Isabel Bogdan - The Peacock

He hadn’t counted on the peacocks widening their radius of activity so much that they generally weren’t to be seen at all. He also hadn’t counted on the fact that, instead, they could be heard very well indeed, their cries echoing through the glen, so that it sounded a bit like a jungle. But the McIntoshes got used to that, and on the whole the peacocks were left to themselves and did as they pleased. And they only fanned their trains during mating season in the spring; after that, they shed the long tail feathers. These only grew back the following spring, which impressed Lady Fiona all over again each year. Nature really was full of marvels! Once a year the peacocks bred somewhere in the wood and had young, most of which didn’t survive. Each year one or two made it, and by now there were at least four males and six females, although no one knew the exact number. The Laird only fed the animals occasionally, mainly in the winter when they couldn’t find much to eat. Occasionally one of them froze to death somewhere in the woods, and the McIntoshes didn’t really understand why, because the peacocks normally gathered in the shed behind the house where they were fed and where it was considerably warmer. The peacocks came to accept the two dogs, Albert and Victoria, or rather the other way round: Albert realised at some point, firstly, that the peacocks fought back and, secondly, that he wasn’t allowed to treat them as toys anyway, and Victoria was too small and too old to even think of such a thing. At some point the peacocks even settled on the division of feed and on social niceties with the cantankerous old goose, and after a while, all of the animals got on and basically left one another alone. They lived peacefully alongside each other and the holidaymakers were delighted no matter what.

Until one of the peacocks went mad. Or couldn’t see very well. Afterwards, of course, it was impossible to find out what the problem was and when it had begun. At any rate, when Mr and Mrs Bakshi arrived at the end of August, nobody could have suspected a thing. The Bakshis had rented one of the cottages for three weeks. They were in the former washhouse and were enchanted and enraptured, saying quite often how good they had it and how delightful everything was and how lucky they were to have ended up here. In all honesty, the cottage wasn’t exactly luxurious. There was no shower, just a badly insulated bathtub in which the water always went cold immediately. In the kitchen, the floor sloped so much that the Bakshis felt like they were on a ship the first few days, for the ground was never quite where they expected it to be. But it didn’t take long before they got used to the fact that the water never fully ran out of the sink, because the plughole wasn’t at the lowest point. Mrs Bakshi could cope with the fact that the oil always ended up on one side of the pan – she found this charming and enchanting too. At some point, they even thought it handy that every grape they dropped rolled into the same corner.

Once a day, Mr Bakshi hosed down the paving slabs in front of the cottage to wash away the goose muck. For reasons no one understood, the goose’s favourite place to be was right in front of their door. Mr Bakshi was impressed each day by how much mess a single goose could produce. Lady Fiona McIntosh was a wee bit embarrassed that the goose had to choose the area by the washhouse door, of all places, as her new favourite spot, but the Bakshis assured her it didn’t bother them at all. Really, the Lady said, a goose like that wasn’t meant to be alone, it wasn’t good for the creature. But she didn’t want to keep acquiring new geese ad infinitum, just to make sure no one goose was ever alone. So perhaps the goose was just looking for a bit of company.

The Bakshis spent their three weeks mainly doing nothing. They went on a lot of walks – down the drive, past the little gatehouse and through the village, along the side of a field (home, surprisingly enough, to two alpacas), over the small footbridge across the river, back along the riverbank to the next bridge but one, and then back to the house. Or they went up to the left behind the house, passed the ruined chapel, which was hidden somewhat behind a dense thicket of trees, crossed a field of cows, and then arced up to the driveway and made their way back from there. On the way, they picked blackberries or stopped to enjoy the views of the hilly landscape and the Highlands up to the north. They opened gates and stepped in cowpats, climbed over fences and stepped in sheep droppings; they rinsed their shoes in the stream which ran through the valley and washed their hands in it. They marvelled at the sheer number of rabbits, went birdwatching and once even saw a magnificent stag. On a particularly warm day, Lady Fiona showed them a place hidden by trees behind a field of cows where the stream was wider, forming a natural pool which they could swim in. It was cold but beautiful – by swimming gently against the current, you could stay in the same place. The Bakshis laughed with pleasure, dried themselves off swiftly afterwards and got dressed.

Otherwise they read and they watched the goose and the peacocks strutting across the lawn. Mr Bakshi crept persistently after the peacocks trying to photograph them, which turned out to be bafflingly tricky, and Mrs Bakshi crocheted a blanket for the grandchild they were expecting soon, their first.

They were so delighted by everything that on their final evening they invited the McIntoshes to a farewell dinner in the washhouse, at which Mrs Bakshi served the Laird and Lady a spectacular chicken korma. It wasn’t really the done thing to visit the cottages of paying guests, but since the death of the old Laird a few years ago, Hamish and Fiona McIntosh no longer stood on ceremony.

Nonetheless, Lord McIntosh wanted to first of all deal with some formalities that evening. The tourist board was carrying out a statistical survey and all holidaymakers were meant to fill in a questionnaire: how long they’d been in the area, how often they’d been before, how old they were, what sort of accommodation they’d stayed in and so on. A never-ending questionnaire, which Lady Fiona – as the Laird told the Bakshis – sometimes filled in herself, instead of bothering visitors with it. If needs be, she simply made something up. He didn’t think much of this approach, he admitted, but his wife could be almost unstoppable sometimes and was very creative.

Well then, give it here, said Mr Bakshi, and took the questionnaire off the Laird. Mrs Bakshi said people wouldn’t fill it in any more honestly than Lady Fiona anyway, so he needn’t worry about it. She herself basically ticked whatever she found funniest in this sort of thing or wrote down some kind of nonsense. Lady Fiona McIntosh considered this sensible. The ladies felt they understood each other.

Mr Bakshi read out the questions and asked his wife why they had come here and what they had done during their stay. She asked what the options were; there, she said, wildlife watching – that sounded super, that’s what they were here for! They really had seen an owl the other night, she said. Yes, the Laird said, you saw them quite often here. And this, said Mrs Bakshi, action and adventure , another good one! He should tick that too. Indeed, Mr Bakshi told the McIntoshes, they had experienced both of these things that morning – plenty of action and adventure with wildlife , right here in the cottage.

That morning, they explained, they had been woken by a strange noise. Mrs Bakshi had thought it must be birds frolicking about outside on the windowsill, perhaps beating the glass with their wings while they, well, made little baby birds. She had got up and carefully drawn the curtains aside and indeed, there was a blue tit there – not outside the window though, but rather on the inside. It was fluttering against the windowpane in a desperate attempt to get out. The Bakshis asked themselves how the blue tit could have got in, all the windows had been closed overnight. Less for fear of birds than of midges. Lord McIntosh said that sometimes birds actually fell down the chimney and made quite a mess with all the soot they brought in with them. The blue tit looked quite clean though, the Bakshis said. Oh well, at any rate it had been inside, in their bedroom. Mrs Bakshi had pushed open the window, and the blue tit had understood pretty quickly, had fluttered onto the windowsill and then out into the woods. Mrs Bakshi had gone back to bed and left the window open to let in a bit of fresh air.

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