The Nightingale's Nest

by Sarah Harrison

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital-only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe new life into previously published, classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of a good story, narrative and entertainment, and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

  We publish in ebook and print-on-demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

  www.panmacmillan.co.uk/bello

  Contents

  Sarah Harrison

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Copyright

  Sarah Harrison

  Sarah Harrison is the bestselling author of more than twenty-five books. She is best known for her adult fiction, which has included commercial blockbusters such as The Flowers of the Field and A Flower That’s Free (both now re-released, along with the third part of the trilogy, The Wildflower Path). She has also written children’s books and the successful writer’s guide How to Write a Blockbuster, as well as numerous short stories and articles.

  Sarah is an experienced speaker and broadcaster, who has taught creative writing both here in the UK and on residential courses in Italy. She has been a judge for literary and public-speaking competitions, and is also an entertainer – her three-woman cabaret group, Pulsatillas!, has an enthusiastic and ever-growing following.

  Sarah Harrison

  THE NIGHTINGALE’S

  NEST

  For Ollie and Finty

  Chapter One

  One evening in the late summer of 1965 I turned a corner in north London and fell headlong into the past.

  It was like falling in love – swift and overwhelming, a tumultuous mixture of shock and recognition. And I was swept, too, by a piercing realisation of what it had meant to be young, and how long ago that was.

  I hadn’t realised how close I was because I’d approached the area by car from a different direction, without the signs and landmarks I might otherwise have taken into account. Plus, it was the end of a long day, (I’d been to see my mother, now in an old folks’ home), and I was driving on autopilot, anxious to get back. Then suddenly I saw the corner of the road with its elegant red-brick houses, the old-fashioned street lamps, and the trees with the protective iron cutlet-frills around their trunks, the raised pavement curving invitingly away down the hill. I was swamped by a wave of conflicting emotions, and had to pull over.

  The furious gesture of the driver behind was wasted because, unusually for me, my eyes were full of tears. When I’d finally got a grip on myself I parked the car in a side street, got out and began walking. There was no conscious decision; I was simply being drawn, magnetised, back to that place and the time it represented.

  Not so long, perhaps ten years, had passed since I’d last been here, but it was the more distant past that rushed back to claim me. And even after ten years there were differences. It was like meeting other people’s children, whom one hasn’t seen for a while: their parents seem the same – as one does oneself – but the children are proof if proof were needed that any amount of water has flowed under the bridge. Here, the trees which had been scarcely more than saplings had grown tall and leafy, their branches linking hands. Many of the houses had been subjected to tasteful modernisation. There were residents’ parking arrangements in place along one side. Where one road began and the next – what I thought of as ‘my’ road – began, a paved promontory had been put in place, so that they now in effect formed two cul-de-sacs, end to end. The consequent lack of through traffic added to the feeling I remembered so well, that the moment I turned off the main road I entered another world. An invisible curtain seemed to close behind me. I hadn’t just imagined it all those years ago: the air, the light, the atmosphere were different here, sequestered and just a little eerie. These were family houses; there must have been plenty going on this summer’s evening – children playing, teenagers listening to radios, dogs larking about, people eating supper, changing to go out, cutting grass in their back gardens – but for now they were becalmed in the sinking sunshine. I found myself walking softly, conscious of my footsteps.

  Just before I reached Number Seven I crossed to the opposite side of the road, the better to take it all in. Whoever lived there now had not apparently felt pressured by surrounding ‘improvements’ to make many changes. The house was a good deal less spruce than its intensively maintained neighbours, but the impression it gave was not of neglect but of an amiable confidence, as though the occupants, like those before them, felt no need to compete. The small front garden still boasted elder and crab-apple trees, masses of periwinkles (at this time of year no more than a tangle of unchecked greenery), the same untidy beech hedge and two mossy, cracked stone urns on either side of the door, in which had been planted trailing fuchsias, red, white and purple. There were the same iron bell-pull and dolphin door knocker, and the boot-scraper on the front step. There were curtains, but no nets, at all the windows except, I noticed, the one on the top floor. I wondered who slept in that attic room now, under the eyes of all those people; if, indeed, the people were still there.

  I was unsure whether to go and knock on the door – would that be considered rude? And more importantly, if admitted, would I be setting myself up for the sort of anticlimax that all too often accompanies an attempt to revisit the past?

  As I stood there gazing, a car, one of those Mini Mokes that the girls liked so much, drew up at the pavement a few yards beyond me, and a young woman got out, smartly dressed in a short-skirted pink suit and white polo-neck jumper. She glanced at me before locking the car door, and then again as she turned to go in. The glance radiated a cool, public-spirited suspicion and sure enough she asked: ‘Can I help you?’

  Maybe she thought I was a nuisance caller of some sort: a Jehovah’s Witness or a sales rep. I smiled apologetically.

  ‘No – I worked for the people who lived at Number Seven over thirty years ago, and I couldn’t resist taking a look.’

  By any standards, I appeared what I was – a respectable elderly party. This, along with my manner and voice, must have reassured her, for her own manner became less guarded.

  ‘I’m sorry, we’ve only been here a few months.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, how would you know, anyway?’

  ‘I do know the Parkers are away on holiday.’

  I didn’t straight away make the connection. Still, I chanced my arm. ‘Do you think they’d mind if I took a quick look in the garden?’

  ‘Well . . .’ She hesitated, quite properly, for I was a total stranger asking her to take responsibility for my nosiness. ‘I tell you what, why don’t I come over with you, then if one of the neighbours spots us they’ll realise you’re not casing the joint. We all know each other.’

  It was a nuisance, but she was being more than fair. ‘Thank you. I’ll only be a minute.’

  I came down the steps from the raised pavement and together we crossed the road.

  ‘This is very good of you,’ I said. ‘My name’s Pamela Griffe, by the way.’

  ‘Lilia
n Owen. Not at all.’

  As she opened the gate I had a bright idea and took a card from my handbag.

  ‘There. That’s me.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, there’s no need . . .’ She waved it away, blushing slightly, embarrassed to have elicited this proof of identity.

  ‘Please – it will make me feel better about imposing on you.’

  ‘Oh, all right then.’ She took it from me without looking at it, and slipped it in her jacket pocket. We were in the front garden now. ‘Anyway, here we are . . . Is it as you remember?’

  ‘This part is. Surprisingly so.’

  ‘The Parkers are awfully nice. They invited Tom and me over for drinks when we first arrived. Giles was with Wiggins Teape, the paper people, but he’s retired now, they have a grown-up family and a tribe of grandchildren . . . I think they said they inherited the place from a friend, or a relative. Anyway, they liked the place as it was. And once you’ve got used to it it’s rather nice to go into a house that isn’t all stripped pine and Habitat.’

  Now, the penny dropped.

  ‘Giles?’ I said. ‘Giles and Georgina?’

  ‘That’s right!’ She relaxed visibly. ‘Do you know them?’

  ‘I used to know Georgina quite well. A long time ago, as I say, but still . . .’

  ‘What a coincidence – what a shame they’re not here.’

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘I wonder, could we go round to the back garden?’

  ‘I don’t see why not, now we’re here. Especially as you’re an old friend.’

  She motioned me to lead the way; trusting or, perhaps, testing me. A black and white cat miaowed, tail waving, by the flap in the back door.

  ‘Annie,’ said Lilian. ‘Trying it on. Take no notice, next door are feeding her.’

  There was one change, I noticed. The kitchen had been extended in some way, and the door on to the back garden no longer opened from the end of the hall, but from the dining room.

  A moment later, and for the second time that evening I was stopped in my tracks by the powerful force field of the past.

  Lilian must have noticed, for she hung back tactfully. ‘Take your time. I’ll be quite happy perched here. It’s a nice excuse to do nothing for a few minutes.’

  Her earlier suspicion seemed now to have been completely dispelled by my connection with the house’s owners, and the emotional reaction which I could do nothing to disguise. She sat down on the low patio wall and took out her diary, which she began scanning assiduously.

  I murmured my thanks and wandered away from her, conscious of each step, each breath, each headlong heartbeat. Almost nothing had changed. Some of the shrubs had been replaced, but others had grown and spread, and the trees were taller so that the garden was if anything even more secretive than I remembered. I found myself blessing Georgina. We had been as different as two young women could be, but this much we had shared: the magic of the garden.

  Behind me I heard a man’s voice – a neighbour perhaps, briskly enquiring, and Lilian’s soothing reply – but I didn’t even turn round. The garden wasn’t large, but this end of it, now as then, was overgrown and secluded, so I had already become invisible. I followed the winding path I knew was there, barely visible stepping stones set into the rough grass. I had to push aside branches, fronds and twigs, which softly swung closed again behind me, cutting me off. Here a huge spider’s web, a perfect cartwheel of silvery filaments with the speckled owner suspended at its centre, blocked my way. I stepped aside respectfully and negotiated the undergrowth beside the path rather than disturb his filigree flytrap. Now I could see the high wall, covered by a thick shroud of ivy. Breaking against the foot of the wall was a surf of vegetation allowed to grow, and die back, and grow again, to find its own level in the twilight of the tall trees. In early summer, I remembered, bluebells had flourished here.

  And – yes. This was where it had been. I could still pinpoint the very location of the nest, in the far right-hand corner beneath the elm tree. Those of us who’d known about it never had to say that it would be our secret, but it had become so; as if, in protecting the nightingale, we were protecting ourselves.

  There was no sign of it now, but I stood and gazed down at the place, hidden close among the greenery between the grey, muscled roots of the giant tree. So perfect and particular. So safe.

  As I walked back, once more careful not to break the spider’s web, my legs were trembling. Lilian was examining a rose bush as if it were a scientific specimen.

  ‘They’ve got some mildew here . . .’ she murmured. ‘I might pop over with my lethal spray.’ When I made no comment she straightened up and smiled. ‘So – interesting?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  We walked round to the front of the house and out into the street. I felt as though I’d been holding my breath, or under water. As I burst back into the present, everything seemed very clear, and bright.

  ‘Would you like to come in for a moment?’ asked Lilian. ‘Have a quick coffee – or something stronger?’

  I realised I probably looked rather pale. ‘That’s very kind, but I won’t. It’s been a long day and I was on my way home.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’ She glanced around. ‘Were you in a car?’

  ‘I’m parked up near the main road.’

  ‘OK. Goodbye, then.’

  ‘Goodbye.’ I turned to leave, but she had a sudden thought. ‘Oh, I wonder – would you like me to tell the Parkers you were here?’ I hesitated. Would I like that?

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘don’t bother. We’ve been out of touch for so long, you know how it is.’

  Dazzled by tears, I walked away.

  Chapter Two

  Whenever I arrived back at Woodlands, it was with a mixture of satisfaction, astonishment, and anxiety: satisfaction on account of my modest achievement; astonishment that it was still there; and anxiety about what I might find. Today, these sensations were overridden by another more powerful one: the siren song of the past, which haunted and debilitated me so that I could not bring myself to get out of the car but sat and stared, trying to recalibrate myself.

  The name ‘Woodlands’ was picked out in rustic pokerwork lettering on a slice of varnished oak on the gatepost – not that there was any gate. The front door stood open in a risky, symbolic gesture of welcome.

  Perhaps there had been woods in this part of west London a hundred years ago, but not now, or for some time. The house, a three-storey, double-fronted Victorian villa, belonged to a row that stood stranded like out-at-trouser gentry on what had become a brutal dual carriageway, surrounded by utilitarian pre- and post-war development, low-rise offices and filling stations. A couple of hundred yards away stood the grubby red-brick church of St Cuthbert’s, whose doors opened twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays, to admit a dwindling number of faithful, mostly black. The incumbent, Peter Archard, had been in situ for over ten years. He was a clever, exhausted-looking bachelor in his late fifties with the pouchy face and bad colour of a drinker, which may have explained his continued presence in this spiritual wasteland. On arrival he’d called round and expressed the not wholly serious hope that we – ‘the Woodlanders’ as he sardonically called us – might swell the congregation. I told him I considered it unlikely and so it had proved. But there was no doubt he liked and was amused by us. He continued to call round once a fortnight or so, for a late-night glass of whisky and a chat rather than for any charitable or evangelical purpose.

  There had originally been a double garage at Woodlands, testament to the bourgeois heyday of the house, but I’d long since had it converted into a games room. We still had a substantial pull-in off the high road, and this was where I sat for a moment in the hot, toxic London evening with the rush of traffic noise in my ears, trying to find a place in my head to imprison the clamorous ghosts of Crompton Terrace.

  I didn’t get long. Two minutes after I switched the engine off Hannah came out at
the trot, looking harassed, arms folded as though it were cold, or more likely as if stopping herself from knocking someone’s teeth in. She opened the passenger door and got in, slamming the door after her and leaning back panting, like a fugitive seeking sanctuary.

  ‘Thank God you’re back!’ she said. ‘There’s been hell to pay here.’

  It wasn’t that bad; all fairly routine stuff for the current residents of Woodlands. We were a volatile household at the best of times. This afternoon, while I’d been revisiting the past in the form of first my mother, then Crompton Terrace, Doreen had pinched some cigarettes allegedly belonging to Maeve and there had been a spat resulting in Maeve’s being taken – in her glory, I had no doubt – to Outpatients for a stitch in her eyebrow. The wholly unrepentant Doreen had retreated with her contraband to her room and propped a chair under the door handle. Moreover she had done so without baby Kyle, and was refusing to have anything to do with him, responding to all entreaties with a certain brutal logic relayed wincingly to me by Hannah: ‘You cunts take care of him, you’re the fucking do-gooders.’

  It was Dorothy’s day off, and since Josie had accompanied Maeve to Outpatients that had left Hannah singlehandedly looking after four infants – Kyle, Maeve’s baby Jackson, and six-month-old twins Anthony and Arlette, whose mother, Alex, had overdone things on a visit to her own mother the previous evening and was laid low with alcohol poisoning. It was a source of astonishment to Hannah how Alex had managed to get back from Plaistow at all, the state she was in but, like all good shepherds, we did our best to rejoice in the lamb that was missing and was found.

  The other girls, as was often the case when mayhem not of their doing broke out, had kept a low profile, Hannah said. This was not necessarily a good sign. A good fracas provided ideal cover for illicit pot-smoking, drinking and light thieving of the kind which had sparked the trouble in the first place. But at least they had kept their babies with them so that Hannah could give her full attention to the impromptu crèche.