I noticed a man standing outside the pub, stock-still, staring up at my flat. He was wearing jeans, an open-necked white shirt and a leather jacket, and he, too, was carrying a laptop bag and a phone. A totally normal-looking guy on his way to work – so why was he staring up at my window like that?
It was only when the sunlight illuminated him that I realised it was Adam.
I put down my half-finished coffee and opened the door, stepping out into the bright morning. The sound alerted him to my presence and he spun around. He didn’t look surprised to see me, or guilty about having been caught loitering in the street outside the pub, though. He smiled and beckoned me over.
‘Look, Zoë. Look up there.’
I took the few steps over to join him and followed his pointing finger. High up in the tree were four blackbirds, all chirping their heads off. It might have been their song that had woken me so early.
‘Do you think one of them’s our one?’
He pushed back his sunglasses. ‘Hard to tell. See the brownish-coloured one? That’s the mum.’
‘And the one with the bright yellow beak is the dad, right? I wish I’d paid attention to how many babies there were originally. They both look the same.’
We craned our necks upwards, trying to make out the two dusty-looking black-brown chicks up in the tree.
‘They’re not the prettiest birds ever, are they?’ Adam said.
‘How can you even say that about our baby bird? They’re adorable.’
He looked at me and we both laughed. Laughter changed his whole face, showing off his straight white teeth and making him look almost handsome.
‘We could feed them, I guess,’ he suggested. ‘Or leave food for the parents to give them.’
‘What do blackbirds even eat?’
‘Didn’t the rescue place say worms yesterday?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. We can’t exactly hunt worms to give them, can we?’
‘Well, we could, but…’
‘I’m a vegan. Mostly, anyway. I can’t go around murdering worms, even if it is to feed a bird.’
‘Hold on.’ Adam tapped at his phone a bit. ‘They like fat balls, apparently. But they can’t eat off hanging bird feeders because they’re too big. We could set up a bird table for them in the pub garden if your boss wouldn’t mind.’
‘Alice loves animals – she’ll be dead keen on that. But won’t Frazzle think it’s a cat table, with an all-you-can-eat bird buffet?’
‘All-you-can-eat buffets can’t fly.’
‘Good point.’
‘So why don’t I order one? I’ll get it delivered here and swing by tomorrow morning and we can set it up.’
‘Deal,’ I said. ‘Thanks, Adam.’
Adam shook his head. ‘It’s nothing. I’d better dash, I’ve got an eight a.m. meeting.’
And before I could properly say goodbye, or even thank him again, he’d strode off down the road, his legs long and strong in his dark grey jeans and his fingers flying over the face of his phone as he walked.
I don’t know where Adam shopped, but it must have been the bird equivalent of Harrods, because the feeding table that arrived later that day was the poshest thing ever. It came in an enormous, glossy cardboard box with a picture of the finished article printed on it: painted pale green, it had a little pillared fence thing around the edge like a fancy colonial house might have and was mounted on a tall pole that I reckoned would make it almost Frazzle-proof. Along with it was another, plain box that I presumed contained food to put in it, and, together, they filled every inch of available space in Alice’s tiny office.
Throughout the afternoon, I kept glancing out of the windows at the front of the pub and the door at the back, checking that the birds were still there.
‘Hang in there,’ I told them. ‘Tomorrow your life of luxury will begin.’
As good as his word, Adam turned up before seven the next morning, yawning and smelling freshly showered, his hair still damp. He followed me through the empty, silent pub and I showed him the boxes.
‘Blimey.’
‘Blimey is right. They’re huge. Shall we get them outside?’
Together, we heaved the boxes out through the back door and into the garden, Frazzle watching us warily from the top of the fence. I fetched a knife from the kitchen and carefully slit open the tape that sealed the bigger box. Adam tipped it up, and about a million pieces of glossy green-painted wood slid out onto the grass, together with a little bag containing dozens of screws, nuts, bolts and Allen keys of varying sizes and, finally, a single A4 sheet of printed instructions.
‘Okay,’ Adam said. ‘I’m not sure I’m qualified for this.’
‘How hard can it be? I’ve put together enough Ikea chests of drawers in my time.’
‘You’re in charge, then.’
I picked up the assembly sheet and looked at it, then turned it the other way and looked at it again. Adam peered over my shoulder, so close I could feel his warm breath on my neck.
‘Uh… Maybe this is a bit more complicated than I thought.’
‘It looks like we’ve got to make the base first,’ he said. ‘Then that long pole thing fixes onto it. Then we put together the main bird-house bit, and that gets mounted on the top.’
‘Do all those fancy little balustrade things have to be screwed on individually? Seriously?’
‘Hey, I thought you only wanted the best for our birds.’
I laughed. ‘I’d best get screwing then.’
Half an hour later, we were almost done. The main post had toppled over and landed on Adam’s foot. The instruction sheet had blown away and I’d only just managed to catch it before it flew over the fence and was gone forever. Frazzle had come to help and carried one of the Allen keys away in his mouth. And we were almost helpless with laughter.
‘Oh my God, we are so crap at this,’ I said, inspecting a scrape on my knuckle and a corresponding smear of blood on the pale-green wood.
‘Those birds need to get some competent staff.’
‘As opposed to Tweedledum and Tweedledumber here.’
‘What do you suppose we do with that bit?’
‘No idea. Shall we just put the roof on and hope for the best?’
‘Let’s. And then I should probably get to work; I’m already going to be late.’
We finished the assembly as best we could, loaded up the bird feeder with fat balls, peanuts and even a whole sunflower head, then stood back to admire our handiwork, watched by Frazzle and an inquisitive squirrel.
Then Adam said reluctantly that he really needed to go and dashed off through the bar before I could even thank him properly.
All morning, Robbie and I kept sticking our heads out from the kitchen to see if any birds had arrived. We didn’t spot any that day, only the squirrel and a few of his mates, but the next morning there was totally, definitely a blackbird there, feasting away, and soon it was joined by another. I took a photo and sent it to Adam, and he replied with a heart emoji.
Twenty-One
You know what they say about boredom, Aquarius? It only ever affects boring people.