Ellie and The Harp-Maker

by Hazel Prior

  We drove past a farm and through a cluster of cottages, then she pulled in at a lay-by beside a mossy lychgate.

  ‘The ground is quite level here. Do you think you could manage without your crutches if I help support you?’ she asked.

  I tried it and found that I could, provided she took my arm and I leaned on her a bit. I leaned on her possibly a bit more than I really needed to. She leaned back into me. We went through the lychgate in this fashion. Ahead of us was a sandy path and at the end of it a small white church was peeping out from behind some holly bushes. Ellie was right, it did look pretty.

  Just as we were getting to the church door it opened and a woman came out. She was grey-haired and wore a hat, which, like herself, was small and pot-shaped. She was carrying a watering can and secateurs. Ellie let go of me very quickly. She then grabbed me again as I started to topple sideways.

  ‘Hello, Ellie!’ said the woman in a voice curling with questions.

  ‘Hello, Pauline,’ said Ellie. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve just finished arranging the church flowers. I’m on the rota, didn’t you know? What are you doing here?’

  Her look went from Ellie to me, from me to Ellie.

  Ellie’s face had turned a strange shade midway between crimson and beetroot. ‘I was … we were just coming to look at the church. This is my friend, Dan. He’s injured his leg, so I have to support him. Dan, this is my next-door neighbour, Pauline.’

  I said hello and so did she.

  ‘Are you local, Dan?’ she asked.

  I said I was.

  ‘And how do you two know each other?’

  I was about to tell her that Ellie had visited the Harp Barn one day and I’d given her a harp, and she was now always coming up there to play it, and that she had rescued me and my pheasant from hospital after we’d been shot, and she helped change my bandages for me every day, but Ellie cut in.

  ‘Dan’s a friend of a friend,’ she said.

  I tried to think whether this was true or not. As far as I could see it wasn’t. But before I could say anything else she had pulled me into the church, calling, ‘Bye, Pauline,’ over her shoulder.

  It was an ancient church with fine woodwork and a very pleasing stone font. The windows showed saints and birds and fish, all with similar gormless expressions on their faces. I looked at their faces for a long time. Seldom have I seen such a complete lack of gorm. But the colours were good. Amber and sapphire blue and sea greens. Sunlight shone through the stained glass and made glowing patterns on the floor, and glowing patterns are something I like very much. I was glad I’d come after all. But Ellie was not as enthusiastic as she had been earlier.

  18

  Ellie

  She welcomes me to her lounge, a large, square room, tastefully colour-coordinated in blue and gold. Her three harps stand majestically side by side in the centre of everything.

  The lesson always follows a similar format. Rhoda demonstrates something on the largest of the harps and I try to copy it. The harp I use is similar to my own, but it’s made of beech wood and boasts a set of forty-two strings. It was made by Dan some years ago and she tells me the sound has changed and mellowed over time.

  Rhoda gives me a cup of tea. I plant it on the floor by my feet and settle behind the harp. Today’s issue is the problem I keep having with my left hand. It can’t seem to stick to the correct rhythm, either lagging behind or leaping just ahead of the beat. Rhoda takes me through some exercises.

  ‘See if you can get this bass pattern under your fingers,’ she suggests, zig-zagging up and down the strings to a jaunty rhythm.

  I try to imitate. It sounds quite effective but I’m getting some of the notes mixed up.

  ‘No, your index finger goes here. Do you see how it’s based around the D minor and C chords? Once you’ve got it, you can improvise over the top, like this.’

  She adds her right hand, playing it much faster to create a sparkling cascade of sound. Her hair hangs down in golden waves and she rocks backwards and forwards fractionally to the rhythm of the music. Mesmerizing, for both the eyes and ears. I wish – I can’t help wishing – she wasn’t Dan’s girlfriend.

  Her phone bleeps at us just as she approaches the climax. She stops dead.

  ‘Sorry, do you mind if I take this?’

  ‘Go ahead!’ I prepare myself for a long wait.

  Rhoda’s harp lessons are disjointed because of the number of phone calls she gets. Sometimes she switches them off and sometimes she whisks away into the next room to answer. The door between the two rooms has a habit of drifting back open once it’s closed, so I get to hear bits and pieces of her conversations.

  There seems to be a large fan club. She plays in a duo with a guitarist and a lot of the calls are from him. I’ve never met him but it seems he’s besotted with her. I bet she relishes the fact. Whenever it’s him on the phone she puts on a sugary, simpering voice and plays with her hair. I’ve been the unwilling witness to various flirtatious fragments of conversation. It makes me cross and bothered on Dan’s behalf.

  ‘Keep practising that left hand,’ Rhoda instructs me as she hurries into the other room. I hear a ‘Hi, Mum’ as she pushes the door closed behind her. This will be one of the less interesting conversations. I pick at the harp quietly.

  The door is slowly performing its reopening trick. It makes eavesdropping not only easy but almost compulsory.

  ‘No, Mum,’ she’s saying. ‘We’ve been through all this before …! I feel strongly about it. I don’t care if he’s asking questions. You’ll just have to change the subject. I really, really don’t want him to know!’

  The mother says something and then Rhoda replies: ‘That may well be the case but I’m simply not prepared to deal with it at the moment. He’s not ready, I’m not ready! I’ve got my career to think of and that comes first.’

  A short answer.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean more important than him, of course not! Just more important than him having to know.’

  A longer answer.

  ‘You said before you were more than happy to do it. Are you changing your mind?’

  Something else from the mother.

  ‘No! Bad idea! And yes, of course it would be traumatic. He’s happy as he is. You’d only upset the apple cart. Next he’d insist on being introduced to his father and I don’t want that. There’d be no end of repercussions. It would be a nightmare trying to handle it all.’

  I sit up straight. His father. Whose father? Who are they talking about? A suspicion launches itself straight into my gut. I strain my ears but at this point she lowers her voice even more and I can’t catch anything else.

  It’s impossible to halt the swift course of my imagination, though. It’s bounding ahead and assuming things. I just can’t stop it. I pluck harp strings in a desultory fashion, thinking, thinking. Then I hear Rhoda speaking, slightly louder again: ‘Anyway, just don’t say anything yet, Mum, I beg you! We’ll talk more later. I can’t now, I’m in the middle of a lesson. I’ll call this afternoon.’

  She comes back into the room looking peeved and pouty. She seems distracted for the rest of the lesson; almost, I would say, impatient to get rid of me.

  The garden looks as bedraggled as I feel. At least it’s quiet. I start cutting back the dead flowers in the border. A damp brown heap gathers in the bottom of the wheelbarrow. I keep wondering about Rhoda, wondering if I can be right, telling myself it’s none of my business and trying to focus on something else. Then I start wondering again. It’s driving me insane.

  Pauline looks over the fence and hails me.

  ‘Ellie, you haven’t been up the hill today on your usual jaunt.’

  She’s an awful curtain-twitcher.

  ‘No,’ I explained. ‘Clive is off work, suffering from a bad head cold. I’m sticking around to look after him.’

  I haven’t made it up to the barn yet today. I can’t put it off much longer. Dan will be wondering what’s happened to m
e and those dressings won’t change themselves.

  Pauline waves her trowel in the direction of the Harp Barn. ‘Where is it you go so often anyway?’

  I see straight into her thoughts. She’s remembering how close Dan and I were when she saw us at the church the other day. Her gossip-mongering mind is fast putting two and two together and making five hundred.

  I try to smile. ‘Oh, just, you know, walking.’

  ‘You’re very keen,’ she comments wryly, a gleam in her grey eyes. ‘Bad weather never seems to put you off. I saw you go out the other day and it was tipping it down!’

  ‘Well, I enjoy the exercise,’ I answer, squirming inwardly at my lies. ‘Anyway, better get in now and see if Clive’s OK.’

  I practically run inside to escape from her.

  ‘Is that you back in, Hon-pun?’ Clive’s voice calls from the sitting room.

  ‘Yes, it’s me, of course. Feeling any better?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Another lemon?’

  ‘Well, if you don’t mind …’

  I put the kettle on and fish a lemon out of the fridge, squeeze it and add a spoonful of honey. I’m exhausted.

  I take the steaming mug into the sitting room. Clive is lounging on the sofa. As I present him with his drink, he takes my hand. He raises it to his face and rubs his cheek against it. ‘Mmmm, your skin’s nice and soft. But you’ve cut your nails short. Why did you do that?’

  I’m blushing again. I wish that didn’t keep happening.

  ‘I just thought I’d try a new look.’

  ‘Since when have you cared about your look?’

  ‘Well, long nails aren’t exactly practical for gardening and stuff, are they?’

  He sniggers. ‘Gardening? What is it about gardening all of a sudden? I thought you’d forgotten the meaning of the word!’

  I glance out of the window. My attempts with the border are pathetic. Brambles are sprouting up everywhere and there’s still a forest of decaying brown stalks demanding attention. ‘Well, I’ll do some more tomorrow.’ I hope that, if I do, Pauline won’t be around again. I’m not sure I can deal with any more of her nosy questions.

  Clive coughs. The TV is still on with the sound turned low but Bristol City aren’t doing well today. He takes a noisy slurp of lemon. ‘How’s the poetry going, Hon? Written anything recently?’

  The last poem I wrote is a love song to my harp. Thankfully Clive never asks to read my poems. ‘I’ve been dabbling,’ I answer. ‘This and that, you know. Nothing worth writing home about, but it’s always fun fiddling about with words. I find it therapeutic and—’

  ‘You complete stupid, sodding cretin!’ Clive shouts. Not at me, at the television. The shooter has just missed a crucial goal.

  I consult my watch. ‘Clive, I’m just popping out to see if Christina’s OK.’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yes. It’s really hard for her, trying to use her left hand for everything, and she’s still in loads of pain.’

  ‘In case you hadn’t noticed I’m not exactly 100 per cent myself.’

  ‘I know, Hon, I know. I won’t be gone for long.’

  ‘Why does it always have to be you playing Florence bloody Nightingale? Where’s that sodding son of hers when he’s needed?’

  ‘Clive, he can hardly come up all the way from Exeter every time she needs a hand!’

  ‘I thought he was always coming back to see her, bringing a ton of dirty laundry with him.’

  ‘Well, she did say that, yes, but that was a while ago and things have changed. He’s getting more and more involved in uni life now.’

  ‘Don’t go, El. Christina can cope. It’s only a cut, for Christ’s sake!’

  I wish I’d given Christina a more serious injury.

  ‘I’ve just got this feeling she needs me. I’ll be back soon.’

  Clive glares at me. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you recently, El. You never used to be like this. One minute you’re all ditzy and dreamy, the next you’re stubborn as a mule.’ His voice is getting louder and louder. The conversation is going to erupt into a full-scale row if I’m not careful.

  ‘See you soon,’ I say quickly and leave him to stew.

  I’ll get the silent treatment when I arrive back, but what can I do? Dan needs me. Besides, I keep thinking about Rhoda and that phone conversation. There’s something very odd going on. I need to find out more.

  19

  Dan

  November is sucking the colour out of Exmoor. Only the hollies and pines have stayed green. The beeches cling on to their coppery leaf-curls and some of the oaks are snuggled in thick yellow-green jumpers of moss. But all the other trees stand naked, the last grey tatters of leaves drifting about their ankles. They are resigned, patiently waiting until the year turns again. They’ll have to wait a long time.

  The air has begun to bite. I don’t feel it much because I’m made like that, but the harps aren’t keen on cold air. It’s bad for their strings. Phineas isn’t keen on it either. Pheasants are not native to Exmoor, they are native to Asia, which must be substantially hotter. They must therefore be prone to winter chilliness. The people who breed pheasants and feed pheasants and then let pheasants out into the wild to be shot don’t think about this. Not at all. They consider neither the feelings of the ones that are shot nor the feelings of the ones that aren’t. Just as Thomas Hardy said.

  When I asked Ellie the Exmoor Housewife last week if she thought Phineas might be too cold, she said, ‘Glad to see you are so concerned about your pheasant.’ She had a little sharp tang in her voice. She was blowing on her fingers, which were slightly blue. I wondered if, underneath his feathers, Phineas was also slightly blue.

  Phineas dislikes cold but he dislikes the noise of machinery even more. I know this because whenever I am using the electric bandsaw he heads for his pheasant flap in double-quick time. I have therefore made him a second bed in the woodshed so he can still be warm when I’m using loud machinery in the barn. Phineas is pleased about this, very.

  Today Ellie arrives at four fifty-six in the afternoon. She’s booted and wrapped in a cardigan (moss-coloured like the ones the oaks are wearing). It hangs a long way over her jeans and has eleven buttons. She is plucking at the hairs of her right eyebrow.

  ‘Sorry, I couldn’t get away! My – Oh, never mind. How are you?’

  I tell her my leg isn’t in the best of health but the rest of me is very well. ‘Good,’ is what she says. I then ask if she is well too because that’s a question you are supposed to ask and also because I want to know the answer. She answers, ‘I’m fine, thanks, fine.’ Then she adds, ‘Although …’

  I wait for more of this sentence but it doesn’t come.

  As she takes out the clean bandages from the cupboard she is muttering something about rocks and limpets, however. I ask her to please repeat what she said.

  Her mouth twists a little then she unrolls the bandage and lays it flat on the table. ‘I said that even limpets have to stand on their own two feet sometimes.’

  This is interesting and unexpected. I point out to her that I am no expert in marine biology but I am pretty certain about this fact: limpets do not have two feet.

  ‘Metaphorical ones do,’ she says.

  I consider metaphorical limpets for a while. The subject fascinates me. I ask her what else metaphorical limpets do apart from standing on their own two feet.

  ‘Well, they can drive,’ she tells me.

  I express my astonishment. I ask what else.

  ‘They enjoy a good weepy film on TV,’ she says. ‘They can make a damn good curry. Also they’ve been known to make rather good jam. And they read a lot – and write poetry.’

  I comment that I would very much like to read a poem written by a metaphorical limpet.

  ‘Would you?’ she says.

  I tell her yes.

  ‘That just shows …’ she says, doing her tailing off thing.

  I don’t ask her exactly what
it shows. Instead I enquire what other artistic pursuits the metaphorical limpets pursue.

  ‘Well, I know that a metaphorical limpet once made a papier mâché unicorn for her nephews and nieces.’

  I remark that metaphorical limpets must be very clever. Very clever indeed.

  ‘They do their best,’ she answers. She pauses, then adds, ‘They love the harp. They practise harp-playing whenever they get the opportunity.’

  I am increasingly impressed with these limpets. I ask if they can make harps as well.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Metaphorical limpets can’t make harps. That’s a job for … for metaphorical oysters.’

  Then she bursts into one of her snorty laughs. Her whole body is jolting so that she can’t hold the bandage straight. I laugh too.

  ‘I love that I can have this sort of conversation with you, Dan,’ she says when she’s able to speak again.

  She looks completely different to how she looked when she came in. Less stiff. More smiley. Lighter. I am glad.

  But all of a sudden, without any reason that I can fathom, there’s a reversal. She’s stiffer. Less smiley. Heavier.

  She gets up slowly. Normally after doing my bandages she goes upstairs to practise the harp, so that is what I’m expecting her to do, but she doesn’t. She walks over to the middle of the three big windows in the barn and she looks out at the great grey sky. Then she picks up a bright penny, one of the ones I’ve polished and placed on the windowsill, and she plays about with it in the palm of her hand. Then at last she says, ‘Do you mind if I am a bit nosy, Dan?’

  I tell her I don’t mind a bit.

  Then she asks, ‘Do you mind if I am a bit nosy about Rhoda?’

  I tell her again that I don’t mind a bit.

  Then she starts asking me questions. They come slowly at first but then gather momentum and roll out one after another as if hurtling down a hill. Her first question is this: Have you known Rhoda a long time?

  My answer is this: Yes, six years.

  Her second question is this: And has she been your girlfriend for a long time?