The Forget-Me-Not Sonata

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘He’s been teaching them how to play the piano. They adore him,’ she replied.

  ‘He’s good with children.’

  ‘He’s a big child himself. He can relate to them.’

  ‘How unlike his brother he is,’ she remarked carefully.

  ‘Yes,’ Audrey replied cagily.

  The conversation was beginning to grow awkward. Tact wasn’t one of Aunt Edna’s finer qualities, she grew frustrated with skating around issues, preferring to come clean and discuss things openly. So she took a deep breath and put her teacup down. ‘What are you going to do, my dear? You can’t very well go on like this, can you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Audrey replied evasively. She recalled her aunt’s comments on the doorstep the day she had returned from England. There was no point pretending she didn’t know what she was talking about.

  ‘Is Louis going to stay here?’

  ‘I think he’s planning to return to England.’

  ‘Ah,’ Aunt Edna sighed knowingly. There was a weighty pause before she continued, fixing her niece with eyes that brimmed with compassion. ‘That is why you want your own home in England.’ Audrey opened her mouth to respond but her aunt ignored her and continued to speak. ‘You can’t live two lives, Audrey. What will the twins think when they find you and Louis living together in England? They’ll think it mighty odd, won’t they? Will you tell Cecil or live a secret life?’

  ‘Aunt Edna, you’ve got it all wrong,’ Audrey protested, but her aunt tilted her head to one side and narrowed her eyes.

  ‘Dear girl, I didn’t come down in yesterday’s snowstorm. I’ve lived too and loved. I know what it is like to love someone and lose them.’

  ‘Sunshine Harry,’ said Audrey, stirring her cup with a silver spoon.

  ‘Dear Harry. I loved him more than life itself and I lost him. I can’t get him back. I know what it is like to grieve.’ She placed a warm hand on Audrey’s forearm. ‘Dear girl, what I’m trying to say is that one recovers and gets on with things. At first it seems as if your heart will never mend. You wander around in your own private Hell that no one else can see into. They can’t believe how much you are suffering. But time is a great healer. You love Louis with all your heart and you lost him. Now he’s come back again I well understand that you don’t want to lose him again. But there’s much more at stake now. There’s Cecil to think of and the children. Divorce is a very dirty word and dirt sticks wherever you are in the world.’

  A tear dropped into Audrey’s teacup and she spoke in a very quiet voice. ‘I married Cecil because I knew it was what Mummy and Daddy expected and after Isla’s death I wanted to make them happy. I did the right thing. I married him for them. But I never stopped loving Louis. I love him more now than I did then. Don’t you see, I’ve been given a second chance?’ She looked at her aunt with solicitous eyes, but Edna only shook her head.

  ‘No you haven’t. Louis is a temptation to be resisted at all costs. You will only bring unhappiness to all those who love you. Can you build your happiness on that?’

  Audrey withdrew her arm and bowed her head in defeat. ‘I can’t live my life for other people,’ she said.

  ‘Loving is about sacrifice, my dear Audrey. You made your choice and it was the right choice. Cecil loves you. He’s a good, honest man and don’t tell me that you aren’t fond of him too. You might not love him in the same way that you love his brother, but you do care about him. You’re a compassionate young woman and I understand you. You built a life with Cecil and you have two beautiful daughters. You have a responsibility to them. Cecil sacrificed his own feelings in order to give them the best education money can buy. Now you must sacrifice your love for Louis in order to give them stability and pride. How can they hold their heads up if you have run off with their uncle? What will their friends say? How heartbroken do you think they will be? Don’t imagine for one moment that your actions won’t affect all those around you. Bring shame upon your own head if that is what you want, but don’t hurt those two innocent people. You owe them a future without shame.’ Another tear plopped into Audrey’s tea. She didn’t want to hear any more. Her conscience had tried to tell her and she hadn’t listened. She now wished Aunt Edna would go and leave her alone with her thoughts and her hopes that were fast unravelling like a beautiful tapestry of dreams.

  There was a long silence while Aunt Edna asked the waiter for another plate of scones and Audrey sat staring at the tea leaves that had collected at the bottom of her cup. ‘My dear child,’ Aunt Edna said finally. Her voice was gentle and made Audrey want to cry again. She could cope with fury but sympathy debilitated her completely. ‘When you were a little girl I imagined your future would be blessed, because you had been born with an easy nature as well as beauty. Isla, on the other hand, was sure to court disaster because she was born with a more complicated nature. No one could ever have predicted this. But I know you, my dear, and love you very much. That is why I can tell you that you won’t run off with Louis. Your sense of duty is too strong and always has been. People don’t really change on the whole. But your situation has. You know in your heart that you have too much to lose. I know you don’t welcome my advice. I am the voice of your conscience. But I will give it to you anyway.’ She placed her hand on Audrey’s arm again and looked her steadily in the eye. ‘Light a candle for Louis and keep it burning. But let him go and save yourself and your family from this tempest that can only damage you all. No one knows what the future holds but it is in your hands to shape it, for you and your children. It is your choice. I know you will do the right thing.’

  Audrey rode across the plains at a gallop. The wind streamed through her hair and swept away her tears before they had time to touch her cheeks. She was furious. Furious with Aunt Edna for voicing her own secret doubts and furious at herself for succumbing to them. Thoughts of Louis, her children and Cecil crowded her mind and clashed with each other in an imaginary battle of wills. What would Isla have done? She knew. Isla would have stuck her pretty nose in the air and eloped with him before any of this had happened. She wouldn’t have let him go in the first place, even in the wake of her sister’s funeral. She certainly wouldn’t have married Cecil. But if she had she would have whipped up a scandal to beat all scandals and run off with Louis, leaving those around her to pick up the pieces and nurse their broken hearts. They’d all survive it and move on. That’s what people did. They survived. Why couldn’t she be more like Isla?

  She heard the echo of her aunt’s words and as fast as she galloped she couldn’t outrun them. ‘I know you’ll do the right thing.’ What if she didn’t do the right thing? What then? As she gazed out at the immense sky and wide open plain she felt her unhappiness lift and a dizzy sensation of determination fill her. It was still her choice. She loved Louis and had her whole life ahead of her. She wasn’t going to let herself waste away in a miserable marriage. She’d surprise them all. People do change, she thought rebelliously. I’ve had enough of being the sensible sister. Oh Isla, if you can hear me, help me to be more like you.

  Later that day, when she sat across the table from Louis, listening to the twins recount their day at the Club, how Leonora had won the egg and spoon race and how Alicia had poured pepper in the buckets of water before the other children bobbed for apples, she knew she had made the right decision. She loved everything about him, to the extent that her spirit ached beneath the weight of so much tenderness. She loved his deep melancholic eyes that always appeared distracted for he saw the world in a different shade to everyone else. She loved the way his hands often trembled for no reason and his fingers twitched in search of the imaginary piano he played all the time. She loved his mouth that could suddenly open into a wide, infectious smile and then just as suddenly fall into misery, reflecting the turmoil of a heart not quite like others. She loved the man inside whom no one else knew or understood but her and he loved her back equally. When she focused her eyes again she saw that he was staring back at her, his face aglow with a
ffection and gratitude because she had promised that she would never be lost to him, ever.

  Finally the day of the twins’ departure arrived. Alicia scrambled out of bed in a fever of excitement while Leonora pushed herself further down beneath the sheets of her mother’s bed and cried. She was inconsolable. Even when Aunt Edna and her grandmother arrived for breakfast armed with more gifts for them to take to England.

  Cecil had said goodbye before catching the train as usual into the city and Audrey quietly fumed, wondering how he could have the heart to work on a morning such as this. But she didn’t complain for Louis was there to wrap his arms around Leonora and dance with her about the room until her face blossomed into a reluctant smile. That was before the search for Saggy Rabbit.

  Saggy Rabbit had disappeared and Leonora refused to leave for the airport until she found him. The whole house was turned upside down in search of the floppy brown toy that had become irreplaceable to Leonora. ‘I’m not leaving without him,’ she sobbed. She loved him with the intensity of a child who has spent long months away from friends and family.

  ‘He must be somewhere,’ Audrey exclaimed in exasperation. She was almost buckling under the pressure of having to say goodbye to her daughters and prepare her getaway the following day with Louis.

  ‘Can’t you buy her another one?’ said Alicia to Aunt Edna.

  ‘Of course I can,’ she lied. ‘There are lots where he comes from.’

  ‘But I don’t want another one. I want Saggy Rabbit. He’ll be miserable without me,’ Leonora wailed.

  Alicia rolled her eyes. ‘He’s only a toy,’ she said sulkily.

  ‘No he’s not. He’s my friend,’ Leonora responded with a ferociousness that astounded her sister.

  ‘I’ve searched her bedroom twice,’ said Rose, shaking her head. ‘I can’t imagine where he’s gone. Did you take him to the Club, dear?’

  Leonora shook her head.

  ‘I had him last night,’ she replied. ‘I always sleep with him.’

  ‘He’s not down my bed,’ said Audrey. ‘Oh dear,’ she sighed. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘He’ll probably turn up once you’ve gone,’ said Louis kindly. ‘We’ll take great care of him and I’ll bring him to you personally when I fly to England.’

  ‘You promise?’ Leonora sniffed and wiped her nose on her arm.

  Louis knelt down and drew the trembling child into his arms. ‘I promise,’ he said and kissed her wet face. ‘He’ll be safe with me.’

  So Leonora was persuaded to fly without Saggy Rabbit. Audrey, Edna, Rose and Louis stood on the roof at the airport and waved off the two little girls for another year. Edna and Rose were reduced to tears while Audrey just watched, pale and anxious, as Alicia walked across the tarmac with her arm around Leonora. Then their faces appeared in the small round window of the plane. She couldn’t see that Leonora was crying, but felt sure she was and her throat ached. Louis put a hand on her back, the most he could do to comfort her without raising suspicion. ‘You’ll see them soon,’ he whispered as the noise of the engines drowned his voice. She nodded at him mutely. If all went according to plan she would see them in a few days. So why was she so unhappy?

  That night she lay in the darkness beside her husband. She listened to the rhythm of his breathing and tried not to think about the hurt she was going to cause him. He had drunk too much so his breathing grew heavier until it rumbled into a loud snore. His drinking had now become a habit that he was unable to control. He didn’t realize that his character was beginning to be affected by the poison that swelled his liver. He was becoming short-tempered and volatile. Audrey had noticed but she had been too busy with the children and Louis to dwell on it. After all, why should she care? She was leaving him.

  When Cecil left for the office the following morning, he kissed his wife on her taut cheek and mumbled to his brother in an irritable fashion, then opened the door and stepped out into the sunshine. Louis and Audrey were left alone. They looked at each other nervously, too anxious to smile. ‘I’ll go and pack now,’ she said, biting her lip. Louis suddenly pulled her behind the door and kissed her.

  ‘I’ll meet you at the airport at midday,’ he whispered urgently. ‘What are you going to do about Cecil?’

  ‘I’ll write him a note and leave it in the hall.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’m frightened,’ she said in a tremulous voice.

  ‘Me too, but you’ll be fine when you’re on the aeroplane.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘It’s meant to be. Audrey, my love, we’re meant to be together. Love is stronger than both of us.’

  ‘I know. I’m just so afraid.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of hurting people.’

  ‘They’ll live, Audrey. You’re doing this for you and you deserve it. You owe it to yourself.’ Then he pressed his lips against her forehead. ‘Don’t forget your dreams, Audrey, my love, and that I’ve built mine around you.’

  At that moment they heard Mercedes’ footsteps in the hall as she made towards the dining room to clear away the breakfast. They wrenched themselves apart and Louis wandered across to the piano where he sat down and began to play. Once more he played the tune he had composed for her. Audrey left him there and climbed the stairs to her room to pack in a small suitcase those things from her life that she wished to take with her. A little later she heard the door close and knew that he had gone. The next time she saw him would be at the airport. The first step towards a new life together. Without thinking any more about it she began to pack.

  How do you pack for a lifetime? What do you take? Audrey didn’t know. She packed some clothes, her sponge-bag and the sentimental things that were of no value, like photographs of Isla, the pressed flowers she had kept from her funeral and the little prayer book her father had given her as a child. She then sat on the end of her bed and deliberated how best to use the next couple of hours before she had to leave for the airport.

  Suddenly she saw two brown ears sticking out from under the window seat. Her heart began to pound as she recognized Leonora’s beloved Saggy Rabbit. As sweat collected on her brow she walked over to pick him up. He looked forlorn and small in her hands, which quite inadvertently began to tremble. She pressed him to her face and closed her eyes as the tears began to push through her lashes and tumble down her cheeks. She began to shake so much that her legs buckled beneath her and she fell into a heap on the carpet, shuddering with sorrow. There was no point pretending any longer. She couldn’t go through with it. Her children would always come first. She had to let Louis go.

  When a heart breaks it makes no noise. There are no outward signs, no rash, no bruising. Only a strange calmness that takes over when there are no more tears to shed and no more voice left to howl one’s grief into the silence and a resignation that numbs one’s senses like a drug, for how else would one be able to go on? People survive in spite of themselves.

  Audrey sat down at her desk and began to write. Not to Cecil as she had planned but to Louis. She paused, the pen over the paper, and deliberated how to put it, knowing that however it was expressed she would break him all the same. ‘Forgive my weak spirit. I will never stop loving you. Never.’ She then put Saggy Rabbit, damp from her tears, into an envelope with the letter and sealed it. With a grey face she left the house for the airport.

  When Louis arrived at the airport he cast his eye across the concourse in search of Audrey. He then looked at his watch. He was early. Fifteen minutes early. He was nervous. He flicked his fingers in agitation then burrowed inside his pocket for a hanky, which he passed over his sweating forehead. After a few minutes he decided to pick up their tickets from the sales desk. Anything to keep busy. As he strode over his eyes darted from face to face, expecting at any moment to see her familiar smile shine through like a sunbeam.

  ‘Ah, Mr Forrester,’ said the painted lady with scarlet lips to match her silk cravat. ‘Here are your tickets and I have a parcel here for you
.’ Louis’ face drained of colour, leaving it at once pale and fearful. The lady handed him a brown envelope. He recognized Audrey’s handwriting immediately. With a palpitating heart he tore it open and pulled out the rabbit and the note. He didn’t need to read it for he knew what it contained. Saggy Rabbit’s doleful countenance relayed more than her note ever could. But with a vision blurred with anguish he read what she had written. ‘Forgive my weak spirit. I will never stop loving you. Never.’ His throat suddenly constricted, but he was unable to contain his grief. The painted lady blinked at him in bewilderment. She had never seen a grown man cry.

  Chapter 26

  When Cecil returned that night and reached for the whisky decanter, he kissed his wife on her cold cheek without knowing how close he had come to losing her. ‘Where’s Louis?’ he asked, used to arriving home to Louis’ piano playing and his wife’s glowing cheeks and ill-disguised enthusiasm. Only now did Audrey notice the bitterness in his voice.

  ‘He’s left,’ she replied, picking up a magazine and walking towards the door which led out into the garden. Cecil followed her.

  ‘What do you mean, left?’ he asked, imagining that he had gone to board at the Club.

  ‘He’s gone back to England.’ She swallowed and took a deep breath. She had cried all day, on and off. Hoped he’d come after her, then changed her mind and hoped he’d boarded the plane and left. Only after a long bath had she managed to compose herself, ready to face her husband and the first day of the rest of her life.

  ‘He didn’t even say goodbye,’ he stammered. The alcohol had already begun to corrode the eloquence for which he had once been so admired.

  ‘Oh, he did. I gave him Saggy Rabbit to take to Leonora,’ she replied, trying to sound casual. Trying to muffle the desperate cry in her voice. She wandered out into the sunshine and began to deadhead the flowers, her face hidden from view.