Green woodpecker
Good Morning, Midnight (Reginald Hill Edition)The Green woodpecker is a small but pivotal presence in the garden scene with Lavinia Maciver: the birds draw her visitor away from the house and into an exchange that helps reveal why she has come to see her brother. Their possible nesting activity gives this encounter its gentle, ordinary focus, set against the concealed crisis inside the house.
The Garden Encounter
As the visitor is leaving the house, Lavinia appears through the shrubbery and greets the visitor by noting that the Green woodpeckers are still there. She invites the visitor across the garden to look at a hole in a partly decayed beech tree. Inside, the visitor is shown what Lavinia regards as clear signs of new nesting activity. The account does not independently confirm that the birds are nesting; it records Lavinia’s observation and the visitor’s attention to it.
Lavinia’s Attention to the Birds
Lavinia’s opening remark makes the birds the first subject she shares with the visitor, and her invitation turns a chance meeting into a close look at their possible nesting place. The birdwatching is characteristic of her habitual closeness to birds: once she becomes comfortable, the visitor says, she speaks as though addressing one of the birds with whom she shares her thoughts and feelings. The Green woodpecker therefore belongs to a wider pattern of attention through which Lavinia relates to the world around her.
Role in the Narrative
The garden visit begins as an interruption to the visitor’s departure, but it also provides the setting for a consequential conversation. Lavinia explains that her brother had recently visited in an agitated state, apparently troubled by Kay and Helen’s impending trip to the United States and by his own need to be away on urgent business. He seemed to ask whether Lavinia could look after his household if necessary, then retreated from giving details and turned instead to memories of their childhood at Moscow House. That recollection worried her enough to make the rare visit herself. The Green woodpecker thus marks the quiet entrance to a scene that moves from birdwatching to family unease.
