The Novel in the Viola

by Natasha Solomons

  I can see it now as vividly as a moving picture. Kit is waiting for me beside a small skiff. ‘Come on, hurry up,’ he calls, eager to dodge the coming squall. Panting, we push the boat out into the shallows, shoving away from the beach with an oar. Kit heaves up the canvas sail, wobbling for a second in the swell. I hold the tiller and steer her, Kit’s fingers covering mine. The tide races and carries us out to the mouth of the bay and we tack around the coast, seeing the black rocks of Kimmeridge loom before us. I want to ask Kit if he was very frightened at Dunkirk but I am silent. I notice a scratch above his eye and along his cheek. The sky turns grey and it begins to mizzle. My dress is thin and I shiver, and Kit wraps his arms around me to keep me warm. He tugs me down onto the floor of the boat. It is damp and smells of stale fish. He starts to kiss me and I am crying. The sail flaps wild in the wind and the boat rocks like a cradle on the tide. I unfasten my dress with steady fingers and lie back on the ropes coiled at the bottom of the boat. All I see is Kit and all I hear is the crack of the loose sail. I love you, I tell him, and draw him down on top of me. The coil of ropes digs into my back. This time I do not ask him to stop.

  I have imagined it so many times that sometimes I have to remind myself that it is not true. That it happened to some other Elise in another version of this story. In my memory there are a myriad of Kits spinning in the sunshine like the gaps between the leaves, and who is to say that one of them did not find his way home to peel off my stockings. I wanted to see it here in words. As I write it becomes as real as anything else.

  But what happened is that I stood alone on the beach. A thin plume of smoke filed out of Burt’s cottage chimney, while the old fisherman perched on his usual lobster pot, filleting mackerel ready to smoke in the inglenook for breakfast. He looked surprised to see me, but gave a friendly nod.

  ‘Won’t shake yer hand missy,’ he said. ‘Got fish guts up to my elbows. I stinks like the sea.’

  ‘Is Kit still asleep?’ I asked.

  Burt frowned, deep creases furrowing his brow.

  ‘Nope. ’ee weren’t ’ere when I woke up. Thought Mr Kit had garn up ter the big house ter see yoos an’ the squire.’

  I shook my head. ‘No. He’s not at the house.’

  ‘How long has he been gone?’ I asked, hearing my voice grow thick and strange.

  ‘Since dawn. Sun wakes me, blackouts or no,’ said Burt, rising to his feet, gutted fish slithering to the ground in a brown bloodied trail.

  ‘But he couldn’t go,’ I insisted. ‘The Lugger needs repairing. I saw her. She couldn’t sail. And the engine. You didn’t fix the engine.’

  ‘Course not.’ Burt shot me an angry glance. ‘Locked up tool shed too. Jist in case. But it’s no matter – as you say, The Lugger couldn’t sail ter Swanage much less ter France.’

  Rain spots began to pelt the sand and mottle the pebbles along the beach. The sea growled and thrashed against the shore. Burt marched around the side of the cottage to a series of wooden sheds half-concealed beneath the cliffs. I followed close behind as he hurried to the furthest shelter, a haphazard boathouse. One door was missing, rotted away years before, while the other was thrown back, dangling from its hinges. Burt took a step towards it and gave a short cry. I peered inside the shed. It was empty. Neat tracks led down to the shore.

  ‘The Anna,’ he cried. ‘He’s taken The Anna.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  My name is Alice

  Brave and reckless. Brave and reckless and I loved him. I rushed out into the water, the cold slapping my ankles, then my thighs as I waded deeper and deeper. Why had he gone? To save Will and others like him? For an adventure? I needed him to come back. I’d lost everyone else. I wished I’d stayed with him, watched him all night. I wouldn’t have let him leave. The cold water reached my stomach and I gasped. I couldn’t see anything out in the bay. Not The Anna. Not any boat. The rain battered the sea and drenched my hair. From the shore I heard Burt yelling at me to come back. Why? Kit had come back and then he’d left again. He didn’t even say goodbye. But then, what could he have said? I would have pleaded with him not to go. I ducked down under the surface, the saltwater stinging my eyes and nose, my hair brushing my cheeks like fronds of seaweed. I scooped up a handful of pebbles and rising out of the water, hurled them back into the sea. I screamed his name – Kit! Kit! Kit! – as though some supernatural force would carry my voice to him and the moment he heard it he would sigh and turn the boat around, and before that black cloud reached Lovell’s Tower – no, before that grey-bellied gull alighted on the rock stack in the bay – I’d see the small wooden boat racing across the water towards me. My throat hurt from shouting, but there was no boat. The cloud hurtled past Lovell’s folly on the cliff and the gull vanished behind the rocks. I crashed my way through the surf to the far edge of the bay. The yellow cliff of Worbarrow Tout bookended the beach, the sharp ridge running up a hundred feet, a snub-nosed lookout point rising above the water like the snout of a sea-monster. My clothes and shoes dripped as I crawled across green rocks greased to a slick by waves and rain. Sharp barnacles sliced my fingers and shins, and blood streaked my skin. I clawed my way up the haphazard path to the pinnacle of the tout, breath coming in rasps. I stood at the very edge of the cliff, watching the water tumble and break below me on three sides. The water was as black as the rocks and sky. I searched the horizon. Empty.

  I looked out towards Lulcombe Cove with its neat cobbled causeway and cluster of stone cottages, and then further west towards the jutting strip that linked Portland to the Dorset coast. Hulking ships glowered in the channel, black smoke puffing from funnels small as cigars from this distance. Beyond the curve of Worbarrow Bay lay the outside world. In its way, Tyneford was as separate from the rest of England as the Isle of Portland. The valley and the coomb and the barrows and the black woods belonged to a more ancient world. The war happened elsewhere. I felt its sorrows in the silence from my family, and the slow disappearance of the young men one by one into the armed forces. For those of us left behind, life continued much as before: the servants grumbled over the inconvenience and we had to churn our own butter from the milk on the farm, and without elastic our stockings slithered down our knees, but the changes were irksome, not yet catastrophic. We all felt the war at night in the utter darkness and in the hush of the church bells, but the wireless reports referred to another world. Tyneford hardly seemed to belong to Europe, and if we only stayed here, hidden in these hills and vales, we would be safe. I watched the storm front crawl along the horizon, rain rushing the breakers and I saw Kit disappear into the outside world. He surrendered himself to the unknown, to that noisy, smoke-filled other place.

  Rain streaking my face, I turned and retreated down the path to where Burt waited on the beach. The water fell in lines, spouting from the sky like the pump in the yard, but through the downpour I saw that he clutched something, a jagged necklace of giant teeth. Blinking, I realised that Burt held before him the string of witch-stones, and in the weird gloom of the June storm they appeared brushed with red-brown blood. The wind crackled in the long sea-grass and I felt a twinge of dread, cool and light as the brush of a feather, crawl along my spine.

  ‘How could he have taken it?’ repeated Mr Rivers. ‘I don’t understand. The Anna’s too heavy for one man to sail.’

  Mr Rivers sat in the leather armchair in his bedroom, still dressed in his pyjamas. Mrs Ellsworth and I lingered by the window, feigning calm.

  ‘Christ, Wrexham. Help me dress,’ he commanded.

  The old butler stepped forward. ‘Sir. Please, if you will permit the impertinence. I believe the doctor said that sir should rest.’

  ‘Wrexham. There is an indignity in learning one’s son has rushed back to battle while one is wearing Simpson’s striped pyjamas. I should very much like to dress.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  The butler retreated into the dressing room and began to open and shut drawers. Mr Rivers’ face assumed the same ghastly hue
as it had the previous evening.

  ‘Well? Will someone tell me how Kit managed to take her?’

  ‘Jack Miller has gone,’ I said, leaning against the windowsill. ‘His parents noticed him missing this morning. The two of them managed to drag her down to the beach together.’

  ‘Good God. Well, I suppose we’ll find out more when Jack Miller comes back in a day or two,’ said Mr Rivers, closing his eyes for a minute. When he opened them again, he realised that we were both watching him. ‘Kit will send the boy home. He’s only seventeen. Kit won’t let him sail to France.’

  Mr Rivers was right. Two days later, Jack Miller returned to Tyneford on the morning milk cart. I was sitting in my old attic room perched on a tower of cushions, gazing out of the sloping window at the horizon. Dawn fired across the water, while in the distant farmyard a chorus of cockerels crooned. From the house below, I heard shouts.

  ‘Elise! Miss Landau! The Miller boy is back.’

  I pelted down the attic stairs and then the grand staircase. Mrs Ellsworth and the daily maid lingered in the hall. Mr Wrexham pointed to the library.

  ‘The master is interviewing the boy inside, miss.’

  I pushed open the door. Mr Rivers leant against his desk, while the youth stood before him, cap clasped in his hands, head bowed. Both glanced towards me as I entered.

  ‘I jist wanted ter help Mr Kit,’ insisted the boy, kicking at a piece of mud on his boot.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Mr Rivers. ‘You’re not in any trouble. We just want to know what happened.’

  Jack Miller looked over at me, his eyes watery green as a spring tide.

  ‘Not much ter tell. After we left Tyneford, we sails ter Portsmouth an’ refuels. Then we gits on ter Dover. Thousands of boats there wis. Big ships spewin’ black smoke an’ lil paddle-steamers like them ones in Swanage fer day-trippers. An’ corvettes, an’ destroyers an’ even a battleship. All of ’em packed wi’ soldiers. Port and quays wis brown wi’ men. Thousands and thousands of ’em. Never seen ser many souls in all my life.’

  Mr Rivers gave a curt nod. ‘Yes. I saw it for myself at Portsmouth. What happened when you got to Dover?’

  ‘Well, Mr Kit, he knows where he wis going. Finds a motor launch wi’ a man with a hat and stripes on his shoulder an’ says ’ee needs a chap ter sail wi’ him back ter France. Mr Kit tells him that I’m too young – I try ter argue but ’ee won’t listen. Half an hour later, two blokes come on board The Anna and takes over from me at the ‘elm, an’ I’m put back on their rowing boat and sent back ter shore. A chap gives me a rail ticket and I gets a train back ter Wareham, and ’ere I am.’

  ‘Thank you, Jack,’ said Mr Rivers. He strolled over to the windows and gazed across the smooth lawns. ‘Nothing more to do. Wait. Hope.’

  I didn’t reply. My life was spent waiting and hoping. Anna. Julian. Now Kit’s name was added to the echo inside me.

  ‘Miss Landau?’ asked the boy.

  I jumped, lost in my reverie.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mr Kit talked about yoos all the time. Not soupy nonsense, like. But said yoos was a right special girl. He’s going ter marry yoos the minute ’ee gits home – I know cos ’ee invited me ter the weddin’ an’ all. Wis really bothered about all the upset that ’is going away would cause yer. An’ ’ee wrote yer a letter. Made me promise ter give it ter yoos right away like.’

  A letter from Kit. It made all the difference. Suddenly his going away didn’t seem so absolute. There was news. A message. Our story could continue. I felt a smile twitch at the corner of my mouth. The boy reached into his trouser pocket, pulling out various scraps of paper. He grinned awkwardly, then fumbled inside his jacket.

  ‘Jist a minute, miss. Know ’ees ’ere.’

  Mr Rivers turned his back to the window and studied the boy as he emptied his pockets onto the desk.

  ‘Take your time, Jack,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about making a mess. Lay everything out on the blotting pad.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the boy, reddening. ‘Ah. ’ere we go. Got ’im.’

  He passed me a scrap of paper. My hands trembling, I unfolded it.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, voice shaking. ‘It’s just a receipt for fuel.’

  ‘No. No. Turn ’im over. Note’s on the back,’ said Jack.

  I flipped it over, but the reverse was blank.

  ‘Shit. Shit,’ said the boy. ‘Must ’ave slipped out my pocket. I chucked out the wrong un. Mr Kit’ll ’ave ter tell yer hisself what ’ee wanted ter say.’

  ‘Yes,’ I repeated. ‘He’ll have to tell me himself.’

  I don’t remember leaving the room. I suppose I spoke to Mr Rivers and we shared some comforting platitudes of mutual concern. I remember disappearing up to the attic chamber and slipping the blank receipt into the viola case, alongside the letters I wrote to Anna. There were now so many letters in there that they spilt out every time I opened the case, jamming in the hinge and sliding across the floor. It was such a cruel joke: a cacophony of letters to those I loved, and now a single, blank reply.

  Days passed. Hours. Weeks. Minutes. The rags of time. The sun rose and fell. Shadows skirted the banks of the hill, growing and shrinking. Scarlet strawberries ripened in the fields. Climbing roses bloomed along the stone at the front of the house. Yellow petals rained upon the ground, turned brown and rotted away. Will returned. Mr Churchill declared the Dunkirk rescue a triumph. Only twenty-five little ships lost. Names not released. Sweet peas and mint flowered in the kitchen garden. Nightingales trilled in the heath. Poppy came back to Tyneford and spent days traipsing along the beaches with Will and I couldn’t bear to speak to them. Their happiness choked me. Mr Rivers drank alone in his library. I spied an otter in a freshwater stream trickling down to the sea. In the darkness a nightjar called from the jasmine outside my window. I paced along the beach in bare feet, feeling the pebbles grind beneath my toes, and padded down to the surf. The water foamed around my ankles, still cold enough to make me gasp.

  ‘Kit!’ I shouted his name. ‘Anna. Julian. AnnaJulianKit!’

  Their names mingled into fathomless sound, separated from all meaning. I reached into my mind for bad words, terrible words. I needed to curse. I needed words that would cut my tongue as I spoke them.

  ‘Fuck. Hate. Cock. Shit.’

  None of them was wicked enough. I remembered the first time I’d come to the beach to rage at the sea. I closed my eyes, waiting for him to join in the game. It was a silly joke, and in a moment I would hear his voice, ‘Oh, is it a private game?’

  ‘Testes. Cockles.’ I hurled the words at the waves, but there was only silence, and the grind and roar of the tide drawing back along the strand.

  If there was only something: a body, wreckage from the boat. But there was nothing. The sea swallowed him up like Jonah into the whale. Then one night, a month after he disappeared, I heard music outside my window. I wasn’t asleep, merely writhing under the hot blankets, seeing his face in the dark. I had taken down the blackouts, suffocating in the warm July heat, and the glass was open to the drifting fiddle music and men’s voices. I slid out of bed and leant on the sill. The fishermen stood in the darkness; ten of them singing a lament, as the strings rippled.

  Our boy ’as gone ter sea

  An’ sails o’er the green waves-o,

  Bright ’ee were an’ fair and young.

  ’Ee has no grave, no grassy mound

  Jist the green waves-o.

  We’ll hear ’is voice in the gulls

  An’ in the smashin’ of the tide

  But we’ll see him no more.

  Fer our boy ’as gone ter sea.

  An’ sails o’er the green waves-o.

  There was a crack of shutters as Mr Rivers opened the doors from the drawing room and stepped out onto the terrace. He had not gone to bed, and he stood in his white shirt, a ghost against the stone wall. I slipped downstairs through the darkened hall and drawing room to join him outside. The summer night was war
m and reeked of flowers: jasmine, honeysuckle and old china roses. He stood quite still, his skin like marble. I listened to the lament, licking away salt tears.

  ‘They sing this when a fisherman is lost at sea,’ said Mr Rivers. ‘They know Kit is dead.’

  No one had said the word ‘dead’ aloud. I whispered it in the dark when I could not sleep. I had turned it over and over in my mind in every language I knew, but the moment Mr Rivers uttered the word, I knew in my soul that it was true.

  Kit is dead. Kit is dead. Kit is dead.

  I tried it aloud.

  ‘Kit is dead.’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Kit is dead.’

  We listened to the fishermen, who sang their melancholy song again and again. They retreated into the shadows at the edge of the lawn and then tripped away down to the sea, their voices mingling with the far-off crash of the tide. I don’t know how long we stood there in the darkness, side by side, not touching. We wanted comfort but only one man could give it and since he could not, we wanted none. I missed Anna and Julian and Margot and I grieved for Kit. I would not marry him and we would not make love and he would not grow old. I must age and my skin crease and dark age spots appear on my face and hands, and my hair turn grey then white, and I would speak with the slow-steady patter of age, but he would stay young, always a beautiful man-boy with blue eyes. I wondered that I did not shatter and break apart or blow away like a dandelion clock in the wind. I imagined myself hurling china and storming through the house, smashing vases and silver and clocks in my fury, but I did nothing. I stood silent in the dark.