Ellie and The Harp-Maker

by Hazel Prior

  Oh God, what was she saying?

  ‘… No, I’m afraid she never even mentioned you. But I expect she had her reasons.’

  I felt an interrogation coming on.

  ‘No, don’t feel awkward … The Exmoor Harp-Maker? … Actually, I have.’

  There was a long gap in which Clive’s face steadily grew darker and darker.

  ‘I see … Well, thanks for filling me in. This is all very interesting.’

  I scarcely dared look at him. He was looking at me all right though. ‘Would you like to talk to her? She’s here now.’

  I wobbled to my feet but he shook his head at me, glaring. ‘No? You wouldn’t …? Yes, you’re absolutely right. My wife and I do need to talk … No, you haven’t. I would have found out sooner or later anyway … OK, then. It’s been very nice talking to you, Rhoda. Goodbye.’

  He replaced the receiver oh so slowly and carefully. I was in for it now.

  ‘Clive …’ I made an attempt to hug him but it was like trying to cuddle a stone.

  ‘Apparently,’ he snarled. ‘Apparently you have been having harp lessons. For quite some time. Apparently you have been playing a harp made by the so-called Harp-Maker of Exmoor. Apparently you go and visit him often – almost every day.’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ I whimpered.

  ‘Well, what is it like, then?’ he said through his teeth.

  ‘It’s because of the harp!’ I gulped. ‘You remember. The one he gave me … tried to give me. I loved it so much and he meant so well and … I was in an impossible situation. He made me play it. And the sound was so … all I wanted was … I only didn’t tell you because I knew you would disapprove. But – Clive, you have to believe me! He’s a lovely person, that’s all. It’s quite innocent, I swear. It’s not about him, it’s about the harp.’

  The blood was beating in my cheeks all the more because I knew I was being economical with the truth. The truth had become a complicated tangled mass of feeling that couldn’t easily be put into words.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing but a little harp practice.’ I tried to laugh.

  ‘If it was nothing but a little harp practice why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because you would have argued me out of it and I wanted the, the harp so, so badly.’

  ‘You wanted the, the harp so, so badly!’ he mimicked.

  ‘Sorry,’ I whispered.

  I could hear my heart thumping in the grim silence that followed.

  He took the poker and jabbed at the fire. ‘I don’t think I know you at all,’ he said.

  I had never heard such venom in his voice.

  31

  Dan

  He is smaller than I am expecting. He has hair the colour of coal and eyes the colour of the midnight sky, with stars. He is wearing blue trousers and green socks and a thick jumper, green with blue stripes. Roe Deer’s mother shows me into the sitting room, where he is perched on the sofa, a wooden lorry clutched in his hands.

  ‘Edward, this is a nice man who has come to see you. His name is Dan Hollis and he is a harp-maker.’ Roe Deer’s mother has a voice that is very stiff and controlled. She has artificial waves in her hair, equally stiff and controlled. She is too thin. She walks in a very upright way, as if somebody has pushed a ramrod down her back.

  The boy stands up and comes towards me. He transfers his lorry to his left hand and puts his right hand out to me. I shake it. It is a small hand, very, but warm.

  According to Roe Deer and Roe Deer’s parents I am not supposed to tell him I am his father. But sometimes I do things I am not supposed to do.

  ‘Hello, I’m your father,’ I say.

  His mouth shapes itself like an O. I can feel the thing in my heart yanking at me again, very hard.

  ‘Are you?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘I am. Which means that you are my son.’

  We contemplate each other for a while. Roe Deer’s mother did a gasping thing when I said the word ‘father’ and my son and I are aware of her hovering in the background, wringing her hands, but neither of us pay her any attention.

  ‘This is my lorry,’ he says, proffering it. ‘Do you like it?’

  I examine it, run it along on the carpet a little way to try out its wheels then pronounce it to be a good one.

  ‘I’ve got a train, too,’ he tells me.

  I declare my delight and astonishment.

  ‘It goes around on my bedroom floor.’

  ‘Does it really?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes!’ he answers. Then he says: ‘Would you like to come and see it?’

  I say that I would.

  He takes my hand and leads me past his gaping grandmother and upstairs.

  Perhaps I should point out here that Roe Deer is not happy about my visiting Ed. She told me on the phone that I must not on any account visit him. I told her that, no matter what she said, visiting Ed was exactly what I was going to do. I had not visited him for five years and it was high time I did. Moreover I knew he was living with her parents and I knew where they lived, so if she tried to prevent me, she would find it difficult.

  ‘Oh, all right, do what you like!’ she sighed. ‘But don’t blame me if it all ends in tears!’

  I promised not to blame her. I might blame her for other things but I wouldn’t blame her for that.

  ‘I’ll tell my mum you are coming. After school tomorrow should be all right.’

  I said that suited me fine.

  ‘I won’t be there,’ she said and her voice was acidic.

  I said this was probably a good thing as various strong forces were now battling inside me and if I saw her again right now the forces might get the better of me and I might not be responsible for my actions. And I did not want the first occasion that I set eyes on my son to be a scene of physical violence.

  She laughed. ‘Physical violence! Dan, you wouldn’t hurt a fly!’

  I said this was true, I wouldn’t hurt a fly but I was more and more inclined to hurl my fists at her, which I suspected might hurt rather considerably.

  She was quiet for a bit then. I was going to put the phone down, but then she said, ‘Look, Dan. I can’t stop you going to see him, but remember he’s my child too. I do have a say in things. And I don’t want him to know right now that you’re his father. Perhaps when he’s older but not now. OK?’

  I didn’t really think that it was OK, so at this point I did put the phone down.

  Upstairs in Roe Deer’s parents’ house in Taunton, in the room that my son Edward sleeps in and calls his bedroom, I am making some important discoveries. I’ve found out that Edward my son likes pebbles, wooden trucks, trains, aeroplanes, trees, music, football, feathers, mud, sandwiches, animals, snow and puddles. Ten of those things are things that I like too. Ten out of thirteen is over 76.9 per cent, which is a good proportion. We have agreed that we should be friends.

  Edward’s train is a good train, as trains go. It has green, red and blue carriages and makes a satisfactory clicking sound as it goes round the track. It is not noisy and crowded like real trains. In fact, there seems to be nobody on it at all.

  I mention this fact to my son Ed.

  ‘I sometimes sit my rabbit on the top of it,’ he tells me.

  I say what a good idea that is.

  ‘Do you have a rabbit too?’ he asks me.

  I inform him that sadly I have no rabbit but I do have a pheasant. My pheasant is called Phineas and he likes peanut butter sandwiches and harp music. I do not think he would like to ride on a train though. He did not much like being in a car, but on that occasion he had just been shot, so the circumstances were unusual. Ed nods as if he absolutely understands these things.

  I then ask Ed if I might be introduced to his rabbit. He reaches up to a shelf where various animals are assembled. The rabbit is orange and has spiky whiskers and one ear that is floppier than the other.

  Ed takes the rabbit down and strokes its nose. �
��Rabbit, this is my father. Father, this is my rabbit.’

  We shake hands/paws earnestly.

  I ask Mr Rabbit which of the train’s carriages is his preferred carriage for sitting on. Mr Rabbit looks down at the train and then answers me in a squeaky voice: ‘The front one, of course!’

  I state that clearly he is a very brave rabbit, if this is true. Perhaps he would like to demonstrate?

  So Mr Rabbit hops on and the train starts off again. Mr Rabbit has wedged his bottom in, and he manages to balance quite well when you bear in mind the speed at which he is travelling. But then the train goes round a bend and he suddenly flops over to one side. He continues at right angles to the carriage for another fifteen centimetres or so, then him and the train part company.

  ‘Don’t worry, he isn’t hurt. He sometimes does that,’ explains Ed. ‘He sees a bit of carpet that he likes the look of, and he just has to get off straight away. He can’t wait for the train to stop.’

  Mr Rabbit is now examining his favoured bit of carpet very closely, so we leave him to it and concentrate on the train again. We make it go round another twelve times, then take the track apart and put it together again a different way and run the train round it twenty-five times, then take the track apart and put it together again a different way and run the train round thirty times.

  Edward asks me a question while we are driving his train around. His question is this: ‘If you are my father, then are you married to my mother?’

  I tell him no.

  ‘Why not?’

  My answer is this: that his mother used to be my girlfriend but that she changed her mind about it some time ago. Which is a pity in some ways but there isn’t much I can do about it. She has only recently informed me of the fact. I apologize to Ed for not getting in touch sooner, but his existence is another fact that I have only recently become aware of.

  He pulls one of the carriages off the train. ‘Why am I living with Nan and Gramps and not with you and my mother?’

  I pick Mr Rabbit up off the floor and tell him his whiskers are very fine indeed.

  Ed firmly takes Mr Rabbit and sits him facing me. ‘You haven’t answered my question,’ he says.

  He is an astute boy. I tell him this.

  ‘What does astute mean?’ he says.

  ‘Clever and wise and able to see through things and people.’

  ‘Is it good to be astute?’ he asks me.

  ‘It can be,’ I say. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘So what’s the answer?’ he asks.

  I sit cross-legged on the floor beside him. Normally I do not hesitate to tell the truth because normally it seems like a good idea. I want him to know the truth very much just as I want to know it myself. However, I suspect that the truth in this matter is an unkind truth. Also I know that Roe Deer is already cross with me, her parents are cross with me and I have done a lot of things that I’m not supposed to do. Probably quite enough for one day.

  My son is looking at me, his face all wide-eyed and shaped like a great big question.

  I pat him on the head.

  ‘You will find out one day,’ I say.

  32

  Ellie

  ‘Been playing the harp today, have you?’

  He makes it sound like a crime.

  ‘Yes,’ I confess.

  It’s been three days now and Clive hasn’t said a word to me except ‘pass the salt’. Pointedly, with no please. A proper question is at least a step in the right direction. It gives me hope that he might be getting lonely on the moral high ground. He takes a swig of beer from the bottle and throws another log on to the fire. A few sparks fly out.

  I normally enjoy our cosy winter evenings reading or watching TV with the fire lit and the wind raging outside, but now the atmosphere between us is so taut it’s impossible to relax even for a moment.

  I wouldn’t have ventured back to the barn at all but I was worried about Dan and desperate to know what he’s decided to do about his son. I tried ringing but he didn’t answer my calls. Eventually I drove up to the barn while Clive was at work to find out what was going on and offer support if I could.

  Dan has already been to see his son in Taunton. It sounds as though Ed was pretty pleased to have found his father, just as Dan was pleased to have found his son. I couldn’t bring myself to ask how things are between him and Rhoda, but I noticed a transformation in Dan. Unlike the last time I saw him, his eyes were brightly lit and seemed even huger than usual. He went about all his normal harp-making and sandwich-serving routines with a new briskness and bounce. He seemed too absorbed in his own thoughts to talk much. I went upstairs and attempted some harp practice, but my fingers seemed to have got rusty and I couldn’t focus. The notes sounded jagged and disjointed, not like music at all.

  I’m sure Rhoda rang Clive to get me into trouble. She must know it was me who let her secret out. She doesn’t want me anywhere near her son … or the father of her son. I’m longing to see Dan with his little boy, but now, caged in as I am by Clive’s suspicions, I’m not sure that is going to happen.

  Clive picks up the poker. ‘My harp-playing wife,’ he growls. ‘I suppose you fancy yourself as an angel or something.’

  ‘No, of course not!’

  Is he ever going to forgive me? But I can’t really blame him. I haven’t even forgiven myself. I should have told him long ago. My life is full of should haves.

  I battle with my regrets, rally a little and realize I’ve missed a trick. I muster what’s supposed to be a charming smile. ‘Clive, I wanted it all to be a lovely surprise for you once I’d learned to play properly. I thought I’d … I’d serenade you or something.’

  My attempt at humour falls flat.

  ‘Nice try, but that’s not what you said before. You said you thought I’d disapprove. Why would I do that, I wonder?’

  I am such an idiot. Why can I never think of the right thing to say at the right time? I close my eyes.

  When I open them Clive is standing in front of me, the firelight casting patterns over his face. He looks utterly miserable. I curse myself. I ought to be working out how to mend the hurt I’ve caused him, but even now half of me is elsewhere, worrying about Dan, worrying about Rhoda.

  Clive addresses the flames. ‘That harp teacher told me you were getting really good at it. Thanks to your many, many visits up the hill to the harp-maker’s place.’

  ‘The Harp Barn. Yes. That’s where the harp is,’ I point out. ‘Although—’ I am about to say I could actually bring the harp back home, but realize that absolutely isn’t what I want to do, so I shut my mouth again.

  ‘I suppose that’s where you’ve been going on Saturdays and Sundays too? When you said you were visiting Christina.’

  ‘Yes,’ I whimper. ‘But only because Dan was injured. He needed help with his bandages.’

  ‘Dan.’ He draws the word out torturously, as if examining all its implications. ‘Dan was injured?’

  ‘Yes, very badly. He was shot in the leg. It was a silly accident when he was out on the moor. There wasn’t anyone else to help him.’ I think of Jo, of Rhoda, of Dan’s friend Thomas the postman and I wonder again how much I am stretching the truth in my anxiety to defend myself.

  ‘So I presume Christina never cut her hand? The whole thing about her and the tin-opener was entirely made up?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t find a way to tell you. It was all so complicated.’

  He stabs a log with the poker. Orange reflections flicker in his eyes. ‘God, Ellie. I never would have believed you capable of such lies.’

  There is bitter disappointment churning around with his anger. I’ve never felt so bad in my life. If only he would just hit me with the poker and put me out of my misery.

  ‘So do I ever get to hear your harp-playing? Or is that only for other, more important people?’

  Tears spring to my eyes. ‘Oh, Clive!’

  He stands up, propping the poker in the corner of the fireplace. Finally he l
ooks at me. ‘What’s the matter?’ he says icily.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I sob. ‘I’m just so, so sorry! I can’t tell you how sorry I am!’ I hate my tears. I wish I could get a grip on myself.

  He sits down in the chair opposite me, takes another swig of beer and picks up the newspaper. He starts turning pages. I wonder whether to go upstairs and bite my pillow or whether to sit it out. I decide to go for the latter. I gulp down my emotions and pick up a book. The words dance in front of my eyes, which are in any case too full to read them.

  ‘Where is this place, anyway?’ he asks suddenly.

  ‘The Harp Barn?’

  ‘No, Timbuktu!’ he sneers. ‘Of course the Harp Barn. I googled it but there was no address. I saw the photos of your fancy man though. Very pretty.’

  I gasp. If he’s been digging around for information behind my back it’s even worse than I thought. ‘Clive, you have to believe me. He’s not my fancy man! If you knew Dan, you’d understand.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know Dan, do I?’

  I view him sorrowfully. ‘I’d be happy to drive you up to the barn any time you like.’

  He scowls and retreats behind his newspaper.

  Five minutes later he is out of it again.

  ‘OK, then. Take me there now.’

  I look at my watch, alarmed. ‘Well, it’s getting rather late. I don’t know what time Dan goes to bed. Perhaps …’ The words die on my lips. ‘Whatever you like,’ I tell him.

  33

  Dan

  I’d made coffee and wafted it around a bit so that the aroma hung pleasantly in the air. Phineas was nestling comfortably in his bed. Soon I would be off to bed too, but I was doing a little extra work on the Fifi harp as it is not so long until Christmas now and Mike Thornton keeps ringing me to ask if it’s nearly ready. The Fifi harp is not nearly ready, but the nearly stage will be soon now because I have finally got some momentum going.

  Apple wood is dense and has fine pores, but it glues, stains and turns well. Mike Thornton’s wood is greyish with a regular graining and some darker streaks. Its scent is sweet, calming, just a little fruity.