The Magic Cottage (4 page)

‘They might be too different for our liking.’

‘We’re in Hampshire, not Outer Mongolia. A couple of hours away from the city. They speak the same language here.’

‘Maybe not quite the same.’

Midge rolled her eyes heavenwards. ‘You city slickers are full of it. You’ll learn soon enough.’

‘All right, but don’t forget that today the sun is shining, the sky is blue—’

‘There’s not a cloud to spoil the view,’ she rhymed.

‘But when it
is
raining, when winter comes and it’s freezing, or when we’re cut off completely because of snow—’

‘Mmm,’ she murmured, snuggling up, ‘that’ll be lovely. We probably won’t be able to leave the cottage for weeks and we’ll have to have a roaring fire going to keep ourselves warm, or cuddle under bedclothes for days on end. Just imagine the things we can get up to to keep ourselves amused.’

Midge had a knack of hitting below the belt, my weakest point. ‘Be sensible,’ I complained.

‘I am. I’ll make things so cosy you’ll become a hermit.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

‘And I’ll have to force you out into the harsh cold wind to bring back bread for the table.’

‘You’re not helping.’

She became serious again, but still smiled when she said, ‘Feel this place, Mike. Close your eyes and really
feel
it. Gramarye is so good and so perfect for us.’

I didn’t actually close my eyes, but a peculiar sense of well-being definitely rose inside, an intoxication that was very mild yet filling. No, not the kind that comes from a good toke, but something else, something more real, somehow more permanent. Say it was the warmth of the sun’s rays, the very pleasantness of the day itself and my surroundings. Call it, even, the strength of Midge’s own conviction flowing into me, a sensing natural enough to true lovers. At one time I’d have concluded it was only those influences. Not now, though. Oh no, not now that I know so much more.

‘Let’s look inside,’ I said to avoid the final commitment, and Midge’s smile only became more knowing. She stood and drew out the three labelled keys from her jeans’ pocket. Dutifully she handed them to me, a gesture that seemed to say, ‘Okay, fate is in your own hands and inside is where you’ll find it.’

I took them and moved towards the back door with Midge close to my heels. Stopping before the marked and tired-looking old door, I held up the long keys and pondered on which one to try first. Two were cut the same, so I decided they would probably be for the front door. I pushed the odd one home and it fitted easily. But it wouldn’t turn.

Neither would the next key. Nor the next, the second’s twin.

I groaned. ‘Looks like Bickleshift gave us the wrong set.’

‘Let’s try the front,’ Midge suggested.

‘Okay, but one of these has to be for this door if they’re the right keys.’

We descended the curving steps carefully because of the moss and were soon under the open porch. I chose number one and inserted it into the lock to find it still wouldn’t turn. Growing more frustrated I tried two and three again with no luck. The door wouldn’t budge, even when I twisted the handle and used shoulder pressure. The wood creaked, but didn’t move a fraction.

‘Let me,’ said Midge, pushing between me and the door.

‘It’s no good. The lock’s either rusted solid, or Bickleshift made a mistake with the keys.’ I examined the label and GRAMARYE was clearly typed.

She took them from me without a word and held one of the ‘twins’ up to her face for a second before decisively pushing it home into the lock. Her wrist twisted and I thought I saw her give a little gasp, almost as if the key had turned of its own accord. I may have been mistaken.

The door opened easily and smoothly, without even the hint of a horror-movie creak; the air that rushed out was musty and damp, and seemed glad to be free.

The Round Room

I was ready to go straight on in, puzzled though I was that Midge had succeeded where I had failed; Midge, however, hesitated. Again I’m not sure – quite a few things are still not entirely sharp in my memory – but there seemed to be some kind of trepidation in her manner now. Enough, at least, to dismiss any mock-gloating on her part. Perhaps I’m not sure because the sudden change in mood was just as quickly gone; I know she had disappeared inside before I could voice my concern.

Shrugging to myself, I ventured in after her and the instant coolness was an unwelcome contrast to the warmth outside. We found ourselves in a smallish room, no more than ten by twelve I guessed (the house particulars had been left back in the car), with an open door ahead and stairs beyond leading up to the next level. We could see the kitchen area through an opening to our right. The floor here and in the room next-door was quarry-tiled and I noticed an unnatural darkness to the surface. Crouching, I touched the stone.

‘Feels damp,’ I said and searched the skirting. Sure enough, a dark waterline stained the opposite wall just a couple of inches above the floor. ‘The far wall there must cut into the embankment and when it rains water seeps down through the soil and into the brickwork.’

Midge didn’t even appear that interested, which irritated me a little; I knew that kind of dampness could be serious and I was thinking in money terms. She’d already gone through into the kitchen. With an exasperated shake of my head, I rose and went after her. ‘Midge, you’ve gotta take note of these things,’ I whined. ‘They’re gonna decide whether or not we buy this place.’

‘Sorry, Mike.’ Pretending contriteness, she slid up to me and momentarily rested her head against my chest. Then she was over by the huge black cooking range we had seen through the window and stooping to open oven doors, squawking with delight when she peered into them, then rising to exclaim more loudly when she laid eyes on the skillet hooks on the side of the recess above the range, filled with long-handled saucepans and a rather large frying pan. On the floor just in front of the range stood an iron kettle on a trivet, adding an extra charm.

‘It’s like something out of an old fairy-tale,’ Midge called back to me.

‘You mean where the witch boils frogs and babies’ legs on her stove to make her spells?’ I asked as I joined her. I saw there were pots, also of black metal, inside the largest of the ovens.

‘Nothing so nasty,’ Midge admonished. She leaned into the recess and squinted up into the chimney. I hastily pulled her back when I noticed the dangerous flaw in the massive stone lintel above the range. She looked at me in surprise until I pointed out the crack.

‘That looks ready to collapse,’ I warned and she had sense enough to back away.

‘I doubt it runs all the way through.’

‘Maybe not, but why take the chance? That’s another item that would have to be taken care of.’

Midge frowned, not liking the list I was already compiling.

‘Ten-to-one the chimney’s blocked by now, and nobody’s going to clear it until that stone’s been made safe.’ There was no fun in mentioning these things, but I felt that someone had to be realistic.

‘Perhaps the damp and this are the worst faults,’ Midge remarked hopefully.

I shrugged. We’d only seen the ground floor so far.

One of those deep earthenware sinks stood under the window we’d peeked through earlier, the kind you could bath a Shetland pony in, and I wandered over to it and turned on the hot and cold taps. Both ran brown after several clunks from the pipes and sudden spats from the taps themselves. I let them run for a minute or so and the colour hardly changed at all.

‘Tank’s probably rusted through,’ I commented. ‘Or maybe that’s how they drink it around here.’ I was beginning to feel gloomy.

Meanwhile, Midge was opening cupboards and drawers; the wooden units looking pretty early fare but none the less not in bad shape. I investigated another door, expecting to find a larder or broom-cupboard, but instead discovering a toilet with a high-mounted chain flush.

‘Least we don’t have to use a shed in the garden.’ I pulled the rusty chain and the system groaned loudly, the bowl flooding instantly with the not-unexpected brown water which seemed to take an unreasonably long time to gurgle away, burping and hiccuping as it went. ‘I think the leaflet said cesspit drainage,’ I said as I closed the door again. ‘I wonder when it was last emptied.’ I was wondering if it had ever been emptied.

Midge was standing in the middle of the kitchen and I could tell that nothing I’d said so far had deterred her.

‘Can we go upstairs now?’ she asked.

‘I can’t wait,’ I answered.

‘Keep an open mind, Mike.’

‘Will you do the same?’

There was no annoyance in our words; we trusted in one another too much for that kind of pettiness. I suppose you could say we were tinged with apprehension, both of us fearing that either one would be disappointed. I knew Midge really wanted me to want this place and I would have done almost anything to please her, but we were not just talking about a financial wrench here, but a social one too. If it was going to work, it had to be
right
.

We mounted the stairs to the next level holding hands, Midge leading as if drawing me up with her.

The stairway doubled round into a mini-hallway, the outside door I had first tried to our right and the doorway leading into the round room to our left. Sunshine hit us like a softly exploding shell and for an incredible instant I felt as though I were floating. So strong was the sensation that I became giddy, and only Midge clutching my hand and pulling firmly saved me from toppling back down the stairway. I blinked rapidly, blinded by the sudden dazzle, and Midge’s sweet image swept in and out before me as though I were in a dreamy, slow faint. I remember concern in her light eyes, yet warmth also, a confidence that encompassed and reassured me. My vision cleared and I was vaguely aware that although no more than a second or two had passed, a vast expanse of time had swayed before me.

I found myself in the round room, although I couldn’t remember having entered. The sun blazed outside and the landscape through the large windows looked microcosmically clear, as though every leaf could be seen singly, every grass blade viewed as a separate entity. The sky around was of the cleanest, purest blue I had ever witnessed. Mistakenly, I thought I understood that abrupt and unnatural lucidity. I’d heard that the effects of certain drugs could spring back at you when you least expected it, even years after their original use, and I got no pleasure from that notion, only a withering sense of shame. I assumed that the sudden change from cool shade into dazzling light had triggered off lingering chemicals in my mind – strobe lighting can sometimes do the same thing – taking me on a short and confusing trip. That’s what I thought then, and I’m still not discounting that possibility.

My eyes quickly refocused (perhaps it would be more accurate to say
de
focused) back to normality, everything losing that peculiar linear depth. Midge had both hands around my face and was studying me with that same warm concern of a moment ago.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked, her hands soft against my cheeks.

‘Uh, yeah, I think so. Yeah, I’m fine.’ And I was, for the mood, the unexpected shift in perception, had vanished, leaving hardly any after-effects other than the memory. ‘Felt faint for a minute there; must have been the change in altitude,’ I joked.

‘You sure you’re all right?’

‘Yeah, I promise, I’m okay.’

I looked around, seeing the room itself now, not the landscape outside. ‘This is something else,’ I remarked after a low, appreciative whistle.

‘Isn’t it beautiful, Mike?’ Midge’s smile threatened to split her face in two, so broad and beaming was it. She skipped away from me and did a quick tour (circular, of course), ending up at a quaint fireplace with a rough brick surround. She leaned an elbow on the narrow mantelpiece and grinned at me, her eyes sparkling with merriment.

‘Puts a different complexion on things, doesn’t it?’ she said.

It did. It certainly did. There was a glow to this room that I realised was due to the sun’s unhindered rays reflecting off the round walls; yet contained therein was something more, a liveliness, a vitality, something intangible but nevertheless very real.
You have to be open to it, though
, a tiny voice at the back of my mind whispered.
You have to
want
to feel it.
Cynic at times I may be, but I had finer feelings too and the atmosphere of the room itself (coupled, I’m sure, with Midge’s enthusiasm) was somehow unleashing these feelings. God, yes, I
did
want to feel it, I
did
want this place. Despite that, the other side of me asked whether it would be the same in winter when the rain clouds hid the sun. Would this energy inside be lost? Would the
magic
– there, the word had sprung into my mind for the first time, although I hadn’t realized its significance – be gone? But at the moment, I didn’t care. The present, and the yearning so suddenly induced, was all that mattered.

I walked over to Midge and held her so tight she gasped. ‘Y’know, it’s beginning to work on me,’ I told her without really comprehending.