The Song of Hartgrove Hall

by Natasha Solomons

  Clara looked anxiously from her husband to me, wondering how to placate us both. ‘I did tell him not to say anything.’ She turned to me. ‘Of course we were going to discuss it with you, Daddy, but I didn’t think today was the right time. And nothing is decided yet.’

  ‘I should hope not,’ I said, cross all over again.

  ‘It’s a tremendous opportunity,’ said Ralph, fixing me with a look of ill-concealed dislike. ‘I don’t really see why it’s a matter for the whole family.’

  I glanced over to the sofa where Robin was sprawled, still asleep. I wished for the thousandth time that Edie were here. She would have defused the situation, mollified Ralph and quietly persuaded them both that having Robin perform in public at such a young age was a ghastly idea. I tried to think what she would have said, although inevitably I was incapable of presenting it with much tact.

  ‘Your mother sang as a child and loathed it. Her lifelong stage fright was a consequence of having been forced to perform when she was so young.’

  Clara stiffened. ‘She never said that to me. And no one is forcing Robin to do anything. He loves to perform.’

  I felt a pulse tick in my temple. ‘He loves to play, not to perform.’ I glanced at Ralph who was rolling his eyes at Clara. ‘No, Ralph, it is not the same thing. At present Robin’s enjoyment of music is a very private matter. He plays for himself. If we happen to listen, then all to the good. He likes to please us – we’re his family, after all. But he does not play for us. He’s a charming and selfish little fellow who plays solely for his own pleasure. And at five years old it’s absolutely right that he should. Performance, on the other hand, is about presenting oneself to an audience. It necessitates self-awareness, which Robin doesn’t have and, frankly, oughtn’t to have.’

  I sat back on the sofa and steadied myself with a sip of whisky. My heart was beating wildly like a panicked bird, a most unpleasant sensation. Katy and Annabel stared at me, mouths agape. I didn’t think many people dared to contradict their father, but I confess that, when it comes to matters of music, I’m afraid of no man.

  Clara shot a pleading look at her sister. Next to Edie, Lucy was considered the best person to reason with me. Lucy was always the peacemaker. When they were girls she’d confess to Clara’s crimes simply to get the unpleasantness over with. We never believed her, leading, inevitably, to Clara complaining that, in my eyes at least, darling Lucy could do no wrong.

  Lucy cleared her throat. ‘Papa, you keep telling us how difficult it is to succeed as a pianist. Isn’t this a wonderful opportunity for Robin?’

  Ralph seized his moment. ‘It is. I showed the producers a tape of him and they were astounded. They’ve never had a kid his age on the show. They’re desperate for a prodigy.’

  I winced, unable to abide that term. ‘Child prodigies are circus animals. Remarkable because they’re freaks of nature. Brilliant but freaks nonetheless. They want to put him on television so that people can gawp at him.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, Fox. There is no need to be so melodramatic,’ said Ralph, helping himself to yet more of the good single malt. ‘It’s a fantastic opportunity. He works hard. We all do. The lessons and travel are bloody expensive. It all mounts up.’

  I thought this was a bit of a cheek, considering that I’d surreptitiously paid for Robin’s lessons.

  ‘And yes, Fox, I know that you’ve been paying for the lessons. That has to stop. It’s humiliating. I’m his father and it’s up to me to foot his bills.’

  He dared me to contradict him but I threw up my hands. What he said was true: it’s a man’s right to pay for his own son.

  Clara frowned and looked at her daughters. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to go and play or watch a video?’

  They shook their heads in unison. Watching us squabble was clearly much more interesting than any other kind of entertainment.

  Lucy frowned and coughed. ‘Has anyone asked Robin what he would like?’

  ‘For pity’s sake,’ I exclaimed, quite exasperated by these trendy parenting notions. I’ve never given two hoots for what a child proclaims he wants. ‘He wants to eat chocolate instead of vegetables, wipe bogies under the dining-room table and play the piano twenty-three hours each day. We decide what’s best.’

  ‘No,’ said Ralph, ‘Clara and I decide.’

  I grunted, too angry to talk, and looked over at Robin, snoozing on the sofa. His eyelids flickered. The rascal was only pretending to be asleep. I hoped the argument hadn’t upset him. On the other hand, I dreaded that there was worse to come.

  The television show was one of those ghastly talent contests. I’d never watched it before but Clara lent me some videos that the production company had sent through and I dutifully endured a few episodes. I fast-forwarded through most of the first few, which I considered to be the worst kind of freak show. Some of the contestants appeared to have some kind of mental illness and in my view should have been referred to a doctor instead of being given an opportunity to share their delusions with the nation. It was a pitiful spectacle. It never ceases to bewilder me what people find entertaining. There are so many marvellous and talented individuals – musicians, actors, ballerinas – all of whom are eager to transport us with their remarkable skills, and yet many of us prefer to watch the twitchings of the asinine and the damaged. It’s the modern equivalent of the gallows. Sterile and sanctioned, but a gallows nonetheless – we applaud while they dance in the air.

  I digress. These things infuriated and frustrated me but, as Robin never stopped reminding me, I am very old.

  It was the first of Robin’s meetings with the producers in London and Clara and Robin wanted me to go. I did not bother to ask whether Ralph felt the same way since it was perfectly clear that he did not. The meeting was in the afternoon and, although we had time beforehand, for once I did not invite Clara and Robin to lunch with me at the club. I could feel Clara waiting for the invitation, but while I did feel rather bad about it (despite everything, I do very much enjoy my daughters’ company and taking them out to luncheon is a father’s great pleasure), on this occasion I’d arranged to meet Marcus and Albert. I found myself once again very much in need of their advice. Clara and Robin disappeared to John Lewis to purchase new school shoes or some such, and I took a taxi down to Pall Mall and my club.

  I enjoy playing the part of the old gent when I come to town. The pavement along St James’s is strewn with elderly chaps much like myself, like white anemones. They all wear similar suits: good hard-wearing tweed, never in fashion but also never quite out of it. We fellows are an endangered breed in general, but the clubs along Pall Mall are stuffed with us. They are places where jackets and ties must be worn, where burgundy and cigars are encouraged, while denim and women are frowned upon.

  My club is the RAC. Nothing to do with the automobile rescue service any longer; it is instead one of those last bastions of civility or old fogery, depending on your point of view. Being an old fogey, I am fond of the place. It’s very comfortable – a little too comfortable after yet another shiny refurbishment. I preferred the worn leather, the slightly gloomy bar and the atmosphere of regretful yet elegant decay, but with members dying off at quite a rate, the club needed to encourage the enemy – young chaps of merely forty or fifty – to join.

  A porter in a red uniform greeted me at the desk.

  ‘Mr Fox-Talbot, Sir Marcus and Mr Shields are waiting for you in the bar.’

  I walked across the chequered floor to the new bar, ablaze with the light from an array of chandeliers.

  ‘Morning,’ said Marcus a little sadly. ‘They’ve cleaned out all the nooks and repapered the crannies. I don’t like it at all.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed, glancing about. ‘It’s beastly. It feels like a gentlemen’s club in drag.’

  ‘Well, I like it,’ said Albert. ‘I think the new bar is splendid.’

  ‘You always were a bi
t of a modernist,’ reproached Marcus, and Albert laughed.

  ‘I’m not sure that liking art deco lamps and polished brass makes me a modernist exactly. Shall we order drinks?’

  This was another thing that I liked about my old chums. There was never the slightest hesitation about pre-luncheon drinks. Clara and Lucy, even Ralph, inevitably objected on the grounds that they’d really better not since they had work to do in the afternoon. I’ve always considered that a paltry excuse. If I’m honest, some of my most innovative works have been achieved as a direct result of a Negroni, a dozen oysters and a bottle of lunchtime Chablis.

  We settled down with our drinks and, after a few minutes of chit-chat, Marcus turned to me with a ‘Well? What’s up?’

  I told them as succinctly as I could about the television business, which wasn’t succinctly at all, since I succeeded in getting het up and furious all over again. They listened without interruption and only when I slowed, reaching for my glass, did Albert raise an eyebrow.

  ‘Are you quite finished, Fox?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. I think so. The whole business is dreadful. It’s a terrible thing for the boy.’

  ‘Quite so,’ agreed Marcus.

  Albert sighed. ‘Whether it is or it isn’t, you are not a musician in this situation. You’re a grandfather. If you’ve made your point, which, knowing you, old chap, you probably have several times over with decreasing politeness . . .’ He glanced at me and I nodded: it was perfectly true. The last time I’d said my piece, Clara had left pretty quickly without saying goodbye. ‘Then I’m afraid,’ Albert said, ‘it’s time to shut the hell up.’

  ‘I’ll have to pick up the bloody pieces afterwards when it all goes wrong,’ I said, signalling for another snifter.

  Albert shrugged. ‘Then you do. You’re the boy’s grandfather, not his father. It’s not up to you to make the decisions. If you keep sticking your nose in, you won’t change anything but you will thoroughly annoy Clara.’

  I turned to Marcus. ‘You’re very quiet.’

  He frowned. ‘It’s a quandary. I agree with you that the boy is far too young to perform in public. It’s a horrible idea.’

  ‘Good. At least I have one ally,’ I grumbled, giving Albert a sharp look.

  Marcus waved his hand. ‘Oh do be quiet, Fox. Albert’s perfectly correct. Don’t piss off your daughter. It won’t end well.’

  I stared miserably at the melting ice in my glass.

  ‘Do you remember in the early days when I used to advise you on your orchestration?’ asked Marcus.

  ‘Good grief, do I remember? “Too thick. Too much cello. No pianist could play that unless he had four fucking hands.”’

  Marcus looked extremely smug, an unusual expression for a man of eighty-two. ‘Ah, yes, but was I ever wrong?’

  ‘No.’

  He looked even more smug. Positively Cheshire cat. ‘Well, Albert and I are equally correct about this. You’ve said your bit. Now shut up and cheer at the sidelines. If it does all go wrong, then be glad that you’re around to help pick up the pieces.’

  ‘Don’t upset them all, Fox,’ said Albert, more gently this time. ‘You seem better. You’ve put on a bit of weight and you smile. The boy’s doing you good. You don’t want to lose him by being rude to his parents.’

  This wasn’t the advice that I’d wanted. I’d rather hoped that the three of us would blaze into the production company’s offices like the ageing cowboys in The Magnificent Seven and call a halt to the whole thing. Unfortunately, I had a disagreeable, churning feeling in my guts suggesting either that the oysters were off or, more likely, that my friends were right. I decided to voice no further objections to Clara and Ralph – or, as Edie liked to say, ‘For once in your life, Harry, keep schtum.’ I wished she could have been here to see it. Harry Fox-Talbot, keeping schtum at last.

  The meeting wasn’t held at the television studios but in cramped offices in Soho, plastered with posters of previous talent-show winners – at least I presumed they were winners due to the number of exclamation marks after their names. Robin, Clara and I perched in a row on a leather sofa, while Ralph prowled the waiting room, pretending to read the industry magazines. On the opposite sofa a doll-faced girl of eight or nine, wearing a pink T-shirt and a glittery Alice band, sat with her mother, a large stuffed bear with a matching Alice band between them. She smiled at Robin, who grimaced and started to pick his nose. My grandson had not yet developed charm.

  I was already irritated. I didn’t think children ought to be kept waiting like this. It only exacerbates their anxiety. But then I wondered whether perhaps that was the point. To see how they managed under pressure. Robin clutched his music on his lap. He didn’t need it to play, but its presence comforted him.

  A barrage of overly solicitous assistants kept offering us a surprising variety of waters. ‘Still? Sparking? Chilled? Room temperature?’

  ‘Tea, please,’ I said. ‘Hot.’

  Clara shot me an anxious glance. I sighed. Robin had promised me that he would behave and in turn Clara had extorted the same promise from me. After twenty minutes or so we were called in to see the producers, ahead of the girl and her mother.

  A cluster of chairs had been set out around a coffee table. The walls were lined with yet more posters of aspiring and perspiring young men and women, most of them mid-song, eyes screwed up, pink mouths open as wide as starling chicks’ waiting for worms to be popped in. Three people stood up to greet us as we entered, two women and a man. All of them were much too young – everyone seems young to me but even the man, who was the eldest of the three, was barely out of his twenties.

  ‘Hi, I’m Mike,’ he said. ‘This is Ellie and Jocasta.’

  The two women smiled and waved in bubbly unison, like synchronised swimmers. Ellie, a sparkly blonde who looked as though she ought to still be in school finishing her geography homework, grinned warmly at Robin. ‘We’re so excited to meet you, Robin. We loved the tape your dad sent in. You’re very talented.’

  Robin said nothing, only stared. There were a few minutes of chit-chat about the weather. I’ve observed over the years that this is the way that one can distinguish meetings in the various parts of the world. In England one starts with a discussion of the weather, usually commiserating about the rain, occasionally marvelling at an outbreak of sunshine, while in Los Angeles every meeting begins with at least fifteen minutes spent complaining about traffic. Meetings in Dorset inevitably start with discussions on compost and the progress of one’s vegetable patch.

  The other woman, Jocasta, leaned over and whispered something to Ellie, who nodded.

  ‘You’re the grandfather?’ said Ellie to me as if it were a role for a play.

  ‘I’m Robin’s grandfather, yes.’

  ‘And you’re the composer?’

  ‘I am a composer.’

  ‘And it was you who discovered Robin’s gift?’ She glanced down again at Jocasta’s clipboard.

  ‘I realised that he had an affinity for music, yes.’

  ‘And you’re a well-known composer, is that right? And you run a series of summer music concerts at a country house?’

  ‘Well, at my house,’ I said.

  Ellie frowned and looked at the clipboard in Jocasta’s lap. ‘Oh. So you actually own,’ she ran her finger down the page, ‘Hartgrove Hall in Dorset?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Oh.’ She appeared momentarily stumped and then shrugged. ‘We like to reflect the audience’s world back at them and so perhaps Hartgrove Hall is a bit’ – she hesitated, reaching for the right word – ‘rarefied for us.’

  I thought this was a bit much since it was quite clear to me that both Jocasta and Ellie had been educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College or some such establishment. They had the gleam and shimmer of the expensively educated. The three of them stared at me, clearly making a reassessment.
Jocasta produced a flourish of fresh notes.

  ‘But you teach him? That must be a wonderful experience.’

  ‘I don’t teach him any more. I’m afraid I’m a limited pianist. He comes to my house to practise.’

  Three sets of eyes now swivelled eagerly to face Clara and Ralph. ‘You can’t afford to buy Robin his own piano? That’s fantastic.’

  They wrote copious notes.

  Ralph coughed. ‘No, that isn’t it at all. We could. We decided that Robin is so hooked on the piano it was better not to have one in the house.’

  ‘I’m the same with chocolate,’ said Jocasta, smiling at Robin. ‘Can’t have it in the house. I just can’t resist.’ She giggled.

  I felt deeply uneasy. My instinct was that these people were much, much smarter than they were pretending to be. There was a careful plan here and simply because we couldn’t see it didn’t mean that it wasn’t laid out meticulously around our ankles.

  I cleared my throat. ‘May I ask what is the purpose of today’s meeting?’

  ‘Of course!’ said Ellie. ‘I’m so glad you asked. Thank you.’

  Mike, who hadn’t spoken yet, leaned forward and addressed himself directly to Robin. ‘We simply want to have a friendly chat. Our researchers have told us a bit about you but we’d like to hear it from you. Then if we’re all happy – you most of all, Robin – we’ll put you up tonight in a nice hotel in London and pay for you and your family to go out for a nice dinner, and then tomorrow you’ll show us what you can do on the piano.’

  Clara frowned. ‘He’s auditioning tomorrow? I thought the auditions for the new series weren’t for months.’

  Mike shook his head. ‘The open auditions aren’t till August. This is a special pre-performance. It’s not an audition at all.’

  We must have looked utterly confused as Ellie smiled indulgently at Mike. ‘We like to have a few really special performers, some absolute gems of talent dotted amongst the public auditions. We want to see if Robin might be a good fit for one of those spots.’