The Novel in the Viola

by Natasha Solomons

  ‘Lulcombe Castle has been requisitioned by the army,’ announced Mr Rivers. We sat taking tea on the terrace in the late afternoon. It seemed a lifetime ago that I had broken the porcelain teacup when serving the gentlemen. Today, Mr Wrexham carried the tray and I poured tea for three and spread butter upon the scones. It was warm for late September, the sky a watery blue unmarked by cloud, and only the purple leaves fluttering to the ground from the flowering plum showed it to be an autumn day.

  ‘I offered Lady Vernon and the Hamilton girls refuge here while the Dower house is being prepared for the family.’

  Mr Rivers paused, smiling at what must have been my stricken expression, while Kit shot me a sideways glance. I hated Diana and her aunt, Lady Vernon, terrorised me with her mastery of English subtext. Her words were unfailingly polite, but they were entirely separate from her meaning. On catching me one afternoon using my fingers to lift sponge cake to my mouth, she enquired, ‘Miss Landau, would you care for a cake fork?’ in a tone that clearly stated, ‘You uncouth continental, my miniature pug has superior table manners.’ Once on my way back from the sea, I passed her motorcar parked outside the Tyneford post office, and she called me over to remark upon my lack of hat. It had just blown off into the surf, and choosing not to place the dripping cloche on my head, I carried the sodden bundle in my hands. ‘My dear!’ she called, beckoning me over with a thin, gloved hand. ‘No hat! Such daring. How I admire you. So self assured, you can walk around hatless!’ Her tone conveyed that she would have sooner discovered me outside the post office quite naked than in my present state of semi-undress. I knew she detested me because of Kit. She considered him too poor to be a good match for one of her nieces, but she would have liked Diana to have had the opportunity of refusing him.

  Mr Rivers gave me a wry smile. ‘No, you’re quite safe. She’s not coming to stay. Though I fear we may have to invite them to dine rather more often than we might wish.’

  ‘Let’s hope that Tyneford’s not requisitioned,’ said Kit, licking jam from his finger and ignoring the scone.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ replied Mr Rivers. ‘But it doesn’t seem terribly likely. There’s no decent road and we’re simply too far from the station. Besides, the house isn’t big enough for an officers’ barracks.’

  ‘What about the schools? I heard Flo say that some of the country houses are being taken over by the London schools,’ said Kit, lighting a cigarette.

  Mr Rivers shook his head. ‘We’re too close to the coast. It’s much too dangerous here. No point being evacuated from London into another danger zone.’

  He folded his paper and placed it upon the table. ‘Best thing we can do is help on the estate. Half the farm lads have already joined up, and the rest will get their call-up in a month or two. I’ve not driven a plough since I was a boy. I’m rather looking forward to it.’

  I stirred my coffee with a silver spoon, watching the milk marble and then disappear. ‘Mr Rivers, mightn’t you be called up?’ I asked, wondering whether I was being rude. The English were so strange about age.

  ‘I rather doubt it. I’m over forty. So they would have to be pretty desperate.’

  I smiled. He made it sound like he was an old man, which having seen him stride across the hills I knew was nonsense. I tended to agree with Anna – forty for a man was still perfectly youthful. Kit surveyed his father in silence for a minute, and then said with studied casualness, ‘Will’s joined the 2nd Dorsetshire. They sound all right. Thought perhaps I might too.’

  Mr Rivers set his cup on the table. He turned quite white, almost as if he were struck by sudden seasickness. ‘Not the army,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t bear the army. You don’t know what it’s like. It’s not some boyish adventure. It’s hell.’

  Kit took a long drag on his cigarette, trying to select words that would not further antagonise his father. ‘It’s different now. War is different. It won’t be like it was for you.’

  ‘You might be right, but please, Kit, no.’

  Mr Rivers’ eyes held a look that I had not seen before. A film of sweat coated his top lip. Kit reached out and brushed his hand, the first physical contact I had ever observed between them.

  ‘All right. Not the army.’

  Mr Rivers sat back in his chair and took a sip of tea, and his hand shook ever so slightly. He turned to me. ‘Served for six months in 1918, when I was a year or two younger than Kit. God-awful. Hellish. Makes a mockery of the words one uses to describe it. All I can say is, it’s something a man never wants his son to see.’

  Kit proffered his cigarette case and Mr Rivers took one and struck a match, the only time I had ever seen him smoke. I toyed with the crumbs on my plate.

  ‘My father’s elder brother served for three years. He was killed at Flanders in 1917. Julian’s first novel was about it,’ I said.

  Mr Rivers stared at me for a moment with an odd expression, then gave a short laugh. ‘Fighting for the Kaiser, of course.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Silence fell between us, as we sipped tea and nibbled scones and contemplated the fact that twenty-five years ago we’d been at war on opposite sides. A large white gull landed on a terracotta flowerpot and eyed the cake hungrily. Kit broke off a corner and tossed it onto the lawn. A moment later a flock of gulls descended onto the grass in a blizzard of white wings, the air filling with their hollow cries.

  ‘The navy. It has to be the navy. If I’m to be away from Tyneford, I want to be at sea.’

  A fortnight later, Mr Rivers and I stood in the driveway and watched as Art guided Mr Bobbin out of the yard, Kit seated beside him. The bus would take him from Wareham all the way to Hove and naval officer’s training. We watched in silence as the horse lumbered along the green lanes. A fine drizzle began to fall, but we stayed watching, determined not to miss the last glimpse of our boy. I remembered Anna, Julian and Hildegard waving goodbye on the station platform, all resolutely not crying. The station hummed with hissing steam, baying porters, squalling babies and whispered goodbyes. I shivered and wrapped my woollen cardigan around my shoulders. An icy wind trilled through the eaves, carrying with it the comforting scent of wood smoke and peat. I imagined the sound to be the house itself calling some kind of farewell. At a bend in the track, Kit gave us a cheerful wave as he jumped down from the cart to open the first of the seventeen gates leading to the ridge and the world beyond Tyneford. Mr Rivers and I stayed as the figures became dots on the horizon, barely distinguishable from the stripped trees or the cattle scattered about on either side of the path. The cart inched along the top of the hill and then disappeared into the dark tunnel of trees, heading for Steeple, Wareham and a bus to another world.

  ‘Mrs Ellsworth says the war will be over before Christmas,’ I said. ‘His training will take a while, so it’s possible he’ll never have to serve.’

  ‘I hope Mrs Ellsworth is right. Shall we?’

  He stood aside, allowing me to lead the way back into the house. I lingered in the quiet of the hall, listening to the whirr and tick of the death-watch beetles in the heavy beams overhead. A vase of brown tipped roses stood on the table, and a stray withered petal had fallen onto the surface. Any other day Mrs Ellsworth would have ensured they were instantly replaced – petals were barely allowed to drop before they were tidied away – but the instant of Kit’s departure the house had assumed its forlorn air. The dying flowers left in their vase. A smear of polish on the parquet floor. The damask curtains beside the front door no longer appeared genteelly worn; they were shabby and old.

  ‘I’ll be in the library,’ said Mr Rivers.

  He strode away and I heard the door click shut and, a second later, the clink of the whisky decanter. I sat down on the bottom stair, resting my chin in my hands, and listened to the silence echo in the afternoon. I felt a long way from everyone I loved. I’d listened to Kit talk with the other boys, and they were all so eager to fight. ‘Let us at him,’ they clamoured, as though the minute they joined up they would be presented
with a string of enemy soldiers ready for a good thrashing. I wished I could talk to my father. I knew he’d say something to comfort me, or at least make me smile. I hadn’t spoken to Julian for two years, but if I went upstairs, I could break the viola and take out the pages. His novel lay there waiting for me to read.

  In my old attic room, I retrieved the viola from its hiding place and sat with it on my knees, feeling the strange weight in its belly. I picked it up by the neck and held it aloft for a moment, ready to smash it down on the edge of the iron bedstead. And then, instead, I slotted it under my chin and, clasping the bow, drew it across the strings. For the first time in fifteen years I played the viola. I had not played since I heard the miracle of Margot’s music. That was how the viola was supposed to sound, not the schoolgirl tunes that I could wrench from the strings. But this viola was different. It could only sound strange with the novel inside and I need not feel ashamed of my inability to produce music like my sister.

  The tone was soft, as though the viola could only whisper. I tried a simple Mozart melody. It was thin and sad – the voice of a choirboy as opposed to the rich chocolate of an operatic soprano – and it suited me. Music isn’t just notes; it’s also filled with rests or measured silences. We wait during the pauses, listening to the possibility of music. I wanted to play into the gap left by Anna and Julian and fill up their silence, but their silence was not a rest. No black mark on the page told me when the sound would begin again. Their silence was not musical but a vacuum – a void where no sound can exist. I played another nocturne, but this time I could not hear the tune, only the pauses between the notes.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Anna

  I went to bed early on New Year’s Eve. Mr Rivers was obliged to attend a party held at Lulcombe Dower House by Lady Vernon, and while he’d insisted that I would be most welcome, we both knew this to be a polite lie. I remained at Tyneford, listening to the wireless in the library and eating candied figs in front of the fire, slipping away before Mr Wrexham could worry about whether or not to invite me to join the remaining servants for their glass of midnight sherry in the butler’s parlour.

  I kept off all the lights on the landing as well as those in my bedroom, and peeled back the blackout curtains and opened the window. It took my eyes a minute to adjust to the absolute darkness. It used to be that the odd light from the village glimmered in the night, or else the larger lights from distant Weymouth and Portland cast a yellow haze on the horizon. Now the darkness oozed about me. I curled up in an armchair and breathed the freezing air, so cold that my teeth tingled. It must have been nearly midnight but I couldn’t see my wristwatch, and the church bells were silent – the law dictated that they were only to be rung in order to signal an invasion. All I could hear was the boom of the sea. By now it was an echo as familiar to me as the patter of my own thoughts. On the rare occasions when I had to venture into Dorchester or Wareham, I was struck by the quiet. The streets bustled and teemed but beneath the noise was a steady silence. I knew I could never live without the sea again; that was my music. At last I understood how Anna and Margot felt on the odd days when they could neither play nor listen to music.

  Raising my whisky glass, I toasted my family and then Kit, knowing with happy certainty that wherever his ship sailed, he was thinking of me. Every few weeks, I received letters from him. (I kept them all these years and by now each one has grown worn around the folds from being endlessly re-read. They are filled with earnest nonsense, the sort of things that a boy writes to his sweetheart, but which somehow, when they are meant for you, never feel tired or clichéd or anything other than absolutely tender and true.)

  I sat in the gloom and took out my bundle of letters and since it was too dark to read, recited them by heart.

  Darling Elise,

  King Alfred’s is the name of the training ship. Though she isn’t a ship at all, she’s a converted school or something, but we’re to pretend she’s a ship. The front is the bow; we have a roll call to ensure we’re all ‘aboard’ before lessons. I have lodgings in town but when we leave each evening we’re off ‘to sling our hammocks’. It’s the naval way, rather odd at first but one does get used to it, and it has a haphazard poetry to it. When all this is over, we’ll go down to Durdle Door one summer’s evening and sling a hammock for two beneath the cliffs, and lie together and wait for a mermaid to come and comb her hair and flick her tail. Or else, we’ll just drink sherry and get very drunk and I shall kiss you all the way from your toes to your knees and then the gap between your stockings and your smooth white thighs . . . I must tell you, my salute is very fine and I do look splendid in blue . . . I’m glad Burt taught me knots and the rules of the sea, makes one or two things easier, but I can’t wait to actually get out on the water. Discipline and drill isn’t too bad, rather reminds me of Eton, like being a schoolboy again only with the responsibility of other men’s lives . . . Every night I dream of Tyneford and of you and you’re dressed as a boy again and it might be wicked but I hold you and kiss you and this time no one stops me and I unfasten your bow tie and I lick that charming little hollow at the base of your throat . . . Ran exercises at sea today but it turned out to be nothing but an exercise in seasickness. Yes. It seems I get seasick. Never happened before on the fishing-boats or yachting but something about the larger vessels and the way they toss on the waves – oh God, I feel quite ill even thinking about it . . . We ‘pass out’ tomorrow and I don’t feel in the least prepared . . . I had hoped for a destroyer but it wasn’t to be. The corvette doesn’t sound too bad. I wish I could tell you where I’m going but I don’t know myself. I can tell you that I am terrified but so are all the chaps. Don’t know what the regular crews are going to make of us wavy navy sods. Ah well, suppose it’s a bit late to join the RAF now . . . Well, still seasick. I was ill all the way to but so were all the RNVR officers – green in every sense. But the regular navy chaps were jolly good about it; apparently sailors never make fun of seasickness, everyone’s suffered at some point. The petty officer told me he still gets sick for the first two or three days aboard. I hope I shall find my sea legs before then. Especially if we’re to go to . . . Oh the Northern Lights! I wish you could have seen them, Elise. They were so bright, for a moment I thought they were a great battleship’s flare – the entire horizon glowed with a greenish glare like a terrible dawn . . . We shall take a trip to , you and I, and then sail a sedate launch around the . I’ll be the captain, and we’ll have no one else. Perhaps for our honeymoon. What do you think? I think it will be splendid. We shall have boiled eggs and anchovies on toast (for you know quite well that I can cook nothing else) and dangle our feet in the ocean and swim naked and at night we will lie on deck and wait for the gleam of the Northern Lights . . . Oh God, can’t write. So seasick, I could die. Why the navy? . . . Good chaps on board, I must say. Bit of a scare last night

  . . . I wish I could be at Tyneford. I expect you’re all freezing in this cold weather with the fuel rationing. Do you remember last winter when I brought in that chunk of oak and burnt it in the hall fireplace? I was in love with you but hadn’t told you yet. I watched you dance with Wrexham, and I was actually jealous of the old man. I’m jealous of everyone who’s near you at the moment when I’m not. I’m jealous of my father for he gets to see you every day and say ‘please pass the marmalade’ and see you every morning when you’re flushed from your bath and only half awake – oh how one misses such precious banalities when away from home. We heard today that the destroyer

  . . . When I’m back in Tyneford, I’m going to keep you to myself for a whole week. No one else may speak to you or go near you or touch you. If we were married, I should insist on you being naked the entire time but since we’re not, I suppose I must make do with kissing you and perhaps I shall unfasten . . . It’s a tradition in the navy to toast our wives and mistresses at midnight on New Year, so darling, know that wherever I am, I will be drinking to you . . .

  love Kit

 
On New Year’s Day, I walked across the cliffs to the Tilly Whim caves. I had helped Mrs Ellsworth prepare the Beef Wellington for dinner (a final treat before rationing commenced), peeled endless potatoes, sieved a quart of sloe gin, and after the heat of the kitchen I craved some fresh air. The sky was iron grey, and the dark sea writhed and crashed, white waves cresting before they reached the shore. Sleet began to fall, pockmarking the stone and seeping into my mackintosh, but I didn’t mind. I’d learnt to relish the wind and cold slapping my cheeks, turning them bright as holly berries. I stalked along the cliff top path, passing above the sandy smear of Brandy Bay, and onto the limestone shelf at Tilly Whim. In the distance I could see the black shadows of the warships at anchor in Portland. I wondered if I were looking at a ship like Kit’s. I wore a ruby cashmere scarf, a Christmas present from Mr Rivers, and took pleasure in its luxuriant brightness against the dull winter world. It was an item of such glamour that I could hardly believe it was mine. It was the sort of thing that Anna or Margot wore. I had not been expecting a gift, so gave Mr Rivers a book of Goethe’s poetry that I had discovered in a second-hand bookshop in Dorchester and had intended to give to Kit. The gift was probably more suited to Mr Rivers anyway. Kit only really liked poetry that was either rude or made him laugh and preferably both at once.

  The shelf of rock leading to Tilly Whim shone wetly, the limestone coated with a slick of freezing rain. The square mouths of the caves gaped as a lone white gull circled overhead, its cries drowned by the wash of the surf. A blur of movement caught my eye, and then a flash of red, bright as a fox’s brush. But it wasn’t a fox. It was Poppy. I ran towards her and then hesitated on seeing she was not alone. I lingered in the shadow of a rock, and spied several men in khaki greatcoats lugging boxes and tarpaulin drapes into the caves. There was an urgent furtiveness about them, like squirrels burying their hazelnuts on the lawns each September. After half an hour the men drifted away along the cliff, back up towards Lovell’s Tower. Poppy loitered for a minute or two and then, pulling her wool coat around her, made to hurry after the men. I emerged from my hiding place and called to her. She spun around, hands fluttering to her throat in alarm.