How the Penguins Saved Veronica

by Hazel Prior

  “Housewife” does not mean you are married to a house. It means you are a woman who is married to a husband and your husband goes off to work every day and you don’t go off to work at all but embark on house dusting, house hoovering and various ironing and washing duties and other things that happen in a house, and in fact you aren’t really expected to go out of the house at all except to get yourself to a supermarket and then you go up and down the aisles with a trolley and a list looking sad. What a lot of things are embedded in that housewife word.

  “It’s funny,” she mused, her eyes wandering around the barn again. “Harp playing was on my list.”

  I asked if she meant her shopping list.

  She paused and looked at me with arched eyebrows. “No, my before-forty list. Lots of people have them, apparently. You know—the list of things to do before you reach the age of forty. Like swimming with dolphins and seeing the Great Wall of China.”

  I asked if she had swum with dolphins and she said no. I asked if she had seen the Great Wall of China and she said no. Then she added that she had a few years to go yet. I asked her how many, but she didn’t answer. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked her that. There are lots of things you are not supposed to ask, and I fear that might be one of them. So I changed my question and asked her what would happen if she didn’t manage to swim with dolphins or see the Great Wall of China or play the harp before she reached the age of forty. She said, “Nothing.”

  We were silent for a bit.

  “It smells lovely in here,” she commented finally. “I love the smell of wood.”

  I was glad she had noticed it because most people don’t, and I was glad that she appreciated it because most people don’t. Then she gestured toward the harps. “They’re utterly exquisite,” she said. “Will you tell me something about them?”

  I told her yes. I informed her that they are Celtic-style traditional harps and they would have been fairly widespread in Britain during the Middle Ages, especially in the north and west. I told her I had carved the Elfin from my own design out of the sycamore tree that had fallen by the brook four years ago. I mentioned that I had made the Sylvan from ancient beech and the Linnet from rosewood. I showed her the drawers of strings and explained about the red ones being Cs, the black ones being Fs and the white ones being As, Bs, Ds, Es and Gs. I told her about each one being a different thickness and the importance of tension. I showed her the holes in the back and how they were anchored inside. I explained the use of the levers for sharpening the note. I told her about the pebbles. I gave her a couple of pieces of wood so that she could hold them and compare the weight. I expanded on the different resonances of different woods.

  Then I realized that I had not asked very much about her, so I stopped telling her things and I asked the following eight questions: How are you? Do you have any pets? What is in your enormous shoulder bag? What is your favorite color? What is your favorite tree? Where do you live? Do you enjoy being the Exmoor Housewife? Would you like a sandwich?

  She answered me the following answers: fine, thank you; no; a big camera and a notepad and a thermos with soup; red; birch; about five miles southwest of here; um; that would be very nice.

  I made twelve sandwiches using six slices of bread and substantial quantities of cream cheese. I cut them into triangles because I reckoned she was a lady.

  I’ve noticed that the act of cutting always helps me think. I do some good thinking when I cut up wood to make harps too. That might have been why, over the triangles of the sandwiches, I came to a decision.

  • 2 •

  Ellie

  “He gave you one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Well, pretty much.”

  Clive lowered the motoring magazine and transferred his full attention to my face. His eyebrows drew together and two deep vertical creases appeared between them.

  “I presume you’re having me on?”

  “No,” I said, and added a “Not” to underline it.

  “So he offered, and you just took it?”

  “Well, it was . . . it was hard to say no.”

  This was going to be tricky. I couldn’t explain it to myself, let alone offer an explanation to anyone else. Which was why I’d been driving around Exmoor for the last half hour—with frequent stops to look in the back of the car and check that it was true—before I finally headed homeward.

  Our nice but nosy neighbor Pauline was out in her garden, so I had gone straight in. I had launched myself into the kitchen. I’d swept a brief kiss into my husband’s receding hairline. I’d sought out the kettle, filled it to the brim, spurted myself with water in the process and abandoned it. Then I’d blurted out a tangle of sentences that sounded frothy and ridiculous. I’d blushed, become aware of it, and blushed some more. Now I stood limply grinning by the fridge.

  Clive closed the magazine and tugged at the neck of his sweatshirt. “Sorry, El, but I have to ask: Exactly how long have you known this man?”

  My mind traveled back to the strange encounter of earlier: the huge open door of the barn that had enticed me in, the warm scent of wood, the light falling on the myriad harps, and there, in the center of them all, the lone figure. There had been some sort of tool in his hand, but already my memory was playing tricks on me and I couldn’t say what it was. He had initially appeared to be an alien. His lower face was covered by some sort of blue mask and he was wearing earmuffs, presumably protection from sawdust and machinery noise. But the minute he’d taken them off, I was struck by the beauty of the man. He was tall and sinewy with dark, disheveled hair. Although his skin looked weather-beaten, there was a strange translucent quality about it. His face was classically sculpted, as if a great deal of thought had gone into every line and curve. But it was his huge, dark eyes that really claimed my curiosity. I’d never seen eyes like that before.

  “I only met him the first time this morning.”

  Clive was as nonplussed as I’d been an hour earlier. He leaned forward, his expression wavering between amusement and disbelief. “I don’t get it.”

  I laughed manically. Explanations swam round in my head, but not one of them was managing to formulate itself into words.

  Clive was clearly preparing to escort me to the nearest asylum.

  “Come and look,” I tried. Once he saw it, surely he would be as enthusiastic as I was?

  I led him outside into the bright chill of the September air. Pauline, I gratefully noticed, had disappeared. The car was still unlocked. I flung open the rear door. Clive’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

  “Ah!” I cried in a voice that was half irony, half relief. “So I wasn’t hallucinating!”

  It’s a good thing we have a hatchback and seats that go down. I stood back to allow my husband a thorough examination.

  The harp was carved out of red-gold wood (cherry, Dan had told me, to go with my socks). It had a lovely soft sheen and there was a marbled swirl in the graining at the joint where it would rest against my shoulder. A light Celtic pattern was carved along the sweep of the neck, and embedded in the wood at the crest was a shiny blue-black pebble. Apparently Dan always puts an Exmoor pebble into his harps. Each pebble is carefully chosen to complement the style and character of the instrument. This harp—my harp—was a lovely size, just as high as my waistline when it was standing. Now it was lying on one side, nestled cozily on the tartan rug in the back of the car.

  Clive knocked at the wood of the soundboard with his knuckles as if to check it was real. “But this is quality craftsmanship!”

  “I know,” I said, smug now, almost proud of Dan. “He’s been making them all his life.”

  “This would cost—what—two thousand pounds? Three? More, even, if it’s all handmade. Look at the carving along the top.”

  “The neck. It’s called the neck. Apparently.”

 
; Clive was scrutinizing as only Clive can scrutinize. “It’s—well, I have to say it’s pretty cool! But, honeybun, there’s no way you can keep it. You do know that, don’t you?”

  The voice of logic. It came hurtling through my haze of surreal, heady joy, and it stung. “Of course I do,” I mumbled.

  Clive straightened and shook his head. “The guy must be insane.”

  I sprang to his defense. “He’s definitely not insane. But he’s a little . . . unusual.”

  “That’s a cert! What could have possessed him? A woman he doesn’t know from Adam comes waltzing into his workshop one day and, on the spur of the moment, he decides to give her—to give her—nothing less than a harp. A handmade harp that took him God knows how long to construct. Sell, fair enough, I could understand sell, but give? Even the materials must have set him back a bit. Come on, hon, get real! You must have misunderstood. He must have meant you to pay.”

  “No, he didn’t. He made that quite clear.”

  Clive frowned, unable to comprehend such a concept. “Well then, I guess he gave it to you to try out, hoping for a sale, and you completely got the wrong end of the stick.”

  “I didn’t! Look, I told him about fifteen times I couldn’t possibly accept it. He just didn’t get it. He kept asking why not—and he was so . . . I don’t know, so open, so well-meaning, that I felt stupid and couldn’t think of an answer. Then he said, ‘Don’t you like the harp?’ He sounded really hurt.”

  “He sounded hurt? El, I think you’re pushing it a bit.”

  “No, I swear it’s true! And then he started pacing through the barn, hunting for another, better one to give me! So I had to tell him it was a lovely harp. I had to tell him I loved the harp. And it’s true. How could I not? But I said again and again I’d never be able to play it and it would be wasted on me, and I kept on protesting.” I leaned over and gazed lovingly at my gift. “While I was protesting he just carried it to the car and put it in.”

  My mind leaped back again. I had felt so touched by the man’s extraordinary gesture. I had not been able to resist plucking a few strings, as the harp lay there on its side in my car. I did it badly, of course, never having done such a thing in my life before, but the sound was rich, wild and resonant. It had a strange effect, like a shower of golden sparks soaring inside me.

  “Good,” Dan had said. “You can cross it off your list now.” He had walked quickly back into the barn and shut the door behind him.

  I had stared at the door for a long time.

  Today, of all days. After all my wandering and crying and remembering.

  Clive’s voice jolted me back to the present. “Look, El, I’m afraid it’s going to have to go back.”

  The words bore down on me with their dull weight of common sense. Of course he hadn’t realized what day it was today, and what that meant for me. I probably should have reminded him, but my stubborn streak wouldn’t let me.

  “I know. You’re right,” I said, trying to sound as if I didn’t care.

  He was rubbing a hand over his brow. “I’d love to buy it for you, hon, really I would. But it would be way too pricey. And you’d get bored of it pretty soon anyway. You’ve never shown any interest in playing a musical instrument before, after all.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “And we can’t be in this man’s debt. It would be taking advantage.”

  I put my hand on his arm. “I know it would. I never should have accepted. I’m sorry I was so stupid. It was one of those crazy moments. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “I don’t either!” he said.

  Then I made myself say: “Well, do you want to come with me to return it? I think you’d be interested to see the place. It’s a converted barn at the end of a long lane, right out in the wilds, and it’s full, totally full of harps—and bits of harps. You can see them at every stage in their creation. It’s really fascinating.”

  Clive scanned my face as if there was something there he didn’t recognize. “How did you find it?”

  “I just discovered it by chance. It’s not signposted or anything, but I thought I’d go up the lane and see where it led. I had an idea there might be a nice view or something. I never expected to find a harp workshop. I certainly never dreamed I’d come back home with a harp.”

  “The guy’s a nutter!” Clive declared. “Or else he fancies the pants off you. Either way, it would be wrong to keep the thing.”

  I promptly removed my hand from his arm. All that remained of the magic had now been shattered.

  “I don’t think my pants come into it!” I snapped. “But you’re right, I should return it.” I slammed the rear hatch shut. Clive is a big man and I am used to him towering over me, but at that moment I was feeling exceptionally small. “I’ll take it back now. There’s no point in even getting it out of the car really, is there?” I was struggling to control the bitter twang in my voice. “Are you coming?”

  He shook his head again. Sometimes his lack of curiosity amazes me.

  “No, I think I’ll leave it to you. If I go with you, it might look as if I forced you to take it back. It’ll make me look like the wicked ogre. You go, hon, and don’t forget to make it clear it’s your choice, and you’ll have nothing more to do with it. OK, love?”

  The “OK, love” did not make it any easier. I was in no mood to be OK-loved. But I got into the car and I drove up the hill and back the way I’d come, to the Harp Barn.

  • 3 •

  Dan

  She brought it back. I was sad. I guess giving away a harp is one of those many, many things you are not supposed to do.

  Why can’t I give her the harp? She likes the harp. She wants the harp. Isn’t it my harp to give? I made it with my own hands, with my own wood, with the help of my own saws and glue and plane and sander. I want to give her the harp. She seems to think I must want money for the harp and says she is so sorry, but, much as she’d love to, she really isn’t in a position to buy it. I don’t want money for the harp. Not at all. If she gave me money for the harp it wouldn’t be a gift, would it? She would not value it as much. I want it to be valued. I want it to be valued by her, the Exmoor Housewife, because she has harp playing on her before-forty list and what’s the point in having a list if you don’t do the things written on it? It is a good harp, made of cherrywood. Cherry is not her favorite tree, birch is her favorite tree, but I do not have any harps made of birch. Still, I think she likes cherry too. It is a warm and friendly wood. And she was still wearing those cherry-colored socks.

  “Thank you, Dan . . . for your incredible kindness. I’m really sorry. I’ve been so stupid, so unreasonable.”

  I wished she would stop shuffling her feet about.

  “I’m sorry to mess you around and change my mind. I’m sorry I took the harp in the first place.”

  I wished she would stop saying she was sorry.

  “It was very wrong of me.”

  It wasn’t. It wasn’t. It wasn’t wrong. No.

  But what could I do?

  I carried the harp back to the barn from the back of her car. She followed me in. I placed the harp on the floor, in the middle patch of the three patches of light cast by the three windows, in the center of everything. She put herself beside it, sniffing and shuffling. The other harps stood around, hushed and pale.

  “I only took it because my head isn’t working properly,” she told me.

  I glanced at her head. It looked all right to me.

  “You see, it’s an important anniversary today.”

  I wished her a happy anniversary.

  “No, not that sort of anniversary. It’s actually, well . . . my father died a year ago today.”

  I said I was sorry about that. It is a sad thing when your father dies. I should know.

  She cleared her throat. “I still miss him so much.”

 
I asked if she’d like another sandwich.

  She shook her head. “We were very close,” she said. “Even closer when he got ill. I used to sit and read to him when he couldn’t get out of bed anymore, and I remember him lying there, listening and looking into my face. Then one day, toward the end, he said something to me that I just keep on thinking about.”

  It was hard for me to look at her face so I focused on the socks. But out of the corner of my eye I could see her left hand. Her palm was creeping up the back of the harp, stroking it with the lightest touch. Then it moved away slightly and floated in the air. Her fingers hovered beside the strings like a restless butterfly.

  It seemed to me that the thing her father had said must be very important or she would not be acting so strangely. But I didn’t need to ask what it was because that was exactly what she told me next.

  “He said I sometimes gave him the impression I was drifting, just drifting along. And he said that wasn’t surprising, as he’d done a good bit of drifting and dreaming himself. But it might be an idea to clarify and think about what I wanted. I should pick a dream, any dream, any one of the hundreds, and just try and see if I could make it come true. Just one. Realistically, one could be possible, if I tried hard enough. Because he didn’t want me to come to the end of my life full of regrets. And I shouldn’t leave it too long, because you never knew when . . . He was talking about himself, you see . . . So after that I made my before-forty list because I had a whole load of dreams and needed to narrow them down a bit. I was remembering and pondering it this morning, and then, just as I was thinking about the list and how I hadn’t done a single thing on it . . . I stumbled across your lovely barn.”

  Her voice sounded odd, as if she had stuffed rags down her throat. “I probably won’t call in again,” she said.

  Sometimes I do the things I am not supposed to do. Sometimes I say the things I am not supposed to say, even when I realize.

  I pointed at the harp. “Play it,” I said.

  “I can’t,” she murmured. But her hand stayed hovering by the strings.