The Magic Cottage

last cheeky look here, there and everywhere, leapt out into the garden and was gone.

Midge and I laughed delightedly and she said, 'D'you suppose all the red squirrels in this part of the world are that bold?'

I remembered the one we'd come across in the road on our first visit to the cottage. 'Could be,' I replied, 'unless that's the same guy as before.'

Her mouth dropped open as if she were really considering the possibility, then she said, 'We're lucky to see any at all. They were almost wiped out by an epidemic some years ago and I know not many survived in this area. The grays rather took over their territories.'

'We'd better make sure the windows are closed next time we go out, otherwise we might come back one day and find we've been invaded.'

'Now that would be nice.'

'Not if it were by rats or mice.'

'Trust you to look on the dark side.'

For a moment I was serious, although I meant no jibe. 'One of us has to keep their feet on the ground.'

She regarded me quizzically, then became aware that she still cradled the injured thrush in her hands.

I found a cardboard box and lined it with an old sweater of mine and a scarf of Midge's; she laid the bird inside and placed the box in a corner by the sideboard. After that, she attempted feeding the thrush, giving up after a while to try again later, this time with a degree of success. What was left of the afternoon—which wasn't much —was spent sorting out clothes and ornaments, finding a more permanent home for tools, equipment and various household items, hanging pictures, sweeping and cleaning, and generally bringing things together a bit more. O'Malley and his men had done a fine job on the cottage, fixing, painting, and pulling the building into shape. Even the cupboard doors everywhere fitted snugly and I assumed they had been planed down before being repainted. Some of the floorboards still creaked here and there, but there was no sagging and I could find no serious cracks in the wood.

After dinner, a stroganoff which Midge had prepared with much care and devotion because it was to be our first 'proper' dinner at Gramarye, we adjourned upstairs to the round room. I tried the TV but the picture was annoyingly snowy and as neither of us was really interested anyway, I soon switched off. I resolved to do something about the aerials for the set and the radio next day. We relaxed to some vintage Schmilson for a while and I was relieved that at least the stereo wasn't dogged by interference. We both felt at peace that evening, no sad memories marring the contentment for Midge and no reservations about the move nagging at me. When the album was finished, she asked me to play for her, something I often did during the evenings she had to work at her drawing board or those times we merely felt in the mood. I went to fetch the guitar while Midge opened a bottle of wine for me.

Now I was slumped back in the sofa, fingertips of both hands still tingling from their contact with the guitar strings, Midge's head resting against my chest, and it wasn't long before our mutual warmth turned into mutual desire.

Unlike that morning's gloriously frenzied lovemaking, this time it was languid and exquisite, every movement and every moment savored and lingered over, all fervency contained yet still indulged in to the full. As the sensuality built in our bodies, so the room seemed to spin and weave around us, the last fading rays of the sun becoming a spectrum of colors, although always influenced by the sanguine flush that stained the walls.

The love act between us slowly became something more. It became a great expansion of emotion that went far beyond our physical bodies, that did not so much explode within our spirits, as erupt in a leisurely-spreading shower of energies. Imagine a slow-motion film of glass shattering into thousands— millions— of fragments, every single part caught by the light, each tiny piece reflecting its own entity, its own being: that might represent a physical equivalent to the sensory response aroused in us, although the comparison is far from accurate, because such a brittle splintering is the very antithesis of the soft starbursts we both experienced. We joined together, fusing not just with each other but with the air around us, with the walls, with every living organism contained therein. In some way we had reached another level, one that perhaps we all glimpse from time to time, but are always on the periphery of, always just at the edge, knowing dimly of its existence, but never able to perceive it clearly, our minds always defeated by their own limiting truth.

Heavy stuff, right? But in my own inept way I'm trying to give you a glimmer of what happened to us that evening in Gramarye. And maybe put it into some kind of perspective for myself.

There was more. We sensed the aura of Gramarye, a spirit that had nothing to do with Flora Chaldean or all those others who had occupied the cottage before her, but was the essence of that place itself. Its own nature, if you like. In the structure, the grounds, the atmosphere around, there was immense goodness, an outflowing of earth purity.

And as every positive has its negative, there was also a dark, lurking badness. But that was on the fringes, a shadow that could not be defined, a power that was dormant, having little strength. Yet it existed.

We experienced these things, but they were not sharp in our minds, and the perception was soon gone, fading swiftly with the subsiding of our physical pleasure, the sensations, the essential primal urge, which had led us to that recognition carrying the awareness away from us in its own ebbing. Only now, after so much has happened, can what occurred to us that evening be remembered and partially explained. Even so, everything is just my interpretation, and long after the event at that.

I was the first to speak—Midge was still too bewildered or exhausted, or both. 'Did you lace the stroganoff with something?' It was meant as a joke, a glib aside while I got my head together, but she wasn't laughing. 'Midge, you okay?'

She looked my way, but didn't quite see me; sleepy wonderment was still glowing in her eyes.

'Midge?'

She drew in a long, deep breath, her shoulders and chest rising, then let the air go just as slowly. Finally she said, 'What happened?' The question was to herself as much as to me.

I smiled lazily. 'We made love.' The phenomenon was already leaving me, material reality asserting its steadying influence the way it does when waking from a dream.

Midge ran both hands over her eyes and when she looked up again it was as if she'd wiped away the wonderment. Then she yawned and my own jaw was quickly infected, because I yawned too. I helped her with her clothes—she was fumbling at buttons like a weary child, her mind distracted, coordination all but gone.

'I don't understand,' she mumbled. 'I can't think straight, Mike . . .'

My movements were slow too, and more awkward than I cared for, but I was filled with warmth, my senses now pleasurably dulled. And I couldn't stop smiling. 'I think we've just passed through some kind of ecstasy barrier, Midge. I think the earth really did move for us. Jesus, I never imagined such a thing was possible.' (See how the human brain works, how it tries to rationalize the irrational for its own sanity? I was putting it down to romance, for Chrissake!)

Midge wasn't that easily persuaded, though. 'No, Mike, it was something more . . .'

I stopped her with a kiss. 'We're both tired, Pixie. Like you said, the country air does something to you. Why don't you get yourself into bed while I lock up?'

'I need a bath . . .'

'No you don't.'

'Brush my teeth . . .'

'That'll take you half a minute. I'll join you before your head hits the pillow.'

'All right, Mike. Mike . . . ?'

'Yeah?'

'You love me, don't you?'

'You know it.'

I lifted her to her feet and she swayed against me.

'God,' she murmured. 'I didn't realize how tired I was. I feel as if I'm drunk.'

'How could you know? Come on, I'll take you through.'

I did more than that: I picked Midge up and carried her into the bedroom, her slight weight no burden at all. Lowering her onto the bed, I remained leaning over her.

'Think you can manage the rest by yourself while I see to the doors and windows?'