Adam grinned and shook his head, but he accepted a perfect espresso from me gratefully, and I pushed open the door to the garden.
‘Let’s see how those fledglings are getting on, then,’ he said.
We stood in the doorway and looked out at the garden. It wasn’t up to much, really – just a little square of paving stones with weeds growing up between some of them, a couple of wooden picnic tables, the giant barbecue under its canvas cover, and a few hanging baskets that Alice had planted with geraniums and pansies, a bit bedraggled-looking now that summer was coming to an end, and of course the bird table. But in the cool morning, with a bright bar of golden sunlight falling across it and birdsong filling the air, it felt almost magical.
I could feel the warmth of Adam’s arm next to my shoulder, hear him breathing and smell the fragrant steam from his coffee and whatever shower gel he’d used – the scent was as fresh as a gin and tonic on a hot evening.
As we watched, the male and female blackbirds fluttered down and started helping themselves to mealworms. The robin joined in, too, and a couple of fat pigeons pecked around below, snapping up any bits that got dropped.
‘Where are the babies, though?’ I fretted.
‘Maybe they’ll come,’ Adam said, ‘if we wait.’
We waited, but there were no baby blackbirds. In the past few days, I’d found it harder and harder to tell which were the fledglings and which the parents, but I’d been watching them for long enough to just about know the difference, and I was sure that only the adults were there for breakfast.
‘What if something’s happened to them?’ I asked. ‘What if Frazzle…’
‘You’d have known,’ Adam said. ‘He’d have presented you with a body, wouldn’t he? Or have feathers in his whiskers or something.’
I shuddered. ‘Yes, I suppose so. But then where are they?’
Adam hesitated, then he said, ‘I expect they’ve gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘I was reading about it online. They stay with the parents for a couple of weeks after they learn to fly, and then they go off to find their own territory, and the adults start a new family.’
‘But…’ Absurdly, I felt tears stinging my eyes. ‘But what will they do, without us to look after them? What if, wherever they’ve gone, there’s no food for them?’
‘They’ll be okay,’ Adam said. ‘Their instinct will help them find a good place to live. At least, I hope so.’
We looked at each other for a second. Adam’s face was as full of doubt as I knew mine was, and I felt a tear trickle down my cheek.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive.’ But he didn’t sound very sure.
I dug in my pocket for a tissue. ‘I know I’m being ridiculous. I just hate thinking of them out there all alone in the world, with no one to look out for them.’
‘I get it.’ Adam cleared his throat. ‘I felt the same way about Freezer, our neighbours’ cat. I think I told you about him.’
‘White, with one blue eye and one green?’
‘Yeah. When Luke and Hannah moved, I knew he would be fine and safe, and they love him and Hannah would be home all day while she was on maternity leave. But I still thought, what if he missed me and didn’t understand why he never saw me any more.’
I blew my nose, feeling the threat of tears growing closer, but I managed to force them away.
‘We’re a right pair of dicks, aren’t we?’ I said.
‘Yup.’ Adam was wearing his retro shades so I couldn’t see his eyes, but I was willing to bet he was struggling not to cry, too. That was what my intuition was telling me, anyway.
‘You really think the fledglings will be okay?’ I asked, briefly serious again.
‘Of course they will. So long as you keep that cat of yours in line.’
‘I do my best. But, you know…’
‘Cats gonna cat. And I have to get to work.’
He handed me his empty coffee mug, thanked me, and – as he had before – shot out through the bar before I had a chance to properly say goodbye, or wish him a nice day or anything. As I pushed open the door to the kitchen, Jude came clattering down the stairs and enfolded me in a hug, kissing the top of my head and saying he’d see me later, and my working day began.
But the whole time, as I chopped and stirred and sat with Alice over coffee to plan the following week’s menu, my thoughts kept returning to Adam. I reminded myself that I had a boyfriend. I wasn’t sure whether I had a type, unlike Dani, who’d said that Fabian was totally hers, but I was fairly sure I didn’t fancy Adam. So there was nothing to worry about – no need for Jude to feel jealous or insecure.
Adam and I could be friends. I could offer him some sort of time-share in Frazzle, to make up for the cat he used to fuss and feed, and maybe when – if – Jude and I ever went on holiday together, Adam could stay in my flat and keep Frazz company. Although, I realised, if he had the kind of job that involved working lunches at the Chiltern Firehouse, he probably lived in such luxury at his own apartment that my poky studio would seem a hovel in comparison.
Anyway, I felt there had been something there – a connection, a meeting of minds. I hoped that now the baby birds had embarked on their independent lives, in the manner of millennial boomerang children who finally get turfed out of the family home in their thirties, Adam might still pop in in the mornings on his way to the station to see what exciting bird-feeder action I had to share. Maybe Mr and Mrs Blackbird would raise another family for us to watch and stress over.
But, at the Dungeons & Dragons game that evening, Adam didn’t mention the birds, or Freezer the cat, or give any indication that anything at all had passed between us. He greeted me with just the same awkward semi-formality as everyone else, accepted a mint julep, which Freddie had discovered was his favourite cocktail, arranged his screen and notepads and coloured pens on the table, and said, ‘Right, shall we get started?’
In the game, our party had reached the castle where the young girl was being held prisoner, but had no way of gaining entrance. The previous week had ended with us trying to buy our way in by bribing one of the shifty guards who patrolled the perimeter.
Adam rolled the dice. ‘The guard accepts your bribe, and you return under cover of darkness to gain entrance to Castle Drakeford. The night is stormy, with gusts of wind ruffling your cloaks and whistling through the battlements above your heads. The sky is overcast, but occasionally scudding clouds part to reveal a sliver of moon, thin as the blade of a sickle. You can hear the hoot of an owl swooping overhead, and there are other creatures hunting in the darkness above you, too. You think they may be bats – at least, you hope that is what they are.’
I shivered and took a gulp of my red wine. Around me, Freddie, Archie, Nat, Tim and Lara’s faces were still and intent. The candles on the table flickered. The pub was full, but the tables around us were silent as they, too, listened to Adam’s voice.
Over the past few weeks, the Dungeons & Dragons game had become quite the spectator sport, with a huge waiting list of people who wanted to join as soon as one of our characters came to a sticky end. But so far we had all survived, and Adam had refused numerous requests to start games with other groups – planning our adventure was taking up almost all his spare time, he said. I wondered what he did with the rest of it – aside from saving local wildlife – if he had very much time outside his impressive-sounding job at the hedge fund.