Mew Cottage

When she saw her husband at the entrance of the courtyard, she ran to the door to welcome him in the garden. The roses were in full bloom. After all day’s sun bathing, the garden smelled of them. But the moment she opened the front door, she got distracted by a small parcel. She had been home all day. There was nobody ringing the bell, was there? When her husband finally reached the door she was in a very different place, forgetting the roses, the garden, the sunny day, the husband she missed all day long and was truly happy to see. She started mumbling with panic… Why did she always panic so easily? Like a little bird who could never learn to fly, forgotten on a thin branch, shaking with fear of even the most natural possibilities, suffocated under heavy anticipation… “I saw you from the window and I wanted to… Wait! What? This is not ours! This is for someone called Audrey. This is not our address. They didn’t even ring the bell!” “I’ll take it. Don’t worry.” “No! What?”

She was surprised. That didn’t feel right at all. She wanted to examine the box. Question it, as much as one can question an inanimate object. “It’s better I do it now” said her husband, “before I take my shoes off. Then I won’t want to go out again.” She looked behind them with an unexpected frustration.

Her mind started racing with full speed. She just had a glance but the address was clearly saying “Andrews House” not “Andrews Place.” That was the first line. They lived in the oldest part of town and because it was under protection, nothing could change there. Nothing ever would. Maybe the postman was new. It was very odd. Who was Audrey? What was in the box? Why did they not ring the bell? The way her husband rushed to take the parcel to Audrey was also odd, wasn’t it? Maybe that was the oddest. He, as anyone who knew him could testify with no guilt in their conscious, was an immovable man. It usually took a lot of determination and a lot of explanation. It was unbelievable how quickly he was out of her sight. She found the whole incident quite perplexing. It was a beautiful early autumn evening: Dry, windless, not too cold, full of roses and golden light. There was a bright display of deep yellows, reddish oranges and a few dark pink clouds against a warm blue sky… She was not appreciating any of it, her mind completely elsewhere. The parcel was in her hands just a minute ago. It was not too big, not too small, a nice little cube; perfectly hand sized. It was disturbing to see it going away without a chance to examine properly; to make an educated guess about the content; to try to discover the secrets it hid; to produce conspiracy theories about why and how Audrey’s perfectly cubical precious parcel ended up at their doorstep between the mat and the pot. It was gone. Why on earth did he have to run like somebody’s chasing? Without giving it another thought? Since I’m already dresses and already outside… He said. She was sad. That was the kind of heavy sadness of losing something dear. She didn’t know why. It didn’t make any sense.

…

The second parcel came just enough days after the first one was totally forgotten. This one looked exactly same size and form, seemed to have come from the same source. This time she sensed it. She knew somebody came and left something at the door. She neither heard nor saw anything but she knew. She went to the door and as she opened it, there it was, at the same exact spot, waiting to spend some quality time with her, before anyone could get their hands on it. But this one was badly deformed as if beaten up or maybe even kicked around and stepped on. There was no corner left intact. Audrey’s fallen parcel, which, one would be inclined to imagine, was once perfect like the first one. Despite all her curiosity, she was shy. Could she shake it, hoping for a definitive sound? Or should she try to squeeze it in her hands hoping to feel the form. It was cloudy and windy. The light was changing instantly. Light greys followed by dark greys and patches of blue. The waves were wild. She could hear them. She had not walked down the little slope to see the sea but it was certainly one of these days that the waves climbed over the harbour’s stone wall and seaweed rained on the curbs of the main street. She thought she should take the parcel to Audrey’s just like her husband did. But she didn’t want to. She sat with the mysterious parcel for a while.

When her husband came home, she told him that she was going out the next morning anyway and she could drop it. As she spoke, she watched his every move, no detail was trivial. She couldn’t find anything suspicious. Was that good or bad? Wouldn’t it be nice to find out what was happening, even if it meant having to face an irreparable disaster? He told her that the cottage was behind the big white building; that it might be difficult to find, if you didn’t know where to look.

She wanted to see Audrey. An Audrey in a Mew Cottage whose parcels were determined to come to her house even though the address seemed correct… Was she doing this herself? Was there a story behind it? Was it just an honest mistake? What would Audrey do if she were her?

She barely slept, while losing more sleep over the fact that she was losing sleep over this. It was Saturday, of all days. One was supposed to oversleep on weekends. When she finally decided that it was acceptable to get up, she quickly did and put some outdoor clothes on. Her husband was still fast asleep. She was hoping to catch Audrey off guard, wake her up before she goes out for a stroll or to run errands or even find the time to properly leave the magical world of dreams. This was when a person was most vulnerable, most themselves, open and honest. She was almost forgetting to take the parcel with her. She walked fast.

What an ugly building it was. There was nothing nice about the Andrews House: Not a colour, not a form nor a proportion. It had no character, no focus, no aesthetic value. Its mere existence was so painful that one wanted to immediately forget ever seeing it. She turned right as her husband told her to. There was indeed a small sign nailed to the side of the building but it was only visible after you managed to burst your way through a thick vine that was completely hiding the gap. A few more steps…

There it was: Mew Cottage. A tiny little nook populated by dozens of pots, hanging baskets, plants, fake flowers, crystals, glass jars, bottles, rocks and driftwood. A dark turquoise cottage with a pale orange window and door. An inward corner of deep shadows and bright light, that surrounds and hugs you as soon as you enter. It looked neglected. It looked as though nobody touched it for many years. She was walking towards the door slowed by all the weight of her heavy curiosity, it was hard to believe she was moving at all. Audrey couldn’t go anywhere, she could take her time now.

She could feel and hear her heart pounding when she finally decided to knock on the door. Audrey wasn’t home. She left the parcel and stood there soaking up every little thing from the broken door handle to the shape of the bell with utmost curiosity. And only after leaving the parcel on the ground she realised that the address wasn’t correct. The name of the street was wrong. Audrey was not living on High Street East, she lived on High Street. High Street East was her street. That was why postmen were confused. She desperately looked for something to write a note with. There was none. How did she not see this before? Even though she couldn’t write her a note, this felt good… at first. A weight lifted off her shoulders, she said to herself and she wanted to believe it. She tried to imagine that she was bouncing away from the Mew Cottage with a mystery solved; that she went shopping and forgot it ever happened. But she was sad. She had hoped for a deeper mystery, to make up for all the banality of her mystery-less existence. She had wanted a torrent of inexplicable happenstances that would land her on a different life much better than hers, full of breath-taking adventures, surrounded by the coolest of companies, her heart filled with magical love. A love that was worthy of a mysterious Audrey. Not her… An ordinarily well-known and shockingly monotonous her. Audrey, Sandy, Barbara, Morag… Anybody but her… Someone new.