Song of the Skylark

by Erica James

  ‘Maybe you just haven’t met the right friend yet. But you’re wrong, it’s not Ellis who’s the lucky one; it’s me. He befriended me at college when others shunned me.’

  ‘Why were you shunned?’

  ‘Because of my surname, Bloomberg,’ he said simply.

  It was a few seconds before she understood what he meant. She then wished she could snatch back her question. How gauche he must think her! And what would he think if he knew that her grandmother habitually ranted about Jews taking over the country?

  ‘Prejudice has no place in a civilised society,’ she said, trying to make good her clumsiness.

  ‘You’re right, but prejudice is on the march. Nowhere is it more obvious than in Nazi Germany, where many believe there is no future for German Jews.’

  ‘Is that really true?’

  He nodded. ‘A friend of mine saw for himself what happened on Kristallnacht last November when Hitler’s thugs waged war on the Jewish people. Do you know what Goering said after that awful night of mass murder? He grumbled at the cost of replacing so much smashed glass. He said that more Jews should have been killed and less glass broken. For some, that’s the world they want to live in.’

  Clarissa shuddered at Artie’s words, words uttered not with angry outrage, but with quiet, unnerving conviction. She had heard about the Night of Broken Glass in Germany, but to her shame she hadn’t fully taken it in; she had been too preoccupied with her mother’s death. Now Artie made her realise just how little she knew of the world beyond her sheltered upbringing.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve spoilt the mood of the night for you,’ Artie said, just as the music came to a stop and they let go of each other to applaud the band. ‘Ellis often grumbles that I’m too serious.’

  ‘You haven’t spoilt anything,’ she replied, ‘far from it. But you have made me think, and that’s good.’

  The band started playing again. It was an Al Bowlly song, one of Clarissa’s favourites – ‘Love is the Sweetest Thing’.

  ‘If I promise not to become too serious again, would you dance with me once more?’ Artie asked her.

  ‘I’d love to,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying,’ he said, after he’d taken her in his arms again, ‘you don’t seem very American.’

  ‘That might be because my mother was English and I was born in France, but my father was American, so I’m what you’d call a mixed bag.’

  ‘That would explain it, then. My maternal and paternal grandparents are a mixture of Polish, Hungarian, Austrian and German, so I’m the same as you, a mixed bag.’

  She smiled. ‘Betty told me that you’re a writer – what sort of thing do you write?’

  ‘I’m going into journalism after my visit to Europe, but writing a novel is what I really want to do.’

  ‘My father wanted to be a novelist, but unfortunately his family had other ideas.’

  ‘Did he ever have anything published?’

  ‘Short stories and pieces for magazines and the newspapers when we were living in France. He died some years ago. He – he shot himself.’ Clarissa swallowed, shocked at what she’d revealed. As laid down by Grandma Ethel, it had been a strict rule that the manner in which Clarissa’s father died was never referred to. ‘And you’re the first person I’ve ever told that to,’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Looking back on it,’ Clarissa continued, ‘he must have been so very unfulfilled. He wanted a different life to the one expected of him. I hadn’t thought of it before, but maybe that’s part of why I’m making this trip. I have to go where my heart leads me.’

  Artie nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’d recommend you never lose that simple sense of purpose. Always follow your heart.’

  ‘I intend to. Which is what my mother did when she left England and married my father. Funnily enough, she also wrote, and in many ways she was more successful than my father.’

  ‘Tell me more.’

  Clarissa told him about the weekly column Fran had written, and of her death last year and the main reason for making this trip. Artie Bloomberg was, she realised, so very easy to talk to.

  When once again the music came to a stop, he put a hand to the small of her back and steered her away from the dance floor. ‘See,’ he said, ‘you relaxed perfectly while we were talking and had no problem in dancing with me.’

  ‘That’s because you were such a good teacher,’ she replied with a smile.

  He smiled too and led her to where Ellis was still standing at the bar.

  ‘What a fine couple you make,’ Ellis said, raising his glass at them. ‘But when, I want to know, am I to be rewarded with a dance with the lovely Clarissa? Why does Artie get to dance with you all the time?’

  Artie laughed. ‘Two dances, Ellis; how does that manifest itself into “all the time”?’

  ‘Feels that way, stuck here as I have been on my own.’

  ‘Where’s Effie?’ asked Artie, looking around them.

  ‘Her father wanted a word with her,’ Ellis said with a roll of his eyes. Then, draining his glass and putting it down on the bar, he thrust out his hand to Clarissa. ‘Care to risk a canter around the dance floor with me?’

  ‘Only if you’re patient enough, or maybe brave enough, to cope with my two left feet.’

  ‘Challenging my courage, are you? I’ll let you into a secret: we’ll have four left feet between us, which makes us a perfect match, I’d say.’

  Once they were on the dance floor, he took hold of her and not at all in the same gentle way Artie had.

  ‘Tell me three interesting things about yourself that you think I should know,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Goodness,’ she said, trying to sound nonchalant, ‘only three things interesting about me?’ Darned if she could think of a single one!

  ‘Don’t prevaricate,’ he said tersely, tightening his hold on her, and at the same time stepping on her foot and not apologising. ‘I can’t bear it when people do that.’

  Feeling the strength of him through his hands, anger seized hold of her. How dare this appallingly self-satisfied man think he could tell her what to do? ‘The first thing you need to know about me,’ she said, drawing on all her skill to sound offhand, ‘is that I bruise tremendously easily, so please don’t step on my toes again.’

  ‘It would help if you didn’t get them in my way,’ he replied.

  ‘Do you ever apologise?’ she asked.

  ‘Only when I deem it absolutely essential.’

  ‘And barging into me on the sun deck earlier today didn’t warrant an apology?’

  He leaned back from her, his green eyes seeming to glow in the subdued lighting. ‘It’s how I get beautiful girls to notice me. And you did notice me, didn’t you?’

  ‘You arrogant swine, you!’

  He laughed. ‘That’s more like it; it’s good to see some real emotion from you instead of a cool, buttoned-down reserve. I can’t stand artifice in a person.’

  ‘There’s an awful lot you can’t stand, isn’t there?’

  ‘For which I feel neither the need to apologise nor justify. Ah, I see Effie’s finally shaken off her father and returned to the fold.’

  Following his gaze, Clarissa saw Effie going over to join Artie at the bar. Without thinking, she said, ‘Effie’s so beautiful, isn’t she?’

  ‘Oh, please, don’t go all starry-eyed on me, anything but that. And don’t do it around Effie. She has enough people bolstering her ego as it is. What she needs are real friends who tell her the truth, no matter how painful; friends she can rely upon.’

  ‘And are you a real friend to her?’

  ‘I like to think so, yes. I’m the sort to say to her, “Effie, darling, much as we love you, we’re all tired of struggling in the glare of your brilliance when underneath it all you
’re just plain old Effie from Baltimore.”’

  Yes, thought Clarissa, she didn’t doubt for a minute this blunt-speaking man wouldn’t hesitate to be brutally honest and remind Effie of where she’d come from. Effie Chase’s humble beginnings had been well documented over the years, as had her parents’ determination that she would one day be a big star.

  ‘Tell me what you’re going to do when you arrive in England,’ Ellis said, after once more their feet collided.

  ‘I shall take the train to London and stay with my godmother, who I’ve never met before. She was my mother’s best friend while growing up and we’ve kept in touch.’

  ‘And what will you do in London? Enjoy the life of a socialite?’

  Was he making fun of her? Condemning her as being incapable of doing anything of any real worth or purpose? ‘I shall find a job and do something useful with my—’

  ‘A job?’ he interrupted with heavy sarcasm. ‘What sort of job? What are you trained to do, other than travel first class aboard one of the finest ships ever built?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ she retorted sharply, ‘but I can promise you I will not spend my time in England being idle. I plan to do something worthwhile with my life.’

  ‘Good for you, well said!’

  ‘I assure you I don’t need your approbation.’

  ‘I’m certain you don’t,’ he said, with what she saw was a glint of amusement in his eyes, ‘but perhaps in a rare moment of idleness you might like to have dinner with me when I’m in London. I don’t know when that will be as yet, but I shall be staying at the Ritz in Mayfair.’

  ‘I might, if I’m not too busy,’ she replied coolly. Then wanting to play him at his own game, she said, ‘In the meantime, why don’t you tell me three interesting things about yourself which you think I ought to know.’

  ‘Aha, turning the tables, I see. Well, there’s only one thing you have to know about me and that’s it’s people who matter to me. Not the charlatans of this world who suck up to a fellow because he has a few dollars in his pocket, but true friends who’d be your friend with or without the dollars.’

  ‘Like Artie?’

  He narrowed his eyes and stared at her. ‘Yes. Exactly like Artie.’

  The next morning, when the ship was pitching and heaving as if trying to tip its passengers overboard into the grey, roiling sea, Clarissa discovered she had a cast-iron stomach. It was Marjorie – the self-lauded seasoned traveller and expert sailor – who woke victim to what she referred to as a touch of mal de mer.

  ‘I’ve never suffered like this before,’ she told Clarissa after breakfast had been brought to their cabins by their steward. ‘All I can conclude is that this dreadful ship is not up to the task of providing a smooth passage. Or,’ she added with a sickly grimace, staring at her untouched tray of breakfast, ‘I ate something last night which did not agree with me. Perhaps you would be so good as to summon the doctor.’

  The doctor’s verdict was that, along with many other passengers, the rough Atlantic had got the better of Marjorie’s well-travelled stomach; he recommended she stay in bed and, if possible, try to eat an apple.

  He congratulated Clarissa on having a fine pair of sea legs, and went on his way. She was smiling at the remark when she went for a walk on the sun deck.

  With a headscarf tied firmly under her chin to keep her hair from whipping at her face, and her coat buttoned up to her neck, she stared out at the savage swell of the sea, forcing herself to face it, fighting the instinct to turn away from the thrashing cauldron that was as grey as the stormy sky that was swallowing up the horizon. Tempestuous waves as big as buildings crashed violently against each other, spewing out eruptions of foam that were sent flying in the ferocious wind. After a while it became almost mesmerising to watch the turbulence, as though she were staring death in the face, defying it to do its worst.

  How strange it was to be quite literally in the middle of nowhere, she reflected, and with no more than a handful of other passengers on deck with her, none of whom had the slightest notion who she was. The same would be true when she arrived in England. With this thought came the unexpected idea that she could reinvent herself – she could be anybody she wanted to be. She could shake off the old Clarissa Allerton of her childhood and become a woman of her choosing. Just as Effie had reinvented herself from the girl from Baltimore to Effie Chase, famous child star.

  The more she thought about it, the more she liked the prospect of deciding on a new persona for herself, a persona she would have in place by the time she reached London. She would be more sophisticated, and more assertive and confident. That way she would be regarded as a strong, independent young woman who knew her mind. But wasn’t that what Betty had said of her last night during dinner? Maybe that was how people already saw her. If that was true, then she had to start believing it herself.

  By coincidence she found herself standing in the exact same spot where she had stood yesterday afternoon when she had waved goodbye to the Manhattan skyline. But now she felt no sadness, only the thrill of all that lay ahead for her in England.

  Hearing her name being called above the crash and roar of the sea, she turned to see the slight figure of Effie, coming towards her swathed in a fur coat, battling against the wind. ‘I thought it was you,’ she said breathlessly, when she staggered to a stop next to Clarissa. ‘Isn’t this a hoot!’ She had to shout to be heard above the wind.

  Clarissa nodded. ‘It’s breathtaking. Quite literally.’

  Effie smiled and grabbed hold of Clarissa just as the ship gave a violent pitch and roll. ‘I love it because it makes me feel so insignificant. I’m no more than a scrap of puny flesh and bones, while out there,’ she raised a gloved hand to point into the stormy distance, ‘nature reigns supreme.’ She turned to Clarissa, her eyes bright. ‘It’s important to be reminded of that sometimes, isn’t it?’

  Clarissa nodded her agreement. ‘It’s good to be reminded that we’re all mortal,’ she shouted back and then, with a laugh that was whipped away on the wind, she added, ‘although maybe Ellis is the exception to that.’

  Effie smiled at her. ‘How clever of you to understand his godlike status already. He walks among us mere mortals, but he’s made of very different stuff. He likes you.’

  ‘You say that as though there’s a reason he shouldn’t.’

  ‘Ellis is very selective when it comes to making friendships.’

  ‘I don’t know whether to be honoured or concerned.’

  ‘Be neither. He’s a soft-hearted bear beneath the claws and teeth. He’s the way he is because of his horrid mother. She’s a monster with a heart of stone. But then, so many are. I guarantee you’ll grow to love him, just as Artie and I do.’

  ‘You’re assuming I’ll see him again.’

  ‘You will. I know it. Just as I know we’re going to be the best of friends. Do you have someone in whom you can confide all your darkest secrets?’

  Clarissa shook her head.

  ‘Me neither. I’ve always—’ But her words were snatched away by a powerful gust of wind that buffeted them together, nearly knocking them off their feet. Holding onto each other, they threw back their heads and laughed. Clarissa couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed so freely or so happily.

  Chapter Sixteen

  On her way home from Woodside and freewheeling down a long, sloping stretch of clear road, the warm breeze against her face, Lizzie was surprised by how much she had enjoyed her afternoon shift. Okay, she could have done without tripping over that idiot gardener, but any day that ended with cake was not a bad day in her book.

  It had been the newest resident’s eighty-ninth birthday, and with everybody gathered in the sitting room to sing happy birthday to Mr Sheridan as Mrs Park brought in an impressively large cake decked out with a gazillion candles, Lizzie had to admit that she’d been oddly moved by the sight of
the old gentleman eagerly blowing out the candles; he’d looked to be having such a good time. No one from his family was there – both of his sons and their families lived overseas, but they had sent plenty of cards and presents.

  When the cake was cut Jennifer had suggested Lizzie take a piece of cake out to Jed, the gardener, saying it was a tradition that all members of staff shared in the celebrating of a resident’s birthday.

  ‘You haven’t poisoned it, have you?’ Jed had asked, regarding the plate suspiciously.

  ‘You’ll have to try it and see,’ Lizzie had said, at the same time trying to figure him out. Clearly Jennifer didn’t think he was a madman, but Lizzie was yet to be convinced.

  ‘Oh well,’ he’d remarked with a shrug, taking a mouthful of cake, ‘here’s to living dangerously.’ The first mouthful eaten, he’d said, ‘Just in case I die in the next five minutes, I’d like my last words to be an apology. I’m sorry I was flippant when you fell over me earlier. You’ll have to excuse my sense of humour; it can be a bit off sometimes. Are you all right now? No bones broken?’

  ‘Nothing broken,’ she’d replied.

  ‘So, apology accepted?’

  ‘Apology accepted,’ she’d confirmed, before turning to go back up to the house.

  The downhill slope now behind her, Lizzie resumed pedalling, passing the golden fields of wheat either side of her. She had just followed the bend in the road that would take her to Great Magnus, when she heard her mobile ringing from inside her rucksack. Her heart leapt – Curt! She immediately stopped pedalling and squeezed hard on the brakes. Oh, please let it be Curt and not some automated voice informing her that she was entitled to a grant to insulate her loft.

  Jumping off her bike, she wrenched the rucksack from her back and rummaged inside for the phone. When she saw the caller ID, she could have danced for joy; it was Curt! And at the sound of his voice, she couldn’t stop a rush of questions tripping off her tongue. ‘How’s your holiday going?’ she asked. ‘No! Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know! Just tell me how you are. Are you missing me?’