The Song of Hartgrove Hall

by Natasha Solomons

  Calmer now, I read the inscription:

  ‘To Edie, Happy Christmas, love, Jack. The Lotus Club, Longboat Key, December ’98.’

  I turned over the card. There was nothing else.

  I couldn’t sleep. I sat up in the dark with a glass of whisky, listening to the creak and shudder of the house. Jack had been quite clear: he would not forgive us. And yet there was the Christmas card – did it reveal a softening of his resolve? Or perhaps he had forgiven Edie and not me. For Christ’s sake, why hadn’t she told me he’d sent it? Why, of all things to send her, did he choose a bloody Christmas card? Or were there other cards, a letter even?

  I rifled through her desk, taking it apart drawer by drawer, leaving an armada of papers strewn across the rug, but I couldn’t find any others. Had she tossed them out? Hidden them? Or was this the only one? I might never know. Anger flared with the whisky fumes. I’d not been angry with Edie for a long time. It was a queer feeling. Before, when I’d been angry, I’d tell her and we’d have a jolly good row. This anger had nowhere to go and it trickled through me like meltwater.

  I’d never attempted to find Jack. He knew where to find us. He’d asked us to leave him alone and it had felt like the very least I could do, considering. Yet the card suggested other possibilities. Perhaps I ought to search for him. Perhaps he’d been waiting for me to do so for years. Bloody Edie. I could always stuff the card back in the drawer and forget about it, but that was silly talk. I knew it was there, and so a decision must be made.

  An owl hooted through the stillness and at a distance another answered. I sloshed another finger of whisky into my glass, satisfied to find that I was buoyant with alcohol, bobbing most obligingly upon waves of fifteen-year-old Macallan.

  Had Edie ever seen Jack, I wondered. She’d certainly had the opportunity to, during her various concert tours. A lustrous spark of jealousy flared deep inside me, long dormant, suddenly and uselessly rekindled. There was something bracing about it, however futile, like desire for the dead.

  I fingered the card, re-examining it for hidden messages. Of course there were none. It was entirely without context. A floating sign, like a stray line of a libretto from a lost opera, and I could not interpret it with any certainty. And yet the card itself gave me cause for hope. I chose to see it as a token of forgiveness. Surely, if Jack could forgive Edie sufficiently to post her a gaudy card of a Florida beach sprinkled with glitter, then perhaps, just perhaps, he might forgive me.

  ‘A holiday?’ said Clara. ‘You want to take us all on holiday to Florida?’

  ‘Yes. A week or so in the sun after Christmas. You certainly need a rest after all the nastiness with Ralph. I can play a little golf.’

  ‘Have you ever played golf?’

  ‘No. But Florida sounds like the sort of place one starts.’

  She stared at me as though I’d finally cracked.

  ‘Afterwards, I thought we’d take the children on to Disney World.’

  ‘Aren’t the girls a bit old?’

  ‘You’re never too old for Disney World. Isn’t that their slogan? And besides, Robin will like it.’

  ‘It’s very generous of you, Papa, but wouldn’t you prefer Vienna or Prague? Somewhere with music and culture rather than’ – here she paused, as though about to say a particularly dirty word – ‘golf.’

  ‘Maybe I fancy a change.’

  Clara did not look convinced. I did not tell her about Jack’s Christmas card. I wasn’t quite ready to confess to her the whole sorry business. Besides, I hadn’t written to tell Jack that we were coming. He might have moved away. He might refuse to see us. He might be dead.

  While Clara was bemused by the idea of the trip, the children were delighted. I’d not travelled for some time and had not been overseas since a year or so before Edie had died – she’d been too unwell to travel and I hadn’t wanted to leave her. Now I found myself anxious about the journey and the prospect of being away from home. I woke in the early hours, fretting about details: suppose I mislaid my passport, or neglected to pack my good non-crease trousers, and what if my bags got lost? This new-found timidity irked and shamed me. I’d conducted concerts all around the world and had taken pride in my speedy, lightweight, last-minute packing – yet for this trip, I started to prepare my suitcase weeks in advance, fussing endlessly over what to take. At least, I consoled myself, Clara would be there to look after any last-minute fumbles.

  Then, two weeks before the holiday, Ralph developed shingles and, as a consequence, both girls caught chickenpox two days before we were set to depart. Ralph, in my opinion, was a wretched father, but it turned out that he was a splendid virus spreader. Clara telephoned to cancel the holiday.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Papa. You’ll get it back through the insurance. We can go another time.’

  I was horribly disappointed. I wanted to kick something gratifyingly hard. Of course it would be Ralph who loused it all up. Trust him to fall ill precisely when it was most inconvenient. He seemed intent on spoiling things for Clara. I was thoroughly put out. Then I had a thought.

  ‘Wait a minute, what if I take Robin? I mean, he had the pox when the girls were away at tennis camp, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he’s already had it. But I’m not sure, Papa. Wouldn’t it be a bit much for you?’

  ‘I’ll be all right. I used to travel the world, you know.’

  ‘Of course you did, but you’ve not been anywhere for a while. And Robin’s not the easiest.’

  I was carried along now by the brilliance of my scheme.

  ‘Yes, but it seems most unfair that he should lose his treat and be condemned to stay at home because his father and sisters are so inconsiderate as to fall ill.’

  She laughed and then I detected a note of relief. ‘Well, if you’re quite sure you can manage. It might be easier to look after the girls without Robin trailing after me and complaining that he’s bored.’

  Almost as soon as she’d hung up, I did wonder whether I was being a trifle overambitious, but it was too late. Besides, any such admission of doubt would confirm to them all their concerns that I was losing my confidence and that soon I might not be able to cope alone. I was warding off that dreaded confrontation with the girls for as long as possible, steadily ignoring Clara’s sighs and Lucy’s prods of ‘Isn’t the house getting a little big for you, Papa?’ as though it had spontaneously started to grow like rogue ear hairs. No, I would take Robin, and the trip would be a glorious success, and Lucy and Clara would leave me be for a year or two.

  The night before we departed, it started to snow. I was too anxious to sleep and lay awake in the dark, watching the first flakes fall, silent and weightless. Then, after a while, seizing my dressing gown, I tottered downstairs and stepped outside onto the terrace. There was barely half an inch, just enough to glaze the hill and lawns. I stared out across the white expanse of garden. Edie would already have been out walking, hacking across the scrub and up to the huddled woods. I half expected to see her footprints.

  The clouds parted to reveal a serving of moon, and its light reflected off the fallen snow, making it weirdly bright, as though the landscape were lit from within by a concealed lamp. The woods remained black. No matter what we did to the fields around them, the copse endured – with the knot of trees at its heart where no light or modernity seemed to penetrate. It had survived the slash and burn of two world wars. We told one another that it wasn’t worthwhile felling it and putting the land to grass, as it was too poor even for cattle, but the truth was we loved those woods. The vast oaks and the alders, the tide of bluebells in spring followed by the stink of wild garlic and, most of all, the uncanny sense of eyes watching us. We dared one another to stay alone there after dark, and on one notable occasion my brothers lassoed me to a tree, leaving me screaming. I’d wrenched myself free and raced out onto the hillside, feral with terror. I’d had to wash the acid stench of fe
ar from my skin before venturing downstairs for dinner.

  Now, the white gleam of snow only made the woods blacker still. While the old songs receded from the world, dying as the last singers passed away, these woods remained, silent listeners to so many songs, as though they’d absorbed them through their roots and leaves. I imagined that when the wind blew, the music scattered into the air like pollen. In summer Edie had sung there as we walked with Clara and Lucy as children. They’d been reluctant and had to be bribed along with treats. Jack told me once that our mother had often walked there too, and I liked to think that she did so singing.

  In the cold I counted all the people I had lost like beads on a string. My mother. Only remembered as a warm shadow, a snatch of forgotten song heard sometimes when I started to drift off to sleep. George. Marcus. Edie. Jack. Here, I hesitated. His loss was different from the others. Jack I might find again.

  I called out across the snow, ‘Jack, does it make it better that I spent my life loving her? It was a terrible thing I did and I’ve lived with it for fifty years. Our happiness cost you yours. For that I’m sorry but I can’t regret our life together. That would make the sin worse. You paid the price for our loving one another. I hope you went on to marry again and to have children and grandchildren of your own. I wish that you’d written to me to boast of your good life. Your deserved good life. But perhaps that’s my punishment. Never to know what happened to you. If you are happy, then perhaps I don’t deserve the relief of knowing it.’

  No voice answered from the muffled dark. The snow continued to fall.

  When I awoke in the morning every last flake had gone, as though it had never fallen at all.

  I was grateful not to be travelling alone. I couldn’t lose my nerve in front of the boy. The trip was remarkably straightforward. The airport staff appeared to find the prospect of an old man and his young grandson travelling together as endearing as a box of lop-eared bunny rabbits. As a result we were wafted through to the front of every queue and tended to with benevolent condescension. On the plane Robin watched cartoons and ate sweeties for ten hours – I saw no need to interfere – while I fidgeted beside him and counted which bits of me were aching with cramp.

  I found Florida disconcerting. Every day brought the same unsullied sky, crocheted in baby-boy blue. The only rain that fell came from sprinkler hoses to keep the flowers pert and vivid. Wedding-cake tiers of apartments lined the beaches, each angled so as to allow the one behind a precise portion of sunset. Nature had been combed, shampooed and set. Spearmint-green grass grew everywhere, across the neat communal gardens and the ribbons of golf courses, as though it had been purchased on special offer from the same bolt of ghastly fabric. The moon-white sand was devoid of litter. Everyone spoke loudly and with excruciating politeness. I loathed it and found it despicably comfortable, all at once. This was a paradise for the elderly. A cornucopia of sunshine, handrails and extra-large parking spaces. I worried that, if I remained too long, I would never leave.

  None of the restaurants offered early-bird specials as they were packed with white-haired diners yelling at one another across the plastic tables from a quarter to six, every restaurant empty by eight. I drove anxiously at twenty-five miles an hour, comfortably overtaking even more decrepit drivers who creaked along at under twenty. When the lights changed, there was always a pause before the first driver succeeded in telling his foot to press the accelerator, but no one ever honked their horn.

  I’d rented an apartment on Longboat Key, where I resented the usefulness of the handrail in the bathroom and the non-slip matting on the floor of the shower. The instructions for the air conditioner were all in large print. The only convenience the apartment lacked was a piano, but Clara had warned Robin and, suitably prepared, he managed with great fortitude. We spent two days beside the pool, Robin swimming and me mostly napping, or at least pretending to.

  I took him to a concert where, during the Moonlight Sonata, we counted fifty-three audience members asleep. I understood why the conductor pushed the brass section a little heavily.

  I wanted to recover my equilibrium before we went knocking on Jack’s door. I worried that my appearing with Robin out of the blue would be quite a shock, but on the other hand if I had warned Jack we were coming, he might have refused to see us. It was entirely possible that Robin was Jack’s grandson. I doubted that Jack would say a word about that but I was unhappy at the prospect of hurting him again and reopening old wounds. Yet, the closer we came, the more important it seemed that he meet Robin and one day, I hoped, Clara. I’d brought with me the Christmas card, keeping it in my pocket whenever my resolve wavered.

  One morning, as drearily blue and perfect as all the others, I told Robin over breakfast that we were off to visit his great-uncle Jack.

  ‘I didn’t know I had an uncle.’

  ‘A great-uncle. But I’m afraid that means he’s old rather than that he’s super-duper,’ I explained, clearing that up before he was disappointed.

  ‘I didn’t know I had an old uncle, then.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t. We fell out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I took something of his and didn’t give it back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Grandma.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He studied me carefully, clearly interested. I knew that Clara would certainly not approve of my telling him – believing that children ought to be sheltered from ‘the truth’. Only she wasn’t here, and it seemed rather pointless to conceal a fifty-year feud from an eight-year-old.

  ‘Are you going to say sorry? That’s what you’re supposed to do when you take something that isn’t yours.’

  ‘I tried that already. Although it was quite some time ago. And the thing is, Robin, I’m not completely sorry. I’m sorry that I upset him but I’m glad that I got to keep Grandma.’ I paused. ‘I probably oughtn’t to say that when I see him. I want him to forgive me. I want it very much indeed.’

  Robin stared at me with great blue eyes so like his great-uncle Jack’s and made no remark.

  As I sipped my strangely moreish muddy coffee, I smiled at my grandson. He was smeared with sunshine and chocolate spread and appeared perfectly untroubled by my confession.

  ‘Are you missing your mother and sisters? Would you like to telephone them?’ I asked, thinking of the complicated phone beside the fridge. The instructions might have been in large print but they were still indecipherable.

  Robin shrugged. ‘Not really.’

  ‘And what about your father? Your mother asked me to try to talk to you. I know it’s all been a bit wretched at home.’

  Robin shrugged and fidgeted. ‘I’m all right. I don’t like his girlfriend, Angela. Her voice is a semitone flat. She sounds like a wonky clarinet. I could never like a lady like that,’ he added with uncharacteristic vehemence.

  ‘I quite agree. Your mother has a nice voice. Melodic. Are you sure you don’t want to call her?’

  Robin shook his head.

  ‘Good.’

  I had promised to telephone Clara every other day, but after an initial phone call to tell her we’d landed, neither Robin nor I had fussed. I supposed I’d be in for it once we returned, but here, amongst the red watercolour sunsets and tangles of tropical flowers, home seemed sufficiently far off to risk her wrath.

  My nervousness about our expedition showed: it took me four attempts to manoeuvre out of the parking garage. Robin tactfully said nothing, merely held the map open on his knee. I’d circled the address gleaned from the Christmas card in pink highlighter pen. In my anxiety, I drove more slowly than usual and a trail of bicycles zipped past, overtaking with a ting-a-ling of bells. We drove up a wide, sunlit road lined with palm trees and doctors’ offices, proclaiming the diseases of the aged: ‘Diabetes!’ ‘Cancer!’ ‘Baldness!’ in a macabre echo of the billboards in other cities, advertising ‘Coke’ and �
��Pepsi’.

  I steered the car through a pair of vast gilded gates incorporating a pair of giant lotus flowers, their painted petals unfurling in the hot sun. The sign read: ‘The Lotus Club Condos and Golf Course’. The lurid green lawns seemed to be stretched taut either side of the driveway. Vines of crimson bougainvillea were draped along a white picket fence, and I noticed uniformed gardeners scooping the blossoms into wheelbarrows as soon as they fell. Clearly nothing could be allowed to brown or to blemish those unnaturally green lawns.

  White-haired ladies and gentlemen puttered by in golf carts, narrowly missing the car. They made me think of children escaped from a fairground dodgem ride, ageing improbably during the adventure. I parked the car at the front of a large building with columns, part Grecian temple, part suburban shopping mall. I did not immediately open the door. It occurred to me that I’d told Robin we would be seeing Jack, but all I really had was his address and the assumption that five years on he would still be here. He might be out or on holiday or even dead.

  ‘We might not find Uncle Jack,’ I said. ‘I should really have said that before.’

  ‘OK,’ said Robin.

  ‘He’s not exactly expecting us.’

  ‘OK.’

  We sat for another few minutes, neither of us making any move to get out of the car, the air-conditioning whining in desperation. This was absurd. We’d come this far. I eased myself out of the car and into the heat. I was used to the tender warmth of an English summer; here in Florida, stepping outside always felt like opening the oven door and then irrationally climbing in. With Robin beside me, I was forced to keep my apprehension to myself. We padded up the steps into the thankfully cool marble lobby of the clubhouse. A pleasant-looking African-American woman smiled at us with great pleasure as though the simple act of our walking through the door was the highlight of her entire morning.