The Magic Cottage

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 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 color 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 nonetheless 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 sheet said cesspool 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 defocused) 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 aftereffects 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 sparking 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 realized 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.

The rest of the cottage was somewhat of an anticlimax. We found a long jagged crack that ran from floor to ceiling in the more conventional room next door, and mold on the walls in the one next door to that. The tiny bathroom was at best functional, with dark stains discoloring the bath itself. The staircase led up to what were no more than attic rooms, oddly shaped because they were built into the roof, with small windows providing inadequate daylight. The ceilings were squared off, though, and a trapdoor led into the loft area. I'd have needed a chair or a stepladder to climb up and take a look, so I didn't bother, but I imagined there were quite a few gaps open to the skies judging by the amount of tiles lying scattered on the ground outside. We poked around on levels two and three, finding rotting windowframes, warped cupboard doors that wouldn't close, more damp and more cracks in the walls, though the latter were less serious than the floor-to-ceiling one. Even the stairs protested against our weight and one board bent so badly I quickly hopped off, fearing it would collapse. Naturally, there was a fine layer of dust everywhere.

I don't know why, but we deliberately avoided entering the round room again—possibly we subconsciously felt its effect was too much to take twice in one day, or maybe we just wanted to remain more objective after having inspected the rest of the cottage. I had no trouble in turning the key when I locked the front door behind us, and we walked back down the path more slowly than we had walked up it.

Beyond the gate, Midge and I turned and leaned against the hood of the Passat, my arm around her shoulders, both of us lost in our own thoughts for a while. The ragged state of the garden and the generally poor condition of the cottage itself seemed to be impressing themselves on me in a strong way, and when I looked at Midge I was sure I detected the merest flicker of doubt in her eyes, too.

I was disturbed by the waxing and waning of my own enthusiasm and had sought reassurance from her. Her own uncertainty was the last thing I'd expected.

Glancing at my wristwatch, I said, "Let's discuss things over a beer and a sandwich."

Her eyes never left Gramarye as she climbed into the car, and she craned her neck to watch through the rear window while I drove away. I didn't turn the car around but headed in the same direction as when we'd been searching for the cottage, remembering that we hadn't passed a pub during the journey from Cantrip. A good ten minutes later I found what I was looking for and the sight cheered me considerably. Stout oak timbers and gleaming white paintwork; even a shaggy thatched roof. Rough wooden tables and bench seats in the front garden with no bright brand-name umbrellas to spoil the rural charm. The Forest Inn was my kind of watering hole.

The interior wasn't a disappointment either: low beams, horse brasses and thick leather belts mounted on the walls, huge inglenook fireplace big enough to roast a pig in, and the cigarette machine discreetly tucked away in a darkened corner. No jukebox, no Space Invaders. Not even a microwave oven on the bar, although a chalked menu advertising hot snacks was set in the wall to one side. The inn was nicely crowded without being full and I ordered a pint of bitter for myself and an orange juice for Midge from a thickset barman with mauve-veined cheeks and long thin strands of hair flattened sideways over an otherwise bald scalp. He had the bearing and authority of a landlord.

"Passing through?" he inquired without any curiosity at all as he filled the glass jug.

I'd been studying the food list and replied abstractedly,

"Sort of." Then, realizing he might venture some information about the locale, if not the cottage itself, I added:

We've been looking at a place for sale not far from here."

He raised his eyebrows. "Old Flora Chaldean's place, is it?" There was the faintest burr in his accent.

I nodded. "Yeah, Gramarye."

He chuckled before turning to reach for a small bottle of orange, and Midge and I exchanged surprised glances.

"Nice little place," I prompted as he poured the orange juice, "the cottage."

He looked up, first at me, then at Midge, still pouring and still grinning, but all he told us was the price of the drinks.

Now Midge is usually quite reserved, not to say shy at times, not to say timid, so I was somewhat shocked when she said clearly and coldly: "Is there something funny in that?"

The barman reappraised her and I could see that, like many others before him, he was not totally unmoved by her appealing good looks. For myself, a slub of concrete had gone to rest somewhere in the lower regions of my gut: like I said, he was thickset, and perhaps I should have mentioned that his bare forearms, now resting on the bar top, appeared solid enough to grind wheat by themselves. I swallowed beer as he leaned forward.

"Sorry about that, Miss," he apologized. "Didn't mean to be rude." And then he strolled to the other end of the bar to serve another customer.

Just watch it next time, I said to his back and silently to myself, of course. "The idea, Midge," I said patiently, "is to get on with the natives. We didn't even order any food."

"I'm not so hungry any more. Can we sit outside?"

Only a few tables were occupied in the garden area and we sat at one that was some distance away from those. I placed our drinks on the rough-hewn surface, then slid onto a bench on the opposite side to Midge (we always enjoyed eye contact). I could tell she was still miffed at the barman, so I squeezed her hand and grinned.

"It's just the locals' way of keeping visitors in their place, letting on they know a bit more than we do," I said.

"What? Oh, him. No, he doesn't bother me. Flora Chaldean was probably the token eccentric hereabouts, someone they could all have a chuckle over because she was different from them. She was probably just a lonely old woman with no family, who kept very much to herself. No, I was thinking of Gramarye itself." She sipped her orange juice.

"You're not so keen now?"

She looked startled. "Oh, I'm more than keen. It's just that there seem to be conflicting elements in the cottage."

My turn to be startled. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"The peculiar emptiness of the place . . ."

"It's been unoccupied for a long time."

"Yes, but didn't you notice? There were no spiders or their webs, no insects of any kind in there. No signs of mice even. There weren't any birds nesting in the eaves of the roof, and the cottage is surrounded by woodland. Gramarye is just an empty shell."

I hadn't noticed, but she was right. It should have been a haven for creepy-crawlies and nesting birds.

"Yet," she continued, "the round room was so vibrant. You felt it; something happened to you in there."

"Sure, I felt dizzy for a moment, that was all. Probably hunger." I looked longingly back toward the inn.

"No more than that?"

I didn't want to get into this. "Like what? If you must know, I think the sun hit me hard when I came up those stairs. The glare disrupted signals going to my brain."

She studied me for a second or two, then said, "Okay." Simple as that. No arguments, no further discussion. She'd either accepted what I'd told her, or accepted that I didn't want to delve further. That's what made Midge easy to live with.

I drained half of the bitter and Midge watched me. Tilted eyes, dark-haired, and delicate little pointed chin. Yeah, that's why sometimes I called her Pixie.

"So where do we go from here?" I asked, wiping the back of my hand across my lips. "You know I'm worried about how much it's gonna cost to put the place right."

"But you like the cottage, don't you?" She leaned across the table and her words were almost a conspiratorial whisper. And she was fixing me with that smile again. "Don't you think the location is ideal? Imagine the work we'll do there. My paintings, your music. Mike, you'll do so much, I just know it. And maybe you'll finally get around to writing those children's stories for me to illustrate. We'll make a wonderful team!"

I mulled it over. Sometimes Midge escaped into a world of her own, on a plane far removed from choking cities and avaricious mortals, and she had the ability to draw others into it, too—that is, if she wanted them along. I had to remain the pragmatist most of the time, although it never ceased to amaze me how down-to-earth practical she could become when the occasion truly demanded.

"Look, I'll tell you what we'll do," I said. "We'll go back to the agent and lay our cards on the table. We'll point out all the faults, major and minor, and put in a lower bid to cover our costs. If Bickleshift goes for it, all well and good; if not—well, we'll have to face up to the facts of life."

She could hardly argue with that, but I couldn't help disliking myself for putting anxiety behind her eyes.

So that was what we did. We finished our drinks and drove back to Cantrip, me with a grumbling stomach and Midge in a moody silence. When we passed Gramarye, her eyes locked onto the cottage and once more she craned her neck until it was out of sight.

It was well after lunchtime when we reached the village and we found Bickleshift wondering how to occupy the rest of his day. I explained our position, telling him we loved the cottage, were extremely keen to buy, but that there were certain nasty faults that needed attention, and these would burn a sizable hole in our finances. How about knocking off at least four thousand from the bidding price?

He sympathized. He understood perfectly. But he said no.

The ad had mentioned that Gramarye would require some renovation, and quite possibly the costs would be high. But he did not have the authority to accept our lower offer, nor, he had to admit, the professional inclination to do so. It was a "desirable property" in an extremely "desirable" part of the world, after all.

I could feel Midge's spirits slump, and mine also took a nose-dive. Although I had mixed feelings about the place, learning we couldn't afford it anyway left me more frustrated than I thought possible. I tried three thousand.

Bickleshift sat firm, explaining that the executors of Flora Chaldean's Will had set a minimum price, apart from which we were only the first in a line of others wishing to view the property. He was very friendly when he told us this, but estate agents aren't renowned for having generous natures.

Our problem was that not only would we have to live in Gramarye, but we'd have to work there too, so conditions had to be reasonable for both of us. Also, I'd wanted to build some kind of mini recording studio for myself; nothing fancy, you understand, but the bare essentials would require a certain amount of ready cash. It was no good, useless to try and kid ourselves. Nice idea, but impractical. Bye-bye our cozy love-nest in the country.

We left with lead-weight hearts and Bickleshift's promise to be in touch if there were any further developments. Midge was silent all the way back to Big Met., and I could say nothing to console her.

That night she wept in her sleep.