped against the glass, getting caught in the net curtains or just appearing as lifeless husks on the window ledge. Even the wind conspired to reclaim the cottage, gusting around the eaves and rattling the wind-chime that hung suspended from the living room ceiling.
Maureen would clutch a fleece blanket and huddle against the wall of the window-seat, looking out across the relentless fields to where the hills broke into the skyline, gazing in wonder at the myriad of colours that were woven into the landscape. There was not a single trace of humanity as far as she could see
In the spring and summer the cottage was rustic and languid. Autumn and winter, however, rendered her home sinister and unwelcoming, and she dreaded the shadows that arrived, and the condensation that transformed the windows opaque and claustrophobic. She found herself looking forward to Mr Winchcomb’s weekly visit; the six days arranged around his Wednesday arrival blurred into one continuous existence.
Sometimes she thought her old life back in the city, feeling almost like it had happened to a different person. Occasionally she would wake at night and feel wrapped in the swathes of her flashback, experiencing the petrifying sensation of seeing a figure emerge from the shadows in the underpass. Heart hammering, it always took a few seconds for her to realise that she was safe here at the cottage, away from the crime and the depravity and the dark figures that took what they wanted from you.
The solitude that she’d endured for the past four years had done little to separate her from the ordeal itself. She could still recall the coppery tang in her nose and mouth, could remember the smell of her assailant’s cologne. When she undressed each night she thought of how the blade felt against her throat.
Now autumn was here. Things were dying. Life was curling and shrivelling and diminishing. Sometimes on a clear day she could look out of her bedroom window and see the windfarm turbines on the peak of the hill many miles away, a reminder of what society endlessly craved. But in the autumn and winter the only evidence of their presence was a throbbing, rotating pulse that carried across the mist-shrouded distance separating them. Mr Winchcomb once asked her if the noise troubled her at night. She told him no, that it was a constant reminder that she’d managed to escape the city.
Mr Winchcomb had been gone several hours. The box of groceries was still on the kitchen worktop. She was frustrated with herself; he’d tried to coax her outside again, this time to see how afternoon dew had attached to a spider’s web at the bottom of the garden, rendering the fragile structure intricately beguiling, almost ornamental. But she’d declined his invitation, feeling the panic that was building at the very thought of crossing the threshold and leaving the cottage; something she hadn’t once done since her self-imposed exile had brought her here all those years ago. She had to content herself with simply imagining the web’s beauty.
Out here on the moors, eight miles from the closest house, twilight arrives like the wings of night - sudden and unforgiving. Maureen was listening to a play on Radio 4 – her only concession to modernity – when she first heard the bird.
She had already closed the curtains in preparation for the darkness that was soon to envelope the cottage. It was growing chilly in the room and she was considering lighting the fire. And then all at once a fluttering within the chimney-breast, and the sounds of debris – probably sooty dust - cascading onto the metal plate attached to the back of the gas-fire.
She felt startled. She sat up. The fluttering grew more frantic, as if the poor creature was terrified. Maureen knelt close to the unlit fire and listened as it scrabbled around in the chimney. Most possibly a bird had flown onto the slates to roost, and had fallen into the chimney. She clutched her chest.
For a long time there was no sound, just the low murmur of the radio in the room. Then she heard the shrill cry of the bird. There was a brittle intensity to the tone that suggested it was an invocation, a plea for help. Surely the bird wasn’t a fledgling? It was autumn - didn’t they normal fledge in the early summer? Yet the chirps sounded like it was a call to its parents.
Maureen tried to concentrate on the radio. She felt sure the bird would gather its strength in a short while and escape the confines of the chimney. The play on the radio ended thirty minutes later and she realised she had not heard a single word; she’d been preoccupied with listening out for the bird.
By now the room was distinctly chilly. She peered through the curtains but could see nothing but darkness pressing against the windows. She thought about lighting the fire and decided against it; perhaps the heat would harm the bird? She ascended the narrow stairs to her bedroom, wrapping herself in the covers and pretending to read a novel. Occasional chirps broke the silence. There was no escape. The chimney extended the whole height of the building, its breast passing through both her bedroom and the sitting room. The cottage had once boasted an open fire before the installation of the gas supply many years before. She lay down and pressed the pillow against her ears. Eventually the irregular cries of the bird fell silent. Sleep finally crept over her.
She’d almost forgotten the next morning. Only the unsettled nature of her rest betrayed a sense that something untoward had happened. She was buttering her toast when the chirping sounded again.
She closed her eyes and switched on the radio. Sunlight was bathing the kitchen in a muted, yellow wash. It did nothing to lighten her mood.
The morning progressed with torturous deliberation. At one point she even considered taking a screwdriver to the gas fire but the lack of appropriate tools foiled her. She busied herself with packing away the provisions that Mr Winchcomb had brought, wincing at every sporadic outburst from the chimney. Occasionally the sounds would be accompanied by a desperate fluttering of wings. Maureen closed her eyes and tried not to think about the poor creature’s distressed scrabbling.
When she’d decided to flee the city in the aftermath of her attack, she’d envisioned an idyllic life spent at one with nature. The brutality of that night had broken far more than her marriage. Looking back, she realised it wasn’t just the potential for violence that had alienated her from the rest of society. She remembered with cold clarity the feel of the knife against her ribs as her assailant forced her onto her back in the damp underpass. And minutes later the faces of the woman and child, frozen at the bottom of the steps some thirty feet away; the way she turned and ushered him back up, the noise of their departure concealed by the grunts and thrusting of her attacker. She could not forget the bloated image of the woman’s face; definitely not indifference – not by any stretch of the imagination – but an overriding refusal to get involved.
It wasn’t the brutal violation that had damaged Maureen and sent her running to the country; it was the reaction of the woman observer.
In the afternoon the bird fell silent. She paced the room and tried to estimate how many steps it would take her to exit the front door and walk round to the side of the cottage where the chimney was. She could try to remove some of the bricks from the external wall in an effort to free the bird. She convinced herself that she was too weak, that the action was too dangerous, that the noise of the disturbance would be enough to give the poor creature a heart attack.
Maureen knew that birds possessed such metabolisms that they needed to feed frequently. Mr Winchcomb’s next visit was a long time away.
The cries seemed to be diminishing. Over the course of the next few days she prowled the house, tensing at every tweet that broke the ever-widening gaps of silence, until eventually the sanctuary of her cottage was reclaimed by the silence. Her belongings seemed familiar once more. Relief left her giddy. Her mind tried to abandon the bird in the same way her body had abandoned the city. Twilight returned to the valley. It felt like a metaphor for humanity.
Maureen looked out of the window. She watched a dandelion seed as it was carried on the breeze, drifting aimlessly in the flow of air that blew indiscriminately across the moorland. Oh, how she envied it.