The Novel in the Viola

by Natasha Solomons

  After dinner, Mr Rivers and I remained in the kitchen by silent consent, reluctant to return to the muffled stillness of the drawing room. The decay had been creeping in, year on year, but in the sunshine of Kit’s presence we had not noticed. We’d revelled in the faded grandeur, like children enjoying the romance of a dustsheeted castle in a story. Now, in our unhappiness, Mr Rivers and I winced at the house’s shabbiness, like a husband who realises his bride has grown fat. I imagined the house to be mortified by her present state and spent hours attempting to restore her beauty, but there were not enough maids to keep her properly clean, and even with my help the skirting boards and dado rails were grey with dust, the parquet scratched and unpolished.

  Mrs Ellsworth placed candles on the scrubbed oak table and, after securing the blackouts, vanished into the housekeeper’s room. Mr Wrexham poured his master’s port and withdrew, leaving us alone listening to the gurgle and tick of the stove. Mr Rivers had not dressed for dinner, understandable now that we dined in the whitewashed cosiness of the kitchen, but it nonetheless marked a final alteration in the customs of the household. He’d removed his outdoor boots but that was his only concession. He leant back on the wooden chair, stretching out his legs, workman’s shirt unbuttoned at the throat. His clothes were stained with dirt and he smelt of hay and sweat. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a box of matches and lit a cigar. The incongruity made me laugh.

  ‘Mr Rivers, you look like you ought to be packing your pipe with ha’penny tobacco, not smoking cigars from Jermyn Street.’

  He ignored my teasing and exhaled smoke, which drifted in blue curls up to the rafters. ‘Why do you call me Mr Rivers?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ I asked, with a smile. ‘You want to change your name too?’

  ‘No. It’s an old name. One of England’s best,’ he said with a touch of the old pride. He reached for a saucer and let the ash fall from his cigar. ‘Why won’t you call me by my Christian name? Why won’t you call me Christopher?’

  I studied the table. ‘I can’t,’ I said, unable to look at him. ‘Kit was Christopher. I can’t call you by his name.’

  He inhaled sharply. ‘He was named after me. I was Christopher first.’ His voice held a note of anger.

  I knew I hurt him, but I could not help it. ‘Not to me.’ I met his gaze, unblinking. ‘I don’t want to think of him when I speak your name.’

  He glanced up at the high window where a strand of honeysuckle tap-tapped against the glass, and sighed.

  ‘My second name is Daniel. Can you call me Daniel?’

  He strode over to the range, opening the furnace and poking the coals so that crimson sparks flew out into the room. He had not shaved for several days now, and even in the firelight, I could see a thick layer of bristles covering his jaw.

  ‘Daniel, are you intending to grow a beard?’ I asked.

  He turned round in surprise, running a hand across his chin.

  ‘No. Just haven’t had Wrexham shave me for a day or two.’

  ‘Well, tomorrow, you must let him.’

  He turned away from me and gave the furnace another vicious prod, so that a nugget fell out of the grate and landed on the flagstone where it smouldered. He stared at the glowing coal, complaining under his breath about ‘wretched, bloody women’.

  ‘Yes, well you should be grateful. It is I who keep you civilised.’

  He smiled and sat down. ‘Do you want a cigar? Kit once told me that you smoked. He was mighty impressed.’

  I laughed. ‘Good. That was why I did it.’

  He took the cigar from his mouth and passed it to me. I sucked, trying not to cough. He watched me steadily, and did not look away. I noticed his eyes were a remarkably bright shade of blue, and that one was darker than the other. No one else knew this. It was the kind of information that only mothers or lovers cherished, and his mother was dead; so was his wife, and his son. So this little detail belonged solely to me.

  ‘You’re thinking of Kit,’ said Mr Rivers, interrupting my reverie.

  I flushed. ‘Yes,’ I lied.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Red flags

  The following morning a letter arrived from Margot, the first since Kit’s death.

  I don’t know what to say. Everything I try sounds clumsy and useless . . . I wish I could find you a sachertorte like the ones from the Sacher Hotel. I used to get a slice for you when you cried when you were small and I know it can’t possibly help you now but I want to get it for you all the same.

  They sell them here in ‘continental bakeries’ but they’re nothing like the real thing which I suppose we shan’t have again – not unless they exile the pastry chef with the secret recipe. Do you remember when you were little and you used to think that the hotel was named after the cake and not the other way round? Hotel Chocolate Cake . . . I imagine sometimes that we are still sitting there, younger versions of ourselves after an opera or concert, eating sachertorte with cream and chattering about the sharp soprano and the sweating tenor with his droll pocket-handkerchief.

  I shall write a letter to ‘Margot and Elise c/o Hotel Chocolate Cake, Vienna’ and it will reach that Elise and another Margot and none of this will have happened. One day after the war we’ll go back there and we’ll talk about how the second violins got away from the rest of the orchestra in the scherzo and think of nothing but music.

  A year ago, Anna sent me the recipe for a horrible tea which the aunts made for her when she wanted a family (though I am slightly at a loss as to why she sought this kind of advice from three maiden aunts). It tastes awful and yet I drink it every morning – not because I believe it will do me any good but because it was the last piece of advice that she gave me. I find myself hoarding all my memories of Anna and Julian, reciting them again and again, terrified in case I forget something.

  Reading my sister’s letter, I saw my own fears reflected. Our parents had disappeared. Were they hiding in the French countryside, Anna disguised as a pink-cheeked peasant, or concealed by friends in Amsterdam? I preferred to imagine cheerful adventures for them than voice the other possibility.

  Needing to be distracted from my own thoughts, I walked down to the bay in search of Poppy. As I approached the shingle, I saw that it teemed with people. Three strange men dressed in labourers’ overalls addressed the fishermen clustered beside the boats outside Burt’s cottage. Wooden boxes littered the beach. The fishermen leant against the boats, arms folded across their chests and eyes narrow with suspicion. A bearded fisherman spat and then slouched off, dismissing the stranger with a curt wave as he tried to pursue him. At the back of the crowd, seated on a lobster pot, I spied Poppy. Easing my way through the throng, I settled beside her.

  ‘Home Guard,’ she said, pointing to the three strangers, before I’d even had a chance to ask. ‘Mr Rivers asked them to get the fishermen to mine the bay. Stupid idea if you ask me. Excellent way to kill a lot of perfectly good mackerel. Come on.’

  She scrambled to her feet and tugging my arm, led me away from the group.

  ‘Best let them get on with it. Won’t want our interference,’ she said, hauling me off along the strand.

  I jogged to keep up with her. The sun warmed the cliffs and they glowed golden brown, tempting as freshly baked biscuits. Crimson poppies studded the coarse sea-grass sprouting in tufts along the top, while sand martins zoomed in and out of tiny holes quarried from the sandstone face. We walked to the far end of the beach, where Flower’s Barrow loomed above the valley and the bay. A steep path crawled up the precipice and, without breaking step, Poppy started to climb. In five minutes we reached the top and she pulled me onto the grass ledge. Sprawled on the ground, I closed my eyes, catching my breath.

  ‘Come on. No time to nap,’ said Poppy.

  Grumbling, I dusted myself off and hurried after her.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Will,’ she replied, as though this were enough of an answer.

  We headed along the ridge
. Below us the fields were spread in a haphazard patchwork, as though stitched together by a careless seamstress. At the bottom of the coomb, where the hillside flattened into wide meadows, Mr Rivers and the boys were finishing the haymaking. The school had been emptied of children for the last day, and boys in short trousers and girls in wellingtons and faded summer dresses rushed through the meadows gathering up armfuls of dry grass and moulding them into mountainous peaks. Their shouts mingled with the spaniel’s barking and drifted up towards us on the wind. Mr Rivers tossed the dog a stick and it scrambled in pursuit, ears flapping in ecstasy. Under the wide sky, Mr Rivers appeared at ease. Then, as if he sensed me watching, he paused and glanced up at the hill, shielding his eyes from the sun. I hurried on, embarrassed, and hoped he had not seen me.

  Poppy waited at the next stile, sitting contentedly on the wooden bar, tap-tapping with her sandal.

  ‘He won’t be the only one,’ she said. ‘By the end of the war, there will be lots more.’

  ‘Doesn’t make it any easier.’

  ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘I just meant, he will survive this.’

  ‘What does that even mean?’ I snapped. ‘That he will carry on breathing and spreading butter on his toast and speaking on the telephone. I don’t want him to survive. I want the possibility of happiness. Not moments of pleasure like a square of chocolate or a hot bath. Happiness.’

  I stopped talking, no longer sure whether I spoke of Mr Rivers or myself. Poppy watched me.

  ‘You will. Both of you. It gets easier, and then it gets worse again as you realise it’s getting easier and you feel guilty.’ She paused, seeing my puzzled expression, and smiled. ‘My parents. When I was ten. Why did you think I lived with my aunts? Ma and Pa died in a fire while taking a holiday in a hotel in Blackpool. They went to see the lights. The aunts think holidays are very dangerous. I’ve never been allowed to take one, certainly not to a northern seaside resort.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know.’

  Poppy shrugged. ‘’S all right. Long time ago. Let’s go and find Will. He has only two days leave left and he’s spending it fencing.’

  When we reached Will he was splitting timber with an axe and wedge, slicing the wood apart so that it lay on the grass, gleaming in the sunshine. Behind him a new fence curled up to the top of the hill, pale struts slotted neatly into round upright posts, like pieces of a giant jigsaw. Two small boys lay stretched out on their stomachs, pinning chicken wire to the base of the post with a hammer. They scarcely looked old enough to be out without their mothers, let alone fixing fences, but they worked steadily, neither glancing up at Poppy or me. Will let his axe fall into the grass and, placing a thick arm around Poppy’s waist, pulled her into him and kissed her. I looked away, suddenly self-conscious, and tried not to think of Kit.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Poppy, shoving him away affectionately.

  Will shrugged. ‘Not too much longer, I ’spect. Rest of the afternoon, anyhoo.’ He thrust his hands into his pockets and scowled. ‘Don’t like these wretched fences. Too quick. Not thought out. Nothin’ like a good stone wall. Some things is supposed ter be slow. If yer goin’ ter cut up hillside, yer got ter do it right, an’ that takes time.’

  I glanced across the hill and saw the flint walls running across the hillside like stone rivers. In the warmth of the morning sun they shone bone white, speckled with flecks of jet – as much part of the landscape as the swaying grass or wind-battered hazel.

  ‘What’s wrong with the old wall?’ I asked.

  ‘Army’s creepin’ in,’ replied Will, pointing to a row of red flags between the wall and fence. ‘Keep takin’ more an’ more farmland fer their trainin’. Barely sev’n hund’erd acres left. Be fencin’ the beach soon enuff.’

  Poppy kicked at a daisy and gave a sharp snort. ‘Fencing? Ha! Mines more like. Soon the beaches and the barrows will be crawling with barbed wire and machine-gun posts.’

  Will bent to pick up the axe. ‘Nuff jibber-jabber. Can do nothin’ ’bout it. Leave it to the yows ter bleet an’ blether. Yoos twos goin’ ter help?’

  Poppy tossed me a stout mallet and, following her lead, I started to beat a thick wooden post into the earth. The cattle and sheep dawdled about us in the cowleaze, oblivious to the new fence, the red flags or the prickle of change that I felt running up my arms with each beat of the mallet. From the army camp on the Lulcombe estate, just beyond the brow of the hill, came the rat-a-tat of gunfire and the mosquito whine of shells. The animals ignored the noise; the fat summer lambs flicked their tails and danced among the dandelions, while the cows chewed the cud and blinked away the buzzing flies.

  When I arrived home that evening, I heard raised voices on the terrace. It was almost seven and I expected to find Mr Rivers alone, drinking his whisky in the last glow of the afternoon. On the walk back I’d filled my sunhat with blackberries, ready to bake into a pie, and I quietly set them down beside the garden gate before venturing across the lawn. Mr Rivers stood on the terrace, while Lady Vernon and Diana Hamilton perched uneasily on the upright garden chairs. None of them saw me approach.

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Lady Vernon. ‘I only wished to say that I am so very sorry.’

  Mr Rivers spun to face her. ‘Everyone is sorry. What good to me is sorry? Hang your sorry.’

  Lady Vernon winced but her serene society smile did not waver. Diana studied her neat little hands folded in her lap, as Mr Rivers started to pace the terrace. I stood at the edge of the lawn, in the shadow of the walnut tree, and waited, unnoticed.

  ‘Perhaps he will come home,’ said Lady Vernon. ‘It is possible he was taken prisoner. Many were.’

  ‘No. He is dead.’

  Mr Rivers came to a halt beside her chair. He watched her with steady eyes, forcing her to look at him. For a moment, her glass expression cracked and a look of pity flitted across her bulldog face. For a moment, I did not hate her.

  ‘Will you have a memorial service?’ she asked softly, twisting the gold wedding ring on her pudgy finger.

  ‘No. I remember. Alice remembers. That is enough.’

  He turned away from her and stared absently out towards the bay.

  ‘It is usual in these cases—’ she began.

  ‘Damn what is usual. What world is it that the murder of a man’s son is usual?’

  She smoothed over his outburst with a practised social smile. ‘I’m perfectly happy to take on the organisation.’

  In two strides he was beside her chair, a hand on either armrest. He towered over her, eyes cold with fury. To her credit she did not flinch, nor even lean back in her chair, but sat upright, her back finishing-school straight.

  ‘Don’t turn me into one of your projects!’ he hissed. ‘If you are idle then knit socks for soldiers, or repaper your damn drawing room.’ He straightened, fists trembling, and with visible effort succeeded in controlling his temper. ‘I’m going up to change. Ring for Wrexham if you require refreshments. Good night.’

  He strode away into the gloom of the house. I slipped out of the shadow and came up the terrace steps.

  ‘Well,’ tutted Lady Vernon, shocked as a bantam hen disturbed in her egg laying. ‘Well.’

  ‘I told you we shouldn’t have come,’ said Diana, nostrils flaring with displeasure when she saw me.

  ‘Good evening, Lady Vernon. Lady Diana,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘I’m sorry for Mr Rivers’ behaviour. He is not himself.’

  This was not true. He was absolutely himself. He was simply not the person he had been before. Neither of us were; but unlike me he did not even look the same, with his unkempt hair, stubbled chin and coarse workman’s clothes. His eyes had an empty, feral look, which proclaimed him to be a man beyond the restraint of civility. I wondered that neither woman had noticed it, and cursed them for provoking him. A child could tell them that this man was no longer a gentleman – any rudeness they had brought upon themselves. Both women studied me with unconcealed displeasure. Diana’s lip curled in
contempt. That it was left for me to apologise made it worse – the fact it was necessary at all was awful, a violation of social niceties; that the apology came from me, the Kraut-Yid and usurping maid, was unbearable. Lady Vernon rose and gave me a curt nod.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Land, or whatever it is you’re calling yourself today. I shall walk through the park in this pleasant weather. Diana?’

  She nodded at the girl, but Diana shook her blonde curls.

  ‘No thank you, Aunt. I shall join you in a minute.’

  Lady Vernon’s eyebrow twitched in surprise at Diana choosing my company over her own, but she made no comment and swept down the terrace steps into the garden. I turned and watched Diana, waiting for her to speak. She stared at me, to see if I would be first to break the silence. I sighed. I just wanted her gone.

  ‘Would you like some tea, Lady Diana?’

  ‘Are you asking as my hostess or as the maid?’ she inquired, gazing at me with her large violet eyes.

  ‘What do you want, Diana?’ I asked, leaning against the back of a chair.

  She settled into her seat, smoothing the cotton print of her yellow summer dress, carefully chosen to bring out the creamy pink of her skin. She smiled at me through the thick veil of her lashes.

  ‘People talk, you know,’ she said.

  I said nothing and scratched at a piece of moss sprouting between the paving slabs on the terrace with my plimsoll. Diana watched me for a second and then tried again.

  ‘Why do you stay here?’

  I snorted in surprise. I had never considered leaving.

  ‘Because I must.’

  She gave a coy smile. ‘Why? You’re not a servant anymore. You’re not engaged to Kit. I’m sorry, darling, but you never reached “death do us part”. There’s no reason at all to stay.’

  Anger heated my cheeks. ‘Mr Rivers. Daniel. I stay for him. I cannot possibly leave him.’

  Diana simpered in triumph. ‘Daniel? Who is he? Christopher Rivers? A pet name. How adorable!’