The Song of Hartgrove Hall

by Natasha Solomons

  ‘I’m sorry, miss,’ I say. ‘I’m afraid you’re lost.’

  ‘So are you,’ says Sal in her soft Texan accent.

  I’m caught between indignation and embarrassment. She shouldn’t be here and I’m put out that she is.

  ‘What can I get you?’ I say. I don’t want to quarrel.

  ‘Gin and lime.’

  I pour it for her. She sips it slowly and shudders, raising a perfectly pencilled eyebrow. I notice that her hair is that garish daffodil yellow again.

  ‘Well?’ she demands.

  I shrug and pretend to be occupied behind the bar.

  ‘Well, how’re you doin’? You don’t look so good. What a dive.’ She wrinkles her nose delicately and I hand her a cigarette.

  ‘Here. To mask the smell. I suppose Edie sent you.’

  There’s a burning sensation in my chest. I haven’t said her name aloud since I left.

  ‘Afraid not, Fox.’

  No one’s called me Fox for a while. Here I’m simply Harry.

  ‘One of Jack’s pals spotted you. It was Jack who asked me to look in on you.’

  Humiliation blooms. I’m not a recalcitrant child. Another part of me is hurt he didn’t come himself. His concern clearly has limits.

  ‘I’m not going back.’

  ‘Never said you should. I’ve come to take you to a concert.’

  She places a flyer on the bar. St Matthew Passion, St Martin-in-the-Fields, conductor Marcus Albright.

  ‘So you can report back to Jack, I suppose.’

  ‘Is that so dreadful? To have people who mind about you?’

  I’ve a filthy headache brewing, and I want desperately for her to leave.

  ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘Well, get un-busy.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sal. It’s jolly decent of you to drop by and all that but I’m afraid that I really can’t go.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up at six. Wear a clean shirt.’

  She gives me one last hard stare, then slithers off the bar stool and stalks out.

  At six-thirty we’re sitting side by side on the bus to Piccadilly. It’s crammed and I hastily relinquish my seat to a mother and her green-nosed tot with considerable eagerness as it means I can’t talk to Sal. I’m feeling grim from the lurching by the time we climb off the bus near Piccadilly.

  ‘Let’s find a pub,’ I say. ‘I could do with a drink.’

  ‘No,’ says Sal. ‘No more drinking. You can take me to the Lyons Corner House for an early supper.’

  I find myself being propelled along the Haymarket and into the restaurant where we have a dubious meal of potted ham, sloppy potatoes and wet vegetables. I don’t eat much, but watch as Sal wolfs down everything. She’s rake thin but has the appetite of a teenage boy. If I were in a less foul frame of mind, I’d say that it’s oddly attractive.

  ‘Do you know Marcus Albright?’ she asks, wiping her mouth with her napkin and setting down her cutlery with a sorrowful little sigh.

  ‘No, not personally. I admire him of course.’

  ‘Well, you should know him. I’m sure you’ll like him. Let’s get dessert. Shall we get dessert? I love English puddings.’

  Before I can answer she’s summoned the waitress and orders two spotted dicks and custard, a pudding I’ve loathed since school. She eats hers and then embarks on mine.

  ‘I have four brothers back home,’ she says. ‘You learn to eat fast with not much talking or someone will scoop it right off your plate.’

  Even Sal is too full for coffee. We hurry to Trafalgar Square. I used to come here to lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery during the war. I liked to hear Myra Hess’s piano recitals. It was always a strange experience – the gallery bereft of pictures, and music taking the place of the missing paintings. I’d come up once in a while during the school hols and there were always queues crocodiling along the street – servicemen were allowed to skip to the front while I always had to wait ignominiously in line with the women and children. I’d longed for the day when I too would be able to stroll to the front in my uniform, the ladies urging me forward. I’d not hankered after much in those days except for a green army jacket and the whiff of adventure. At the thought of my earlier self, I recoil, discomfited.

  The queue is still here but this evening it wriggles along the other side of Trafalgar Square, outside St Martin-in-the-Fields. Vast banners billowing on either side of the church doors advertise ‘Marcus Albright’ and I experience both admiration and huge, gut-piercing envy. He’s the youngest conductor ever to perform with the London Phil and it’s rumoured that the Americans want him for the New York Philharmonic. We join the end of the line and wait. All around us couples chatter and laugh. We are silent. After a few minutes of quiet shuffling, I can bear it no longer.

  ‘I must find a loo. Give me my ticket, I’ll see you in there.’

  I’m not being very gallant but Sal gives in without a fuss, surrendering a ticket. I hurry around the corner, looking for a gents. I consider slipping into a pub for a swift half before the concert – Lord knows I could do with one – but guilt gets the better of me and after using a particularly unsavoury public lavatory I hurry back to the church. The queue has evaporated and from the open doors I can hear the sound of the orchestra tuning up, which always fills me with the tingle of anticipation; it’s better than any aperitif. It’s not quite seven-thirty and I still have time to find my seat. For the first time this evening I’m glad that Sal has hauled me here.

  ‘Ticket please, sir.’

  I reach into my pocket and, scrabbling, find nothing. To my dismay I realise it must have slipped out in the gents and is now probably lying on the floor beside a urinal.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry. I seem to have misplaced it.’

  The usher notices me properly and recoils slightly. My dishevelled appearance doesn’t match my voice. I probably still smell of booze and my shirt is not as clean as it ought to be.

  ‘That’s a pity, sir. That there is the line for returns. Doesn’t seem likely now but you might get lucky.’

  I glance to where he’s pointing and see a queue of twenty people, fidgeting and checking their watches. None of them is going to see this concert and neither, by the looks of it, am I.

  I try to jostle past him. ‘Please. I really did have a ticket. My friend is inside. At least let me tell her what’s happened. I don’t want her to worry.’

  The usher is surprisingly solid. ‘Thing is, sir, I’ve heard all the tricks. I want a quiet night. Why don’t you do us both a favour and just eff off?’

  On balance this does seem like the best option. I leave and go to sit in the square. I could easily go to a pub, but somehow I don’t. The fountains are filled with water for the first time since I can remember. It’s another kind of music and it reminds me of the winterbourne streams that break across the fields after heavy rain. I’m struck with a pang of homesickness so fierce and sharp that it’s like a hunger pain and I momentarily double up.

  I smoke five cigarettes and watch the traffic curl around me. Big Ben chimes the half-hour. I wonder whether Sal will try to find me during the interval, so I hurry back up the steps and linger near the doors but the beastly usher is there and I can tell he’s still got his eye on me. Sal doesn’t come out. I should probably leave but I can’t face going back to the dingy pub, and I don’t want Sal to think that I’ve stood her up, so I return to the fountain and wait.

  The traffic quietens and I can hear wisps of sound from the concert but it’s underwater music, distorted and unpleasant. The sun sinks behind the Thames and it suddenly gets cold. A mizzle of rain starts to fall, spotting the pavements. I shiver and wrap my arms around myself, cursing my carelessness. I could be sitting in a warm church and listening to fine music instead of freezing out here. I could also do with a decent mackintosh. Ruefully, I picture for the umptee
nth time the smart mackintosh hanging on its peg in the gunroom at Hartgrove Hall.

  At last, concert-goers start to file out. I nip across the road and force my way inside against a tide of large women smelling strongly of rosewater, lavender and lily of the valley – I’m elbowing my way through a bosomy herbaceous border. They mutter crossly. I catch a glimpse of yellow hair and see Sal disappearing through a side door off the chancel. Ignoring the ladies’ angry mutterings, I push my way through the ample hordes. Reaching the door, I discover it’s locked and hammer on it with my fists. A musician appears, his bow tie dangling loose, violin in one hand, glass in the other. He looks me up and down.

  ‘I suppose you’re a pal of Marcus?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ I say, with barely a moment’s hesitation, and follow him into the vestry.

  A party is well under way. I notice Sal in close conversation with a man whom I recognise as Marcus Albright himself. He spots me first and stiffens, like a cat spying a robin. It sounds ridiculous but I hadn’t appreciated how young he is. I’d read in all the papers the lists of his grand achievements before the age of thirty, feeling rather envious, but I’d consoled myself with the fact that twenty-nine was almost middle-aged and that I had heaps of time to do something marvellous myself before I reached such an age. Now, looking at the slender, boyish figure conspiring with Sal, I realise that he seems hardly older than me. I decide I don’t like him at all. He smiles and waves me over. Imperious so and so, I say to myself. Thinks he’s so high and mighty.

  ‘Did you like the concert?’ he demands with an easy smile, confident of my response.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I was too cold to like anything.’

  His face falls and I feel almost bad but really I’m pleased that my opinion matters at all. Sal elbows me sharply in the ribs.

  ‘Ignore him, Marcus. He’s having you on. He skipped out on me and didn’t hear a single note. What the hell happened to you?’

  I try not to laugh. Sal’s a different breed from the reticent English gals. She always says exactly what she thinks, often in somewhat coarse language. I’d forgotten how much I approve of Sal. However, she looks genuinely cross, her hands planted on her hips.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, old thing. Must have dropped my ticket on the floor of the lav. Wretched usher wouldn’t let me in.’

  ‘You should have used my name,’ says Marcus, still looking at me appraisingly. I’m uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

  ‘Well, might have been a bit tricky. I didn’t know you until five ticks ago.’

  ‘No. But now we’re going to be excellent chums, I’m sure of it.’ He slips his arm through mine and steers me to a table where a bar has been set up with gin and sticky bottles of lime syrup.

  ‘We’ll stay here for one and then we’ll go on to the Langham. I expect that’s more your scene.’

  ‘Oh, yes please,’ says Sal, appearing at my elbow. ‘I’m starving.’

  I look at Sal with wonder and then survey the grubby vestry with some regret. I’d much prefer to stay here, swigging gin with the second violins, than sip champagne in a smart hotel.

  But then I discover that everything with Marcus is fun. Despite my present gloom, I find myself laughing. It feels strange and unfamiliar. Marcus discreetly pays for everything without condescension or show. We drink champagne and eat oysters although oddly, for the first evening in God knows how long, I don’t feel drunk.

  Sometime after midnight, Marcus turns to me, his eyes bright.

  ‘So you’re a composer?’

  The gloom returns. I feel all the candles in the shining Langham bar gutter out one by one. I shake my head.

  ‘Want to be. I’m stuck. And I’m not sure whether I’m really good enough to bother about getting unstuck.’

  ‘The Morning Post and the Western Gazette seem to think you are.’

  ‘You read the reviews?’

  Marcus shrugs and slurps another oyster. ‘Sal showed me. I like to keep track of all my rivals.’

  I perk up, delighted, but Marcus laughs, putting me back in my place. ‘You’re not a rival yet, but I like to be prepared.’

  There were two very short reviews of the concert at Hartgrove Hall. It’s only because of Edie that the critics took any notice at all. They mostly commented on the eccentricity of the occasion and weren’t terribly complimentary about my own piece.

  ‘“Muddy orchestration. Overcomplication in the string section,”’ I quote in my best ‘man from the papers’ voice.

  ‘They were nice about Edie,’ counters Sal. ‘“Edie Rose never sounded better. A different style for the young lady but very satisfactory nonetheless.”’

  ‘A singer’s only as good as the song.’ Marcus grins, a frank, open smile. He is a hard fellow to dislike.

  ‘There was a decent photo of you too,’ he adds, reaching for the last oyster, only to find Sal already taking it. ‘Good grief, girl, I pity the husband that’s going to have to pay to feed you,’ he says, surrendering.

  Sal laughs, but I can tell she’s hurt.

  We talk for a while longer, or rather they talk and I listen. To my relief they don’t mention Edie again. It’s a grubby thing, to love your brother’s wife. It’s biblical and hopeless and thoroughly unpleasant. I wonder whether Edie has told Sal. I expect not. She’s horribly discreet. And even if she had, why would Sal tell Marcus? I’m fooling myself to think that the world is concerned about my own small miseries.

  ‘So you’re really coming?’ says Sal, her eyes bright.

  I’ve not heard a word. ‘I beg your pardon?’ I ask.

  ‘Of course he is,’ says Marcus. ‘It’s all decided. We’ll stay up till dawn, and catch the first train.’

  ‘The train to where?’ I ask, with the feeling that it has already left the station.

  ‘Scotland,’ says Marcus.

  Marcus has rented a small house on the Ardnamurchan peninsula, purportedly to find some peace and quiet to write music and study next season’s scores. However, he has also invited a ragtag assortment of pals to visit, so there never is any quiet. I see Marcus neither write nor study.

  The sheer beauty of the place catches me off guard. We’re at the westernmost tip of the mainland but it feels like an island. The sand is moon white, the waters are as clear as glass and, when the sun shines, they shimmer, a bold Renaissance blue that is Mediterranean and distinctly un-British. Sheep meander through coarse marram grass that sprouts stiffly along the beach. The dunes run for miles, sand spraying like mist in the wind. At low tide the sea recedes to the mouth of the bay, leaving shallow pools of glinting water. For days on end we spy no one but each other and the teeming birds – gulls, cormorants and even, now and again, a vast, red-dashed sea eagle.

  In the stillness, I consider unhappily whether my leaving Hartgrove was entirely due to Jack and Edie. Disliking myself, I wonder whether part of my desire to leave was ambition. Those few horrid months of farming showed me how much I despise it. Staying at Hartgrove and working the estate would be the right thing to do, the moral choice, yet I simply can’t do it. I have to write. It’s ironic, then, how stuck I am. Now with peace and time to compose, I stutter and flail. I contemplate, grimly, the possibility that my inspiration comes from Hartgrove. Like Antaeus, my strength flows directly from the soil and, when separated from it, I stultify.

  I’d understood that in Scotland it was always raining, but for the first week we have nothing but glorious sunshine. The cottage is a whitewashed stone croft on the edge of the beach. At high tide the waters lick around its garden of heather and at night it’s like being adrift on a boat, the sea echoing through the dark. It’s too big for me. The rhythm of the waves and the grind of the sand push out my own thoughts, showing them to be silly and small. Nothing but twiddles and trifles.

  Each tide carries new visitors to the cottage and takes others away. After a f
ew days I stop attempting to learn their names; they never stay more than a day or two before the small striped fishing boat ferries them away again. Marcus, Sal and I are the only visitors who remain day after day. There’s a prevailing carnival, last-day-of-term feeling amongst the others but I feel like an actor in a play, saying my lines but knowing it’s all hopelessly pretend. Marcus and his friends rise late and wander out into the garden to sit on the small terrace overlooking the water, draping themselves in blankets or beach towels against the cool, northerly breeze. The talk is rambunctious and incessant: of music and sex. Usually I’d delight in such conversation but I can’t quite bring myself to join in. As the others pad outside to the terrace with mugs of coffee, I disappear off to the beach to pace the strand and watch the surf. I tell Marcus that I’m working on something – it’s a fib but I need to be left alone.

  To my relief, the air smells different from at home. There’s a smell of salt and as the tide withdraws, leaving a green ooze of seaweed and slime, there’s the stench of decaying fish, but beneath that there’s the scent of heather and of wild herbs I don’t recognise. The birds are different too. The dawn chorus is full of other voices, awash with strange songs. I’m far away from everything I’ve known and the relief is enormous.

  The sharp sea wind catches me off guard, and as I gulp greedy lungfuls, I feel a space opening up inside me. For months there’s been nothing but a void filled with self-loathing but as the salt air rushes through me it drives out the image of Edie. For a moment I feel stillness inside myself, like a pause between concerto movements. After a minute the restlessness returns but it has changed tone. I need to do something. I’m fed up with drifting, afloat on misery and self-pity. The unfamiliar songs of the birds give me an idea – perhaps I ought to collect a few songs from here. I’ve not collected anything for months. I question whether that, as much as unhappiness, has blocked my writing. I’ve stopped mixing paint for my palette, yet I’m complaining that I don’t have any interesting colours.