Ellie and The Harp-Maker

by Hazel Prior

  There are a lot of empty whisky bottles lying in the recycling bin.

  One evening about a week ago, I lit the fire before he came back. I’m not very good at it, but I managed. I thought it might be warm and welcoming for him, a nice surprise. I had visions of us making love on the hearthrug as we’d done only a few weeks ago. I craved that intimacy again.

  But no.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ he demanded.

  ‘I thought I’d save you the trouble. I thought you’d be pleased.’

  He grimaced.

  Whatever I did would be wrong. But while we were having a conversation of sorts I steeled myself to ask something that had been on my mind for a long time now.

  ‘Um, Clive … Are we still going up to Vic’s for Christmas next week?’

  ‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘You can if you like.’

  ‘But I promised Vic!’

  He reached for the TV remote control. ‘Your problem, not mine.’

  ‘Please come with me,’ I tried. ‘They all love seeing us. They’ll be so disappointed if we don’t go. And … it’s Christmas.’ I didn’t dare add the season of goodwill bit.

  ‘As I say, you can go. I’m staying here.’

  ‘Clive, I can’t go on my own and leave you here all by yourself! That would be … and anyway, what would they think?’

  He shrugged and switched on the TV.

  I pulled out more of my eyebrows, watching him. I didn’t relish the prospect of a long, solitary drive up north but I hated to think of the crestfallen faces of my nephews and nieces, and all Vic’s preparations gone to waste if I cancelled. Clive was now intently gazing at a programme about flatfish, so any further persuading was impossible.

  ‘Well, then,’ I sighed, utterly dismayed, ‘in that case I’d better ring Vic and make an excuse. We’ll have Christmas here, just the two of us.’

  I have to try. Sooner or later I’ll get the old Clive back. He can’t keep this up for ever.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ he says. ‘You always do, anyway.’

  Christmas Eve. Clive has gone out, I’ve no idea where. He has taken his car.

  It is a bright, clear day. I open the back door and wander out. The garden is crystallized, every blade of grass gleaming and glinting in the sunlight. I hug my jacket around me and breathe in the sharp air. It is invigorating. A ray of sunlight falls across my cheek. I begin to feel better.

  Things have got to change soon. We can’t carry on like this. And suddenly I’m sure: Clive is going to forgive me. He must. It’s just the timing that matters. Of course! He is planning on leaving it until tomorrow morning, just to make Christmas all the more wonderful. Or tonight. Perhaps even now he is out shopping for some lovely present, some pretty thing that he knows I’ll love. He will wrap his arms around me. He’ll kiss me fervently and I’ll kiss him back and everything will be all right again. We’ll find a way to rebuild our relationship after these tribulations. It will be like it was before, when he bought me flowers and gave me foot massages and supported me when things went wrong. I smile as I feel a weight lift from my heart.

  Since cancelling the trip to Vic’s I’ve done very little in the way of Christmas preparations, except for ordering a last-minute turkey. Now I launch myself into action. I grab the secateurs and run down the garden. There are holly bushes gleaming with tight clusters of berries, and there’s ivy too. I cut generous sprigs, trim them to size and tie them with red ribbons. I tuck them into the bookshelves, over the pictures, along the mantelpiece, anywhere I can find to make the house look festive.

  Next I pull out the Christmas box from the cupboard under the stairs. Inside is a tangle of glittering bits and pieces. I fish out streams of tinsel and string them up over the banister and around the fireplace. All our Christmas cards are lying in a heap on the kitchen windowsill. I arrange them on the cupboards and the dresser.

  I notice the silver candlesticks are suffering from tarnish. I seek out the polish and buff them up till they sparkle. The candles have not been lit for a long time, but apart from a bit of dust they are all right. I survey the scene and laugh with excitement and anticipation. Perhaps it won’t be the worst Christmas after all. Perhaps if we can talk things through Clive will reconcile himself to my harp-playing and I’ll be able to go back to the barn sometimes. Just sometimes would be enough to get me through. I’d be happy with that. I’ll aim for that.

  There is no Christmas tree. Maybe Clive will bring one home today but I’m not going to risk it. Last year’s Norway spruce is still in a pot at the bottom of the garden. I rush out to examine it. It’s a little straggly and bald in places, but nothing that a bit of lametta won’t fix. It will do. I start dragging it inside.

  ‘Hello, Ellie!’

  It is Pauline, calling over the fence, scarcely recognizable she is so bundled up in woollens.

  ‘Hello, Pauline!’

  ‘Everything all right, dear?’

  ‘Everything’s fine! Merry Christmas!’

  ‘Merry Christmas, dear!’

  The tree, the house, the dinner; it is all perfect. I’ve put on my red dress. It looks good with the silver necklace Clive gave me on our last anniversary. I wink at myself in the mirror. For once I am feeling attractive.

  The candles are lit and our favourite CD of Christmas music is playing. Surely he must be home soon?

  I step over to the cooker and give the curry another stir. Clive loves curry and this is a special recipe with saffron, raisins and almonds. Christmas Eve curry is a longstanding tradition of ours. I consult my watch then add another few spoonfuls of stock. The curry has been on the cooker so long it is beginning to dry out.

  The music keeps jangling on and on. I press the stop button on the CD player and cut it dead. It’s getting on my nerves.

  I take the curry off the hob. The smell is making me slightly queasy.

  I blow the candles out. It is ten o’clock.

  I wander into the sitting room. I’ve ventured to light the fire again just this once, but now it has died low. I sink into the armchair beside it and sit there, waiting and gazing into the embers.

  At last I hear the front door opening. I shoot towards it.

  ‘Clive, I was worried about you!’

  One look at his face tells me that he is very, very far from forgiveness. He brushes me to one side and staggers upstairs. A whiff of whisky trails in his wake.

  I trudge upstairs. The curry is now in a Tupperware pot in the fridge. Boxing Day lunch, perhaps? I’m dog-tired but I somehow doubt I’ll get much sleep.

  Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and I’m not sure now what it will bring. I wonder if we’ll be eating the turkey that’s waiting; the potatoes and sprouts and parsnips, bread sauce and all the trimmings. Should I go to the trouble of cooking it all? I probably should. It will be worth it if it makes a difference. I need to keep showing Clive somehow that I care.

  The light is on in the bedroom. I peer round the door. Clive’s outline is illuminated; he is sitting up in bed, naked, a book in his hands. He stares at the pages. The book is my notebook, the book where I write my poems. I normally keep it tucked away in a drawer. Never, ever has Clive shown any interest in reading it before. My heart rate quickens. Is there anything incriminating written on those pages? I know that there is. At least, according to Clive’s already razor-sharp suspicions it will be incriminating.

  I take a step forward. At once he clambers out of bed. He pushes past me without a word and heads for the bathroom. The book lies open on the pillow. I pick it up and see the poem I wrote only a few weeks ago.

  Could this be it?

  That thing we need,

  We tremble and we ache for,

  The one that haunts our every thought,

  The one we stay awake for?

  All those years, those steadfast years

  Of thinking it was mine,

  Of sharing laughter, sharing tears;

  I couldn’t cross a line.

  But now I’ve found
a warmer place,

  With music, heart and breathing space.

  Unexpected, gentle, bright,

  It casts a very different light.

  I seem to crave it more and more

  I am not what I was before.

  The back of my neck prickles as I scan the words. Why, oh, why did I write that? Why am I so, so dangerously stupid? Sometimes my poems seem to take on their own thoughts and breathe them out on to the page, while I myself am scarcely aware of them. Now the words floodlight all my feelings for Dan. And Clive has seen them.

  A clod of dread is forming in my chest. What have I done, what have I done?

  Footsteps sound behind me on the landing. I turn around. My husband is there. He comes to a halt and stands heavily by the door, trickles of water running down his face; a massive, naked mountain of a man. His eyes bore through me.

  ‘A warmer place?’ The words come growling through his bared teeth.

  ‘It’s … just a poem!’ I stammer.

  ‘You crave it more and more, do you?’

  ‘Clive, it’s not …’ I hang my head.

  He strides towards me, then stops abruptly. I can’t look at him but I can sense the anguish seething in every fibre of his body. He snatches the book from me. He begins tearing out the pages. I wince. My eyes fix on my creations as they are pulled apart one by one. The paper screeches out in distress as it rips. The noise runs through my teeth, to the back of my head, right to the core of me. Something inside me is ripping too.

  As Clive reaches the final poem, I make a last desperate bid to grab the book back from him. For a second we are engaged in a tug of war, then suddenly he lets go. I hang on to it: one miserable, crumpled page. All that is left of my musings.

  37

  Dan

  I spend a long time stroking Phineas, then finally turf him off my knee. It is time for bed. I must be up early tomorrow morning to ring my son Ed and wish him a happy Christmas. I will not see Ed over Christmas, which is a sad thing. He will spend the day with his grandparents and his great-uncle and his great-aunt and Roe Deer and Roe Deer’s guitar man. It will be the first time he meets guitar man.

  Roe Deer has apparently now changed her mind and informed guitar man of Ed’s existence. It was too difficult to keep hidden any longer. She wanted guitar man to meet her parents and her parents don’t approve of hiding things like that from possible future husbands. Also, Ed himself couldn’t be relied upon to tell the required lies at the required time, pretending he was a cousin and suchlike.

  Much to Roe Deer’s relief, guitar man doesn’t seem too bothered about the number of strings. Indeed, he might still marry her. It is very important I contribute absolutely as much money as I can to Ed’s upkeep though.

  I told Roe Deer I wasn’t keen on Ed spending Christmas with his grandparents and his great-uncle and his great-aunt and Roe Deer and guitar man. I wanted him to spend it with me. I had already missed five Christmases of Ed’s life, so this was only fair. But she said it was too late; it was all arranged now. I could have Ed next Christmas.

  38

  Ellie

  I lie awake for the rest of the night, cuddling my last poem. As I hold them close, the words I’ve written seem to seep deeper and deeper inside me.

  But now I’ve found a warmer place,

  With music, heart and breathing space.

  It seems to me that those three elements are vital to life. Vital to my life, anyway.

  Christmas morning dawns. Clive gives a loud yawn, stretches and climbs out of bed. Will he wish me a happy Christmas? Will he? Will he? I tell myself it all hinges on that. I lie there, silently. Looking at him, waiting.

  He scratches his groin and takes a gulp of water from the glass on the bedside table. He meanders down the landing. I hear him having a shower, then he returns and starts opening and shutting drawers. He puts on jeans and a jumper. I am still waiting.

  He disappears again. I hear him tramp downstairs, hear the kettle and the radio and, half an hour later, I hear him go out.

  I drag myself out of the bed. I stumble to the bathroom and slosh my face with water. Then, my heart banging in my chest, I run back down the landing. I grab a bag from the bottom of the wardrobe. I scramble into some clothes and throw some more into the bag. As an afterthought I rush back to the bathroom and add soap, toothbrush and painkillers.

  Outside the air stings my hot eyes. I dash the tears away and fling the bag into the car boot. The windscreen is all iced over. I return to the house to fetch my shoulder bag, find my wallet at the bottom of it, take out my credit card and scrape. At last there is a hole in the ice big enough to see through. Mercifully the engine starts up all right. I accelerate away, out of the village and along the winding roads of Exmoor.

  My mind is in shock. I feel as if something inside me has been in the process of fraying, fraying, fraying. Now it has finally broken and I am pinging off wildly in another direction. Is this moment real? Am I leaving my husband? Leaving Clive? Am I crazy?

  I look down at my hands on the steering wheel. They appear to be my hands, purposefully driving the car away, further and further from home. It must be true.

  The hills and the fields are stunned and silent. The trees drip moisture. The world whirrs past in a white blur.

  I try to wrench my thoughts into some practical pattern. It seems I am creating a gaping hole in my future and I have no idea how it can be filled. Well … if I’m honest I do have an idea. Just as in Clive’s head there’s an idea, in my head – in that mushy, dreamy section of it, the section that writes poems – there’s a version of that same idea. But there’s no way I can act on it. I scold myself for ever letting such an idea in. It’s simply not possible that anything similar can be in Dan’s head. He’s far too taken up with thoughts of his son and Rhoda.

  That wretched photo is haunting me again. I wish I’d never set eyes on it.

  No, I will have to find some alternative future. I’m running away from substance and structure and I have only a dim mist ahead of me.

  If ever I needed a friend the time is now.

  When I arrive, something feels wrong. The wreath is still on the door, the fairy lights are around the windows, but nothing is lit up. I lean on the steering wheel, my head in my hands. Of course! Christina is in Thailand. I’d completely forgotten.

  I realize with a pang how isolated I have become. I think of Vic, up in Yorkshire. But that is an incredibly long drive, and I’m not sure I am capable of it, mentally or physically.

  I turn the car round.

  39

  Dan

  She came to the Harp Barn today. Her hair was the colour of walnut wood. Her eyes were the colour of bracken in October. I did not notice her socks because her face took up the rest of my attention. It was full of tears and lines of sorrow. Her eyebrows were pulled together very closely as if they were trying to squeeze something away. There were purple-grey tinges under both her eyes. They looked swollen.

  ‘Dan, thank God you’re here!’

  Where else would I be?

  ‘Can I come in?’ she said.

  I told her of course she could.

  ‘I’ve left him,’ she said. And she held her sleeve over her face for a long time.

  I wasn’t sure at all what I was supposed to do but I eventually decided it might be all right to go over and hug her, so that is what I did. She hugged back in a way that was very tight and close. Her tears were extremely wet. They trickled one by one down the side of my neck, inside my shirt collar and down my back.

  Over her shoulder I watched out of the window the snow falling, little ashen fragments against a white sky. I thought about people leaving people and what a hard thing that is, under any circumstances.

  At last Ellie took a deep breath, pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose.

  ‘Dan,’ she said. ‘What … what are your plans for today?’

  I said the Fifi harp was gone now so the next thing was to cut up wood to make t
he Phineas, the harp that my son Ed and I are making together, and that is what I was planning on doing today.

  ‘But it’s Christmas Day!’ she said.

  I said I knew that.

  ‘Aren’t you doing anything with Jo? Or Ed? Or … or Rhoda? Aren’t they coming round?’

  I said no to all of these. Jo was doing things in soup kitchens to help those less fortunate than ourselves, and Ed was spending the day with his grandparents and his great-uncle and his great-aunt and Roe Deer and Roe Deer’s guitar man. He would come to see me on Saturday, as usual.

  Ellie sank into a chair and blew her nose again. ‘Dan,’ she said. ‘I have to be practical. I would have stayed with my friend Christina but she’s gone away to get some winter sun in Thailand. I’d forgotten. So I really don’t have anywhere to go at the moment. I’ll go and stay with my sister once I have spoken to her, but it’s a long way to drive and I’m so tired! Would it be all right if I stayed here for a bit?’

  I said of course she could.

  She stood up and hugged me again. I was getting used to it.

  ‘This is where I want to be right now,’ she said. ‘The harp is here and you are here and I feel … I’ll be no trouble, I promise. I’ll help with cooking and cleaning and things. I’ll get out of the way if you want me to. It won’t be for long, just a few days, till I get myself sorted. Would that be OK?’

  I told her of course, of course it would. We held each other for a long time. My shirt was getting very wet.

  ‘Sorry, I’m a bit wobbly. I haven’t eaten yet today. How about a nice cuppa … and some sandwiches?’ she suggested.

  I said of course again. I was saying it a lot. Then I asked her how many sandwiches she would like, and what fillings she would like in them.

  ‘You are a gem,’ she said. ‘Three, please! Any filling will do.’

  After sandwiches (brie and tomato, wholemeal bread, three each) and tea (Earl Grey for her; I had a glass of nice, cold water) she brought a cushion (green, shabby) and rug (tartan, with a few pheasant feathers stuck to it) from her car and put them in the little room. I asked what she was doing. She said, ‘I’ll sleep here if that’s all right?’