by Hazel Prior
‘It is! I wouldn’t get in your hair, I promise. We could be quite independent once we arrive wherever it is. I might find some horny beach bum after all – you never know! So might you! That would give that husband of yours something to think about!’
‘Christina, my aim is to patch things up with Clive, not to make them worse.’
She was silent for a moment. ‘Ellie, I admire your tenacity, but is it worth it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your marriage. Is it worth it? Really?’
She doesn’t get it. With her string of broken relationships, she can’t see it. The way marriage works. The strength you need. I thought of my father. By example, he taught me so much about strength, about endurance, about how to weather the cold.
But it’s easier for me than it was for him. Deep down I’m sure this winter of discontent can’t go on for much longer. I don’t believe it’s in Clive’s true nature, this terrible coldness.
‘Christina, I love Clive. I do. I couldn’t imagine life without him. And I believe in marriage. I don’t think it’s right just to give up the minute things get a bit sticky.’
I knew as well that I’d be desperately lonely if I had to live by myself as she did. Perhaps even more lonely than her.
‘You have staying power, I’ll give you that,’ she said. ‘But Clive will soon learn to appreciate you if he’s left to his own devices for a bit. A few days of arriving home to no dinner on the table and he’ll be on his knees begging you to come back.’
I shuddered. ‘I’d rather not risk it if you don’t mind. Besides, we’re supposed to be going up to Yorkshire, to Vic’s.’
‘Please, Ellie! Come abroad with me. I won’t give you your cup of tea otherwise!’
I took the cuppa firmly from her. ‘Sorry, Christina. I’ve told Vic we’re going. I can’t let her and her family down. And there’s Mum.’
I hoped being among family might smooth things over between Clive and me. But I was beginning to worry that he’d refuse to come up to Yorkshire. Although he got on all right with Vic and Alan and their children, they were my family, after all, not his.
‘Not tempted by the Bahamas? Or Mauritius? Or Thailand? I’ve always fancied Thailand.’
‘You go,’ I said. ‘Go and enjoy it for both of us. I can’t just run away from the situation with Clive. It’s all my fault it’s got like this; it would be irresponsible and mean to take off and leave him right now.’
‘Oh, just be irresponsible and mean for a change!’
‘Christina, I can’t! And I won’t!’
35
Dan
Roe Deer rang me not long after I met Ed and gave me what is called an ‘earful’. My ears (both of them) were certainly full for a long time afterwards. Full of words that were as scratchy as gorse bushes. Some were words I sincerely hope she will never use in front of my son Ed. The gist of those words is that she is cross. Cross that Ed knows I am his father, cross that I told him so straight away without even consulting her. I wasn’t supposed to do that. It has ruined everything.
‘What everything?’ I asked her.
‘You really have no idea, have you?’ she fumed. ‘You always were idiotic. Nonsensical! Head-in-the-clouds! You have no grasp of reality. Which is exactly why I didn’t want you to mess about with Ed’s life. He has enough problems without having the worry of a father like you.’
I mentioned that Ed did not appear to be worried in the least. On the contrary, Ed was happy to have met me (I knew this because he told me so himself and he strikes me as being a truthful boy). I also suggested quietly that perhaps a father like me was better than no father at all. Just as I also suspected that a mother like her was better than no mother at all.
She did not seem to like this comment. At least, I presume that is why the phone cut off at this point in the conversation.
She rang back ten minutes later, however. ‘I didn’t want to tell Ed about you until it was the right time,’ she said. ‘This is not the right time.’
‘For him or for you?’ I asked.
‘For him, of course. It takes sensitivity to handle an issue like this. As for me, it’s actually the worst possible time for me as well. My feelings are unimportant, my career doesn’t matter in the least, but I never asked to be a mother, did I? It was a mistake but I didn’t realize until it was too late. Now everything’s so difficult for me. I’ve struggled with this for years. “Single mother” just isn’t me. “Harpist” is what’s me – and it’s so much better if people see me that way.’
Considering this was all about Ed she seemed to be repeating the words ‘I’, ‘my’ and ‘me’ an awful lot.
I waited to see if she had anything else to add. She did: ‘And the last thing I needed was interference from you now, just when my own engagement is on the cards.’
‘Which cards?’ I asked. ‘Engagement to who?’
‘A man, OK? A guitarist. He and I are made for each other and I want to marry him. I have to do it before he finds out about Ed. I don’t want this whole thing to put him off. He might think I’m more involved than I actually am, he might think there are too many strings attached.’
I’d have thought that a harpist and guitarist would inevitably have plenty of strings attached.
I was about to tell her this but Roe Deer started talking in a very loud voice about Ed’s upkeep and how all the money she earned from harp-playing went towards Ed’s upkeep and how, morally speaking, I should be paying towards Ed’s upkeep.
I pointed out that if she had informed me of Ed’s existence as soon as it had happened, I would have been glad to pay towards his upkeep straight away and keep doing it for the rest of my life – but she hadn’t, so I didn’t. If you don’t know about things you can’t do anything to fix them.
Now, however, I knew of Ed’s existence and of course I was more than happy to pay for as much of his upkeep as I possibly could. Upkeep was a bit of a mystery to me and I had no idea how much upkeep cost, but I would certainly start making extra harps, as many harps as it took. My sister Jo, I was sure, would help me sell them using my website. Jo had heard all about Ed and was keen to meet him soon. She would no doubt strive to improve my financial situation with all her business skills once she realized I was putting money towards such a worthy cause. I would churn out harps and every penny of my harp money would be spent on Ed’s upkeep. From this point onwards Ed’s upkeep would be my priority in life. Perhaps this meant Roe Deer could marry the guitar man and stop worrying.
‘I’m still cross with you, Dan,’ she said.
Roe Deer’s parents are not unkind people, I would say, even if they don’t have much idea about what Ed needs. They seem to think what he needs is plenty of maths tests and money and computer gizmos. They don’t seem to realize that what he needs more is plenty of trees and fresh air and music.
I’ll say this in their favour, though. Ed’s grandparents have been helpful. When he asked them if they could bring him to the Harp Barn to visit me, what they said was yes, they could. I was missing Ellie because she hadn’t come here for nearly two weeks. So the prospect of welcoming my son Ed to my home made me even gladder than I would have been otherwise. Which was very glad indeed.
His grandparents brought him here on a Saturday morning at ten thirty-six.
Ed has big eyes anyway, but they grew even bigger when he came in.
‘Dan – Dad!’ he cried.
I liked that.
He inspected every harp in turn, plucking a few strings of each one and knocking the soundboard gently to see if it could double up as a drum. The grandparents stood around in the background. It seemed to be their role in life.
At last Ed turned to me.
‘Can you make trains, too?’ is what he said.
The structure of a smallish train would be simpler than the structure of a harp. And the mechanism to make it run, once I had acquired the necessary bits and pieces, would not be difficult to install. Making trains could pos
sibly become another branch of my business, under Ed’s supervision. Although then I would have to rename the Harp Barn and call it the Harp and Train Barn. Or the Train and Harp Barn. Which would be better, I wondered? My sister Jo would know. Thomas would have an opinion too. So would Ellie, and that very quiet husband of hers who came to visit here the other week. I could also consult Roe Deer and Roe Deer’s parents. Most of all, I could consult Ed. What a lot of people I now had to consult.
‘Yes,’ I said.
I made coffee for the grandparents and sat them in the warmth by the fire, as Jo had told me that grandparents get cold and they like coffee and it is a good idea to keep them comfortable. Ed and I did not have coffee or sit by the fire as we were far more interested in looking at harps. Then it was time to feed Phineas so we stepped outside, taking the medieval harp with us. The air was sharp and there was a scent of pine trees, nice and tangy. I played an F minor chord on the harp and Phineas came scooting across the yard to meet us.
I introduced Phineas to Ed and Ed to Phineas. Both seemed delighted to meet one another. Phineas ate his lunch out of Ed’s hand.
‘Dad, will you teach me to play an F minor chord, please?’ said Ed. Ed has seen Roe Deer play the harp and has tried it out himself a few times, but he wasn’t yet able to play an F minor chord.
So I taught him there and then, out in the orchard. Our fingers were cold but we were too busy to notice. Ed has very small fingers and they don’t seem to want to go in the right places, so teaching him the F minor chord took some time. About twenty minutes. Phineas was going demented. I think he thought that each time he heard anything resembling the chord he should get another helping of lunch. He did get quite a bit more than usual because Ed was sorry for him. I had to tell Ed that Phineas needed to watch his weight. If he got much tubbier he would not be able to fly at all, and his flying was pretty lopsided as it was, with his injury and everything.
Then something happened and what happened was this: because it was so cold and the Lapwing harp had been subjected to boy-force pressure for some time now, one of its strings (the second octave G) suddenly twanged and broke.
I looked at Ed and Ed looked at me.
‘Ouch!’ he said.
I asked if he was hurt.
‘No,’ he said, ‘but the harp is, isn’t it?’
I said never mind, I had plenty of replacement strings and we’d soon have it sorted.
Ed pulled the broken string out of its socket. ‘Now I can play a harp, can I help you make a harp too?’
I said yes. Once I’d finished the Fifi harp we could make a harp together, like I did with my father when I was around his age. Ed could choose the wood and the design. We would go for a walk and find a suitable pebble together. And he could help me with sanding and threading through the strings. And he could design a motif.
‘What’s a motif?’ he asked.
I told him it was a simple pattern such as could be carved easily in the neck or sides of a harp.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I know what the motif is going to be!’
At that moment his grandmother and grandfather came into the orchard.
‘Ah, there you are!’ cried the grandmother.
I said yes, here we were.
‘Thank you, Dan,’ she said. ‘It has been a very interesting time, but we really have to be getting Edward back home now.’
They started dragging Ed towards their white Toyota.
But he broke loose and ran back to me and put his arms around my legs.
And he told me this thing: ‘I’m glad you are my dad.’
I felt a peculiar pricking like dried teasels at the back of my eyes.
‘Oh,’ is what I said.
I have finished the Fifi harp all except for the word ‘Fifi’ which I have not yet carved into it. Mike Thornton has told me he will pay me an extra hundred pounds for doing this, so I will do it, even though I still think it is not a good word to engrave into a harp. I have to pay towards Ed’s upkeep now.
Ed comes up to the barn every Saturday. Phineas is getting fatter and fatter. Ed likes to feed him, and plays the F minor chord quite competently. Phineas recognizes his style of playing and propels himself towards us even faster than usual because he knows he will get a massive quantity of pheasant feed from Ed.
We keep talking about the harp that we’ll make together. I asked Ed if he wouldn’t prefer me to make him a train, as he’d hinted he might like that, but he seems to have changed his mind. He said he already had a good train. But maybe we could make a harp with a train carved into it – as a motif? I applauded his brilliant idea and said that most certainly we could. He said it should be a steam train like the one that goes from Minehead to Bishop’s Lydeard and I could carve puffs of smoke coming out of its funnel to make it absolutely clear that was the type of train that it was.
I said I would happily do that. And (here I was being much more outgoing and adventurous than normal) we could also go together for a ride on a steam train to get inspiration. I am not so much a trains person, I am more of a trees person, but Ed’s enthusiasm is infectious.
So one weekend we went down to Watchet together and took the train from there to Stogumber and we stopped and had tea in the station garden. That is, I had a glass of water and he had an orange juice. They didn’t have sandwiches so I had a slice of cake and he had a choco-buzzle bar. We were the only people sitting outside in the garden because it was so cold. I asked Ed what he liked about steam trains and he said he liked the shiny funnel and the chuffing sound as they went along and the hoot was also good. The way he described it made me like it too, in spite of all the people and noise. I managed pretty well with the people and noise that day.
Ed is like a talisman. All the horrible things seem less horrible if I just think: ‘This is Ed. He is my son.’ So I have been thinking that a lot.
He talks about so many things it is sometimes difficult for me to keep up with him, but he doesn’t talk about his mother very much. I asked him in Stogumber if he saw her often.
‘No, not often,’ he said.
I asked him why this was.
Ed drew a pattern on the ground with his foot. ‘I did ask, but she just said, “Reasons.” So I said, “What reasons?”’
‘Did she give you any?’ I enquired. Ed told me she had eventually come up with the following:
Reason One: It was for his own good.
Reason Two: She is not a natural mother. It’s just One of Those Things.
Reason Three: Gramps and Nan (her parents, Ed’s grandparents) are much better at practical stuff like cooking and organizing.
Reason Four: Gramps and Nan (her parents, Ed’s grandparents) need a project to keep them going. Ed is now that project.
Reason Five: These days the family is different to how it was in the past. So long as Ed has a good place to live and a good school and good people around him, that’s fine.
Reason Six: She, Roe Deer, is married to her music and that means sacrifices have to be made.
Reason Seven: Of course she loves Ed but the connection she feels is not as strong as she’d expected. Maybe it will be stronger when she has a more settled lifestyle.
Reason Eight: Everything is complicated.
Ed had memorized all these reasons verbatim and seemed to accept them. But I did not see that any of them were very convincing, particularly the last. And when I’d spoken to Roe Deer about it myself, the reasons she gave were quite different. They were all to do with a guitar man and strings being attached.
I asked Ed how often Roe Deer comes to visit him.
‘About once a week,’ he answered. ‘She says she’d come more often but she’s very, very busy.’
I didn’t say so, but I thought it was a bit similar when she was my girlfriend. After the first flush of excitement was over, it did tend to be about once a week, when she had nothing better to do. Maybe Roe Deer is not cut out to be a girlfriend or a mother. Maybe she is just cut out to be a really, really good
harp-player and so the other things get put further down on her list. Perhaps that is OK but perhaps it isn’t. I can’t help feeling that Ed should not be that far down on anyone’s list.
Lists make me think of Ellie Jacobs, the Exmoor Housewife, because she had a list too and harp-playing was on it. She hasn’t been to the barn to play her harp for a very, very long time. This worries me.
36
Ellie
I try to write poems but all my inspiration has dried up. I go for long wintry walks. I look at the bare trees, at the frozen patterns in the stream, at the poor birds hopping about, searching for food on the cold earth. I think of my harp, and of Dan.
I go nowhere near the Harp Barn. I can’t risk it. Any wrong move could send my marriage over the edge. I wonder how Dan is doing, if he has finished his Fifi harp, if he is seeing much of his son. I wonder if he and Rhoda are together again. I need to let go, but I can’t. I long more than ever to play the harp, to hear its soothing sounds. To lean my head against the soundboard and feel the warm touch of its wood. I wonder if I will ever go back to it. I know there will be no more lessons with Rhoda. She must hate me.
Not as much as Clive hates me at the moment though. I’d thought that his rage would die down over time but it just seems to be getting stronger. He stays at work very late. I put the dinner anxiously in the oven and wait, too tense to do anything. At last I hear the car engine outside. A few minutes later the front door opens. I run to meet him and try to kiss him, hoping that this will be the day the ice melts, but he brushes me aside. He dumps his briefcase in the hall and goes straight upstairs to change out of his suit. He comes down again in jeans and a jumper, goes into the sitting room. He scrunches up old copies of the Telegraph and his motoring magazines, places kindling round them in the grate, then strikes a match and sets fire to them in many places. He throws logs on the top, feeding the flames.
I bring his dinner through. He doesn’t seem to want to eat at the table these days. We eat in complete silence, or else to the sounds of the TV. After dinner he opens the bottle of whisky.