Isabel Bogdan - The Peacock

Not a particularly exciting story in itself, but an hour later they awoke to the same sound again. Stupid creature, flying right back in here, Mr Bakshi had grunted into his pillow. But this time it was a swallow, he told the McIntoshes, and tragically it had got stuck between the two panes of the opened window. It took quite a bit of effort to manoeuvre it out, for the creature had panicked, and when they moved the window, it just got its wings stuck even more. In the end, they used the handle of a wooden spoon to somehow push the bird – by now totally distressed – up between the windowpanes. Mr Bakshi was finally able to catch it and put it on the windowsill, where it flew away out into the air – luckily it wasn’t injured. But it really was peculiar, the Bakshis said, that two birds had behaved so strangely on one and the same morning, just flying into a human dwelling like that. They didn’t normally do that.

Lord McIntosh told them that for a while now a pair of eagles had been nesting somewhere further up in the mountains and that occasionally you could see the eagles from here, mainly far away, high up in the sky. But it did sometimes happen that they came closer and then the birds in the glen always went quite mad. Perhaps that had been the case that morning. First a blue tit mysteriously getting into the house and then a swallow getting stuck between the windowpanes – birds didn’t normally act that oddly.

And so the conversation rippled along and they talked about birds while eating Mrs Bakshi’s delicious chicken korma. Mr and Mrs Bakshi found it all unbelievably interesting and wonderful to be so close to nature, and Hamish and Fiona were pleased their holidaymakers were so happy.

It was at the end of that evening that the peacock went crazy for the first time. Mr and Mrs Bakshi accompanied the McIntoshes to the door, and when they opened it, the light from the hallway fell on the Bakshis’ car. It was metallic blue, glinted in the light and was, to put it mildly, not exactly a luxury vehicle. The four of them were standing by the door and exchanging courtesies when suddenly, as if out of nowhere, one of the peacocks lunged at the car and attacked the vehicle, crying loudly and beating its wings, hammering with a terrible clatter at the hood with its beak, and baffling and startling the McIntoshes just as much as the Bakshis. No one wants to mess with an angry peacock and this one was clearly quite furious. The ladies fled into the cottage and the men had them pass out a blanket, which they shook, yelling at the peacock. This apparently impressed him sufficiently and he flapped away.

The Bakshis and the McIntoshes first of all drank a whisky for the fright. And then another. And then they stopped, because Lady Fiona was, after all, a Lady. Before the McIntoshes left, they turned off the light in the cottage so as not to illuminate the blue car and tempt the angry peacock back again.

The damage to the car, it turned out the next morning, was considerable. The peacock had achieved quite a lot in the short space of time; the car bonnet had dents in it, and the paint was chipped in several places. Mr Bakshi said it wasn’t so bad, his workshop would be able to fix it, and anyway his wife had been saying for years that he really ought to buy a new car. But, well, Mr Bakshi said, he was somehow rather fond of the old thing.

There you go then, said the Laird, for that very reason he’d simply run it through his own insurance. He wanted to cover the damages, of course – and on top of that, the Bakshis were welcome to stay for free in the former washhouse for two weeks next year – that’s if they dared to come back after this attack. He was sure the peacock would have calmed down by then. Who knew, maybe he had been disturbed by the eagle’s presence too? Why this would cause him to attack a car, the Laird wasn’t sure, but who knew what kind of displacement activities a peacock was capable of?

And so the two couples said goodbye with all kinds of assurances that it really wasn’t that bad – the insurance would sort it out, and they’d certainly come to an agreement, and Mr Bakshi should definitely send them the bill, and they’d be delighted to see each other next year.

All of this happened in mid-September. In October, the peacock tore a blue rubbish bag to shreds and spread its contents spaciously across the lawn; took a visiting child’s blue toy away and carried it off into the woods where it couldn’t be found, so that Hamish had to pacify the distraught child with a somewhat larger present in red; and smashed, with considerable noise, the decorative blue ceramic sphere which Fiona had placed next to the pond, hacking it into a thousand little shards.

At the start of November, the little old dog, Victoria, died and was buried in the woods. Albert and the McIntoshes were grieving and had other things on their minds than dealing with the crazy peacock. One day the blue plastic water butt had holes and tears in it and started leaking, while a friend of the McIntoshes was only just able to park his car in the garage in time. Ryszard rescued the blue plastic sheet covering the springs of the trampoline, which stood in a corner of the great lawn, by concealing it under a green sheet. Ryszard, a young Pole, was responsible for everything that went on outdoors. Innumerable acres of land belonged to the estate, almost half the glen, and this land had to be looked after. Ryszard took care of the heather, the woods and the fields; he patched fences, serviced the electrical lines to the cottages, dug ditches with the digger, used machinery to remove fallen trees, and chopped them up to be used as firewood. He also cared for the great lawn in front of the house and dealt with anything technical which Lady Fiona couldn’t manage herself. Ryszard was a great help to Lord and Lady McIntosh and even something of a relief after a few unpleasant experiences with his predecessors. Ryszard could see for himself what needed to be done, he enjoyed working and he worked hard. He didn’t talk much, for even after a few years in Scotland, his English wasn’t particularly good. He was reserved but always friendly and reliable.

By now it was clear that it wasn’t the eagle which so enraged the peacock, but the colour blue. The peacock was still young and had clearly reached the onset of puberty – he had only recently grown his blue plumage and his train still wasn’t particularly long – and the McIntoshes assumed that this was all some kind of adolescent hormonal confusion. The only blue thing the bird didn’t attack was the other peacocks. They were also the only things which fought back. The mating season was over, but they hadn’t noticed the peacock acting strangely then. Nobody knew whether he had mated successfully, and something must have gone wrong. The McIntoshes decided to wait and see whether the problem would clear up on its own over the winter and, if they had the chance, to ask for the vet’s advice. At the moment they just didn’t have time to deal with it – they were expecting important guests.

The management of the investment department of a London private bank had rented the entire west wing for a long weekend at the end of November. The head of the department was travelling with four colleagues, a cook and a psychologist, for Creative Time-Out and Teambuilding Activities – as it was called. Creative, complained Hamish McIntosh, why do bankers need to be creative, thank you very much, perhaps to doctor balance sheets? The McIntoshes sensed from the very first telephone calls with the department secretary (who wouldn’t be coming herself) that the head of the investment department could be somewhat difficult. But she was bringing money. And so they were busy doing up the west wing, for it might have been pretty luxurious a hundred years ago, but that was a hundred years ago. And it was about that long since anyone had come here with their own cook too.